Lindbeck, George

Contents

George A. Lindbeck and Postliberal Theology (Joas Adiprasetya, 2005)

George Lindbeck (1923- ) (Grant D. Miller Francisco, 1999)

George Lindbeck and the New Yale School: Mann's Quick Notes (Mark Mann,
1997)

George A. Lindbeck and Postliberal Theology

Joas Adiprasetya, 2005

Life and Career

George A. Lindbeck (1923- ) was born in China, the son of Lutheran missionaries
who were Americans of Swedish descent. He went to school in China and Korea
until he attended Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. After receiving his
B.A. from Gustavus in 1943, he moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where he
received both a B.D. (1946) and Ph.D. (1955) from Yale University. In the process
of completing his doctoral research, Lindbeck went to Toronto and Paris to study
with Étienne Gilson and Paul Vignaux, two eminent scholars of medieval thought.
Lindbeck’s dissertation focused on the issues of essence and existence in the
philosophical theology of John Duns Scotus. In 1952, while still pursuing his
doctoral degree, he was appointed to the Yale faculty, where he remained until his
retirement in 1993. In the last years of his teaching at Yale, Lindbeck became the
Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology.

Lindbeck is perhaps best known for his extensive reflections on and engagement in
ecumenical dialogue. Because of his expertise as a medievalist, he was invited as
an observer to the four sessions of the Second Vatican Council, representing the
Lutheran World Federation (LWF). Ever since the years of the council, Lindbeck
has continuously devoted his career to ecumenical dialogue, especially between
Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches. His two first books, The Future of Roman
Catholic Theology (1971) and Infallibility (1972), along with numerous articles in
many journals, reflect his interest in and commitment to the doctrinal
reconciliation of divided confessions. He has also been active in many joint study
commissions of Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue, both nationally and
internationally. Lindbeck’s longstanding engagement with the ecumenical
movement finally crystallized in his seminal work, The Nature of Doctrine:
Religions and Theology in a Postliberal Age (1984; hereafter ND). This book has
positioned Lindbeck, along with his former colleague Hans Frei, as one of the most
prominent leaders of postliberalism or the so-called “New Yale School” of
theology.

In the last decade, Lindbeck’s postliberal position has also received a great deal of
attention from evangelicals in the USA. In 1995, for instance, Lindbeck and
George Hunsinger, another advocate of postliberalism, were invited to engage in
conversation with evangelical theologians as part of the Wheaton Theology
Conference. In the last panel discussion of the conference Lindbeck expressed his
conviction that, “if the sort of research program represented by postliberalism has a
real future as a communal enterprise of the church, it’s more likely to be carried on
by evangelicals than anyone else” (Phillips & Okholm 1996, 253).

Cultural-Linguistic Approach

At the beginning of The Nature of Doctrine, Lindbeck promised his readers that
this book would be prolegomenal to a larger work on the doctrinal agreements and
disagreements among Christian confessions (ND, 8). Although the promised work
has yet to appear, The Nature of Doctrine subsequently claimed its own special
position within theological discourse. According to Ronald Thiemann,
“theologians from various theological schools, who rarely talk to one another,”
have been “engaged in serious theological conversation about this book and its
provocative ideas” (1986, 377).

Lindbeck informs us that his postliberal proposal is focused on intra-Christian

theological and ecumenical issues, yet the project is theoretically derived from
philosophical and social-scientific approaches (ND, 7). According to Lindbeck, the
insertion of non-theological methods into theological discourse is unavoidable
because, “A theory of religion and doctrine cannot be ecumenically useful unless it
is nonecumenically plausible” (ND, 8). In particular, Lindbeck draws on recent
anthropology (especially Clifford Geertz) and philosophy of language (Ludwig
Wittgenstein) to support his understanding of the nature of religion, one that he
calls a “cultural-linguistic” approach. He believes his proposal could remedy the
impasse left by two previous approaches: traditional “cognitive-propositionalism,”
for which ecclesial doctrines function as propositional truth claims objectively
pointing to realities, and modern “experiential-expressivism,” which holds
doctrines to be non-discursive expressions of inward experiences or existential
orientations. Lindbeck argues that many Roman Catholic theologians such as Karl
Rahner and Bernard Lonergan attempt to combine both approaches in their
understanding of church doctrines. The success of Lindbeck’s post-liberal theology
unquestionably relies on its plausibility as a critique of and alternative
to liberal theology. This is why in The Nature of Doctrine Lindbeck’s main
interlocutor is the “experiential expressivism” found predominantly in liberal
theologies.

In his understanding of doctrines as “communally authoritative rules of discourse,

attitude and action” (ND, 18), Lindbeck offers a new alternative for dealing with
ecumenical disagreements as well as interreligious conflict over truth claims. With
this approach, Lindbeck thinks that “reconciliation without capitulation” among
different and competing claims is possible (ND, 18).

Using Geertz’s terms, Lindbeck defines religion as the “comprehensive interpretive

scheme” through which people structure their experiences and construct their self-
identity. Thus, while the experiential-expressive model understands external
religious patterns to derive from an internally common experience, the cultural-
linguistic approach of religion understands inner experience to derive from outer
religious features. To be religious, in the postliberal perspective, therefore, is to
“interiorize a set of skills [developed by the community through] practice and
training” (ND, 35).

There are at least two consequences of this outer-inner reversal. First, innovation
occurring in any religious community must be understood to proceed from the
interaction of a cultural-linguistic system with its shifting milieu rather than from a
change of its core experience. Second, a universally inner experience of the divine
is no longer plausible, since all religious traditions are understood to be “radically
… distinct ways of experiencing and being oriented toward self, neighbor, and
cosmos” (ND, 40).

Although Lindbeck does not reject outright any comparison between traditions, he
is unsympathetic to any attempt to show that different traditions “use overlapping
sets of sounds or have common objects of reference” (ND, 41). On the contrary, a
good comparison should concern itself with grammatical patterns, with ways of
referring, and with semantic and syntactic structures (ND, 42). Thus, for instance,
to say that all religions teach “love toward God” is obviously banal and
uninteresting, since the utterance is not located within the “language game” of any
particular religion. What matters is the pattern or grammar within which the words
“love” and “God” receive their specific or contrasting meaning.

Three Types of Truth

Before discussing the nature of Lindbeck’s postliberal program or its application to

certain issues, we need to examine his understanding of truth, which is central to
his larger project. In The Nature of Doctrine, Lindbeck uses the word “truth” in
three different senses: categorial, ontological, and intrasystematic. Categorial truth
is the adequacy of an ordered set of categories to construe reality and order life.
Lindbeck often equates this kind of truth with the notion of “grammar” or
“language game” in Wittgensteinian terms. Moreover, Lindbeck seems to take a
pragmatic turn when he argues that a religion is “categorially true” when it is
“rightly utilized.” What matters to religion in the categorial sense is “how to be
religious in such and such ways” (ND, 35). Lindbeck tries to relate categorial truth
to ontological truth. He maintains, “The categorially and unsurpassably true
religion is capable of being rightly utilized, of guiding thought, passions, and
action in a way that corresponds to ultimate reality, and of thus being ontologically
(and ‘propositionally’) true …” (ND, 52). A statement, therefore, cannot be
ontologically (and propositionally) true if it is not in the first instance categorially
true.

Obviously, Lindbeck needs to pay attention to the question of “ontological truth,”

although in a strict and limited sense. For example, a statement such as “Christ is
Lord” is not merely a categorial truth statement but an ontological one as well,
since this concept is “alone adequate to what is indeed most lordly in reality” and
“implicit in the conviction of believers” (ND, 63, 69). In order to avoid the
cognitivist trap, however, Lindbeck distinguishes ontological truth from
intrasystematic truth. While the former refers to truth that corresponds to reality
through first-order propositions, the latter points to truth that coheres with whole
forms of life. Although the affirmation “Christ is Lord” is an ontological truth
statement (i.e., it is intended to correspond to the reality of lordship of Jesus Christ
in the Christian life), it would be rendered false intrasystematically if “used to
authorize cleaving the skull of the infidel,” because it would contradict “the
Christian understanding of Lordship as embodying, for example, suffering
servanthood” (ND, 64). In Lindbeck’s oft-quoted words,

[I]ntrasystematic truth or falsity is fundamental in the sense that it is a necessary

though not sufficient condition for … ontological correspondence. A statement …
cannot be ontologically true unless it is intrasystematically true, but intrasystematic
truth is quite possible without ontological truth. (ND, 64)

Thus, the cultural-linguistic approach can accept the notion of ontological truths,
not because they express first-order truths, as in the cognitivist approach, but
because they “are second-order discourse about the first-intentional uses of
religious language” used “to mold life through prayer, praise, preaching and
exhortation” (ND, 69). Bruce D. Marshall helpfully summarizes Lindbeck’s
understanding of categorial, ontological and intrasystematic truth in the following
way: “Categorial and intrasystematic truth together are the necessary and sufficient
conditions of ontological truth” (1989, 366).

Interrreligious Dialogue
Interestingly, Lindbeck discusses his understanding of truth within Nature of
Doctrine’s chapter on religious plurality. He wants to convince us that, because
interreligious encounter is a matter of truth claims, a clarification of the meaning(s)
of truth should first be established. For Lindbeck, the notion of categorial truth
provides a basis for arguing the incommensurability of the world religions; there is,
he states, simply “no common framework … within which to compare religions”
(ND, 49). In his judgment, both cognitivist and experiential-expressivist theories
unsuccessfully recognize the uniqueness of other religious traditions, a failure
which results from their very conception of truth. In the former approach, as with
exclusivism, “the final religion must be exempt from error (for otherwise it could
surpassed)” (ND, 49). In the latter approach, as with pluralism, the notion of
“unsurpassably true” is hard to discover because various traditions are recognized
as different expressions of the same basic or core experience of the divine.

In contrast to both approaches, the cultural-linguistic approach to religious

plurality affirms the unsurpassability of a religion’s truth but only from within its
own grammar of faith. The integrity and uniqueness of all religions are maintained
insofar as they are considered unsurpassably true within their own grammatical
systems. There is no neutrally commensurable reference for comparing or
evaluating religions. Using the metaphor of a map, Lindbeck argues that “there are
the various versions of the final, complete, unsurpassable map that with varying
degrees of detail and accuracy sufficiently identify the goal and the way (when
they are rightly utilized) to enable the traveler not to go astray” (ND, 52).

As for interreligious dialogue, Lindbeck argues that we should not formulate a

single ground of dialogue applicable to any and every interreligious encounter.
“There are other possible theological grounds for dialogue, varying from religion
to religions, which do not presuppose that religions share an experiential core”
(ND, 54). This is to say, consequently, that there is no “common foundation” for
religions to come together, they are “simply different” (ND, 55). However,
according to Lindbeck, Christians ought to support those from other religions in
becoming better adherents of their own traditions.

However, when Lindbeck applies this argument to the issue of the salvation of
non-Christians, the interplay of ontological, categorial and intrasystematic truth
again comes to the fore. Salvation by Christ alone seems to be the ontological truth
affirmed in Lindbeck’s discussion of the salvific status of non-Christians. Salvation
is possible insofar as somebody confesses Christ explicitly, fides ex auditu (ND,
57), and this cannot be implicitly and anonymously received, in contrast to Karl
Rahner’s “anonymous Christians.” To fit this belief into his own cultural-linguistic
perspective, Lindbeck proposes a “prospective” theory of salvation, which has
received attention and further development from other theologians such as the
Dominican Joseph A. DiNoia (1992). This theory projects the moment of
experienced salvation into the time of death or beyond death. Lindbeck suggests
that dying is “the point at which every human being is ultimately and expressly
confronted by the gospel, by the crucified and risen Lord. It is only then that the
final decision is made for or against Christ; and this is true, not only of unbelievers
but also of believers” (ND, 59).

Rule Theory and the Ecumenical Disagreements

Lindbeck’s deepest concern in his book is with ecumenical disagreements that

have occurred throughout the history of the church. What he proposes is a theory in
which doctrines function as rules—just like the notion of regulae fidei in the early
churches—enabling us to understand “how historically opposed positions can in
some, even if not all, cases be reconciled while remaining in themselves
unchanged” (ND, 18).

Just like a language always needs a grammar in order to function, so also a religion
always has a set of doctrines. Doctrines are essential for the identity of the
community, since they function as communally authoritative rules that govern
thoughts, actions, emotions, etc. In this sense, doctrines become second-order
rather than first-order devices. They can involve propositions, but within the
cultural-linguistic approach propositions do not refer to “extra-linguistic or extra-
human reality” (ND, 80); they can be ontologically true, not in the cognitivist
sense, but by virtue of being intrasystematically and categorially true. In other
words, the significance of a religion is located primarily not in propositional truths
but rather in “the story it tells and in the grammar that informs the way the story is
told and used” (ND, 80). What is most important for the church is the grammar,
rather than vocabulary, of the story (religion).

Lindbeck maintains that the Christian story remains the same at the level of rules,
though he acknowledges that it may be difficult “to grasp the notion that it is the
framework and the medium which Christians know and experience, rather than
what they experience or think they know, that retains continuity and unity down
through the centuries” (ND, 84). Yet, at the same time, doctrines are also flexible
in relation to surrounding historical changes. Change can take place as
“unconditionally or conditionally necessary, as permanent or temporary, as
reversible or irreversible” (ND, 86). For instance, while the articles of the
Apostles’ Creed have been seen as unconditional and permanent, the view of the
soul as immortal could be categorized as conditional, temporary, and reversible. In
Chapter 5 of Nature of Doctrine Lindbeck tests his rule-theory of doctrines by
applying it to the issues of Christology, Mariology, and infallibility. I omit
discussion of this chapter here to conserve space.

Faithfulness, Applicability, and Intelligibility

The last chapter of Nature and Doctrine, subtitled “Toward a Postliberal
Theology,” is the most important part of this work. Here Lindbeck articulates the
main purpose of his postliberal approach, namely, “to overcome [the] polarization
between tradition and innovation by a distinction between abiding doctrinal
grammar and variable theological vocabulary” (ND, 113). To do this, the most
important remaining task is to show how the cultural-linguistic approach could
serve three main areas of Christian theology: the systematic concern with
faithfulness, the practical concern with applicability, and the apologetic concern
with intelligibility (ND, 112). Although Lindbeck does not spare cognitivist-
propositionalism from criticism in this chapter, Jeffrey Goh notes that the chapter’s
polemic is aimed primarily at the liberal theological task and its reliance on a
universal foundation for apologetic strategies (Goh 2000, 172).

1. Faithfulness as Intratextuality (Systematic Theology)

Lindbeck formulates the task of dogmatic or systematic theology as an endeavor

“to give a normative explication of the meaning a religion has for its adherent”
(ND, 113). Systematic theology therefore deals with the issue of how to be
theologically faithful, which from the cultural-linguistic perspective means
focusing on and relying on “the semiotic universe paradigmatically encoded in
holy writ” (ND, 117). He uses the term “intratextuality” to indicate the “semiotic
universe.” To be sure, Lindbeck’s “text” or “texts” do not necessarily need to be
written. They could also be orally transmitted, pictorially represented, etc. In
discussing Karl Barth’s understanding of (intra-)textuality, Lindbeck he argues
that, “Unlike utterance or speech acts, [texts] are fixed communicative patterns
which are used in many different contexts for many purposes and with many
meanings. In their written form, texts can have a comprehensiveness, complexity,
and stability which is unattainable in any other medium” (1986, 361). Thus, what
Lindbeck thinks when he uses the term “text” is primarily the Bible.

I have postponed demonstrating the influences of Karl Barth and Hans Frei (a
former colleague at Yale) on Lindbeck’s postliberal theology. As a matter of fact,
Lindbeck’s connection to Barth comes through Hans Frei, whose close affinity to
the neo-orthodox theologian is obvious. Yet, Lindbeck refuses to allow that his
sympathies with Barth’s neo-orthodoxy put him in “ineluctable opposition to new
intellectual development” (Lindbeck 2002, 199). Thus, for Lindbeck, David
Tracy’s charge against him—“The hands may be the hands of Wittgenstein and
Geertz but the voice is the voice of Karl Barth” (Tracy 1985, 465)—is groundless
(Lindbeck 2002, 198).

Some other interpreters, such as George Hunsinger, propose that Lindbeck is best
understood as a crypto-Thomist (1993; 41-55). Although affirming his
indebtedness to Aquinas (Lindbeck 1989, 405), Lindbeck prefers to identify more
with a Lutheran perspective that assumes an ecumenically “evangelical-catholic”
outlook (2002, 282n2).
This short interruption might not seem directly related to our discussion of
intratextuality. However, Lindbeck’s desire to be identified more with ecumenism
than with Barth sheds light on this notion. Christian faithfulness might be
expressed through various theological descriptions, yet the “formal criterion of
faithfulness,” that is the intratextual norm or story, remains the same. After
opening space for diverse theologies—from the age of the catacombs to the era of
the space shuttle, from Platonism to Whiteheadianism—Lindbeck concludes with a
brief creedal statement,

Yet all these theologies could agree that God is appropriately depicted in stories
about a being who created the cosmos without any humanly fathomable reason, but
… appointed Homo sapiens stewards of one minuscule part of this cosmos,
permitted appalling evils, chose Israel and the church as witnessing people, and
sent Jesus as messiah and Immanuel, God with us. (ND, 121)

According to Lindbeck, intratextual hermeneutics interprets extratextual realities

through the lens of the biblical text, rather than translating the biblical messages
into extrabiblical languages: “It is the text, so to speak, which absorbs the world,
rather than the world the text” (ND, 118). Thus, everything is embraced by the text
and described as inside the text. Moreover, this absorption-of-the-world-into-the-
text requires what Clifford Geertz called “thick description,” which reflects the
Christian texts’ ability to describe the whole universe of meaning (ND, 115).

2. Applicability as Futurology (Practical Theology)

Practical theology, according to Lindbeck, aims to apply the Christian vision of

reality, nourished faithfully by its intratextual self-understanding, to specific
problems in the world and the church. This postliberal practical method differs
radically from that of liberal experiential-expressivists, who “start with experience,
with an account of the present, and then adjust their vision of the kingdom of God
accordingly” (ND, 125-6).

Although the liberal approach seems to be the most popular and favorite approach
nowadays, Lindbeck believes that the postliberal proposal will be more relevant in
the long run. “It is likely to contribute more to the future of humanity if it preserves
its own distinctiveness and integrity than if it yields to the homogenizing
tendencies associated with liberal experiential-expressivism” (ND, 128). In making
this argument, Lindbeck begins to build his case, presented in the in the next
section, against the liberal position.

3. Intelligibility as Skill (Apologetic Theology)

Lindbeck is aware that his position risks being criticized as relativistic and
fideistic, especially by those liberals who adopt an apologetic approach. Lindbeck
thinks that those who embrace such an approach—especially the so-called
“revisionists” such as Roman Catholic theologian David Tracy—try to discover “a
foundational scheme” through which Christians can translate their faith into
relevant terms acceptable in wider contexts. Foundationalism, in the cultural-
linguistic view, is impossible, since religions “can be understood only in their own
terms, not by transposing them into an alien speech” (ND, 129; cf. Lindbeck 1997,
429). Lindbeck’s rejection of foundationalism, nevertheless, does not mean that he
sees no need for apologetics. Rather, what he thinks is needed is an ad hoc or
nonfoundational apologetics. An ad hoc apologetics would make a case for the
plausibility of Christian faith by skillfully demonstrating the conformity of our
everyday life to the biblical world instead of by conforming Christianity to some
universal and neutral experience.

Later Development

Lindbeck’s The Nature of Doctrine has heralded a significant paradigm shift within

theological discourse in the twentieth century. It has brought many new issues to
light, whether directly or indirectly related to Lindbeck’s initial intentions. Three
issues that have drawn significant attention are: 1) the dispute between postliberals
and revisionists; 2) growing interest in the theology of religions utilizing
Lindbeck’s postliberal approach; 3) dialogue between postliberalism and
evangelical theology. The first issue has received the most attention to date; the
other two are relatively new.

The first issue relates to the question of whether it is possible to construct a public
sort of theology based on the idea of apologetics. Postliberals like Lindbeck answer
negatively, yet without abandoning the possibility of an ad hoc apologetics. David
Tracy (at least in his early works) and other revisionists have argued for a
contemporary philosophical theology that reflects on “the meanings present in
common human experience” (Tracy 1975, 34). Although some attempts to
construct a third way bridging those two poles have already come to the fore, the
dispute is not easily resolved (cf. Stell 1993; Lints 1993; Placher 1989, 154-74).

With regard to the second issue, Paul F. Knitter tells us that the postliberal
proposal has provided rich resources for discovering a fourth paradigm in the
theology of religions discussion (in addition to “exclusivism,” “inclusivism,” and
“pluralism”), one he calls “Acceptance Model” (2002, 178-91). Besides Lindbeck
himself, other theologians who belong to this group are S. Mark Heim, Joseph A.
DiNoia and Francis X. Clooney. Not only do they base their works on the
celebration of difference—“Vive la difference!”—they also propose a kind of
“good neighbor policy.”

The third issue concerns the capacity of Lindbeck’s proposal to bring the dialogue
between postliberals and evangelicals in America to a new level. The previous
debate between Carl Henry (an evangelical) and Hans Frei (a postliberal) is now
carried on by their successors in more positive and constructive ways. The
conversation between both groups—well documented in The Nature of
Confession (Phillips & Okholm 1996)—focuses on both agreements and
disagreements.

Critical Evaluations

1. Does Lindbeck Contradict Himself?

Lindbeck calls for a new way of seeing the world, of being absorbed into the
biblical world, so that the biblical world becomes the lens through which we
comprehend the whole of reality. Although this proposal is highly attractive, we
might ask whether Lindbeck contradicts himself by relying so heavily on ideas
from linguistic philosophy, anthropology, and other disciplines to comprehend and
diagnose the theological situation that he addresses. Undoubtedly, he would argue
that his use of these ideas exemplifies his ad hoc and unsystematic approach to
apologetics (cf. Lindbeck 2002, 198). But is this convincing? Is it not the case that
these allegedly “pretheological” ideas are really at the heart of his postliberal or
cultural-linguistic theology, without which his entire theological argument would
make no sense? To say that borrowing certain ideas from non-theological
disciplines constitutes an ad hoc apologetics only confuses the issue. One would
employ an ad hoc apologetics only after having constructed and identified the heart
of one’s theological perspective. In brief, Lindbeck’s use of non-theological ideas
is not as “pretheological” as he claims.

2. Is Lindbeck a Fideist? (Saving Lindbeck’s Project from Lindbeck)

Another charge often leveled against Lindbeck’s postliberal theology is that it

tends to collapse into fideism. The specific target of this charge is typically
Lindbeck’s appeal to the notion of incommensurability, which, when combined
with his notion of intratextuality, appears to be “an invitation to renascent
fundamentalism” (cf. Tilley 1989, 94-5). Although Lindbeck is aware of this
accusation (1984, 128-30), he has not really addressed it, except in his proposal for
an ad hoc apologetics as the point of connection with the non-biblical world.

While this kind of apologetics does not lack a certain kind of usefulness, it
nonetheless fails to blunt the critics’ charge of fideism (or relativism). In order to
save Lindbeck (from Lindbeck), we need to make some adjustments to his
program. Following Richard J. Bernstein, I would argue that the
incommensurability of rival intellectual paradigms (from Thomas Kuhn) does not
entail their incomparability (1983, 86). Lindbeck seems to allow for this (cf.
Lindbeck 1984, 53), which suggests that he need not be read as a hard-core or
“foundationalist” fideist. If, following Terrence W. Tilley, we distinguish relativist
fideism from its foundationalist variety (1989, 87-9), then Lindbeck and other
postliberals are better understood in terms of the former.

With regard to Lindbeck’s notion of intratextuality, Tilley correctly argues that

Lindbeck remains open to the charge of fideism because he does not clarify “the
relationship of intratextual to ‘extratextual’ meaning” (Tilley 1989, 95). In Tilley’s
opinion, the postliberals with their “pure intratextualism” fail to respect the
contextual character of social discourse when they posit “a ‘pure’ text immune
from shaping by ongoing conversation” (105). This is evident in Lindbeck’s
overreaching claim that Buddhist compassion, Christian love, and French
Revolutionary fraternité “are radically distinct ways of experiencing and being
oriented toward self, neighbor, and cosmos” (Lindbeck, 1984, 40). At the same
time, Lindbeck fails to acknowledge that even in Aquinas and Luther one finds
very different notions of the self, and that Moses’ and Jesus’ cosmoi are not the
same (cf. Tilley 1989, 96-7). Thus, Lindbeck overemphasizes the
incommensurability of Christian texts with other religious texts while remaining
silent with regard to the radical and contextual multiplicity of the Christian corpus.

Tilley’s proposal for a “dirty intratextualism” helpfully recognizes that “every

attempt at commensurability and comparison requires a ‘conversational’
discovering of how vague and formal values are materialized and concretized in
each type of conversation” (105). This proposal provides a way out of the impasse
between the revisionists, who argue for the universal publicness of Christian
theology, and the postliberals who treat the Christian corpus as unified, given,
monolith and stable, thereby failing to recognize the multiple contexts that impinge
upon and shape this corpus. Against the revisionists’ notion of universal
publicness, Tilley argues for “local” publicness. Against the postliberals’ “pure
intratextualism,” he proposes a “dirty intratextualism” that respects the importance
of contextual conversations. This modifies Lindbeck’s undeveloped notion of ad
hoc apologetics, which appeared to require a unified, stable starting point, to allow
for multiplicity and contextuality. It also accords well with William
Werpehowski’s claim that theological apologetics must proceed “from particular
and perhaps partial areas of convergence toward justification” (1986, 287).

3. Is Lindbeck an Exclusivist? (A Christian Future for non-Christians?)

As mentioned above, Lindbeck proposes an interesting “prospective” soteriology

with regard to non-Christians, one in which they would be granted the possibility
of salvation postmortem. We might ask whether this prospective soteriology is
consistent with Lindbeck’s cultural-linguistic overview. At first sight, the answer
appears to be “No.” The prospective theory looks like a betrayal of Lindbeck’s
own understanding of truth in categorial and intrasystematic terms. Is it not the
case within this prospective approach that, in the end, the non-Christian would be
assimilated into Christian grammar of salvation? Do the maps provided by other
religious traditions merely mark out various paths that all end at a single, final gate
to salvation, Jesus Christ? If so, then Lindbeck’s proposal turns out to be a
“postponed inclusivism” (or, perhaps, a postponed exclusivism?).

My critique is similar to that of Kenneth Surin, who accuses Lindbeck of harboring

a “meta-soteriology.” Surin argues that we can find in The Nature of Doctrine an
implicit vision of salvation in Christ: because fides ex auditu becomes the
requirement for salvation, all would need to be in the church in order to receive or
reject Christ (1988, 196-7). This would appear to be the implication of the
following claim by Lindbeck: “[T]here is no damnation—just as there is no
salvation—outside the church. One must, in other words, learn the language of
faith before one can know enough about its message knowingly to reject it and thus
be lost” (1984, 59). Surin argues that Lindbeck can be considered an
“eschatological universalist who is nonetheless wedded to the exclusivist criterion
of an explicit confession of Christ on the part of all who are candidates for
deliverance” (1984, 206n12).

Conclusion

George A. Lindbeck’ book, The Nature of Doctrine, has powerfully emphasized

the necessity of guarding and articulating the distinctive identity and voice of the
Christian viewpoint in the contemporary world. By undermining the plausibility of
a universal foundation of common experience and of the adequacy of cognitive
propositionalism, postliberal theology enables the adherents of different religions
to engage their own systems of meaning on their own terms. This proposal has
enriched Christian theological discourse and has given rise to many important
debates. It is still too early, however, to decide whether or not postliberal
intertextualism will survive as a viable theological option. The answer depends on
the ability of its proponents to defend their basic principles, make necessary
adjustments, and respond to contemporary issues. This, obviously, requires their
willingness to enter into continued dialogue with other theological systems.

Works Cited

Bernstein, Richard J. 1983. Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science,

Hermeneutics, and Praxis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
DiNoia, Joseph A. 1992. The Diversity of Religions: A Christian
Perspective. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.
Goh, Jeffrey C.K. 2000. Christian Tradition Today: A Postliberal Vision of
Church and World. Louvain: Peeters Press & Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company.
Hunsinger, George. 1993. “Truth as Self-Involving: Barth and Lindbeck on
the Cognitive and Performative Aspects of Truth in Theological Discourse.”
In Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 61: 41-55.
Knitter, Paul F. 2002. Introducing Theologies of Religions. Maryknoll, New
York: Orbis Books.
Lindbeck, George A. 1984. The Nature of Doctrine: Religions and Theology
in a Postliberal Age. Louisville & London: Westminster John Knox Press.
_____________. 1986. “Barth and Textuality.” In Theology Today, 43: 361-
76.
_____________. 1989. “Response to Bruce Marshall.” In The Thomist, 53,
no. 3: 403-6.
_____________. 1997. “The Gospel’s Uniqueness: election and
Untranslatability.” In Modern Theology, 13:423-50.
_____________. 2002. “Foreword to the German Edition of ‘The Nature of
Doctrine’.” In George A. Lindbeck, The Church in a Postliberal Age. Edited
by James J. Buckley. Grand Rapids, Michigan & Cambridge, UK: Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Lints, Richard. 1993. “The Postpositivist Choice: Tracy or Lindbeck?”
In Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 61: 655-77.
Marshall, Bruce D. 1989. “Aquinas as Postliberal Theologian.” In The
Thomist, 53, 3: 353–402.
Phillips, Timothy R. & Okholm, Dennis L., eds. 1996. The Nature of
Confession; Evangelicals and Postliberals in Conversation. Downers
Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press.
Placher, William C. 1989. Unapologetic Theology: A Christian Voice in a
Pluralistic Conversation.  Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox
Press.
Stell, Stephen L. 1993. “Hermeneutics in Theology and the Theology of
Hermeneutics; Beyond Lindbeck and Tracy.” In Journal of the American
Academy of Religion, 61 Wint 1993: 679-702.
Surin, Kenneth. 1988. “’Many Religions and the One True Faith’: An
Examination of Lindbeck’s Chapter Three.” In Modern Theology, 4: 187-
208.
Thiemann, Ronald F. 1986. “Response to George Lindbeck.” In Theology
Today, 43: 377-82.
 Tilley, Terrence W. 1989. “Incommensurability, Intratextuality, and
Fideism.” In Modern Theology, 5, no. 2 (January):87-111.
Tracy, David. 1975. Blessed rage for Order: The New Pluralism in
Theology. New York: The Seabury Press.
_____________. 1985. “Lindbeck’s New Program for Theology: A
Reflection.” In The Thomist, 49: 460-72.
Werpehowski, William. 1986. “Ad Hoc Apologetics.” In Journal of
Religion, 66, no. 3 (July): 282-301.

George Lindbeck (1923- )

Grant D. Miller Francisco, 1999

While in recent years the name of George Lindbeck is most commonly mentioned
in connection with "postliberalism" or "the Yale school" of theology, for most of
his career he was known primarily as a medievalist and, above all, as a theologian
at the forefront of ecumenical dialogue. Born in Loyang, Honan, China in 1923 to
American Lutheran missionaries of Swedish descent, Lindbeck spent his early
years in China and Korea. As an undergraduate he attended Gustavus Adolphus
College in Minnesota, graduating in 1943. He received his BD from Yale
University in 1946, and his Ph.D. from Yale in 1955. Lindbeck's early scholarly
interests were in the medieval period. He studied in Toronto and Paris with Etienne
Gilson and Paul Vignaux, and wrote his doctoral dissertation on essence and
existence in John Duns Scotus. He then took a job teaching at Yale in 1952 and
remained there throughout his career, retiring in 1993.

Lindbeck's early scholarship and writing focused on medieval philosophy and

theology, but he soon developed a major interest in ecumenical dialogue,
especially Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue. Lindbeck was sent to be an
observer at Vatican II for the Lutheran World Federation during all four sessions
(1962-65). Two of his early books, The Future of Roman Catholic Theology (1970)
and Infallibility (1972), grew out of this interest in matters ecumenical. Over more
than two decades he remained active in both American and International Lutheran-
Roman Catholic dialogues, co-chairing several Joint Commissions, and earning
himself a reputation as a careful and capable ecumenical scholar. David Tracy
refers to him as "the major theological contributor in North America to genuine
ecumenical dialogue among the major confessions" (Tracy, 461).

It was ostensibly to solve an ecumenical problem that the work for which Lindbeck
is best known was written. How can it be, he asked, that over and over again in
recent ecumenical dialogues the participants can claim to be in basic agreement on
such matters as the Eucharist, ministry, justification, or the papacy, and this despite
the fact that each side continues to cling to their historic convictions? (15). Surely
there is something inadequate about our way of conceptualizing what sort of things
doctrines and dogmas are: "Doctrines, in other words, do not behave the way they
should, given our customary suppositions about the kinds of things they are" (7).
Lindbeck formulates his answer to this problem in The Nature of Doctrine, but the
import of this book far exceeds its impetus. In this brief yet tightly-argued work,
Lindbeck sets forth a cultural-linguistic theory of religion, a regulative notion of
doctrine, and a postliberal vision of theology. I will deal with each of these three in
turn.

In order to understand what a doctrine is, argues Lindbeck, one has to understand
how it functions within a religion. But there are differing theories as to what a
religion is, and consequently differing ideas about how religions and doctrines are
related. Lindbeck divides the field into three types of theories of religion: the first
two (the propositional and the experiential-expressive) serve as foils to the third
(the cultural-linguistic) which is Lindbeck's own position. The propositionalist,
according to Lindbeck, "emphasizes the cognitive aspects of religion and stresses
the ways in church doctrines function as informative propositions or truth claims
about objective realities" (16). This was the theory presupposed by the classical
orthodoxies of premodernity. Such an approach became discredited under the
onslaught of, among other things, Kant's critical philosophy and the historical-
critical method. In its place arose Schleiermacher's reinterpretation of doctrines as
"accounts of the Christian religious affections set forth in speech" and the liberal
theologies which Schleiermacher spawned (Hefling, 52).

This modern liberal experiential-expressive approach "interprets doctrines as

noninformative and nondiscursive symbols of inner feelings, attitudes, or
existential orientations" (16). At the heart of the experiential-expressive theory of
religion, then, is the priority of religious experience over its objectification and
expression. This fundamental religious experience gets named in various ways,
from Schleiermacher through Otto and Eliade up to Bultmann, Tillich, Rahner,
Lonergan, and Tracy. While they may go about it in different ways, "thinkers of
this tradition all locate ultimately significant contact with whatever is finally
important to religion in the prereflective experiential depths of the self and regard
the public or outer features of religion as expressive and evocative objectifications
(i.e. nondiscursive symbols) of internal experience" (21).

Over and against both propositional and experiential-expressive theories of

religion, Lindbeck proposes his own cultural-linguistic theory. Actually, as he
admits, such a theory is not of his own making. On the cultural side it finds its
lineage in Marx, Weber, and Durkheim. On the linguistic side it is rooted in the
reflections of Wittgenstein. It has been applied to the study of religion by Clifford
Geertz (20). While such an approach has been gaining currency among
nontheological scholars of religion, the experiential-expressivist approach remains
firmly entrenched among theological circles. Lindbeck argues that there are
cultural pressures which work in favor of the experiential-expressivist approach.
Such an approach meshes nicely with the contemporary individualistic consumer
approach to religious truth, in which "Religions are seen as multiple suppliers of
different forms of a single commodity needed for transcendent self-expression and
self-realization" (22).

In Lindbeck's cultural-linguistic view, religions are seen as "comprehensive

interpretive schemes, usually embodied in myths or narratives and heavily
ritualized, which structure human experience and understanding of self and world"
(32). Fundamentally, the cultural-linguistic approach reverses the priorities of
experiential-expressivism. The experiential-expressivist sees religious experience
as prior to its expression in myth, narrative or ritual. The cultural-linguistic
approach, on the other hand, sees religious experience as derivative of a religion's
expressive and communicative symbol systems. "On this view, the means of
communication and expression are precondition, a kind of quasi-transcendental
(i.e., culturally formed) a priori for the possibility of experience" (36). Just as
language exists prior to the individual, such that the individual must learn the
language before participating in the world that it makes possible, so religions exist
prior to the individual, and it is through becoming familiar with their stories,
myths, and rituals that religious experience is made possible: "to become
religious--no less than to become culturally or linguistically competent--is to
interiorize a set of skills by practice and training" (35).

Given a cultural-linguistic theory of religion, in which a religion can be conceived

of as analogous to a language, it makes sense to conceive of doctrines as analogous
to grammatical rules. This is what Lindbeck means by a regulative notion of
doctrine. Understood in this way, doctrines are not first-order statements about, for
example, God, or Christ, or the Church; rather, they are second-order statements
which provide the rules for speaking about God, Christ, Church, etc. As such, they
make intrasystematic, not ontological, truth-claims (80). Just as the grammatical
rules of a language only make claims about how the language in fact works and not
about extra-linguistic reality, so doctrines have to do with the correct usage of
theological statements without making ontological claims.

Lindbeck finds warrant for such a regulative notion of doctrine in Bernard

Lonergan's argument that Athanasius understood consubstantiality as a proposition
about propositions (in other words, a grammatical rule): whatever is said of the
Father is said of the Son, except that the Son is not the Father (94). Lindbeck then
generalizes this argument to cover all doctrines. For instance, Lindbeck thinks it
plausible to construe the four centuries of Trinitarian and Christological
development leading up to Nicaea and Chalcedon in terms of three regulative
principles: (1) the monotheistic principle: there is only one God; (2) the principle
of historical specificity: the stories of Jesus refer to a particular human being; (3)
the principle of Christological maximalism: "every possible importance is to be
ascribed to Jesus that is not inconsistent with the first rules" (94). Each of the early
heresies (Docetism, Sabellianism, Arianism, Nestorianism, etc.) was felt to by the
Christian community to violate the limits defined by these three regulative
principles. The process of creedal formation was essentially the elimination of such
"cognitive dissonance." Lindbeck goes on to discuss the Marian dogmas and
infallibility in order to show the applicability of a regulative notion of doctrine.

Having advocated a cultural-linguistic theory of religion and an regulative notion

of doctrine, Lindbeck turns in his last chapter to the implications of these views for
theological method. Here he articulates a postliberal vision of theology. Whereas
an experiential-expressivist model of religion suggests an extratextual method in
which religious meaning is located "outside the text or semiotic system either in
the objective realities to which it refers or in the experiences it symbolizes" (114),
a cultural-linguistic model favors an intratextual method. "Intratextual theology
redescribes reality within the scriptural framework rather than translating Scripture
into extrascriptural categories. It is the text, so to speak, which absorbs the world,
rather than the world the text" (118). The proximate source for such a conception
of the theological task is the work of Lindbeck's fellow Yale colleague, Hans Frei,
and his book The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (1974). There is a more remote
source as well. As David Tracy remarks: "The hands may be the hands of
Wittgenstein and Geertz but the voice is the voice of Karl Barth" (Tracy, 465).
Lindbeck indeed points to both Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar as
theologians who, rather than translating the Bible into alien conceptualities, are
able to redescribe or enfold the world which they encounter into biblical terms
("Scripture, Consensus, Community," 98-99).

Lindbeck is well aware that by abandoning the liberal project of translating the
Biblical message into contemporary conceptualities, he is calling for at least a
degree "sociological sectarianism" (78). The postliberal method of preaching the
gospel will look more like ancient catechesis than modern translation (132).
Lindbeck is betting that in a post-Constantinian church, it may be that the most
viable Christian communities will be those which are best able to socialize their
members into a particular outlook, one which takes its bearings from the Biblical
narrative, and seeks to redescribe the world from that vantage point.

Bibliography

Selected Primary Sources

George A. Lindbeck. The Future of Roman Catholic Theology (Philadelphia:

Fortress Press, 1970).

. Infallibility [The Pere Marquette Theology Lecture] (Milwaukee: Marquette

University Press, 1972).
. The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal
Age (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1984).

. "The Story-Shaped Church: Critical Exegesis and Theological Interpretation"

in Scriptural Authority and Narrative Interpretation, ed. Garrett Green
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 161-178.

. "Scripture, Consensus, and Community" in Biblical Interpretation in Crisis, ed.

Richard John Neuhaus (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1989), 74-101.

Selected Secondary Sources

Charles C. Hefling, Jr. "Turning Liberalism Inside-Out," Method: Journal of

Lonergan Studies 3.2 (October, 1985), 51-69.

Bruce D. Marshall, "George Lindbeck" in A New Handbook of Christian

Theologians, ed. Donald W. Musser and Joseph L. Price (Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 1996), 271-277.

Gordon E. Michalson, Jr. "The Response to Lindbeck," Modern Theology 4:2

(January 1988), 107-120.

David Tracy. "Lindbeck's New Program for Theology: A Reflection," The

Thomist 49.3 (July 1985), 460-472.

George Lindbeck and the New Yale School: Mann's Quick

Notes
Mark Mann, 1997

Theological Task: Confessional Theology

1. Theology should be distinguished from and related to both first-order

practice and doctrines
2. Doctrines are primarily rules for speech about God and Christ rather than
first-order speech about God and Christ

Three aspects of theology

1. Dogmatic: attempts to give normative explication of the meaning a religion

has for its adherents
 2. Practical: aims to apply the community’s overarching vision of reality to
specific problems in the church and the world in ways that are both faithful
to the community’s vision and relevant to the problems at hand
3. Foundational: (apologetic) aims to show how the worldview and ethos of the
community is intelligible and credible

Theology’s Commitments

1. Theology should be done in a spirit that is generous in spirit and critical in

engagement
2. Theology should "used all that can be used," it should aim to construct a
comprehensive vision of the world which does not ignore but rather tries to
make Christian sense out of apparently alien beliefs and practices
3. Primacy is given to the scriptural "narrative" (Hans Frei): the Bible is
unified by a complex but coherent narrative which centers on the persona l
agent Jesus, the Bible should not be read by attempting to impose a foreign
or independent interpretive framework upon it (remythologizing?); it should
be read self-referentially in order to construct a comprehensive vision of life
and reality
4. Judgements of truth and falsity are ultimately judgements about the
coherence of beliefs and practices with the Christ-centered world depicted in
Scripture; Christian visions will display their truth precisely by their ability
to make sense of and to hold true, on their own terms, the ever varied claims
to truth that Christian community encounters (?)
5. Both the academy and the church are best served when service to the church
comes first