1 ACCOUNTING’S FOUNDATION: Should the Philosophical Foundation of Accounting Be Postmodernism or Christianity?

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) regulates financial accounting. FASB issues two kinds of accounting pronouncements. The first kind are Statements of Financial Ac-counting Concepts (SFACs). They are the theoretical foundation for the regulations which are promulgated in the Statements of Financial Accounting Standards (SFASs). FASB‟s theoretical statements are based on unstated philosophical assumptions about ethics and human nature. For example, FASB has assumed that investors are rational and are able to understand financial statements. In a paper I presented previously for the Christian Business Faculty Association, I looked at the contradictions between the currently popular philosophy of postmodernism and FASB‟s foundational assumptions. The paper provided a useful perspective for accounting educators, particularly those in state institutions who cannot overtly teach from a religious perspective. In this paper, I have extended the discussion—in order to make it even more useful for those teach-ing in Christian colleges who want to integrate faith and learning—to show points of compati-bility between FASB‟s philosophical assumptions and biblically-based Christian philosophy.