CTJ 49 (2014): 258282

RelativismAncilla Theologiae
et Fidei? Not so Fast!
Eduardo Echeverria
So those who use the works of the philosophers in sacred doctrine, by bringing them into the service of faith, do not mix water
with wine, but rather change water into wine.1
The Dutch neo-Calvinist philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd once wrote
that authentic Christian philosophizing does not cut itself off from the
historical development of philosophical thought. Dooyeweerd adds, a
reformation of philosophical thought from the Christian point of view
is not creation out of nothing. Indeed, he acknowledges that his own
systematic philosophy is wedded to that development with a thousand
ties, so far as its immanent philosophic content is concerned, even though
we can nowhere follow the immanence philosophy.2 Dooyeweerd, like so
many other Christians throughout the ages, is, arguably, working here
with the Augustinian spoils from Egypt trope because Dooyeweerds
own philosophical work found wisdom and truth in the philosophical
writings of Kant, neo-Kantians, and phenomenologists. But, as Thomas
Guarino rightly adds, All such wisdom, however, the traditional spoils
metaphor insists, must ultimately be disciplined by, and incorporated
into, the revelatory narrative. Athens, whatever its own insights into truth,
must ultimately be chastened by Jerusalem.3 In other words, by saying
St. Thomas Aquinas, Faith, Reason and Theology, Questions I-IV of his Commentary on
the De Trinitate of Boethius, translated with Introduction and Notes by Armand Maurer
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1987), q. 2, a. 3, reply to 5.
1

2
Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol. I, The Necessary
Presuppositions of Philosophy, trans. David H. Freeman and William S. Young
(Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969), 117-118. J. K.A. Smiths earlier work is
influenced by Dooyeweerd. For example, his Whos Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida,
Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2007); idem, The
Fall of Interpretation: The Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic, Second edition
(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012).
3

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Thomas G. Guarino, Foundations of Systematic Theology (NewYork/London: T&T Clark,

RELATIVISMANCILLA THEOLOGIAE ET FIDEI? NOT SO FAST!

that he cannot follow immanence philosophy Dooyeweerd is suggesting that the philosophies he learned from may not be simply externally
adopted because they may wrongly shape the gospel to their own ends.4
Thus the relevancy of the epigraph to this article review: bringing philosophical forms into the service of the gospel is a transformative practice
of bringing every thought captive to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5).

This conviction brings me to the recent work of J. K. A. Smith, Whos

Afraid of Relativism? Community, Contingency, and Creaturehood.5 Smith is a
practitioner of the spoils from Egypt trope. In his earlier books, however, he claims to be looting philosophical insights from French rather
than German philosophers.6 But in this new book, he is looting from the
pragmatists Ludwig Wittgenstein, Richard Rorty, and Robert Brandom
to help [him] grapple with a phenomenon often associated with postmodernity: relativism (CCC, 12; 108n40). My primary concern, in this article,
is not to consider whether Smiths interpretations of these philosophers
are right. Rather, I am concerned with assessing Smiths case that relativismas he understands it in light of these interpretationscan be of
service to the practice, theological understanding, and proclamation of
the gospel. Alternatively, do these interpretations shape the gospel, faith,
and theology to their own ends?
My article is structured as follows. First, I ask what Smiths project is
really all about. Second, I examine the question: what is relativism? Third,
I consider realism, both in epistemology and alethiology (theory of truth).
Fourth, I conclude with an examination of Smiths understanding of his
own theological project as a post-liberal one la George Lindbeck.

Whats it all about, really?

Smiths book is fundamentally about the Creator/creature distinction and, in that context, to consider the implicationsfor epistemology and alethiologyof affirming the contingently existing nature of
the created world. Everything created is contingent (CCC, 36; Smiths
italics). Sometimes Smith adds other marks of creaturehood, such as its
finitude and dependency, to the creations contingency (e.g., CCC, 14,
30, 32). Elsewhere he claims that the Christian doctrine of creation and
2005), 269.
4

Guarino, Foundations of Systematic Theology, 303n27.

J. K. A. Smith, Whos Afraid of Relativism? Community, Contingency, and Creaturehood

(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014). Subsequent references to this work will be cited
parenthetically in the text as CCC.
5

See Whos Afraid of Postmodernism? and The Fall of Interpretation.

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creaturehood includes a robust account of contingency and dependence

(CCC, 32). Indeed, throughout this book he repeatedly returns to the thesis regarding the contingent character of our existence (CCC, 16-17, 29-30,
32, 35, 36, 40, 59, 81, 84, 95, 98, 101, 105, 107, 108-110, 121, 174, 180). Against
this background, he states the aim of his book is to explore the implications of this basic intuition about creaturely contingency and dependence
for our accounts of knowledge and truth (CCC, 36).

Intriguingly, notwithstanding this emphasis on the creations contingency, Smith never actually tells us what it means to say that contingency
marks the creation as a whole.7 The closest we come to understanding what
Smith means by contingency is when he contrasts it with Gods necessity.
Says Smith, Everything created depends upon the Triune Creator who,
alone, is necessary (CCC, 36). Again, he writes, God alone is not contingentis necessary and independent [aseity] (CCC, 109n43; Smiths italics).
And again, We take [God] to be noncontingent and absolute (CCC, 112).
So whereas the world exists contingently, meaning thereby that it might
not have existed and hence exists by divine choice, God exists necessarily
such that it would be impossible for him not to be. Furthermore, because
creation as a whole is marked by contingency, on Smiths view, things
created do not seem to have natures or essences, of how things that God
created have to be necessarily, and hence Smith seems to be slouching,
even if somewhat cautiously, towards nominalism (CCC, 102-114).8 He
understands that traditional Christian theology has been wedded to realist metaphysics, and not the metaphysical view of nominalism that rejects
the notion of Platonic universals, Forms, the Augustinian/Thomistic doctrine of divine ideas, in short, the nature or essences of things. So Smith
rejects essentialism, that is, the idea that things have essences, or natures,
and are property-bearers.9 Still, he wants to hold on to a sacramental
7

He does tell us what marks Gods special revelation as contingent (CCC, 110-111).

I want to be fair to Smith on this matter of nominalism. He cautiously distances himself

from metaphysical realism, stating that while [he] thinks that a creational ontology will be
fundamentally a participatory ontology insofar as it describes the relationship between
the Creator and creation, [hes] less convinced that this requires a Christian metaphysic
to also subscribe to a specially Platonic account of the Forms to account for things like the
essence of treeness. It seems to [him] that a broadly participatory account of the Creator/
creation relation is separable from the specifics of a Platonic theory of the Forms (103n30).
So, if I take account of his cautious rejection of metaphysical realism and his apparent movement towards nominalism, my criticism of Smith should be read as a probing assessment
rather than a definitive one. This is particularly the case since the constraints of this article
review prevent me from examining Smiths earlier discussion of nominalism in Introducing
Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-secular Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004)
and its consistency with this new book on relativism.
8

Again, to be fair to Smith, he rightly says that nominalism [is] not an idealism; the
nominalists [does] not deny a real world. In other words, while we set up a supposed
9

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ontology, which affirms and guards two things: (1) the reality and independence of the transcendent God on whom creation depends for its existence; and (2) the participatory relation of created reality in God (per
Acts 17; Col 2) (CCC, 106; Smiths italics).

Most significant, the implication of contingency for our accounts of

knowledge and truth is that realist epistemologies of truth and justification, which purport to make claims about the way things really are, according to Smith, inflate our creaturehood to Creator-hood. Claims about
absolute truth, or objective truth, such as we find in correspondence
theories of truthall of which claim that our language or justified belief
have a connection to reality just in case they correspond to some feature
of reality have an inability to honor the contingency and dependence
of our creaturehood. Smiths charge would presumably include metaphysical theologies of the Trinity and Incarnation. In short, all these
realist accounts of knowledge and truth, claims Smith, are nothing less
than epistemologies of independence, which will always be inappropriate for (dependent) creatures (CCC, 16, 30, 109; Smiths italics). In short,
adds Smith, we cant achieve Godlike knowledge and hence truth that
human beings could say [articulate] could never be absolute, absolved of
all relations, since as creatures we are inherently relational and dependent. To pretend otherwise is to pre-tend to divinity (CCC 109n43; 182).

In the remainder of this section, and in preparation for the next, I now
will raise some critical questions about Smiths fundamental concern in
this book. Let us call the view that Smith defends, contingentism.10
Contingentism claims that there are not necessary truths, and thus that
every truth we entertain is contingent.11 Let me be clear here. Smith
does hold that all human knowledge is contingent. What is not clear is
whether he thinks that either necessary truths are not a possible object of
knowledge or there are no such truths to know. If the former, he espouses
epistemological contingentism; if the latter, metaphysical contingentism.
Presumably epistemological contingentism would include the truths of
logic, such as the principles of excluded middle and of contradiction, as
these would not be necessarily true. This entails denying that of a proposition and its negation, necessarily, one is true and the other is false. Doesnt
this lead to trivialism, the conclusion that every proposition is true (and

dichotomy between realism and nominalism, we shouldnt too hastily conclude that
nominalism denied reality, even divine reality (CCC, 103n31).
10
I am following Randal Rauser, Can There be Theology without Necessity? Heythrop
Journal 45 (2003): 131-146.
11

Rauser, Can There be Theology without Necessity? 131.

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false) [?]12 Now, coupled with Smiths cautious move toward nominalism
and his corresponding rejection of essentialism and metaphysical realism, we may ask him for clarification on whether he thinks that Gods
sovereign freedom has the ability to change the truth of any proposition
by actualizing any state of affairs or its negation.13 Skeptical implications abound here, surely. Presumably Smiths contingentism would also
include the denial of necessary truths, such as, All triangles have three sides.

What about the truth, God exists? Admittedly, as we saw above, Smith
affirms the proposition that God exists necessarily. And yet he doesnt
think that we can know that God exists necessarily. Notice he doesnt
say, as Aquinas did, that God exists of necessity, although his existence
is not self-evident to us. This comparison of Smith with Aquinas will not
work since Aquinas only argued against Anselm that the proposition
God exists necessarily is not self-evident to us. Aquinas didnt argue, as
Smith seems to do, that we couldnt know in any sense whatsoever that
God exists necessarily. So, perhaps Smith holds that God exists necessarily but that this proposition is not a possible object of knowledge. In
which case, on the one hand, his position would be that of epistemological
contingentism. On the other hand, and this is more likely given his rejection of metaphysical realism, a rejection of the doctrine of divine ideas,
and his albeit cautious turn to nominalism, Smith holds to metaphysical
contingentism in which we do not know any necessary truths because
none exist to be known.14 Whatever may be the case, Smiths position is
less than clear.

Whos afraid of absolute truth? Well, Smith for one. It is important

to see what Smith is rejecting. He is not merely and rightly rejecting the
view that for a human being to know the truth is like knowing it in the
way that God knows it. Put differently, he isnt saying that our claims to
absolute truth suffer from an inadequacy of expressions or formulations
of truth. No, he rejects the very idea that human beings can know absolute
truth. He claims that claims to know absolute truth is an evasion of contingency and a suppression of creaturehood (CCC, 16). Much stronger,
he claim that it borders on idolatrous hubris for humans to claim absolute
truth (CCC, 180; see also, 115; Smiths italics). Indeed, Smith thinks that
the language of absolute truth is a signal that creatures would have
a certain arrogation of our epistemic capacities to god-like status (CCC,
99n22; Smiths italics). Smith, then, asks, What exactly does the qualifier absolute add to the word truth? And if somethings being absolute

262

12

Rauser, Can There be Theology without Necessity? 143.

13

Rauser, Can There be Theology without Necessity? 143.

14

Rauser, Can There be Theology without Necessity? 133.

RELATIVISMANCILLA THEOLOGIAE ET FIDEI? NOT SO FAST!

means that it is absolved of relation (the technical sense of the word), then
what could that mean for contingent, social creatures like us (CCC, 30)?
Similar questions are raised by Smith regarding the notion of objectivity or objective truth. Is Christianity synonymous with objectivity?
Can finite humans hold absolute truths? What if the gospel is relatively
true (CCC, 30)? I will return below to Smiths charge that the claim to
know absolute truth undermines our creaturehood and contingency. This
constant charge throughout Smiths book follows from his persistent failure to distinguish epistemic justification and truth; the former is relative
to social and historical context; the latter is not. For now, suffice it to consider his objections to absolute truth.
Briefly, the expression qualifying claims to truth as absolute is
really a rhetorical device meant to emphasize an inherent aspect of truth.
Asserting that P is absolutely true is identical with asserting that P is
true simpliciter.15 On this account, a true belief is simply true and therefore
valid even for those who do not hold it, in short, it is true for everyone.
Smith himself seems to recognize this notioninconsistently?when
affirming a sacramental creation. Those who are Christians take this to
be true, and not just true for them, but true tout court, as the way things
are (CCC, 109; Smiths italics). Pace Smith, affirming the existence of
absolute truth and the conditions that make P trueobjective reality
does not mean that one ignores the separate matter regarding the conditions under which I come to know that P is true. Those conditions may
include acknowledging that, as Smith puts it, this claim is made from a
social location and is, in fact, dependent upon trainings received from a
community of practice (CCC, 108; Smiths italics). There is no opposition
here between asserting that P is true simpliciterwhat P says is the case
actually is the caseand acknowledging the conditions under which I
know that P.

On the matter of contingent truths, consider propositions such as that

God created the world, that Jesus Christ our Lord was conceived by
the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead and buried, and that Jesus Christ was raised from
the deadall these assertions are true since what they say is the case
actually is the case, but they could have been possibly false, and hence
such truths are true contingently. Still, if we focus on the content of what
is asserted here in these statements, its theological truth-content, rather
than the conditions under which they were asserted, we surely may say of
such assertions that they are objectively true, in other words, once true,
Ren van Woudenberg, Kinds of Truth? An Analysis of the Notions Relative Truth,
Absolute Truth, and the Like (unpublished paper, 8).
15

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always true, permanently true.16 The latter means that the truth or falsity
of our beliefs and assertions is objective in virtue of certain facts about
reality. In short, the source of truth is reality.17 Given Smiths epistemic
concept of truth, which fails to distinguish the conditions of justification
from the conditions of truth, he must say that it is true only for those of
us who have been inculcated into the community of practice that is the
church (CCC, 112). Although this is not an anything goes subjectivism, reality is still only reality for those who come to know certain things
under the ecclesial conditions of knowing. By contrast, a realist, nonepistemic notion of truth holds that the condition under which the bodily
resurrection of Jesus is true depends on the state of affairs that Jesus was
actually raised bodily from the dead. It is true independently of whether
anyone knows it to be true, and hence its being known is not a necessary
condition for it being a revelation of God,18 or for making it true. In this
sense, it is an objective truth because a true belief is dependent on what is
the case, not on what one thinks is the case.
Returning now briefly to Smiths nominalism, I think his position presents him with a dilemma to which he gives no attention. Theistic nominalismsuch as Smithsdrains entities of their nature or essences because
structures are what they are by divine choice, not through any intrinsic
necessity. Thus, the nature of things is bereft of any inherent intelligibility19 on Smiths position if by intelligibility we mean the necessary determination and limitations imposed by its nature. This is not surprising.
Nominalism, according to Dooyeweerd, cuts off every metaphysical use
of natural reason by denying that the universal concepts of thought have
a fundamentum in re. This entails the rejection not only of a realistic conception of substantial forms, but also this position destroys the
realistic metaphysical conception of truth.20 Smiths own assessment of
nominalism concurs with Dooyeweerds point (see CCC, 102-108).
16
Paul Helm, Are Revealed Truths Timeless? Online: http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.
com/2007/08/analysis-5-are-revealed-truths-timeless.html.
17

Roger Trigg, Reality at Risk (Sussex: Harvester Press, 1980), xiv.

It isnt clear to me whether Smith thinks that something is Gods revelation only when
it is acknowledged as revelation, suggesting that it becomes revelation in or through the
ecclesial conditions of knowing (CCC, 111-113).
18

19
Of course by inherent intelligibility I do not mean to suggest that things exist autonomously, self-sufficiently, having something in themselves that sustains them in being
what they are. God is the ultimate source of all things intelligibility. Vatican II stated well
the ultimate consequence of denying this claim: When God is forgotten, however, the
creature itself grows unintelligible (Gaudium et Spes, no. 36).

Dooyeweerd, New Critique I, 184-185. Given the constraints of an article review, I cannot discuss Dooyeweerds own complex philosophic relation to nominalism.
20

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Smith might say, So what? Well, it should matter a great deal to

Smith because his theistic nominalismand its voluntaristic undergirdingmake it exceedingly difficult for him to support the two features of a
sacramental ontology that he wants to affirm, namely, sovereign causality
and, especially, a participatory structure of reality. His rejection of metaphysical realism conjures up the image not only of created natures that
are inherently arbitrary but also of a capricious God who exercises his
sovereign power as an orderless tyranny.21 For as Benedict XVI rightly
put it, on this view, Gods transcendence and otherness are so exalted
that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic
mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable
and hidden behind his actual decisions.22
Smiths rejoinder to this criticism might be that if the relationship
between God and the creationthe natures or essences of things createdis as I have said it is, then it would follow that God is subject to patterns over against himself. In short, we seem to be left with a dilemma
between arbitrariness that appears to undercut necessity and necessity
that appears to dominate the creator.23 He may also attempt to avoid
this dilemma by appealing to the providential faithfulness of God to the
way that he has made things: God sustains in being what he has created
things to be, and hence he neither drains them of their intelligibility nor
is he capricious. But this answer is not sufficient for Smith to support his
appeal to a sacramental and participatory ontology. Given Smiths rejection of metaphysical realism and his slouching towards nominalism, it
is difficult to see how the participatory bond here between God and creation can muster what is needed in order to explicate logically theologys
dogmatic claims about God and Christ.24 I, for one, dont know what a
participatory sacramental ontology would look like absent some kind of
realistic metaphysics. Nothing less will do than an ontological bond of
causal participation between God and creation. This would make possible
analogical language, utilizing the analogy of being (analogia entis), meaning thereby an analogy between the being of God and the created being.25
21

Dooyeweerd, New Critique I, 187.

Benedict XVI, Faith, Reason and the University, Regensburg Address, Tuesday,
September 12, 2006. Online: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/
2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html.
22

23
Robert Sokolowski, The God of Faith & Reason (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University
of America Press, 1982, 1995), 44.
24

Guarino, Foundations of Systematic Theology, 223.

Apophaticism is, arguably, at the heart of the analogy of being: For between creator
and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying a greater dissimilitude
(Heinrich Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matter of Faith
25

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I cannot say more about this dilemma here and the solution I am
suggesting,26 but suffice it to say that Smiths failure to attend to this
dilemma is a significant weakness in this book.

What is relativism?
What is relativism? It is not the same as skepticism. A skeptic may be a
realist about truth while holding that all beliefs are uncertain, with none
being justified. Furthermore, we mustnt equate relativism with fallibilism. Not only is fallibilism perfectly consistent with holding beliefs about
what is (absolutely) true, but fallibilism itself makes sense only if you are
prepared to make some assertions about what is absolutely true, since
unless you do this there is nothing at all for you to be fallible about.27
Moreover, suppose we distinguish justification and truth, being justified
in holding something to be true and truth itself. Someone may be justified in believing that P is true given the evidence available to him, but P
itself may nevertheless be false. If you and I hold mutually incompatible
beliefs, then what at least one of us believes must be false; but it could still
be true that my belief is justified on the evidence which I have and your
belief is justified on the evidence you have.28 In short, epistemic justification may be relative, but not truth itself. Jeffrey Stout puts it this way:
Rational entitlement and truth are not the same things. Being rationally
entitled to a belief is relative in this sense: it is a relation among a belief,
the person who accepts it, and that persons epistemic circumstances. The
truth of a belief is not, generally speaking, relative in this sense. If it were,
it would not make sense for us to say, as we often do, that some of the

and Morals, ed. Peter Hnermann; 43rd trans. and ed. Robert Fastiggi and Anne Englund
Nash [San Francisco: Ignatius, 2012], 804). This apophaticism is reiterated at Vatican I: For
divine mysteries by their very nature so exceed the created intellect that, even when they
have been communicated in revelation and received by faith, they remain covered by the
veil of faith itself and shrouded, as it were, in darkness as long as in this mortal life we are
away from the Lord; for we walk by faith and not by sight (Cor 5:6-7) (Denzinger, 3016).
On Vatican I, see Thomas G. Guarino, Vatican I and Dogmatic Apophasis: Historical and
Theological Reflections, Irish Theological Quarterly 61 no.1 (1995): 70-82.
My own solution to dilemma has been influenced by the Augustinian and Thomistic
doctrine of divine ideas that, arguably, avoids the alternative between natures arbitrarily
constructed and nature determined independently of God (Robert Sokolowski, The God of
Faith & Reason[Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1982, 1995], 41-52,
and at 45. See also idem, Eucharistic Presence [Washington, D.C., 1994], 34-54. Also helpful is
Herman Bavinck, Christelijke Wereldbeschouwing, 2nd (Kampen: Kok, 1913).
26

27
Allen Wood, Relativism (unpublished paper, 6); online: http://www.csus.edu/
indiv/e/eppersonm/phil002/documents/Relativism_Readings.pdf.
28

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Wood, Relativism, 5.

RELATIVISMANCILLA THEOLOGIAE ET FIDEI? NOT SO FAST!

people who disagree with us about something may be rationally entitled

to their (false) beliefs.29 Again, justification may be lost, but not truth.30
Smith ignores this important distinction and hence rejects a non-epistemic notion of truth, conflating truth and justification.31 A non-epistemic
conception of truth holds that whether a proposition is true (or false) in
no way depends on whether someone is justified, or rational, in believing
that P, nor whether he has reasons for believing it; indeed, it does not
depend at all on someones believing that P. Rather, that P is true depends
on whether what the proposition says to be the case actually is the case. In
short, correspondence theories of truth, which Smith rejects, define truth
as correspondence between propositions and facts or states of affairs. In
contrast, Smith operates with an epistemic conception of truth that holds
truth to be a matter of justification, warranted assertability, in short, holding that whether that P is true does depend on whether someone is justified in believing it. In response to Smiths query (CCC, 30), what would it
mean to say that the gospel is relatively true, it means, as Brandom puts
it, and Smith says he agrees, What is true depends on what we human
beings say or think (CCC, 29). 32 I, for one, find it hard to see how Smith
can, then, avoid the conclusionwhich he does rejectthat an epistemic
29
Jeffrey Stout, A House Founded on the Sea: Is Democracy a Dictatorship of
Relativism? in A Dictatorship of Relativism? Symposium in Response to Cardinal Ratzingers
Last Homily, Common Knowledge, Volume 13, Issues 2-3, Spring-Fall 2007, 385-403, and at 401.
Stouts position on this matter of justification and truth is unchanged from his 1988 Ethics
after Babel. An important argument for treating differently justification and truth is found
in the magnum opus of Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1958).

Smith seems unaware of the import of this distinction between justification and truth,
even at one time for Rorty. Given the limits of this article review, I cant get into the specifics of Smiths Rorty interpretation, particularly the development of Rortys thought on
justification and truth. Suffice it to cite Stout, In an essay from the mid-1970s, Rorty rigorously separates justification from truth, and steers clear of relativistic theories of the latter. Although justification is relative to time and place, and truth is not, [Rorty] says, this
is not because truth is a relation to something unchanging out there (Ethics After Babel,
249). Smith focuses almost exclusively on Richard Rortys Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
(Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 1979) in which the distinctions between truth and
justification seems to collapse, but gives no attention to pre-1979 writings.
30

31
At least Smith is consistent. Conflating ontological and epistemological, he ignores
the distinction between the conditions of truth and the conditions of justification in his
earlier Whos Afraid of Postmodernism? and The Fall of Interpretation. I criticize Smith on this
matter in Divine Revelation and Foundationalism: Towards a Historically Conscious
Foundationalism, Josephinum Journal of Theology 19, no. 2 (2012): 283-321, and for Smith,
286-287, 296n34, 298n41.
32
Smith rejects individual relativism about truththe anything goes variety, in
which a belief is simply fine for the person who holds it; true for me but not for you, if you
choose not to believe it.

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conception of truth implies that what is real is limited to what is real for
men.33 I shall come back to these matters in the next section.

What, then, is relativism? How do we make sense of Smiths claim that

relativists might have something to teach us about what it means to be a
creature (CCC, 17; Smiths italics)? Perhaps what Smith has in mind is that
the objectivity of truth may be emphasized to the point where no attention is given to the question regarding the conditions under which something is known to be true or, alternatively put, the [normative] dynamics
of our advance to truth.34 Thus, to understand Smith best I think we need
to distinguish, following Paul Helm, the conditions under which something is true and the conditions under which something is known to be
true.35 I suggest that Smith attends almost exclusively to the latter. He
holds that pragmatism is a better philosophical account of the creaturely
conditions of knowing (CCC, 40) and in this sense relativism can help up
to understand our dependency. In particular, it appreciates the contingent, communal conditions of knowledge (CCC, 173), namely, that aspect
of Wittgensteinian pragmatism that sees language as a form of life, a way
of acquiring know-how in the context of a community of practice,
learning how to do things with words. By implication, Christianity is a
form of life, bound up with the tangible practices of a lived community. It
is an inherently ecclesial understanding of the gospel whereby the good
news of Jesus Christ is now entrusted toand bound up withthe lived
testimony of his body, the church (CCC, 172-173; see also, 53, 58; Smith
italics).
Therefore, in this light we can surely understand Smith when he asks
what is the right order of love to which we should conform. He explains:
How do we know this? What is the [epistemic] basis for this right order of
love? How do we come to know that this is the right order of love/ How
do we know that the Trinity is the telos of human happiness? How do
we know this order by which we are to evaluate everything? Smiths
answer: The recognition of that factindeed, the very ability to know
the Triune God and hence the order of love and hence the order of love
he commandsis dependent upon the grace of revelation unfolded in
the Scriptures and proclaimed by the church (CCC, 71; see also 71n28;
Smiths italics). It is in this sense that pragmatism enables us to understand that Gods revelation meets us [and is known] in and under these
33

Trigg, Reality at Risk, vii.

Bernard J.F. Lonergan, The Subject, in A Second Collection, ed. William F.J. Ryan and
Bernard J. Tyrell (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), 69-86, and at 72.
34

Paul Helm, Why be Objective?, in Objective Knowledge: A Christian Perspective, ed.

Paul Helm (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity, 1987), 29-40, and for this distinction, 39.
35

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social conditions of meaning. Gods revelation meets us in these conditions of contingency and dependence (CCC, 72; Smiths italics). Indeed,
the normative Scriptural and ecclesial dynamics of our advance to the
knowledge of truth constitute the contingent communal conditions of
knowing. We know in and by those conditions (CCC, 113; Smiths italics).
I contend that a realist about truth can agree with all of this as having to do with the conditions under which we know that something is
true. But those conditions are distinct from the conditions under which
something is true. In sum, conditions of truth must be distinguished
from conditions of justification. Smith consistently ignores this distinction because he conflates ontological and epistemological questions,36 that
is, what there is and how we can know it.37 If I am right about the import
of this distinction for affirming realism about truth, then Smiths repeated
charge that realismand its attendant representationalismseems to
be an epistemology that is bent on overcoming creaturehood (CCC, 41) is
seriously questionable. I turn now to discuss his critique of realism.

Realism: Epistemology and Alethiology

Undoubtedly, the most important argument that runs throughout
Smiths book, but especially the chapter on Rorty, is about how to transcend the dilemma of realism vs. anti-realism. Briefly, Smith argues that
this dilemma is dependent on both representationalism and correspondentism. Roughly, representationalist epistemologies, forms of indirect realism, hold that the ideas in the mind of the isolated thinking subject seem
to be the direct object of our conscious awareness, and we think that we
must somehow infer from these ideas what the real world must be like;
the world is not directly given to us.38 Correspondentism is, roughly, the
36
Smith also seems to ignore critics on this point. See John C. Poirier, Why Im Still
Afraid: A response to James K. A. Smiths Whos Afraid of Postmodernism? Westminster
Theological Journal 69 (2007): 174-84. Furthermore, J. K. A. Smith criticizes Christian Smith
for his alleged failure to be up-to-date by not attending to the philosophical challenges of
realism and a correspondence theory of truth in the past half-century (CCC, 23). But this
charge has a boomerang effect: J.K.A. Smith himself actually fails to attend to the sophisticated responses by philosophers to these challenges, for example, William Alston, Alvin
Goldman, Alvin Plantinga, Roger Trigg, Peter van Inwagen, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. Yes,
he briefly engages Plantinga (CCC, 25-28), but doesnt really confront his arguments against
Rorty head-on.
37
Trigg, Reality at Risk, xii. See N. Wolterstorff, Realism vs Anti-Realism: How to Feel
at Home in the World, in the Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 54
(1985):1-24, especially, 12-14.
38
Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence, 180. See also, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Between the
Pincers of Increased Diversity and Supposed Irrationality, in God, Philosophy and Academic
Culture, edited by William J. Wainwright (Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1996), 13-20,

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view of truth that holds our beliefs contact reality only when they correspond to some facts or states of affairs. Smith holds that these two views
are inextricably connected. Three responses have been made to this thesis.

One response is to loosen the link between representationalism and

correspondence.39 Nicholas Wolterstorff, D. Stephen Long, and Roger Trigg
are representatives of this move. In Triggs words, Realism need not take
any position about the exact kind of correspondence required, but it must
at least assert that true theories are true in virtue of objective reality. Truth
has its source in reality, and as a consequence questions about the nature
of truth are distinct from those about the best way of reaching it.40 A
second response is suggested by Alvin Plantinga. He responds to Gary
Guttings thesis, which is similar to Smiths view, that Rorty is simply
rejecting representationalist realism while embracing commonplace and
commonsense truths about truth. Plantinga writes:

According to Gutting, Rorty endorses all the commonsense, baseline platitudes about truth and our relation to it; but dont these platitudes themselves include this very representationalism? Isnt representationalismat
any rate the basic version of it [namely, the idea that we (or our minds)
possess and think by way of representations, which are true just if they
correspond to reality]itself platitudinous? It is a baseline platitude that
beliefs are about things of one kind or another; for example, some of my
beliefs are about the moon. It is another baseline platitude that beliefs can
represent things as being one way or another; for example, one of my beliefs
about the moon represents it as a satellite of the earth. And it is still another
baseline platitude that this belief is true if and only if the way that belief
represents the moon as being, is the way the moon really isi.e., if and
only if the belief about the moon corresponds to what the moon is like.

and for representationalism, 17-20. A classical version of representationalism supporting

indirect realism is found in Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (London: Oxford
University Press, 1913), 5-17.
39
Smith mentions this response but rejects it because it still accepts a correspondence
theory of truth (CCC, 104-105). I would suggest that [dispensing with representationalism
but still affirming correspondence] doesnt quite go far enoughand doesnt adequately
appreciate the pragmatist claim . If pragmatism is right about the contingent, social
conditions of knowledge, then a Christian metaphysic (a sacramental ontology) not only
has to be a realism without representation; it would also be a realism without correspondence. Or, to frame the point more carefully and with a little more nuance, we might put it
this way: if pragmatism is rightthat representation and correspondence and even realism are [language] games that we learn to play from community of social practicethen
our realisms (and attendant claims to correspondence) are dependent upon communities of
practice. In short, our claims about reality are relative to a community of social practice
and the environment we inhabit (CCC, 107). But a realism without representation and
correspondence is a realism in which extralinguistic facts or states of affairs are lost and
hence one in which truth claims cannot be seen as ontologically true.
40

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Trigg, Reality at Risk, xiv.

RELATIVISMANCILLA THEOLOGIAE ET FIDEI? NOT SO FAST!

Representationalism itself seems to be included in that stock of baseline

platitudes; at any rate, there is platitudinous version of it.41

In this passage, Plantinga is skeptical of the view that Rorty is, as

Gutting argues, merely interested in saving commonsense, baseline platitudes about truth and our relation to it, e.g., general beliefs in enduring
physical objects, others persons, or the reality of the past. If so, argues
Plantinga, the commonsense baseline includes a platitudinous version of
representationalism. This is the idea, as Plantinga says in the above passage, that we (or our minds) possess and think by way of representations,
which are true just if they correspond to reality. And unlike Smith,
Plantinga is not assuming that representationalism is simply a version of
indirect realism.
A third response is that of Smiths la Rorty. Smith embraces an epistemic conception of truth in which truth is just a matter of being justified
in believing something to be true. There is no doubt that this is Smiths
view. Early on in his book he aligns himself with the core claim of the
pragmatist tradition of Wittgenstein, Rorty, and Brandom. He thinks
that they really do argue that what is true depends on what we human
beings say or think. The next three chapters are meant to show us that
this tradition gives close attention to the conditions of our finitude and
creaturehood. Indeed, he argues that pragmatism is a robust philosophy of contingency that is wholly compatible with the Christian doctrine
of creationand even something of a prophetic reminder of the importance of the Creator/creature distinction (CCC, 29).42 Having said this, I
acknowledge that Smith has a rich account of justification, appreciating
our contingency and social dependence as knowers (CCC, 96). Yet, he
is an epistemic relativist. What he says about Rorty also pertains to him.
If by relativist you mean that he sees [epistemic] valuations as relative to
and dependent upon contingent social practices and communities of discourse, then yes Rorty is a relativist (CCC, 98; Smiths italics). He adds,
This point is crucial, especially for Christians seeking to critically appropriate Rortys pragmatism as a philosophy of creaturehood (CCC, 98).
One strand of Smiths epistemology is a deontic concept of epistemic
justification, which involves the root idea that there is a set of noetic
obligations that apply to our cognitive acts. Following Robert Brandom,

41

432.

Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000),

Again, in fairness to Smith, he does ask the following questions regarding an epistemic
conception of truth of these pragmatists: Do they really mean to claim that the human,
social conditions of knowing and truths claims are metaphysically creative? Or that unless
humans say something is true that things dont exist (CCC, 29)? His answer is negative.
42

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Smith elucidates the cognitive acts of rational agents using deontic terms
that suggest normative duties for epistemic accountability: undertaking, commitment, authorizing, responsibility, vindicate (CCC, 127; italics
removed). What, then, about epistemic objectivity?

Well, if by objectively true you mean justified or warranted assertibility

in conformity to norms of justification (the normative space of reasons),
then something may be objectively true. But when Smith uses the phrase
objectively true he certainly doesnt mean true to reality. He rejects
a realist conception of truth. In fact, he asks whether rejecting realism
mean that truth is called in question? Or that core claims of the Christian
faith are eviscerated? In sum, Is realism the only way to affirm something as true? His answer, I dont think so (CCC, 25). Given his epistemic
conception of truth, on his view, What counts as rational, then, depends
on the rules and norms of a discursive community (CCC, 140; Smiths
italics). In sum, Smiths belief policy,43 adopted from Brandoms theory of
epistemic justification stipulates two sorts of normative evaluation for
objective propositions: Do they follow the rules of inference? And are
they true? (CCC, 147) The first rule raises the demand of justification, but
this justification, and the attendant commitment and entitlement to the
claim itself, is relative to this framework (game) of giving and asking for
reasons. That this first rule is necessary but not sufficient for dealing with
justification is suggested by Brandoms concern that our judgments [are]
not merely subjective (CCC, 147). How do we avoid falling back on our
own belief system saying, at this point in the argument, as Ernest Sosa
puts it, that fundamentally, it is all relative and that factor F [that which
makes a belief of our own justified] is just our basic source of justification,
that others may differ, and, if so, to each his own?44 In short, And, if that
is its status, how can the justification of any belief relative to such a system
rise above the level of arbitrary willfulness? Where would the extra increment of justification come from?45 Smith owes us a clear answer to this
important question.

But on Smiths view it is hard to see where this extra increment of

justification would come from. This is so especially since, on views like
Smiths, as Trigg correctly notes, the world becomes totally irrelevant to
43
A belief policy contains principles [that] provide standards for the management of
[ones] belief system. They tell you what beliefs you ought and ought not to hold. They also
make clear what kinds of reason or evidence entitles you to hold a particular belief (Del
Kiernan-Lewis, Learning to Philosophize [Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2000), 68-71, and at 69.
See also Paul Helm, Belief Policies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
44
Ernest Sosa, Serious Philosophy and Freedom of Spirit, The Journal of Philosophy 84,
no. 12 (1987): 707-726, and at 715.
45

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Sosa, Serious Philosophy and Freedom of Spirit, 715.

RELATIVISMANCILLA THEOLOGIAE ET FIDEI? NOT SO FAST!

questions of truth. 46 Smith himself raises a critical question against his

view: it seems like there is no reality to which we are accountable (CCC,
142). Although I cannot argue the point in this article review, consider
Smiths use of Wittgensteins language game notion (CCC, 39-72); here,
too, the necessary connection between meaningful language and reality
is severed. Michael Polanyi accurately criticizes this nominalist view as
one that depicts language as a set of convenient symbols used according
to the conventional rules of a language game. He argues that the study
of linguistic rules [cannot be] used as a pseudo-substitute for the study
of the things referred to in its terms . Correspondingly, disagreements
on the nature of things cannot be expressed as disagreements about
the existing use of words . The purpose of the philosophic pretense
of being merely concerned with grammar is to contemplate and analyze
reality, while denying the act of doing so.47 In sum, Smith obfuscates.

Undoubtedly, Smith affirms the creeds of Nicaea and Chalcedon to be

truth about reality. Yet, his Wittgensteinian view of the relation between
language and reality, in which meaning and correspondence are conventional and the connection between words and reality is contingent (CCC,
48, 52), is inconsistent with what those creeds affirm to be true about reality. And as Avery Dulles once put it, If we are to worship, speak, and
behave as though the Son of God were himself God , is it not because
the Son really and ontologically is God, whether anyone believes it or not?
By inserting the homoousion in the creed, the Council of Nicaea was indeed
laying down a linguistic stipulation; but more importantly, it was declaring an objective truth.48 To make Dulless point stick, we need a realist
notion of truth; and Smith has completely distanced himself from realism.
It is not that Smith is denying that there is a real world out there, external to the knower, but his stance toward that world is a pragmatic one of
coping with the obduracy of things, the antics of things, as collectively
discerned by our [epistemic] peers. We can recognize the contingency
of our take on the world and still affirm it as the best account of the
world (indeed, of the entire cosmos, including the divine). We just dont
get to secure this by representational magic that effectively overcomes
the contingency and dependence. This obviously has implications for
46
Trigg, Reality at Risk, xiv. Similarly, Smith says, Rorty is just rejecting objective reality and absolute truth as rooted in representationalist realism (CCC, 88). But since, on
Rortys view, the world is totally irrelevant to questions of truth, then, Smiths rendering
of Rorty, according to Plantinga, and I concur, implausibly emasculates Rorty (Warranted
Christian Belief, 432).
47

Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, 113-114.

Avery Cardinal Dulles, Postmodernist Ecumenism, Review of The Church in a

Postliberal Age, by George A. Lindbeck, First Things, October 2003.
48

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Christian confession and witness: it would mean that a Christian take

on the world is contingent. But recognizing its contingency does not
undercut its claim to truth (CCC, 100-101). True, Smith does want to make
truth claims. But we must understand him to mean whenever he says
thisin light of an epistemic notion of truththat we can make truth
claims according to what human beings say or think governed by normative epistemic criteria.

I want to make two additional points here. One, Smith talks about the
pushback of reality (CCC, 111), of the world, its obduracy, including
even the environment of Gods special revelation in history, of its resistance to certain views,49 writing it off, ignoring it, explaining it away
(CCC, 111). But words like pushback, which surely suggest a certain
resistance, imply that our views are accountable to reality, to what is the
case. Perhaps this is where the extra increment of justification mentioned
above comes from? As one theologian puts it, something is given which
we cannot altogether manipulate to suit our fancy so that if our views
are wrong the reality itself will rear up and oppose us. For example,
From my experience of oceangoing liners I may come to the conclusion
that I can sail my automobile on the North Atlantic. But reality will resist
this interpretation in no uncertain fashion.50 So, can disagreements about
reality, the environment, be expressed, as Smith does, as disagreements about coping? No, not even in his own terms: reality seems to play
a role in determining whether one is justified in holding P to be true. It
seems to me that Smith here is waffling. Second, yes, Smiths view does
not eliminate his ability to make truth claims, but this must be seen in
light of his epistemic notion of truth. And this notion limits what is true
to what can be justified to be true, or, as Brandom puts it, what is true
depends on what we human beings say or think (CCC, 29), with what
ones epistemic peers agree to be true in light of certain norms of justification. And it seems to me that this view dovetails with the view that limits
what is real to what is real for human beings. And if not, why not? Smith
owes us an answer.

Moreover, I wonder whether Smith is consistent here in suggesting

that the world is irrelevant to truth claims. Sometimes, for example, when
speaking about natural law, he affirms the ontological reality of natural
law.51 Yes, the conditions under which one knows that reality is not apart
He mentions atheists, such as Daniel Dennett or Richard Dawkins who write off
Gods revelation. He adds, they are nonetheless contending with it in a sense (CCC, 111).
49

50

Aidan Nichols, The Shape of Catholic Theology (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1991), 236.

Given Smiths rejection of realism, is the status of natural law an objective reality? Are
the universal norms objective moral truths? It isnt at all clear, particularly since earlier in
51

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from membership in a contingent community of practice that teaches us

to see the world as such (CCC, 112n49). There isnt anything here about
coping. Elsewhere he writes that a Christian pragmatist account of natural law affirms that there are universal norms inscribed into the very
structure of creation. We might describe this as an ontological claim.
And then again he refers us to the conditions under which one knows
this to be the case: However, the epistemic condition for seeing themthe
condition of their intelligibilityis immersion in the Spirit-ed community of practice that receives the Word of God (CCC, 173n28). Nothing
here about coping, but only about seeing. And again, later he says that
pragmatisms appreciation of the contingent, communal conditions of
knowledge does not undercut the ability to make universal claims, nor
does it preclude the possibility of asserting universal norms. It only means
that it is impossible to see or grasp such norms from nowhere or from an
absolute standpoint. The contingent conditions [under which we come to
know whether something is true] of a particular community of practice
are the gifts that enable us to see and understand these universal features
of the cosmos (CCC, 173). And again, nothing here about coping, but only
about seeing and understanding the way things are, universal and enduring. What Smith claims here in these passages can best be argued for by a
non-epistemic notion of truth, one wedded to correspondence, even with
a deontic notion of epistemic justification, such as Smiths.
But Smith disputes this point. Realism about truth, a non-epistemic
notion of truthgrounded in the way things areattempts to overcome
our contingency, dependence, and sociality as knowers by purporting to
bring us into contact with reality, at least according to Smith. This involves
claiming a certain finality and irreversibility for the truth of the Christian
faith. But Smith will have none of this because it suggests that ones
language [can] transcend the contingency of practice (CCC, 96), which
denies our creaturehood.52 Smith is a fallibilist all the way down. This is

his book (CCC, 21n11), Smith asks whether there can be an account of how one could have
moral standards without having to claim that they are objective. There is also the matter
of his earlier Whos Afraid of Postmodernism? In that book, he claims that moral diversity
runs so deep that universal moral criteria are unavailable and hence postmodern society
is at a loss to adjudicate the completing [moral] claims. He adds, There can be no appeal
to higher court that would transcend a historical context or a language game, no neutral
observer or Gods-eye-view that can legitimate or justify one paradigm or moral language
game above another (69). I cannot argue the point here, but Smith confuses epistemological and ontological questions here.
52
Strictly speaking, the realist distinguishes between propositions and sentences. Pace
Smith, then, it isnt language as such that necessarily transcends practice on a realist view
of truth. Propositionscontents of thought that are true or false, expressible in various
languages, but more than mere words, expressing possible, and if true, actual states of
affairsdo not vary as the language in which they are expressed varies (propositions are

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a central aspect of what I called at the beginning of this article his contingentism. Fallibilism is the conviction that knowledge claims are always
open to further rational criticism and revision. Fallibilism does not challenge the claim that we can know the truth, but rather the belief that we
can know that we have attained the final truth with absolute certainty.53
In principle, everything we claim to know, even as Christians, is fallibilistically reversible, if I understand Smith correctly. This is the only way to
affirm our contingency, dependence, and sociality, he claims.

But, then, on Smiths view, what about the finality of irreversible doctrines such as the definitive and complete character of the revelation of
Jesus Christ [,] the inspired nature of the books of Sacred Scripture,
the personal unity between the Eternal Word and Jesus of Nazareth, the
unity of the economy of the incarnate Word and the Holy Spirit, [and] the
unicity and salvific universality of the mystery of Jesus Christ [?]54 How,
then, are Smiths epistemic notion of truth and its concomitant fallibilism
able to support truth in revelation? On his view, how does revelation have
a truth-conveying status, meaning thereby that it is ontologically true?
And what about linguistically articulated doctrine, expressive of propositional truth,55 supporting the conclusive and abiding assertions of revelation and doctrine, and logically sustaining the affirmations of Christian
belief, their universality, continuity, and material identity?

not linguistic entities). Hence, a distinction can be made between truth and its formulations
in dogma, between form and content, content and context such as was made by John XXIII
in his opening address to Vatican II: The deposit or the truths of faith, contained in our
sacred teaching, are one thing, while the mode in which they are enunciated, keeping the
same meaning and the same judgment [eodem sensu eademque sententia], is another.
Briefly, the popes statement raised the question of the continuity or material identity of
Christian truth over the course of time. I have addressed this matter in my book, Berkouwer
and Catholicism, Disputed Questions (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2013), 20-109.
This definition of fallibilism is by Richard Bernstein, Philosophers respond to [John
Paul IIs] Fides et Ratio, Books and Culture 5 (July/August 1999): 30-32. The two other philosophers in this issue of Books and Culture reviewing the philosopher-popes 1998 encyclical are
Nicholas Wolterstorff and Alvin Plantinga, 28-30, and 32-35, respectively.
53

54
Dominus Iesus, Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, August 2000,
no. 4. These claims are held by orthodox Christianity in general, not just Catholicism.
55
As such, Smith doesnt reject propositional truth, or, as he generally puts it, the
explicit (articulated) know-that claim that certain things are true, distinguished from the
implicit know-how (CCC, 151, 159, 166, 168), the latter being, for example, liturgical practice as the source and site for theological articulation (CCC, 153). Still, he not only relocates
truth claims, subordinating them, in the context of the concrete conditions of Christianity
as a form of life, bound up with the tangible practices of a lived community (CCC, 172), but
he also demotes their status in de-prioritizing them (CCC, 161) because doctrinal statements have no representative force, mediating states of affairs by way of a necessary correspondence between them and objective reality.

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In one final section, I will consider the question whether George

Lindbecks postliberalism is an ally in Smiths efforts to bring relativism
to Church. Smith certainly thinks so.

Is Lindbecks Postliberalism an Ally for Smith?

My answer to the question this section head poses is, arguably, negative. Smith defends what Guarino has called a strong version56 of George
Lindbecks postliberalism.57 As I shall argue, Lindbeck takes partial
responsibility for this reading of his work, but he argues that it is fundamentally mistaken. In a strong version, questions of correspondence and
realism disappear, or at the very least are minimized in their importance,
because a pragmatist account of doctrines, shaped by Wittgensteins view
of language, and the theories of epistemic justification and truth of Rorty
and Brandom, sever the necessary connection between meaningful language and reality. In short, on Smiths view, no ontological representation
and correspondence remain. Let me quickly add that, on his view, it isnt
that he rejects a cognitive-propositional dimension of doctrines. But on
his reading of Lindbeck, doctrines are not first-order propositions, but
rather second-order, making intrasystematic rather than ontological truth
claims (CCC, 165).
On this reading, the difference between being intrasystematically true
and ontologically true is the difference between saying that a proposition
coheres and is consistent with the whole network of Christian beliefs and
practices, on the one hand, and saying that this proposition corresponds
to the reality affirmed by faith on the other. It is the difference between
an epistemic conception of truth and a correspondencenon-epistemic
conception of truth. Being as such second-order propositions, they must
on Smiths pragmatist account be located first and foremost in the community of practice that is the church. In other words, Christian faith (and
religion more generally) is a kind of know-how; theology and doctrine,
then, make explicit our know-how as know-that claims, articulating
the norms implicit in the practices of the community that is the body of
Christ (CCC, 153; see also,162-163).

56

Guarino, Foundations of Systematic Theology, 314.

George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age,
25th Anniversary Edition, With a New Introduction by Bruce D. Marshall and a New
Afterword by the Author (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 2009). I assume throughout this brief discussion of Smiths Lindbecks interpretation that Smith takes over most of
Lindbecks view, as Smith understands it, without hesitationexcept when Lindbeck turns
to correspondence about truth. So, I dont always distinguish between Lindbeck and Smith
in what follows.
57

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Significantly, Smith claims that practice gives rise, in some sense, to

doctrine. Bringing together the point about being second-order propositions and practice, he states that doctrines are, in a sense, derivative from
practice (CCC, 164; Smiths italics). Doctrines say [articulate] what, up to
that point, we previously did, in a sense (CCC, 163). Smith underscores
their second-order status and his Wittgensteinian take that doctrines are
rules regulating our use of doctrine, rather than being primarily claims
about God or the world; instead they are rules that govern how we can
speak about God and Gods relationship to the world on the first-order
level of prayer and proclamation (CCC, 164).58

Lindbeck explicitly repudiates this strong version of postliberalism

arguing that it stems from the confusing way he speaks about three kinds
of truth in The Nature of Doctrine: categorical, intrasystematic (coherentism), and ontological (correspondence). In 1989, five years after the
publication of his book, he clarified (or, perhaps, retracted) what he meant
by these distinctions.59 The reason for this lack of clarity is the absence in
The Nature of Doctrine of the distinction between justified and true belief.60
In other words, conditions of justification must be distinguished from
conditions of truth, which is the very distinction consistently ignored by
Smith, but which is crucial for understanding Lindbecks postliberalism.
Lindbeck continues:
What the text calls intrasystematic (that is, coherence with the relevant
context of beliefs and behavior) is better thought of as a necessary (though
not sufficient) condition for justified belief. When to this is added categorical truth (that is, adequate words and grammar or, more technically
expressed, adequate concepts and appropriate patterns for deploying
them), one has two necessary (but not sufficient) conditions for successful
truth claims (that is, for assertions that are not only justified but also ontologically true.61

58
Smith adds, [D]octrines are about the inferential relationship between confessional
claims and not the referential relation between our claims and the world (CCC, 164; Smiths
italics).

Smith seems unaware of Lindbecks clarification: Response to Bruce Marshall, The

Thomist 53 (1989): 403-406. Lindbeck is responding to Bruce Marshalls article in the same
issue, Aquinas as a Postliberal Theologian, 353-402. This clarification is repeated in the
Afterword to the 25th anniversary edition (2009) of The Nature of Doctrine, as well as in
Lindbecks response (First Things, January 2004) to Avery Cardinal Dulles review of the
collection of Lindbecks essays, The Church in a Postliberal Age, Postmodern Ecumenism,
First Things, October 2003. Marshall restates Lindbecks view of truth in the Introduction to
the 25th Anniversary edition, xvii.
59

60

Lindbeck, Afterword, 139n10.

Lindbeck, Afterword, 139n10. The same points are made almost verbatim in the
other two sources I cite in note 43.
61

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RELATIVISMANCILLA THEOLOGIAE ET FIDEI? NOT SO FAST!

Thus, Christian beliefs are ontologically true because they correspond

to reality, and categorical and intrasystematic truth together are the necessary and sufficient conditions of ontological truth.62 It follows then that
doctrinal truth claims need some form of philosophical realism because
they mediate states of affairs. Furthermore, according to Lindbeck, there
exists an indissoluble relation between reality, truth and knowability, not
in the human mind, of course, but rather in Gods divine mind, with his
knowledge being alone the foundation of how things really are. Lindbeck
is a theistic realist about truth. Indeed, he says,
For any theist for who whom God is prima veritas, as he was for Aquinas,
in God, and only in God, are knowledge and reality, not only in correspondence, but directly known to correspond. Only in him do truth and knowledge of truth, alethiology and epistemology, coincide. In human knowledge
in via, in contrast, there is always a gap. Our beliefs may correspond to reality, but we are justified in holding that they do so, not directly seeing their
correspondence, but by some other means. That those other means might
in part or whole be coherentist or pragmatist cannot be excluded a priori.63

Moreover, Lindbeck himself makes clear elsewhere that ontologically

true means that the truth of belief is a matter of correspondence.64
Categorical truth and intrasystematic coherence of truthand the range
of appropriate practices that follow from that coherenceare matters of
meaning and justification, but not of truth. 65 In this light, we can understand why Lindbeck says that from a doctrine-as-regulative perspective

62

Marshall, Aquinas as Postliberal Theologians, 366.

63

Lindbeck, Response to Bruce Marshall, 404.

Bruce Marshall explains that Lindbecks notion of ontological truth lines up directly
with traditional notions of truth as correspondence to reality or adaequatio mentis ad rem,
Introduction, xvii. In all fairness to Smith, he does acknowledge that Lindbecks view
is a proposal for realism with correspondence (CCC, 166n23). Elsewhere he mentions in
passing that Lindbeck addresses the realists worries by taking as ontologically true
what is synonymous with what he elsewhere describes as extratextual truth (CCC, 168;
see also 164n20). But this acknowledgement does not seem to interfere with his rendition
of the strong version of Lindbecks liberalism as a pragmatist view of theological meaning
and truth.
64

The failure to understand the distinction between conditions of justification and

conditions of truth leads John Wright wrongly to read Lindbeck as an internal realist
la Hilary Putnam (Postliberal Theology and the Church Catholic, Conversations with George
Lindbeck, David Burrell, Stanley Hauerwas, Edited by John Wright [Grand Rapids, Baker
Academic 2012], 48n86). This view takes postliberalism to have an epistemic conception of
truth. On this score, Ronald T. Michener rightly understands Lindbeck: George Lindbeck
holds to a realist alethiology and a coherentist, pragmatic epistemology (Postliberal
Theology, A Guide for the Perplexed [London: Bloomsbury, 2013], 98).
65

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the linguistic stipulation protected (not declared) objectively true

affirmations.66

Finally, Smith seems to lack clarity about how practice gives rise to
doctrine and its propositional/conceptual contexthe says in a sense,
but it is precisely in what sense that is important to know.67 The orthodox
Christian view is that the determinate, propositional/conceptual content
of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, is revealed truth, and hence this brings
to light the importance of propositional revelation.68 Of course, as Crisp
rightly notes, the concept, what he calls the dogmatic conceptual hardcore, comes before the action or practice, and not subsequent to the practice, as Smith claims, even if the practice reinforces the doctrine.
In fact, we presume Christ is God incarnate, fully God and fully human,
one person subsisting in two natures, and so on. Because we think this,
we treat the Eucharist as more than a commemorative means, but as an
ordinance or sacrament (depending on the ecclesial tradition to which we
belong). And, as with the Trinity, there is a dogmatic core to the doctrine
that is non-negotiable [irreversibly true] and does not change, though there
are different models of the hypostatic union in the Christian tradition. This
is not to deny the importance of reflection and doctrinal development in
formulating the orthodox account of the Incarnation, any more than we
denied a similar trajectory in the formation of the dogma of the Trinity. But
in both cases there would be no dogma without direct divine revelation.
And revelation informs the practice associated with the dogma.69

The critical point that Crisp is making here may be put differently by
saying that we must distinguish between unchangeable truth and its formulations, between determinate content and context, and propositional
truth and linguistic formulation, in order to give a proper account of the
traditional characteristic of doctrinal form, as Guarino puts it, at least in
its essential judgments, [which] include its unity and organic continuity,
its material identity and constancy.70

66

Lindbeck, Response to Avery Cardinal Dulles.

Oliver D. Crisp, Ad Hector, Journal of Analytic Theology 1, no. 1 (2013): 133-139. Crisps
reflections have been very helpful to me in formulating my criticism of Smith in this concluding paragraph.
67

Smith suggests in passing that the biblical narrative, which is the self-communication of the Triune God is the implicit source of the norms, that is, rules implicit in our
Christian practice. These norms are made explicit in doctrines [that] function as the rules
of the Christian language-game making explicit the norms already implicit in the biblical
narrative and, in turn, Christian practice (CCC, 164).
68

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69

Crisp, Ad Hector.

70

Guarino, Foundations of Systematic Theology, ix.

RELATIVISMANCILLA THEOLOGIAE ET FIDEI? NOT SO FAST!

Crisps conclusion brings us back to Smiths pragmatic account of theological meaning, and hence its anti-metaphysical presupposition, driving
his rejection of metaphysical realism. Throughout his book, Smith speaks
of the Trinity and the Incarnation. How can these doctrines be understood
non-metaphysically, and given Smiths nominalism, even non-essentially?
Again, Crisp rightly states, If we must confess that God is both one and
three, that he is Triune, and that the Second Person of the Trinity is God
Incarnate, and so forth, then we are predicating certain things about the
divine nature. We are saying that God is Triune; that in some important
and fundamental sense it is true that he is both one and yet three; that
the Second Person of the trinity is Incarnate in Christ; and so on. We cannot avoid making such claims as Christian theologians. Pace Smith, they
are not, in any sense, derivative from practice (CCC, 164), but rather are
revealed. Furthermore, these claims are metaphysical in the sense that
they predicate something about God, about the nature of God, and are
claims we think veridical.71

True, Smith describes his position as a fundamentally catholic stance

that begins with an affirmation of tradition, a gracious reception of the
gifts we received from our past (CCC, 182). I appreciate the seriousness
of his conviction, which I share. If he genuinely holds to this position,
then he must abandon his views, as I understand them, because they
undermine support for the notion that doctrine mediates truth as correspondence with reality, truth that is universally valid, as Guarino puts
it, [such] teaching grasps and displays existing states of affairs, and
admitting clear dimensions of finality and even of irreversibility.72
Admittedly, as Bavinck says in his opening line to Volume II of the
Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, Mystery is the lifeblood of dogmatics.73 Of
course, then, Guarino adds, there is, unarguably, an apophatic and
eschatological dimension to Christian doctrine that curtails the extent to
which the mysteria fidei are known. Even with that said, however, it is
a clear conviction of the Christian church that, here and now, it knows
something universally, actually, and in some instances, irreversibly true
about Gods inner life.74
Smiths adoption of contingentism and the attendant philosophical
claims about knowledge and truth that he has gleaned from the philosophies of Wittgenstein, Rorty, and Brandom has shape the gospel to these
71

Crisp, Ad Hector.

72

Guarino, Foundations of Systematic Theology, 78.

73

Herman Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatiek II (Kampen: Kok, 1897), 1.

74

Guarino, Foundations of Systematic Theology, 78.

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philosophies own ends.75 Pace Smith, orthodox Christians should continue to be afraid of relativismas he understands itbecause it cannot sustain the clear conviction of the Christian faith as stated above.
Undoubtedly, Smith shares this conviction, but it is an anomaly for him
given his philosophical appropriation of relativism. Relativism cannot be
chastened by the Gospel. Hence, it should continue to be regarded as antithetical to the Christian faith.76

75

Guarino, Foundations of Systematic Theology, 303n27.

I am grateful to Philip Blosser, Hans Boersma, Fr. Thomas G. Guarino, Peter Leithart,
and Ronald T. Michener for their comments on earlier drafts of this article.
76

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