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撮要

由於隱喻(Metaphor)在意義上帶有太多想象性及模糊性，因此其功能往往受到啟蒙運動的哲學家所質疑。但自從六十年代以來，隱喻的理性元素被哲學界與神學界重新發掘。本文主要探討兩位神學家麥克法格(Sallie McFague)及岡頓 ( C o l i n Gunton)如何利用隱喻去超越啟蒙時期的理性思想而重新建立基督教神學的真實理性。在第一部分筆者會透過岡頓對麥克法格的批評，從而帶出麥克法格的隱喻神學(Metaphorical Theology)之投射性(Projectionism)與相對性 (Relativism)的問題。第二部分則引用岡頓自己對隱喻的觀點，他試圖建立一套三一神學作為隱喻的本體性基礎。因此，一方面能保存隱喻的能動性及開放性; 同時亦避免令它跌入相對主義的陷讲。岡頓這種對隱喻的觀點充分反映他重視關係性(Relational)及交往性(Interactional)的世界觀。而他也承認這種世界觀比啟蒙的二元對立的世界觀更具理性。同時也解釋了他以隱喻來重建救贖論的真實理性的原因所在。

ABSTRACT

From the view of the Enlightenment philosophers, metaphorical language is too imaginative and obscure in meaning, and thus its function is queried. In spite of this skeptical attitude to the metaphorical language, the cognitive function of metaphor is re-examined and its value has been recognized in the fields of theology and philosophy since the 1960s. This paper aims at studying Sallie McFague and Colin Gunton’s theories of metaphor because they both have the intention to go beyond the Enlightenment rationalists and reconstruct the rationality of Christian theology by way of metaphor. In the first part I attempt to comment that McFague’s over-emphasis of the protean capacities of metaphorical language would inevitably lead to the problems of projectionism and relativism by way of Gunton’s criticism. In the second part I would introduce how Gunton develop his interactionist theory of metaphor from a trinitarian perspective. Gunton insists that the trinitarian personhood of God must act as an ontological ground for metaphorical language. Therefore, on one hand, the mobility and openness of metaphor can be preserved. On the other hand, the metaphor avoids the peril of relativism by way of a good control by the trinitarian theology. Gunton’s theory of metaphor obviously reflects his relational and interactional world view, which he finds to. be more “rational” than the Enlightenment dualistic structure. Thus it explains why Gunton uses metaphor as a means to re-expound the doctrine of atonement in order to reconstruct the true rationality of Christian theology.

原載於《建道學刊》9期（1998年1月），頁49-68。