Abstract

This dissertation explores a plausible Christian approach to liberal institutions, such as human rights, democracy, and pluralism in postmodern society. It begins with critical examinations of two prominent, contemporary Christian discourses on liberalism: David Hollenbach's contemporary Catholic ethics, and Stanley Hauerwas' narrative ethics. Although both Hollenbach's and Hauerwas' ethics present some valuable insights and analyses on the nature of liberal society and its relationship with Christianity, they disclose several conceptual and practical difficulties. If Hollenbach's methodology shows an inconsistency in synthesizing postmodern historical contingency with a traditional Catholic neo-Thomistic metaphysics, Hauerwas' narrative ethics does not present any feasible proposals to the problems of order and justice. ;I argue that a more adequate and consistent methodology of Christian ethics can be constructed by incorporating Habermas' methodology of communicative ethics into a Reformed concept of "covenant". Theologically, the incorporation is mediated by a social doctrine of the Trinity. A social doctrine of the trinity provides an important historicist clue to revitalize covenantal theology in a postmodern framework, and in doing so, to incorporate Habermas' methodology. Habermas' methodology can be incorporated into a Christian trinitarian-covenantal theological framework without great difficulty because Habermas' idea of "ideal speech situation" shares a similar ethical vision of trinitarian-covenantal theology. Furthermore, the process of reaching understanding shows a striking similarity to the process of covenanting in terms of its underlying presuppositions and ideals. In communicative ethics, the process of moral reasoning proceeds through free, equal, and reciprocal discourse among all people concerned. Moral principles are legislated through consensus among participants concerning commonly affecting moral issues and concerns. ;By incorporating Habermasian methodology, the Reformed Christian idea of covenant presents a plausible approach to the problem of social order and cooperation. It responds to the needs of both ecumenical dialogue among different religions and respect for particular religious traditions and identities. This constructive model overcomes several difficulties in the ethics of David Hollenbach and of Stanley Hauerwas. A new methodology of ethics, called covenantal-communicative ethics, makes a more thorough-going appreciation of the historicity of every ethical discourse , yet without falling into the trap of relativism and fideism