Poetic Theology In The View Of Modernity

In the eighth decade of the twentieth century, the culture and society of China sees a new development, in which the New Enlightenment Movement ,with Li Zehou its chief advocate, succeeding the spirit of May Fourth Movement, keeps encouraging the modernization of Chinese society. But the modern discourse formed in the course of May Fourth Movement seems anachronic for being without the critical succession of the spirit of the Enlightenment.Liu Xiaofeng's Poetic Theology presents a new intellectual viewpoint in the New Enlightenment Movement. His three books, i.e. Poetic Philosophy, Delivering and Dallying, To the Truth of the Cross, give rise to, and analyze, the main propositions of Poetic Theology, of which Delivering and Dallying, is the most important and controversial. Using the methodology of phenomenology and hermeneutics, it goes against the nihilism in the whole modern world with the ecclesiastic values of Christianity, and comes to the conclusion that the traditional Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism lack the transcendental dimension, and that they are not stable bases for Goodness. In the course of retrospection of rationalism, the ecclesiastic values of Christianity of Poetic Theology touch upon the meditation of modernity in the West, trying to excel the rationalism in the cultural Sino-western comparison and having obtained breakthrough in the analysis of the modern discourse. But it underestimates the difficulty in comparing the different cultures when appraising Chinese culture. As a result, its deduction and conclusion need further improving.Since the nineties, China's modernization steps into the stage of market economy. And more defects of modernization reveal themselves. The discussion ofhumanitarian spirit started by Wang Xiaoming echoes towards the criticism of nihilism by Liu Xiaofeng. The modernity is academically attractive now. In the New Era, the critical view of Poetic Theology should be reviewed and the problems revealed by it might be a mirror for all relevant researchers.