Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Creation, revelation and the analogy theory
- 2 The Trinity and philosophical reflection: a study of David Brown's The Divine Trinity
- 3 ‘Is it true what they say about “theological realism”?’
- 4 The impassibility of God and the problem of evil
- 5 Theodicy?
- 6 Tragedy and the soul's conquest of evil
- 7 Atonement and moral apocalypticism: William Styron's Sophie's Choice
- 8 Atonement and christology
- 9 Revelation, salvation, the uniqueness of Christ and other religions
- 10 ‘Many religions and the one true faith’: an examination of Lindbeck's chapter 3
- 11 Contemptus mundi and the disenchanted world: Bonhoeffer's ‘discipline of the secret’ and Adorno's ‘strategy of hibernation’
- 12 ‘The weight of weakness’: intratextuality and discipleship
- 13 ‘Theistic arguments’ and ‘rational theism’
- Notes
- Index of names
- Index of subjects
10 - ‘Many religions and the one true faith’: an examination of Lindbeck's chapter 3
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Creation, revelation and the analogy theory
- 2 The Trinity and philosophical reflection: a study of David Brown's The Divine Trinity
- 3 ‘Is it true what they say about “theological realism”?’
- 4 The impassibility of God and the problem of evil
- 5 Theodicy?
- 6 Tragedy and the soul's conquest of evil
- 7 Atonement and moral apocalypticism: William Styron's Sophie's Choice
- 8 Atonement and christology
- 9 Revelation, salvation, the uniqueness of Christ and other religions
- 10 ‘Many religions and the one true faith’: an examination of Lindbeck's chapter 3
- 11 Contemptus mundi and the disenchanted world: Bonhoeffer's ‘discipline of the secret’ and Adorno's ‘strategy of hibernation’
- 12 ‘The weight of weakness’: intratextuality and discipleship
- 13 ‘Theistic arguments’ and ‘rational theism’
- Notes
- Index of names
- Index of subjects
Summary
Introductory
Since its publication in 1985 George Lindbeck's The Nature of Doctrine has come to be widely regarded as a profound and suggestive treatment of a broad range of issues which lie at the forefront of current debates in theology and religious studies. Its wide reach notwithstanding, the book is two-pronged in respect of its substantive theses. Lindbeck is concerned in the main to do two things. Firstly, he sets out to formulate a ‘cultural-linguistic’ model of religion. This undertaking is avowedly ‘non-theological’ (p. 46). Secondly, he wants to develop a meta-theological option, a ‘way’ of doing systematic or dogmatic theology, which he calls an ‘intratextual’ theology (pp. 112ff).
The ‘cultural-linguistic’ or ‘regulative’ model is, in Lindbeck's eyes, less unsatisfactory than its two principal competitors for the status of a properly-constituted theory of religion. The two rivals in question are ‘cognitive-propositionalism’ and ‘experiential-expressivism’ (to use Lindbeck's designations).
Proponents of the ‘cognitive-propositionalist’ model take religions to be essentially, but not necessarily exclusively, forms of speech and action focused on a mind-independent sacred or divine reality. Religious doctrines are ‘cognitive’ inasmuch as they embody truth-claims, at least in some part ‘about’ this reality, which are genuinely informatory.
Proponents of ‘experiential-expressivism’, by contrast, generally do not view religions as cognitive enterprises. They tend invariably to regard religious doctrines as non-assertorial and non-discursive entities, expressive or evocative of the interior life of the faithful person.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Turnings of Darkness and LightEssays in Philosophical and Systematic Theology, pp. 159 - 179Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989