Pentecostal Rationality : Epistemology and Theological Hermeneutics in the Foursquare Tradition

This book not only articulates a tradition-specific Pentecostal rationality of Biblical Pragmatism, but also provides the first intellectual history of a major British classical Pentecostal denomination: the Elim Pentecostal Church.Pentecostal theologians increasingly acknowledge that their theological methodology should be informed by a Pentecostal rationality, epistemology and theological hermeneutics.Simo Frestadius offers such a Pentecostal rationality from a Foursquare perspective.Frestadius first analyses and evaluates some of the main contemporary Pentecostal rationalities and epistemologies to date, with a particular emphasis on the works of Amos Yong and James K.A.Smith and L. William Oliverio Jr., before proposing that Alasdair MacIntyre’s tradition-focused and historically-minded narrative approach is conducive in providing a more tradition-constituted Pentecostal rationality.Utilising the methodological insights of MacIntyre, the book then provides a philosophically informed historical narrative of a major British Pentecostal tradition, namely, the Elim Foursquare Gospel Alliance, by exploring its underlying context and roots as a classical Pentecostal movement, its emergence as a religious tradition, and its two major ‘epistemological crises’.Based on this historical narration and analysis, it is argued that Elim’s tacit Pentecostal rationality is best defined as Pentecostal Biblical Pragmatism in a Foursquare Gospel framework.This form of rationality is then developed vis-à-vis Elim’s Pentecostal concept of truth, biblical hermeneutics, and pragmatic epistemic justification in dialogue with William P.Alston. In doing the above, the book not only articulates a tradition-specific Pentecostal rationality of Biblical Pragmatism but also provides the first intellectual history of a major British classical Pentecostal denomination.