J. Wentzel van Huyssteen: Exploring Venues for an Interdisciplinary Theology

Abstract

This article, written for the retirement symposium for the James I. McCord Professor J. Wentzel van Huyssteen at Princeton Theological Seminary (“Evolutionary Science and Theological Identity,” November 18–19, 2014), analyzes the changing contexts and developments of van Huyssteen’s interdisciplinary journeys in the philosophy of science, epistemology, and science and religion. The topics discussed are biblical hermeneutics, his relation to Wolfhart Pannenberg, critical realism, postfoundationalism, evolutionary epistemology, paleoanthropology, and theological anthropology. The particular aim of the article is to clarify how earlier research themes are transformed and calibrated in van Huyssteen’s shift of emphasis from a more hermeneutical to a more pragmatist orientation in interdisciplinary theology.