THEOLOGY

Story is a closed and well-defined entity, deeply influenced by the modern communication system.
Intertextuality  Tied to a particular worldview, religious stories (like other forms of literature), can
receive hospitality in the repertoire of other believers, especially when these stories excel in literary quality
and when they present some integration on the levels of their theological, the moral, and the spiritual
teachings. If these motifs are able to strike the popular imagination, they usually generate further
narrations in a continuing process of cross-references. The Bible, like other sacred books, is the result of
processes of transmission, reworking, interpretation and redaction. The Bible appears to be in the form of
multilayered aggregates. According to Michael Fishbane, the themes, legends, and teachings are deposits
of tradition (always adapted to new situations and combined in new ways), are studied in order to trace
their origins or attribution to certain locales and to show the integration with more comprehensive units.
The Bible is the result of an adaptation of preceding narrative materials, some of them of foreign origin, and
it is the root of a continuing process of reinterpretation and creation of further narratives. This process of
continuing reinterpretation is evidence of the need to preserve, render contemporary, or otherwise
reinterpret these teachings or traditions in explicit ways for new times and circumstances. The influence of
the biblical texts and of the traditions that they generated was not restricted only to the sphere of the
religious heritage. The Bible appears to be a crossroads of narrative and religious references: in fact, the
Jewish repertoire of religious stories has somehow influenced the literary production in other religious
universes. Genesis is the most apt to be studied comparatively: it presents a stratification of literary
material inspired by various sources, often from the sacred literature of the surrounding peoples. It then
seems to have generated further narrations, influencing other religious environments.

THE TALE OF JOSEPH AS A METAPHOR FOR COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY

According to Maurice Bloomfield, the story of Joseph belongs to the type known in general literature as the
Fortunatus type. The child of fortune is possessed of intrinsic and magical qualities that point to a high
career. This threatens to interfere with others’ fortunes and arouses others’ envy and malice. He is also
endowed with unusual bodily charms, which may entangle him in amorous adventures that are, by the
terms of his character, foreign to his inclination. The tale of the seduction of a just man (as we read of
Joseph in Genesis 38) occurs abundantly in the universal literature. Chapters 37–50 of Genesis have played
an essential role in the history of Israel and its vast literature. In Christian liturgy, Joseph became widely
adopted in various typological readings as a figura Christi. Already in the pages of the New Testament, the
story of Joseph is recalled as a paramount. The role of Islam in representing the story of Joseph was also
significant. Besides Sura XII, which is a whole narrative chapter dedicated entirely to a single character, the
Muslim variants of this tale are many. The story also reached India, Central Asia, Tibet and China. The
interpretations of Joseph’s tale focus on the hidden aspect of his physical and spiritual traveling . The story
traveled through space and time until it became one of the best known biblical accounts retold throughout
history. The term “journey” becomes “pilgrimage”. The tale represents an idea that is simultaneously
psychological, cultural, and religious, always open to evolution. This process is a recreation of the self in the
encounter with others and the searching for a new communion with God in facing different representations
of the divine. For all these reasons, Joseph’s journey is suitable for visualizing both the nature and the
scope of comparative theology, in its crossing the boundaries of other worldviews and religious
representations. Studying the multiple reinterpretations that a tale has achieved and the ripple effects that
it has generated in other contexts, will permit us to detect:
1. What in the new versions remained unchanged. If something was accepted, this mean that it has
been perceived as ideologically consonant with the worldview of the tradition into which the story
has been adopted and this at the theological level is relevant.
2. The variants in regard to their contexts. They permit us to consider the nuances and the
particularities of other religious worlds in the form of some distinct spiritual intuitions.
DEFINITION OF COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY
Comparative theology is a discipline that can help today’s Christians deepen the understanding of their own
faith while recognizing other religions, which are approached for their own value, status, and
distinctiveness.
Comparative theology has had to defend itself from the accusation of cultural narcissism (it searched
different belief systems, as though they were mirrors, for the features and traces of the truth glimpsed in
Christ); and hegemonism (it imposed the religious categories proper to Christianity on all other spiritual
paths). It is improbable to speak of comparative theology as a clearly established and autonomous
discipline, because comparative theology positions itself somewhere between theology and religious
studies, it leaves itself open to charges of inconsistency and hybridism from both sides. The major positions
on the role and the identity of comparative theology divide the various thinkers and their projects into four
major groups:
1. Removing the Coat  Theologians, from all the Christian confessions, who are manifestly
suspicious of comparative theology. They are convinced that accepting that a faith orientation
different from one’s own has something to offer to theological reflection leads to relativism.
(Ratzinger)
2. Ripping the Coat  Those scholars in both religious studies and theology who agree in defending
the necessity of keeping a clear distinction between their respective areas. For them, without some
notable boundaries between these two disciplines, any successful outcome of their research would
be impossible.
3. The Patchwork Coat  Those who tend to minimize or negate these antitheses; “Deconstruction”:
they intend to unveil the incoherence of the modern essentialist attitude which reifies complex
cultural systems and cumulative traditions in very simplistic ways as, for example, “Buddhism ,”
“Hinduism,” “Zoroastrianism,” or “Confucianism.”
4. The Coat of Fine Linen  Those who want to strive to bridge those oppositions. Four Sub-grups :
- The comparative behavior must be included in any theological research;
- Willing to draw ideas from other disciplines such as the philosophy of religion, religious studies,
and the history of religions, to establish comparative analyses between two or more systems of
beliefs;
- The ones who immerse themselves deeply in the philosophical and theological traditions of
another religion, without betraying or abandoning their faith position. Knowledge of the other
tradition as objective as possible;
- Underline the contradictions between comparative theology and the theology of religions, and
invoke a renewed reciprocity among these approaches that they see as compatible.
Which position in our current times is the most coherent for comparative theology? The term “theology”
can barely be applied to all religious traditions without asking for further reflections. For this reason, the
term “comparative” opens to multiple interpretations. To untangle the conflict between the different
positions, we can use the fairy tales. Stories touch and represent the core of our existence and its meaning:
Which story do I find myself part? If Comparative theology is able to contemplate this interrogative, it will
inherit the transformational power of the same stories. Otherwise, it will prove to be just a fairy tale.
1. Comparative theology  Snow-white
2. The Evil queen = Scholastics
3. The winter = time of a frozen conflict between Christians and Muslims
This framework focus on two particulars:
1. the clash of civilizations that the crusades precipitated
2. a holistic idea of truth shared by all the religious communities of the Mediterranean area in the
Middle-Ages

Thomas Aquinas
His view of Islam is quite derogatory: Similar to the first theologians who confronted Islam, Aquinas tends
to classify Muhammad’s movement among the heresies that deviated from the Christian path. Thomas’
view was the faithful illustration of a cultural trait that characterized the era he lived in and that was
marked by the many violent religious and political struggles of the times. Significantly, the bloody Old
Testament reports of the Jewish conquests and retaliations against the Gentiles were exploited by
numerous preachers to beat the drum for the “Holy War.” Moreover, some ambiguous New Testament
texts, like Matthew 10:34 (“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to
bring peace, but a sword”) were cited as scriptural testimony for the necessity of the crusades.
Three conditions of gazing through a window:
1. the sensitivity of the observer, which in turn derives from biological, psychological and cultural-
historical conditions;
2. the actual shape of the window as it relates to the whole architecture of the building;
3. The landscape that lies beyond and can be modeled in different ways, depending on climatic,
geographic and cultural factors.
We must keep in mind these conditions when we gaze through history.

THE MIDDLE AGE

Three opposing religious worldviews coexisted while confronting each other based on the same
philosophical precepts. Sometimes the intensity of this competition gave birth to impressive, cultural
achievements, but at other times, it was the catalyst that fostered more violence and intolerance.
Recurring elements like the presence of walls and city gates are generally discernable in the various layouts
of medieval cities. These elements were full of symbolic connotations from previous eras and cultures and
served the vital function of arranging social life. They defined the centers of religious and political power
and ensured public order and safety. Cathedrals progressively became the fulcrum of city life: were
reinterpreted as the threshold that distinguished and defended Christendom from intrusive and alternative
religious views. Medieval soteriology saw the church as the only sure way to salvation. The Middle Ages
was an era of fusion and exchange of peoples and of travel and exploration.

THE FIFTEEN CENTURY

Era of contrasting shades and intense desires. Collapse of the feudal system and the foundation of the
modern state. The beginning of the Renaissance is marked by the expulsion of Jews from Spain; the defeat
of the Muslims in Granada; the Turkish expansion in Eastern Europe after the fall of Constantinople; the
inauguration of the colonial era; the opening of new trade routes; the circumnavigation of Africa, and the
discovery of the New World. The persistent influence of the medieval world collides with the occurrence of
new perspectives and philosophical approaches and the crisis of Scholasticism. A renewed interest in the
Greek and Latin classics, the foundation of modern philology. Regarding religion:
 the dominion of the Inquisition and the ferocious struggle against witchcraft, occultism, and heresy;
 the premises of Reformation in Northern Europe;
 the decadence of the institution of the papacy and the controversies with the conciliarist party;
 the violent incessant conflicts among Christians, Jews, and Muslims;

De Pace fidei by Nicholas of Cusa

It presents a discussion on multiple religious and philosophical themes among various characters who , as
the representatives of the major religious denominations and sects of that time, give voice to their
respective views. Symbolically, this discussion starts in heaven and then takes place in Jerusalem, the holy
city par excellence. The main points of it are:
1. a general agreement among all confessions can be pursued in the matter of rituals and devotions as
well;
2. the variety of rites can be tolerated;
 3. All the differences are related to the mere practice of rituals without affecting the fundamentals of
the worship of the one God, who beyond the variety of religious forms is universally accepted,
then, on this basis it is realistic to promote harmony among the religions.

Multiplicity is the main characteristic of reality. Complicatio: everything is already present in the word.
Explicatio: the “disclosing” of ideas out of the word. The discipline of comparative theology was born in
1699, thanks to James Garden (minister of the church of Scotland). Comparative theology is counterpart of
ABSOLUTE THEOLOGY (That knowledge of religion that considers its object only as revealed and instituted
by God). COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY: The respective knowledge of religion which ponders the importance of
things belonging to religion and teaches to distinguish the accessories of religion and the principals, the
circumstantial and substantials, the means and their ends. Although all the parts of the Christian religion
are revealed by God; and, that they are directed to the glory of God and the salvation of men: yet they are
not all of the same weight and importance. Garden classifies the parts of the Christian religion in three
ranks:
4. things that “are necessary and infallible” (such as faith in Jesus Christ)
5. things that “are necessary, but not sure and infallible” (such as the holy Scriptures)
6. things that “are neither sure and infallible, nor necessary” (such as Pastors, religious societies)
Garden’s lesson remains valid: the scandal of diversity can bring as an unexpected positive outcome—other
than the atrocity of violence—the appropriation and the deepening of one’s own faith. Like Snow-white,
who is as white as snow, as red as blood and has hair as black as ebony. Comparative theology was born
during the criticism toward ecclesiastical institutions progressively transmuted into a more general
disillusionment toward all religions; the proclamation of the victory of reason over any form of superstition;
the emergence of the idea of science as founded on the experimental basis and the idea of falsification and
the primacy of the individual over all authorities and hierarchies of any kind.

THE ROMANTIC ERA

Romanticism had a special fascination regarding nature, human feelings and the universal sense of infinity,
art, and inspiration. It stimulated a renewed interest toward religion and its related dimensions. In this kind
of cultural environment, the so-called older comparative theology was able to grow and progress.
Starting from the end of the eighteenth century, European academies and Western culture were captivated
by the massive penetration of some fascinating but mostly unfamiliar narratives and pieces of figurative art
from their colonial dominions, particularly from the Middle East and Asia. METAPHOR: The hunter doesn’t
kill snow-white because she’s too beautiful.

THE SEVEN DWARFS

(on the shoulder of the giants): scholars from the eighteenth century, who developed comparative theology
as a discipline:
1. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)  Pastor in Berlin, member the romantic circle of
intellectuals. His work “On religion” (1799) highly influenced the rediscovery of the theme of
religion, both in philosophy and theology. It’s a collection of five speeches: the second on the
essence of religion and the fifth on the multiplicity of religions and the question of religious
pluralism. Schleiermacher speaks on the essence of religion: “Religion never appears in a pure
state. The first step toward accessing the essence of religion is, to separate it from “the interference
of metaphysics and morals.” Like a diamond hidden in dirt material. Religion is able to touch “the
innermost being of every individual who breathes its atmosphere.” Second, every human being is
born with the innate capacity for religious feeling. Schleiermacher condemns the division of the
churches, he considers diversity and religious plurality “as something necessary and unavoidable”
because the multiplicity of positive religions is somehow rooted in the essence of religion itself . He
does not conceal the idea that, throughout history, Christianity was distorted by corruption.
 2. James F. Clarke (1810-1888)  A Unitarian minister and an author. Known for his battles against
slavery. He wrote “Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative Theology”, in two volumes. It is an
attempt to compare the great religions of the world with each other with the attempt to show that,
when we compare, we can see that the qualities of each become clear in contrast with those of the
others. Clarke organizes his treatise in two paths of investigation: analytical and synthetic. In the
first part, Clarke criticizes the strictness of classic Christian approach to debase the worth of other
religions. Then, presents the nature and the value of comparative theology and presents an analysis
of the ten religions. He distinguishes religions into different groups:
- “tribal religions”  the traditions and worship of the primitive peoples and which have a
lesser degree of evolution than the ethnic religions;
- “Ethnic”  those religions which are bound to a certain race or nation;
- “Catholic”  religions that have a universal destination.
Finally, he does an analytical presentation of ten religions and distinguishes each religion from the
rest, in order to compare them to see wherein they agree and wherein they differ.
Clarke conclude with a final chapter on the essence of Christianity as the chief of all of the Catholic
religions—the religion of civilized man and the future religion of humanity.
The German intellectuals were the most important actors in research on the Middle East and its languages
and religions progressed throughout the humanist era. They tried to diffuse the ancient texts from Asia,
and to translate and study them according to the criteria of historical criticism. The first Western scholars
who attempted a translation of Persian and Indian literature were:
3. Friedrich Maximilian Müller (1823–1900)  German Ideologist, philologist, and comparative
scholar of religion. He spent most of his life collecting, translating, and commenting on ancient
works from the East, formulating criteria for the scientific study of religion based on philology.
Among Müller’s works, we remember his translation of the “Ṛgveda”, the fifty-one volumes of the
Sacred Books of the East that he edited:
- “On False Analogies in Comparative Theology”  he’s skeptical about those theological
attempts to establish contacts among distant religious worlds on the sole basis of some
clichés.
- “On the Migration of Fables”  Müller retraces the Indian background of various
accounts and fables spread in all of the European traditions and seems to promote the
comparative studies of fictional recurrent motives between Eastern and Western
literature.
4. Rudolf Otto (1869-1937)  Wrote “The Idea of the Holy” (1917), in which his intention is to give
voice to the irrational in religion, a dimension that is fundamental in any experience of the divine
and that, particularly in Christian theology, is often eluded in favor of some more logical,
conceptual, and verbally transmittable conceptions.
Reductionist conception of religion:
5. Auguste Comte (1798–1857)  founder of sociology and a representative voice of positivism. He
went beyond the limits of sociology to embrace issues like the doctrine of science , the classification
of sciences, the role of history, and the divinization of the concept of humanity. Comte’s thought is
represented by the law of the three stages of human evolution: three methods of cognition and
their related worldviews: theological (the belief in supernatural beings), metaphysical (the
substitution of divinities with abstractions, the conceptions and personifications of this world’s
forces) and positive stages (the emancipation from abstractions to the benefit of a more rigorous
observation of reality and of its laws).
6. Karl Marx (1818–83)  German political philosopher, economist, and inspirer of the communist
movement. In Marx’s view religion is an expression of suffering and a human attempt to withstand,
to “protest” this suffering. His quote religion is “the opium of the people”, document Marx’s
stigmatization of religion as illusory. Marx depicted religion as a sophisticated means of social
control from the most privileged social classes. He deduces that there is a sure way to emancipate
the lowest social strata and to favor their development: by unveiling the hypocrisy of the church’s
acceptance of social injustice.
 7. Freud (1856–1939)  One of the most influential inspirers of this kind of skepticism. Freud
inaugurated a new discipline: psychoanalysis. Freud describes religion as a sort of universal
neurosis that originated from the Oedipus complex on a global scale: the comparison between the
feelings of the child toward the father and the attributes of divinity. There is a deep connection
between the obsessive disorder and some aspects of religion.

Reasons of the death of the old comparative theology (comparison with the death of snow-white by the
stepmother).
Various forms of opposition to religion mark the present time. One objection of the contemporary is that
theology is illusory and baseless, unlike empirical science (which we can identify with the stepmother).
Many empiricist approaches to religion rely on comparativism, but several cultural factors challenge
comparativism (philosophy, sociology and psychology).

The savior of Snow-white (the prince)

Francis Xavier Clooney (1950)  Prolific author of various significant comparative projects. Founder of the
school of comparative theology in Boston College. He showed interest in interreligious dialogue and
theology of religions. His work “Theology after Vedanta” is his inaugural work in comparative theology.
Collecting similarities and differences is only the starting point of the comparative enterprise. In order to
penetrate into each similarity, one should analyze and establish relationships between them , as well as sift
through similarities within differences and differences within similarities.

PURPOSES OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY:

 presenting the development of the attitudes of the churches toward religions;
 deepening the thoughts of the major authorities of comparative theology;
 Showing the conditions and the reasons for its contemporary reappearance on the theological
scene.
The new comparative theology was born as a reaction to and in contrast with the abstract theological
generalizations of modern theology of religions.

The transformational power of stories

Particularly from the point of view of a comparative Christian, theology is the important thing. The story of
salvation for those who listen to it and reshape their life according to it. It is the story of God’s beloved son.
In comparison, we must always keep in mind the ethical dilemmas. Comparison and correlation are at the
roots of semiotics: is a continuum of references. Umberto Eco (1932-2016): The possible interpretative
interaction of the receiver influences the construction and the actual value of an information. A text
postulates and foresees the reader’s cooperation as a condition for its implementation. There are two
possible outcomes of text cooperation by the reader: a legitimate interpretation that does not lose the
consistency of the literal meaning. A misinterpretation of the text, which usually derives from a hyper-
consideration either of the intentio lectoris or the intentio auctoris and triggers the meaning.

The role of Jesus for Christians

Jesus Christ is the ultimate revelation of God. He is the Logos through all things were made and the
Incarnation of the divine Word. He’s the Mediator between the divine and the humanity (a mediator who
cannot be put aside, because he IS the Father). For this reason, he not only performs in signs, he is himself a
sign. In Jesus, sign and content do not simply coexist but are united. Through his words, we have direct
access to God’s Word, but as he is himself a message, he is the sign whose referent is immediately present.
Jesus is the primordial sacrament and the sacrament of salvation. If Jesus is truly the archetypal Sign, he is
also the princeps analogatum of all signs in general (of any religious sign). From this simple assumption, we
understand the need to compare Christianity with other religious views. Christian theology must necessarily
be comparative, or it risks contradicting its own philosophical underpinnings. For this reason, signs should
be read in close connection with the cultural and religious worldviews to which they refer. Reconstructing
the cultural context of a sign implies a narrative. Semiotics shows how explicating a sign, and a metaphor
necessitates the idea of narration. A sign begins to speak with more evidence if is opportunely inserted in
its proper chain of references. Narration is implied in every sign, (especially in religious symbols), to
explicate which we need to recover the memory of a story, myth, or fable . In fact, sacred texts are
narrations in act. Sacred texts must be studied as complex symbols themselves. “Symbol” is a Greek word
that identifies an entity that connects different realities together. An experience of reality and a sensing of
its meaning generated the sacred texts. However, the contrary is also true, as the sacred texts themselves
generate a “universe” where they are performed. Theological reasons for adopting a convinced narrative
perspective:
 sacred texts are an authoritative testimony of their history and the key to the faithful interpretation
of their heritage;
 God speaks in history, and it is through history that the Logos appears and communicates to human
beings;
 History can be comprehended and preserved only when recounted.
The Logos speaks in history, so it is necessary to connect theologically the moment of the Incarnation with
the Sacred History of the Jewish people and with the history of the world. God’s message is truly universal
if it is able to connect with the traditions, the chronicles, and the folklore of all the peoples on Earth. If the
comparative and the narrative aspects are intrinsic to Christian theology, how to establish a comparison
with other religions without undermining the unique role of Jesus as the princeps analogatum of any
religious sign? The way is to make comparison among texts from different religious worlds with the
adoption of the Christian Scriptures as the source.

Three categories to use in a comparative attempt:

 Universals  constitute the “skeleton” of reality and humanity (everything, every human
experience in the universe). Recovering the universals permits us to assert the conception of
religion as an “holistic” view; it is not one possible view among others, but, in facing the problem of
the “whole” and its meaning, it dares to be exhaustive and all-inclusive. Without the recognition of
universal structures, it is impossible to compare different religious phenomena.
 Recurrent patterns  a recurrent archetype is the assimilation of sacred pillars and the symbolic
bridge between heaven and earth. These kinds of symbols are the result of the melding of some
universal structures with multiple cultural factors that are common in specific areas. It is precisely
the individuation of a universal element, in this case the earth-sky relation, that permits to identify
what is geographically and historically determined in an alleged “archetype”. Recurrent patterns
are those constant cultural and religious motifs which, being historically and geographically
determined, are fundamental universal structures.
 Heuristic categories  It is this heuristic perspective on the use of categories that permits us to
avoid the risk of hegemonism and to become fully conscious of its possibility.
To make a good comparison in theology we need:
 Flexibility
 Humility
 Commitment
 Interconnection
 Empathy
 Hospitality (intellectual honesty, creativity, and respect).
 Respect (for the subject; for the reader; for the intention of the perfomer of comparison and his or
her creativity).
Comparative theology, besides enhancing mutual understanding among cultures, can also affect negatively
the delicate relationships among the nations. For this reason, one must be aware of the possible
consequences of one’s ideas. The history of art teaches us that true masterpieces are as such since they
find profound connection and interaction with the interlocutors of their era. Similarly, a good comparative
enterprise should always speak to a concrete audience that could need such an intellectual attempt.

Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923)

Ernst Troeltsch is one of the most important figures of the German protestant theology, who influenced
entire generations of theologians. He always thought that theology was the only subject that would have
permitted him to study the interrelation among philosophy, metaphysic and history. Once he was in
Heidelberg, he started teaching systematic theology and, later, he was appointed to the chair of philosophy
of religion in the University of Berlin. During his career he got in contact with many contemporary
intellectuals. His dedication to various themes reflects both his erudition and the fertile dimension of the
German culture of his time. One of his most renowned works is The Absoluteness of Christianity and the
History of Religions, that still has much influence on current comparative theology. He was very concerned
about science and theology and their possible coexistence; if the traditional Protestant schools of thought
used to consider the personal experience of salvation the undisputed basis for Christian theology and the
self-evident witness of its veracity, then Troeltsch appeals for a new and less biased foundation: the close
interaction between theology and modern sciences becomes the most urgent accomplishment and it will
radically modify the face of theology from the aspect both of methodology and content. However, theology
can demand respect from the other sciences. It is also shown to be tenable in the wider discourse of
culture, but under one condition: that of safeguarding the autonomy of religion as a self-contained
discipline. Troeltsch shows how religion carved itself a large space in modern reflection thanks to the
historical sciences. Modernity is the era in which religion started to be studied historically and traditions
were seen in their particularities. Troeltsch invokes a similar treatment for Christianity, but he also supports
the study of religions according to psychology and sociology. Christianity must be studied from the same
perspective, in order to be coherently studied. Moreover, in this way we can easily see the absoluteness of
Christianity, Troeltsch’s theological reflection apex. By the way, even if he confirms the absoluteness of
Christianity, he also reaffirms that this absoluteness cannot be maintained as an indisputable axiom and,
from the point of view of the historical-evolutionism, gets into the analysis of the Christian standpoints in
comparison to the worldviews of some other major religious traditions. The result is the negation of the
concept of absoluteness in favour of the adoption of an alternative idea, that of superiority. The reason for
this superiority lies in the balance that Christianity shows in conceiving and connecting the elements of the
divine and the personalistic dimension which modernity treats as the quintessence of its concerns. Finally,
Troeltsch understands that in adopting the idea of superiority in place of absoluteness, there is still the
eventuality of promoting a new form of apologetics, though under disguise, and in this betraying his open
and radical loyalty to the principles of historical criticism; to obviate the problem, he comes to affirm that
superiority of Christianity can be maintained only provisionally since history leads us to think of this
actuality.

Paul Tillich
He said he lived on the boundary between theology and philosophy. He was German-American and his
stream of thought was influenced by the outbreak of the two World Wars. Tillich was born in 1889, in
Germany, so he had European roots and during the years of the gymnasium he could learn a lot about the
German poetic heritage. From this, he developed his idea of Holy, also supported by his personal religious
experiences. In 1900 he lived a turning point: he moved from his native little town to Berlin, something that
had a great impact on him. He continued studying at the Gymnasium and, one he went to Halle, he
graduated in theology. During those years he deepened his knowledge of philosophy. After First World War
he taught theology at the University of Berlin. The impact of existentialism started becoming tangible on his
thought.
During the growing of the Nazi movement, some of his works were banned and, because of his lecture
about the impact of the Jewish thinkers Spinoza and Marx on German literature, he was exiled from
Frankfurt. So he continued his career as a theology teacher in the USA, particularly in Harvard. Then he
moved to Chicago, were he lived until he died, in 1965. While he was in America, Tillich became very
popular, even thanks to his previous German works, that were translated. Some examples are The
Interpretation of History and The Protestant Era. He was an iconoclastic thinker; it means that renewal and
change were key points in his theological attitudes. His masterpiece, Systematic Theology, is the work in
which he systematically elaborates his method of correlation and establishes his culture and theology.
According to Tillich, no method can be adequate for every subject, because a methodology is often part of
the reality that one intends to measure. However, in order to build a plausible perspective of analysis, one
should have access to a priori knowledge of the object to be studied. In case if theology, the priori
knowledge is the Christian faith and symbols. So, the preferred method for systematic theology should be
the one of correlation: the main subject of analysis is culture in its multiple forms of expression. From
them, the theologian can develop the questions to which the Christian revelation offers its answers.
According to Kelton Cobb, Tillich’s theology divides in two phases:
1. Culture (not only religion) as a way to find out some traces of the divine revelation;
2. Linked to the hardness of the human heart and the powerful influence of the demonic principle on
human consciousness. This phase began during World War II.
Cobb also analyses Tillich’s prejudice against the popular lore, something that theologians use to know on
the other hand, and thinks that its roots are in the continuing influence of his philosophical formation and
his mandarin conception of Kultur. By the way, Tillich’s assessment should be mitigated by focusing on
another aspect of the evolution of Tillich’s thought: his involvement with the world religions helped him
appreciating some aspects of the popular cultures that religions enshrine and that a purely philosophical
approach could be somewhat prone to neglect. So, the rediscovery of religions and religious symbols made
him only indirectly capable of appreciating the importance of popular traditions. On the other hand, there
are also some positive effects of Tillich’s involvement with world religions: it made him abandon
provincialism to embrace new positions, in particular a better appreciation of popular culture. In particular,
he understood this aspect of life after collaborating with Mircea Eliade. Both Christian and other religious
thinkers consider Tillich as one of their major authorities, because he describes the relationship between
religion and secular as corrective and dialectic, because religion is seen as intrinsic to culture. Dialectic is
also the main perspective for understanding the traditional Christian position towards other religious
beliefs:
1. It rejects radicalism;
2. Allegiance to the Christian faith requires and attachment to the depositum fidei and the exclusion
of irenic form in considering religious views that are opposed to the Christian faith.
Moreover, Tillich’s rejection of the Christian provincialism underlines the influence that Buddhism,
Confucianism and Taoism had on him.

George A. Lindbeck
Lindbeck was born in 1923 in China. After attending the primary school, he moved to the USA and studied
divinity at Yale University. Nowadays, he is considered the founder of the postliberal theology and the New
Yale School of theology. He is also known as the inspirer of narrative theology because of his emphasis on
the regulative role of the Bible in systematics and on language; moreover, he was noted for his ecumenical
involvement, particularly in the Lutheran – Catholic dialogue. His masterpiece is The Nature of Doctrine:
Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age, that presents his reflections on doctrine, demonstrating that
they are certainly rooted in sophisticated philosophical and theological debates on the relationship among
language, culture and religion. From the study of the existing approaches to the subject of religion, in both
philosophy and theology, Lindbeck sees the recurrence of three different perspectives that he considers
equally inadequate:
 1. The propositional-cognitive model  typical of the most traditional orthodox approaches in
religious studies and theology as well as of Anglo-Saxon analytical philosophy: it emphasises the
cognitive aspects of religion and stresses the ways in which church doctrines function as
informative proposition or truth claims about objective realities;
2. The experiential-expressive model  interprets doctrines as non-informative and non-discursive
symbols of inner feelings. It makes it easy to stress the similarities of religion and to highlight them
to aesthetic enterprises. Especially, it is devoted to dialogue with contemporary cultural milieus
and to the adjustment of the Christian revelation to human thoughts and feelings;
3. The two-dimensional-experiential-expressivist model  combines the ones above. In this position,
by Rahner and Lonergan, Lindbeck identifies the thoughts of two Catholic theologians. Lonergan
replicates some parts of the position of the classicists he criticizes. Despite it, he is generally aligned
with the existential model. This is evident when he identifies sanctifying grace with a primordial
religious experience that he describes as “God’s gift of love”. According to Lonergan, religion is the
prior word God speaks to us. Lindbeck criticizes Rahner because of his theory of the “anonymous
Christian”: members of other religions should not be regarded as non-Christians, but as anonymous
Christians, if they are living out the expression of a religious tradition that, after the beginning of
the Christian mission, has been in contact with Christianity and somehow has been positively
affected by it. Rahner says that non-Christian religions can be realities within a positive history; for
this reason, they can be approached and respected by Christian potentially as a way of salvation. In
Lindbeck’s opinion, both models are unlikely to be welcomed by the adherents of other religions
since their list of proposed commonalities is shaped by Christians. He thinks that the two models
and the mixed one are incapable of understanding the single religions in their most distinctive
characteristics of studying the interconnectedness between religious truths, languages, etc….
Against these models, Linbeck gives another perspective, the cultural-linguistic one, according to which
religion is a self-subsistent, coherent and autonomous system of signs whose meanings can be deduced
through links among the signs themselves. This model stresses the degree to which human experience is
shaped and constituted by cultural and linguistic forms. There are a lot of experiences that we can perceive
only by analysing the appropriate symbol system that, according to Lindbeck, is tantamount to dealing with
language games. Lindbeck thinks that sacred texts should never been read literally, but that they are
multifaceted narratives that function as bodies and whose parts can be comprehended as meaningful only
if they are read correlatively. So, he considers the Bible as a text that speaks for itself but is also an
interpreting guide for believing communities to absorb extra-textual realities into the world of the text.
Lindbeck criticizes the models first of all because of their inadequate treatment of the Scriptures, but also
because of their conception of Doctrine, that Lindbeck considers as something regulative and not intended
to definitely enclose the truth. Actually, it only has the capacity to point out its depth in just a few words. At
last, Lindbeck contests the existential-expressive model because he considers it as insufficient to
acknowledge the weight of cultural influence. With this idea, Lindbeck begins his “post-liberal” theology,
with which he shows that liberals’ propositional model is defective but also that their theology itself is not
exhaustive. In this way, Lindbeck is considered as post-liberal, because it aims to overcome the emphasis
on individuals and personalism that is typical of the liberal approach. The new comparative theology will
promote a sort of religious bilingualism as a way of mastering another religious tradition that is approached
and studied in its complexity. This kind of theology has to distinguish itself from postliberal theology by
defending the role of the Bible, rather than favouring other kinds of narrative. Thus, Lindbeck contrasts
intratextuality with intertextuality, risking considering sacred texts as a class of monads that have nothing
in common with them. In its turn, the new comparative theology, inspiring from Lindbeck’s openness to
bilingualism, betrays intratextuality.