I suppose that if believing in Jesus Christ as the cornerstone makes one a foundationalist, then I am a foundationalist. But otherwise not. Andrew Sandlin wants to describe an aspect of the contemporary conflict this way. “Today’s battle between us Christian postmodernists on the one hand and some Christian foundationalists on the other is at root a battle over the latter’s epistemic arrogance that often enslaves the saints. The Protestant reformers rightly grasped that spiritual bondage is the worst form of slavery. It persists right up to the present day in churches of all stripes, and it should be exposed and opposed.”
There appears to be an assumption here that to not be a foundationalist means that you must be a postmodernist of some stripe. But if this is what Andrew assumes, it is a genuine false alternative. What are we to do with those, like me, who reject philosophical foundationalism, and who also reject (with verve and enthusiasm) postmodernism? Now what? Note also that according to Andrew “some foundationalists” have an “epistemic arrogance” that enslaves the saints. Now how is it possible to make a claim like this (about the character of others) without falling yourself into epistemic arrogance? If he is sure about this, is he not epistemtically arrogant? If he is not sure, then why did he say it? But he then goes on regardless. “The Protestant reformers rightly grasped,” he says. Now how can you rightly grasp something without being epistemically arrogant? Moreover, how can Andrew rightly grasp whether or not the Reformers rightly grasped? What adverbs do I have to put on the truth claims to avoid charges of epistemic arrogance? Do I have to say that “the Reformers right (or wrongly, perhaps) grasped . . .”?
A example of the earlier question about how conservatives find themselves wrongly relegated to the ranks of the foundationalists is found in John Franke’s foreword to A Generous Orthodoxy. There he writes about the birth of foundationalism. He says, “Foundationalism refers to a conception of knowledge that emerged during the Enlightenment and sought to address the lack of certainty generated by the human tendency toward error and to overcome the inevitable, often destructive disagreements and controveries that followed” (p. 10) Okay, I am with him so far.
Then he goes on. “This quest for certainty involved recontructing knowledge by rejecting ‘premodern’ notions of authority and replacing them with uncontestable beliefs accessible to all individuals. The assumptions of foundationalism, with its goal of establishing certain and universal knowledge, came to dominate intellectual pursuit in the modern era” (pp. 10-11). The point should be noted, however, that in the Enlightenment project these “uncontestable beliefs” had to be accessible to all individuals, apart from grace and by autonomous means. But as far as it goes, this is also true, and is the set up for the Falsehood.
And here the Falsehood comes. “In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the foundationalist impulse produced a theological division between ‘left’ and the ‘right’ among Anglo-Americans — liberals constructed theology upon the foundation of an unassailable religious experience while conservatives looked to an error-free Bible as the incontrovertible foundation of their theology. But in spite of all their differences, we can see that while liberal and conservative Christians appeared to be going their separate ways throughout the twentieth century, both were responding in different ways to the same modern foundationalist agenda” (p. 11). And jeepers, say I.
Let me play this again in slow motion, italics added, so that you might look at this in astonished horror. “while conservatives looked to an error-free Bible as the incontrovertible foundation of their theology. But in spite of all their differences, we can see that while liberal and conservative Christians appeared to be going their separate ways throughout the twentieth century, both were responding in different ways to the same modern foundationalist agenda.”
In short, if you believe the Bible, you are in thrall to the Enlightenment. In other words, because I have not abandoned the pre-modern view of authority mentioned above (believing, as I do, the Bible, as I was taught to do), and I have not sought to replace God’s foundation with man’s, I am a foundationalist. Okay, then, if that is how you define it, I am guilty as charged. Franke here defines a foundationalist as anyone with a foundation, and it is a matter of irrelevance to him whether the foundation was the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church, or a bad case of Cartesian delirium.