The Relationship between Philosophy and Theology in the Postmodern Age [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

reports of mystical experiences are understood, and the philosopher
provides a critical analysis of both doctrine and report in order to place
mystical experiences within the framework of a broader epistemological
theory.

It is not only epistemology that serves as a source of
the problems posed in the philosophy of religion for theology, virtually
all the branches of philosophy have some bearing on the philosophy of
religion, anti raise questions about theological doctrine.

One of the most distinguished areas of philosophy is
metaphysics, and metaphysics has long had an intimate relation to
theology, especially to Islamic theosophy (hikmat). Muslim, Christian and
Jewish theologians have often utilized metaphysical systems based on
ancient Greek thought in order to explain theological doctrines. Many
religious philosophers have come to prefer other systems of metaphysics;
as a result, they find themselves engaged in an attempt to restate
religious doctrine in a way that does not use the language of the older
metaphysics.

Sometimes, however, doctrine becomes so intertwined
with the older metaphysics that they are difficult to separate. For
example, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was stated in terms of a
metaphysics of substances, modes, persons and attributes drawn from Roman
as well as Greek philosophy. Many contemporary Christian thinkers are now
willing to concede that the traditional statements of the doctrine of the
Trinity in these terms has not been successful. But rather than reject the
claim that God is to be understood as the Holy Trinity, they have claimed
that the doctrine is better explained without the claim that God is three
persons but one substance, or with an interpretation of this claim that
would have been unthinkable in past centuries.

Robert Cummings Neville, the Dean of the Boston
Theological Seminary, completely dismisses the claim, and defends the
Trinity as three ways or aspects of divinity understood with reference to
the creation. God is the source of creation; He is the end or telos of
creation, and He is the very activity of creation itself, according to
Neville. Aside from this, there is little left of the traditional doctrine
of the Trinity in Neville's theology. [12]

A more traditional defense of the Trinity is to be
found in the work of a philosopher who teaches at Notre Dame University in
Indiana, Thomas V Morris. Morris uses the methods developed by analytic
philosophers to defend a version of Social Trinitarianism from the
heretical claim made by some process theologians that God is in need of
the world. Process theology itself developed as a reaction against a
metaphysics of substances inspired by Whitehead and Hartshome's idea that
the world consists of essentially interrelated events. [13]

Another contemporary metaphysical idea which has had an
impact on discussions of the doctrine of the Trinity is the theory of
relative identity. According to this idea the identity relation is always
governed by the category of its terms. Defenders of the Trinity such as
Peter Geach and Peter van Inwagen have used the theory of relative
identity to defend the proposition that while the persons of the Trinity
may be different persons, they may at the same time be the same God.[14]

Other areas to which philosophers of religion have
applied ideas drawn from contemporary logic and metaphysics include
discussions of Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God, the
many problems pertaining to the divine attributes, the nature of divine
activity, God's foreknowledge and human responsibility, the nature of
creation ex nihilo and the problem of evil.

Older than epistemology and at least as ancient as
metaphysics is ethics. Philosophical reflections on good and evil, right
and wrong and virtue and vice have always mingled with religious thought,
and today, as well, philosophers whose primary concern is the nature of
value and morality are raising important questions for theologians to
ponder. All of the religions systematize moral thought to a certain
extent, for all religions issue imperatives disobedience to which is
considered morally as well as religiously wrong. Must moral theory conform
to the moral concepts embodied in religion? Can there be altruistic ideals
that go beyond the moral ideals of religion? Can religion issue orders
which nullify moral imperatives? Can a person be morally reprehensible
without violating any religious law?

Can a rational ethics put constraints on an acceptable
interpretation of religion? How could God, who is perfectly good, order
Abraham to kill his son? This last question was forcefully raised by Soren
Kierkegaard (1813-1885), and it is still a problem frequently discussed
among Christian philosophers and theologians. Kierkegaard's answer, of
course, was that religion issues orders with a force beyond anything found
in morality, orders which from the point of view of reason would be
considered wrong. Philosophers and theologians who are not satisfied with
this fideist approach to religious commands must find a plausible
reconciliation between reason and moral intuition, . on the one hand, and
religious rulings and actions of those considered faultless, on the other.

The question of the relation between divine commands
and moral imperatives has become the focus of considerable debate among
contemporary philosophers of religion largely as a result of the work of
Robert M. Adams. [15] In his articles on divine command theories of
morality, Adams has sought to reconcile the idea that actions are wrong or
right because they are forbidden or commanded by God with the idea that
God's commands are not arbitrary. Adams is no Asharite, and will not
accept the claim that if God were to command cruelty and infidelity then
torture and treason would be morally praiseworthy. God's commands have
moral force, according to Adams, only because God is perfectly good, just
and benevolent; but without God's commands, Adams contends there would be
no moral imperatives at all.

Other recent publications in which the relation between
religion and morality are discussed include J. L. Mackie's The Miracle of
Theism [16] and many of the writings of Alasdair MacIntyre. [17] Mackie
argues as an admitted atheist that the only ways to make sense of the
relation between fact and value is either through Hume's moral philosophy
or through a religious theory. He even confesses that if no variation on
Hume's theory is ultimately defensible, we should be forced to seek a
religious explanation to the manner in which values seem to supervene on
natural properties.

MacIntyre is also interested in the fact/value
dichotomy, and he explicitly seeks to refute Hume's approach to the
problem, and to refute most other modem theorists as well. But MacIntyre
is not satisfied with the notion that facts are related to values by
divine decree; instead he seeks to revive a version of an Aristotelian
teleological ethics, but one in which perfection is to be understood by
means of attention to the movement of tradition and historical narrative,
rather than through biology (as Aristotle sometimes seemed to suggest).
Religion becomes paramount in MacIntyre's thinking because it is only
religion which is able to support the sorts of traditions and historical
narratives which can provide a firm basis for the moral life.

No discussion of the way religious narratives can
contribute to our understanding of who we are and where we are headed
would be complete without some attention to the issue of religious
language, and this brings us to another area in which the philosopher may
be seen as posing questions for the theologian.

One of the areas of most intense activity in twentieth
century Western philosophy is that of the philosophy of language. The
German mathematician, logician and philosopher Gottlob Frege (1848-1925)
initiated a research program in the philosophy. of language concerned with
such problems as sense and reference, the failure of substitution of
co-referential terms in various 'intensional' contexts (for example, it,
may be true that S believes that a is F and true that a= b, although S
fails to believe that b is F), and the logical analysis of various sorts
of semantic functions commonly performed in ordinary language by
demonstratives, proper names, definite descriptions, and other kinds of
terms and expressions.

Frege's programme was carried on by Russell
(1872-1970), Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Camap (1891-1970), Quine (1908-)
and Kripke (1940-), to mention just a few of those whose ideas about the
logical analysis of language have provoked extended debate. The program of
logical analysis was soon extended to theological statements. Philosophers
of religion began to ask questions about the logical analysis of such
claims as "God is eternal" [18] and "God is omnipotent," [19] and the ways
in which we may succeed in referring to God. [20]

Although these discussions may be fruitfully compared
to medieval .discussions of related issues in Islamic as well as Christian
theology and philosophy, many contemporary Christian theologians find the
attention to logical detail a bit boring, and irrelevant to their primary
concerns. Many of these theologians have been more favourably impressed by
Wittgenstein's later writings, and his suggestion that religious language
may be compared to a game or a form of life significantly different from
scientific language to prevent the possibility of any conflict between
religion and science. [21]

Wittgenstein's doctrine of language games also has
attracted theologians who sought a response to the positivists' charge
that religious claims were meaningless. Although the verificationist
theory of meaning advocated by the positivists has been generally
rejected, the Wittgensteinian slogan, "meaning is use," provided
theologians with a basis in the philosophy of language for turning their
attention to functionalist theories of religious language which seemed to
dovetail rather neatly with the anti-reductionism popular in Protestant
theological circles.

These theologians felt that any attempt to base
religious claims on theoretical reason (as in the traditional proofs for
the existence of God, called natural theology), or on practical reason (as
in Kant's theology), ought to be rejected as reductions of religious
claims to metaphysics or ethics, reductions which failed to appreciate the
fundamental originality of the religious view, what Schleiennacher
(1768-1834) called the religious moment of experience.

These tendencies among many (although by no means all)
of those who have been attracted to functionalist explanations of
religious language are largely anti-philosophical tendencies, even when
they turn to the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein for support.
Although there are many disagreements among those who find themselves
supporting some variety of fideism, there is agreement among the fideists
that religion does not need any philosophical explanation or
justification.

So, after our tour through the philosophical
territories bordering on theology, we find ourselves back where we
started, at epistemology and the question of the rationality of religious
belief, for functionalist approaches to religious language, including
theories according to which religious language serves to express attitudes
rather than to describe reality, are often attempts to escape rational
criticism of religious beliefs. No justification is needed, the fideist
proclaims, because the language of religion is independent of and
irrelevant to the language of justification.

Here the reformed epistemology of Alvin Plantinga, or
the related ideas of William Alston may be seen as a sort of compromise
between those who would justify religious claims by rational proof and
those who deny that any such justification is needed or desirable. What
Plantinga and Alston offer is a philosophical argument as to why religious
belief may be considered warranted and rational, even in the absence of
direct evidential support.

Today's Christian theologians, however, are often
unimpressed by the works of Christian philosophers such as those mentioned
above. These philosophers are primarily concerned with the issues of
rationality and the justification or warrant that can or cannot be
provided for assertions of the truth of various- religious claims. The
theologians, on the other hand, often seem to be more interested in the
effects in the lives of believers which are associated with adhering to
various beliefs and participating in the Church. Religion is not a
collection of truths about God, they insist, but a way to salvation.
Religious symbols are important for many contemporary Christian
theologians not as they serve to disclose religious truths which might not
be expressible in non-symbolic language, but rather because they present a
framework within which meaning for human life is to be found. [22]

Another reason Christian theologians have given for
their antipathy toward philosophy is related to the problem of religious
pluralism. In the past, Christian theologians claimed that the doctrines
of Christianity were true, and that all those doctrines inconsistent with
Christian dogma were false. Among the dogmas of traditional Christianity
is the claim that there is only one way to salvation for Catholics, the
Church, and for Protestants, participation in Christ's redemption of sin
by faith. In short, traditional Christianity would exclude Jews, Muslims,
Hindus and Buddhists from salvation and eternal felicity unless they would
accept Christianity on learning of its gospel.

As Christians are becoming increasingly aware that
there are good people, even saintly people, who follow a path other than
that of Christianity although they are familiar with the gospel, they are
finding it difficult to accept the traditional dogma that would bar the
non-Christian from paradise. A number of Christian theologians are even
beginning to take the view that Christian theology has been too
preoccupied with the truth of dogma altogether. In reaction to the
exclusivism of traditional Christianity, according to which the acceptance
of certain truth-claims is a necessary condition for salvation, some have
gone to the extreme of thinking that the truth of religious doctrines is
insignificant, and attempts to justify religious beliefs or show them to
be rational are irrelevant to the issue of salvation.

Instead of occupying themselves with the central
questions of traditional theology, constructing proofs to support
doctrines, analyzing the logical structure of various religious concepts,
and defending their interpretation of doctrines against rivals, many if
not most contemporary Christian theologians have turned their attention to
questions about how religious concepts develop and change, how they
function in religious communities, how religious ideas inform religious
experience, and how Christian symbols, practices and institutions have
been used and abused by Christian communities in various historical and
social contexts.

When these theologians turn their attention to
questions of ethics, they are concerned about how to prevent the future
abuse of Christian symbols, practices and institutions and how to
encourage what they consider to be the positive and morally responsible
development of the various elements of Christian life, although there is
often a lack of critical reflection on the philosophical perspective which
informs their own moral standards. Many believe that claims to have
religious knowledge or certainty reflect a sinful desire to gain
intellectual control over what must remain ultimately a mystery.

Today's Christian theologians are much more interested
in postmodernist thought than the work- of Christian philosophers trained
in the analytic tradition. Postmodernism is a movement which has emerged
from the ideas of certain contemporary French writers such as
Jean-Francois Lyotard, [23] Jacques Derrida, [24] Georges Bataille, [25]
and Michel Foucault. [26] What these writers have in common is a generally
cynical outlook, skepticism about the transcendental claims characteristic
of the modem period of European philosophy from Descartes (1596-1650)
through Kant (1724-1804), the suspicion that rational argument is a screen
hiding desires for power, the idea that we cannot escape the cultural
presuppositions which largely determine our world view, and an irreverent
style.

Many of the postmodernists look to Nietzsche
(1844-1900) for inspiration. Contemporary Christian theologians who are
reluctant to defend or try to justify Christian doctrine, some of whom
even admit agnosticism, find common cause with the postmodernists. [27]
Postmodernist writings do not really offer the theologian a set of
philosophical questions of relevance to theology as we found with the
philosophy of religion. Instead, the postmodernist offers consolation to
the fideist theologian for his reluctance to attempt to show that his
beliefs are reasonable and excuses for not engaging in the reasoned
defense of the truth of his beliefs.

Postmodernism is not a philosophy, but an intellectual
movement against philosophy as traditionally understood. Traditionally,
the term philosophy functions as an encomium-it is not merely descriptive,
but has a strong evaluative sense. To imply that postmodernist thought is
not philosophy, but anti-philosophy, is to express allegiance to the
traditional ideal of philosophy as love of sophia, as a quest for the
truth which the postmodernists find somewhat preposterous. In castigating
postmodernism as anti-philosophy; however; I do not mean to be dismissive.
Postmodernism is a very important trend which has had a profound influence