It is true that Christians are imperfect and absolute epistemological certainty may elude Christians at times, but in the end standpoint epistemology denies the possibility of meaningful dialogue, but more importantly it removes the possibility of objective knowledge of God subverting biblical authority
In the latter half of the 20th century (1978), a number of evangelical scholars met in Chicago to consider the question of the inerrancy of Scripture which at that time was being questioned. In play was whether the doctrine of Inspiration guaranteed that the entirety of the Old and New Testaments in the original manuscripts were without error in all they affirmed. The culmination of the deliberations of those at the meeting is known as the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy which affirmed the inerrancy of the biblical text and hence the authority of the Bible in all matters it addressed. Subsequently, a number of evangelical institutions adopted the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy as part of their public doctrinal commitments. However, soon after the 1978 Summit, evangelicals wisely realized that the matter of hermeneutics must also be addressed. Afterall, unless a person believed one could have access to the objective truth of Scripture affirming inerrancy would have little practical impact for the community of Faith. Consequently, in 1982, evangelical scholars met again in Chicago to consider the matter of hermeneutics. The question was whether the objective truth of Scripture could be known by the human interpreter. After several days of serious deliberation, the convening members produced a document known as The Chicago Council on Biblical Hermeneutics. In part, it states in Article IX: “We affirm that the term hermeneutics, which historically signified the rules of exegesis, may properly be extended to cover all that is involved in the process of perceiving what the biblical revelation means and how it bears on our lives. We deny that the message of Scripture derives from, or is dictated by, the interpreter’s understanding. Thus, we deny that the ‘horizons’ of the biblical writer and the interpreter may rightly ‘fuse’ in such a way that what the text communicates to the interpreter is not ultimately controlled by the expressed meaning of the Scripture.” This logically and theologically connected the two documents affirming that through proper hermeneutics and the ministry of the Holy Spirit true knowledge of God could be known to the human interpreter. This affirmed that the human interpreter could intellectually approach the written text of Scripture and receive objective truth as intended by God that he might know God truthfully, although not completely.
