ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the use postliberal theologians is making of the postmodern philosophical resources. It focuses on conservative theology, and on resources for its reformulation in a postmodern framework. The chapter describes the resources provided by Alasdair MacIntyre for the justification of truth claims. George Lindbeck's recommendation for postliberal theology grows out of a cultural-linguistic understanding of religion borrowed from the social sciences. This view emphasizes the respects in which religions resemble cultures or languages together with their correlative forms of life. In Revelation and Theology, Ronald Thiemann has shown how modern theology pressed the doctrine of revelation into the service of foundationalist epistemology. The foundationalist model when applied to theology called for a source of indubitable knowledge of God. The chapter inquires about what might be the distinguishing features of a conservative theology if pursued within a postmodern framework.
