Wolterstorff’s critique of the reformational view of scholarship in his essay On Christian learning

Abstract

In this article I analyse Wolterstorff’s criticism of aspects of the reformational approach to science and scholarship as expressed in his essay “On Christian learning” (Wolterstorff, 1989). I argue that those allegations by Wolterstorff are not always well-founded, fully justified or supported by rigorous arguments. In particular, I examine Wolterstorff’s complaints concerning the “connection between religion and scholarship”, religious “totalism”, expressivism and the issue of a “uni-directional” view of science and religion. The purpose of this article is to remove obstacles that would hamper dialogue and cooperation between scholars in the traditions of reformational philosophy (Dooyeweerd et al.) and reformed epistemology (Wolterstorff et al.).