| Gianni Vattimo argues that religion after death of God theology, specifically the strains influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche's critique of objective moral values and Martin Heidegger's critique of onto-theology, is a religion of weakness that is moving towards secularization. He believes that strong religious ideologies are inherently violent and the only way to avoid this violence is to see to it that these structures are weaken by embracing hermeneutical nihilism as Western society's only means forward. He goes so far as to suggest that the spirit of the Christian kerygma is a spirit of weakness with the kenosis of Jesus Christ at the heart of it all. This thesis considers the implications of Vattimo's hermeneutical nihilism for religious discourse, analyzes the constructive and destructive potential of religious language, and argues that, despite the potential for violence that arises out of the use of traditional religious language, the language nevertheless remains a vital element to human experience, community, and self-understanding. To achieve this, the thesis presents Paul Ricoeur's approach to the critiques of religion and his analysis of religious language. Then it utilizes Ricoeur's dialectical hermeneutics as a model for deriving an ethics of religious discourse called the dialogical dialectic. Finally, the thesis argues that the dialogical dialectic provides a framework for utilizing religious language towards constructive ends while avoiding religious violence that concerns Vattimo and, further, that the dialogical dialectic is preferable to Vattimo's weak thought. |
