The Truth of Tradition: Critical Realism in the Thought of Alasdair MacIntyre and T. F. Torrance

Abstract

I have found myself very much drawn to the epistemological realism which T.F. Torrance puts forward in his 1985 book, Reality and Scientific Theology. Torrance's claim, that true knowledge represents a genuine disclosure to the mind of that which is objectively real, seems to me an indispensable presupposition for the church's proclamation of the Gospel. If the knowledge, ‘That I belong, body and soul, in life and in death, not to myself but to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ’, is to be capable of offering concrete assurance about the eternal destiny of ordinary believers, such knowledge must of necessity be grounded in a reality (Jesus Christ) which transcends the particularities of the believer's own body, soul, and historical circumstances. A realism like Torrance's would seem to be essential if the church's witness is to be taken seriously.