Implicit Epistemology
in the Letters of Paul
Story, Experience & the Spirit

By Ian W. Scott
Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. No. 205
March 2006
Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 3161487796
368 pages, 6” x 9 ¼”
$117.50 Paper Original


Ian W. Scott explores the way of knowing which is assumed by Paul’s argumentation in his letters. Paul presumes that a kind of hermeneutical reason plays a central role in religious knowing, once it has been freed from the moral corruption endemic to human beings. His theological knowledge is structured as a story, and ethical reasoning involves "emplotting" human beings within that story.

Paul never tries to justify the narrative itself, but his argument in Galatians suggests that this story remains open to change in light of new experiences. Novel events such as the crucifixion or the Galatians reception of the Spirit, since they are part of the unfolding story, may force a reinterpretation of the prior theological narrative. Pauls narrative reasoning is thus responsive to the world, even though it is not justified in a foundationalist fashion. His implicit epistemology also suggests a model of theological and ethical inquiry in which change and development can be an organic outgrowth of tradition.

Theology


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