A Contemporary Reappropriation of Baconian Common Sense Realism in Renewal Hermeneutics

Part one of the following essay will present a brief explication of the Baconian common sense method. The second part will examine the early Pentecostal's Bible Reading Method as characterized by Kenneth J. Archer. It will be noted that early Pentecostals wedded common sense realism to the Baconian scientific method in the Baconian common sense method. Part three will examine various weaknesses and implications of Archer's representation regarding early Pentecostals and their use of the Bible Reading Method. In part four I will propose my own hermeneutic of Scripture in dialogue with Francis Bacon, Thomas Kuhn, Bernard Lonergan, and Vern Poythress in order to construct a modern, Spirit-inspired, scientifically informed hermeneutic for appropriation by the Renewal movement. I will contend that the Renewal movement should adopt such a hermeneutic in order to be taken seriously in today's (somewhat) scientifically literate culture

Appropriation · Common sense · Epistemology · Explication · Hermeneutics · Linguistics · Politics · Realism · Scientific realism · Law · Pentecostalism and Christianity Studies · Philosophy