Abstract

This thesis discusses both Tillich and Gadamer to demonstrate that Gadamer's hermeneutical method can respond successfully to concerns that Tillich tries to meet with appeals to absolutes. Gadamer's hermeneutics avoids absolutism without collapsing into relativism. Tillich argues for a modified ontological foundationalism and Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics supplements the inquiry by dealing with the contextualization of justified beliefs. ;Tillich seeks to ground the certainty of faith in ontological structures because of his mistrust of the contingency of the situation of human experience. However, his absolutism is modified by his depiction of truth as always comprehended in a concrete, experienced situation. Gadamer is more interested in the tradition which conditions our interpretations, and he exhibits trust in the circumstances and structures of our experience. We argue that Gadamer's mitigated relativism does not lead to a determinate meaning in interpretation, rather, it becomes an opening for the truth through a fusion of horizons. The double perspective created by a synthesis of Tillich and Gadamer articulates and justifies a broad perspectivism concerned with the play within the tradition. The double perspective exploits 'play' for the purposes of discovery and through this process an understanding for theological hermeneutics is created about the dialectic of language and contingency.