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A Re-reading of H. Richard Niebuhr’s Ethical Thoughts in the Era of Postmodernism

WooYoung Park 1

1감리교신학대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

How can we understand and explain not only Christians as social existences but human beings as moral agents by using both Christian theological structures and moral philosophical traditions in this postmodern world? To answer this question, we need to revisit H. Richard Niebuhr’s ethical thoughts because his understanding of God as the Absolute Being by which all beings exist leads us to grasp close relations between the self and others on which prevalent postmodern thoughts can be converged. Further, Niebuhr’s ethical thoughts could be reinterpreted as a possibility of having a continual dialogue with postmodern thoughts and providing them with constructively critical focal points in the following: 1) his ethical thoughts can reexamine a complementary theory in terms of responsible responses, 2) radical monotheism is the principle of being itself and rather supports a more inclusive community; while postmodernism affirms various voices, Niebuhr considers them as a whole with relativizing all the practices of social existences in the light of the relation to God as the ultimate cause and the Absolute being, 3) revelation itself is meaningful and further makes us interpret others’ stories as valuable and meaningful ones in history, and 4) his God-centered thoughts are based on God’s free and arbitrary actions in history, on which a dialogue with other religions could be carried out. To make his ethical thoughts valid in the midst of a harsh postmodern society, continual self-critical and self-corrective movements should be performed through responsible interpretations by which fitted actions can be followed.

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