New Foundations
This chapter surveys the historical relationship between social scientific thought and theology, and the fact/value distinction that plagued both disciplines. The migration into theology of social scientific theory, historicism, and pragmatism in the early twentieth century served as a foundation for constructing a new theological method that recast the relationship between the text, the self, and the world. The question of whether science would replace religion in determining the lived values of a society occupied social thinkers. Finding common ground required traversing the gulf between facts and values. In the course of the twentieth century, epistemological questions gave way to ethical ones. The question of right action replaced the question of what was true. Developments of social theory recognizing a plurality of knowledge allowed a mutual recognition. These changes contributed to the liberationist theological method, one that began with the world rather than with abstract truth applied to the world.