Language, Narrative And Religious Tradition

Cartesian "I think, therefore I am" established the subjectivism principle of modern philosophy, the subject eventually replaced the ontology or God in the ancient philosophy and became the center of the philosophical thinking within the enlightenment discourse system. Liberal theology represented by Schleiermacher accepted the principle of subjectivism, which strived to base religious faith on the person’s inner religious experience. Taking the position of postmodernism and post-enlightenment, Lindbeck advocates post-liberal theology which is against the subjectivism of liberal theology. From an language-centered perspective, post-liberal theology put forward entirely different points of view from liberal theology in the nature of religion, religious doctrine, religious classic narrative, religious tradition,religious others and so on.This dissertation tries to comprehensive research the post-liberal theology centered on language, narrative and religious tradition. The main body part of the dissertation is divided into four chapters, followed by the text of the second chapter to the fifth chapter.The second chapter mainly introduces the important life experience of Lindbeck and his relationship with Yale theological thought. Lindbeck was born in Luoyang, China, and he spent his boyhood in China. After returning to the United States, he entered Yale University and eventually teaching there. In Lindbeck’s life experience, attending the "the Second Vatican Council" is also a very important event, his attention to the problems of religious dialogue is related to this. Since Reinhold Niebuhr and Richard Niebuhr, Yale theological thought has been under the influence of Karl Barth’s theology, they criticize that the liberal theology compromise of modernity, which leads that theology loses its own Christianity discourse.Lindbeck and other representative figure of contemporary Yale school are deeply influenced by the thought tendency.In the third chapter, we mainly analyze and evaluate Lindbeck’s cultural-linguistic approach about religion. Lindbeck thinks that the ancient pre-liberal religious view belongs to the cognitive-propositionalist approach, modern liberal religious view belongs to the religion of the experiential-expressive approach, his postmodern or post-liberal religious view belongs to the cultural-linguistic approach. Cultural-linguistic approach thinks the religion as a kind of comprehensive language system which explain the reality, and the language system decisively affects people’s religious thinking and practice. Linbeck’s religious view is inspired by Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, if the liberal philosophy of religion centers the subject, the post-liberal philosophy of religion turn to the religious language as the center of religious thinking. On the relationship between religious experience and religious language, liberal religious approach considers the religious language as the symbol expression of the inner religious consciousness, but post-liberal religious approach think that religious experience is the product of religious language, and there is no so-called concept of pre-linguistic religious experience. According to the religious idea of cultural-linguistics, the primary meaning of religious doctrine is neither objectively reflecting the reality, also is not expressing the pre-reflective religious experience, but first of all, is seen as the authoritative rules on the life of faith of a religious community.In the fourth chapter, we focus on the significance of religious classic narrative. From the poetic sense, the truth of the literary narrative is different from the historical truth. Contemporary communitarianism deeply finds that the shared narrative of a social group not only shapes the identity of the self, and decides self-understanding of this group. For Christianity, the Bible narrative undoubtedly plays the most important role in shaping Christian groups. In long ancient times, the Bible stories were generally considered as a true history by Christian. Lindbeck pointed out, however, the rise of historical criticism guided by the reason of enlightenment, has led the unity of the Bible narrative to crumble, which makes the function of the Bible shaping Christian groups severely weakened. Lindbeck draws lessons from contemporary literature reading of the Bible and attempts to rebuild the unity of the Bible narrative in the post-critical sense, so that the religious classic text can make a sound in the contemporary situation. In this chapter, we also discuss the post-liberal ethics and the ideological differences between Lindbeck and Don Cupitt who is a British postmodern religious philosopher.In the fifth chapter, we mainly discuss the problem of religious dialogue, which involving religious tradition, religious others, Confucian tradition and so on.On the relationship between tradition and modernity, Gadamer pointed out that it is reasonable that the enlightenment reason surveyed the authority for faith, but when it wanted to destroy every tradition, this had caused a new reasonable prejudice to the tradition. Gadamer thinks that we should listen to the traditional reasonable sound today.Lindbeck’s post-enlightenment position about Christian tradition has consistency with Gadamer’s reflection on enlightenment reason. Lindbeck’s post-liberal theology advocates that contemporary Christian theology should return to the intratextual and intrasystematic position, the purpose of his maintaining Christianity tradition own characteristics is very obvious. Linbeck resolutely opposes religious pluralism which makes an attempt to interpret the major religious traditions into a single system. He thinks that different religions belong to different culture and language system, so the depth of the differences between them can’t be erased. In Lindbeck’s eyes, the homogeneous ideas of religious pluralism not only distorts their own tradition and neglect the otherness of the other.Lindbeck’s culture-linguistic method provide us with a new "lens" to look at Confucian tradition, today it is a problem worth pondering how Confucian see itself and other religious traditions.In the conclusion, this dissertation briefly summarizes the significance Lindbeck’s religious thought.