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Or, as a second interpretation, Grenz and Franke want to tell their readers far more than
such a relatively uninteresting claim. Indeed, they have labored to tell their readers that the Holy
Spirit does speak through scripture to the churches today, and that there is a Christian
community. Indeed, they have claimed much more, including that we do not live in the world-
in-itself; that reality is a social construction; that there is no neutral epistemic vantage point; etc.
They want their readers to believe as they do, that their ideas should be accepted, while
foundationalist theologies should be abandoned.
But if their many claims are to be interpreted as just discrete claims made by how some
community (which they never specify in detail) has made its world by its language use, then why
would they bother to write as though to many kinds of Christians? Indeed, if they were just
expressing their own linguistic community's views, then why would they bother to write a nearly
270-page book to convince those who already share their linguistic viewpoints? In other words,
if this interpretation is accurate, then so what if this how their specific community has made its
world by its language use?
By their not informing their readers of the locality of their linguistic community, they
employ a rhetorical tool to their advantage: they can make sweeping, universal truth claims for
all Christians, which clearly seems to be their intent. They do not want to write just for their
own community's members; rather, they want Christians, generally speaking, to come to see
theology, yes, even the world, as they do. But they seemingly would not bother to write in this
manner unless they presuppose an epistemic access to an extra-linguistic, unconstructed realm.
That is, they know that God truly does break through, which is true apart from its being a
linguistic construction. But if the latter is the case, then they undermine one of their central
assumptions: that we are on the inside of language and cannot get out to an unconstructed world.