ABSTRACT
Colin Gunton’s account of divine revelation and Thomas Torrance’s account of theological science – which informed our discussion of judgemental rationality visà-vis Trinitarian theology in the previous two chapters – both set out to establish the inherent rationality of Christian theology in a manner that does justice to its intrinsic integrity. They argue that, taken on its own terms, and in comparison with other rational enterprises, Christian theology legitimately lays claim to a capacity for judgemental rationality that enables it to penetrate beyond cultural relativism and establish epistemic purchase on ontological realities without recourse to a blind leap of irrational faith. As such, any refutation of Christian truth claims cannot take the short route of dismissing them as inherently irrational, but must rather take the longer route of a sustained intellectual critique grounded in the presentation of an alternative retroductive account of the ultimate order-of-things capable of demonstrating its greater inclusivity and explanatory power.
