Abstract

This dissertation contends that the inarticulate but implicit philosophical substructure of Twelve-Step Programs is congruent with American Pragmatism developed by Charles Peirce and William James, and that attempts by current Christian writers to assimilate the insights of Twelve-Step Programs fail because they do not take that substructure into account. At its conclusion, it proposes more integral ways of bringing Twelve-Step Program Theory and Christian Theology into conversation. ;Current Christian appropriations tend to proceed by renaming the Higher Power as God, or by renaming addiction as sin. They also, following the paradigm of personal salvation, tend to individualize the understanding of recovery. In doing so, they fail to grasp the constitutive force in Twelve-Step Program Theory of physical addiction, of theological reticence, and of group reflection. In Twelve-Step Programs, these elements necessarily focus the attention of those in recovery on bodily habits and away from metaphysical speculation or rigidity, at the same time that they acknowledge human continuity and fallibility. ;These components, overlooked by Christian popularizations of recovery, are not only integral to Twelve-Step Program Theory, but are also characteristic of American Pragmatism. The second half of the dissertation is a study of William James and Charles Peirce and a demonstration of the intellectual congruence of Twelve-Step Program Theory with their thought. American Pragmatism provides both the interpretive tool and the coherent substructure through which Twelve-Step Program Theory can be seen, first, as intellectually cohesive and, second, as accessible to a deeper participation in theological discussions. ;The conclusion exemplifies and anticipates this more fruitful conversation between Twelve-Step Program Theory and Christian Theology. Those whose theological method has been formed in Twelve-Step Programs will consider their somatic location, their vague and fallible cognition, and their communal rationality to be foundational for their reasoning. These elements will necessarily become critiques of certain areas in traditional theology, at the same time that they will offer certain reconstructions