A Study On Erich Fromm's Theory Of Faith

The discussion around religion and faith is a crucial organic component of Erich Fromm's thoughts,but both Chinese and western studies on this topic had their own limitations.This dissertation,take the evolution of Erich Fromm' s thought and the theories of domestic beliefology into account,tries constructing thetheoretical system of Erich Fromm' s study on the religion and faith with a dynamic framework that is "subject of faith——practice of faith——object of faith",and places it into the historical background of "faith crisis" which is emerging in the progress of modernization,in order to figure out its distinctiveness through the horizontal and vertical comparison.On one hand,that would offer a new perspective of interpretating Fromm' s thought,and on the other hand,bring the inspiration of solving the problem of faith in present society as a stone from the other hill.The atheistic "radical humanism" had been formed after Fromm's two transitions of thought,which are his giving up Judaism in 1926 and sublating of the orthodox Freudianism in 1937,so human became the logical starting point and the final purpose of Fromm' s study on religion and faith.Since "man's birth" begins,as a man who is an unity of body and mind,knowledge and emotion,the subject of faith is living in a situation composed of three interdependent dimensions:the natural dimension,the social and historical dimension and the existentialcontradictions dimension.Therefore,"x experience" that pursued the significance of life and pointed to the " ONE " stems from the unique situation and physiological-psychological structure and mechanism of human.Being the experiential basisof faith in one' s unconsciousness,its consciouslization and ideologicalization are restricted by society.Only can the symbolic language express its abundant implication due to the social filter effect and the cerebration of intellectual language.Practice of faith is the subject' s response to his "x experience",not only a mind state of believingand conviction,but also an exploration and practice of subject of faith with all his heart and soul for his own solution to the existential problem in the concrete social and historical conditions.The social character molded in the assimilating process and the associating process is the foundation of the practice of faith.Fromm divided the practice of faith into two sorts:rational and irrational,according to the proportion of productive orientation in the character structure.He analyzes the dialectic relationship between reason,faith and doubt by placing reason into the whole personality to.The rational faith roots from one' s understanding and trusting of his own experience,his ability to think,observe and judge,in conformity with the rational doubt.It is embodied not both in the one' s thinking and judging process and in every action of his daily life.Also,it prompts human to be self-creating continuously with hope,and that is helpful to"man' s birth".On the contrary,irrational faith is a blindly worship to a God,a person,a thought or a symbol,stemming from the submission to a irrational authority and the reception to the leading ideology instead of one's own experience of thinking or feeling.If there's a gap between the popular ideology and the main social character,one' s mind and behavior would fight against each other,so the fake faith arises.Meanwhile,Fromm discussed the freewill and the choice of faith.As a soft determinist,he admit the possibility of choosing faith,and discusses the function of rational authority such as prophets and Zen master.Object of faith is considered as the appearance of the conceptualized system of "x experience" in different social historical cultural structure by Fromm.The track of their development would be "primary totems worship——matriarchal anthropomorphic God religion——patriarchal anthropomorphic God religion——rational monotheism religion——atheism religion——the end of religion".Fromm holds that the evolution of religion is a objective process influenced by productive forces and relations,man' s mental conditions and the capabilities of reason and sentiment,and the function of each type of religion changes in different historical period.Nevertheless,the development of religion is not a latter-replacing-former linear course,but a complicated process that a type of religion dominates while the others still exists inconspicuously,with both the progress and the degeneration.According to the experience caused by the social character structure which has been molded by the social conditions,Fromm divides all religions into authoritarian and humanistic religion,and according to their affect to "man' s birth",progressive and negative religion,but that' s not the classification to the real religion,but to its features,for in any real religion,the authoritarianism and the humanism is mixed together.Finally,this dissertation tries to point out the contribution as well as the deficiency of Fromm' s theory of faith on the base of elaborating and interpreting it thoroughly.