Abstract:
In appreciative celebration of Van Huyssteen’s contribution as international pattern-setter for
the theology-science dialogue and especially on the nature of theological reflection and
rationality, the article focuses specifically on the South African context and three contributions
that Van Huyssteen made in engagement with Johan Heyns over a period of almost four
decades. From his critical commentary on the Heyns/Jonker (1977) book publication Op weg
met die Teologie through his Teologie as Kritiese Geloofsverantwoording (Van Huyssteen 1986) to
his delivering of the Johan Heyns Memorial Lecture (2016), the two key theologicalmethodological issues that he consistently addressed were truth and progress. Van Huyssteen’s
basic concern throughout his academic career was on why the theologian would try to speak
publicly, and the ever accompanying question on who would care to hear his voice. In critical
engagement from a South African context with Van Huyssteen’s answer to the question that
he poses, it is argued that Van Huyssteen in his very sophisticated post-foundational approach,
characterised by contextuality and transversality, ultimately does not methodologically take
care of the constitutive interdisciplinary significance of affectivity of embodied persons in our
publicly cognitive sensemaking of our respective lifeworlds, deeply characterised by
pluriversality.
INTRADISCIPLINARY AND/ OR INTERDISCIPLINARY IMPLICATIONS: The article explores and critically
discusses the initial Critical-Realistic approach that later developed into a postfoundational approach by Wentzel van Huyssteen. The discussion is consciously restricted
to his South African publications and covers the fields of the philosophy of science,
systematic theology, philosophy and evolutionary theology within contemporary sciencetheology discourses.
