Living Truth, Truthful Living: Christian Faith and the Scalpel of Suspicion

Whereas much of Christian apologetics has engaged with the epistemological critique which philosophy issues to the Christian faith, this book considers the particular challenge which contemporary philosophical thought presents. The author characterizes the latter as a form of postmodern suspicion within which she identifies three separate but related critiques. Beginning with Nietzsche's critique of Christianity, she traces the way in which Nietzschean suspicion is manifested in contemporary thought and in its approach to the Christian faith. Nietzsche's can be viewed as the most basic critique since it questions the very possibility of a genuine religious sentiment. As Nietzsche saw it, human nature is such that faith cannot but be an instrument of self interest. This is well illustrated by his unmasking critique of Christian piety as a form of bad faith. The second critique arises from suspicion about human trustworthiness with religious stories. More specifically, it questions the possibility of a non totalizing Christian story or 'metanarrative'. The third critique interrogates the capacity of religious believers to respect difference. It articulates the suspicion that Christians are, by virtue of their transcendent beliefs incapable of dialogue with the other. The author maintains that suspicion can open up spaces for dialogue in apologetical encounter since both suspicion and biblical faith are concerned (in principle at least) with truthfulness. She argues that suspicion is a 'scalpel' to faith because it can carry challenge and discomfort as well as insight and healing. That is, if faith will respond on the one hand with openness to the challenge of suspicion, and on the other hand, with faithfulness to its own theological resources and its own prophetic potential.