The Cognitive Principle of Christian Theology: An Hermeneutical Study of the Revelation and Inspiration of the Bible

The Cognitive Principle of Christian Theology: An Hermeneutical Study of the Revelation and Inspiration of the Bible

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Where do Christians get the information about what they believe? How do theologians know whether the doctrines they teach are made up of divine truth? For centuries believers have assumed that the Bible, consisting of the Old and New Testaments, is the origin of Christian knowledge. Over time, other sources were added to Scripture, such as philosophy, science, tradition and experience. ·with the advent of modernity, philosophy and science led many Christian theologians to the idea that the documents comprising Scrip­ ture came out of human thinking and tradition. If the modem view was correct, Christian theology had no cognitive foundation; it was left groundless. Is there unique truth in Christianity? Do Christian doctrines describe real things to our minds? Or are they the result of imagination flowing through the traditions into which we are born? Is the modem view of the Bible's origin the final word on the matter? Or are the views of the classical church and of contemporary evangelicals viable in postmodem times? Should we think about the origin of Christian knowledge-the revelation and inspiration of Scrip­ ture-by constructing a new model to lead us beyond the limitations of present ideas? In The Cognitive Principle of Christian Theology: A Postmodern View of Revelation-Inspiration, Canale addresses not primarily the academic community, but the thinking community of the church, including administrators, pastors, theol­ ogy students, and lay persons interested in theological issues. He guides them step by step to understand the classical, modem, and evangelical models of revelation and inspiration by analyzing the hermeneutical presuppositions from which they come. The reader will see that each of these models fail in some way to integrate either what the Bible says about itself, or the facts of what we fmd on the written page. Then by using the same hermeneutical presuppositions biblical authors as­ sumed when writing Scripture Canale develops an alternate model able to harmo­ nize what Scripture teaches about itself with its actual characteristics as written work (phenomena of Scripture). The book ends by considering the consequences that the new historical cognitive model of revelation inspiration has for the inter­pretation of Scripture and its truthfulness.

ISBN

9781490313122

Publication Date

2013

Publisher

CreateSpace

City

Berrien Springs, MI

Keywords

Revelation, Bible -- Inspiration, Knowledge, Theory of (Religion), Bible -- Hermeneutics, Doctrinal Theology

Disciplines

Biblical Studies | Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion

The Cognitive Principle of Christian Theology: An Hermeneutical Study of the Revelation and Inspiration of the Bible

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