• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.456-466
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• 2014

This is a study of George Lindbeck's postliberalism that views religion as a cultural-linguistic approach. Knowing that the conceptual-propositional approach of the traditional Christian theology and the experiential-expressive approach of liberalism cannot be a solution for the post-modem religious phenomenon, George Lindbeck proposes an alternative. He proposes a cultural-linguistic approach to overcome the previous approaches. The first insight of Lindbeck's postliberalism is to understand religion as culture or language, because human beings become acquainted with a religion as they learn a language. The second insight comes out of the first, to understand doctrine as grammar. If we understand religion and doctrine this way the troubles and conflicts among religions will be resolved naturally, because each religion can be interpreted in its own system just as a language cannot be said to be good or bad, right or wrong. This approach makes several contributions as follows: it promotes a dialogue among religions, it emphasizes practice; and it preserves the Bible as an authoritative theological text. However it also brings many limitations as follows: it emphasizes the church's interpretation rather than the text's own interpretation; it views the truth simply as coherence; it promotes radical relativism and elitism; and through theological eschatology he makes his theory return to a propositionalism. Accordingly, the researcher concludes that Lindbeck's cultural-linguistic theory of religion is not an alternative that overcomes the limitations of theological conservativism and liberalism.

• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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• v.28
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• pp.133-163
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• 2017

It is the aim of this paper to elucidate the meaning of 'Sangsaeng' in Daesoon Thought on the basis of its relation to Life and Spirit in the philosophy of Hegel. To achieve this aim, this article compares three important concepts from Daesoon Thought, namely the 'gods of heaven and earth,' 'Haewon', and 'Sangsaeng' with Hegel's 'Life,' 'Spirit,' and the 'struggle for recognition.' This paper will clarify the commonalities as well as the differences between Daesoon Thought and Hegelian philosophy. The comparison between Hegel's concept of 'life' and the 'gods of heaven and earth' shows a specific relationship between a life and a soul which is characterized by duality. The point of similarity is that the two thoughts regards the soul as the basis of all things in nature including the life itself and spirit. This is the duality of the soul in nature and spirit as the truth of nature. But the difference is that Hegel does not reduce all things in nature including life itself to the soul as the truth of nature. This paper will argue that Hegel's idea of spirit returning from nature to itself has a similarity with the essence of Haewon in Haewon-sangsaeng. Hegel insists that spirit submerges initially in nature just as human beings in Daesoon Thought have inherent Won. The realization of the spirit in the Subjective Spirit shows that the spirit sublimates this initial submergence in nature und reveals itself in corporeality. This study will suggest that this realization of spirit including the struggle for recognition may be interpreted as the meaning of Sangsaeng.