The main theme of this thesis is three-fold: first, the challenge to the Christian theology which concerns "provincialism." Second, the attempt to stress importance, particularly of the relation between contemporary philosophy and theology. And third, the difference between scientific knowledge and religious knowledge. More in detail, the discussion of this theme runs in turn as follows. 1. The Christian Church must be a "listening Church" to be in continual conversation with the cultural forms of the world in which it finds itself. Today a most important segment of our intellectual culture is analytical philosophy. 2. There are a number of points linguistic analysis will be able to suggest to theologians concerning the distinctively religious uses and nature of language. However, so many of our theologians seem to be either indifferent or impatient toward this type of philosophy. Why? 3. The relation of theology to philosophy has been utilitarian for many centuries. Thus, it may not be easy to establish partnership between contemporary philosophy and theology. A number of useful suggestions, however, are provided by the analysts concerning theological language. 4. A few of theologians who have been attracted by analytic philosophers seem to have been swept away by the tendency toward positivism. Thus, they claim that religious beliefs and language are non-cognitive. However, we are in line with them in the viewpoint of analysis of religious language. 5. Analysis of theological language seems to be most fruitful in analysis of the "Personal Language Game" because theological language has most in common with personal language. 6. Therefore, we focus attention on the characteristics of personal language used in speaking of God. A God we speak of is a God who reaches us as a Person. This is our personal experience. 7. The conception of religious language as personal suggests a different conception of religious knowledge from that which accompanies scientific knowledge. In personal language, explanation must be in terms of the motives or purposes of what is to be explained. Much confusion has arisen from the failure to see that causation belongs to a different language game from that in which we speak of purpose and intention. This distinction between explanation by cause and explanation by purpose is important for theological language.
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