A Brief Book Summary from Books At a Glance
Editor’s Note: Today we continue our series of “bonus” summaries covering all thirty-six chapters of the monumental volume, The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (D.A. Carson, ed.).
Chapter 21: Postconservative Theologians and Scriptural Authority
by Osvaldo Padilla
(Summarized by Mark Coppenger)
Osvaldo Padilla, Associate Professor of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School, addresses the past decade’s developments in postconservatism, whose features are “a rejection of foundationalism, an emphasis on the role of religious communities as seats of authority, and stress on the perspectival nature of all knowledge.” Its leading exemplars are Roger Olson, Nancey Murphy, Stanley Grenz, and John Franke, a group who’s chosen Wayne Grudem, Carl F.H. Henry, and Charles Hodge as their “whipping boys,” to use Padilla’s expression.
He spends a half-dozen pages each on Grenz and Franke, faulting the former for collapsing the distinction, in terms of authority, between the “contemporary, Spirit-illumined community” and the “ancient, Scripture-forming community.” And he finds Franke’s guide for finding the living God in “Scripture, the church, and the world” – without prioritizing any of these – to be. . .
[To continue reading this summary, please see below....]The remainder of this article is premium content. Become a member to continue reading.
Already have an account? Sign In