Abstract

DE WET, F.W.  and  PIETERSE, H.J.C.. The necessity of reckoning with metatheoretical assumptions in scientific practical-theological research. In Skriflig (Online) [online]. 2010, vol.44, n.3-4, pp.525-544. ISSN 2305-0853.

This article is the first in the research project "Metatheoretical assumptions in Practical Theology". The research problem has to do with the lack of explicit expression of metatheoretical assumptions against the background of a plurality in scientific approaches to the discipline. Sometimes researchers do not explicity state their theological and other approaches. In this project a group of reformed practical theologians explicitly state their metatheoretical theological and other perspectives and explain their vantage points in researching the praxis. The necessity to explain metatheoretical assumptions pertaining to the assumptions about reality, the hermeneutical process in understanding, explaining and changing actions in praxis, and the nature and task of scientific research, is discussed from a reformed perspective.

Keywords : hermeneutical theory; metatheoretical assumptions in Practical Theology; the nature of reality; reformed theology; scientific approach.

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