Foundationalism. How Did We Get To Where We Are? Part 1

As culture moves to what is being called the postmodernity ethos, the demise of the modernist approach to knowledge seems to be its causality.[ref]Stanley J. Grenz. A Primer on Postmodernism 173.[/ref]

This can be seen in the rejection of foundationalism that characterized the Enlightenment epistemology. In the modern era, a period extending roughly from 1860 to the present, the reading and understanding of Scripture has been deeply influenced by the Enlightenment’s nature of the understanding of knowledge that had at its heart the epistemology that is often called foundationalism. [ref]Stanley J. Grenz and John R. Franke. Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context.[/ref]

The quest of postmodernity is to discover a nonfoundationalist or Postfoundationalist epistemology Beyond Foundationalism, 28). In their book, Grenz and Franke suggest the following:

In its broadest sense, foundationalism is merely the acknowledgement of the seemingly obvious observation that not all beliefs we hold (or assertions we formulate) are on the same level, but that some beliefs (or assertions) anchor others. Stated in the opposite manner, certain of our beliefs (or assertions) receive their support from other beliefs (or assertions) that are more “basic” or “foundational.” Defined in this manner, nearly every thinker is in some sense a foundationalist. (Beyond Foundationalism, 29).

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