Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Realism and Christian faith: towards an ontological approach
- 2 ‘Limping with two different opinions’?
- 3 Taking leave of theological realism
- 4 Realism and Christian faith after Wittgenstein
- 5 The grammar of Christian faith and the relationship between philosophy and theology
- 6 Representation, reconciliation, and the problem of meaning
- 7 God, reality, and realism
- 8 Speaking the reality of God
- 9 Realism: conformed to the conforming word
- References
- Index of scripture references
- Index of names and subjects
1 - Realism and Christian faith: towards an ontological approach
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Realism and Christian faith: towards an ontological approach
- 2 ‘Limping with two different opinions’?
- 3 Taking leave of theological realism
- 4 Realism and Christian faith after Wittgenstein
- 5 The grammar of Christian faith and the relationship between philosophy and theology
- 6 Representation, reconciliation, and the problem of meaning
- 7 God, reality, and realism
- 8 Speaking the reality of God
- 9 Realism: conformed to the conforming word
- References
- Index of scripture references
- Index of names and subjects
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Obituary notices announcing the death of realism continue to appear in philosophical and theological works, but what is it that is supposed to have died? The philosophical doctrine known as realism can be expressed in terms of three characteristic sets of claims which, though not held by all realists and opposed by some, can serve as a preliminary formulation. Ontologically, the realist holds that there is a reality external to human minds and that it exists as it does independently of the concepts and interpretative grids in terms of which we think about it. Its being what it is does not depend on our conceiving it (as idealists hold), or on our conceptions of it (as Kantians hold), or indeed on our conceiving it at all. Reality is there to be discovered as it objectively is; it is not subjectively invented, constructed, or projected. Hence, epistemologically, the realist holds that reality can be (approximately) known as it is and not just as it appears to us to be (as empiricism holds). Semantically, the realist holds that it is possible to refer successfully to, and so make (approximately) true statements about, reality. That is, in classical terms, the truth of a proposition is a matter of its corresponding to reality independently of our being able to verify or otherwise confirm it.
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- Information
- Realism and Christian FaithGod, Grammar, and Meaning, pp. 1 - 20Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003