240 - The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age

The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age
By George A. Lindbeck
Philadelphia, Westminster, 1984. 142 pp. $16.95 ($9.95 paper).

In this important new book, George Lindbeck defines and presents what he calls the "cultural-linguistic" understanding of religion, a view to be sharply distinguished from the "experiential-expressive" conception which, since Schleiermacher, has dominated most Protestant theologies, and which in recent years has also become very influential in some Roman Catholic thinkers (e.g., Rahner and Lonergan). The cultural-linguistic approach, rooted in contemporary anthropological and linguistic theory, emphasizes the way in which a person's religious attitudes, experiences, and beliefs are taken over from the religious

241 - The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age

sociocultural setting in which he or she grows into maturity (as happens with language and culture generally). From this standpoint, it is a mistake to understand religious life and institutions to be most fundamentally expressions or externalizations of some deep interior inner-core of the human self (as experiential-expressivism claimed). Rather, the reverse is the case: religious inwardness is itself formed by practices, symbolism, and beliefs taken over from the religious culture within which one grows into selfhood and continues to live.

Lindbeck urges the superiority of the cultural-linguistic approach on two principal grounds: (1) It is much more in accord with contemporary social scientific theories of human selfhood, social life, and religion; and thus, if theologians think in these terms, they can enter into more significant dialogue with the social sciences. (2) It provides a more intelligible understanding (than can the experiential-expressive approach) of the reasons why theological doctrine is given such authority in many Christian communions; and thus it can effectively illuminate certain of the difficult controversies among denominations in ecumenical conversation, and can even suggest ways to address these problems. Lindbeck skillfully analyzes several such issues (for example, in Christology, mariology, and infallibility) to demonstrate this point.

A clear exposition of the theological significance of the cultura-llinguistic conception of religion has been needed for some time, and Lindbeck's achievement in this regard assures the lasting significance of his book. One might wish, however, that he had not been so intent to put his important insight so exclusively into the service of the theologically conservative enterprise of ecumenical debate, with its diverse parties all wishing to keep their theological cakes even at the very moment they are consuming them. This has two results: (a) it warps his interpretation of the theological significance of the cultural-linguistic paradigm, through suggesting that traditional doctrinal definitions can or even must have permanent standing (no linguistic grammar ever is unchanging in the way in which Lindbeck's doctrinal "grammar" is supposed to be); and (b) it thus excludes from the reader's view the genuine possibilities which a cultural-linguistic understanding opens up for critical and transformative theological work. Lindbeck, apparently, is not himself sympathetic to some of the radical criticism being brought against (what he so easily calls) the "mainstream" theological tradition-for its elitism, its oppressiveness, its suppression of alternative views, its antiquarian irrelevance. He thus does not seem to see that the cultural-linguistic approach may in fact be an even more effective vehicle for radically critical theological construction than for the sort of conservative establishmentarian uses to which he wishes to put it.

Gordon D. Kaufman
Harvard Divinity School
Cambridge, Massachusetts