什麼是神學自由主義

指主張根據某種內在動機而不按外在控制探討宗教教義的一派神學。神學自由主義始於17世紀法國的笛卡兒，其使用理性的方式來表達信仰。神學自由主義還受到許多哲學家的影響，其中包括斯賓諾莎、萊布尼茲和洛克。神學自由主義的第二階段稱為浪漫主義，流行於18世紀末到19世紀，強調發現個人的獨特性。包括哲學家盧梭、康德及神學家施萊爾馬赫等在內的哲人都在其着作中進行了闡述。神學自由主義的第三階段是現代主義，興起於19世紀中期，止於1920年代，強調進步的觀點。工業革命和達爾文《物種起源》的發表是這種思想的導因。諸如英國的赫胥黎、史賓塞和美國的詹姆斯、杜威等思想家都注重進行宗教活動的心理研究、宗教制度的社會學研究及宗教價值的哲學調查。

liberalism, theological

School of religious thought characterized by concern with inner motivation as opposed to external controls. It was set in motion in the 17th century by Rene Descartes, who expressed faith in human reason, and it was influenced by such philosophers as Benedict de Spinoza, G. W. Leibniz, and John Locke. Its second stage, which coincided with the Romantic movement of the late 18th and 19th century, was marked by an appreciation of individual creativity, expressed in the writings of philosophers such as J.-J. Rousseau and Immanuel Kant as well as of the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher. The third stage, from the mid-19th century through the 1920s, emphasized the idea of progress. Stimulated by the Industrial Revolution and by Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), thinkers such as T.H. Huxley and Herbert Spencer in England and William James and John Dewey in the U.S. focused on the psychological study of religious experience, the sociological study of religious institutions, and philosophical inquiry into religious values.