# Difference Between Critical Realism and Evidentialism



## CubsIn07 (Jul 27, 2008)

What is the difference between the "apologetic" methods of N.T. Wright or critical realism and evidentialism?


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## RamistThomist (Jul 28, 2008)

Evidentialism in the Josh McDowell sense downplays the role of presuppositions. 

Critical Realism does not. CR tries to say against postmodernity that we can actually know things, including Jesus rising from the dead. But against modernity and the Enlightenment it denies that we operate with a tabula rasa. It acknowledges that while we can know what a text is saying, we also bring our own cultural assumptions to the text and these will color (for good or for ill) what we are reading.

The best book on this is Jamie Smith's _The Fall of Interpretation_.
Amazon.com: The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic: James K. A. Smith: Books

If you can find the relevant section in _New Testament and the People of God_ it is outlined quite clearly.


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## NaphtaliPress (Jul 28, 2008)

Perhaps of interest; see James J. Cassidy, "Critical Realism & the Relation of Redemptive Act to Revelatory Word" in _The Confessional Presbyterian_ 2 (2006) 79-88. Issues available for purchase at the link in my signature.


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