Constructing Irregular Theology. Bamboo and Minjung in East Asian Perspective (Studies in Systematic Theology 1)

Constructing Irregular Theology

Studies in Systematic Theology Series Editors

Stephen Bevans S.V.D., Catholic Theological Union, Chicago Miikka Ruokanen, University of Helsinki and Nanjing Union Theological Seminary Advisory Board

Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Fuller Theological Seminary Jesse Mugambi, University of Nairobi Rachel Zhu Xiaohong, Fudan University, Shanghai Wanda Deifelt, Luther College

VOLUME 1

Constructing Irregular Theology Bamboo and Minjung in East Asian Perspective

By

Paul S. Chung

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chung, Paul S., 1958– Constructing irregular theology : bamboo and Minjung in East Asian perspective / by Paul S. Chung. p. cm. — (Studies in systematic theology, ISSN 1876-1518 ; v. 1) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17417-7 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Christianity and other religions. 2. Asia—Religion. 3. Theology—Asia. 4. Philosophy, Asian. I. Title. II. Series. BR128.A77C49 2009 230.095—dc22 2009010949

ISSN 1876-1518 ISBN 978 90 04 17417 7 Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ............................................................................

vii

Introduction: Asian Irregular Theology: Inculturation and Emancipation .................................................................................

1

I. Justification and Self-Cultivation: Christian Faith and Buddhist Enlightenment .....................................

27

II. God and the Mysterious Place of the World: Judeo-Christian Narrative in Engagement with Mystery of Dao .......................................................................................

49

III.

God the Trinity: An Interfaith Reframing of the Trinity with an Asian Face .............................................

81

Christian Mission: Matteo Ricci and his Legacy for Christian-Confucian Renewal ..........................

103

Religious Pluralism: Asian Christianity and Life Horizon of World Religions ..........................................

131

God and Evolution: God and Sunyata in an Evolutionary Context .....................................................................................

157

The Future of Irregular Theology in East Asia: Asian Contextual Theology: Past, Present, and Future ....

185

Glossary of Terms ..............................................................................

211

Bibliography ........................................................................................ Index ....................................................................................................

217 225

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The content of this book is mainly based on my lectures held at the Center for Christianity and Cross-Cultural Studies on May 14–19, 2007, at Zhejiang University—the “Cambridge of the East”—in Hangzhou, China. I give my heartfelt appreciation for the lecture invitation to the director of the center, Prof. Dr. Chen Cunfu, and the vice director, Prof. Dr. Wang Zhicheng. Furthermore, I extend my gratitude to Prof. Dr. Wang Laurel (Sizhu), who during my stay in China took over the difficult translation work in a joyous, collegial, and sisterly spirit. During my stay, I was privileged to nourish and deepen my spiritual and intellectual vocation in Hangzhou, once portrayed by Marco Polo in the late 13th century as a paradise on earth. The West Lake, called the reincarnation of lady Xi Shi and one of the most beautiful places in the world, remains an inspiration to me for exploring an Asian irregular theology in a hermeneutical, aesthetical, and utopian contour in pursuit of the Asian face of Christianity. I acknowledge that my spiritual trajectory—born in South Korea, receiving Western schooling in Europe and North America, and now teaching Reformation Theology and World Christianity in Dubuque, Iowa, USA—informs my discussions in this book. A Christian irregular theology in the cross-cultural perspective of “bamboo and minjung” sounds strange, provocative, and controversial to Western systematic and confessional theology. A religious and cultural lifeworld of bamboo and the socio-political reality of minjung (the poor) form a history of effect in the hermeneutical sense of my spiritual and intellectual pursuit of God’s speech act and its mystery in East Asia. For the construction of Asian irregular theology I take into account as an example the life and spirituality of the seven scholars living in a bamboo grove in ancient China. Here, my theological endeavor begins to embrace Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism as conversation partners with Reformation theology (especially that of Martin Luther, Karl Barth, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer). Such a hermeneutical hybridization promotes the ethical responsibility which expresses a resistance of the difference and prophetic marginality. So, an Asian irregular theology finds its locus in the promotion of inculturation (in recognition of the Other in the religious cultural

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context of bamboo) and to mobilize emancipation of massa perditionis (public lost, multitude; in Korean: minjung, in Chinese: minzhong) from the iron cage of global civilization and empire. A spirit of freedom and resistance rooted in the East Asian life setting, as modeled by the seven sages’ life in the bamboo forest, remains an ongoing incentive for the development of an Asian irregular theology by learning from the great wisdom and spirituality of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, which also critically engages Western philosophy and theology. In the process of this encounter I am constantly driven to self-renewal and increased openness to mutual transformation in terms of the provocative irregularity of God’s act of saying that takes place in every way and all directions. Therefore, Asian irregular theology in a constructive-hermeneutical configuration implies a theology of audacity. I must risk my self-understanding as an East Asian Christian by facing, recognizing, and being faithful to the claims which come to the surface as I engage the Other. In the framework of Asian irregular theology, a hermeneutic of audacity, resistance, and retrieval for encounter, fusion, and transformation among world religions is at play. Its task involves challenging a society haunted by religious violence, scientific empiricism, and the colonization of our lifeworld. Within the postfoundational and hermeneutical configuration, an Asian irregular theology that is grounded in an aesthetic and utopian dimension envisions a topos as humanly dreamable, ecologically sustainable, and muti-religious in a peaceful manner. A theology has its time, conditioned by its existential, political, and cultural context. Constrained by its limitations, it continues to evolve by and through the challenge of the Other in light of the irregularity of God’s speech event. After my first articulation of Reformation theology in its relevance for Buddhist wisdom in Martin Luther and Buddhism: Aesthetics of Suffering, the present book could be understood as a second intellectual attempt to cross-culturally initiate an Asian irregular theology regarding a religious culture of bamboo and the social reality of massa perditionis (minjung) in a way that is of interpretative, aesthetic, and utopian character in content and horizon. Verbum Dei quaerens dialogum. The Word of God is in search of dialogue with humanity and the world. I extend my gratitude to the editorial committee in Brill for accepting my project of Asian irregular theology to the new series of Studies in Systematic Theology. I also would like to thank the following for permission in using selected texts: From Luther, Martin Luther’s Basic

acknowledgements

ix

Theological Writings, ed. Timothy F. Lull. Used by permission of Fortress press, 1989. From The Poem of Ruan Ji, trans. Wu Fusheng and Graham Hartill. Used by permission of Zhonghua Book Company, 2006. From Laozi, trans. Arthur Waley, rev. and ann. Fu Huisheng Hunan. Used by permission of Hunan People’s Publishing House and Foreign Languages Press, 1999. From “Christian Faith and Buddhist Enlightenment,” by Paul S. Chung. Used by permission of Studies in Interreligious Dialogue 17:2 (2002). “God’s Reign and the Pure Land in Interfaith and Scientific Discourse on Imago Dei and Buddha Nature,” by Paul S. Chung. Used by permission of Ching Feng, A Journal on Christianity and Chinese Religion and Culture 7:1–2 (2006).

INTRODUCTION

ASIAN IRREGULAR THEOLOGY: INCULTURATION AND EMANCIPATION

Theology is historically, culturally, and linguistically conditioned and shaped. The contextual character of theology is not a new reality because throughout the centuries, Christians have lived and witnessed to the Gospel in different times and places. A theology does not exist apart from its setting in life (Sitz im Leben). In a context of the Global South or East, an endeavor for selftheologizing in one’s own particular life setting becomes necessary. Consequently, one must bid farewell to a Eurocentric or North American paradigm. Christian self-understanding of the Word of God has to be rearticulated, reshaped, and lived anew in each particular culture. Inculturation is necessary for coexistent living and working in peace with non-Christian religious communities. Much has been said about the assumed cultural superiority of Western modernity and its demise. It is insulting and delusional for Western Christianity and cultures to regard other cultures and religions as stepping-stones. In relationship with other religions the Eurocentric and/or North American character of Christian theology does not suffice for coping with the uniqueness and challenge of an emerging world Christianity and theology. In today’s philosophical discussion of human rationality, the modern concept of the “self,” like the modern concept of rationality, is shaken to the core by the masters of suspicion (Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche and Karl Marx).1 Furthermore this demands a radical rethinking in the presence of the “Other.” A Postmodern suspicion of the universal narrative of human reason, or in other words “incredulity toward metanarratives,”2 functions as a synchronic hermeneutic of doubt and refusal. This hermeneutical strategy reveals a nexus between

1

Paul Ricoeur, The Conflict of Interpretation, ed. Don Ihde (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974), 121–159, 160–176. 2 Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), xxiv.

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power and knowledge embedded in politics, institutions, human science, and religion. It is recognized that human beings deal with worldly affairs and cultural issues from a plurality of perspectives. This plurality of perspectives leads to an ambiguity of the “truth” in a univocal and determined sense. We are aware that there is an emergence of many diverse forms of postmodern (or postcolonial) theologies in feminist, womanist, African-American, and global liberationist perspectives. Liberation theology in Latin America has posed a fundamental and serious question of how to understand the perspective of the poor in socioeconomic terms and put their perspective into praxis. Here, biblical Scripture is seen as a text against oppression and for liberation. In the circle of feminist theology gender becomes a matter of power. In the course of history women’s experience has been inscribed, reinscribed, and made to be subservient to and in service of man’s interest. Challenging androcentricity (man-centeredness), feminist theology focuses on the roles and characters of the women in the text, in confrontation with misogynist tendencies in androcentric interpretation.3 In an East Asian context, a postcolonial orientation and a task of inculturation gains a much sharper contour than any others due to the multiple religious spiritualities in this life setting. Poverty, religiosity, and wisdom (especially of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism) are deeply connected with each other. In other words, the spiritual wisdom of East Asian religions constitutes a lifeworld and source for an Asian theological endeavor to bring forth inculturation and to promote emancipation. Among Asian contextual theologians a Christian’s absolute claim of salvation becomes suspicious and even insulting to non-Christian communities. A new hermeneutic of Scripture emerges in a spirit of postcolonial resistance and inculturation when one encounters the narratives of Asian people, their life experiences, and the wisdom of East Asian religions.4 An Asian irregular theology, which I pursue and explore in this book, is grounded in an endeavor to develop a new hermeneutic in a spirit of postcolonial interest in the inculturation of the

3 An Introduction to Biblical Criticism and their Application: To Each Its Own Meaning, eds. Steven L. McKenzie and Stephen R. Haynes, Rev. & exp. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1999), ch. 13 and 14. 4 Asian Contextual Theology: Theology of Minjung in Fourth Eye Formation, ed. Paul S. Chung et al. (Eugene: Pickwick, 2007), 1–14.

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religious cultural lifeworld of bamboo and emancipation of God’s massa perditionis (minjung), in light of the irregularity of God’s speech act. My deliberation on the irregularity of God’s speech event is undertaken in terms of a postfoundational and hermeneutical reflection of God’s act of speech (or “saying” in an Emmanuel Levinas’ sense) in view of the “said,” namely the world of the scriptural text. It is certain that extrabiblical words of God and intratextuality are not in contradiction, rather in complementarity. Interpretive theory in an Asian Christian sense is grounded on dynamic irregularity of God’s act of speech which can be heard in classics of East Asian philosophy and religions as well as from the reality of those who are marginalized and voiceless in the world of religions. Here, we will articulate and refurbish an interpretive method, accentuating that the Word of God seeks both understanding and dialogue (Verbum Dei quaerens intellectum et dialogum) as an alternative to faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum.)

Interpretation and Hybridity among Religions in East Asia The history of Chinese globalization began by cultural and trade exchanges between the East and West along an established route starting from Chang’an (today’s Xi’an), then the capital of the Western Han. Chinese silk began to be regularly transported along this route to Central Asia and the Mediterranean region, and further on to Africa and Europe. The Silk Road brought many caravans with various business background—traders, jugglers, monks, and pilgrims—from as far away as Persia, Armenia, Byzantium, and Central Asia. In many Central Asian countries, possession of Chinese silk was a symbol of high social position, a barometer distinguishing the powerful from the weak. In the civilization of this ancient globalization we notice that an encounter of world religions took place in Chinese context. For instance, when Buddhism, as a foreign religion, came from India to China and flourished during the Southern and Northern dynasties (386–581 CE), Neo-Daoists were influential. A process of inculturation and transformation between Buddhism and Daoism was inevitable. Dao is taken as the truth of Chan, so that Chan exists for the Dao by pointing at it. Chan (also known as Zen), which is the doctrine of the Buddhaheart, paradoxically resists any doctrinal concept or formulations. A

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finger is necessary to point at the moon; however, it would be seriously wrong to identify the finger with the moon. Bodhidharma, the first Patriarch of the Chan sect in China, is reported as having answered the question of Wu, the first Emperor of the Liang dynasty (reigned 502–549 CE), regarding the ultimate and holiest principle of Buddhism: “Vast emptiness and nothing holy in it.”5 The signification of Chan as the idea of Sunyata (emptiness) which exists between somethingness and nothingness in a non-dual manner matches the concept of Tao which transcends all modes of intellectual rationality. Furthermore, Taoist philosophers interpreted and acculturated Buddhist terminologies in their own way. An interpretative method known as geyi (also known as ko-i) matched the concepts of Buddhism and Daoism. This played a significant role in shaping and characterizing the uniqueness of Chinese Buddhism as distinct from Indian Buddhism. By this method of interpretive creativity and imagination we are aware of a dynamic encounter of horizons and lifeworlds taking place between Buddhism and Daoism. In terms of the creative appropriation of similar meanings and elements in Buddhism, as well as critical distance from the strange elements and belief system of Buddhism, Taoist interpretation of Buddhism remarkably demonstrated an analogical creativity and hermeneutical imagination regarding inculturation for the sake of exploring commonality-in-difference with Buddhism. Likewise, Buddhists also adopted and appropriated Taoist terms and concepts to clarify and explain their Buddhist wisdom and worldview. Hybridity of interpretation and resistance to alien elements nourished and enriched the uniqueness of Chinese religions in their own historical development. Along the Silk Road, Christianity came to Xi’an, formerly known as Chang’an, the Capital of the Tang dynasty (618–907), which was a center of globalization at that time. This was a time when the Chinese Emperor promulgated policy of toleration to all foreign religions. At this time Chinese civilization was flourishing in a dynamic interaction with all foreign ideas and worldviews. At the “Nestorian” monument of Xi’an, the arrival of Alopen in the capital city of China was recorded in 635 CE and includes a general outline of the spread of Christianity in Tang China. The monument 5

50.

D. T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism (New York: Grove Press, 1964),

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was erected in 781. Christians in the Tang dynasty were creative and provocative in their engagement with Chinese religions, developing Christian belief systems in a different lifeworld and language, clarifying doctrinal issues and discourse on Christian faith and salvation by appropriating Daoist-Buddhist-Confucian terms.6 This Christianity remarkably demonstrates the intercultural issue of interpretation in terms of analogical imagination and interpretive hybridity. The Christianity in Tang China had East Syrian Christian origins and articulates a Christian self-understanding of the Gospel in the seventh century of China.7 For a hermeneutical description the metaphor of “bamboo” is used as a symbol of Chinese culture, while the metaphor of “silk” is used as a symbol of Chinese civilization. Along the line of the silk civilization, it can be noted that another stream of culture is associated with bamboo. We define the culture of bamboo in view of the social reality of grass roots people, and furthermore, as a culture of the minjung (the marginalized and voiceless members of society). In the Song Dynasty (960 CE) bamboo was widely used, even considered indispensable in people’s lives. Su Shi, the well known scholar from the Song Dynasty, wrote as follows: bamboo shoot for food, bamboo tile for house making, bamboo hat for rain sheltering, bamboo wood for fuel, bamboo skin for clothing, bamboo paper for writing and bamboo shoes for foot wearing, that is the life—we cannot do without bamboo. In the Chinese tradition, Dao is deeply embedded in the lifeworld of bamboo. Tao articulates a life of freedom following the spontaneity and watercourse of nature. In this regard, a Buddhist concept of Chan compares life to the freedom of a bird flying in the sky or a fish swimming in the river. Regarding the question of what the Dao (the truth of Chan) is, a Buddhist monk said: “Your everyday life, that is the Dao.”8 Sing-ping (845–919 CE) asked T’sui-wei what the fundamental principle of Buddhism is. T’sui-wei took Sing-ping into the bamboo grove

6 Li Tang, A Study of the History of Nestorian Christianity in China and Its Literature in Chinese (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2002). 7 Philip L. Wickeri, “The Stone Is a Mirror: Interpreting the Xi’an Christian Monument and Its Implications for Theology and the Study of Christianity in Asia,” in QUEST, Vol. 3, No. 2 (November 2004), 19–46. 8 Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, 74.

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without a word. Then he whispered to the inquirer who was anxious for a reply: “How high these bamboos are! And how short those over there!”9 Chan affirms practicality and simplicity of life in the bamboo grove rather than indulgence in absolute nothingness without ethical compassion.10 Chan and compassion (Bodhisattva) belong together for the affirmation of life. Thus, the third eye after the Chan experience, which can penetrate into the inmost nature of things, remains inadequate if it is disconnected from a Chinese Buddhist orientation for the Great Compassion of the Avalokitesvara (Guanyin) Bodhisattva who lives in deep solidarity with those who are in need and suffer. In fact, the third eye after the Chan experience can be transformed toward the fourth eye of ethical compassion which presupposes and underlines a socially engaged Buddhism.11 In this book a theological reflection on bamboo and minjung in East Asia, especially in a Chinese context, finds itself in a dialogue with the webs of religious culture in search of the meaning and direction of Asian irregular theology regarding the religious wisdom of Chinese religions and Western Protestant theology. Interpretation of culture is not excluded from an analysis of the structure of the religiously significant. Here, a Christian paradigm of justification and sanctification, especially in the Reformation perspective, finds its dialogue partner in the Buddhist concept of sudden enlightenment and gradual cultivation. To what extent can Reformation theology of justification find its echo and expand its horizon through encounters with the Buddhist concept of enlightenment and compassion? A dialogue with the Other calls for a hermeneutic of audacity. In this regard, hermeneutical audacity lies in one’s capacity to take into account the history and language of religions, allowing religious outsiders to claim their difference and uniqueness vis-à-vis Western Christianity. Thus, such a hermeneutic resists any attempt at totalizing the difference and the Other into sameness in terms of a projection of Western culture and rationality.12 9

Ibid., 73. For a critique of D. T. Suzuki, the high guru in the US of Zen in the 1960’s, and his justification of Zen militaristic expansion of Japan and its ruthless plundering of China and Korea in the 1930s, see Slavoj Žižiek, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity (Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2003), 27–29. 11 For the socially engaged Buddhism, see Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching (New York: Broadway Books, 1998). 12 David Tracy, Dialogue with the Other: The Inter-religious Dialogue (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 4. 10

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In this light, I am interested in constructing justification and self-cultivation in light of a new hermeneutic of God’s speech act by listening attentively to an irregular, unexpected, and provocative voice of God in non-Christian religions. God as the Great Other is free to renew and transform limitations of Western Christianity spiritually, socially, and materially through the face of the Other. Human beings can change and transform the religious world by mimetic creativity and interpretive imagination, through appropriation of meaning and distance out of strident elements as engaged in the process of interpreting and reinterpreting the religious world. This is what I attempt in chapter 1 by retrieving Martin Luther’s teaching of justification as it relates to the Buddhist concept of sudden enlightenment and self-cultivation. In the dialogue between a Reformation theology of justification and the Mahayana Buddhist concept of enlightenment an attempt will be made to construct a postfoundational and irregular theory of interpretation so that this theory of interpretation articulates and underlines a red thread of Asian irregular theology in the discussion of several other topics in this book.

Interpretation of Religion in a Multiplicity of Horizons and the Mystery of Divine Truth We perceive a hermeneutical interest in the study of religion and culture. If religion is the essence of the cultural structure of signification, an analysis of culture presupposes generating an interpretative description of a multiplicity of complex religious concepts and worldviews in terms of scientific investigation and an existentially engaged understanding. As Clifford Geertz notices, a “hermetical” approach to the external objects tends to run the risk of locking cultural analysis away from its proper object.13 Hermeneutical theory, when disconnected with a scientific method of analysis and investigation, easily becomes a “hermetical” approach which is captive to excessive ontological self-understanding and loses the subject matter of text and interpretation. In a cultural definition of religion, Geertz defines religion as “a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations . . . by formulating conceptions of a general 13

17.

Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic books, 1973),

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order of existence and clothing those conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”14 Religion is of multiple horizons in character because it offers a personal experience with the ultimate reality and a new orientation for existential meaning in the public life. If culture needs to be described in a cross-cultural and profound manner, a “thick description” may become a refined description through the process of a hermeneutical circle in understanding the religious experience, its structure, and its ultimate goal in reference to social life.15 A thick description may become instrumental in relating a Christian understanding of God and world to a Jewish mystic understanding and the Taoist discourse of the mystery of Dao. A mystical experience becomes public through the act of interpretation. In this regard, a postfoundational, hermeneutical appropriation of Geertz’s concept of a “thick description” demonstrates a cross-cultural way of interpretation by relating an ontological hermeneutic (Heidegger and Gadamer) to a scientific analysis of human life in social location (Ricoeur). A thick description of Dao articulates and embraces an existential dimension as well as a social reality of human life and nature when it comes to the exploration of the mystery and freedom of God or Dao. In a Chinese context, Dao cannot be tied up by names. It transcends the one-sidedness of logic, so Chan demonstrates resistance to a logical totalizing of the Other and the different into an undifferentiated unity. In the philosophy of Avatamsaka we read: “The One embraces All, and All is merged in the One. The One is All, and All is the One. The One pervades All, and All is in the One. This is so with every object, with every existence.”16 At issue here is not pantheism, nor the theory of identity. The bamboo stick which the Chan master holds helps the disciples to look into their inmost self or true nature. “If all things are reducible to the One; where is this One to be reduced?” If all things exist in God, where is the topos of God? The Asian art of interpretation is essentially postfoundational, in other words it is a way of transcending human rationality and linguistic conceptualization in light of the freedom and mystery of Dao. 14 15 16

Ibid., [18], 90. Ibid., 6. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, 67.

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As long as we seek God everywhere, God, like Dao, escapes from human logic and experiences. From the Daoist-Buddhist standpoint, we perceive that God cannot exist independently of God’s manifestation. Nevertheless, God cannot be identified with the manifestation as such. God or Dao remains the source of freedom and emancipation out of any anthropocentric encapsulation of the ultimate reality and divine truth. This idea will be central to the discussion of God in a JewishChristian-Taoist relation and context (in chapter 2). Here, Rudolf Otto’s concept of the mysterium fascinans et tremendum can become more meaningful in attention with the Jewish-Christian and Taoist experience of the Mystery of God or Dao. Along this line, a Christian discourse on the Trinity can be rearticulated in cross-cultural engagement with the mysterious manifestation of Dao through de and qi. The Western discourse on the Trinity can be reformulated, enriched, and expanded in conversation with philosophical Daoism. God’s speech act in Trinitarian communication becomes a point of departure and constitutes a bone of contention for engaging with a Daoist triadic concept of Dao-de-qi in pursuit of the Asian face of Trinity. This is what I seek in my engagement with a Taoist-JewishChristian dialogue in chapter 3. When it comes to the history of the Christian mission in China, Matteo Ricci is referred to as “the wise Man from the West.”17 Ricci became deeply involved in studying the Chinese literatures and culture. Through his great intellectual achievement he found ways to bring the Gospel to the Chinese people within their Confucian religious and cultural framework. In due respect to his achievements, Ricci’s work, though pioneering at the time, remains problematic, at least from the standpoint of Neo-Confucianism. Ricci’s critique of Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism shows Ricci’s limitation of understanding Zhu Xi’s creative theory of interpretation which stands in profound, yet critical engagement with Confucius and Mencius of Confucianism. A Neo-Confucian hermeneutic of the Great Ultimate and a reflection on the things at hand demonstrates Zhu Xi’s way of analyzing, investigating, and interpreting things in their webs of interconnection, finally waiting for the Mystery of the Lord’s Heaven to shine on their face. Zhu Xi’s theory of interpretation has an analogical and postfoundational orientation, articulating the coming of Dao to us because Dao’s revelation is described only in an analogical way. Thus, Dao has 17

Vicent Cronin, The Wise Man from the West (Glasgow: Fontana, 1961).

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a postfoundational character in a way that it transcends the linguistic conceptualizations of it. This field marks a new terrain of Christian mission regarding a Neo-Confucian and Christian relationship which must retrieve a crosscultural theory of interpretation for enunciating similarity-in-difference between two different religions.18 This issue will be discussed in chapter 4, in which Zhu Xi’s contribution to the theory of interpretation will be retrieved while appreciating Ricci’s contribution to Christian mission.

Interpretation of Bamboo as the Lifeworld of Minjung: Aesthetic Critique and Utopian Desire In retrospect of the discourse of bamboo as described above, we understand bamboo to be a religious and cultural symbol of minjung through which the modesty, simplicity, and integrity of the people at the grass roots level is articulated in a Chinese cultural context. It also implies the ability to see things from the point of view of marginality in a society. In an orientation toward an Asian irregular theology of bamboo and minjung in a postfoundational-hermeneutical manner, it is also important to mention an aesthetic critique and utopian desire in reference to the life and tragedy of the seven scholars in ancient China. They demonstrate the significance of the perspectives of the marginalized who audaciously brought Confucian rationality to the Daoist philosophy of nature in a spirit of creative interpretation and hybridity. At the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003, Shanghai-based artist Yang Fudong presented “The Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest.” This movie is an adaptation of the traditional Chinese stories known as “The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove.” Yang reflects on the difficulty of finding and adopting a rebellious and critical attitude in a society undergoing changes, both rapid and profound. In his artistic work and interpretation Yang places special

18 David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 2000), 403–421.

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significance on the expression of ideals and avenues which unite people and encourage them to form solidarity, partnerships, sisterhoods, and brotherhoods. He feels that this endeavor is extremely important for an understanding of China, both past and present. For this task, he speaks for himself and China through the stories of “The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove.” In fact, works of art can escape the history which socially and culturally constitutes and shapes the work of art by differentiating from economic and political phenomena and conditions. Narratives and poems, like every great work of art, can transcend their context of production and life condition, speaking for themselves to the audience who stands in different places and times. In the first chapters of Capital, Karl Marx makes references to Sophocles and Shakespeare, feeling that their works are not involved in the disorder of the economic and political system at their times. For Marx, unlike his headstrong followers, there is a gap or space between the socio-economic base of society and the artistic and aesthetic sphere. Here, a hidden dimension of transhistoricity and cross-cultural communication of art can be revealed such that, in turn, it characterizes the locus of the aesthetic-utopian sense in the process of inculturation and emancipation. The seven sages of the bamboo grove were a group of Chinese scholars and poets who fled the troubles in the wake of the political transition between China’s Wei and Jin dynasties during the mid-third century CE. They assembled in a bamboo grove where they forgot all of their worldly troubles, preoccupying themselves with pure thoughts and discussions. This sort of retreat or life style was typical of the Taoistoriented qingtan (“pure conversation”) movement, which advocated freedom of individual expression, poetry, music, and Confucian openness to the different Taoist wisdom for mutual transformation without losing Confucian identity. This strategy of the hybridization of interpretation implies a politic of resistance against the false and hypocritical accommodation of Confucian ethics to the chaos of military dictatorship.19 Confucian rationality, which is easily exposed to social accomodation in service 19 Xinzhong Yao, An Introduction to Confucianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 89–91.

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of the powerful, is in need of a philosophical Daoist utopian longing for freedom and emancipation! The purely aesthetic feeling of the isolated individual who does not consult with prevailing social values and ends retains the power to resist the mechanism of the prevailing cultural system that is carving and fashioning all humans according to its pattern and operation. As Max Horkheimer, an important representative of Frankfurt school, argues concerning art, “an element of resistance is inherent in the most aloof art. Resistance to the restraints imposed by society, now and then flooding forth in political revolution, has been steadily fermenting in the private sphere . . . Art, since it became autonomous, has preserved the utopia that evaporated.”20 Unfortunately, Christian utopia has also evaporated. The church, in the name of the “reality principle,” (Sigmund Freud) is socially, culturally, and politically assimilated to the status quo. Essentially, the Christian concept of eschatology is a teaching of renewal and transformation of the world. In the subsequent development of Western Christianity we notice that Christian eschatology has become limited to the death of the individual, discarding its utopian desire for a better worldly life inspired by Christian eschatology. As Horkheimer mentions, the meaning of Christian eschatology in the sense of world transformation indicates that “the man at stake, on the gallows, on the cross, is the symbol of Christianity. . . . the prison, the gas chamber, are at least no more remote from the disciples of the Divine Delinquent than are headquarters…In the first place, the Covenant affected the poor in spirit, whose lives were not primarily oriented to wealth, dominion, political expediency, not even to prestige. In the first centuries of the Christian era . . . the proclamation of the goal hereafter gave a new meaning to life for the enslaved masses and the distressed people under their masters.”21 In this light, religion as “longing for the wholly Other” (Horkheimer) refers to God who wants a society in a completely different manner. To improve and propose a Christian discourse on eschatology in its connection with a utopian desire for the wholly Other, it is cross culturally significant to learn from the story of the seven sages. As for 20

Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory: Selected Essays, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell and others (New York: The Seabury Press, 1972), 274–275. 21 Horkheimer, Zur Kritik der instrumentalen Vernunft, ed. A. Schmidt (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1992), 217.

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“The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove,” there are legends, popular stories, hearsay knowledge, and also distortion. These stories have been continually adapted to changing contexts and times according to the intentions of different storytellers. From the story of the seven sages in the bamboo forest we notice a religious creativity of hybridization, meditation, freedom, and a resisting spirit of difference in an aesthetic and utopian sense. This is in the shape of an Asian irregular theology with respect to the religious culture of bamboo and a social reality of minjung by withstanding evil and nourishing an expectation in utopian longing for a better “topos.” Ruan Ji (210–263), one of the seven sages in the bamboo grove, was a major poet of the Wei dynasty (220–265). During his lifetime, the Wei dynasty began to undergo the overthrow by the Jin (265–316). The power struggles in the court were extremely cruel and ruthless. Ji Kang (223–263), Ruan Ji’s friend and another leader of the seven sages of the bamboo grove became a victim of the power struggle because of his rejection of collaboration with the authorities. Under such circumstances, Ruan Ji sought an escapist attitude, finding solace in poetry, Daoist philosophy, music, and drinking. Songs of My Heart which are eighty-two poems selected from Ruan Ji’s poetic writings which demonstrate the poet’s imagination and reflection on an aesthetic sense of the suffering of the world and a utopian longing for a new world. In poem XIX we find a good example of utopian beauty in the midst of the suffering world: There is a fair woman in the west, who is as bright as sunlight. She wears a dress of the finest silk and jewelry shines from her left, her right. Her face is a charm, so full of grace, lightly perfuming the breeze. Climbing upward, she keeps watch for her loved one, holding her sleeves, she faces the morning sun. She hovers, she drifts through the sky, waving her sleeves, she dances, flies like the wind, like a cloud, in [a] trance. Every so often, she glances at me, but for me this beauty is out of reach. Left alone, I lament my fate.22

22 The Poem of Ruan Ji, trans. Wu Fusheng and Graham Hartill (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2006), 39.

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Aestheticizing the pain of the world and personal lamentation, Ruan Ji, in this poem which I personally like to call “A Fair Lady in the West Lake,” symbolizes utopian beauty in a spirit of resistance against the unfair world full of violence and injustice during the transition between the dynasties. In the longing for the beautiful and the sublime of the world in a utopian sense, Ruan Ji’s poem retains its transhistorical effect and crosscultural communicability. This poem, like the classic text, speaks itself for people in different places and times who are interested in critically transcending the status quo of a society by recreating and refiguring society in a different course and direction. For Ruan Ji, an aesthetic of suffering creates a utopian distance from the present status quo and awakens a longing and desire for a better topos. A utopian distance and desire becomes foundational for his poetic imagination and interpretation engaged in an ethics of “non-action,” transforming lamentation and fate through a dream of utopia. In the midst of the dark night of the world, Ruan Ji’s sense of suffering in light of the aesthetic presupposes a utopian ethic of “non-action,” which refers paradoxically to protest, connected with a philosophical Taoist sense of the spontaneity of people and the natural watercourse that is associated with the heavenly and inborn nature of Dao. The life orientation of the seven sages in the bamboo grove can be articulated well by the slogan of Ruan Ji and Ji Kang: “transcendence of Confucian ethical code and return to nature.”23 If moral codes come from the nature of Dao, it is also ethical and natural to follow the inborn nature of Dao. This is indirectly related to the resistance of people’s life of spontaneity against the corrupt government. In opposition to the misuse of the Confucian ethic by the state and government, they proposed a Daoist ethic of demonstration of non-action in the midst of military dictatorship and social chaos.24

Interpretation and the Ethic of the Other Ethics has an interpersonal and social function in orienting action toward the Other, while in the aesthetic sphere there is a suspension

23 Laozi, trans. Arthur Waley, rev. and ann. Fu Huisheng Hunan (Hunan, Beijing: Hunan People’s Publishing House, Foreign Languages Press, 1999), 56–57. 24 Yao, An Introduction to Confucianism, 94.

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of action. Nevertheless, the Daoist principle of the suspension of action (non-action), which is embedded in the beautiful and the sublime of Tao in nature, does not exclude a locus of human ethical action. This insight marks a new terrain in a philosophical Daoist–Christian relation when it comes to a possibility of constructing an Asian irregular theology in engagement with inculturation and ethical responsibility. It is certain that an attempt at ethicizing the aesthetic in some degree marks a moment of rupture or tension. It is hard to draw an ethic from an aesthetic because the Just, or the Justice, cannot be deconstructed by or reduced to the beautiful. The beautiful is, in fact, neither just nor true. Be that as it may, the idea of Justice in a biblical-theological sense comes from God the Infinite, who comes to us through the face of one who has no beauty or majesty (Isa 53:2). Thus, the idea of justice can support and recognize an aesthetic dimension of an ethic in the face of the Other in whose appearance we should desire nothing. If all beauty is theologically grounded in God’s Infinite vis-à-vis, an ugly face in the divine immanence, it breakes with the utilitarian or the instrumental, revealing potential for ethical meaning and orientation. Thus, the aesthetic can retain a prophetic character in as much as it separates itself from the value of utility and commercial value. Aesthetic critique of pseudo-beauty ruled by commercial order which causes, in turn, a vulgar egotistic desire for material things, embraces and mobilizes a social critique of commercial fetishism. A priority of the aesthetic over pseudo-beauty in a given society points to the ethical (the good) beyond being (ontology). “The Good commands an exodus beyond the limits of Being.”25 By setting us free from the dictatorship of the commercial order and mechanism which colonizes our lifeworld and creates a vulgar selfseeking desire for pseudo-beauty, a theological aesthetic effects a true beginning of a conversion to the Other. This refers to a sphere where theological aesthetic and the ethical are mediated and go hand in hand with each other regarding the mysterious truth of God or Dao. An East Asian sense of a theological ethic in an aesthetic-utopian sense mobilizes a resistance upholding difference against the ethic of the legitimation of the status quo. This ethic of legitimation reduces and totalizes all difference to one universal which is defined by the 25 Emmanuel Levinas, Basic Philosophical Writings, ed. Adriaan T. Peperzak, et al. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), ix.

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powerful. The ethical responsibility for the Other and difference in a genuine sense starts from God the Infinite, or the mystery of Dao which presupposes a background for an ethic of the Other without topos-confinement. An ethical orientation of non-action, or action without topos, is connected with emptiness, peacefulness, and quietude, challenging a totalizing tendency of fetishism of work righteounesness. Going back to the root means being radical. At the root there is God the Infinite or Tao as the source of life. Being radical means being transcendentalethical in the presence of the Other. To recognize the infinite horizon of Tao through non-action and spontaneity is like staying at the center and root of things which is ready to cope with the infinite transformation of things.26 In this light it is intriguing to review a story about Zhuangzi’s dream as a butterfly which is stated in chapter 2 of Zhuangzi. Zhuangzi, an important disciple of Laozi, demonstrates a suspicion of the compartmentalization of the “I”-topos-identity from the lifeworld of the Other by way of illustrating a relationship between self and non-self (butterfly). In his report on the dream, Zhuangzi was a butterfly fluttering here and there. His forgetfulness of self-topos as Zhuangzi delighted him. After waking up, he was astonished that he was in fact Zhuangzi. Here, he wondered whether Zhuangzi dreamed of the butterfly or the butterfly dreamed of Zhuangzi. Some distinction between self and other is called “the transformation of things.”27 Self-identity is not absolutely certain, but relative in relation to the lifeworld of the Other. One’s topos-identity is shaped, influenced, and conditioned by the material things in one’s historical and social location and realm in which one grew up, was educated, and personally and socially constituted a self-topos. This self-topos, however, is challenged by the lifeworld of the Other to take issue with the transformation of the sociocultural reality of material things. A praxis for the transformation of things becomes possible in terms of a freedom from the bondage of things and also a freedom toward the emancipation of the self in accordance with “no-place” (u-topos) of Dao.

26 Zhuangzi, I, trans. Wang Rongpei (Hunan, Beijing: Hunan People’s Publishing House, Foreign Languages Press, 1999), 23. 27 Ibid., 39–41.

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This can be a philosphical Daoist insight into a relationship between human knowledge and interest regarding the lifeworld of Dao. If all knowledge is supported and shaped by an interest, an interpretativeaesthetic approach will be guided by an interest in emancipatory longing and freedom for utopia in the presence of the Other. An emancipatory longing becomes possible only in the recognition of the ethical priority of the Other and difference. Theologically speaking, the Other is meaningful by itself in which God’s speech directs “my” consciousness toward the Other. In this light, a deliberation of God’s speech act can be articulated with an emphasis on a dialectical connection between a historical-diachronic horizon and synchronic-social life locations. The diachronic art of interpretation which draws upon the history of effect and a priority of language and tradition can be redefined and deepened in terms of a critique of language and suspicion of authority and tradition as an ideology of the status quo. A hermeneutic of God’s speech act in Asian context serves to reveal the ideological expatriation of the Other, marginal, and the different as seen paradigmatically in the life of the seven sages. Each new event of understanding and interpretation, which is involved within the context of history of effects or works of art, produces new effects for the horizon of a contemporary world. In turn, the lifeworld of the audience or reader in their social location brings tension, distance or negativity to the tradition and authority, in other words, a longing and desire for a better future in the presence of the Other. Here, tradition becomes a reservoir, inspiriting the interpreter to be critically engaged with the tradtion for the sake of the subject matter which was supressed and marginalized in tradition, but speaks for the underside of history and tradition. The movement of the appropriation of a text or work of art alongside distance or estrangement occurs in the interaction of an interpretive process between the history of the past and a social cultural location of the present. Thus, a fusion of horizons in the interpretive imagination can be enlarged by a critical analysis of the life context in a social location. A hermeneutic of ontology and language does not necessarily contradict a hermeneutic of suspicion and resistance in terms of a dialectic of appropriation and distance.28

28

Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed. trans. Joel Weinsheimer and

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In today’s context, the empire of global capitalism becomes an objective reality of social and cultural relation, creating a closed integration or unified totality which discards human praxis for a better life and future. Swimming against the current, a postfoundational hermeneutic in an irregular contour, which is interested in bringing up a historical horizon and a social location in interpretation of the Other, is basic to the representation of social reality and essential for the chief purpose of constructing an Asian irregular theology in a utopian-ethical sense. Given this fact, it is meaningful to deal with the issue of religious pluralism by revisiting exclusivity, inclusivity, and plurality in chapter 5. We take issue with Christian theology in relation to non-Christian religions and theology of religions as represented by John Hick and Raimond Panikkar. An understanding of the Other in a different sense cannot be separated from the ethic in face of the Other and maintain a relation to difference without doing harm to it. This interpretative strategy is proposed against a totalizing tendency as seen in theology of religions. Such a strategy of securing the uniqueness of differnce in a non-totalizing manner will be examined and explored in speaking of a relationship between Christian theology and religious pluralism in a postfoundational and hermeneutical perspective.

Divine Suffering and Aesthetic Negativity toward the Narrative of Totalization In a biblical Christian context the Logos is the Word of God in light of the divine speech act. In the beginning the Logos was relationally with, toward, and in the direction of God. Faith comes as the gift of the Spirit who is the life-giver, communicating God in Logos to humanity. Therefore, faith occurs out of a divine speech event. Similarly, in classical Chinese, especially in the Yi Jing, to believe and to be worthy of faith is expressed by the word xin, where the ideogram contains the signs for a human and for speech. Therefore, to believe means to let speech act. If one has xin, trustful speech, one is the incarnation of cosmic virtue. Donald G. Marshall (New York and London: Continuum, 2004), 389. Gadamer’s theory of recognition of tradition and authority can be balanced by a socio-critical analysis of socioeconomic and political life in the sense of Paul Ricoeur. See Ricoeur, Hermeneutics & the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action and Interpretation, ed. and trans. John B. Thomson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 63–100.

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The Logos is also a historical Being for Others. Jesus stands for a way from “the kingdom of necessity” under the principle of lordless powers toward “the kingdom of freedom and emancipation” in the sense of Exodus: “He is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him . . . He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him . . .” (Mk 16:6–7). Jesus’ going to Galilee, a lifeworld of ochlos-minjung, in a post-resurrection context, implies that Christian discourse on resurrecton has to do with Christ’s presence and work in continuity with suffering people in today’s global context for the sake of the renewal of the world. Herein eschatology and ethical discipleship belong together. God’s future shall belong to the Other rather than to “me.” So, God’s righteousness comes to me as iustitia aliena (Martin Luther). An eschatological dimension of the Word of God begins with Jesus’ soldarity with his massa perditionis (ochlos: the public lost multidue; in Korean: minjung). At this juncture, a Reformation theology of divine suffering is echoed in an Asian minjung theologia crucis. According to Hegel, “the most frightful of all thoughts” in the Lutheran concept of God’s death associated with iustitia aliena is that negation can be found in God.29 For Hegel, God’s death as divine negativity is the foundation for the reconciliation of the finite and infinite. Reconciliation plays a part in Hegel’s analysis of desire in reference to the Other. If a person is a being of desire, he/she finds and attains his/her satisfaction in another being. In the interpretative dialectic of the master and the slave in Phenomenology of Mind,30 Hegel lifts up the significance of striving for recognition from the Other. The mutual recognition between self and Other leads to the recognition of the universal, a better topos. A human being strives for recognition and in this way he/she can achieve integrity and interdependence. The operation of reciprocal recognition is performed by the otherness of the slave who is related to forming and working on material reality. The master fails to see himself/herself in the otherness of the slave, while the slave prepares and disciplines himself/herself as the ground for ultimate success. Because of the fear of death, human beings have to see themselves as universal and reconciled for a real solution of 29

The Hegel Reader, ed. Stephen Houlgate (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 497f. George W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind, trans. J. B. Baillie (Mineola: Dover, 2003), 104–112. See further Alexander Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit, ed. Allan Bloom and trans. James H. Nichols, Jr (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1991), 3–30. 30

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striving for recognition. Thus, in Hegel it is the otherness of the marginal who experience their resistance and independence involving material things for the transformation of the human environment.31 It refers to human life in its social location rather than recognition of tradition and authority in the sense of a Platonic-Gadamerian theory of recollection and belongingness.32 In a relationship with a transcendental reality, the unhappy consciousness of Christian religion retains a utopian longing, which can be also a religious one. Hegel’s language of representation (Vorstellung), which is opposed to thinking (Denken), becomes valid in the domain of religious thought and art. Beauty is the sensible manifestation of the divine reality. In this light, the aesthetic transcends a mere imitation (mimesis) of the real. Beyond the limitation of reality, the aesthetic which is of interpretive character attempts to unmask the reality of the world reified and colonized by alienation and dominion by piercing the surface of the subjective experience of beauty. Thus, the aesthetic moment of interpretation in pursuit of the real becomes a critical mode of human consciousness in comprehending the divine reality and the world. The Infinite comes to be seen as a sensuous object through its presence. The Infinite shows forth or is manifested in a sensible form. Nature can be also an embodiment of the Infinite in a sensuous form. Manifesting the Infinite, a theory of beauty is disinterested rather than merely becoming an object of human desire about the material thing.33 “The sublime influence of God here reaches so deeply into the everyday that the two realms of the sublime and the everyday are not only actually unseparated but basically inseparable.”34 Therefore, aesthetic has a horizon of aiming at the presentation (Darstellung) of the Infinite in the everyday life context. In Hegel, we find an interpretive dialectic in terms of appropriation of meaning and estrangement out of it in a dynamic and historical interaction between the self-posing Spirit and human consciousness. For Hegel, retrospection toward the origin is connected with the freedom of consciousness in marching ahead toward emancipation or identity between the selfposing spirit and human consciousness.

31

Charles Taylor, Hegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 156. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 114, 168–169, 254. 33 Ibid., 469–473. 34 Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 22–23. 32

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Unlike Hegel’s speculation about the identity of the finite and infinite, however, an unhappy consciousness must remain negativity, bringing “me” in recognition of and to the responsibility for Others and recognizing the place of the Other in “my” own consciousness. This can be understood as a phenomenological negativity in contrast to Hegel’s ontology of totality or absolute knowledge.35 Unlike Hegel’s expectation about the philosophy of absolute knowledge, we notice that a disclosure of divine beauty and the presentation of its paradoxical suffering can become foundational for ethical responsibility for the Others. In contemplation of the object, the experience of beauty comes from the harmony between imagination and understanding. Where beauty arises by the coming together of the sensuous and the ideal, a theory of beauty can become subjective and universally valid. The internal teleology of the aesthetic is understood in terms of the beauty of the object rather than in virtue of any utility and instrumentality. The social mission of an aesthetical-negative moment of Asian irregular theology in a postfoundational and utopian contour is to clarify the social reality of minjung by unmasking the objective reality of reification and estrangement in a given society. Therefore, a theological aesthetic is a Christian perception of God’s coming to the world in being disclosed and incarnated in Jesus Christ. An aesthetic presentation of a-lētheia, in theological language and expression, underlies an aesthetic-eschatological-utopian moment of what is to come. The beautiful and the sublime in works of art or in nature can actually be a mode of access to divine transcendence which came fully into the historical life of Christ and is, at the same time, yet to come. For instance, Karl Barth put Mozart above Bach. Mozart was not religious, while Bach constituted a threshold of religious aesthetic. In Barth’s view, however, Mozart can be a witness to divine beauty and the goodness of creation, revealing a religious dimension of the aesthetic. Thus, Mozart can be an extraordinary and aesthetic way of the self-communication of divine freedom and transcendence outside of the ecclesial sphere. A question of suffering, especially associated with theodicy, can be pursued in an aesthetic-eschatological interpretation of creation in its total goodness through listening to the harmony of

35 Jean Hyppolite, Genése et Structure de la Phénomenologie de L’Esprit de Hegel 1. (Paris: Aubier, 1956), 197–208.

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creation rather than through critical and speculative reason. Within this aesthetic framework the negative (divine No) exists only in and with the positive (divine Yes) for creation.36 Thus, an interpretative and aesthetic deliberation of God’s utopia can be understood as a teaching of faith and hope in an extraordinary and genuine sense.37 What is aesthetically perceived is not merely immanent; rather, it is directed toward the transcendence and freedom of divine beauty and goodness in the presence of Other. Such beauty is out of reach. The beauty of God incarnate is a manifestation of divine freedom. An aesthetic ethic, therefore, can be characterized by utopian longing and desire for God, the Infinite freedom, in which the true, the beautiful, and the good are integrated in the face of the Other. A link between seeing and doing becomes obvious in the life of St Paul’s experience on Damascus (Acts 9). This experience leads to his desire: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Phil 1:23). “For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling” (2 Cor 5:2). The Psalmist says, “My eyes’ desire is for your promise” (Ps 119, 82). This desire, this groaning and longing in eschatological hope, is called “a moment promoting utopia in a Christian sense.”38 Eschatology in personal sense instructs hope in the face of death, while the utopia awakens within Christians a desire for life without death. A hermeneutical reflection on God in the utopian space is of special significance in a discussion of God in a Buddhist-Christian context. A longing for a topos leads also to a common hope between Christianity and Buddhists in the expectation of God’s promise of eschatology and the Buddhist utopian dream on Maitreya. In the beautiful externity of the natural environment, creation mirrors divine beauty. At this juncture, a scientific theory of evolution needs to be reinterpreted in an interreligious context, with emphasis on ethical compassion for those who are alienated and marginalized in a society. Thus, in chapter 6 an attempt will be undertaken to reframe a scientific theory of evolution with respect to the Christian concept of imago Dei and

36 K. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III. 3: The Doctrine of Creation, eds. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (London, New York: T & T Clark, 2004), 298. 37 F.-W. Marquardt, Eia, wärn wir da—eine theologische Utopie (Munich, Gütersloh: Chr. Kaiser, Gütersloher, 1997), 56. 38 Ibid., 22–23.

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the Buddhist concept of Sunyata. God and Sunyata will be discussed in an evolutionary perspective. Earthly beauty and the beautiful form can be part of our theological reflection on divine beauty, goodness, and suffering—transcendental and immanent—associated with God’s act of saying. Seeing and experiencing beauty in the forms of the world can constitute an analogy of relation between God the Infinite and a human being. An Asian hermeneutic in a postfoundational and irregular manner, which is a theory of understanding and interpreting God’s speech act in promise, reconciliation, and freedom, is of analogical and aesthetical horizon. The aesthetic, an interpretation of beauty, also implies a theory of perception in its etymological sense. The aesthetic is a way of perceiving what is instructed in the beautiful form and artistic expression. Furthermore, the beautiful form awakens the ethical response by decentering the individual’s selfish ego and inwardness. Beauty (art), Christian faith in love and hope (religion), and the good (ethic) are integrated and interconnected with each other, working toward the final consummation of God’s beauty, goodness and novum. If creation is the external basis for God’s historical covenant (Karl Barth), God’s particular way cannot fully and adequately be mediated without creation. God’s work of reconciliation does not negate God’s work of creation, nor is it deprived of creational and ecological meaning. God’s word of reconciliation does not take from God’s promise of creation its lights, words, and language, nor does it tear apart “the original connection between creaturely esse and creaturely nosse.”39 In light of God’s reconciliation with the world, the beautiful form underlines and moves creation’s goodness and openness, including the evolutionary process, toward divine drama. God’s beauty of reconciliation in Christ with the world makes the beautiful in the creaturely realms into extraordinary bearers and ways of communicating God’s gracious freedom and irregularity of God’s Word. Given this fact, in an interfaith reframing of the scientific theory of evolution in Buddhist-Christian dialogue, an aesthetic dimension of evolution can be integrated in a relgious ethicial theory of compassion with minjung. If evil is an inevitable reality in the process of human maturity, pain, and suffering at the human level as well as at the

39

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/3.1: 139.

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creatures’ level, then humans may find their meaning in an aesthetic expression that reflects what takes place in a person’s life with reference to heaven, earth, and their ancestors. As a reality, Buddhist karma acts upon my existence as an East Asian Christian, who prepares for recognizing their life’s meaning in a symbolic way. God’s beauty, goodness, and suffering in the sense of theologia crucis become foundational for a connection between a theology of beauty and ethical responsibility for the Other. Thus, theologia crucis remains a divine negation of metanarratives which totalize and level all difference and uniqueness into the monistic sameness of the Western metaphysic. A disclosure of the face of Other comes as language and address. Hence, the beautiful form is associated with the striving of the beholder toward ethical fulfillment in relationship and communication. When truth goes without beauty, the truth can be reduced to what exists “out there,” becoming a prisoner of instrumental thinking and rationality. When goodness goes apart from beauty, goodness can be reduced to a self-satisfaction of ontology without the Other. With the inclusion of beauty, truth and goodness can be balanced and mobilized for the ethical desire for God’s mysterious saying and divine utopia. God’s speech event takes place in every way and in all directions, connecting the biblical narrative and intratextuality with God’s irregular and unexpected language in the world.40

Rose and Lotus in Encounter Chapter 7 will introduce several models of Asian theology in an East Asian context. Refomation thought is renewed, contextualized, and transformed by encountering and listening to the wisdom of East Asian religions. In dealing with different models of Asian contextual theology in past and present, it is instructive to bring forth an Asian irregular theology for a future model regarding inculturation and emancipation in a postfoundational and ethical-utopian contour, radically reframing Reformation theology (Martin Luther, Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer) for the sake of the Asian face of Christianity.

40

George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1984), 117. Lindbeck’s concept of intratextuality has less to do with God’s extrabiblical narrative.

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Meeting people in pain, resistance, and desire, Reformation thought is also critiqued and deepened through the quest for a better topos. In doing so it is inculturated into different languages and metaphors. For example, a theology of a rose in the Lutheran sense navigates into the terrain of lotus and bamboo in an East Asian sense. Like Abraham’s journey from his father’s house which was caused by God (Gen 20:13), the wandering from one’s identity refers to an experience of expulsion. “It is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them” (Mt 25:14). Going on a journey to new terrain, an interpretation of dukkha (suffering in expulsion) seeks the creative mimesis in a genuine sense—the imitation of renewing human action for a social reailty better than it is. If aesthetic theory is a way of interpretation, expressing and revealing the unconscious, mimetically written under-history of human suffering, a theory of interpretation can describe and represent a social and political reality of human life by going deeper to the underside of history. The role of the creative imagination at a social level articulates a utopian desire in terms of distance from the status quo of social reality. Thus, history can secure an imaginary realm through recognizing the difference between the past and the present. The history of the past as the effective-historical consciousness may become a locus for people in the present to uncover hidden potentialities of humanity, awakening ethical responsibility for that which is a consequence of technological civilization. An interpretative mimesis underscores a hermeneutical praxis of hybridity for a utopian desire, raising critical suspicion of technological and global civilization. A self-understanding of Christian theology in pursuit of an Asian irregular theology and an Asian face of Christianity as described and discussed in this book, is mediated through an encounter between Christian existence and the wisdom of East Asian religions. However, this Asian project as theologia viatorum remains fragmented, incomplete, and irregular which underscores the need for it to be pursued more deeply toward a systematic construction of “being in the world of Others.” In the process of interpretative imagination, a conflict of interpretation becomes inevitable, and a concept of mediation remains tense in the presence of the Other rather than seeking a peaceful integration toward totalizing sameness. In the reframing of an Asian irregular theology regarding bamboo and minjung, a resistance of otherness and ethical responsibility gains its priority in pursuit of Asian Christian constructive and irregular theology in light of God’s act of saying. Evil does not come from nature

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or religion, but from the mechanism of violence and scapegoating produced by a society against human nature and in contention with a religious vision which strives to develop and improve humanity. A religion may be a form of protest against social misery if it retains an image of perfect justice and harmony. Thus, a religious vision may be acknowledged as a ground of our ethic and political stance in an age of global Empire. Despite the impracticality of perfect justice and harmony, the struggle for a better life and solidarity with the wretched condition of the poor becomes instrumental in keeping society and culture “from indulging in a thoughtless optimism, an inflation of its own knowledge into a new religion.”41 Therefore, it is the aim of this book to make a contribution toward a new theology of irregularity of verbum Dei as an Asian systematic, constructive theology concerning a cultural, religious lifeworld of bamboo and a social, political reality of minjung in pursuit of an Asian face of Christianity. This Asian irregular theology refurbishes the hybridization of interpretation and the resistance of difference in light of the ultimate Other, and accentuates Christian solidarity and companionship with minjung in the lifeworld of bamboo. The Word of God which speaks in Jesus Christ in partisanship for massa perditionis—ochlos-minjung—seeks understanding from and communication with the Church, humanity, and the world.

41

F.-W. Marquardt, Eia, wärn wir da—eine theologische Utopie, 131.

CHAPTER ONE

JUSTIFICATION AND SELF-CULTIVATION: CHRISTIAN FAITH AND BUDDHIST ENLIGHTENMENT

As Christianity has come to East Asian soil, its Gospel content has been accepted and transformed by people who grew up and lived in their own multi-religious life setting. How did people in this multi-religious matrix accept and understand the Christian Gospel? An issue here is how to discuss the Reformation teaching of justification in dialogue with a Buddhist concept of Other Power in Amida Buddhism and the Buddhist model of sudden enlightenment and gradual self-cultivation. In the historical development of Mahayana Buddhism in China, in reference to Japan, we perceive a parallel between Pure Land’s model of salvation and the Reformation model of justification. After dealing with these two different principles in the understanding of Christian justification and the Buddhist model of faith and enlightenment in the Buddhist-Christian context, it is important to propose an Asian irregular hermeneutic dealing with God’s saying-in-action in the interreligious context which also is significant for an ethic for the Other.1 To what extent can the Reformation teaching of justification be understood and transformed in a cultural-hermeneutical way in an East Asian self-understanding? It is illustrative and pedagogical to introduce South-Korea as an example for advancing an Asian inter-religious deliberation. My home country, South Korea, is full of multi-religious heritages. Shamanism is a primordial religious matrix. The Korean peninsula was divided into three separate kingdoms: Koguryo (37 BCE–668 CE), Paekche (18 BCE–660 CE), and Silla (57 BCE–668 CE). Buddhism was introduced to Koguryo by Chinese monks late in the fourth century CE. By the period of the unified Silla Dynasty (668–935 CE), the major Chinese sects of Buddhism made inroads into Korea. These include the San-lun, or Three Treatises, school of Madhyamika; Fa-xiang, or school of Yogacara; Pure Land, Chan and Hua-yan, among others.

1 Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo, trans. Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985), 95–101.

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Buddhism functioned as a state religion in this unified period and the successive Koryo period (937–1391). Then, during the Cho Sun dynasty (1392–1910), Confucianism (or Neo-Confucianism) took over the role of Buddhism, becoming the state religion. Two centuries ago, around the 1770s, the Roman Catholic Church was organized in Korea, apart from a missionary effort. In 1887, the first Protestant Church was organized in Korea by H. G. Underwood, an American missionary. In the religious tradition of Korea there has been no war among religions. Some Western scholars interestingly characterize the Korean religious mindset in the following way: “A Korean personally takes his education from Confucius; he sends his wife to Buddha to pray for an offspring; and in the ills of life he willingly pays toll to a Shamanist ‘Mootang’ [sorceress].”2 If I paraphrase the statement above for the characterization of a Korean religious mindset in the general sense, then a Korean retains a Confucian head, a Buddhist heart, and a Shamanist gut. When Christianity came to this multi-religious matrix, how did people accept and understand the Christian Gospel? More specifically, to what extent can the Reformation principle of justification be understood and transformed crossculturally in an East Asian self-understanding?

Introduction to Some Basic Ideas of Buddhism For the clarification of this hermeneutical encounter, let me first deal with some basic Buddhist principles. “What is Buddhism?” Generally speaking, the teaching of Buddhism can be divided into three main traditions: Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism (including Chan Buddhism), and Vajrayana Buddhism. After the enlightenment, the historical Buddha began to teach the four noble truths and the eightfold path. According to the Four Noble Truths: 1) everything and everybody is in pain (dukkha); 2) the cause of pain or suffering comes out of cravings (attachment) for external things; 3) there is a way of transcending and overcoming cravings or an attached desire in an eightfold way; and 4) thus, liberation (Nirvana) is freedom from all suffering and pain. This original teaching is central to Theravada Buddhism. 2 David Chung, Syncretism: The Religious Context of Christian Beginnings in Korea (New York: SUNY, 2001), 91.

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Enlightenment is given only to the people who strive to exercise the eightfold path: moral conduct (Sila) denoting and embracing right speech, right action, and right livelihood; concentration (Samadhi) denoting and embracing the right mindfulness, the right effort, and the right concentration; and intuitive wisdom (Prajna) denoting and embracing the right view and the right intention. These steps are on the eightfold path. Furthermore, there are three basic insights of Buddhism: 1) All things are impermanent. Our true nature is permanent. 2) In seeing this world’s impermanence we see that “all Dharmas (teachings) are without self-nature.” 3) Everything appears out of emptiness and eventually returns to emptiness (Sunyata). All existence is suffering, transitory, or impermanent. Thus, finally there is no permanent self or soul which is our true nature.3 This world is already completely empty and still. As the Psalmist says, “be still and know that I am God,” so the Buddhist says, “all Dharmas come from complete stillness.” This stillness is true emptiness. It is the nature of our mind and the whole universe. As the Catholic mystic Angelius Silesius says, The God who is pure emptiness Is created as form. Becoming substance, light and darkness The stillness and the storm.4

Besides the fundamental truths of suffering, impermanence, and no-self, there is another doctrine of Buddhism. This is what is commonly called the law of causation or dependent origination (pratitya-samutpada). This principle teaches that all that comes into being is dependent on something else, referring, in short, to the interdependent relationships among phenomena. Buddhism expresses this network of interrelationships in the phrase “one is all, all is one” denoting the endless mutual influence of all things.5 Mahayana Buddhism adds two more virtues to Theravada’s principle: donation and forbearance. These six Perfections (paramita) are the core of the bodhisattva practice. Unlike Theravada, which stresses the benefit

3 Kogen Mizuno, Essentials of Buddhism: Basic Terminology and Concepts of Buddhist Philosophy and Practice (Tokyo: Kosei Publishing, 1996), 121–134. 4 Zen Master Seung Sahn, The Compass of Zen, ed. Hyon Gak Sunim (Boston & London: Shambhala, 1997), 106. 5 Mizuno, Essentials of Buddhism, 135–150.

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of the enlightenment to a few individuals, Mahayana Buddhism stresses the benefit of the enlightenment for all. All living creatures possess the Buddha nature like the image of God in the Christian fashion. This Buddha nature is the capacity to attain the liberation of Buddhahood, salvation, and enlightenment. Based on Buddha nature all people are capable of becoming bodhisattvas. The concept of bodhisattva is broadened in Mahayana tradition to any being (sattva) aspiring to enlightenment (bodhi). Bodhisattva compassion is beautifully expressed in the following poem: “May I become the protector of those without protection, the guide for those on the path, the boat, the bridge, and the causeway for those wishing to go to the other shore.”6 This orientation articulates a shift from the Theravada’s emphasis on the few (who attain the benefits of enlightenment) toward Mahayana’s emphasis on the potential benefit of compassion that enlightenment offers to all. The early form of Buddhism in China was Theravada. However, this form of Buddhism had a limited appeal to the people. During the chaos following the collapse of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), Mahayana Buddhism came to China and became a dominant form by the time of the Tang dynasty (618–906 CE). For the religious and ethical orientation of Mahayana Buddhism we read in the famous text from The Lotus Sutra of the Bodhisattva’s compassion with a view to releasing the tormented beings who are full of the pains of karma and rebirth. Then what is Chan Buddhism? The word Chan derives from the Sanskrit term dhyana, which denotes the meditative state at a high level of attaining insight by quieting human passion and defilement. The historical Buddha is said to have taught Chan in his later stages. This is a mind-to-mind transmission of the true dharma (teaching) to the disciple. According to the legend, the Buddha called for a meeting in which he wanted to appoint his successor. In the assembly, he was silent for an hour and suddenly held up a flower. Everyone in the assembly was perplexed except for Mahakashypa who smiled. In this way he was appointed successor. Chan Buddhism began with a smile, a knowing smile. Chan consists of two aspects: The first is stopping our thinking. If we cannot stop,

6 Francis Brassard, The Concept of Bodhicitta in Sāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra (New York: SUNY, 2000), 46.

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we cannot have insight. For instance, there is a story about a man and a horse in the Chan Buddhist community. The horse was galloping so quickly that the rider on the horse appeared to be going somewhere important. Another man, standing alongside the road, shouted, “Where are you going?” The rider replied, “I don’t know. Ask the horse!”7 The horse represents our habitual energy pulling us along, rendering us powerless. It becomes a habit to always be on the run. We struggle all the time, even when we sleep. We are at war within ourselves and we can quickly start war with others. We have to learn the art of stopping. The second aspect of Chan is to look deeply to see the true nature of things. Chan takes an iconoclastic attitude, challenging any image or idols. Koan (perplexed questions) are given by the Chan master for disciples to practice the Buddha nature and improve the skill of meditation. There is no intellectual solution to the Koan. For example: A temple flag is flapping in the wind. Two monks are having an argument about it. One says the flag is moving, the other counters that the wind is moving it. During the argument, the Chan master intervenes. The wind is not moving, the flag is not moving, but your minds are moving. The Chan practitioner may challenge the master by posing the question: “where is your mind?” In the enlightening experience, flag, wind, and mind are undifferentiated. This connectedness as a sign of the true self of a thing is reminiscent of Mahayana’s statement “one is all, all is one.” Chan put an emphasis on enlightenment through a process of intensive meditation. According to tradition, Chan was introduced to China by Bodhidharma, who is honored as the first Chan Patriarch in China. It is said that Bodhidharma sat for nine years wall-gazing. There was a famous competition posed by Hong Ren (638–713), the Fifth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism in China. To appoint his successor, he called for a verse revealing deep understanding of the Buddhist faith. One of his favored disciples wrote: Shen Xiu: The body is the tree of enlightenment, The mind is the stand of a bright mirror Wipe it constantly and with ever-watchful diligence, To keep it uncontaminated by worldly dust

However, Hui Neng (638–713), wrote the following two verses:

7

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, 24.

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chapter one Hui Neng: Enlightenment is no tree, Nor is the bright mirror a stand. Since it is not a thing at all, Where could it be contaminated by dust.8

Different approaches to emptiness and the mind are reflected in the later schism between the northern and southern branches of Chan. The Lankavatara Sutra,9 associated with the Yogacara tradition, identifies the purity of the mind as the basis for experience. There is originally pure store-consciousness (alaya-vijnana), or the Buddha-womb, or Buddha-embryo (tathagatagarbha). If meditation focuses on the purification of the mind (removing the dust from the mind and body over and over), one may need to practice continuously to attain purity. Such an interpretation, which is based on the Lankavatara tradition, was associated with the northern branch whose founder was Shen Xiu (605–706). However, in the Diamond Sutra, which is a text in the perfection of wisdom (prajnaparamita) tradition, there is a focus on emptiness which has to be realized completely or not at all (realizing that the true self is already pure, free from dust). The southern branch, which was based on the teaching of Hui Neng and the Diamond Sutra, accentuated the sudden realization of the enlightenment against the gradual realization in the northern branch. In the development of Chan spirituality, there arrived a final stage in its synthesis and correlation with Pure Land teaching during the Ming dynasty.

Amida and the Pure Land Buddhism Pure Land Buddhism, which is also a sect of Mahayana Buddhism, comes from the compassion of Boddhisattva. The Pure Land tradition emphasized Amituo (Amida) as a salvific figure. By the tenth century Pure Land Buddhism played a significant role in China. Pure Land practices were fully accepted in almost all of Chan Buddhism by the end of the fourteenth century. 8

“Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch,” cited in Philip L. Wickeri, “The Stone Is a Mirror: Interpreting the Xi’an Christian Monument and Its Implications for Theology and the Study of Christianity in Asia,” in QUEST, Vol. 3, No. 2 (November 2004), 26. 9 Some sections of this Sutra were translated into Chinese at Bodhidharma’s time.

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According to Buddhist tradition (in Larger Sutra of Immeasurable Life), the bodhisattva Dharmakara lived in India a million years ago. After a long practice of self-cultivation, he attained enlightenment and finally became Amida Buddha. After the enlightenment, however, he refused to reside in the heaven of nirvana. Instead he made forty-eight vows to save people in suffering and pain by bringing them to the West Pure Land. This vow is nembutsu, the recitation of the Amida’s name for the salvation of people in need. If anyone recites and confesses Amida’s name with a sincere heart, Amida will save them. The Japanese Chan master Honen, in the 12th century, had difficulty exercising the eightfold path. He formulated his understanding of Buddhism into three disciplines: precepts, concentration, and wisdom. He was troubled by the awareness that the more he attempted to practice the three disciplines, the more he found himself failing in them. Finally, he found the following passage in The Meditation Sutra: “Whether walking or standing, sitting or lying, only repeat the name of Amida with all your heart. Never cease the practice of it even for a moment. This is the very work which unfailingly issues in salvation, for it is in accordance with the Original Vow of that Buddha.”10 This passage came to Honen as liberation. In it he found that deliverance from a painful world lies in the reliance on the Other Power of Amida Buddha. The Amida vow means that all those who invoke the name Amida will be saved. On this assumption, he focused on reciting the name of Amida, abandoning other practices. The exclusive practice of nembutsu (recitation of the name) itself thus became central and fundamental to Honen’s teaching. Liberation from the dukkha, which is at the heart of the Buddhist Four Noble Truths, faced a paradigm shift from the self-liberating path toward reliance on the Other Power of Amida Buddha. From this perspective on the Other Power, Honen articulated his principle in that “even sinners enter into the paradise, how much more the righteous!” Shinran (1173–1263), a student of Honen, followed and radicalized his teacher’s teachings. Shinran was strongly convinced that salvation could be attained only through the grace of the Amida Buddha. After many years of nembutsu, however, Shinran did not feel nearer to

10 Harper Havelock Coates and Ryugaku Ishizuka, Honen: The Buddhist Saint (Kyoto, 1925; repr. New York, London: Garland Publishing, 1981), 187.

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enlightenment. Finally he abandoned the nembutsu itself as a practice or means to attain the salvation. Instead, he found that when all human efforts such as meditation, invocation, and the study of sutras fail, people could be completely open to and trust fully in Amida’s grace. At this juncture, there is a difference between Honen and Shinran. Honen says: even sinners enter into the West paradise, then what about the righteous? In contrast, Shinran argues, if the righteous enter into the paradise, then what about the case of sinners? According to Shinran, if a good person attains salvation based on his/her good moral virtue, it contradicts the grace of Amida Buddha. For Shinran, it is of special significance to put wholehearted trust in Amida Buddha, no matter how people are, good or bad. Given this fact, Shinran formulates his insight: Even the virtuous person is born in the Pure Land without his/her merit, so without question the person who is evil is also born in the Pure Land. In the Hindu-Buddhist tradition, there are two different attitudes toward salvation. These attitudes are characterized in terms of the Monkey Principle and the Kitten Principle. When a baby monkey is in a dangerous situation, from the start she is active to get out of danger. In the case of a baby kitten, however, she cries, waiting for the deliverance of her mother. Now Chan Buddhism and other sects of Buddhism represent a religion of the monkey on the basis of self-power, while Pure Land Buddhism is a religion of the baby kitten on the basis of trust in the grace of the Other Power. There is a story of an encounter in 17th century Japan between a Jesuit missionary and Pure Land Buddhism. Francis Xavier, a director of Jesuit mission to East Asia, was very surprised by the discovery of Pure Land Buddhism. According to this Buddhist community, human justification and salvation were entirely dependent on the grace of Other Power. Francis Xavier, after learning about the teaching of Pure Land Buddhism, exclaimed how remarkable and extraordinary in mission the Lutheran people were, going much ahead of “us.” “We” must catch up with this Lutheran missionary zeal. However, the Lutheran Church had never arrived or spread the Gospel in Japan at that time.

Luther’s Teaching of Justification: extra nos and in nobis In view of a historical development of Mahayana Buddhism in China, it is also of interest to reflect on the interfaith encounter by compar-

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ing Shinran’s position with Luther’s theology of justification. There is similarity-in-difference between Shinran and Luther regarding a model of justification and salvation. In the debate with scholastic theology, Luther brought to the fore the radical nature of original sin. Luther characterizes the Christian life as a double movement of sin and justifying faith: simul justus et peccator (righteous and sinner at the same time). After his argument with Erasmus (1525) Luther began to realize that synergism still played an integral part even in the Augustinian theology of grace. Augustine argued that infused grace and human “liberated” will alike are required for the process of justification and salvation. Making justification coincide with sanctification, Augustine saw faith co-operating with human charity. The Catholic teaching of justification, which is characterized by fides caritate formata (faith formed by charity or love), had undergone various stages of reception and modification through Thomas Aquinas to Gabriel Biel at Luther’s time. Sharply distancing himself from the framework of scholastic-semipelagian theology regarding justification and merit, Luther grounded himself in the principle of fides Christo formata (faith formed by Christ). This Christocentric understanding of justification meant a real breakthrough in challenging an ontological understanding of justification and implementing a radical paradigm shift for the Reformation. Thus, Luther reinterprets charity as a result of justification as opposed to a cooperation with God’s act of justification. Where fides Christo formata is concerned with and seen in the context of Christian freedom, Luther, in his 1520 essay The Freedom of a Christian (regarded as his magna carta of the Christian life), stressed the significance of Christian freedom as follows: “As our heavenly Father has in Christ freely come to our aid, we also ought freely to help our neighbor through our body and its works, and each should become as it were a Christ to the other that we may be Christ to one another and Christ may be the same in all.”11 Justification is the driving force that freed the baptized Christians to engage in social, political, and economic realms. At this point, Luther’s reflection on God or Mammon in the first part of the Ten Commandments of the Large Catechism offers a striking

11 Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, Timothy Lull, ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 619–620 (= MLBTW).

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example of the relevance of expanding the Gospel for social economic justice. In the exposition of the Ten Commandments Luther denounced money and property as a god-mammon.12 In addition to the social and ethical dimensions of Christian mission, Luther did not ignore the effective and transformative aspect of justification. God’s grace in Jesus Christ, taking place outside of us, entirely restores the lost freedom in human beings by incorporating them into a risen Christ, thus making us one flesh with him. Citing Ephesians (5:31–32) and Bernard of Clairvaux, Luther takes faith to mean “unit[ing] the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom. By this mystery . . . Christ and the soul become one flesh (Eph 5:31f). And if they are one flesh and there is between them a true marriage—indeed the most perfect of all marriages . . . it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil . . . Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation. The soul is full of sins, death, and damnation. Now let faith come between them and sins, death, and damnation will be Christ’s, while grace, life, and salvation will be the soul’s.”13 Understood this way, Luther’s metaphor of a “happy exchange” may be relevant to the Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue in an ecumenical context. The Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue concerning justification and theosis has entered into a new phase which discusses Luther’s teaching of justification through his concept of Christ’s real presence in faith.14 For Mannermaa, the grounding contact point of the Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue consists in Luther’s formula of “Christ’s presence in faith” (in ipsa fide Christus adest). Given this dialogue, it is pertinent to notice that Luther himself includes the effective side of justification. He does not ignore the twofold dimension of justification in terms of a union with Christ (unio cum Christo) and the inhabitation of Christ in the human heart (inhabitatio Christi). Luther’s idea of Christ’s real presence through faith is proposed as a bridge arching between faith and love in which a combination between the forensic aspect and the effective aspect of justification can be balanced and highlighted.15 12 The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, eds. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 387 (= BC). 13 MLBTW, 603. 14 Tuomo Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith: Luther’s View of Justification, trans. and ed. Kirsi Stjerna (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005). 15 Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, eds. Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 68.

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Similarly, Luther’s metaphor of “happy exchange” is a connecting point for combining the forensic moment of justification dynamically with the effective and transformative renewal of the life of the justified. In terms of the happy exchange associated with the union with Christ, the doctrine of justification points to human participation in Christ’s benefits and blessings. Therefore, Luther’s theology of justification offers a more holistic picture of the dynamic pilgrimage of the justified in the renovation of one’s life and continuous participation in divine benefits and blessings. Thus, this model overcomes the distinction of forensic justification and effective sanctification as seen in the Formula of Concord.16 Jesus Christ is the content of justification imputed from without as well as the basis for one’s renewal. Hence, Luther’s idea of deification in Christian faith cannot be equated with deification in the sense of an ontological mixture between human nature and the divine nature. According to Gal 2:20, what makes Luther’s expression of deification possible is the apprehension of Christ (apprehensio Christi), or inhabitation of Christ in us in which there can be no question of a mixture of Christ with human faith. From the beginning, Luther discussed the justification of Jesus Christ primarily in relation to God’s universal reign over two governments and then highlighted a life of union with Christ (happy exchange) within the spiritual governance of the Church. According to Luther, God is constantly in creative activity behind the masks of all creatures, thus nullifying the sacred-profane dichotomy. Justification expresses a dynamic relationship of a promise-faith dialectic for the sake of the concretion of prophetic-diaconal discipleship in society. In other words, the life of the justified is a life in which faith is active in love. The christological hymn (Phil 2:4–11) is the basis for Luther’s understanding that God’s own humility in the most radical sense refers to the embodiment of God’s freedom in love. God’s self-giving love effectively and finally shapes freedom in humility so that the justified are called to follow Christ’s self-emptying way through faith. This refers to the evangelical episteme (or paradigm) in the forensic and effective distinction of Luther’s justification from the scholastic theology of charity and merit.

16 For the restriction of justification to the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, cf. BC, 30.

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chapter one Mutual Learning and Renewal in a Buddhist-Christian Dialogue

In exploring the relation between revelation and religion, Karl Barth pays special attention to the striking resemblance between the Pure Land Buddhism of Shinran and the Reformation principle of grace. In light of the name Jesus Christ, Barth sees the grace element in the Other Power of Amida Buddha. He regards this resemblance as “a wholly providential disposition.”17 What is important for Barth in inter-religious dialogue is to find implicit signs of the name of Jesus Christ in religious others. Therefore, it is the name Jesus Christ which characterizes a Christian attitude in terms of self-criticism and openness toward the wisdom of other religions in light of God’s universal reign.18 Taking a step further, in his doctrine of reconciliation (especially, CD IV/3.1 § 69.2 “The Light of Life”), Barth identifies Shinran’s Buddhism as one of the true words of God extra muros ecclesiae (outside the walls of Christian Church). In light of the universal lordship of Jesus Christ, Barth takes into account “the radicalness of the need of redemption or the fullness of what is meant by redemption if it is to meet this need.”19 The Buddhist notion of the radicalness of the Other Power for redemption belongs to the mystery of God which operates in non-Christians near and far. Furthermore, John Cobb, a representative of Process theology, brings the teaching of Pure Land Buddhism into relevance for Luther’s theology of justification. According to Shinran, a human being is to be saved only by the Amida Buddha, and reborn in the Pure Land. It suffices for receiving grace and salvation to respond by reciting and praying with the name, nembutsu (Namu—Amidabutsu=Amen, Amida-Buddha). In this light, Cobb is interested in carrying out mutual transformation through the praxis of dialogue. This becomes clear in his basic thesis: Amida Buddhism can deepen and renew its self-understanding of enlightenment and salvation in its encounters with Christianity, and conversely Christianity does the same with respect to Buddhism. Cobb made an attempt to cross over to Mahayana Buddhism and then come back to Christianity for the sake of mutual transformation between them. For Cobb, Christ is the principle of the Transformation.

17 18 19

Barth, Church Dogmatics, I/2: 340. Ibid., 342–344. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/3.1: 125.

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Christ as the Way does not exclude any other ways, but allows different ways for themselves. Thus, Christ can serve as an inspiration for correcting, renewing, and transforming every religious way. At this point, Cobb utilizes Luther’s teaching of justification in order to support his interfaith approach.20 Furthermore, it is important for us to demonstrate a hermeneutical reflection on the interfaith relation between Shinran and Luther with respect to a model of sudden enlightenment and gradual cultivation within the confines of Mahayana Buddhism. For Luther, the grace of justification is the doctrine on which the Church stands or falls (articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae). The teaching of justification, when properly understood, is faith in Christ. Faith in Christ carries a double meaning: on the one hand, being declared righteous by God (extra nos); and on the other hand, being acquitted, renewed, and transformed in terms of Christ’s indwelling (in nobis). In the first place, Luther emphasizes sola fide (faith alone) in God who justifies the unrighteous and reckons them as righteous through Christ. Faith is thus described as the reception of God’s promise and grace. Therefore, faith and repentance are not understood as human works for receiving God’s grace. Rather, justification is received by faith while at the same time shaping and driving faith in eschatological openness. In fact, the justifying faith takes hold of the present Christ. Christ who is really present in faith is the foundation of justification and at the same time the driving force for enabling effective transformation in the life of the justified. In a similar framework, Shinran found himself in an understanding of faith in which he was totally saved and yet totally lost. This paradox of religious experience can be compared to Luther’s concept of simul justus et peccator. However, Shinran remains silent about any notion of the indwelling of Amida and the transformation of life in the journey of the justified. However, Luther’s justification cannot be properly understood without its effective and transformative dimension. The real presence of Christ, i.e., the indwelling of Christ in the believer by the Holy Spirit, also constitutes a central motif in Luther’s idea of justification.

20 John B. Cobb, Jr., Beyond Dialogue: Toward a Mutual Transformation of Christianity and Buddhism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 101–104, 123–128, 136–140.

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Beyond Shinran, the aspect of faith is also essential in the tradition of Mahayana Buddhism. The Treatise on the Awakening of Mahayana Faith, whose authorship is attributed to Asvaghosa, has been regarded as the seminal text for East Asian Mahayana Buddhism. While exploring the aspect of the awakening of faith in The Treatise on the Wakening of Mahayana Faith, the great Korean Chan master, Wonhyo (617–686), proposed as his central hermeneutic the concept of the ch’e-yong (Chinese: tiyong) formula (essence-function or substanceoperation), thus making a great contribution to the harmonization of all dialectical contradictions between the One and the many, subject and object, nirvana and samsara, faith and self-awakening. According to Wonhyo, the Mahayana Buddhist notion of faith is not merely to be interpreted as “faith in” the Other Power of Amida Buddha, but also the “faith of” Amida Buddha. Seen in this interpretative line, Amida, as a form of the Mahayana, arouses and awakens faith. Thus, this faith of Amida (Amida’s indwelling) precedes human faith in the Other Power of Amida Buddha. Unlike Shinran, whose interest is not in arousing the inhabitation of Amida Buddha, Wonhyo indicates that Buddhist faith is simply the function of the essence of Mahayana which arises at the root of Buddhist faith. In order to attain the enlightenment, it is essential that the essence of Mahayana awakens human faith. This is the Buddhist principle, the indwelling and arousing faith of Amida (as a form of Mahayana) in Buddhist believers. In this regard, Amida is constructed by Mahayana as that which forms faith. Similarly, Luther’s theology of justification is located between “faith in” Christ and “faith of ” Christ in which the union with Christ, or happy exchange, is taken to include both a relation to Christ outside of us and unity with him inside of us. Because there is still the reality of residual sin in human life in a post-baptismal sense, justification, like the process of salvation, is in need of a renewal effected by the Holy Spirit in the reception of Word and sacrament. In the Buddhist tradition, discussion centers on a relation between sudden enlightenment and gradual cultivation in the life of the spiritual journey as seen in the North/South Chan distinction in China. If one’s enlightenment takes place in a sudden way, due to the inexpressible essence of the Mahayana, does not one need a renewal of life in the post-enlightenment period? If the enlightenment comes completely from without (like a sudden inspiration at one time), a renewal of life through self-cultivation and participation in Buddhist liturgy is unnecessary.

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In this light, Shinran’s understanding of Buddhist faith in the Other Power can be transformed in the Chinese and Korean Buddhist context in such a way that Buddhist faith is based on the arousing essence of Mahayana and gradual cultivation. Human preparation for the enlightenment in the Buddhist context is not meritorious because the enlightenment takes place all of a sudden. The ground of sudden enlightenment is the Buddhahood, the essence of Mahayana, rather than one’s self-power. However, the sudden enlightenment is not enough to attain the Buddhahood in its complete sense. It is located in the eschatological tension of “already, but not-yet.” Self-renewal is, due to existential limitation, necessary; it demands self-cultivation and participation in Buddhahood.21 At this juncture there is a striking parallel between Luther’s theology of justification (associated with renewal and divinization) and the Buddhist dialectics of sudden enlightenment and self-cultivation. Luther was also deeply convinced that human existence is already liberated outside of us, but not yet consummated. This “not-yet” aspect makes faith dynamically participate in God’s grace in which Christ, as the ground and essence of faith, is really present in the celebration of the Word and sacrament, and Christian faith. When Luther’s theology of justification encounters the compassion of Pure Land Buddhism and recognizes the Buddhist principle of sudden enlightenment and gradual cultivation, it points toward a deepening of the relationship between forensic righteousness and the effective renewal of the justified. A Buddhist teaching of compassion does not compete with the Christian idea of agape. Through dialogue with the wisdom of the religious other we are invited to listen to God’s irregular and mysterious voice. In his sermons on Genesis 22:18 Luther says very clearly that God speaks in a different way than we would expect. In the exposition of Ishmael, Luther made a provocation for Christian openness to the world. For Luther the expulsion of Ishmael does not mean the utter exclusion of him and his descendents from God’s universal reign. They would be granted the irregular grace of God by joining the church of Abraham

21 The Buddhist principle of sudden enlightenment and self-cultivation is the basic principle in Korean Chan Buddhism. It originates from Zongmi (780–841), representative of Huayan Buddhism in China and succeeded by Jinul, A Korean Chan master (1158–1210); see Peter N. Gregory, Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991), 146–153.

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and would become heirs of God’s promise.22 Luther’s reflection on God’s irregular grace and God’s different voice coming out of people of other faiths characterizes and shapes his theology of justification in an inclusive and universal direction. What is extraordinary for Luther’s theology of creation is his characterization of creatures as God’s larvae and mummery. According to Luther, God has placed natural and general knowledge of God within the human heart (Rom 1:19–21). Such a light and perception regarding the divine sovereign being is innate in the hearts of all people. All people have a natural knowledge of God. However, this knowledge does not originate from an ontological disposition but from God’s universal reign. Luther’s theology of creation or natural law cannot be adequately understood apart from Luther’s deliberation of God’s universal reign in terms of God’s irregular grace. Luther affirms that God acts ceaselessly in all of creation.23 God’s working in nature and history may be visible partly in human religiosity in the world religions. In sum, for Luther’s teaching of justification, Christ is at the center. First, God justifies and forgives through Christ, even when we were sinners and enemies to God. This comes as grace and a gift. We remain passive in receiving God’s grace of justification. At this point, the Baby Kitten principle plays an important role in Luther’s understanding of justification extra nos (outside of us). Second, Christ dwells in us through our faith as a real presence of Christ in Word and Sacrament through the Holy Spirit. This indwelling of Christ is a basis for our diaconal discipleship in our secular vocations. At this point, Luther said, once we are justified as the children of God, we become active in discipleship. Through the faith now justified, we come into the active life. “The grace of God is therefore motivation to human praxis.”24 Faith is active in love. Even Luther said that we become co-workers of God to improve social justice, peace, and the integrity of creation. At this point, the monkey principle plays a part in Luther, diaconally, if not salvifically.

22 Luther’s Work, 4. Ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis: Concordia, 1955–67), 42–44. (= LW). 23 LW, 54, no. 165 in Table Talks. “Nature is not abolished by grace, but grace uses it.” 24 Helmut Gollwitzer, Krummes Holz-Aufrechter Gang: Zur Frage nach dem Sinn des Lebens (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1985), 313.

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For an Asian Hermeneutic of Irregularity of God’s Speech Event According to Karl Marx, there are two different forms of religion: a religion in service of the powerful, or a religion in service of the poor. The first form of religion is critiqued as the opium of the people, but the latter form is understood as a protest against social misery in the name of emancipation.25 Hermeneutically, it is important to take Marx’s view into account for the sake of social justice in an interfaith context. If religion is a corrective to social injustice and an emancipatory protest for the dignity of those on the margin, then its critical-emancipatory dimension must be appreciated in the interfaith relationship. What does the interfaith relationship between Luther and a Buddhist concept of compassion and enlightenment illuminate for us in terms of dialogue and renewal? In the interfaith relationship, an Asian irregular hermeneutic brings two different forms of interpretation into complementarity: H.-G. Gadamer’s concept of the fusion of the horizon and the history of effect on the one hand, and the social scientific theory of ideology critique, on the other hand. According to the philosophical hermeneutic of Gadamer, which draws upon Heidegger’s concept of being-in-the world, Gadamer points out that human existence is thoroughly historical, or conditioned in the world. We can never escape our historical context, or lifeworld (Lebenswelt). Lying behind the Babel of competing interpretations there is a shared reality—a world, a tradition, and a language. Because of this common dimension, we can anticipate communication and experiencing a fusion of the horizon with the Other. In a hermeneutical conversation with the Other, a new meaning emerges, helping dialogue partners to better understand their own tradition. Our horizon is expanded in the encounter with the Other so that we understand the horizon of the Other through ours.26 However, this historical-ontological grounding of interpretation in the midst of interfaith dialogue is not adequate to consider the underside of religious history which is in the service of the powerful. According to Heidegger, the question of truth is related to the historicity of human beings, becoming an aspect of a human project and of its openness to

25 Marx, “Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction” in Karl Marx Selected Writings, ed. David McLellan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 64. 26 Gadamer, Truth and Method, 301–306.

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being in the horizon of the world. This ontology of hermeneutic no longer poses a question of what social and cultural factors have shaped and characterized the ideological-linguistic structure of human being correlated with the history of effect. Language is not only a house of being (Heidegger), but also a medium and an instrument of distorted communication. In other words, the recognition that we share a common historical context and the eventual fusion of the many interpretations does not need to be blind or vulnerable to the fact that those very interpretations are inherently subject to distortion, especially an ideological weapon on behalf of the powerful. Thus, analyzing a false consciousness rooted in human interpretation and ontological consciousness must become the indispensable moment in an Asian hermeneutical project in a postcolonial contour. When we integrate a hermeneutic of suspicion (Freud, Nietzsche, and Marx)27 into the exploration of the interfaith relationship, Luther’s fragmentary reflection on the irregular grace of God is of special significance to an Asian irregular hermeneutic of God’s speech event. According to Luther, “God has to speak in a different way. If God opens the mouth, and lets a word forward, so it works…Also God has grasped, with this short word, the whole of the gospel and kingdom of Christ, so that nobody can eradicate it . . .”28 God’s act of speech comes through all ages in multiple horizons of effect. This divine speech act is of a postecclesial and postfoundational character because God may speak to us outside the ecclesial wall in a completely different manner. The relationship between the divine speech act and faith comes from the encounter between God and human existence. In this regard, Luther’s deliberation of God’s irregular grace granted on Ishmael is paradigmatically striking: “For the expulsion does not mean that Ishmael should be utterly excluded from the kingdom of God…The descendents of Ishmael also joined the church of Abraham and became heirs of the promise, not by reason of a right but because of [God’s] irregular grace.”29 Luther’s language of God’s irregular grace and Ishmael may constitute a critique of Reformation-oriented Church’s negative attitude toward the Islamic community.

27 28 29

Ricoeur, The Conflict of Interpretations, 148–150. WA, 24, 390, 27v. “Lectures on Genesis ch. 21–25,” LW, 4: 42–44.

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If a purpose of theological hermeneutic is not an understanding of language, but an understanding of the Word of God through language, then a hermeneutical deliberation of God’s speech act casts suspicion on language in its distorted form by the analysis of language through language. Here, a “postfoundational” suspicion in Asian irregular theology is a descriptive and technical term which articulates a postecclesial freedom of God’s speech act, that is, a speech-event of God coming from outside the ecclesial sphere. God who speaks in promise, reconciliation, and freedom is inseparable from, but not a prisoner to the ecclesial, foundational doctrine of God. In a philosophical context, foundationalism is a term which denotes a belief that a philosophy of consciousness can secure a sure, certain, “presuppositionless” foundation without reference to any human situation under the influence of tradition, history, and society. In contrast to a presuppositionless and foundational theory of interpretation, an Asian irregular hermeneutic in a postfoundational and postecclesial contour takes seriously a speech event of God’s word, or God’s saying-in-action as a history of effect, or a theological “lifeworld,”30 which historically affected Christian existence in engagement with the interpretation of the word of God in the world, society, and world religions—all of the “lifeworlds” which we inhabit. At this juncture, a theological hermeneutic becomes a basis for Asian irregular theology of God’s act of saying in an interfaith context. If God speaks to Christianity through the wisdom and compassion of Buddhism, God’s speech act may function as a critique of a Western Christianity which has been excessively shaped by the influence of the Greek metaphysical tradition and ontology. In contrast to Greek ontology, a hermeneutic of irregularity of God’s speech event articulates the primacy of God’s involvement through saying in social, material reality in relation to human experience and existence. God’s irregular and provocative voice in the world of non-Christian religions and culture leads the Christian Church in Asia to a self-critique regarding its exclusive parochialism and colonialism, and to ethical responsibility for the Other. Furthermore, an Asian hermeneutic of God’s act of saying makes the Church accountable for justice, peace, 30

According to Husserl, the all-embracing world horizon which is constituted by a fundamentally anonymous intentionality is distinguished from a concept of the world as it can be made objective by natural science. Husserl calls this phenomenological concept of the world “lifeworld.” See Gadamer, Truth and Method, 246.

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and reconciliation in the public sphere in expectation of the coming of God’s kingdom. A recognition of the priority of social reality, seen through a hermeneutical circle between the freedom of the divine speech act, Church, and human existence, radicalizes a hermeneutic of a history of effect by relating it to human existence in a social location. A hermeneutical concept of a fusion of horizons is conditioned by historical praxis in a social cultural location by also conditioning the latter by the former. Therefore, a hermeneutic of God’s speech act aims at changing the world by interpreting it as well as by social historical praxis. The compassion of Buddhism, for example, could serve as an irregular and extraordinary way of God’s communication with us, helping Asian Christians better understand freedom and the mystery of God’s universal reign of the world. Hence, an Asian irregular hermeneutic entails a constructive moment in the appropriation of the meaning of non-Christian religions for human existence in its social location. First, from the perspective of the margin, the social ideologies of religious discourse and institutional practices hidden and repressed in all interpretations and texts must critically be revealed. Then, a hermeneutical retrieval of wisdom of non-Christian religions is undertaken in light of God’s act of saying in which a positive reception of religion is undertaken as spirituality, wisdom, and protest of a structure of social misery and injustice.

Conclusion: Abraham’s Journey into the Foreign Lands A Korean Chan master said: “The whole world is a single flower.” From a Chinese Chan master, we hear a similar expression: Before studying Chan, I was aware that mountains are mountains, waters are waters. After getting an insight into the world of Chan through several years of study, I became aware that mountains are not mountains, waters are not waters. After the final enlightenment, I came to fully realize that mountains are once mountains, and waters are waters.31 Buddhist language of intuitive wisdom is expressed in a metaphorical and nondual character and sense. Thus, the language of “world” and “flower”,

31 Masao Abe, Zen and Western Thought, ed. William R. LaFleur (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985), 4.

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or “mountains” and “waters” are mutually penetrated in the human enlightened consciousness. For Luther, the language of “cross” and “rose” symbolizes divine action in suffering in connection with human reason. Faith does not discard reason in theological thinking and argumentation. The Christian’s heart walks upon roses when it stands beneath the cross. In “Luther’s rose,” a black cross is in the midst of a heart that is surrounded by white rose petals.32 Luther’s symbol of Reformation through the rose offers an aesthetic dimension to justification associated with divine dukkha, while the lotus flower, the symbol of Buddhism, denotes a transcendental beauty to the dukkha of the world. Luther’s symbol of cross and rose becomes clear in the life of Abraham. Luther once characterized Abraham as the cardinal example of evangelical life and justification. In Luther’s exposition of Abraham we meet his striking argument for Ishmael. Ishmael, the first circumcised, enters into Abraham’s blessing. For Luther, Genesis is “an evangelical book.” In Gen 12 there is a comprehensive blessing for the descendents of Abraham. Besides Isaac, Ishmael is also a participant in Abraham’s blessing. The dimension of the promise of blessing is valid for all the people of the world. We are aware of the sympathy of God in Genesis for Hagar and Ishmael. The God of Abraham hears the outcry of the oppressed Hagar, which finds its echo in the life of victimized Muslim women in Palestine. The God who elects Israel is also the advocate for Ishmael and Hagar. Likewise, all nations also participate in the history of the blessing of this covenant through Jesus Christ. The Bible then goes on to speak in a more surprising way. It is of special importance to think particularly of the encounter between Abraham and Melchizedek, the “king of justice” from Jerusalem. For Jews, like Christians and Muslims, it is surprising and extraordinary that Abraham is blessed by Melchizedek (Gen 14). This thinking out from the perspective of the Other, the fascination with the wealth and beauty of the Other, may belong to Luther’s fragmentary and provocative thinking of God’s irregular grace. Listening to the strange, unexpected voice of God from the face of the Other—

32 Karl Löwith, From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Thought, trans. David E. Green (New York, Chicago, San Francisco: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), 19.

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Ishmael, Hagar, Melchizedek, and more—characterizes biblical openness for the Other and shapes Asian irregular theology in terms of dialogue, discipleship, and diakonia as humble and open before the mystery of God and in accompaniment with the face of massa perditionis. This biblical, unexpected, and even provocative perspective conceptualizes an Asian irregular theology and its audacious hermeneutic as a theology of eschatological proviso with respect to Western Christianity and its ecclesial theology in light of the critical deliberation of God’s speech act stemming from outside the ecclesial walls. Within an Asian irregular, postfoundational framework, an ethic of living and thinking with respect to Other occupies its special place in an Asian multi-faith context. Abraham’s journey is different from that of the hero of Greek myth, Odysseus. Unlike the myth of Odysseus, who comes back to Ithaca, Abraham leaves his fatherland forever in order to travel to a still unknown land in wholehearted trust in the promise of God. On his return Odysseus is exactly the same as he was when he left Ithaca. However, Abraham’s life of journey and expulsion represents the realism of daily and concrete life33 for the blessing of the Other. In following Abraham’s journey, the Asian Church needs to audaciously express a theology of journey and traveling, with full trust in the promise of God, into the foreign and different world of other people, a world where God waits to bless us through the Other. This perspective on God’s Word in a foreign land leads us to appreciate God as the mysterious place in the world, exemplified by a Judaeo-Christian and Daoist dialogue which will be the focus of the next chapter.

33

Auerbach, Mimesis, 22.

CHAPTER TWO

GOD AND THE MYSTERIOUS PLACE OF THE WORLD: JUDEO-CHRISTIAN NARRATIVE IN ENGAGEMENT WITH MYSTERY OF DAO

It is not an easy task for a Christian to interpret Christian narratives on God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit when he/she has encountered the Dao of Daoist philosophy (Daojia) and the Jewish spirituality of Kabbalah. Such encounters already date back many centuries, as the wisdom of Daodejing was available in a Western Latin translation in the sixteenth century. In this translation, we read that “the Mysteries of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Incarnate God were anciently known to the Chinese nation.”1 From this statement we are aware that a Chinese self-understanding of the Great Ultimate is appreciated in light of and compared to a Christian understanding of God. In the current interfaith exchange of thought and wisdom, Jürgen Moltmann, an important ecumenical theologian in Germany, initiated the dialogue, “Tao: the Chinese Mystery of the World,” as it is seen through Western theological eyes.2 Moltmann attempts to bring the wisdom of Daodejing into discourse with JewishChristian tradition concerning the triune God and creation. An understanding of Dao, in Moltmann’s view, is mindful of “the religious art of mystical silence before the divine mystery.”3 There is a parallel between the mystery of Dao and the Western theological tradition of apophatic theology or negative theology. Dao is only known through Tao, so God is only known through God. The Chinese book of wisdom, Daodejing demonstrates an affinity to the Jewish and Christian discourse on God. Perceiving differences, we better understand the commonality engaged in the mysterious nature of God and Dao.

1 This was accomplished by Jesuit missionaries in China and presented to the British Royal Society in 1788. See James Legge, The Texts of Daoism, vol. 1 (New York: Dover, 1962), xiii. 2 Moltmann, Science and Wisdom, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 172–193. 3 Ibid., 173.

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In cross-culturally and hermeneutically developing a theological reading of Tao through Jewish-Christian discourse of God in a Trinitarian manifestation, I shall primarily be concerned with demonstrating some of the basic ideas of Dao by reading the Daodejing and Zhuangzi. Then I shall extend the mystery of Dao to the Christian concept of God and the world in engagement with Jewish-Kabbalistic perspectives. In so doing, an attempt will be undertaken to interpret a Christian discourse on God’s creation, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit in a cross-cultural and postfoundational perspective. Here, God will be appreciated as the mysterious place of the world.

Basic Concepts of Dao and De Classical Taoist philosophy is built on the two texts of Laozi (also called Daodejing) and Zhuangzi, of whose lives little is historically known. From the tradition we can assume that the Taoist philosophy arose in a period of turmoil and suffering—first during the Spring-Autumn Period and then during the Warring States Period. The person most revered in Daoism is known simply as Lao Dan or the epithet Laozi, which can be translated as “Old Master.” According to the cultural legend, Laozi was regarded as an elder contemporary of Confucius (551–479 BCE). The earliest biography of the Old Master is contained in the Shiji (Historical Annals or Records of the Historian dated 90 BCE) by the great Han dynasty historian Sima Qian (145–86 BCE). According to this record, which admits uncertainty regarding the historicity of Laozi or Lao Dan (c. 581–500 BCE), he was said to have been born in Li District, of Hu County (now in Henan Province), in the state of, a large state in South China where he later became an archivist at the royal Zhou court under the name Lao Dan. After he had lived in Zhou for a long time he realized that the Zhou dynasty was in decline. When he was about fifty years, war broke out within the Empire and he left for the State of Qin. When he arrived at the Hangu Pass he was asked by Yin Xi, the guardian of the pass, to compose a text outlining his philosophy of Dao. The result was the text known as Daodejing (The Classic of The Way and Its Power), the content of which is presented in two sections that deal with the Tao

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and with its virtue [de].4 It was said that Laozi lived as a recluse in the State of Qin, or disappeared in the west. Besides Laozi, Zhuangzi (a pupil of Laozi) is said to be a scholar in the region of Meng in the state of Song during the period of Warring States. The state of Song was ruled by the tyrant prince Yan. This historical and political background made an impact on Zhuangzi’s life and philosophical view. Serving as a watchman in a lacquer-yard for a while, he never took up any official duties. Living the life of a recluse and spending his whole life in destitution, he took pride in his honest poverty and sought spiritual freedom. Later he wrote his works, known as The Complete Works of Zhuangzi or Zhuangzi. Zhuangzi is regarded as the greatest successor of Laozi in philosophical Daoism in the pre-Qin times. According to Sima Qian, “His [Zhuangzi’s] philosophy reflects the absorption of every different school, however, the core of his thought comes from what Laozi said.”5 Daodejing is regarded as the first text which demonstrates a comprehensive philosophical system and life meaning in the history of Chinese philosophy and religion. Dao is discussed in topics ranging from the mystery of being, human life, society, and politics toward ontology of nature (Self-so), while de is the embodiment and expansion of Dao. The dynamic relationship of Tao to de is likened to that of a mind to its bodily function. Human experiences in social and political life can be viewed within the perspective and scope of de. The root meaning of Dao, which is central to the Daodejing, is the path or way. When used as a verb, the same word means to direct, to guide, or to establish communication. The Way gives all creatures birth, and its power [de] brings them up, nourishes them, and makes them secure and perfect, giving to each its strength. “The Way (Tao) . . . is bottomless, the very progenitor of all the things in the world” (ch. 4). “Therefore of the ten thousand things there is not one that does not worship Tao and do homage to its “power” . . . It was always and of itself so” (ch. 51).

4 Chapter 63 of the Shi-Chi. See Fung Yu-Lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1964), 93–94. 5 Laozi, 53. Chapter number in parenthesis in the text refers to Laozi published by Hunan People’s Publishing House in 1999.

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The transcendence of Dao, from which oneness comes, is formlessness and ineffability. From oneness comes the diversity of yin and yang, which is conceived of as both the initial beginning and the source of life in relation to all living sentient creatures. “It was always and of itself so.” Thus the Tao is called “the mysterious power,” (ch. 51) or “Darker than any Mystery” (ch. 1). Dao eludes all human conceptual thinking because it is beyond what can be affirmed or negated in human comprehension. “The Way that can be told of is not an Unvarying Way” (ch. 1). In the Yi jing (Book of Changes), one of the Confucian classics, Tao is explained as that which is constantly self-renewing and creating energy of life as it moves. Yin and yang, in mutual interaction, are fundamental categories of this system. Dao creates all that is created through a continuous interaction of yin and yang.6 Similarly, Laozi argues that all living creatures shoulder the yin and embrace the yang (ch. 42). Inheriting Laozi’s view (ch. 42), according to which “Tao gave birth to the One; the One gave birth successively to two things, three things, up to ten thousand,” Zhuangzi also interpreted Tao as the origin of the world. Expounding Laozi’s view of Dao (ch. 25) in which Tao is called “the mother of all things under heaven,” Zhuangzi said, “Tao is a reality which has its substance, inert and formless. It can be transmitted by the heart, but not taught by word of mouth . . . It is above by the zenith but does not seem high; it is beneath the nadir but does not seem low.”7 De is usually translated as the virtue or power of Dao. This is the way of living in accordance with the Way, so that the Tao becomes particular and concrete in terms of de. This is played out in a variety of tangible instances. Like the goodness of water, de “benefits the ten thousand creatures; yet itself does not scramble, but is content with the places that all men disdain. It is this that makes water so near to the Way [Tao]” (ch. 8). The highest good in human life is likened to that of watercourse because “the power that stands firmest looks flimsy…what is in its natural, pure state looks faded” (ch. 41). A political view in Daodejing becomes obvious, as Laozi argues, when the great Way is abandoned and falls into disuse, the virtues of human heartedness and morality (righteousness) arise. When intel6

In Appendix III of the Book of Changes it is stated: “In the Yi there is the Supreme Ultimate which produces the Two Forms [i.e. the Yin and Yang].” Quoted in Fung Yu-Lan, A Short history of Chinese Philosophy, 279. 7 Zhuangzi, I, 95.

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ligence and knowledge emerge, great artifices and deceptions begin. When family discord is rife, the duty of obedience and kindness come forth. When the State falls into disorder and misrule, loyal subjects appear (ch. 18). Similarly, Zhuangzi argues that when a clear distinction is made between right and wrong, Tao is injured. “Tao is obscured when it is concealed by minor achievements; Speech is obscured when it is concealed by flowery words.”8 Contrary to a Daoist view—which opposes the rule of a country with laws and ethical codes of benevolence, righteousness, rites, intelligence, benevolence (humanity), and righteousness—is the supreme virtues of Confucianism, the principles of which became the foundations of the ethical code of nobility for Mencius. In Laozi’s view, however, these Confucian virtues should be relativised. “Tao never does; yet through it all things are done. If the barons and kings would but possess themselves of it, the ten thousand creatures would at once be transformed [of their own accord]” (Ch. 37). Thus, de is the realization or expression of the Dao in actual and natural living, a power of simplicity, even of survival. De is what happens by the natural way of Tao as distinct from human striving. It does not imply any supernatural intervention in the course of nature. De is obtained by adopting a policy of non-action. A noble official is never warlike, and a noble warrior is never angered. “The greatest conqueror wins without joining issue; the best user of men acts as though he were their inferior” (Ch. 68). For example, de can be demonstrated politically. A small, village-based, pacifist, anarchist orientation appears to fit into a government of non-action. Laozi’s utopian vision of a small country with a small population is highlighted in his description of that country where “there might still be boats and carriages, but no one would go in them; there might still be weapons of war but no one would drill with them . . . the people . . . should be contented with their food, pleased with their clothing, satisfied with their homes . . .; but the people would grow old and die without ever having been there” (Ch. 80).9 This utopian vision is embedded with a political interest in creating a social reality without violence and dominion, that is, a possible shalom

8

Ibid., 21. Likewise, Zhuangzi (Ch. 10) offers a description of life under the rule of the legendary agricultural Sage Shennong. Zhuangzi, I, 147–148. 9

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community which is still out of our reach. We already saw such utopian desire exemplified in the poem of Ruan Ji, one of the important Confucian scholars in the bamboo grove. At Laozi’s time, in the late Spring and Autumn Period, he experienced constant wars, chaos, calamities, and human predicaments. Against the current and in a manner consistent with his vision of social reality, Laozi encourages his contemporaries to follow a life conducted in the fulfillment of their purpose without taking pride in or boasting of what they have done (Ch. 30). In opposition to wars (Ch. 31), Laozi argues that the person of highest power does not act. “Therefore the Sage relies on actionless activity, carries on wordless teaching” (Ch. 2). Along this line, there would be a parallel with the Bhagavad Gita, the so-called Hindu “New Testament,” and its concept of action without concern for results.10 According to the teaching of Bhagavad Gita, it is the results of action which are to be renounced, not the action itself. It means offering the action and its fruits as a sacrifice to the Lord. This refers to the discipline of karma yoga. However, the Taoist idea of actionless activity differs from karma yoga in that the former does not regard actionless activity in a religious and sacrificial way. Again, de is obtained by adopting a policy of non-action. The lifestyle based on de is characterized by production without possession, action without self-assertion, and development without domination. On the other hand, compared to de, Dao cannot truly be obtained. Dao is born before heaven and earth. We may think of it as the Mother of this world. It is the Immense, the Nameless. The ineffability of the Tao is affirmed in the very first chapter of the Daodejing: A Tao that can be told of is not the Permanent Dao. The ineffable Dao points to profound knowledge, according to which the Dao, though incomprehensible in human languages, is the source of all meaning for living creatures. Hence, Daoist mysticism, unlike Western mysticism, becomes possible without the presupposition of the personal-mystical union with a metaphysical reality of the Absolute. Developing Laozi’s concept of mystical union with virtue (Ch. 56), Zhuangzi held the view of the interchangeability and uniformity

10 Bhagavad Gita, trans. Sir Edwin Arnold (New York: Dover Publications, 1993), 15–19.

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of things. “From the viewpoint of Tao, there is nothing noble or mean…When something falls into disintegration, some new entities are formed; when some new entities are formed, something must have fallen apart. But for things in general, there is neither disintegration nor formation—there is always the interchangeability and uniformity of things.”11

Mystical Transcendence in Dao and the Way of Non-Action For seeking the knowledge of the Dao, Laozi insists on a necessity of spiritual purification. “The five colours confuse the eye. The five sounds dull the ears. The five tastes spoil the palate. Excess of hunting and chasing makes minds go mad” (ch. 12). Laozi uses the word ming (light) on several occasions to mean the sage’s insight into the mystery. Going to the origin of all things characterizes the main idea of Taoist mysticism. The Taoist mystics, in turn, are associated with the unity of opposites in abolishing discrimination. Unlike Laozi, Zhuangzi asserts that there is a mystical form of a perfect union with the Tao which can be obtained by withdrawing from all secular realms. Mystical knowledge or wisdom comes only by forgetting the knowledge of all things, especially including knowledge of self. “Sitting in oblivion” and “fasting of the mind” presuppose the emptying of the senses and of the mind, leading to divine indwelling. “Let your ears and your eyes communicate with what is inside . . . Then even gods and spirits will come to dwell . . .”12 For Zhuangzi, the Tao can only gather in emptiness and that emptiness is the fasting of the mind. Looking upon everything as emptiness, the human mind will be empty, pure and simple. “Set your mind at flight by going along with things as they are. Cultivate your mind by resigning yourself to the inevitable.”13 For Zhuangzi, setting the mind at flight in the wandering of the mind means a spiritual-mystic freedom enjoying the supreme pleasure of mingling with nature. Zhuangzi developed Laozi’s view of staying in its

11

Zhuangzi, I, 24–25. Burton Watson, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 57. 13 Zhuangzi, I, 61. 12

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natural way and refraining from any interference and took non-action in the face of nature. “The heaven is clear because it does nothing; the earth is quiet because it does nothing.”14 For Zhuangzi, non-action (wu wei) is understood as freedom from bondage because a person in non-action is content with whatever happens. On the other hand, Zhuangzi’s meditative-mystic thinking can be understood as a critique of a thinking of instrumentality and utility. For instance, an oak tree which was so huge sheltering thousands of oxen can be abused, broken and torn for its utility. The utility and instrumentality of a tree makes the life of a tree miserable, experiencing a premature death.15 Distinct from Zhuangzi’s mysticism of the fasting of the mind or setting the mind at flight, Laozi is more concerned with how to make the best of our life in this world. Laozi’s idea of dominion can be expressed in the context of Zhuangzi in the following way: “Laozi said, ‘when an enlightened king governs his state, his meritorious deeds are felt all over the world but they do not seem to be out of his efforts; his influence reaches everyone but the people do not feel that they depend on him; his achievements are not attributed to him but all the people enjoy themselves; he is shrouded in mystery and wanders in the land of nonexistence.”16 This statement demonstrates a political philosophy of Laozi in an anarchistic-democratic manner. This orientation is also different from a hope in the expectation of a better future in Christian fashion. Everything comes from Dao as the Ultimate Ground, and everything goes to it. At this point, though, we do see some similarities to certain Christian strains of theology, namely Meister Eckhart’s metaphysics of flow. In this, there is a dynamic reciprocity and movement of the flowing-forth (exitus-emanatio) of all things from the hidden ground of God, and a flowing-back (reditus-restoratio) of the universe into identity with God. The reditus of all things to God corresponds to the exitus of all things from God.17 So, the future of God is to be realized and grasped in this “to-and-fro” movement.

14

Zhuangzi, II, 287. Zhuangzi, I, 65. 16 Ibid., 117–118. 17 Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart: The Man from Whom God Hid Nothing (Herder: The Crossroad, 2001), 71. 15

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In Chinese thought, the two poles of cosmic energy are yang (positive) and yin (negative). The interacting forces of creation in Dao and their conventional signs are respectively [–] and [– –]. The ideograms are associated with the masculine and the feminine, the firm and the yielding, the strong and the weak, the light and the dark, the rising and the falling, heaven and earth. Thus, Laozi says: “He who knows the male, yet cleaves to what is female becomes like a ravine, receiving all things under heaven . . . This is returning to the state of infancy . . . He returns to the Limitless” (Ch. 28). The Daoist metaphor of the feminine in the biological-generative sense affirms nature, namely the state of infancy. Daoist mysticism affirms and connects the world of nature to its source of life in which the feminine functions as the symbol of non-action and spontaneity. The key to the relationship between yin and yang is called shang sheng, mutual arising or inseparability. When everyone knows beauty as beautiful, there is already ugliness. When everyone knows good as goodness, there is already evil. “For truly, Being and Not-being grow out of one another. Difficult and easy complete one another. Long and short test one another; . . . Pitch and mode give harmony to one another. Front and back give sequence to one another” (Ch. 2). Everything and everybody is in mutual sequence. Thus, the sage relies on actionless activity. In this regard, Laozi contradicts the Confucian idea of the rectification of the name, according to which, for instance, a father in the family must be a good father in accordance with the name of “father.” However, Dao cannot be expressed fully even in terms of the rectification of the name. Dao is effective in the world by non-action, not by operating in accordance with the name “Dao.” Apart from Confucian morality and rationality, one must return to non-conceptual simplicity, non-discriminating mutual relationship, non-action, and the way of watercourse. Following the natural course, sorrow and joy will not affect human life.18 According to chapter 42 in the Daodejing we read, “Tao gave birth to the One. One gave successively to two things. Three things, up to ten thousand.” All living things carry yin and embrace yang, achieving harmony by combining these forces.

18

Zhuangzi, I, 101.

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When Buddhism from India was introduced into China between the Han dynasties, Kumarajiva’s effort of translation found many similarities between Indian Buddhism and Daoism. For instance, the Taoist concept of mutual interconnection between yin and yang is similar to the Buddhist principle of dependent origination (pratitya samutpada). Dependent origination, which is based on the Sunyata, has been developed and expanded in the direction of a fusion of horizons with Sunyata as absolute nothingness in Buddhism and as the wondrous being of non-existence in Daoism. On the other hand, we can find a Taoist influence on the NeoConfucian school in considerable ways developed in the Song and Ming dynasties. For instance, Zhou Dunyi (1017–1073) reformed the diagram of Wuji into the diagram of the Supreme Ultimate in the following explanation: the Ultimateless—the Supreme Ultimate—yin and yang—Five Elements and Four Seasons—Myriad Creatures and Man. The school of Principle represented by Zhu Xi (1130–1200) argues that there was only the principle before the birth of heaven and earth. The Tao is identical with the Neo-Confucian idea of the Principle, while the Tao is identical with the Mind in the Neo-Confucian school of the Mind represented by Lu Jiuyuan (1139–1193) and Wang Yangming (1472–1529).19

Femininity and Spontaneity As alluded to above, the Dao can be symbolized by the female side. The valley spirit never dies; it is called the mysterious female. The gate of the mysterious female is the origin from which heaven and earth sprang (Ch. 6). The feminine, as the symbol of the origin of life and the principle of non-action and spontaneity (self-so), is linked to the symbol of the valley characterized by its empty space and its passive receptivity. Dao personified as mother is not only tolerant and lifegiving but also ruthless and inhumane in response to human attempts to artificially manipulate it (Ch. 5). This refers to nature’s response to the human attempts to master nature through technology. Therefore, an ecological ethic is implicit here.

19

Laozi, 59.

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In Laozi, the idea of mother—the female, the mystical womb—is closely associated with that of emptiness. This void is none other than non-being. It is efficacious because, like bellows, it is capable of producing breath at will. As Laozi says, the Tao principle happens of itself. Tao is the ultimate reality and energy of the universe; it is the Ground of being and non-being. Tao does nothing, but nothing is left undone (Ch. 37). Surprisingly, Laozi’s exaltation of femininity went dead against all the patriarchal thinking of his contemporaries, a fact which witnesses to the subversive and even revolutionary component in the Daodejing. Lying low in stillness, the female overcomes the male (Ch. 61). In Chinese history, most rebellious groups were inspired by Taoist philosophy to challenge the government’s institutionalization and legitimation of the Confucian moral system and worldview. Laozi uses the flow of water as the principal metaphor of Dao. It is called the Watercourse Way, the process of nature. In Laozi’s favorite image of Dao, water is the essence of life, benefiting all living creatures. Water is an eloquent and extraordinary metaphor, portraying Tao as the flowing course of nature. Therefore, if everything is allowed to go its own way, the harmony of the universe will be established since every process in the world can do its own thing only in relation to all other things. Because of the mutual interdependence of all beings, harmony will emerge of itself, without external compulsion. This summarizes some basic ideas of Dao, its mystery and manifestation in a natural-spontaneous way. Later we will return to Daoist ideas in dialogue with God the Trinity in a JudaeoChristian context. Now it is important to deal with Jewish Kabbalah.

Rabbinic Judaism and Kabbalah Mysticism After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the priesthood came to an end and a new Jewish religious leadership emerged with the initiative of the scholars, called rabbis. They interpreted Scripture and offered direction for the law’s implementation in the face of the new reality in the post-Temple period. In rabbinic Judaism Mishnah in reference to the Hebrew Bible assumes a status like the New Testament in Christianity. The Mishnah (the word is derived from shanah, to “repeat” or “study”) is the collected teachings of the rabbis which are the intellectual

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crystallization of the orally transmitted teachings of scribes, Pharisees, and sages from the Second Temple period down to Judah ha-Nasi in the second century. The authority of the Mishnah was said to derive from Sinai. In the following passage of the Mishnah (Pirkei Avot 1:1), the rabbis claim a chain of continuity of transmission for both an oral Torah and the written Torah: “Moses received the Torah from Sinai and handed it down to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the men of the Great Assembly.” The Mishnah is almost entirely a halakhic work, written in fluent Hebrew and published around 200 CE in Galilee. It is not a commentary about the Hebrew Bible. As “Oral Torah,” or an embodiment of the Logos which was not written down in the Bible, the Mishnah argues that Oral Torah is an ongoing, revelatory process which invites each successive generation to participate in terms of reasoning, reflection, and understanding. It demands exegesis and interpretation. The Talmud is an elaboration of the Mishnah in which each paragraph is followed by a lengthy and amplifying exposition. This amplified exposition, called Gemara (“teaching” or “study” in Aramaic) constitutes the Talmud together with Mishnah. The Mishnah is the core text, the Gemara is a supplement to it. Understood in this way, God’s word is not final. Rather, a living interpretation of the texts with regard to the contemporary world is called for. We perceive such need and creativity of the interpretation of the word of God in Deuteronomy 17:8–12. Here, Moses establishes a judicial system with a supreme court (with the priests and the Levites) to resolve legal problems over the lower courts. Rabbinic thought can be divided into two types: halakha and aggadah (sometimes haggadah). The former, originating from a root meaning “to go,” designates the correct way. This, as the path, can be used for a specific law and for the entire system of the law. The latter, originating from a root meaning “to tell,” includes theological speculation, ethical teaching in a broad sense, parables and maxims, legends and folklore. The two categories of halakha and aggadah are in mutual relationship. The former seeks to apply the divine law to specific worldly circumstances, while the latter seeks to inspire and enlighten. In the Talmudic discussion, there is no sharp distinction between the legal and the spiritual. The term Midrash (probing, searching), unlike Mishna, interprets a biblical text for contemporary relevance. Halakhic midrash

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refers to legal interpretation, while aggadic midrash is related to nonlegal interpretation. The rabbis saw evidence of prophetic inspiration in the lives of nonIsraelites. For instance, Balaam and his father (Nm 23:24), and Job and his four friends are examples of this inspiration from people who are outside of the Israelite community. Even the written Torah does not fully reveal God’s word. Because of the limitations of human understanding of God, the prophets were not allowed to see the fullness of the divine glory. The highest level of the knowledge of God was not revealed even to Moses.20 A rabbinic concept of covenant with Israel is not exclusive, but open to people of other religions. The seven laws of Noah, which form an expansion of the covenant in Genesis 9, are universal moral and religious principles: avoidance of idolatry, unchastity (incest and adultery), bloodshed, profaning the name of God, robbery, cutting off flesh from a living animal, and the establishment of courts of justice. Rabbinic Judaism did not limit salvation to Israel, but holds that all humans should believe in the oneness of God. “He who repudiates idol worship may be called a Jew” (B. T. Megillah 13a).21 Abraham’s life is depicted as a journey of life from idolatry to monotheism. The Talmud represents an approach to one of the most comprehensive types of spirituality through the study of Torah. The study of Torah is not pursued to gain knowledge. “The Torah and the commandments were rather seen as a ladder by which a person might reach the higher goal of cleaving to God. Indeed, subsequent developments in Jewish mysticism were often to move in this direction.”22 The commitment to the study of the Torah and to the commandments are the primary means of achieving a personal connection with God, while spiritual awareness of and encounter with God might constitute a connection of Talmudic spirituality with Jewish mysticism in successive kabbalistic development, albeit in a different degree. As Heschel states about Jewish spirituality, “Perhaps the essential message of Judaism is that in doing the finite we may perceive the infinite. It is incumbent 20

Rosh Hashanah 21 b. See The Talmud: Selected Writings, trans. Ben Zion Bokser (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), 19. 21 Robert M. Seltzer, Jewish People, Jewish Thought: The Jewish Experience in History (New York, London: Macmillan, 1980), 286. 22 Ben Zion Bokser, The Jewish Mystical Tradition (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1981), 48.

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on us to obtain the perception of the impossible in the possible, the perception of life eternal in everyday deeds.”23 The rabbinic concept of God involves the modification of a biblical concept of God without losing its continuity with the Bible. Rabbinic Judaism in the post-biblical period develops new approaches to articulate another face of God from creation and God’s presence within it. We shall have an opportunity to include some ideas of rabbinic Judaism regarding God and creation when it comes to the discussion of wisdom of Dao and Zohar.

Zohar and Kabbalah The rabbinic idea of seeking direct contact with the divine and spiritual perfection does not contradict the spirituality of Jewish mysticism as stated in Zohar.24 The Hebrew word kabbalah is defined as “receiving” and refers to that which is handed down by tradition in a general and broad sense, long before it retained a mystical connotation by the time of Moses de Leon. At this time, the term kabbalah specifically denoted esoteric teachings, techniques of meditation, and a growing body of mystical literature. According to Gershom Scholem, the great scholar of Jewish mysticism in the twentieth century, mysticism arose in the formal religion only after an abyss formed between God and humans.25 What the mystic seeks is to cross over the gap between the infinite and the finite in the spiritual journey by drawing near to God’s ineffable majesty and mystery. In Provence and Catalonia toward the end of the twelfth century, the basic idea of the Kabbalah appeared in an anonymous book, the Bahir (Brightness), which, as the main text of Provencal Kabbalah, reinterprets the term sefirot as used in the Sefer Yetzirah. A kabbalistic movement initiated by the famous rabbi Nahmanides of Gerona gained wider acceptance, spreading to Castile (central Spain). Moses de Leon settled in the city of Guadalajara sometime between 1275

23 Abraham J. Heschel, Man is not Alone (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, Inc., 1966), 265. 24 Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988). 25 Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken Books, 1954), 8.

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and 1280. He came to know some of the kabbalists and was introduced to the Bahir. In the Bahir and according to the subsequent kabbalistic tradition, the sefirot are attributes of God which are referred to as vessels, crowns, or words coming out of the Godhead. A turning point in the history of Kabbalah took place through the publication of the Zohar (the Book of Splendor) toward the end of the thirteenth century. The bulk of the Zohar was composed by a Spanish Jewish mystic kabbalist, Moses de Leon, who also produced a special Midrash. This process entails the searching and researching of Scripture.26 Midrash is exegesis, explanation, and commentary about a biblical text. Midrash had begun by the time of Ezra and the earliest extant works of Midrash may have been compiled in part, orally in the first century CE. However, because of prohibitions against writing “Oral Torah,” it is impossible to know when they were actually written down. The earliest Midrashim were edited during the fourth and fifth centuries and were called Midrash ha-Ne’elam (the concealed, esoteric Midrash) by Moses. Midrash ha-Ne’elam is the earliest stratum of the Zohar. Between 1280 and 1286 Moses de Leon produced the main body of the Zohar. The Zohar is regarded as a medieval pseudepigraphon, with works ascribed to a figure living long before the actual author. This literary device dates back to ancient times. For example, the Bahir is attributed to a rabbi of the first century, Nehunya son of ha-Kanah. Borrowing the name of the ancient Rabbi Shim’on and his circle enabled Moses de Leon to transmit radical teaching as ancient wisdom, and also to compose several short pseudepigraphic pieces. The Zohar is a mystical midrash. The original is thought to have been composed in the circle of Rabbi Shim’on, son of Yohai, who was an important teacher living in the land of Israel in the second century. After the death of Rabbi Shim’on the book was secretly handed down to disciples, and finally reached Moses de Leon. Selected verses of the Torah provide an ethical or a mystical interpretation based on Moses de Leon’s exposition of the Kabbalah. Nevertheless, the Zohar is accepted 26 Reuven Hammer, ed. The Classic Midrash: Tannaitic Commentaries on the Bible (New York: Paulist Press, 1995), 18. Midrash as an exegesis of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) was established as one of the categories of rabbinic teaching, along with mishna, halakha, and aggadah. There are two main forms of rabbinic teaching in the realm of halakha: Mishna and Midrash. Midrash requires a biblical text, while mishna presents legal material with reference to the Hebrew Bible. The Mishna was edited by Rabbi Judah the Prince around the year 200 CE.

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as the ancient wisdom of Rabbi Shim’on and his circle.27 The Zohar is acknowledged as the classical text of the Kabbalah down to the present day possessing an authority equivalent to that of the Talmud in rabbinic Judaism. The Zohar aims at making a mystical commentary on the Torah in which God is hidden. Seeing through the lens of the Zohar, one penetrates into the texture of divine life. For the one dissatisfied with the superficial meaning of the words, the Zohar calls for a mystical interpretation in order to understand the hidden dimension of God’s Name. Its hermeneutical goal is to penetrate and elicit the divine essence, unraveling the secret content of the words. The Torah hides more than it reveals. Torah is seen for a moment, and then disappears and hides away quickly. “Inside the hidden nexus, from within the sealed secret, a zohar flashed, shining as a mirror, embracing two colors blended together . . . the whole spectrum of colors flashing, disappearing. Those rays of color do not wait to be seen; they merge into the fusion of zohar.”28 According to the Zohar, Torah calls for a reader’s interpretive imagination to comprehend God.

A Jewish-Daoist Perspective on Creatio ex Nihilo Drawing upon a basic understanding of Tao and Jewish spirituality, it is intriguing to explore a triadic discussion regarding the Christian concept of creation, Taoist wisdom, and the Jewish theology of creation. In his reading of Daodejing in the context of Christian theology, Moltmann pays special attention to the Taoist idea of nature as “the highest reality of not-doing.”29 For him, ziran spontaneity corresponds, as a matter of course, to the self-forgetting, delighted play of Wisdom as seen in Israel’s Wisdom literature. According to this tradition, the indwelling of God in creation becomes efficacious in terms of God’s Spirit (ruach) and Wisdom (hokma) (cf. Proverbs 8. 22ff.). Regarding the biblical story of creation,

27 Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment, trans. Daniel Chananmatt (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1983), 4. 28 See “Jacob’s Journey,” in Zohar, 75. 29 Moltmann, Science & Wisdom, 185.

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Moltmann discerns a similarity between the concept of tzimtzum in the Kabbalah and the Taoist idea of the Way.30 At the level of absolute truth, the statement of the permanent Tao in the first chapter of Daodejing can reflect on Ehyeh, or “I shall be” (Ex 3:14), yet without implying the idea of a personified God. “I shall be” is the answer to Moses’ question “what is your name?” It could mean: I am nameless because I cannot be conceived of in terms of human languages. To look at it from another perspective, the word H-W-Y-H means existence. The universe exists entirely within God, but God is more than it. Y-H-W-H as Eyn Sof (that which has no end), or Makom, is greater and more comprehensive than H-W-Y-H.31 In Moses’ request that God show up, YHWH shows the backside (Ex 33:21–23). God cannot be fully conceptualized in a human capacity. This refers to an apophatic and negative side of God. Likewise, the Dao as the way of ultimate mystery cannot be perceived or clearly conceived of in terms of human rationality. The Dao as the Great Void is greater and more comprehensive than the universe. The fact that the Dao cannot be named or clearly conceived of is due to its character of mystery and freedom. At the level of relative truth, however, the Tao is frequently referred to as the mother of all creatures; This is an aspect of the named Tao (compared to cataphatic and positive side of God in Christian fashion). At least in the context of Daodejing, Dao is not to be conceptualized as a personal or anthropomorphic deity, rather it is understood in terms of the language of negation. At this point, Heidegger speaks of the Tao as “the way that gives all ways, the very source of our power to think . . . Perhaps the mystery of mysteries of thoughtful Saying conceals itself in the word ‘way’ Dao.”32 Tao is a dynamic “saying,” which can be compared to God’s speech act occurring in every way and all directions. In light of the dynamism of the speech act we perceive a parallel between God and Tao. Furthermore, the concepts of de and qi are analogously correlated to the Jewish-Christian concepts of wisdom and Spirit. Laozi recommends

30

Ibid., 184–185. Arthur Green, EHYEH: a Kabbalah for Tomorrow (Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2003), 1. 32 Martin Heidegger, On the Way to Language (New York, Harper & Row, 1971), 92. 31

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that one “keep the unquiet physical-soul from straying, hold fast to the Unity (keep the spiritual and sentient souls united)” and “concentrate your breath make it soft (concentrate the vital qi to attain a state of pliancy)” (Ch. 10). In the Jewish tradition of Kabbalah, Eyn Sof—God as an endless, limitless, incomprehensible reality—reveals Godself as the ten sefirot within the cosmic structure. Keter, which represents the first undefined intent toward movement within Eyn Sof, has no specific content in itself. It can be described as “Nothing.” The spiritual journey to and from the Nothing is continual. Keter, devoid of content, is a locus of pure compassion. In its very emptiness, keter is the point of departure of the cosmic process which accepts the future movement. It may be depicted as a state of divine openness ad extra. With keter understood as a crown or circle, the sefirot is a great circle in which the end is connected with the beginning, and the beginning with the end. Out of keter arises hokhmah (wisdom). The movement from keter to hokhmah, which is the first step in the primal process, is a transition from Nothingness to being. In Job 28:12, “Wisdom comes from Nothingness.” As hokhmah arises out of Nothingness, it brings forth its own mate: binah (contemplation). Hokhmah and binah, like the primal pair of yin and yang, are mutually connected with each other. The energy radiating from hokhmah is described metaphorically as flowing light and water. These three—keter, hokhmah, and binah—are the first three sefirot. The energy of hokhmah fills the womb of binah, which in turn gives birth to the seven lower sefirot. Isaac Luria (1534–72) transformed kabbalistic speculation about creation. For him, creation was a negative event, whereas in the literature of early kabbalists, creation was understood as a positive act. In contrast, Luria taught that the Eyn Sof had to bring into being an empty space in which creation could take place. This was accomplished by the process of tzimtzum, God’s self-contraction. By going into exile, God allowed for empty space so that the process of creation could be initiated. According to Daoist cosmogony (reflection on how the world came into being), Dao above and within is the source of the mystery that is life. From the Dao above we see the mystery of Nothingness, while seeing the appearance from the Dao within. Non-being gives birth to being. The Dao, in utter silence and mystery, revealed itself in mutual relationship and mutual permeation with all that exists through the de

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and the qi to establish harmony among all. Dao is called the gateway of all mystery. The principle of mutual interconnection between non-being and being, or yin and yang, presupposes the other side of the Dao, namely de and qi. Therefore, there is no difference between the triadic self-evolution of the Dao in the manifestation of de and qi and the emergence of the ten thousand things. Taoist theogony proceeds and evolves in the cosmogony of every living organism. Speaking in a Taoist fashion, creation comes from Dao, not out of nihilo. There is no void, no-thing outside the Tao. The Dao underlines and sustains everything which flows forth from it. Because of this, the Christian idea of creatio ex nihilo is not sufficient to describe the Taoist idea that there is no name outside the Dao. The self-movement of the Tao refers to its self-evolving emanation from the hidden mystery to the world of form and appearance. In this regard there is a parallel between the Taoist cosmogenesis and the Jewish idea of tzimtzum. The kabbalists interpreted the concept of creatio ex nihilo by understanding God as the Divine Nothing. God is in and of Godself, beyond human understanding. Given this fact, creation of the universe arises out of God in terms of divine emanations. In other words, there was a process within the Godhead prior to the creation of the universe. A blinding spark flashed Within the Concealed of the Concealed From the mystery of the Infinite, A cluster of vapor in formlessness, set in a ring, . . . Concealed within the concealed of the mystery of the Infinite. . . . .Zohar, Concealed of the Concealed, struck its aura. . . . .Then this Beginning emanated and made itself a palace for its glory and its praise.33

As distinct from the earlier kabbalists, the Lurianic Kabbalah34 provides an explanation of the creation of the universe which is not grounded 33

Zohar, 49. Isaac Luria (1534–1572) was born in Jerusalem of an Ashkenazic father and a Sephardic mother. Luria studied Talmud and later, according to the tradition, he withdrew for seven years to a life of seclusion on an Island in the Nile. Here he mediated on the Zohar and practiced asceticism. He made a profound impression on a group of disciples. He died of the plague at the age of 38. See Seltzer, Jewish People, Jewish Thought, 463–464. 34

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in the emergence of the sefirot from the Eyn Sof. In the Lurianic vision, the first movement of creation was not emanation or outpouring but a contraction. The Eyn Sof withdrew from the central point which left room for a spiritual vacuum to come into existence. The vacuum left is the spiritual archetype at creation for physical space, so that this contraction or retreat of the Eyn Sof into itself is tzimtzum. Thus, void (tohu) in Genesis denotes the stage of God’s self-revelation known as olam ha-tohu (world of the void) preceding olam ha-tikkun (world of perfection). God as holy Nothingness, or Tao, underlies Eyn Sof (non-being) and sefirot (de and qi including the ten thousand things). In this understanding, God accomplished creation by contraction in the same way Tao caused being through emptying the void. According to Zhuangzi, there was oneness, which is another name for Dao. Dao did not assume any form. From oneness came everything, each receiving what is called its own virtue. Before things took on their respective forms, there was already the distinction of yin and yang, inseparable from each other. This is called the destiny. Things came into existence in the process of flow and flux of yin and yang, each with its own configuration which is called its form. The physical form protects its spirit, each with its own characteristics which are called the inborn nature. With further cultivation, the inborn nature returns to virtue; in its perfection, virtue is very much the same as the very beginning. To be the same as the very beginning is to be empty; to be empty is to be all-embracing. Human speech is mingled with the signing of birds. Having mingled their speech with the singing of birds, the people are mingled with the heaven and the earth…This is called “divine virtue,” in perfect accordance with the natural course of events.”35 Furthermore, Dao cosmogenesis refers to the natural and self-evolving way of impersonal and hidden Dao in which creatio ex nihilo is to be understood as creatio ex ‘the Way’ (Dao). Tao embraces being, non-being, and nothingness, one and all. This unseen is neither personal nor trans-personal. Rather, it is understood as the all-inclusive Way of the self-emptying void, the living source of life. If creatio ex nihilo is understood as creatio ex Way (Dao), in which, out of God’s mystery, God paves God’s Way of openness to grant life and freedom to all, then a personality-centered theology of God in the Western tradition

35

Zhuangzi, I, 183.

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could be enriched in a way that incorporates the all-inclusive living and dynamic side of God. Laozi speaks of the Tao that is not the permanent and constant Tao. This is a double play on words since the term Tao is also the verb, “to speak.” The Chinese word Tao is an equivalent of both the Greek word logos and the Greek word hodos, the Way. Tao is God’s speech, logos, and way. This understanding of the meaning of these words has been used in translations of St. John’s Prologue—“In the beginning was the Tao”—and contains, therefore, echoes of the line, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” This is a Christian appropriation of Taoist philosophy in China and Korea in each Bible translation. God’s speech remains still a mystery in its manifestation of de, the embodiment of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ: Sagehood and Self-limitation Dao, as God’s speech, became flesh. This parallels the Daoist idea of immanence through de and qi, as well as the Jewish notion of divine contraction or the self-limitation of Eyn Sof (tzimtzum). Withdrawing or holding itself back from Godself, God as Eyn Sof allows non-God to exist. This does not mean merely a once-and-for all action but a continuing divine action to allow room for the other to exist. God’s creation out of God’s own self, and God’s ongoing revelation of the divine act of creation has a parallel structure to the Taoist notion of creation out of the Way, and of radical immanence within all that exists through the virtue of de and the spontaneity of qi. All creatures issue forth from the Tao; they are its children. But they must return to its womb. Progressing and returning is the movement of the Dao. All creatures in this world are born from the seen; the seen is born from the unseen. They move from Dao to Dao in the great cycle of yin and yang. “[All things emerge together and I see them return again]. They grow and flourish and then return to the source. Returning to the source is stillness. [Stillness means returning to what is destined.] Returning to what is destined means to be [enlightened]. To know the eternal means enlightenment” (Ch. 16).36

36 Cited in Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, trans. Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English (London: Wildwood House, 1973).

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The Dao to which all things return is the root and origin in which they find eternal rest. This homecoming is what is destined for all. The circulation of emergence and return articulates the movement or companion of Dao, issuing out of itself into the life of the ten thousand things, and together with them returning to itself. This return to the root is called stillness, a submission to fate which has become part of the always-so. Those who know the always-so have room in one for everything. Dao is forever and will not be destroyed (Ch. 16). Along this line Richard Rubenstein, a Jewish thinker, writes of “a Holy Nothingness, known to mystics of all ages, out of which we have come and to which we shall ultimately return. . . .The limitations of finitude can be overcome only when we return to the Nothingness out of which we have been thrust. In the final analysis, omnipotent Nothingness is Lord of all creation.”37 The person who possesses perfect virtue participates in the life-giving efficacy of the Dao. Laozi calls this person by the name shengren, the sage. This person is illumined and enlightened. In terms of self-cultivation in a naturally spontaneous way, the holy person is illumined to know that everything comes from Dao to Dao in harmony with the eternal Tao. The sage follows after the Way, the non-action of self-so and spontaneity. For Daoists, the Christian idea of future must be interconnected with past (origin) and present (way of life in non-action). This perspective points to Jesus as the figure of tzimtzum, a model of going off to a far country and of coming home. In Jesus’ farewell sermon to his disciples we see a Jesus who comes from the Father to the world, and who returns to the Father, leaving the world to prepare a place for it (Jn 14:2; 16:28). Eschatology and protology are interconnected in the life of Jesus. Jesus mirrors the way of tzimtzum, going into the exile of the cross to allow for a space for the people. Jesus does not find a place on earth (Lk 9:58) because his place is Makom as embracing his transcendence and immanence. God pitches God’s indwelling temple in him. “All things came into being through him . . . What has come into being in him was life” (Jn 1:3f.).38

37

Richard L. Rubenstein, After Auschwitz (Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill), 154. The Talmud, Selected Writings, trans. Ben Zion Bokser, 16. According to the Talmud, God is the place; the universe exists in God, not God in the universe. “The Holy One, praised be He, is the place of His universe, but His universe is not His place.” (Genesis Rabbah 68:10). 38

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The locus of creation exists in Christ rather than existing in the universe. The idea of Makom in Jesus’ saying is related to his spontaneous submission to the will of God and his way of non-violence. This offers a basis for extending Christ’s way to the Daoist ideas of non-action and sagehood. Jesus Christ as the embodiment of Dao becomes the ideal holy person in realizing and fulfilling God’s virtue and Torah. Meekness, compassion, and non-violence in the life of Jesus provide a parallel to the Daoist idea of sagehood. However, God remains mystery even in the embodiment. The words of Jesus Christ are not in competition with the God of Israel, nor does he replace God. The sage is the one who is of childlike spontaneity and non-action. This is one who returns to infancy by knowing the masculine and nurturing the feminine. This is one who becomes like a river of all in abiding by perennial integrity. This is the one who is like the valley of all and returns to the boundless by knowing the white and nurturing the black. This is one who, like “Chief of all Ministers” for the great governing blade, craves nothing and “returns to Limitless” and the simplicity of “the Uncarved Block” (Ch. 28). The beginning of the world could be the mother of the world. When we know the mother, we come to know the child. The mother-child relationship endorses that we hold fast to the mother. Laozi speaks of compassion, frugality and against daring to take risks and dangers (Ch. 67). The compassion is borrowed from Buddhism which is, in the context of Mahayana Buddhism, connected with Bodhisattvas in female form. Jesus’ feminine compassion can be seen in his exhortation of the simplicity of a child: “Unless you become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of God. Anyone who receives one such child in my name receives me” (Mt 18:5). “I praise Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to babes” (Mt 11:25). Likewise, Daoist anthropology of sagehood does not recommend unilateral patriarchy (yang) or matriarchy (yin), but proposes childlike simplicity in harmony with both of them. Jesus Christ, in this light, means a perfect harmony between Jesus as a Jewish man and Christ as the Eternal Logos. Jesus lives in perfect harmony with the Supreme Tao (Father) of his origin in fellowship with the Spirit rather than in the ontological state of homoousios. He is the cardinal way of incarnating, embodying, and practicing the Way of God. In other words, he is God’s de.

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The Christian idea of the preexistent Christ can be understood in accordance with Jesus’ saying: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am” (Jn 8. 58). “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me” (Jn 5. 46). Moses bore witness to Jesus Christ who IS, even before Abraham was born. Essentially Jesus Christ belongs to the world of Torah, which as a companion of life leads to life, not to death. We see a correspondence between Jesus and Moses (cf. Deut 18:15.18). At this juncture, Jesus provocatively said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it . . .”(Mt 23:2–3). In the Jewish tradition, Torah is not just the message given by God to Moses on Sinai but the Eternal Word of God. Torah existed before the foundation of the world. The concept of a preexistent Torah is portrayed as the divine working tool for creation drawing upon Proverbs 8. God consulted God’s blueprint, the Torah, at the creation of the world. In Christianity, the Torah as the eternal Word of God is identified with the incarnation of Jesus Christ, while in Judaism it remains forever the Word. The heavenly Torah is an ideal pattern to be realized in the world. After creation Torah includes a written component (the Scripture) and an oral component. “[The Torah] has a body: the commandments of Torah, called ‘the embodiment of Torah.’”39 The primordial Torah is seen in relation to hokhmah which speaks in the verses of the Books of Proverbs and Job. She was with God from the beginning and is the beginning of God’s way.40 Jesus as the embodied (or incarnated) Torah means that he has the broadest scope and dimension in the universe because all was and is created through him. From the Zohar’s statement we read, “There is nothing that is not referred to in Torah.”41 However, Torah is not fixed or final, but of dynamic evolving. Prophetic inspiration has evidence in the lives of such non-Israelites as Balaam and his father and Job and his four friends. For the sake of comprehensibility and communication, the Torah speaks of God in

39

Zohar, 44. Keter (Crown) is the first sefirah, in coeternity with Ein Sof. It is also known as Ayin, Nothingness. From this sefirah all emanation flows. First the primordial point of Hokhmah shines forth. Hokhmah is called Beginning, because Keter is eternal and has no beginning. Zohar, 34. 41 Zohar, 3:221a. 40

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terms of analogy. In Talmudic discussion there is no sharp distinction between halakha (law) and haggadah (or aggadah, the nonlegal teaching). As such, it calls for human imagination, exercising initiative in reinterpreting and reconstructing the Torah to each particular life context (Deut 17:8–12). Commitment to Torah becomes meaningful in a living and dynamic interpretation of the texts in a contextual way.42 Jesus, the incarnated Torah, can be seen as the embodiment of God’s Way in terms of de and through qi. In this he represents the ideal of sagehood in a Taoist sense, and he appears to be childlike and living water, a figure inclusive of the knowing mother and of the children (Ch. 52). “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns . . . Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin” (Mt 6:26–28). Nature for Jesus implies God’s Way of being present, sustaining, and nurturing in the life of all creatures. Jesus’ self-description as living water (Jn 4:10), given for us to drink, provides a striking example of the Taoist source of living water. Those who drink the living water of Jesus abide in the source which gives water that is eternal life. “From their innermost being shall flow rivers of living water” (Jn 7:38). This refers to the indwelling of the Spirit. Jesus embodies the spirit of valley and follows God’s Way of emptiness. In chapter 76 of the Daodejing, we read a striking example of the Taoist ideal of sagehood in continuity with the suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 and with Jesus’ beatitudes: When the person is born, he/she is soft and weak, in death he/she becomes stiff and hard. What is stiff and hard is a ‘companion of death.’ What is soft and weak is a ‘companion of life.’ The hard and mighty are cast down while the soft and weak set on high. Likewise Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the peace-makers, who will be called children of God” (Mt 5:3, 5, 8). According to Talmudists, a sage is a peace-lover and peace-maker. The ways of peace are mentioned in Psalm 15: Walking with integrity, pursuing righteousness, speaking the truth in the heart, no slandering with the tongue, committing no evil against a fellow-human, bringing no shame to a neighbor, despising a vile person, honoring those revering God.

42

The Talmud, 11.

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In Micah, these ways are reduced to three: to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God (Mi 6:8). In Isaiah, keeping justice and doing righteousness (Isa 56:1) are the two cardinal paths to peace. Amos reduced them to one: “Seek me and live” (Amos 5:6), as did Habbakuk: “The righteous shall live by his faith” (Hab 2:4; B.T. Makkot 23b–24a). In Exodus 18:30, the path in which people are to walk refers to the law, but the work they are to do refers to acts of sagehood, beyond the measure of the law. Ethical conduct does not mean a soulless formalism. Even in messianic times of liberation and enlightenment, human spontaneity leads to the right action in every situation without a need of the law. In the hereafter the laws will become obsolete.43 As R. Yohanan said, “Jerusalem was destroyed because her people hewed strictly to the letter of the Torah.”44 The Daoists considered all social values to be prejudices, but prejudices form and shape our tradition, language, culture, and society. Human beings live in a world of prejudices. The Cogito principle (“I think”) is captive to the world of contradiction and opposition. The point is to get out of the vicious circle of contradiction and opposition by transcending or overcoming it. Transcending might be referred to as the Daoist logic of embrace and harmony rather than the Buddhist logic of neither-nor. This refers to a Daoist dialectic between the embrace of the Other and the detachment of non-action, which has a striking similarity with the postmodern recognition of the Other. No matter how hostile and sinful people are, the Tao may not deny them. As Zhuangzi states, “Tao begets life and finishes life, but it was never born and it will never die. Tao exists in everything in the world. There is nothing it does not send off and nothing it does not welcome; . . . This is called ‘tranquility amid turmoil,’ . . . it is a turmoil that has brought tranquility to perfection.”45 The Daoist logic of embrace and harmony constitutes and regulates the way of human life, as well as creaturely life in nature for harmony and peace. In the Dao all contradiction and opposition is reconciled and canceled out from the life source of Dao. The Dao is a source of

43 44 45

Ibid., 55. Ibid., 49. Zhuangzi, I, 99.

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life, of peace-harmony, and of salvation, even for the wicked. The Dao rejects no one. No one is really good or really wicked. “The Holy man is a good savior of humans and rejects nobody.” The life of a holy person represents and embodies the Way, Truth, and Life of Tao in a universal-spontaneous manner. Heavenly Dao conquers without striving. Wuwei (non-action) and non-violence are the most effective means of getting power and holding on to it. Wuwei is not pure passivity. The holy person, when acting, expects no reward for his/her actions. Once the good deed has been done, he/she does not bask in his/her merit. The holy person who performs great achievements dies, not abiding in his or her merits (Ch. 2). This is a Taoist’s understanding of God’s grace and human attitude. “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit” (Mt 7:18). Jesus Christ, seen from Taoist idea of sagehood and Jewish idea of tzimtzum, comes to us as God’s Way, which does not exclude other religious ways. “Whoever is not against us is for us” (Mk 9:40). “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” (Jn 14:2). “For the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light” (Lk 16:8ff.). Even Jesus identifies himself as the “lowest of the low” (Mt 25). Jesus as the partisan of massa perditionis is the One who brings “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel” (Lk 2:32). Proclaiming justice to the Gentiles, Jesus “will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick.” The Gentiles will hope in his name (Mt 12:18–21). The justified and sanctified person under the grace of Jesus Christ does not abide in his or her achievement because it comes in a gracious-spontaneous way of Christ rather than out of human striving. Grace of justification includes justice of Christ which does not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick. Discipleship of justification is to be done only for the sake of God rather than for the sake of merit and reward. God’s grace does not oppose God’s way of nature for all but is efficacious in the web of complementarity between God’s grace of justification and God’s grace of creation in light of the dynamism of God’s speech act. Theologia irregularis in light of God’s speech act seeks understanding and communication in pursuit of theologia gratiae and theologia naturalis in a holistic manner rather than separating these two realms in a dualistic manner.

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chapter two Holy Spirit: Qi and Shekinah

The Dao emits the vital energy [qi] and gives rise to change. Consequently, heaven and earth came into being. In turn, they produced the ten thousand things, namely, all beings. Like a mother (Chs. 1, 25, 52), the Tao creates the world and also nourishes it with its powerful energy. The claim of transcendence is balanced by the idea of the Tao’s creative power. The former aspect, which refers to nothingness or emptiness, is not an absolute absence in a nihilistic fashion. The cosmic energy which emanates from Dao brings forth all forms of life in primal unity with the Tao in the circular balance of yin and yang. The emptiness of the Tao, properly understood, is no less than a way of affirming the fullness of the vital energy. The void of non-being is no less than the Whole or the wondrous being which causes all to live. The cosmos is constituted and sustained by vital qi energy which pervades all levels of existence. In Daodejing’s cosmogeny (Ch. 42), the Dao as the emptying void produced the One which in turn generated yin and yang. These two gave birth to the harmonious, the clear and the turbid. All existence depends on the vital essence of Tao in virtue of the vital essence. At this point we may understand the One as “life-giving virtue or energy.”46 The Taoist idea of Tao, in the manifestation of the vital energy of qi and de, balances a relation between Tao in utter silence and emptiness. The Tao as the life source of all in terms of the all-pervading movement of qi. In the tradition of Neo-Confucianism, Zhang Zai (1020–77) stressed particularly the underlying unity of qi. Inspired by his study of the Book of Changes, Zhang said that the Great Harmony (or the Supreme Ultimate) known as the Dao is a name for the qi, or “wandering air” in its entirety of the dynamic movement of the yin and the yang. Since qi is everywhere, its constituents, yin and yang, are also active everywhere. Thus, the eternal process of change and transformation takes place in the universe.

46 In contrast to an interpretation of the One as the vital essence in the tradition of Heshang Gong, Wang Bi took the One to be that of non-being as a negative concept. From non-being and because of non-being comes the One. See Alan K. L. Chan, “A Tale of Two Commentaries: Heshang Gong and Wang Bi on the Lao-tzu,” in Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, ed. Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue (New York: SUNY, 1998), 105.

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In earlier rabbinic literature, the term Shekhinah appears frequently signifying God’s presence and immanence. Shekhinah is based on the biblical expression that God dwells in the midst of the Tabernacle and the people of Israel during the wilderness wandering and on Mount Zion. According to Jewish tradition, especially Hasidic sources, Shekhinah, regarded as the tenth sefirah, is God who is fully immanent within the natural and physical world. The whole earth is filled with God’s glory. In kabbalistic teaching, Shekhinah is malkut, the kingdom in which perfect harmony and fulfillment are found. The image of Shekhinah is portrayed in feminine terms or in aspects of natural elements linked to femininity. This yin of God is the symbolism which balances her relationship with other masculine sefirot in the divine sphere. Shekhinah is the flow of creative energies throughout the universe. Energy runs forward through the sefirotic channels and into Shekhinah, back from the outer world, into Shekhinah and up through the sefirot, reaching back toward keter. In the Zohar, Shekhinah is likened to the holy Sabbath, the day that is the source of blessing for all the others. All the upper sefirot are to be found with Shekhinah, which represents the final letter of God’s name. Human access to the Divine always begins through Shekhinah. From this standpoint, the transcendence of God is affirmed as immanent in the universe without taking away human freedom and responsibility regarding the reality of evil. Already in the rabbinic period, the doctrine of the Shekhinah was formulated to denote the indwelling divine presence within the universe. In the Talmud (Meg. 29a), we read: “Come and see how beloved Israel is before God, for wherever they went into exile the Shekhinah went with them; in Babylon, the Shekhinah was with them and in the future, when Israel will be redeemed, the Shekhinah will be with them.”47 From the biblical perspective, God’s Spirit (ruach) is the breath of God’s life. In the Genesis account of creation the Spirit is present, hovering above chaos with its vibrating field of energy before the foundation of the world (Gen 1:2). As the ruach is the breath of the eternal God and vitality of created beings, so also qi is an emanating spirit of Tao, a principle that gives life to all that exists.

47 Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Judaism; History, Belief and Practice (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 350.

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The Spirit in the Bible is not only active in human redemption, but also as the Creator of all life in an eschatological vision of new creation and consummation. The work of the Spirit in creation and the Spirit’s presence in the life of the Church and believers are interconnected with the phenomenon of life in all its breadth. All living things are created, preserved, and renewed in the continual flow of ruach and its presence within them. Ruach is the cosmic Spirit. If God hides God’s face, every living thing is dismayed. When God takes away the breath of divine life, they die and return to dust. When God sends forth God’s breath, God renews the face of the earth and every living thing that is created (Ps 104:29ff. Job 34:14). The breath of God’s life fills the world and holds together all things (Isa 34:16). Therefore, the Psalmist asks: “Where can I go from Thy Spirit? Or where can I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend to heaven, Thou art there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there” (Ps 139:7–8). The Spirit of life constitutes the connection and cohesion of all living creatures. God’s Spirit fills the earth which in turn, as our mother, brings forth plants, trees, animals, and human life within its atmosphere and biosphere. Today’s environmental problems are the result of nature being more and more subject to domination and exploitation by human civilization and technology. Creation in bondage (Rom 8:22) is captive to “the companion of death” (Ch. 76). In the groaning of creation, the Spirit intercedes with sighs or groans. The Spirit is the Mother who gives life, the companion of life, and she is present in the life process of all living creatures. The presence of God is immanent in the world and present in all things. God’s Spirit is present everywhere, sustaining, nourishing, and quickening all things in heaven and on earth. The earth is the place of God’s indwelling in all. All living creatures are invited, through the power of God’s qi, to become God’s house. In using Luther’s metaphor, creatures are larva Dei (masks of God) and mummery of God.48 When Christian theology encounters the qi of Daoism and its spirituality, it expands the dimension of the Spirit toward the cosmic-natural process of living organisms for the multi-religious mystical experience

48

WA, 17 II, 192, 28–31.

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of human life. Christian theology has lost, by and large, the universal function of the Spirit with respect to the cosmic process in natural life due to its overemphasis on the sacraments of the Church and the subjective-mystical experience. The Spirit needs to be reinterpreted within the wider and broader horizon of all sentient creatures. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of eschatological hope that all living creatures be released from the bondage of evil for the freedom of glory which the children of God will enjoy (Rom 8:21). The Spirit is the Spirit of emancipation proclaiming the good news to the poor, bringing freedom to the captive, recovering the blind, releasing the oppressed (Lk 4:18). Although the Spirit in Christianity is not equated with an immanent and impersonal force, Jesus does say, “the wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going” (Jn 3:8). The Daoist triadic idea of Dao, de and qi attests that God’s ruach in the Genesis account is present, hovering above chaos with its vibrating field of energy. Tao is both eternal and temporal in terms of de and qi. Creatio ex nihilo is also seen as an evolutio ex Dao in a natural-spontaneous fashion in which qi, as the spirit of life, penetrates and pervades all living sentient creatures. The action of Dao happens in natural spontaneity. It reigns, but does not rule. Relationality between the Great Void of qi and its manifestation in de balance the transcendental side and the immanent side of Tao in utter silence, yet ready to change. From this perspective, the concept of divine interaction with the cosmic process can be consonant with the activity of qi inside all. We understand divine action in the process of on-going creation, not in any gaps. Nevertheless, the otherness of the incomprehensible and ineffable God remains in the realm of mystery.

Conclusion Thus far, we have described Christian narratives in engagement with Daodejing and Jewish mysticism in speaking of God, creation, Jesus Christ, and the Spirit. In a relationship between Daoist and Jewish mysticism, we have seen parallels and affinities in descriptions of the mysterious side of God which do not contradict a Christian understanding of

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God. Rather, such wisdom may enrich the Christian Church to be more open to the freedom of God who may speak to the Christian Church through the lifeworld of non-Christian religions. Theology as theologia viatorum (theology of journey) is always on the way to learning from God’s mystery manifested in the wisdom of world religions. Amid the differences between a Jewish-Christian tradition and Daoist wisdom there are yet similarities which lend themselves to mutual dialogue and self-renewal. The Bible in Jewish-Christian interpretation and the Daodejing have much in common when understood as witnessing to the mystery of God, which manifests itself as the life-giver for all that exists. Daodejing as a wisdom for “a companion of life” can enrich a Jewish-Christian discourse on God of life in a different manner. Such an interfaith encounter can shape Asian irregular theology in a constructive and hermeneutical contour to the degree that God, as the mysterious Makom of the world, speaks to the Christian Church through the Daoist wisdom and its logic of Dao-de-qi which is analogically of a Trinitarian relevance and framework. At this juncture, a task of inculturation is not merely a missional issue of translating and conveying the biblical text, Gospel, and theological doctrines into a different language and different cultural setting. Rather, its task includes a function of surprise and emancipation to those who convey the Gospel, by rediscovering the other side of God’s grace working in people of other faiths and their spiritual relationship with God or Dao. In this regard, Christian mission in an interfaith context does not merely consist in dialogue, but is a process of being surprised and moved practically by the grace of God toward the recognition of the Other as children of God (or Dao) as well as a practical accompaniment with those who are marginalized and voiceless in the world of religion. This perspective takes into account an interfaith debate of God the Trinity in light of the dynamism of God’s speech act in next chapter.

CHAPTER THREE

GOD THE TRINITY: AN INTERFAITH REFRAMING OF THE TRINITY WITH AN ASIAN FACE

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity tells of God who has been fully incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ in the presence of the Holy Spirit. This doctrine affirms that God the Father (Abba) of Jesus Christ refers to the Triune God as the one God including Son and Spirit in divine life and fellowship. In the symbol of the doctrine in the Hebrew Bible we know the mysterious Tetragrammaton (designed by the word Yahweh) is revealed to Abraham (Sara), Isaac, Jacob, and to Moses in the burning bush. In the context of the Hebrew Bible, there is a comprehensive dialogue with Elohim-traditions surrounding Israel. Borrowing the common Middle Western language, the Hebrew Bible speaks of the Holy One of Israel (Yahweh) as God (El or Elohim). Elohim occurs frequently in biblical texts reflecting the early northern traditions of the kingdom of Israel. This perspective can indicate one God of Israel with many attributes. Thus, Israel was in dynamic interaction with non-Israelite religious communities. In this process of dialogue between the ancient Israel and non-Israelite culture, Elohim the Most High (El-Elyon) was made the predicate, or basis of expressing the attributes of the God of Israel (Gen 14:18–22). In the Greek Bible, θέος is designed to denote the God of Israel. The doctrine of the Trinity in the ancient Church was an attempt at developing a dialogue with the Greek metaphysical-philosophical tradition. This teaching attempted to translate a biblical tradition about the God of Israel and God’s Logos into the language of Neo-platonic philosophy. However, in the Trinitarian formulation of God in the Greek culture, unfortunately the God of Israel (Yahweh) was relatively set aside for the sake of Greek metaphysical ontology. God’s dynamic being in speech act can be expressed in the statement: “I will be who I will be” (Ex 3:14). This statement has been unilaterally understood in the direction

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of classical theism.1 In Ex 3:11 “I will be there with thee” this ehyeh im [I will be with] occurs in Ex 3:12 and 4:15 and the word ehyeh in Ex 3:14 is spoken to reveal the meaning of the mysterious name of God.2 The Trinitarian relation of the Father, Son, and Spirit regarding the immanent Trinity (God in se) and the economic Trinity (God for us) dominates the theological discourse in the East and in the West. Such a debate leads to a neglect of the God of Israel in the life of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as the God who sends Moses (Ex 3:15). Such a neglect poses a problem in the Trinitarian description of the Father, Son, and Spirit in a Christian discourse. Furthermore, a Trinitarian discourse presupposes a Christian hermeneutic in dealing with the relationship between God and Jesus Christ in the fellowship of the Spirit regarding God’s salvific work in the world. This traditional concept meets challenges in a cross-cultural context, so that a contextual understanding of the Trinity is needed for expanding the horizon of the triune God in a culture of religious pluralism. Theological imagination for the reinterpretation of the Trinitarian language and logic in an interreligious context becomes necessary and significant, and yet a controversial and provocative challenge. Thus, it calls for a hermeneutic of audacity and retrieval in terms of appropriating the meaning of the Christian symbol of the Trinity in a cross-cultural context and also distance with a suspicion of a nonbiblical metaphysic. In what follows I am interested in dealing with a Christian theology of the Trinity in view of a Jewish-Christian relation and interreligious discourse of the Trinity. For this task, an attempt will be made to interpret Trinitarian theology in light of God’s speech act in view of JewishChristian thinking and a philosophical Daoist concept of Daodejing. For the procedure of the argument, a discussion of Trinitarian theology will be made in reference to the Buddhist model of the Trinity (Masao Abe) and a yin and yang model of the Trinity (Joung Yung Lee). With a critical view toward some limitations of the interfaith discourse on the Trinity, a dialogue will be proposed with philosophical Daoism as stated in Daodejing, and Jewish wisdom of Kabbalah for

1

The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria interpreted the divine voice in Exodus 3:14 as “he who” is or “that which is.” Ted Peters, God—The World’s Future: Systematic Theology for a New Era, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 92. 2 Martin Buber, “The Election of Israel: A Biblical Inquiry (1938)” in The Martin Buber Reader, ed. Asher D. Biemann (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 25.

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the reconstruction of an irregular theology of the Trinity. Based on the irregular perspective on the Trinitarian theology, we will have a critical engagement with pluralist theologians’ (John Hick and Raimond Panikkar) deconstructive view of the Trinity.

The Trinitarian Debate in an Interfaith Context Let me begin with a discussion of the Trinity in a Buddhist-Christian dialogue. Here, Trinitarian language meets a Buddhist aphorism: “Do not look at the finger! If you do, you will miss the moon.” Trinitarian thinking gains its meaning when an interpretive imagination envisions the moon scattering its light over rivers and lakes. Masao Abe, a Japanese Buddhist philosopher, is engaged in discussing Moltmann’s theology of the Trinity from a Buddhist perspective. Moltmann is interested in bringing forth a theology of Trinity based on the death of Jesus Christ which implies a revolutionary concept of God for Moltmann.3 For Moltmann, a theology of the cross should be relevant to a theology after Shoah (Hebrew: catastrophe, destruction)4 because Shoah can be taken up into the grief of the Father regarding the death of the Son on the cross in the presence of the Spirit. In due respect to Moltmann’s Trinitarian theology of the cross, Abe calls into question Moltmann’s statement that “God is dead on the cross and yet is not dead.”5 To overcome this paradoxical relation between God’s death and non-death, Abe introduces the Buddhist concept of Sunyata as absolute nothingness (zero). For Abe, a Christian concept of the unity of three persons in one God or Godhead would presuppose a fourth being, because the fourth being is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit wrapped up into the one. At the point of the great zero, Abe argues that the unity and the Trinity of God are fully and harmoniously realized and fulfilled without any conflict.6 3 J. Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, trans. R. A. Wilson and John Bowden (London: SCM, 1974), 204. 4 I avoid the term holocaust, because holocaust in biblical language originally means the sacrifice of an animal by slaughter and burning it (Gen 22). When this term is applied to the extermination of the European Jews, it offers a religious legitimation for the destruction of the Jews. 5 Moltmann, The Crucified God, 244. 6 The Emptying God: A Buddhist-Jewish-Christian Conversation, eds. John B. Cobb, Jr and Christopher Ives (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1998), 24.

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Abe’s proposal of zero Trinity leads inevitably to the total kenosis or death of the Father in the Son’s death, in contrast to Moltmann. Comparing zero to Nichts or Ungrund, as found in the Christian mystical tradition of Meister Eckhart, Abe paves an interfaith way to a relationship between Trinitarian theology and Buddhist mysticism.7 On the other hand, in a Christian-Confucian context, Lee Jung Young, an important Asian-American theologian, was inspired by the Book of Changes, a Confucian classic. He proposes a Trinitarian theology of change from an East Asian perspective. God the Father appears as the Tao in the complementary movement of yin (Spirit) and yang (Son). As he argues, “yin-yang symbolic thinking, which is also both/and thinking, is none other than one (unity) in three (diversity) as well as three (diversity) in one (unity).”8 A yin-yang way of thinking provides Lee with a hermeneutical “in” principle. With excessive emphasis on the “in” connecting principle, Lee discards a traditional concept of relation of origin in the Trinitarian fellowship. Because of change, the Son proceeds from the Father and the Spirit (paterque), the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son ( filioque), and the Father proceeds from the Son and the Spirit (spiritusque).9 Lee’s concept of the change-Trinity removes an origin of relationship from a Christian theology of the Trinity. This becomes obvious in Lee’s promotion of religious syncretism of the Trinity as the language of the Trinity fused “in” the world religions. Unlike Abe and Lee, it is important for us to understand a Christian theology of the Trinity as a theological program of hermeneutic advocating for God’s history of salvation through Jesus Christ and the Spirit against mythic conceptions of gods. Such hermeneutical imagination is demanded in an interfaith context for an exchange of God’s love and non-Christian wisdom.

7 According to Eckhart there are two aspects of the bullitio of divine emergence and relations in the Trinity, and the ebullitio of creation of the world and the incarnation of the Logos in the soul of the believer. Eckhart’s dialectics affirms the self-manifestation of the godhead in Jesus Christ who is incarnated and reborn in the human soul. Eckhart’s language of bullitio and ebullitio in a Neo-platonic sense is different from Buddhist language of non-dualism. Christian mystical dialectics refers to identity in difference, compared to a Buddhist logic of non-duality. See David Tracy, Dialogue with the Other: The Inter-religious Dialogue (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 81–82. 8 Lee Jung Young, The Trinity in Asian Perspective (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 59. 9 Ibid., 152.

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Trinitarian discourses in the interfaith context have not fully entered into a discussion with Jewish and Daoist perspectives. At issue here is to construct a model of the Asian Trinity based on God’s act of speech with respect to the freedom of God in Trinitarian becoming in history and eschatological coming.

Trinitarian Language in Philosophical Daoism and Jewish Wisdom In current interfaith relations Moltmann has explored a possibility of a dialogue with the philosophical Daoism of Laozi, in which Moltmann attempts to appropriate the wisdom of Dao as the Chinese mystery of the world for Christian relevance. In Moltmann’s view, Dao is only known through Dao, so also, God is only known through God. This principle of epistemology demonstrates a similarity-in-difference between Daoist wisdom and Jewish-Christian discourse on God.10 Different from Moltmann’s reading the mystery of Dao in reference to Jewish-Christian theology, it is important for us to present an understanding of Dao in its triadic movement in order to construct an irregular model of the Trinity in terms of God’s act of saying which is rooted in the promise, freedom, and reconciliation of God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. In the philosophical Taoist framework which is based on the text of Daodejing there is a dynamic triadic movement of Dao through de (realization and fulfillment of Dao in history and nature in terms of living and abiding with Dao) in the presence of qi (cosmic spirit). In the first chapter of Daodejing the following idea is articulated: “The Way that can be told of is not an Unvarying Way.”11 The root meaning of Dao is path or way in guiding or establishing communication. The transcendence of Dao in its formlessness and ineffability is interpreted as both the initial beginning and the source of life which stands in relation to all living creatures. At the level of absolute truth, the permanent Dao analogically refers to the biblical idea of Ehyeh, or “I shall be.” This biblical idea of God resists a human attempt to conceptualize God in a fully linguistic way.

10 11

Moltmann, Science & Wisdom, 172–193. Laozi, 3.

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Dao, as the Great Way and at the same time as the Great Void, is greater and more comprehensive than the universe. The Dao cannot be named or clearly conceived of in linguistic conceptions due to its character of mystery and freedom. Tao gives birth to the One; the One gives birth to two and three things, successively up to ten thousand creatures. De, which is a realization or expression of the Dao in actual and natural living like a watercourse, lies and abides in the Dao. The Dao is the ground or womb from which de and qi originate, and all life springs from, follows, and finally returns to it through the guidance of de and qi. Dao, metaphorically expressed as the idea of mother, the mystical womb, is closely associated with that of the Great Void. The Void is efficacious like the belly and capable of emanating de and producing breath—qi—at will. Similarly, in the Zohar (1:32b), the Jewish book of Enlightenment, we read about a description of the sefirot, the manifestations of Eyn Sof, the Infinite. Three emerge from one; one stands in three; Enters between two; two suckle one; One suckles many sides. Thus all is one.12

In Ex 33:21–23, we read that there is a place “by God,” and God shows God’s backside to Moses. In Jn 1:1 God creates a place alongside God: “The Word was with God.” This indwelling place of God originates in the God of Israel who says “I AM WHO I AM” (in Ex 3:14). According to Martin Buber, the Kiehyeh imakh—I will be there with thee—(Ex 3:12), is “assurance of God’s direct support” in which the word ehyeh is to reveal the meaning of the mysterious name of God. Therefore God who says “I AM WHO I AM” signifies that “God shall be there as whom God shall be there.”13 This God ahead of us does not contradict God’s incarnational presence in history. In this light, Wyschogrod in The Body of Faith, states that the God of Israel has its own name. This is characteristic of Jewish theology.14 Israel is the body of faith, denoting a physical indwelling of God in Israel. The dialectic between transcendence and physical immanence of the name

12

Zohar, 21. Buber, “The Election of Israel: A Biblical Inquiry (1938),” in The Martin Buber Reader, 25. 14 Michael Wyschogrod, The Body of Faith: God in the People Israel (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989), 91. 13

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of God has relevance in 1 King 8:13f (the temple as the house for God to dwell), Ex 40:35 (the glory of YHWH filling the tabernacle) and Lev 16:16 (God’s indwelling in the midst of people’s uncleannesses). To the degree that God enters into the world of human beings, appears in a definite place, and dwells in it, it can be said that Judaism has an incarnational character while Christianity concretizes the specific incarnation in the person of Jesus Christ. If the Christian Trinity does not remove the character name of the God of Israel, and if the Trinity does not separate the incarnation of God’s Word in Jesus Christ from the indwelling of God in Israel, then a Trinitarian understanding of God in the name of the Father, Son, and the Spirit overcomes its supercessionist and patriarchal-onto-theological language in light of Tetragrammaton (referring to four words of YHWH). Furthermore, we are aware that in the Genesis account, Ishmael, as the first circumcised, comes into God’s blessing to Abraham. Not only Isaac/Israel, but also Ishmael are participants in God’s blessing (Gen 17:20, 23). “I will bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous . . . I will make him a great nation.” The God of Abraham hears the outcry of the oppressed Hagar. God who elects Israel is also the advocate for Ishmael and Hagar. The God of Israel is not an exclusive God, nor an apathetic God who is incapable of suffering, enthroned high above in heaven without feelings. God’s care and protection of human rights and the dignity of massa perditionis in the Hebrew Bible is striking. In the rabbinical literature there is an abundance of biblical texts and explanations of the Scriptures which speak of God abasing Godself and making Godself the servant of Israel. In this regard, the Christian understanding of God in the Trinitarian expression bears witness to the One who loves Israel in covenant, Ishmael/his descendents in blessing, Christians, and people of the world in the reconciliation of Christ and in the promise and freedom of the Spirit. This God is a God who is foundational for the common hope of Israel and the Church which stand under the one covenant of God including Ishmael’s descendents who stand under God’s blessing of Abraham. The Christian concept of hope can be articulated in confession of the God of Israel and Ishmael and the father of Jesus Christ. In the biblical context, God dwells in transcendence, and in the temple of Jerusalem, and in the human heart and spirit in humility (Isa 57:15). This threefold indwelling of God transcends all human logic. Similarly, the symbol of Dao, de, and qi has an analogous affinity to

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the Judeo-Christian concept of the name God, wisdom (Word), and Spirit. In the triadic self-evolution of the Dao, de and qi do not replace the void of Dao. De, as God’s speech, became flesh in the presence of qi. The Chinese word Tao is also a verb “to speak.” Thus, the Chinese translation of St John’s Prologue reads: “in the beginning was the Dao.” This interpretative imagination is a Christian appropriation of Taoist wisdom in East Asia in Bible translation. Nevertheless, God’s speech remains still a mystery in its self-manifestation of de and qi. Progressing and returning is the movement of Dao. This homecoming is what is destined for all through de and in the presence of qi. Analogically speaking, Jesus Christ may be the embodiment of Tao who embraces, as vere homo, the ideal holy person in realizing and fulfilling God’s virtue (divine nature in creation) and Torah (divine commandment). However, God remains free even in this embodiment. The words of Jesus Christ are not in competition with God, nor do they replace the God of Israel. Rather, Jesus’ words bear witness to the God of Torah. Likewise, Israel accepts a concept of Elohim in interaction with the religious environment. The name of God remains the subject in its predicate of Elohim, or Son, and the Spirit. The Dao emits vital energy and gives rise to change. Like a mother, the Tao creates the world and also nourishes it with its powerful energy, qi. The cosmic energy, qi, which emanates from Dao brings forth all forms of life in primal unity with the Dao in the circular balance of yin and yang. Qi is like life-giving water. The Taoist triadic idea of Dao, de, and qi can offer a basis of interpretation for inculturating a biblical concept of God’s movement through the Son in the presence of the Spirit in a cross-cultural context. In analogy to Dao in relation to de and qi, there is a double movement of Jesus coming out of the Father and then a return to the Father (Jn 14:28). Likewise, all things originate from and return to one dynamic movement of God outward through the Son and the Spirit. God in begetting the Son in the presence of the Spirit is God who invites all living creatures to participate in the life-giving love, shalom, and righteousness of God who is reconciled to the world. A theological discussion of religious pluralism without reference to God’s reconciliation with the world would be vulnerable to metaphysical pluralism. Such pluralism radically relativizes and totalizes every different and context-bound understanding and experience of the divine reality in each religious community for the sake of a Western

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metaphysic of sameness. God’s reconciliation points to the God who assumes and loves the reality of pluralism through the embodiment of God’s life (the Word: de) and through God’s dynamism of sustaining and guiding creaturely life (Spirit: qi) in the world of creation. This “other” hermeneutical imagination marks a point of encounter of the different horizons between the Christian concept of the Trinity and Daoist wisdom of Dao-de-qi for enriching the good news of God in Jesus Christ through the Spirit for all. Therefore, we believe in “one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph 4:6).

God’s Transcendence in Trinitarian Manifestation In order to advance an Asian model of an irregular theology of the Trinity, it is essential to attend to a biblical understanding of the God of Israel. YHWH is the God who will be with God’s people. In Trinitarian teaching the Gentile Christians attempted to clarify God, YHWH, by articulating God’s historical action through Jesus Christ in the presence of the Holy Spirit. In the internal life of God there are the Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. In fact, God does not have God’s creatures in God’s self, but the Son and the Spirit are grounded in God’s self by becoming God’s representational instances like God’s “two hands” in a metaphorical sense (Irenaeus). As God represents the divine reality ad extra for the creaturely world, so the eternal Son of the Father is the Word who became flesh. This eternal Word of God is one with Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew born of a Jewish mother, Mary, in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Between the eternal Son, the Holy Spirit, and the eternal Father, there is a living and dynamic fellowship, each in communion with each other (perichoresis). This perichoresis of a living and triune God will be finally and fully manifested in eschatological consummation when God will be all in all. Understood this way, God’s self-communication through Jesus Christ in the presence of the Spirit points to what God has done in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit for us and the world. The triune God is the God of love in promise, reconciliation, and freedom. Thus God in se becomes a presupposition for God for us, while God for us bears witness to God in se. Regarding the relationship between God in se and God for us, there is an eschatological becoming in Trinitarian

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life in which we are aware of an aspect of transcendence and freedom of God the Father in relation to the Son and the Holy Spirit. From the perspective of St Paul, Christ will not sit at the right hand of the Father for all eternity. Rather, one day he will return the lordship to the Father and then the Father again will be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). In I Cor 13.9ff we are aware of Paul’s theology of eschatological reserve regarding a relationship between the Son’s eschatology and the Father’s eschatology. The Son is subject to the Father. Human understanding of God in the mystery of the Trinity remains partial and incomplete until the complete comes. If the Trinity is an interpretation of God in covenant with Israel and the Father of Jesus Christ, it should first of all be oriented toward the God of the Hebrew Bible. The Trinity articulates the revelation of the name of God in the threefold historical events: 1) in God’s coming to Israel in covenant (including God’s blessing of Ishmael), 2) in God’s coming in Jesus Christ in promise and reconciliation, and 3) in God’s coming to all through Pentecost in universal scope and dimension. At this juncture, Christian discourse of hope is centered on a God who will be all in all, retaining universal significance, and creating a space for the hope of people of other faiths toward the transcendental side of God’s eschatology. Jesus, in his confession of Schema Israel, affirms the God of Israel in the community of Mark (Mk 12:29–30). Responding to one of the scribes, Jesus says that “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” A Christian hermeneutic of the Trinity must be grounded in Jesus’ confession of the God of Israel rather than in a neo-platonic Hellenization of Christian confession. In a practical-missional direction, the Christian Church demonstrates an understanding of God’s presence or nearness through the Trinitarian confession. God’s relationship with Jesus or Jesus’ relationship with God are understood as the relationship between Father and Son, or Son and Father, in which the “humanity” of God is conceptualized in relationship with the Holy Spirit because the kingdom of God is righteousness and shalom and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17). The God of Jesus Christ, whom we know in the Spirit, is God who exists as God in love and communion with Christ and the Spirit. Nevertheless, the transcendence or freedom of God, in the Trinitarian communication, must be understood as the mystery of God beyond human conception. Karl Barth argues that the Word made flesh is revealed radically and fundamentally “in Jewish flesh.” Thus, “Jesus exists in solidarity with

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the representatively and manifestly sinful humanity of Israel.”15 Israel is an adequate prefiguration of the prophecy of Jesus Christ. In and with the prophecy of the history of Israel, the prophecy of Jesus Christ takes place in the form of an exact prefiguration. Thus, the history of Israel is “an exact representation and adequate prefiguration of the prophecy of His history.”16 Barth’s understanding of incarnation in a Jewish contour, along with his epistemological principle, esse sequitur operari17 is significant for our discussion of the Trinity in connection with irregularity of the divine speech act. In fact, God’s being is explained only from God’s historical acts and speech. God’s being is in the act of God’s speech. In this light, theologia crucis plays a constitutive principle in epistemologically acknowledging who God in Christ in the presence of the Spirit means for us. Jesus’ sacramental identity as the one of the least (Mt 25:39) sharpens a social ethical dimension which is rooted in Christian theology of the Trinity. God’s act in revelation is executed in the realm of social and political reality, entering into all other reality in order to change it materially and socially. In Jesus Christ, the coming of God’s kingdom becomes an eschatological realty of God’s promise, and in Christ God’s Torah-will is done and fulfilled (the second petition of Lord’s prayer). In Israel there is one God who rules (Dt 6:4). God’s unity and oneness manifests God’s historical forms of the presence in the act of God’s coming. The coming of the God of Israel in the historical forms of God’s presence is essentially the root of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

A Theology of Religions and A Myth of Trinity In speaking of a Christian understanding of God in a Trinitarian history, we assume basically a character of public theology for a culture of pluralism rather than retaining only an ecclesial or particularistic talk. An understanding of the reality of God in the sense of Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier finally determines other theological and

15

Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV. 1:171–172. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/3.1:66. 64–65. 17 For Barth, “esse sequitur operari” (the knowledge of being follows the knowledge of activity) implies in human knowledge of God that God’s activity in historical revelation comes first, preceding human natural and ontological knowledge of God. See Barth, Church Dogmatics II/1:82. 16

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anthropological discourses of faith, hope, and love in relation to people of pluralistic culture. Rather than subsuming itself into a totalizing theology of religions, a Trinitarian hermeneutic may become a basis for upholding interreligious dialogue and cooperation without dislocating the incommensurability or uniqueness of the world religions. As far as the Son witnesses to the freedom and mystery of God the Father and the universal work of the Holy Spirit, a prophetic-messianic way of Jesus Christ finds its locus in God’s universal reign in the presence of the Spirit in the world, inviting the many to the life–giving mystery of God. Thus, Trinitarian theology may be appropriated as a postfoundational hermeneutic in terms of God’s act of speech through the universal presence of the Spirit, recognizing the religious Other through whom God can speak to the Christian Church in a completely different manner. This Trinitarian interpretation of the divine reality of the speech act can be acculturated in a Daoist framework of Dao-de-qi, while distancing itself from Taoist naturalistic and syncretistic peril, as seen in Lee Jung Young’s Trinity of change. Rather, a Trinitarian interpretation of God’s speech act does not reduce or totalize different, unique, and rich lived experiences, liturgical expressions, and belief systems of world religions into a higher synthesis of metaphysical or mythological monism, or syncretism. God in the Trinitarian-historical manifestation is not identical with the Hindu-theandric vision. God’s mystery cannot be espoused with a mythical-cosmic Hindu perspective of humanity’s advaitic (unqualified non-dual) union with totally transcendental Reality (as in Panikkar’s vision). Likewise, John Hick’s Real in itself remains indifferent to God’s historical manifestation (God for us) and humanity’s particular experiences of divine reality. In a Hindu-Christian relation, Panikkar makes a daring attempt at reconstructing the cosmotheandric (referring to a unitive vision of God, human being, and the universe) mystery of God in terms of a hybrid between the Trinity and advaita, in which God is in all and all is in God. This theandric insight which is at the center of the Upanishads is expressed well in the statement: “The finest essence here—that constitutes the self of this whole world; that is the truth; that is the self (atman). And that’s how you are.”18 What is then Brahman? “That from which 18 Upanisads, trans. Patrick Olivelle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Chandogya Upanishad 6.13.

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these beings are born; on which, once born, they live; and into which they pass upon death—seek to perceive that! That is Brahman!”19 Panikkar is interested in relating the Christian concept of the Trinity to the absolute Brahman of Hinduism and Sunyata in Buddhism. According to Panikkar, the Father empties Godself into the Son. This is called the Cross of the Trinity or integral immolation of God in the Trinity.20 In contrast to biblical reservation of the Father’s total kenosis, Panikkar applies a total kenosis to the Father in light of Buddhist emptiness. The Father has no being, the son is his being. The Spirit is the communion between the “I” of the Father and the “Thou” of the Son and the “We” of the Trinity. Panikkar’s radical apophatism (transcendental negativity) of the Father in a Hindu-Vedanta framework inevitably leads to an expatriation of ethical monotheism. Thus it becomes a basis for religious relativism and pluralism by giving more credit to Hinduism for the special role of illuminating the mystery of the Spirit. Consequently, the historical life of Jesus Christ as a Jew disappears into the myth of the Father’s kenosis. Panikkar’s Trinitarian thinking is grounded in the diverse and multiple spiritualities of Hinduism and Buddhism rather than beginning with a Christian self-understanding of God who reveals Godself in the history of Israel and in Jesus Christ through the Spirit. Buddhism, as the religion of the silence of the Father, occupies its place in Trinitarian universalism. However, in his typological simplification of Buddhism into the religion of the Father’s silence, the Buddhist principle of relationality (dependent co-arising) and non-discriminating compassion is left behind. Hinduism, as the religion of the non-differentiation of the Spirit, takes the inroad to the Logos-centered Trinity in Christianity. Consciousness of the world’s religions displaces the Christian discourse of perichoresis (divine life in communion and permeation without confusion among divine persons) in the Trinitarian life for Panikkar’s commitment to the perichoresis of world religions. Panikkar reaches an advaitic Trinitarian structure aiming at synthesizing and totalizing all differences in the meeting of religions in favor of promoting and creating a mythic god who does not care for human

19

Ibid. Traittiriya Upanishad III.1.1. Panikkar, The Trinity and the Religious Experience of Man (Maryknoll: Orbis; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1973), 60. 20

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life in social, ethical, and cultural realms. Here, a prophetic witness to God in God’s historical action is left behind and replaced by a mythic god in the Hindu-Vedanta framework. Against this mythical trend, however, the Christian Trinity needs to be understood as a theological program of demythologization regarding the mythological idea of God as constructed in Panikkar’s vision. In a manner similar to Panikkar, John Hick attempts to integrate totalize all different religious experiences and paths into the Real an sich as the Great Integrator, or the Eternal One in itself. The Eternal One in itself, in turn, becomes the ultimate foundation for Adonai, Allah, non-personal Brahman, Vishnu or Shiva, Tao, or the Buddhist principle of Dharmakaya, so that it is a plurality of divine personas. The Eternal One has no right to challenge human limited-consciousness and experience. If this Eternal One is not capable of self-communicating to us, speaking to, renewing and transforming our life for participation in divine attributes (love, shalom, and righteousness, etc.) and reconciliation with the world, faith is hence defined merely as an “act of cognitive freedom and responsibility.”21 Here faith has nothing to do with a gift of God through the power of the Spirit in connection to faithful trust and commitment to God’s Word in promise, reconciliation, and freedom. Additionally, in Hick’s concept of the Eternal One, which can be identified as a historically and contextually embedded and conditioned Kantian cognitive consciousness and rationality, is elevated to create, control, and instrumentalize the Eternal One. In light of the Eternal One, the God of Israel is reduced and degraded as a different divine persona from Shiva, Krishna, or Buddha, who are also the same divine persona in relationship with respective communities. Therefore, Hick’s hypothesis of many gods argues that many gods are “different persona formed in the interaction of the divine presence and human projection.”22 Now God needs not only many names but also many personas (masks). This philosophical metaphysic is universally valid as the metanarrative of reducing and totalizing all different religious experi-

21

John Hick, God has Many Names (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1982),

50. 22

Ibid., 53.

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ences and communities into a Kantian concept of “god” in self. With recourse to the Kantian metaphysic of noumenon and phenomenon, Hick categorizes Christian ideas (for instance, incarnation, resurrection, and eschatology) into attributes of a mythological idea. In order for God to have many names, Jesus Christ must be radically reduced to a wholly human person—a human being who was exceptionally open and responsive to God’s presence.23 Christian discourse on the Trinity, in Hick’s view, is of a mythological character. If Hick speaks of all gods known within particular religious traditions as humanly experienced persona of the Real in itself, he espouses a pluralistic Trinity of the divine persona for his theology of religions.24

God’s Act of Speech in a Trinitarian Perspective and World Openness From a perspective of Asian irregular theology, I argue that the Trinity is a Christian understanding of the God of Israel in divine speech act through the Torah, the life of Israel, and Christ in the presence of the Spirit for all. Starting out from the God of Israel in the act of God’s speaking, a Trinitarian understanding of God has less to do with the interaction between divine phenomena and human projection as seen in Hick’s divine mask theory of the Trinity. God in se comes to us, as the subject of covenant speech in Israel, as the incarnational presence in Jesus Christ, and as God of all in the universal outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh. God’s speech act as viva vox evangelii (the living voice of the Gospel) takes place in the proclamation of the word, scripture, liturgy, sacraments, and human experiences as well as heard and discerned in extrabiblical and extraecclesial lifeworlds. God’s speech act in Trinitarian communication must not be relativized for the sake of a dualistic-agnostic self-centrism, or Hindu cosmotheandric polytheism. Rather, Trinitarian thinking offers a hermeneutical insight into transcending a theory of human projection and challenging the postulation for a myth of religious pluralism. 23

John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent (London: Macmillan, 1989), 271–72; further see Hick, The Metaphor of God Incarnate: Christology in a Pluralistic Age (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), 105. 24 Hick, The Metaphor of God Incarnate, 108.

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Given the dynamism of God’s speech, there is an irregular side of God’s extraecclesial speech which may come to us through the world of religious pluralism. This aspect shapes and characterizes an Asian postfoundational and irregular perspective on God as the Trinity who speaks in promise, reconciliation, and freedom to all of us. In the context of the Hebrew Bible, a universal dimension of God’s speech act is seen in God’s covenant with Noah prior to the covenant with Abraham. This covenant includes humanity, living creatures, and the rhythm and movement of nature. Furthermore, God’s blessing is included in the covenant with Abraham, Ishmael and his descendents. The God of Israel is pleased to bless Abraham through Melchizedek and help Israel through Cyrus, a pagan king. At this juncture, it is of special significance to be prepared at any time for God’s speech act even coming from what seems to be the darkest places. In the context of the Hebrew Bible, God speaks the voice of the Good Shepherd from the mouth of Balaam. In spite of its sinister origin, we have no right to reject or denounce the extraecclesial word of God as having no value for the Christian Church.25 Seen in the context of the Greek Bible, God becomes the personal object to be known to the Spirit who explores and searches the depths of God (1 Cor 2:10). The Spirit is the Spirit of God’s self-knowledge because the Spirit is from God (1 Cor 2:12). If God is not communicated to us by the Spirit, God remains closed and unknown to us. The unknown God (Acts 17:23) cannot be the subject matter of the human knowledge of, or Christian faith, in the triune God. The Spirit who stands in reference to the depths and archaic ground of God is the God who questions, explores, and illuminates God. This Spirit in the Trinitarian life is the demythologizing ground for mythical conceptions of many gods or masks. No one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:11). This Spirit as life-giver is the Spirit of all living creatures rather than a spirit monopolized by the Church. Here, Trinitarian language can be appropriated for a hermeneutic of suspicion regarding a mythical concept of god and the ecclesial encapsulation of God. At the same time, it is articulated as a hermeneutic of retrieval regarding a biblical concept of God’s speech act in its Trinitarian historical manifestation for all in the presence of the

25

Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/3.1:119.

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Spirit, by recognizing the extra-ecclesial words of God as heard in the world of religious pluralism. The Spirit, who is deeply and mysteriously bound up with God, is the Sprit of love in protest against death, putting to death, as the lifegiving Spirit, the deeds of the body (Rom 8:13). The Spirit blows where it will, and it is not confined to the ecclesial sphere. Jesus affirmed this by reading from the prophet Isaiah that the Spirit is the Spirit of anointing the prophet bringing good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free, and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor (Lk 4:18–19, 21). These ochlos (the poor and the marginalized) were already excluded at Jesus’ time by the religious authorities. Jesus, the partisan of the poor, fulfilled the Spirit of emancipation and protest against the culture of death. As the prophet Isaiah proclaims (Isa 42:1–3), “I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles…He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick until he brings justice to victory. And in his name the Gentiles will hope” (Mt 12:18). Seen in the perspective of the immanent Trinity, the Son as the Word of God is connected with the concept of eternal begetting (generatio) through the Father. The metaphor of eternal generation of the eternal Word or Son implies that God speaks to humanity anew in Jesus and through Jesus. Jesus Christ is what God speaks to us in an on-going and new way. If God’s internal work (opus ad intra) is revealed in God’s work for the world (opus ad extra), the actuality of God is connected with the historical actuality of Jesus Christ. Understood this way, the concept of the generation of the eternal Son has nothing to do with the mythical localization of Jesus as the second essence (ousia) of God. Jesus Christ as vere deus and vere homo becomes possible without displacing the transcendence and freedom of God or his relationship with Israel and his massa perditionis. Jesus Christ as truly divine and truly human is the way of God’s speech act in reference to God’s dynamic event of eternal and historical generation (Mt 1) in view of eschatological consummation, rather than the Greek metaphysical concept of homoousios.26 26

Athanasius’ affirmation of the Son in one essence with the Father leads to his rejection of divine possibility. The death of Jesus on the cross had no effect on the divine Logos, because the divine Logos as very Word and God is impassible and incorruptible. Athanasius, Incarnation of the Word, 54. See Ted Peters, God—The World’s Future, 106.

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The objective basis of Christian faith is the God who speaks to us in fellowship and communion with the Word and the Spirit. God the Father gives Godself not only to us, but also to all creatures. God makes all creation, however large or small, to help and provide the comforts and necessities of life. For the Reformer, faith in God implies that God the Creator gives Godself to all creatures by generously looking after human beings, and indeed, all creatures in this early life.27 Faith in God is embedded in the believer’s heart listening to what God speaks through Word and sacrament, diaconal work, and all creatures (as masks of God). At this juncture there is a parallel between a biblical concept of God’s speech and the Confucian-Taoist concept of faith in the Book of Changes (Yi jing). In Classical Chinese, for example the Yi jing, to believe and to be worthy of faith, are expressed by the word xin, where the ideogram contains the signs for a human being and for speech. Therefore, to believe means to let speech act. For Confucius xin is one of the cardinal virtues: One believes in a person who is worthy of confidence, in whose word one can trust. A person with xin is one who is in harmony with the qi, the spirit or cosmic virtue. If one has xin, or trustful speech, than this one is the incarnation of cosmic virtue. From the perspective of philosophical Daoism, Dao can be understood as the Way that gives and enables all other ways. This refers to the archaic source and root which empowers a human being to think and meditate. The mystery and transcendence of God’s speech analogically conceals itself in the mystery of Dao, so that God’s speech can be heard hermeneutically in the dynamism of Dao in communication with the Other. God’s speech act in Trinitarian self-communication and history is God’s Way of giving life to all through the Word and the Spirit by embracing other religious ways for God’s sake. Dao manifests itself as alētheia in the act of thoughtful and mysterious speech. Dao, seen in the dynamism of the speech act comes to us as language, heeding the unspoken. Language which speaks by discourse is grounded in primordial silence. “Authentic silence is possible only in genuine discourse.”28 27

Luther, “The Large Catechism,” in BC, 432–433. Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Albany: SUNY, 1996), 154. Later Heidegger altered his view by stating that silence as such is “Ent-sprechen,” a corresponding. See Heidegger, “The Way to Language,” in Martin Heidegger, Basic Wrings, rev. & exp. Ed. David Farrell Krell (New York: Harper Collins, 1993), 420. 28

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If Christian faith is grounded in the event of divine speech, and is understood as a gift of the Spirit, faith is active in ethical integrity and compassion in the face of the Other. God the Infinite, who breaks into our Christian consciousness, encourages us to be faithful and committed to those with whom Christ identifies himself: God’s minority of the public lost multitude who are burdened by the sinful reality of lordless powers. Prophetic diakonia arises out of faith in the triune God and the gratitude of God’s justifying grace which is the objective basis of Christian praxis of love and hope. God’s act of saying, which took place in Israel and Christ, occurs here and now in every way and all directions, mobilizing Christian discipleship of faith in love and hope toward the coming of God. In light of God’s final coming in freedom and transcendence, God is a becoming and transforming reality in the coming of God’s Future. A biblical idea of incarnation is contradictory to the Greek idea of the total identification of essence between God and Jesus Christ.29 The concept of the immanent Trinity is not fully justified in a biblical sense because the scriptures witness to God’s action ad extra in a historical sense. Nevertheless, the teaching of the immanent Trinity finds its meaning in the ground words generatio, spiratio, and processio in a metaphor of God’s begetting the Son in the presence of the Spirit. The Spirit is an event in communal life between the Father and Son. This Spirit event refers to a dialogical reality in God in reference to God’s action in a Trinitarian-historical sense. The immanent Trinity has the priority vis-à-vis the economic Trinity in an analogical and eschatological openness. God who loves in promise, reconciliation, and freedom is more than human necessity. The immanent Trinity has an ideologically critical function of human projection on God. At this juncture, there is an eschatological reserve against the total identification of God in se and God for us. Against Rahner and Moltmann,30 this understanding of God in se has an eschatological

29

Gavin D’Costa, “Christ, The Trinity, and Religious Plurality,” in Gavin D’Costa, ed. Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered: The Myth of a Pluralistic Theology of Religions (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), 18. 30 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans. William V. Dych (New York: Crossroad, 2005), 136. “The Trinity in the history and economy of salvation is the immanent Trinity.” See further Moltmann’s

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direction in view of the fact that God will be that will be and God will be “all in all.” God for us bears witness to God in se in an eschatologically open movement of divine action and becoming in light of God’s coming. Thus, God is the subject of divine speech in an ecclesial and postecclesial direction. When it comes especially to God’s covenantal relationship with Israel, we hear St. Paul speaking in his deliberation of the place of the Jews, of “God’s enemy for our sake” (Rom 11:28). In God’s covenantal faithfulness to Israel, St. Paul retains an eschatological proviso concerning the ecclesial triumphalism. To the degree that Christ’s eschatology is subject to God’s eschatology, God will be all in all. Thus God, who exists in a Trinitarian reality of becoming in eschatological openness, is free to speak in a completely different and unexpected manner than that which is limited to the Church. As far as God’s speech act may take place through Israel and in every direction, Christian discourse on the Trinity must be reinterpreted in view of Paul’s theology of Israel and his eschatological reserve toward ecclesial triumphalism. Thus, St Paul’s solidarity with Israel in Rom 11:2 (“God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.”) becomes foundational for Trinitarian solidarity with the godless as well as people of other faiths which find their biblical justification in God’s covenant with Israel and Israel’s “No” to Christian triumphalism. In listening to the uncomfortable and even ominous voices of God’s speech through the face of the Other, God’s transcendence and freedom in Trinitarian communication can become a driving force for Christian openness toward a reality of religious pluralism and ethical responsibility in the face of the Other. The religious Other, when an understanding of the free and extraordinary communications of the triune God is upheld, can be seen to analogically bear witness to God’s relationship with us through the provocative irregularity of God’s speech act in God’s reconciliation with the world and in expectation of the final consummation. In this light, human words and language may be a genuine witness and attestation when viewed as an analogical medium of God’s grace of speech. For God in the Trinitarian reality of becoming, neither militant godlessness nor intricate paganism is an insurmountable barrier since

reception of Rahner’s rule, Moltmann, The Crucified God, 240; and C. M. LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity & Christian Life (New York: Harper-Collins, 1991).

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God in Trinitarian communication may speak in promise, reconciliation, and freedom through God’s universal reign in the world. That being the case, how do we understand Christian mission? It is important to see evangelism and Christian mission in light of God’s Word in reconciliation and Trinitarian openness to the world. In the next chapter we will review and examine the legacy of Matteo Ricci’s Christian mission and his method of accommodation in a ChristianConfucian context.

CHAPTER FOUR

CHRISTIAN MISSION: MATTEO RICCI AND HIS LEGACY FOR CHRISTIAN-CONFUCIAN RENEWAL

In the anthropological study of the relationship between Gospel and culture, an understanding of the Gospel is culturally conditioned in every particular context. In the discussion of the Gospel and inculturation in the missiological field,1 Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit missionary, has become a central figure of debate and investigation among scholars. Ricci arrived in China in 1582 and remained there until his death in 1610. When the Jesuits went to China it was the time of the high Renaissance in Europe. The Counter Reformation was initiated and energized by the Society of Jesus, founded in 1540 by the Spaniard, Ignatius of Loyola. The Society of Jesus was eager to spread Roman Catholicism to both India and China. Aided by Portuguese travelers and traders who were already in Japan in 1543, Francis Xavier (1506–1552), the father of the Jesuit Oriental mission, preached in India and Japan even without really knowing the native languages. One of his successors in the Society of Jesus, Matteo Ricci, was born in Macerata, Italy on 16 October, 1552. His father sent him to Rome to study law at the age of 17. However, drawing upon the feeling of a religious vocation, Ricci entered into the Order of the Feast of the Assumption on 15 August, 1571. Interested in foreign mission in the Society, Ricci was given the opportunity to join the India mission. Ricci arrived in Goa on 13 September, 1578 and worked in India for four years. Alessandro Valignano, Xavier’s successor, was successful in breaking free from the conquistador mission system. His model of mission, based on il modo soave (the sweet or gentle way), became the guideline for the Jesuit missionaries’ profound study of the language, culture, and politics of China. This study became instrumental in defending against the conquistador and tabula rasa mentalities of Catholic mission.2 1 David Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2004), 447–457. 2 Stephen B. Bevans and Roger P. Schroeder, Constants in Context: A Theology of

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Ricci arrived in the capital of China in 1601. He served as a repairman of clocks and entered the emperor’s palace at least four times each year. Placing himself in the role of a barbarian, Li Ma-tou (the Chinese name for Matteo Ricci) presented himself very humbly to the imperial court. In 1591 he was able to begin a translation of the four classical books of Confucianism (The Confucian Analects, The Book of Mencius, The Great Learning, and The Doctrine of the Mean) into Latin and transliterated the Chinese name Kong Fuzi as Confucius.3 He is referred to by some Chinese historians as the “wise man from the West.” With integrity, humility, and respect, his missionary goals lay in linking Chinese culture, especially Confucian culture, with Roman Catholicism. He developed an intensive knowledge of that culture and recognized its positive value in connection with Christianity. Therefore, his missionary legacy raises an important issue of theology and inculturation in the history of mission and interfaith relation. Ricci approached this agenda by adopting a positive attitude toward the Confucian culture in terms of his creative appropriation of the “natural theology” of Roman Catholicism.

Ricci’s Life in the Religious Context of the Ming Dynasty After arriving in the southern Chinese town of Zhaoqing in 1583, Ricci believed that shrouding himself in the robes of a Buddhist monk would be deemed as holy. He saw a parallel between Christianity and Buddhism regarding the priestly robes, the chanting in their service, the espousal of celibacy and poverty, the temples, statues, and even some of the painted images.4 Ricci and his colleagues were equipped with missionary ways of accommodation. Ricci changed his soutanes

Mission for Today (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2004), 186. See further Matteo Ricci, The True Meaning of The Lord of Heaven (T’ien-chu Shih-i), trans. Douglas Lancashire and Peter Hu Kuo-chen. Ed. Edward J. Malatesta (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1985), 4–5. 3 Cronin, The Wise Man From the West, 103, 107. 4 In a letter to his friend Fuligatti (24 November, 1585) he wrote, “Would that you could see me as I am now: I have become a Chinaman. In our clothing, in our looks, in our manners and in everything external we have made ourselves Chinese.” Cited in Jonathan D. Spence, The Memory of Palace of Matteo Ricci (New York: Viking Penguin, 1984), 114.

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into the cloak of the Buddhist bonze and shaved off his hair and beard. This was the first step taken toward external accommodation.5 Several years later, however, Ricci and his fellows came to the realization that in China, unlike Japan, Buddhist clergy belonged to the low social class. Based on the experience of the Jesuit missionaries in Japan, they had hoped to be accepted as honored Buddhist clergy in China with due social respect. However, in the summer of 1595 Ricci made a final break with the Buddhist dress, replacing his bonze with that of the Confucian literati, as opposed to that of the bonze that he used to wear. He was aware that there were three religions of major significance in China: Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. In his study of the Analects, Ricci became convinced that Confucius had taught about a reverence for Heaven, apart from idolatry. Along with reverencing Heaven, Confucius also articulated an emphasis on human ethical morality, which is inherently good. However, reason alone is not enough for Confucius to know the nature of God or the reality of life after death.6 At Ricci’s time in China, during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), three religions co-existed, fusing with each other. This led to the growth of religious syncretism. As Ricci states, “[t]he commonest opinion held here among those who consider themselves the most wise is to say that all three of these sects come together as one, and that you can hold them all at once.”7 To understand Ricci’s life in the religious context of the Ming dynasty, it is useful to review the historical development of those religions. During the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) Confucianism became the state orthodoxy (or the state religion). However, in the Wei-Jin period (220–420 CE) Confucianism lost its supremacy under the rapid spread of Daoism and the new doctrine of Buddhism. During the Su and Tang dynasties (581–907 CE) Confucianism gradually began to regain some dominance alongside Buddhism and Daoism which were still popular among both ordinary people and in the courts. In the Song (960–1279) and Ming (1368–1644) dynasties 5 Ricci’s companion Michele Ruggieri said in a letter to his friend (17 February, 1583) that “so, before long, we became Chinese to win China for Christ.” Cited in David Chung, Syncretism, 59. 6 Cronin, The Wise Man from the West, 56. 7 Ibid.

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Confucianism experienced a full renaissance in humanistic and rationalistic flavor. Great scholars such as Zhang Zai (1020–1077), Zhou Dunyi, Zhu Xi (1130–1200), Lu Jiuyuan (1139–1193), and Wang Yangming (1472–1529), stimulated by Daoism and Buddhism, sought to systematically respond to what Buddhism and Daoism critically raised against Confucianism. Zhu Xi argued that the genuine understanding of Confucius’ teaching had been lost since Mencius, but was rediscovered by eleventh century thinkers such as Zhou Dunyi, Zhang Zai, and the Ch’eng brothers. The term Neo-Confucianism, which is a Western coinage, refers to the later development of Confucianism as metaphysical thought (literally the learning of principle). The basic Neo-Confucian quest is oriented toward self-transcendence in the achievement of sagehood. Finding the world of metaphysics in the Four Books and The Book of Changes, Neo-Confucianists made an effort to transform Confucian doctrines by integrating an evolutionary cosmology, humanistic ethics and a rationalistic epistemology. Without the introduction of Buddhism into China and the challenge of Daoism there would have been no development of NeoConfucianism.8 Nevertheless, Neo-Confucianism did not succumb to the worldview of Buddhism or Daoism. Articulating the value of family and community, it stresses the understanding of life in this world in contradiction to the Buddhist doctrine of impermanence or the Daoist life style of non-action.9

Ricci and Confucianism in The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven While Matteo Ricci was active, Neo-Confucianism prevailed in the Ming Dynasty of China. Having a good command of the Chinese language, he knew a great deal about Chinese customs and etiquette. In Ricci’s observation, the Chinese greatly appreciated the principle of filial piety. They faithfully followed the natural law of ancient times. This nation did not simply worship idols. According to Ricci, “Chinese books on morals are full of instructions relative to the respect that children should 8

Carson Chang, The Development of Neo-Confucian Thought (London: Vision Press Ltd, 1958), 43. 9 Yao, An Introduction to Confucianism, 96–97. See further Julia Ching, Chinese Religions, 157–158.

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pay to parents and elders. Certainly if we look to an external display of filial piety, there is no people in the whole world who can compare with the Chinese.”10 In China, worship of Heaven and Nature was also moral, and hence naturally reasonable. Being quite knowledgeable of Chinese culture, Ricci regarded Confucianism not as a kind of religion, but rather as natural law. Although the literati recognized one supreme deity, they did not erect special places or temples for worship. There were no public or private prayers or hymns in honor of a supreme deity.11 As a Catholic, Ricci attached great importance on opposing idolatry and advocating morality. Unlike his appreciation of Confucianism, he was strongly opposed to the idolatry he saw in Buddhism and Daoism.12 In connecting Christianity with Confucianism, Ricci’s hermeneutical assumptions in The True Meaning of The Lord of Heaven are summed up in the following: 1) he utilized the Catholic doctrines as a complement to Confucianism; 2) in some respects, he interpreted the Catholic doctrines to transcend and transform the Confucian ones; and 3) he made some revisions of the Catholic doctrines and sought for concordance with the Confucian ones. In his important book, The True Meaning of The Lord of Heaven, those basic hermeneutical assumptions are in operation. During the years of 1601–1610, Ricci witnessed the conversion of Hsü Kuang-ch’i (Paul) (1562–1633), who held the office of Grand Secretary, Li Chih-tsao (Leo) (1565–1630) Ricci’s collaborator in several publications on religion and science, and Yang T’ing-yün (Michael) (1562–1627). These three men were the three pillars of the early Church in China. In November 1594, when he completed his translation of the Four Books, Ricci kept on studying the Six Classics and in 1596 Ricci completed his first draft of The True Meaning of The Lord of Heaven. This book is composed of a dialogue between Matteo Ricci, his friends, and Chinese scholars. The edition of The True Meaning of The Lord of Heaven during the Ming dynasty often used the titles God (Shang-di) and Heaven (Tian) for the Lord of Heaven. However, in 1704 Pope Clement XI banned the use of the terms Tian (Heaven) or Shang-di (Sovereign on High) to designate God. Hence, in the present 10

Matteo Ricci, China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Mathew Ricci: 1583– 1610, trans. Louis J. Gallagher, S. J. (New York: Random House, 1942), 72. 11 Ibid., 95. 12 Ibid., 99–105.

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English edition “the Lord of Heaven” (Tian-ju) is often used simply to replace the Confucian traditional terms.13 In the introduction to The True Meaning of The Lord of Heaven, Ricci grounds the Confucian principles of the Five Human Relationships (between king and minister, father and son, husband and wife, among brothers, and among friends) and the three Bonds (between king and minister, father and son, husband and wife) in terms of the Supremely Honored One who is not only worshiped but also mediated as the first Father and creator of all.14 As humans are created with the five basic virtues (humanity, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness), Ricci argues that his universal teaching of the Lord of Heaven refers to the Lord of Heaven as the final and active cause, as well as the cause of our moral and virtuous life. Ricci’s hermeneutical strategy was to discover the early theism in ancient Chinese writings in the personal concept of Shang-di, or Lord on High.15 To explain the Lord of Heaven as the most universal and the most Supreme cause, Ricci introduced a famous story of a Western Catholic sage, St Augustine. St Augustine met a child on the beach making a small pool in the ground. The child wanted to use a shell to scoop all the water from the sea to fill the pool. The sage questioned the silly child, but the child illuminated him, saying that human understanding about the truth of the Lord of Heaven is like the great ocean, which cannot be drawn with a shell and a small pool cannot contain it.16 The Lord of Heaven transcends all categories, bringing in the material universe, as conceptualized in a via negativa (that is, the apophatic way of God’s truth). The human being, as a small and lowly vessel, cannot contain or investigate fully or adequately the great truth and mystery of the Lord of Heaven, who is the transcendent, unmoved One, the active cause of all movements, supreme source of all phenomena, and source of goodness in creation. God the Creator is the God of providence who was revealed through the ancient Chinese canonical writings.17

13 Ricci, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, 20. See translators’ Introduction. 33–35. The first English translation by Douglas Lancashire and Peter Hu Kuo-chen is based on the first Chinese edition. In the present edition the term Lord of Heaven (T’ien-chu) is favored over the term Shang-ti, which Ricci freely employed with preference. 14 Ibid., 63. 15 Ibid., 85. 16 Ibid., 92–93. 17 Ibid., 97.

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The Confucian teaching of the Great Ultimate, according to which existence becomes the basic principle of all things, including sincerity (i.e., the subject of self-cultivation), was highly regarded and thought to be close to the teaching of the Lord of Heaven.18 To the degree that Confucianism refuted void-ness or nothingness in Buddhism and Daoism, Ricci wanted to avoid any misunderstanding that the Lord of Heaven, the source of all, should be identified with nothingness. Ricci was aware that the Confucian term of the Great Ultimate, or reverence of the Sovereign on High, in ancient Chinese times, was related to the movement of yin and yang in the Book of Changes (Yi jing). Therefore, Ricci was reluctant to harmonize the Supreme (or Great) Ultimate (Tai-ji) with the truth of the Lord of Heaven. The Great Ultimate, which is the first principle, is found in the appendices to the Book of Changes. All things emerge and are differentiated from the Great Ultimate. For instance, Zhou Dunyi (1017–1073) attempted to integrate into his Supreme reality the Taoist concept of Non-Being and the Buddhist idea of void-ness. He furthermore combined this with his theory of Wu-xing, according to which the universe consists of five elements (metal, wood, water, fire, and earth). Against the Neo-Confucian framework, in which the Great Ultimate becomes ultimate-less or empty, Ricci argued that Neo-Confucianism was no different from the teaching of Buddhism and Daoism.19

Zhu Xi and the Principle of the Great Ultimate Zhu Xi’s thesis in the Commentary to the Diagrams of the Great Ultimate that “principle is not a thing” unfortunately was not appropriated by Ricci to further a dialogue with his twofold understanding of the Lord of Heaven in terms of divine essence and divine attributes. In the religious thought of Zhu Xi, Zhou Dunyi’s Diagram of the Great Ultimate (Taijitu) includes speculations of the appendices to the Book of Changes (dated to the Han dynasty; 206 BCE–220 CE) including the yin-yang and Five Phases theories, as well as Buddhist and Daoist ideas and practices.

18 19

Ibid., 99. Ibid., 113.

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The term Great Ultimate (Tai-ji) is derived from the Great Commentary which is one of Ten Wings of the Book of Changes. According to Zhu Xi, the Book of Changes has been appreciated as a book which expresses moral principles only since the time of the Cheng school. Before that, it was accepted only as a book which dealt with forms and numbers.20 Neo-Confucianists reinterpreted the Book of Changes for the sake of cultivating virtue and for maintaining the balance between the internal and the external: “Seriousness to straighten the internal life and righteousness to square the external life.” Through seriousness, which means to concentrate on one thing, a person can obtain a sense of equilibrium and harmony. Thus one can “face the Lord on High,” overcome all evil desires, and preserve sincerity.21 Zhu reinterpreted and transformed Zhou Dunyi’s concept as seen in Zhou’s Diagram of the Great Ultimate and its Explanation. The origins of yin-yang and the Five Phase theories remain relatively unknown except that they arose before Confucius lived in the sixth century BCE. Generally speaking, the two complementary cosmic energies or principles, yin and yang, come out of one primordial qi. The alternation and interaction between yin and yang lead to the evolution of all things. In Great Commentary to the Book of Changes, we are aware that “the alternation of yin and yang makes up the Tao.”22 With Dong Zhongshu (c. 179–104 BCE) yin-yang and Five Phases thinking became integrated into mainstream Confucian orthodoxy. Confucian scholars in the eleventh century, such as Shao Yung (1011– 77), Zhang Zai (1020–77), Cheng Hao (1032–85), his brother Cheng Yi (1033–1107), and later Zhu Xi, were once students of Buddhism, especially of Chan. Yet later they came to regard Buddhism as an unorthodox teaching. The five masters in the earlier period of the Sung dynasty (960–1279) attempted to retrieve and revitalize the teaching of Confucius and Mencius to develop a moral cultivation in a more theoretical and rational way. This attempt was due, in part, to the challenge and stimulation of Hua-yen Buddhism of perfect harmony and of Chan Buddhism.

20 Reflections on Things at Hand: The Neo-Confucian Anthology, compiled by Zhu Xi and Lü Tsu-Ch’ien, trans. Wing-tsit Chan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 110–111. 21 Ibid., xxiii. 22 Cited in Julia Ching, The Religious Thought of Chu Hsi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 7.

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Underlying Neo-Confucianism is the basic concept of The Principle. Thus, it became called the school of The Principle. As the law of being, Principle is the basis for bringing things into existence. In terms of the interaction between yin, the cosmic force of tranquility, and yang, the cosmic force of activity, Zhu Xi argues, “The Great Ultimate through movement generates yang. When its activity reaches its limit, it becomes tranquil. Through tranquility the Great Ultimate generates yin. When tranquility reaches its limit, activity begins again. So movement and tranquility alternate and become the root of each other, giving rise to the distinction of yin and yang, and the two modes are thus established.”23 The Sung period was a time which saw a gradual revival of the Buddhist religion whose main branches were Chan and Pure Land Buddhism. Before turning to the philosophy of Principle (li) and nature (xing), Zhu Xi was interested in both Buddhism and Daoism. Zhang Zai, Chou’s contemporary, and also an uncle of the Cheng brothers, had an impact on Zhu Xi’s philosophical development. His favorite term, Great Harmony (Tai-he), identified with the Tao, is another name for the Great Ultimate. Describing it only in terms of qi, even of wandering qi, it is called the Great Void (Taixu).24 The Great Void is to the Wu-ji what the Great Harmony is to the Great Ultimate. According to Zhu, Zhou’s concept of the Great Ultimate represents what Confucius and Mencius instructed. This is a symbolic expression of cosmology that articulates the interconnection between the world and humans in terms of macrocosm and microcosm. Following Zhou’s ground thesis—the Ultimate of Nonbeing is also the Great Ultimate—Zhu states that “it does not mean that outside of the Great Ultimate there is an Ultimate of Nonbeing.”25 Chu interprets the Great Ultimate with the concept of Li, which constitutes all things. Li belongs to the realm above external and material shapes; it is the form or essence in cooperation with qi, (i.e., matter-energy). Qi belongs to the realm of shapes. The Great Ultimate is the most perfect Li, the totality of all the principles of all things. The Great Ultimate is more Li than qi, but it also retains its immanence in qi, without being absorbed into qi. Li is the principle that makes all 23

Reflections on Things at Hand, 5. Ira E. Kasoff, The Thought of Chang Tsai, 1020–1077 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), ch. 2. 25 Reflections on Things at Hand, 6. 24

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things what they are. There is one Li between Heaven and Earth that has multiple manifestations, which keeps the transcendence of the Li from its immanent manifestation. For Zhu Xi, all things consist of both Li and qi. Although these two are in an inseparable relationship, Li has a logical and ontological priority over qi, rather than in a temporal sense. First there is Heavenly Principle (Tian-li), Zhu’s favorite term, and then comes qi. Li has a myriad of manifestations. In Hua-yen Buddhism there is a distinction between the two realms of Li, the noumenal, and Shih, the phenomenal. Chu interprets Zhou Dunyi’s concept, Wu-ji erh Tai-ji, in a way that along with the Li, Qi is also present. Zhu affirms that the Great Ultimate, as Li, is present within change itself, yet without losing its transcendence.26 For Zhu, Wu-ji refers to the Infinite and limitless beyond concepts or language. It is the other face of the Great Ultimate. Therefore, the term Wu-ji refers to the Great Ultimate which transcends both being and nothingness, rather than only nothingness. This is in contrast with Laozi who teaches that “being” comes from nothingness. According to Zhu Xi, Tai-ji is also Wu-ji. It means that there is only Li without shape. Because of Li, existence of all things is possible. Therefore, Li, as the original Principle, existed before all things. Li of one individual thing is the most perfect Form, or Idea, or criteria for that one thing, so that it is the ultimate. The totality of the Li in all things is the Great Ultimate, into which all of the Li dynamism and emotion of yin and yang is integrated. At this point, Zhu Xi critiques the Buddhist concept of emptiness (Sunyata). Because there is Li of emotion, Qi has the emotion. The transcendence of Li is in the immanence of its manifestation of Qi, yet Wu-ji secures the other face of transcendence in the midst of immanence: Wu-ji erh Tai-ji. The limitless has no shape, yet it is full of Li. The most perfect Li, or the Great Ultimate, is likened to Plato’s Form of the Good. Unlike the transcendence of the Form, the Great Ultimate is present in the Qi of yin and yang. The Great Ultimate is present in 26 According to Zhou Dunyi, the Great Ultimate produces yang through movement. When the movement reaches to the ultimate, it becomes still. The great Ultimate produces again yin. Chou’s understanding is similar to Laozi who states that all things come from being, which, in turn, comes from nothingness. Different from Chou, however, Zhu Xi argues that because there is Li of movement in the Great Ultimate, Qi becomes yang qi through movement. Because there is Li of stillness in the Great Ultimate, Qi becomes yin qi through stillness.

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a cosmic context and in every individual human being as well. Zhu’s illustration is helpful in understanding the relationship between Li and Qi: “This is like having only one moon in the sky but when its light is scattered over rivers and lakes, it can be seen everywhere.”27 If the divine essence or nature is not known and shared in all phenomenological aspects to humanity from the Christian perspective, Ricci should have paid attention to the Neo-Confucian idea—that the Great Ultimate is the Ultimateless—as being more relevant to a Christian theology of divine action with the world in a more dynamic and relational way.

Confucian Self-Cultivation and Catholic Moral Theology It is certain that Confucius invoked Heaven in his time of distress. However, in the development of Confucianism the notion of a deity in a personal sense became transformed into the essence of human virtues in Confucian development. Citing Confucius in the Doctrine of the Mean and several classics, Ricci affirmed that the Lord of Heaven is the Sovereign on High (Shang-di) of the ancient Chinese writings. The Sovereign on High in Confucianism and the Lord of Heaven in Catholicism were the same—different for Ricci only in name.28 Given this fact, Ricci’s use of the ancient term Shang-di led to a total identification between Christianity and Confucianism. Ricci’s hermeneutics in The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven was to draw Confucianism close to Catholic Christianity and to repudiate Buddhism, Daoism and Neo-Confucianism. This functioned as a spring board for expounding the Confucian ideas of self-cultivation from the Catholic perspective. In Confucian development, Menzi (supporter of the goodness of human nature) and Xunzi (supporter of the badness of human nature) opposed each other diametrically on the issue of human nature. Although Confucius, in the Analects, used an important term—Tianming (mandate of Heaven)—with reverence and affirmed a personal God, Menzi articulated his understanding with emphasis on the human heart in which Heaven is present within human nature, becoming

27 28

Cited in Ching, The Religious Thought of Chu Hsi, 98. Ibid., 125.

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the source and principle of ethical laws and values. In the writings of Xunzi, the existence of a supreme deity was denied. His attempt at demythologizing Heaven moved him closer to the yin-yang school or the Taoist-naturalistic stream. In Ricci’s interpretation, Confucianism recognized sincerity as the foundation for the rectification of the name, which is embedded with self-cultivation, the regulation of the family, the ordering of the state, and the bringing of peace to the world. The Confucian tradition affirms God’s transcendence as well as God’s immanence in human morality. According to Neo-Confucianism, humanity, righteousness, decorum, and wisdom are essential characteristics of human nature which comes from Heaven. In siding with Mencius, Ricci stated that if the essence of human nature and feelings is produced by the Lord of Heaven and if reason is the master of them, then human beings are essentially good.29 Ricci arranged humanity, righteousness, decorum, and wisdom as subsequent to the capacity to reason, while in Neo-Confucianism, Li, the Absolute, is called xing (nature) in human beings and ming (order, destiny, mandate of Heaven) in Heaven. However, we need to clarify Zhu Xi’s concept of self-cultivation in its relevance to the Classic teaching of Confucianism because it is helpful for us to discern Ricci’s misunderstanding of Neo-Confucianism.

Zhu Xi and Self-Cultivation According to Zhu Xi, Principle is the source of goodness and the criterion used to judge what is right and wrong. In accordance with it, everything will be right. Otherwise selfish human desires violate and disturb it. Therefore, nature, or essence (xing) is, as a rule, identified with the Principle (Li) making human beings and other creatures what they are. Human individuals exist through a combination of Li and Qi. Xing is the Li of qi; the xing of the human individual and of a thing, as well as the Li of them. Human nature is originally good and sincere. If one follows it, one’s task is to investigate the Principle to the utmost. When

29

Ibid., 351.

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nature is cultivated to the fullest, one’s nature will be in accord with the Principle. On the other hand, there is Xin, usually translated as “mind” and sometimes as “mind-and-heart.” In Menzi, xin is at the center of being, the source of all human conscious and moral activities. For Zhu Xi, nature (xing) is full of Principle (Li), and the mind (xin) is full of qi. Nature is like Tai-ji, so the mind is like yin and yang. Human nature transcends mind, yet not in separation from it. Li is passive, qi is active. The nature is passive, the mind is dynamic. For Zhu Xi, humanity (ren) belongs to human nature, while compassion and emotion are manifest in the mind. The mind is in control of the emotion. Although Zhu gives a priority of Li over qi—namely nature over mind—the human mind is marvelous and fascinating for its dynamism. The Great Ultimate is present in a cosmic context as well as in every individual human being. “This is like having only one moon in the sky but when its light is scattered over rivers and lakes, it can be seen everywhere.”30 The manifestation, remaining latent, is to be actualized through self-cultivation. Zhu proposes an attitude of reverence toward one’s own inner nature and its capacity for doing good, as well as the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge. When Li is realized by qi, it is not whole and complete because of the imperfection of qi. Those who were born with pure qi become sages, while those who were born with impure qi remain ignorant. Through such an understanding of qi in reference to goodness and badness of the human being, Zhu attempts to overcome the controversy of human nature within the Confucian tradition. “Nature is based on Principle, and Principle is always good. Capacity is based on material force. The endowment of material force is unequal, and is therefore in some cases good and in other cases evil.”31 According to Zhang Zai, the heavenly nature is good while the physical nature is capable of evil. In a teaching of Mencius the four beginnings of virtue (compassion, shame, modesty, and the discernment between right and wrong) are originally good. However, these emotions are based on heart (xin) rather than the mind. For Zhu, humanity (ren) is

30 31

Cited in Ching, The Religious Thought of Chu Hsi, 98. Reflections on Things at Hand, 29.

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xing, and compassion is emotion which comes from mind-and-heart. Therefore, mind embraces xing and emotion. Drawing upon the foundation of moral feeling, Mencius constructed the doctrine of human perfectibility which denotes the possibility of attaining the ideal of sagehood and virtue. Inheriting this moral tradition, Zhu Xi developed his idea of relationship between nature and the emotions by accepting the mind as the unifying agent between good and evil action. “Where mind-and-heart, nature and emotions, are concerned, Mencius and Zhang Zai have given the best explanations. [Mencius says], ‘the heart of compassion is the beginning of humanity.’ Now humanity is nature (xing), and compassion is emotion (qing), which arises necessarily from the mind-and-heart (xin). [Zhang Zai said:] ‘The mind unifies nature and the emotions.’ As to nature, it is just Principle (Li), . . . and not a physical thing . . . That is why it is entirely good.”32 In human nature, there is the principle of morality: humanity, righteousness, order, and wisdom. According to Analects 12:1, to subdue oneself (self conquest) and return to the virtue of propriety is ren. This concept is a prerequisite for the practice of ren. “Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; seek not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety.”33 Deepening this idea, Zhu Xi states that preserving the Heavenly Li and purifying human impure and selfish desire is the goal of selfcultivation. Self-conquest is an integral part of cultivation. Zhu Xi developed self-conquest in reference to reverence and the extension of knowledge. As he states, “To use the example of a house: reverence represents the watchman who keeps guard at the door, self-conquest refers to resisting thieves, and the extension of knowledge refers to the investigation of things and affairs pertaining to one’s own house as well as what comes from outside.”34 Cheng Yi’s dictum—“self-cultivation requires seriousness [reverence]; the pursuit of learning depends on the extension of knowledge”35—has

32

Ibid., 103. Confucius: Confucian Analects, The Great Learning & The Doctrine of the Mean, trans. James Legge (New York: Dover Publications, 1971), 250. 34 Ching, The Religious Thought of Chu Hsi, 125. 35 Reflections on Things at Hand, xxiv. 33

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an impact on Zhu’s interpretation. The extension of knowledge is inseparable from the investigation of things (ge-wu). In his commentary on the Great Learning, the investigation of things consists in the extension of knowledge. In order to extend our knowledge to the utmost we must investigate the principle of all things. Knowledge is the moral knowledge which is discovered through the practice of reverence. The human mind is ordained to seek and know the Li of all things. In so doing, one has to probe and examine the principles of things until one’s understanding is deep and penetrating. Truth itself makes itself manifest and radiant to the mind. The Mind embraces all principles, so all principles become complete in this mind. Preserving the mind leads to investigating principles of the utmost. The teaching of the extension of knowledge and the investigation of principles is interconnected with the doctrine of reverence and self-conquest. This comprehensive aspect refers to Zhu Xi’s concept of moral self-cultivation. The extension of knowledge is the first step in the long search for sagehood. Perfect virtue (ren) “is universal impartiality; it is the foundation of goodness.”36 Therefore, it is the crowning achievement of a long life of investigating principles and extending knowledge.

Ricci’s Strategy and his Critique of Zhu Xi In Ricci’s understanding of Confucianism Zhu Xi’s idea of self-cultivation was not attractive for Ricci’s aim of harmonizing Catholic theology of virtue with Confucian moral teaching. In his Catholic theology, on the other hand, Ricci found that Augustine’s understanding of evil as “a lack of goodness” in the sense of “speaking of a lack of life” would be helpful in his aim of harmonization.37 Since the Lord of Heaven bestowed this innate nature on human beings, one is capable of doing both good and evil. The true merit of virtue, when added to goodness, expresses this goodness. For Ricci it was important to distinguish between two kinds of goodness, that is, “innate goodness” and “acquired goodness.” The former refers to the goodness of human nature while the latter refers to the goodness of

36 37

Ibid., 13. Ibid., 353.

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virtue.38 Merit is confined to acquired goodness, which humans accumulate through their own efforts. According to Menzi, humanness (equated with humanity) is closely related to righteousness, which is taken up to the level of a cardinal virtue. Humanness and righteousness are essential ingredients of true humanity in that the former is the mind/heart of a human and the latter is its path. Therefore, humanness is rooted within the human mind/ heart. Humans are, by nature, good. Evil comes from the formation of bad habits. Based on the four beginnings (dispositions) in the human heart, people who were born with a good disposition, when cultivated like a shoot, “would grow up to be a beautiful blossoming tree” which is “full of expressed virtues.”39 Relating the Menzi’s theory of the beginning to innate goodness, Ricci argued that meritorious virtues are granted to a person who does what is right. Ricci’s strategy was to add the Catholic teachings of human nature and meritorious virtue, in a spiritual-habitual sense, to the Confucian teaching of superior person and self-cultivation. A virtue is “the precious adornment of the spirit,” or the genuine treasures of the human inner spirit.40 A person who cultivates virtue becomes more beautiful and sanctified, like a blossoming tree. Ricci used the illustration of memory, intellect, and affection to clarify the virtue of the superior person, namely, humanity and righteousness. The intellect is to clarify what is right, while affection is based on humanity. This is because, for Ricci, “humanity is the essence of righteousness,” or “the noblest of virtues.”41 A person who is rich in humanity has to cultivate intellect through education or self-cultivation. In this light, Ricci inserted the Catholic teaching of sanctification or perfection, in accordance with the will of the Lord of Heaven, which means returning to one’s origin.42 The Confucian references to humanity and righteousness, in terms of loving others, were transformed into loving both the Lord of Heaven and humans. The Lord of Heaven has engraved sage learning into the human mind. This statement refers to the Confucian teaching of the illustrious decrees of virtue and glory. Virtue is clouded by human self-

38 39 40 41 42

Ibid., 357. Yao, An Introduction to Confucianism, 74–75. Ricci, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, 357, 359. Ibid., 367. Ibid., 369.

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ish defilement and thus engulfed in darkness. People who learn to do good have to prepare themselves to cultivate and learn through all of life. The Jesuit’s way of spiritual discipline combines spiritual learning and training with Confucian self-cultivation for increasing virtue. Eventually the disciple attains the highest level of perfection and habitually has the Lord of Heaven in mind. This happens in the following way: feeling genuine and profound remorse over evil thoughts (contrition), purifying them from the mind, entering into harmony with the will of the Lord of Heaven, and, finally, being in union with the Lord of Heaven.43 To explain this similarity between Catholic spiritual discipline and Confucian self-cultivation, Ricci quoted from the Book of Changes, in which the great and originating Principle in the human being is called the first and chief quality of goodness.44 Ricci summed up his definition of humanity in terms of a biblical statement: love the Lord of Heaven and others as you love yourself on behalf of the Lord of Heaven (Mt 22:34–40, Mk 12:28–34, Lk 10:25–38).45 Ricci interpreted this biblical statement to say that human charitable love makes the meritorious work of the Lord of Heaven known widely. Augustine’s dictum serves as a good example: “Love the Lord of Heaven and do as you wish.”46 With Christian love equated with Confucian humanity, Ricci fully appreciated the Confucian way of the virtuous life through self-cultivation toward the perfection of sagehood in his Catholic sense. The Lord of Heaven makes use of rites and ceremonies as a means of bestowing grace, instructing people, strengthening faith, and being worshipped. This is the adoration and praising of the grace of the Sovereign on High.47 To articulate the place of the Catholic God in a personal sense Ricci criticized Zhu Xi’s explanation of the Great Ultimate in terms of Li of heaven and earth because Zhu Xi obscured the personal character of the Sovereign on High. For Zhu Xi, the dialectical concept of Wu-ji erh Tai-ji (The Ultimate is the Ultimateless) offers his central idea of the Being in becoming, accentuating the change.

43 44 45 46 47

Ibid., 375, 389. Ibid., 375. Ibid. Ibid., 383. Ibid., 389.

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However, the Great Ultimate remains mystery in freedom and transcendence resisting human conceptualization in a personified sense. Nevertheless, the Great One is associated with Zhu Xi’s meaning of the Great Ultimate (Tai-ji) which is a transcendental presence in the immanent manifestation without being exhausted to it. Contrary to Ricci’s evaluation, Zhu Xi did not merely reduce the supreme deity to the materialistic manifestation.48 Besides, Zhu’s critical attitude toward evil in human nature holds excessive optimism about human nature in check. His concept of self-cultivation, in which the investigation of things consists of the extension of knowledge, articulates the way of developing the mind to the utmost and knowing one’s nature and knowing Heaven. In this process of self-cultivation, the Truth appears in a spiritual journey of cultivation beyond a subject/object distinction. This is like polishing a mirror or rescuing a pearl from impure water. Hermeneutically speaking, human knowledge aims at attaining the Truth, the heavenly Principle which is obscured by human selfish desire. Human nature endowed with filial piety, loyalty, humanness, righteousness, propriety and wisdom is the heart/mind of the Way. Humans are born of material forces and endowed with physical nature so that the human heart/mind is full of selfish desire and danger. Zhu distinguishes the heart/mind of the Way (the universal Principle) from the heart/mind of humans (particular material force). Due to the imperfection and impediments of material force, the truth of the Principle appears incomplete. It depends on opaqueness or clarity of material force that one receives regarding whether one can become a virtuous person or ignorant and wicked. However, such a distinction does not necessarily justify an elitist distinction with regard to the status of human beings. There are virtues, principle, and the Great Ultimate within the human nature. The Truth is hidden, however, revealing itself through reverence and the extension of knowledge. Realizing knowledge in the whole sense, it is significant to investigate the truth of things at hand to extend knowledge of ontological truth. At a moment in the lifelong pursuit, the heart/mind of the Way becomes manifest so that one comes to 48

Ching, The Religious Thought of Chu Hsi, 251–252. Ching characterizes Zhu Xi’s concept of the Great One, Li, a supreme deity, as closer to the personal God of panentheistic theology, and different from the personal God of classical theism. However, Julia Ching seems to lose sight of freedom of the Li in relation to the world.

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the realization that truth in all things is present within one’s ontological nature. If one cultivates the mind for a long time, the Principle of Nature will be clear.49 For the task of cultivation, a hermeneutic of investigation is recommended to probe and examine the principles of things: “We must investigate the principle of things to the utmost…We must investigate the Principle in the things and affairs we deal with. For examples…when we listen to others, we investigate it in conversation…Whether things are refined or coarse, big or small, we must investigate them all. After a long time we shall understand them, and the coarse will become refined and the small will become big.”50 Zhu Xi’s hermeneutic of investigation, which is a critical and scientific exploration of the truth in things at hand, is not merely an epistemological method to discover and master the truth hidden in all things. It also articulates an important insight that the Truth in one’s nature is likened to a pearl which shines in pure and clear water. “There will be thorough comprehension of all the multitude of things, external or internal, fine or coarse, and every exercise of the mind will be marked by complete enlightenment.”51 Ricci does not take into account moral cultivation in Zhu Xi’s thought. Rather, Ricci argued that China’s Confucianism should go back to its roots where its inner transcendence is connected with the theism of outer transcendence. The Confucian virtue of humanity is, in this regard, not properly understood without the love of the Sovereign on High. The Confucian teaching of the Five Cardinal Relationships is transformed and taken up in Ricci’s strategy of the Love of the Lord of Heaven and the Other. In Confucianism one may reach the way of sagehood through one’s own inner moral cultivation without the help of other powers on the outside. But for Ricci, one can hardly reach this culmination through one’s own inner moral cultivation. One must be helped by the outer transcendent grace of God. Thus, it is necessary to believe in and worship God. Therefore, Ricci defended the doctrines of Catholicism over those of Confucianism.

49

Reflections on Things at Hand, 142. Ibid., 92. 51 Fung Yu-Lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, 2, trans. Derk Bodde (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), 562. 50

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Ricci found it necessary to make some revisions of Catholic doctrines to accommodate some of the Confucian ideas and to reach concordance with Confucian thought. The missionary method of accommodation adopted by Ricci and his Chinese missionary group had already become an issue both at home and abroad. Ricci also made some revisions to the idea of sin in order to more closely approach the idea of virtue in the Confucian tradition. As the idea of sin in Catholicism implies, human nature may be considered virtuous, which is not entirely different from the idea of human nature being virtuous in Confucian thought. Human nature is essentially good and cannot be destroyed after the fall. People who are determined to do good, turning from evil, have only to change their minds by exercising human will. The Lord of Heaven is sure to reward them through protection and support.52 Ricci’s theology of will and merit fit into Gabriel Biel’s nominalism: Facere quod in se est (Do what is in yourself). One’s preparation for God’s justification, apart from the aid of God’s grace, can make the subsequent justification congruous or appropriate. On the basis of human good works, God is under obligation to reward those who do their best. According to Biel, the voluntas signi is the declaration of God’s will for creation. To the degree that voluntas signi is the ultimate and the rule for human moral behavior, natural law is the manifestation of God’s eternal law.53 Everyone, including the heathen, is by nature in a position to perform the first duty facere quod in se est. This moral act lies within the reach of natural human ability, apart from the aid of God’s grace. The abhorrence of sin and the love of God is sufficient preparation for receiving God’s grace so that God’s grace is the fruit of human moral action, not the root of it. This semi-merit also has to be accepted as worthy of its reward: the full merit de condigno. Therefore, God rewards all who do their very best.54 Ricci expounded, on a nominalistic-semi-pelagian basis, his theology of human motives and morality.55 Preaching and adding the medieval scholastic theology of merit and reward to Confucian moral philosophy,

52

Ibid., 447. Heiko A.Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), 104. 54 Ibid., 140–141. 55 Ricci, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, 313. 53

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Ricci invalidated the idea of a life style based on grace and non-attachment in ancient Chinese wisdom. Confucian self-cultivation, which basically has nothing to do with reward and merit, was modified and transformed by Ricci into a theology of God the heavenly Banker who rewards according to human deeds, ultimately, in terms of Heaven and Hell.56

Controversy regarding the Rites and Terms Ricci’s sensitivity to people of other cultures lay in his recognition of ancestral rites. When food was offered to the dead, for example, it was seen as the way the Chinese showed affection and gratitude in the same way that Europeans laid flowers at a grave. Both cultures fully acknowledged that the dead had no power to smell or taste. Ricci’s option for inculturation and friendship evangelism was influential. Even the emperor Kang-xi (1662–1723), in the subsequent Qing dynasty (1644–1911), studied Ricci’s writings for six months and then issued the edict of toleration in March, 1692. The 16th century Sino-Western relationship, unlike later Western incursions, was mutually respectful and friendly. However, other Catholic orders (such as the Dominicans and the Franciscans) were strongly against such compromises. They walked through the streets holding up crucifixes, not hesitant to proclaim that all Chinese emperors were burning in hell. Denouncing the Jesuit method of adaptation as protective mimicry, they complained to Rome. The result was that the veneration of Confucius and dead ancestors was declared, without qualification, to be superstitious.57 Nicola Longobardi, Ricci’s successor, opposed the mission policy of acculturation. The so-called “Rites Controversy” involved eight popes and the leading European universities for seventy years. Those who were more tolerant of Chinese rites favored greater cultural adaptation, declaring the rites to be non-religious. Others, who opposed such inculturation, denounced these rites as a practice of superstitious paganism.

56 57

Ibid., 297, 303, 313. Cronin, The Wise Man From the West, 267–269.

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Ricci’s approval of the Chinese rite manifested his way of inculturation and incorporating Confucian respect for ancestors into the way of the Gospel, including liturgy and catechesis from Western categories. Concerning the veneration of figures like Confucius, Ricci took an accommodation approach in which he thought of the ancestral rite as a way of strengthening filial piety instead of promoting idol worship. Ricci utilized natural theology in terms of his dialogical strategy in which the Christian idea of God was deemed equal to the Confucian idea of Shang-di. Unfortunately, the Rites and Terms Controversies remained a stumbling block and greatly hindered the survival and growth of Christianity in China. Behind this controversy was the painful experience of Francis Xavier. Xavier was a missionary who reached India in 1542 and by 1549 had arrived in Japan. For him, the Japanese mission was a springboard for the conversion of China to Roman Catholicism. The Jesuits in Japan were good at accommodating their Christian faith and ritual practice to the indigenous culture in Japan. Francis Xavier preached the Dainichi upon his arrival to Japan. From a Yajiro, or Nanjiro, a Japanese escapee to India, with little education, Xavier was misinformed that Dainichi would be equivalent to the Christian idea of Deus. However, this term in the Japanese language signifies one of the local deities, or even the human sex organs! After scandalizing people, Xavier returned to places where he had preached before, shouting, “Do not pray to Dainichi.” Xavier’s mistake of translating Deus as Dainichi 58 was instrumental in creating tension between the accommodation approach of the Jesuits and the tabula rasa approach of other missionary orders. Given the historically fatal translation mistake of Xavier, a safer path between Ricci’s associates and conservative missionaries was determined to be the use of the term Tian ju (The Lord of Heaven) to signify God. Although this term has roots in Daoism and Buddhism, Tian ju (literally meaning Master of Heaven), compared with Tian and Shang-di, was preferred as the equivalent to the Christian term of God. For the more fundamentalist-minded, Deusu (Latin: Deus) was preferred in Japan. However, Deusu sounded like dai-uso, in Japanese, which means “big lie.”59

58 59

Chung, Syncretism, 102. Ching, Chinese Religions, 193.

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In Ricci’s books, there are many signs of the Catholic stance against idolatry; the criticism of Buddhist idolatry is particularly strong.60 However, he never criticized Confucian offerings to the sage, nor did he criticize Chinese offerings to their ancestors. The veneration by the Confucian literati of a figure of Confucius in a grand Confucian temple and the literati’s offering sacrifices to him four times every year were not regarded as idolatrous acts. Chinese rites were first of all instituted for the benefit of the living rather than for the dead. To Ricci, the practice of placing food on the graves of the dead seemed to be free from any superstition and beyond any charge of sacrilege. For the converts, Ricci recommended the use of money as necessary for this ritual and custom in the support of “alms for the poor and for the salvation of souls.”61 After Ricci died in 1610 there were still about 2500 believers in China. In 1700 there were around 200,000 Catholics in China.62 However, in a 1704 decree Pope Clement XI banned the use of the terms Tian and Shang-di as designations for God. He gave orders that Chinese Catholics should not follow traditional Chinese rites that did not conform to Catholicism. Obviously, Confucius himself was denounced as a public idolater and a private atheist.63 In 1742 Pope Benedict XIV, in his decree Ex quo singulari, condemned the Chinese rite and opposed the Jesuits’ mission of inculturation definitively. In a response against imperial Catholicism in 1724 an imperial edict banned Christianity from the country. In 1939, during the Second World War, almost two centuries after Ex quo singulari, Pope Pius XII reversed the decision of 1742, authorizing Chinese rites for Chinese Christians. Ricci was successful in opening the doors of China to Christianity. However, his legacy is viewed with ambiguity today. For evangelicals, Ricci is accused of diluting the meaning of the Gospel and even accused of Christian-Confucian syncretism. On the other hand, progressivelyminded East Asian intellectuals view the Jesuit mission in China as trickery, deception and expedience.64

60

Ricci, China in the Sixteenth Century, 99. Ibid., 96. 62 Donald W. Treadgold, The West in Russian and China: Religion and China: Religious and Secular Thought in Modern Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), ch. 1–2. 63 Ching, Chinese Religions, 193–194. 64 Joseph Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958), 121. 61

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Although Ricci took a positive stance on ancestral rites, his hostile position against Buddhism and Daoism remains a problem. His accommodation principle remained paralyzed in matters of tolerating other religions such as Buddhism and Daoism. How do we understand Ricci’s attack upon Neo-Confucianism? He played classical Confucianism against Neo-Confucianism wherein he misunderstood a Neo-Confucian understanding of the Great Ultimate and human nature by accusing it of retaining the pantheistic imprint of the Buddhist worldview. However, it would be out of the question to separate Neo-Confucianism from earlier Confucianism. Zhu Xi’s notion of the Great Ultimate (Taiji), which functions like the Form of the Good in Platonism, demonstrates a possibility for conversing with the Christian concept of God. In fact, in Zhu Xi’ thought, the Great Ultimate, called the Heavenly Principle, possesses a personal character as “creator and organizer of the universe.”65

Conclusion Ricci’s accommodation approach indicates that there is a dichotomy between natural theology in China and revealed theology in Europe. Gottfried Leibniz proposed an exchange of missionaries between Europe and China. At his suggestion we read that “Chinese missionaries should be sent to us to teach us the aim and practice of natural theology as we send missionaries to them to instruct them in the revealed religion.”66 In the Catholic tradition, faith and reason were conceptualized in mutual dependence: a knowledge of God is found in creation, acquired by natural knowledge. God can be known through demonstrative arguments in terms of a relation of cause and effect.67 However, in the context of National Socialism, we should not forget that natural theology, in consonance with German Nazi ideology, was severely distorted and misused toward genocide. Like Lutheran support of National Socialism (so called “German Christians”), Pope Pius XII’s endorsement of an alliance between natural theology and the ideology of National Socialism generated a fatal mission against the Jews and the 65

Ching, The Religious Thought of Chu Hsi, 70. Arnold Rowbotham, Missionary and Mandarin (New York: Russell and Russell, 1966), 252. 67 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (Ottawa: Commissio Piana, 1953), Ia.2.2. 66

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Other. The political danger of Christian natural theology must come to terms with the prevailing political status quo. The demarcation of natural theology from revealed theology makes and establishes human culture as an independent order of creation sanctioned by God.68 If Ricci believed that God revealed Godself through the name of Tian or Shang-di in ancient Chinese culture, should he not have taken more seriously God’s universal reign for all, rather than sorting out wisdom and natural reason in Chinese classics as the independent points of connection for consonance with God? Instead of rationalizing Chinese Confucian philosophy as independent natural revelation, should he not have deemed such wisdom (together with Buddhism and Daoism!) more dynamically, as analogical witnesses to God in light of God’s speech act through reconciliation in Jesus Christ with the world? Ricci’s understanding of Jesus Christ reveals a dysfunctional view of mission, so that his attempt at accommodation centers only on theism in Christian-Confucian relations.69 God’s incarnational way in Jesus Christ, in which Jesus appears as a friend of public sinners, is the hermeneutical criteria of discernment in analyzing cultural traditions in terms of ethical responsibility and emancipation. In the process of inculturation, the Gospel brings a prophetic challenge to every culture to overcome all those things that are in contrast to the justice of God’s reign and Christ’s partisanship with the poor. The Gospel is the internal basis for inculturation, as inculturation is the existential basis for dialogue between a living people and the living Gospel. In this regard, an Asian irregular theology of God’s speech act appreciates and appropriates Zhu Xi’s theory of interpretation: investigation of things and extension of knowledge. In Zhu’s concept of self-cultivation, there is an important insight into the theory of interpretation concerning the ultimate Truth of Dao. In the process of self-cultivation, the Truth appears in a spiritual journey beyond a subject/object distinction. Hermeneutically speaking, the Truth of the heavenly Principle is hidden, yet it reveals itself

68 Hans Küng, Does God Exist? An Answer for Today, trans. Edward Quinn (New York: Vintage, 1981), 513–515. In the statement of the First Vatican Council in 1870 we read: “If anyone says that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be known with certainty by the natural light of reason from created things, he is to be condemned.” Cited in Hans Küng, Does God Exist? 510. 69 Ricci, The True Meaning of The Lord of Heaven, 449–453.

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through reverence and the extension of knowledge. Investigation of the Truth is of analogical character, because the Truth is mirrored in human language. It is significant to investigate the truth of things at hand to extend knowledge of ontological truth when it comes to irregular act of God’s speech (Dao’s speech). For Zhu Xi, the Heavenly Principle is like the pearl lying in muddy water.70 The Supreme Ultimate, while present and immanent within all things, “is not cut up into pieces. It is merely like the moon reflecting itself in ten thousand streams.”71 The relationship between the Principle and each concrete object can be explained by his metaphor: “the moon reflecting itself in ten thousand streams.” The moon in the streams means that the stream throws back the image of the moon. It refers to a mirror relation of the truth of Tao and human understanding in an analogical sense. The mirror image is analogically connected with the actual sight of the moon through the ontological investigation of things and the extension of knowledge. In this mirror-Appearance, Dao reveals and manifests itself for us. The revelation of the truth does not contradict a methodological aspect of interpretation in the investigation of worldly affairs. Analogical reflection in a mirror retains the mode of imaginative thinking and is not fixed, but rather open toward the emergence of Dao itself which implies an eschatological enlightenment of the truth of Dao. Truth and method are not disconnected from each other. But in the process of meditative and analytical thinking, the Truth reveals itself as the coming of the speech. Nonetheless, the Truth is not a prisoner of human experience or language, but remains an inspiration in a lifelong process of self-cultivation.72 At this juncture, it is significant to compare Zhu Xi’s metaphor of the moon reflecting in the streams to Gadamer’s speculative metaphor of the castle in the lake. If for Gadamer the mirror relation is linguistically structured and oriented based on the universal function of language, Zhu Xi’s hermeneutics is of analogical-meditative character. Zhu Xi’s analogical imagination concerning the revealing truth of Dao is of postfoundational character. Scientific investigation of worldly affairs and linguistic expression of Dao offers an important insight for

70 71 72

Fung, Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, II, 561. Ibid., 541. See Gadamer, Truth and Method, 466.

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an Asian irregular hermeneutic in postfoundational and analogical configuration, to the degree that the irregularity of God’s speech act is manifested in every way and all directions like “the moon reflecting itself in ten thousand streams.” Zhu Xi’s theory of interpretation helps Asian irregular theology to better understand analogically the face of God who loves in promise, reconciliation, and freedom. Inculturation refers to a Christian witness to the Gospel, both in terms of sacramentally incarnating into and prophetically transforming a culture, and spiritually recognizing and serving the inclusive dimension of the Gospel in the world of nonChristian religions. Through a hermeneutical deepening made possible through inculturation we may acknowledge the inseparability of the three realms of justice: the recognition of culture, inter-religious mutual respect, and renewal. The Gospel becomes richer and we would know more of it if more East Asians were able to truly embrace it and bring a Confucian, Hindu, Buddhist, or Daoist lens to read it as Christians have read it through the lens of Greco-Roman philosophy and wisdom. As God’s on-going activity directs and transforms cultural expressions of the Gospel toward the eschatological promise of God, cultures are changing, creative, and dynamic, and they are in need of self-renewal for analogically witnessing to God’s universal reign. Inculturation finds its locus dynamically in relation to the eschatological tension of justification (already and not yet), rather than remaining an accomplished fact. Western theologies, which also have a culturally conditioned understanding of the Gospel, are in need of the exchange of interculturation and a multilateral relationship with non-Western theologies in order to be freed from their Babylonian captivity of the past.73 Such an endeavor for emancipation from Babylonian captivity is explicitly proposed in the project of theology of religions. A critical examination and evaluation of theology of religions and the challenge of religious pluralism will be the next chapter in our discussion.

73

Bosch, Transforming Mission, 456.

CHAPTER FIVE

RELIGIOUS PLURALISM: ASIAN CHRISTIANITY AND LIFE HORIZON OF WORLD RELIGIONS

In an Asian context, the “gospel/culture” question becomes a “gospel/ religions” question. Let me begin by sharing a story about a missionary and a tribal leader. A young missionary worked with a tribal group for several months, then sent a message to his senior colleague, asking him to officiate at their baptism as the sign that recognizes them as Christians. The senior missionary arrived and made plans for the baptism on the following day. During the night the tribe met and had a serious discussion. The next morning they sent a message of regret because they had decided not to become Christians through baptism. Astounded, the senior missionary asked the tribal leaders whether his young colleague had instructed them in the privileges they would receive—the forgiveness of sins and the assurance of eternal life in heaven. The leaders responded that the younger missionary had taught in a proper way about the meaning of baptism as a sacrament. Indeed, the problem was not his, but theirs. The tribal leaders expressed a concern about the ongoing relation with their ancestors. They didn’t mind the gift of baptism and going to the Christian heaven, but their ancestors would not be there in a Christian heaven because they were not Christians. This was not acceptable to them because they wished to continue with their ancestors even after death.1 A Christian heaven that excludes ancestors as a result of their unbelief or lack of knowledge of Jesus Christ asks the high price of tribal people to be cut off from their traditional culture and spirituality. For Christians, the question of the gospel/culture nexus is often a difficult agenda to handle because missionaries are afraid of mingling the sacred with the profane. They are afraid of syncretism, in other words, of tainting or polluting Christ with bad elements in pagan cultures.

1 Paul S. Chung, Martin Luther and Buddhism: Aesthetics of Suffering, 2nd ed. (Eugene: Pickwick, 2007), 3.

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It has been believed that non-Western cultures are too inferior to be compatible with or approachable in Christianity. These negative views about the interaction in the gospel/culture nexus have been uncovered and labeled, by and large, as the arrogance of Western Christianity under the auspices of a Greco-Roman culture. This also speaks to the postmodern challenge of the Western concept of rationality and reason.2 Culture is defined as the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief systems, and corresponding behaviors. Culture as a global universal has an essential diversity in the sense that culture varies with time and place. Each diverse culture requires a contextual analysis if theology is to become integrated in that context. Theology as a part of culture is a human activity conditioned by its language, social religious discourse, and diversity of belief systems and worldviews. Revelation is assumed and incarnated in human culture and language.3 Therefore, theology does not merely fall from the heavens, but is an on-going dialogue with revelation in its own historical and cultural perspective and life setting. Even in the world of the New Testament, various cultural “gospel understandings” are presented in a different perspective, but with an integrative confession of God in Jesus Christ in the presence of the Holy Spirit. In the history of Christian mission since the Enlightenment, European culture has dominated all others in the American colonial setting in the name of spreading the Gospel. Cultural imperialism has been implicitly or explicitly camouflaged by mission and evangelism, resulting in the distortion of cultural uniqueness and the environmental diversity of those who received the Christian religion. Indigenous cultures were suppressed and even destroyed; an alien Western culture was imposed on non-Christian culture in the name of propagating the Gospel. The Gospel at times was misused or manipulated as a tool of control and domination in the hands of Western culture. In this process, Western theology discounted the differences and distinctive qualities of non-Western cultures in relation to the Gospel. The Gospel, paradoxically speaking, served not as good news but as bad and ominous news in the name of evangelization by suppressing and dismissing the

2 Madan Sarup, An Introductory Guide to Post-Structuralism and Postmodernism (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1988), 37. 3 Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997).

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relevant insights of other cultures and religious ways for the narrative of the Gospel.

Some Deliberations on the Study of Christian Religion Religion expresses itself first in various aspects through symbols or mythological motifs. These symbols and motives are of social, historical and ontological character. Religion is social in that it maintains the interrelation of individuals and groups in terms of religious values and beliefs. It is of historical character in expressing a fundamental ontological continuity between human beings and religious tradition. A radical epistemological break with each paradigm in a postmodern sense is hard to maintain in spiritual life because of its traditional consciousness coupled with historical, religious, and cultural continuity. Therefore, understanding in human beings functions essentially as an ontological mediation of past meaning and tradition into the present situation, in which religious tradition appears as an inexhaustible living source of possibilities of meaning rather than remaining a passive object of investigation.4 In the Christian tradition, Schleiermacher secures the independent place of religion against the Kantian philosophical tradition in which religion is reduced to human reason of morality and ethical life. Refusing to follow Kant who grounds God and the immortality of the soul on human moral consciousness, Schleiermacher locates religion in the realm of feeling (Gefühl) or immediate self-consciousness dependent on God. Religion is placed in the center of the heart and dispositions, becoming a sense and taste for, or an intuition and feeling of the infinite or of universe. In a later stage, Schleiermacher argues that we are conscious of ourselves as feeling utterly (absolutely) dependent in relation to God. This is Schleiermacher’s famous definition regarding religion in terms of human feeling of absolute or utter dependence upon God.5 Apart from knowing and doing, feeling is equated with the immediate

4 H.-G. Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. and ed., David E. Linge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), xix. 5 Friedrich Schleiermacher: Pioneer of Modern Theology, ed. Keith W. Clements (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 99.

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self-consciousness in which religion is to be sought. God is apprehended in the religious consciousness. However, Rudolf Otto objects to Schleiermacher’s definition of religion as a feeling of absolute dependence. According to Otto, religious awareness is oriented primarily and directly to an object outside oneself. A feeling of dependence is related to the human experience of the numen (in Latin, god) only as a subsequent effect. Otto speaks of the feeling of the numinous or the numinous feeling. The numinous points not to the psychological process but to its object—the Holy. Far from stressing the place of the subjective state of mind in the religious experience, Otto proposes the term das ganz Andere (wholly Other) in relation to a human numinous feeling of the object. What he characterizes as a religious experience is the feeling of terror before the holy, before the mysterium tremendum (the awe-inspiring mystery), or the majestas (the majesty) from which an overwhelming power of the sacred emanates. Religious fear stands before the mysterium fascinans (the fascinating mystery), which highlights the perfect fullness of being. Therefore, human experience is of a frightening and irrational character. Otto’s concept of the wholly Other can be clearly understood as his critique of an excessive anthropocentric tendency to reduce the Sacred and the Holy to the measure of our human reason or emotion. The feeling of the wholly Other gives rise in mysticism to the tendency to follow the via negativa (negative way of mysticism). The wholly Other aspect of the numen is the mysterium tremendum and the mysterium fascinans which characterize human religious experiences as numinous. In the idea of the Holy Other the concept of mystery (mysterium) is closely bound up with its qualifying attribute—awful feeling (tremendum). Although human language expresses the tremendum, or the mysterium fascinans, this linguistic ability is not enough to articulate das ganz Andere, due to its finite limitations.6 Departing from Otto, Mircea Eliade presents the phenomenon of the sacred in a different perspective from the former’s irrational approach. His phenomenological method attempts to illustrate and define the relationship between sacred and profane, that is, the sacred in all its complexity or in its entirety. Eliade’s fundamental thesis is summed up in the following: something sacred shows itself to us. 6 Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, trans. John W. Harvey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958), 5–30.

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The history of religions which ranges from the most primitive to the most highly developed, is shaped, constituted, and characterized by many forms of hierophanies, that is, manifestations of sacred realities.7 The cosmos in its entirety is capable of revealing itself as cosmic sacrality, becoming a hierophany, a sacrament, a communion with the wholly Other. Therefore, to understand the meaning of a homo religiosus, it is important to bring out the specific characteristics of religious experience with regard to hierophanies rather than demonstrate its numerous variations and the differences in the history.8 In his last public lecture,9 Paul Tillich, who shared Otto and Eliade’s definition of religion, called for Christian theology to adopt a new approach to the history of religions. Tillich elaborates the method of correlation in terms of the relationship between the question and the answer.10 Tillich’s way of accounting for the dynamism of correlation was to use the Greek term for time: kairos, a specifically appointed time in a qualitative sense contrasted with chronos, measured time or clock time in a quantitative sense.11 The kairos is the appearance of Jesus Christ. There are, however, other kairoi in the history of religions. Together they determine the dynamics of religious history. Religion for Tillich is the state of being grasped by God, an ultimate concern, or the Ground of Being. This ultimate concern qualifies all other concerns as preliminary. Tillich calls his approach to the history of religions a dynamic-typological one.12 Revelatory experiences are universally human because there are revealing and salvific powers in all religions. The revelation is received by a human being in terms of his/her finite human being. Humans are biologically, psychologically, and sociologically limited and conditioned. Revelation is received and interpreted in an incomplete, even distorted form. In this process, the limits of adaptation and the failures of distortion are subject to criticism.

7 Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (New York: Sheed & Wrad, 1958), 7ff. See further, Elidade, The Sacred & The Profane: The Nature of Religion, trans. Willard R. Trask (San Diego, New York, London: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1959), 11. 8 Eliade, The Sacred & The Profane, 16. 9 Paul Tillich, Christianity and the Encounter of World Religions (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 63–79. 10 Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1951), 61. 11 Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 3. 369. 12 Tillich, Christianity and the Encounter of World Religions, 38.

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Building on Otto’s The Idea of the Holy,13 Tillich maintains that there are three main elements in the human experience of the Holy: the sacramental, the mystical, and the prophetic. The Holy, whenever experienced, is given and experienced in a sacramental basis. In the sacrament, the Holy is experienced in the finite and the particular. When the sacramental is corrupt, the mystical resists its objectification for manipulative purposes. The prophetic moves from the Holy to the ethical imperative to be in a quest for peace and justice. These three elements, when harmoniously integrated and united, produce what Tillich calls “the religion of the concrete spirit.”14 In Tillich’s doctrine of the Spirit there are two fundamental elements: the ecstatic and the rational. The highest creation of ecstasy is love in the sense of agape while the other creation of ecstasy is gnosis, the knowledge of God.15 The inner telos, the religion of the concrete expectation, appears in a fragmentary way in the history of religions. Tillich calls the inner ultimate end of the history of religions theonomy, from theos-God and nomos-law. Theonomy appears in the religion of the concrete spirit in fragments, never fully. Its fulfillment is eschatologically oriented. Tillich’s dynamic-typological approach assumes a theocentric character in dealing with the history of religions. In this framework, Tillich came to see Buddhism as a dynamic religion. For him it is impossible to call Christianity the absolute religion. The religions can be regarded as complementary rather than as exclusive of each other. All religions share the same common ground. True dialogue becomes possible only when all sides acknowledge and respect the significance and revelatory character of each other’s position. Christian theology might in the future be developed in dialogue with the insights and wisdom of other religions.

Asian Liberation Theology and Religious Pluralism In the Asian context of religious pluralism, a Christian’s absolute claim of salvation is radically questioned and challenged. Unlike liberation theology in Latin America, the multi-religious dimension of liberation

13 14 15

Tillich, Systematic Theology vol. 1, 216–217. Tillich, Christianity and the Encounter of World Religions, 72. Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, 117.

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in Asian religions remain the core element and become a challenge calling for partnership and dialogue with the Asian Church. Aloysius Pieris, a Roman Catholic theologian from Sri Lanka, is an experienced theologian in contact with Buddhism and in touch with many multi-religious groups in the struggle for the liberation of the poor. He strongly affirms that the poor people of Asia are also very religious. According to him, theological reflection in Asia must take seriously both these elements: poverty and religiosity. Insofar as poverty and religiosity come together in this way, both become liberative, which Pieris regards as the specificity of Asian liberation theology. In view of the evangelizing role of Christians in their encounter with nonChristians, it is important for him to bear witness to the spirituality common to all religions. At a theoretical level Pieris uses core-experience, collective memory, and interpretation to help co-existing religions understand each other in a complementary and mutual way. His hermeneutical approach seems close to Dilthey’s hermeneutics of trilogy: experience-expression-interpretation. Interestingly enough, his interest in Asian liberation christology takes seriously the cross of Jesus in a twofold way: 1) Jesus’ struggle to be poor in terms of renunciation of the world, and 2) Jesus’ struggle for the poor in terms of renunciation of mammon organized into powers and principalities. These twofold ascetics make Jesus’ way salvific. This aspect does not compete with buddhology, but complements it in that the gnostic detachment of Buddhism comes to terms with the agapeic involvement of Christianity in a struggle for the liberation of the poor. Thus, the principle of complementarity plays an important role in carrying out an inter-religious dialogue with a special focus on each religion’s core-experience of spirituality and liberation. In Pieris’ view, both gnosis (Buddhist co-experience) and agape (rather a Catholic understanding of human caritas, Christian co-experience) are necessary. Both of them are inadequate because of human finitude to express human intimate moments with the Ultimate Source of Liberation.16

16 Aloysius Pieris, S.J., “The Buddha and the Christ: Mediators of Liberation,” in John Hick and Paul Knitter, eds. The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Towards a Pluralistic Theology of Religions (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1987), 163.

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Reading the scriptures from an East Asian angle with a hermeneutic of audacity and non-duality does not necessarily lead to deconstructing or dissolving the Gospel. The Asian theological endeavor lies in going deeper into understanding the co-experience of ultimate reality rather than a mere syncretism among religions. Unfortunately, with the Constantinization of Christianity Western culture has dominated other cultural voices. Consequently the gospel/ power nexus became synonymous with the power/knowledge nexus in a postmodern analysis and perspective (Foucault).17 A result of this is an exclusive attitude which is espoused and camouflaged in the name of maintaining and establishing the Church as the medium of salvation for all. This exclusivist strategy takes no account of any values inherent to other cultures and religions. Thus, indigenous cultures are suppressed and left behind. Unfortunately, the reality of exclusivism remains powerful in many circles of Christian Asian Evangelicalism.

Theology and the Other in Postmodern Perspectives In the postmodern perspective theology is profoundly challenged to face the religious Other and recognize their differences. In the Western Christian tradition the Other has been labeled in different ways. Until the sixteenth century otherness was synonymous with paganism, in the age of Reason, it became “unenlightened,” in the nineteenth century it was called primitive, and in the twentieth century it is “different.” A century ago the privileged citizen of any developed Western nation—white male Protestant—did not have to confront the Other. Women, slaves, native peoples, and homosexuals were of course not invisible, but were successfully deproblematized, and unrecognized. The unproblematic nature of “otherness” in earlier times was a result of the prevalence of what Jean-François Lyotard calls “metanarratives.” Metanarrratives shape a view of the world. In the power of metanarratives the voice of the Other is unheard, the presence of the Other as Other is unnoticed. In a postmodern perspective the abandonment of the metanarrative means the encounter with the Other in a genuine

17 Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings 1972–1977 by Michel Foucault, ed. Colin Gordon (New York: Pantheon, 1977).

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sense. The category of the Other in postmodernity represents the postmodern spirit of deconstructing modernism and resisting the authority of human reason and rationality. This characterizes postmodern resistance in terms of an “incredulity toward metanarratives.”18 Postmodern thought is characterized by a debate over the problem of modernity inherited from the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment project of modernity was and remains the triumph and the mastery of human reason over the external world. At the same time, it is the cause of human bondage to technology, ecological devastation, and the exercise of instrumental reason. Reason becomes instrumental, not liberative, even though enlightening. Postmodern thinkers are outraged by the totalitarian arrogance of the Western culture of rationality. The absolute claim of reason is implicit in the mass extermination of the Nazi era, Stalinism, the scientific rationalism of the A-bomb in Hiroshima, the Holocaust, war in the Middle East, etc. The certainty of reason is a tyranny, which excludes what is uncertain, what doesn’t fit in, and what is different. To be sure, reason is indifferent to the Other. In this regard Emmanuel Levinas has no hesitation in accusing Western philosophy of a totalizing or totalitarian discourse. Here, the Other is always reduced to the same, subdued and captured by consciousness. Difference is domesticated and the Many is reduced to sameness. Thus, the task of Western philosophy has been to overcome otherness. In postmodern thought, however, the protection of the Other’s otherness becomes an ethical imperative in the face of a gigantic totalizing conspiracy of reason. Here, the Other is not to be translated and comprehended through the rational coherence of language. For instance, there was an event in a public cemetery in Canada which illustrates the difference between the Western and Asian mindset. A Caucasian family visited the grave of their departed. They placed some flowers on the grave in memory of their beloved. Some yards apart from it, an Asian family prepared rice and food for the departed and knelt and bowed in memory. Curiously enough, one of the Caucasians approached the Asian family, asking whether the departed would return to eat the rice in front of the grave. The Asian person, a little surprised, responded to him by asking whether their departed would return to sit and smell the flowers near the grave.

18

Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, xxiv.

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To Asian people, a bowl of rice, just as the Caucasian’s a bunch of flowers, symbolizes a deep spiritual life in on-going relationship with their ancestors. Rice and flower are not one, but two different and unique ways of expressing the same thing, namely, a memorial act for the beloved with loving concern about eternal life.

Theology of Religions and A Narrative of Pluralistic Totalization To avoid the mistakes in the past there have been a number of theological efforts to pay attention to differences and distinctive qualities of other cultures and religions. Since the 1965 documents of the Second Vatican Council, Karl Rahner and Hans Küng have carried out a groundbreaking paradigm shift in recognizing other religious people outside Christianity as “anonymous Christians” (to use the phrase of Rahner) or anonymous children of God. Rahner’s theory of “anonymous Christians” is not based on a human natural desire for union with God but on the supernatural existential state which is built into us by God’s free initiative of grace. In other words, God’s self-communication in Jesus Christ is the source of our longing and search for God. Thus the members of other religious traditions can live as “anonymous Christians” in the sincere practice of their religious beliefs. This is due to the supernatural existential structure which comes out of God’s universal grace in Jesus Christ.19 However, Rahner’s notion of the “anonymous Christians” would be offensive to non-Christians by forcing them into a category that they do not acknowledge. Would a Christian be happy if he/she were called an “anonymous Shamanist”? Rahner’s inclusive strategy is ready to accept the values found in other religions. It is, however, also inclined to see these as the preliminary stage of preparing for the truth of Gospel. In today’s context, much has been said about inter-religious dialogue, and much reflection has been done on theological claims of Christian uniqueness in the face other religions and spiritualities in a multicultural context. This reflection has resulted in an insistence that the church/world dichotomy be rejected and that the Church should learn from the world and that which is considered “Other.”

19 Karl Rahner: Theologian of the Graced Search for Meaning, ed. B. Kelly (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 110–116.

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The recent shift of interest in ecumenical theology about inter-religious dialogue points to the fact that Christianity is required to reflect on the pluralist demands of other religions. A term like “the theology of religions” makes a universal demand to include and totalize all religions and ideologies into the mystery of God as “the Great Integrator.” Such a pluralistic strategy, rejecting claims for a specific, particular, context-bound way, does not recognize the privilege of Christianity in any absolute sense, and even raises the total rejection of the postmodern incommensurability of religions and ideologies. Pluralism has now become the rule and ideology in welcoming, approving and affirming any ideas or practices. People in a pluralistic context are asked without reservation to enjoy the reality of pluralism. Pluralism which emerges from a situation of religious plurality and intercultural exchange has become “an experiential reality to everybody”20 in favor of promoting the proliferation of pluralism in both a factual and an ideological sense. To promote a pluralistic theology of religions, John Hick and Paul Knitter represent an epistemological break with the universal demand of Christianity, calling for the recognition of the validity of salvation in other religions. Furthermore, Christianity is to be given no hermeneutic privilege or normative status within the religious plurality. God as the great Integrator or Oneness has many different names (John Hick). Christian symbols, dogma, and belief systems are reduced to represent a relative manifestation of the absolute meaning, or a mere symbol of the absolute. It seems that such a claim is not theological, but religious-philosophically oriented. John Hick argued for a Copernican revolution in theology concerning the place of Christianity among world religions. In calling into question the traditional Christian position of salvation through Christ alone (which is, according to him, Ptolemaic), a Copernican revolution in theology involves a paradigm shift from the dogma of Christianity as the center to the model of God at the center around whom all the religions including Christianity revolve as planets revolve around the sun. Likewise, in the works of Wilfred Cantwell Smith or Paul Knitter the Christian claim to superiority is replaced by other ways of knowing

20 Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Religious Pluralism and Conflicting Truth Claims: The Problem of a Theology of the World Religions,” in Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered: The Myth of a Pluralistic Theology of Religions, ed. Gavin D’Costa (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), 96.

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about the one God or the absolute. In so doing, theology needs to encompass within its horizon the spiritual experience of other religions. According to Wilfred Cantwell Smith, theology is inseparable from the history of religions: “From now on any serious intellectual statement of the Christian faith must include . . . some sort of doctrine of other religions. We explain the fact that the Milky Way is there by the doctrine of creation, but how do we explain that the BhagavadGita? Gita is there?”21 W. Cantwell Smith advocates a world theology as an adequate response to the future of the new global awareness of religious diversity and to the present interaction of the various traditions. Such a theology would be: “Christian plus.” The Christian concept of inclusivism is challenged by the realities of pluralism. However, it would be naïve to assume that a theology of religions is so autonomous as to become a project of reducing and totalizing all differences of religious languages into one Integrator. The line of Christian inclusivism no longer satisfies theologians of religions such as John Hick and other proponents of a pluralistic position. Inclusivists argue that the pluralist line of thought is likely to fall prey to the loss of one’s own religious identity and uniqueness, although the pluralists maintain and recognize the otherness of other traditions with sincerity. The pluralist group is blamed for playing down the fact that different religions make conflicting truth claims. Pannenberg accuses this strategy of pluralism of reviving the old German liberal theology of Harnack and others in the 19th century.22 What is important for Pannenberg is to take in earnest the final prolepsis of God at the center in favor of Christian inclusivism. In Pannenberg’s, view, the other religious traditions do not provide that particular eschatological hope. Rather they are integrated into Christian religion. Christian uniqueness in a pluralistic context issues from the eschatological finality of Jesus Christ. Therefore, “the specific character of the Christian faith” is based on “a historical past and related to an eschatological future salvation.” That being the case, “the truth claims of the

21

“The Christian in a Religiously Plural World,” in J. Hick and B. Hebblethwaite, eds. Christianity and Other Religions (London: Collins, 1980), 100. 22 Pannenberg, “Religious Pluralism and Conflicting Truth Claims,” in Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered, 100.

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Christian proclamation are at its basis, and the differences with other religious finally result from conflicting truth claims.”23 Be that as it may, the inclusivist strategy is critiqued as a disguised form of Christian arrogance and triumphalism by pluralists. According to Panikkar, the Western theological claim of universal truth needs to be peeled back like an onion to show its christic, universal vision in the face of the mystery of God from the cosmotheandric perspective. Panikkar’s defense of pluralism represents spiritcentrism insubordinate either to the logocentrism or eschatoncentrism to which Western inclusive theology is attached. For Panikkar’s hermeneutics, we are aware of three levels of understanding: morphological (denoting a historical-critical, philological24 and phenomenological method), diachronic (denoting historical hermeneutics or dialectic), and diatopical.25 The diatopical hermeneutics which opens up a horizon of encounter is the basis for intra-religious dialogue. “Diatopical hermeneutics stands for the thematic consideration of understanding the other without assuming that the other has the same basic self-understanding and understanding as I have.”26 According to Panikkar, a Christian cannot fully understand Hinduism, if he/she is not converted to Hinduism, as conversely a Hindu cannot fully understand Christianity, if he/she is not converted to Christianity.27 For this intra-religious strategy through diatopical hermeneutics, a distinction between faith and belief is important. Defining faith as a constitutive dimension of humanity, Panikkar argues that human beings exist only by virtue of an openness to transcendence. Humans are grounded in the mystery of the absolute. Belief is a number of expressions and formulations of faith. On the basis of this distinction there exist functional similarities between religions because religions are expressions of a fundamental human search for the absolute. If religions encounter each other through 23

Ibid., 102. Panikkar seems to confuse the historical hermeneutic of Dilthey and Heidegger with the tradition of dialectic. The dialectical hermeneutic of Gadamer would accuse Panikkar’s diachronic and historical hermeneutic of being captive to a human scientific and instrumentalizing method. 25 Panikkar, Myth, Faith and Hermeneutics (New York: Paulist, 1979), 8f. 26 Ibid., 9. 27 Panikkar, The Unknown Christ of Hinduism (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1964), 43. 24

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finding a functional similarity to express Man’s faith, faith becomes the anthropological dimension through which Man reaches his goal, his salvation.28 At this juncture, his cosmotheandrism is inclined to be revealed as anthropocentrism. Thus, human salvation is at the disposal of faith as a human spiritual experience with the mystery. Intra-religious dialogue, then, takes place in a personal synthesis, absorbing one of the two religions into the other, penetrating into the heart of each other.29 A diatopical hermeneutic is the locus where such intra-religious dialogue takes place. Its task is to create and find a common language in religious complementarity. The dialogue has to produce its own rules and categories. A human being as the Man equipped with selftranscending faith is an inventor of common language exalting over history as Wirkungsgeschichte (history of effect). Human consciousness is the pure consciousness against Husserl’s phenomenological concept of consciousness—of or intentionality of consciousness. His diatopical hermeneutic is not interested in understanding dialogue through language, but in producing common language for complementarity among religions. Panikkar symbolizes the history of Christianity in relation to other religions by way of three sacred rivers. Mahatma Gandhi once used a river analogy: “One may drink out of the same great rivers with others, but one need not use the same cup”; “The soul of religion is one, but it is encased in a multitude of forms. My position is that all the great religions are fundamentally equal.”30 Panikkar’s metaphor of a river is exemplified up to the point of calling for a pluralistic plunge into the river Ganges. In fact, the rivers of the earth do not meet each other, not even in the ocean, nor do they need to meet in order to be truly life-giving rivers. But where do they meet? It is in the skies—that is, in heaven.31 His poignant question runs

28 Panikkar, Intrareligious Dialogue (New York: Paulist), 22. Panikkar’s usage of the Man seems to be borrowed from The Rig Veda in which the Man is “the ruler of immortality” and “all creatures are a quarter of him.” See The Rig Veda: An Anthology, trans. Wendy Doniger (London: Penguin books, 1981), 30. 29 Panikkar, The Unknown Christ of Hinduism, 12. 30 Bruce Demarest, General Revelation: Historical Views and Contemporary Issues (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), 255. 31 Panikkar, “The Jordan, The Tiber, and The Ganges: Three Kairological Moments of Christic Self-Consciousness,” in John Hick and Paul Knitter, eds., The Myth of Christian Uniqueness, 92.

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like this; “Does one need to be spiritually a Semite or intellectually a Westerner in order to be a Christian?”32 The Jordan river stamps Christianity indelibly with its Jewish origin and with all its historical ties to all particular events in Israel. The Tiber in Rome influences Christianity with its medieval crusades and its imperial mission. For Panikkar, the Ganges as the mother river is a symbol for recognizing the otherness of the other religions and thus encompassing all other religions and traditions in Asia, Africa, and Oceania. It is important for Panikkar to be ready for adopting a pluralistic attitude, flowing peacefully, plunging into the Ganges.33 The Ganges, which is formed from many sources and runs in diverging outlets, stands for contemporary pluralism. Panikkar’s openness to the divine (meeting of all religions in heaven) is absolved and reversed into the river Ganges so that his vision of Christianness, based on self-transcending faith, stands for a universal totality of the Ganges river in opposition to Christianity in a Jewish setting or institutional Christendom. If so, should the Yangtze river (associated Confucianism, Daoism and sinified Buddhism) be plunged into the Ganges for finding Man’s salvation? Paul Knitter, beyond the conservative exclusivist approach as well as a liberal inclusivist approach, calls for a new paradigm of the pluralist position, which means “a move away from the insistence on the superiority or finality of Christ and Christianity towards recognition of the independent validity of other ways. Such a move came to be described by the participants in our project as the crossing of a theological Rubicon.”34 However, the metaphor of crossing a theological Rubicon (reminiscent of Caesar’s crossing of the same river in 49 BCE) is subject to skepticism due to its formidable project of leveling and totalizing the Other, the difference, and the uniqueness within its own totalizing framework.

32 33 34

Ibid., 89. Ibid., 109. Ibid., viii.

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chapter five The Debate of Christian Uniqueness or Relativistic Pluralism

In editing “Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered: The Myth of a Pluralistic Theology of Religions,” Gavin D’Costa calls into question whether pluralistic theology is an appropriate or even adequate approach to religious pluralism. According to John Cobb, the inter-religious dialogue can only take place on the basis of the recognition that each tradition of religion is unique in its own way and has different goals in many instances. His position is summarized as the position against pluralism in favor of a fuller and more genuine pluralism. Therefore, “normative thinking within each tradition can be expanded and extended through openness to the normative thinking of others.”35 Based on mutual openness and transformation in light of a Process hermeneutic, Cobb challenges Panikkar’s pluralism as naïve and vulnerable to the reality of evil, for instance, Nazism. Cobb questions whether “we would approach Nazism as a system expecting to find there discernment that would enrich us?”36 In critically speaking of a pluralistic theology of religions, Moltmann sheds light on not losing identity, but attaining a deeper understanding of identity in engaging in dialogue with other religions. For him, the Christian-Marxist dialogue in the European context as a model for inter-religious dialogue shows how to deal with issues of ethic, practice, and justice. Moltmann argues that it is important to bear witness to the truth of one’s own religion without falling victim to the relativism of a multi-cultural society. Dialogue is formed in the following way: “from anathema to dialogue—from dialogue to co-existence—from coexistence to convivence—from convivence to cooperation.”37 In this light Moltmann proposes a twofold level of dialogue. Direct dialogue has to do with confrontation and comparison of different religious concepts even including the animist religions of Africa, Australia and America. Indirect dialogue has to do with social, political, and environmental issues.38

35 John B. Cobb, Jr., “Beyond ‘Pluralism’,” in Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered: The Myth of a Pluralistic Theology of Religions, ed. Gavin D’ Costa, (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), 86. 36 John B. Cobb, Jr. “Metaphysical Pluralism,” in The Intercultural Challenge of Raimon Panikkar, ed. Joseph Prabhu (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996), 55. 37 Moltmann, Experiences in Theology: Ways and Forms of Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 20. 38 Ibid., 20–21.

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Against proponents of Christian uniqueness, pluralists have made an attempt to bring Christianity to cross over the Rubicon into pluralistic theology. Knitter makes note of three principal strategies, or three bridges across the Rubicon. The first is a “historico-cultural” bridge in the name of historical relativity. On this bridge both exclusivists and inclusivists appear presumptuous with their excessive attachment to the truth claims of Christian absoluteness or uniqueness. The second is the “theologico-mystical” bridge in the name of the mystery, in which the divine mystery exceeds human linguistic and conceptual formulation. The third is the “ethico-practical” bridge in the name of justice and peace. It is well expressed by Hans Küng: “no human life together without a world ethic for the nations; no peace among the nations without peace among the religions; no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions.”39 Coping with the postmodern global reality, Hans Küng’s project of a New World Ethic locates and articulates the significance of religion critically in the pantheon of modernity characterized by natural science, high technology and global capitalism.40 For him there is a dialectical and mutual understanding between religion and humanity. If true humanity is the presupposition for true religion, then true religion is the fulfillment of true humanity. Therefore, autonomous humanum does not replace theonomy. This dialectical and reciprocal relationship between religion and humanity has to be accepted as self-criticism, a presupposition for inter-religious dialogue. Representatives of the world religions may affirm in principle the possibility of grounding humanity in their own religious traditions. For instance, Judaism affirms a universal ethical reality, while the Qur’an includes the ideal codex of human rights. A Hindu attitude closely connects morality and religious feeling against the self-destructive forces in the world, while the wisdom and compassion in Buddhism implies “the recognition and affirmation of each and all in their difference and in their uniqueness.”41 The Confucian affirms the humanum (ren) and righteousness as the central concern.

39

Küng, Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1991), 138. 40 Ibid., 54. 41 Ibid., 92.

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Surrounding the debates about the theology of religions on behalf of Christian uniqueness two tendencies are discernible. The first is a blending of the exclusivist and pluralist positions: an emphasis on respecting the incommensurability of other religious traditions, and at the same time concentrating upon one’s own. The second is a combination of the inclusivist and pluralist options, stressing the value and richness of other religious ways while insisting on the hermeneutical necessity of one’s own limitations. The Gadamerian concept of the fusion of horizon is taken into consideration, maintaining a specific, particular, context-bound way into the diversity of religions. Although we do not recognize the privilege of Christianity in any absolute sense, we are bound to encounter other religions from our own perspective. A theological approach to other religions poses the question of how to encounter and recognize the different as different. From encountering the past and religious traditions, understanding is always a process of the fusion of horizons existing in themselves. Thus, in these religious traditions such fusion occurs constantly. From there, old and new grow together again and again in living value without the one or the other ever being removed explicitly. As David Tracy insists, “all interpretation is a mediation of past and present, a translation carried on within the effective history of a tradition to retrieve its sometimes strange, sometimes familiar meanings.”42 The concept of a fusion of horizon may well express that human beings are not able to escape from their own historical tradition, and thus history becomes a history of effecting human understanding and life. Different cultures and religions are intermingled and present in the process of understanding. Concerning the complexity of Asian religio-cultural realities this hermeneutical process is explicitly seen in the co-existence or fusion of horizons among Shamanism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Daoism, Confucianism, and Christianity, etc. Nevertheless, the dialogue should not remain at a metaphysical level, i.e. for the sake of dialogue, but needs to be practically motivated toward renewing and transforming social and ecological conditions threatening life. Listening to the challenges of other religions is an integral part of Christian theology and mission in a postmodern and pluralistic context.

42

Tracy, The Analogical Imagination, 99.

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The dialogical relation with the religions of Asia provides “a similar opportunity for reconceptualization in and through engagement with Eastern wisdom.”43 Without engaging in serious conversation with the other great ways, a Christian systematic theology of religions would be impossible. In inter-religious conversation, the Christian learns from different ways of Others in search of the unfathomable mystery of God. However, the debate about Christian uniqueness or relativistic pluralism is complicated and provocative, but still has no satisfactory solution. Only further dialogue will tell where it goes with the hermeneutic of suspicion and retrieval.44

Conclusion: An Asian Irregular, postfoundational Perspective on Religious Pluralism In conclusion, it is instructive to articulate an Asian irregular and postfoundational perspective on a relationship between Christianity and religious pluralism. Here, the terms “postfoundational” and “irregular hermeneutic” are a critical-constructive reflection on the irregularity of the divine speech act in view of the world of religious pluralism and engagement with people of other faiths. Postfoundational in the sense of a post-ecclesial character of the divine speech act is different from a sheer relativism of postmodernism, or the totalizing pluralism found in the circle of theology of religions. What is common between postfoundational theory of interpretation and postmodern theory is the recognition of the difference and the uniqueness of the Other without doing harm to it, or totalizing it into a Western metaphysic of sameness. What distinguishes an Asian irregular hermeneutic from an ontological hermeneutic or postmodern philosophy is the articulation and accentuation of a Christian solidarity with the voiceless members of society in the political, socioeconomic, and cultural spheres.

43 John B. Cobb, Jr., “The Religions,” in Peter C. Hodgson and Robert H. King, eds., Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 371. 44 Tracy, Dialogue with the Other: The Inter-Religious Dialogue (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 79–83.

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1. Christian evangelists and exclusivists attack the religious openness of liberal-minded Christians by quoting the biblical claim that Jesus Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life.” However, the question of the Christian absolute claim of Jesus Christ, when seen in relation to Paul’s theology of Israel, becomes questionable and needs to be reinterpreted in a new light. Regarding the problem of Israel, St Paul states that God’s mystery can be explained by the fact that God has not cast away God’s people whom God foreknew (Rom 11:2). Because of Israel’s disobedience to God, the Gentile Christians have received God’s mercy (Rom 11:30). In the context of Romans 9–11, Paul does not say anything about Israel’s conversion to the Christian religion, only about Israel’s salvation. At this juncture, the Christian truth claim of Jesus Christ calls for a deep conversation with the Jewish “No” to Christian absoluteness in light of God’s faithfulness to the disobedient Jews. At stake is neither ecclesia triumphans nor Israel triumphans, but the triumph of God’s justification and righteousness for all. Israel could testify to the eschatological proviso in the self of God, resisting the Christian pathos of the finality of time. Regarding the Gospel, they became God’s enemy for our sake (Rom 11:28). An Asian irregular theology, in postfoundational-hermeneutical terms, takes seriously the Jewish ‘No’, and extends to the ‘No’ of atheistic humanism and other religious truth claims toward the Christian claim of exclusiveness and finality. Every serious atheist, as well as the spiritually mature of other faiths, has a biblical justification in the Jewish “No” to the ecclesial-eschatological triumphalism of Christianity and in Israel’s act of faithfulness to the Torah. 2. God’s freedom and mystery, which is unsearchable and inscrutable, becomes a basis for an Asian hermeneutical deliberation of God’s way to people outside the walls of Christianity. There are the classical texts on the natural knowledge of God in the New Testament. Paul was confronted with such a problem in his missional setting. Paul did not want people to persist in paganism, so he invited them to faith in the message of the Gospel. According to Romans 1:20–22 and 2:12–16, the pagans have a knowledge of the existence of God, even apart from any special or historical revelation. Moreover, in the Lucan account, Paul recognizes in Athens a religious concern, a reverence and an awe in the presence of the gods, especially in their veneration of “the unknown God.” Although this presentation of God is misguided and distorted in temple worship or

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in the cult of images, the pagans, who were without Christian revelation, were not godless or Godforsaken (Acts 17:22–28). Paul’s idea of God’s grace for people outside the walls of the Christian Church has been, however, unilaterally understood and even politically distorted in the traditional idea of theologia naturalis, with its emphasis on human ontological potentiality as a “point of contact” (for instance, the dispute between Karl Barth and Emil Brunner during the period of Nazism) for salvation. Natural theology is conceptualized in terms of articulating human natural knowledge of God and the rationality and morality of human beings. An ontological-naturalistically oriented natural theology, which dualistically conceptualized Church and the state and upheld Church’s collaboration with the state, had a fatal political consequence in the genocide of the Jews and the marginals during the period of National Socialism in Germany. We also know about the patristic idea of logos spermatikos (or asarkos), according to which “the abstract Christ,” differentiated from the historical Jesus in his Jewish context, spreads and works among all other religions like logos seeds. The view of God in traditional theologia naturalis faces a serious challenge from a Darwinian theory of evolution and a limitation in the historical human experiences of genocide and crimes against humanity. Natural scientific advancement and the theodicy question in historical and social realms make the traditional idea of theologia naturalis and a benevolent God (God the Clockmaker) suspect. This aspect will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter when it comes to the place of Darwin’s theory of evolution in Buddhist-Christian dialogue. 3. Different from theologia naturalis in a traditional fashion, a theological approach to people of other faiths begins with the irregularity of God’s speech event through God’s reconciliation in Jesus Christ with the world. In the biblical context, God’s universal love can reach out to all. Herein God’s loving power is not limited to Israel, but remains awe-inspiring, and praise comes forth from all nations. Prior to the covenant with Abraham, God established a universal covenant with Noah (Gen 9). God is pleased to have Abraham blessed by Melchizedek. In today’s biblical study, Melchizedek would be understood as the non-Jewish leader of a religious community, different from the Levitical or Aaronic order. In our general climate of religious tolerance and indifference, God speaks to us through symbolic figures like Melchizedek on behalf

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of righteousness and universal peace. God has used Cyrus, a pagan king, to help Israel. God changes Balaam’s intended curse by speaking through a donkey. From the mouth of Balaam, God’s speech is not to be neglected, regardless of its sinister message (Num 22:22–35). 4. In the context of the synoptic gospel, Jesus publicly questions his disciples about his identity. “But you, who do you say that I am?” (Mk 8:29). Reading from the Bible in the synagogue of Capernaum, Jesus proclaimed his mission: bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free, and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor (Lk 4:18–19). Furthermore, in the Lucan description, Jesus states that the children of the world are often wiser than those of the light. Particular confession to Jesus Christ cannot be properly understood apart from Jesus’ recognition of religious outsiders. To the Athenians in front of the Areopagus, St. Paul bears witness to solus Christus in a conviction that everybody lives, moves and has his/her being in the universal reign of God (Acts 17:22, 27b, 28). We perceive that a universal dimension of the Old Testament plays an important role in Paul’s understanding of God’s reconciliation with the world. Eph 1:10 says, “. . . to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.” There are biblical passages in support of Christological universalism in light of God’s reconciliation with the world (Col 1:20; Phil 2:10ff.; 1 Cor 15:22, 25, 28; Rom 5:18, 11:32; Rev 21:5, etc.). Paul’s theology of justification refers not to the selfish private encapsulation of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ in the interest of excluding and condemning Others. Rather, it needs to be seen in a universal dimension of the Spirit in favor of them. “The wind blows wherever it pleases” (John 3:8). “For he has preordained this salvation through his eternal intention, which cannot fail or be overthrown, and he has placed it for safekeeping into the almighty hand of our Savior Jesus Christ, from which no one can snatch us away (Jn 10:28).” The expression apokatastasis ton panton in Acts 3:21 describes the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of God’s holy prophets from of old. What is meant is the fulfillment and restoration of what God spoke in promise. On the other hand, there are also biblical passages which talk about judgment mentioning eternal death or hell (Matt 7:13f.; 12:32; 25:31–46, Mk 9:45, 48; 16:16; Jn 3:16, etc.). The universal tendency of Christ’s reconciliation, which is associated

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with God’s restoration of all, and the particular judgment are mutually attested to in the biblical context. Nevertheless, the Scripture strongly affirms that God is free to speak to the world in a completely different manner from what Israel and the Church would expect. In the biblical view of the reality of people in the world of religious pluralism, it is important to define the religious pluralism more positively in terms of God’s freedom and mystery of the speech act through Christ’s reconciliation with the world in view of the restoration of what God speaks to people of non-Christian religions. An Asian hermeneutical reflection of the irregularity of God’s speech event challenges Asian Church to be faithful to the signs of times and God’s in-breaking presence in the life of people of other faiths. Thus, an Asian irregular theology assumes an ethical character of Christian discipleship in following Jesus’ prophetic accompaniment with massa perditionis and his openness to the religious outsiders. This ethical theology can be meaningful in an East Asian context as a counterproposal to a metaphysical, relativistic theology of religions in a totalizing manner. Non-biblical religions or languages may serve as metaphors or parables, in a hermeneutical sense, to analogically give an account of the mystery of God’s universal reign. If all creatures are masks of God, God certainly speaks to us through the wisdom of other religions and cultures. God’s grace does not destroy nature, but rather makes it a medium in witnessing to God’s universal grace for all. Regnum naturae is also the locus where God’s speech takes place. Human language may correspond to the speech event of God because God comes to us as the Word. All human words have a hermeneutical character in serving as a mundane analogy to God’s reign. The deliberation of God’s speech act shifts the emphasis from a historical-diachronic context to synchronic-social life setting, from the said to the discourse. A diachronic art of interpretation drawing upon the history of effect and a priority of language should be refined and corrected in terms of a critique of ideological language as seen in its exclusion of the Other in the case of gender, race, or social class in all theological interpretations. An emphasis on social location makes explicit meaning and interpretation an act of critical distance at a social cultural level from the standpoint of the marginal and the different in terms of the analysis of the nexus of knowledge and power. This emphasis does not replace the hermeneutic by means of a socio-critical method or genealogy

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(Michel Foucault). Rather, it refurbishes a socio-critical dimension of the hermeneutic.45 An Asian irregular hermeneutic of divine speech act integrates the diachronic art of interpretation and the synchronic method of social analysis in terms of dialectical interaction for the sake of inculturation and emancipation. 5. In regard to the theological debate in the theology of religions regarding the positions of exclusivism, inclusivism, or pluralism, it seems that all of these stances are partly fitting and partly inadequate for articulating the unique locus of Christianity in relation to non-Christian religions. If we follow the biblical tendency of universalism in view of St. Paul’s inclusive reconciliation, we cannot become exclusivist. However, as long as we confess Jesus Christ as “the way, the life and the truth” for my personal life, we remain a particular, confessional Christian in relationship with God’s people of Israel and the people of other religions. Our particular confession, alongside with the universal line of thinking, speaks out against any monopolistic or supercessionist claims of Christian self-righteous salvation and its theological method of ecclesial triumphalism. If we follow the line of God’s speech in a postfoundational and irregular sense, going in every way and all directions, our openness is characterized by a humble attitude, spiritual poverty, and willingness to audaciously risk our position before God’s mystery and freedom which works in the lives of people in a world of religious pluralism. The strange, unexpected, and dynamic way of the irregularity of God’s speech event encourages us to be radically open to the wisdom of the world religions. This position leads to pluralism in an unrelativistic and non-totalizing sense. In God’s reconciliation with the world nothing can separate the world from the love of God. A balance between Christian uniqueness and openness to the world can be characterized and proposed in terms of an Asian irregular theology of Verbum Dei in an irregular-postfoundational and non-totalizing attitude toward the reality of pluralism. Thus, an irregular theology of God’s speech act proposes a counterthesis to the theology of religions and Christian inclusive triumphalism, as well.

45 Foucault’s genealogy can be understood in terms of his synchronic hermeneutic of the subject and via negativa. See Michel Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject (New York: Picador, 2001).

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If theologia naturalis is severely challenged by a scientific theory of evolution, how does Christian theology relate to natural science? A Buddhist perspective on the reality of life in the samsaric world provides a more positive approach to the challenges the scientific theory of evolution raises regarding the complexities of life. Integrating a scientific theory of evolution into a Buddhist-Christian dialogue constitutes an important chapter of our next discussion regarding science and religion.

CHAPTER SIX

GOD AND EVOLUTION: GOD AND SUNYATA IN AN EVOLUTIONARY CONTEXT

A discussion of the relationship between science and religion has evolved along the lines of conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration. A model of conflict regarding evolution can be found in circles of religious fundamentalism and in circles of scientific materialism or reductionism in which nature replaces God. Evolution removes God so that there is no room for God in the evolutionary life of self-organization and self-development. Chance alone is the source of all creation. Evolution is the product of a mindless, purposeless process that rejects all forms of design or purpose.1 However, biblical literalism or inerrancy adamantly opposes such a scientific-atheistic viewpoint. God’s purposefulness and design of creation and humanity are advocated in creation science or Intelligent Design. Unlike a conflict or war model, we are aware of a theology of nature or process theology, open for a more dialogical enrichment and integration. A theology of nature attempts to re-evaluate and reformulate some of the traditional doctrines and theological discourses by integrating scientific findings and principles. It can also appear to be a new way of thinking, facilitating an inter-religious exchange, contributing to a dialogical and integrative nexus of religion and science. In this perspective an appreciation can be given to regnum naturae (kingdom of nature) as the locus of God’s gracious activity by the immanence of the Spirit. Process thinkers understand creation as a long and incomplete process in which God involves and influences the world without determining it. In the panentheistic view of God adopted in a process perspective God is continuously active in, with, and through the evolutionary process, influencing events through persuasive love rather

1 See Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006).

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than controlling them unilaterally. God is not all-powerful, but rather a creative participant within the evolutionary community of all beings.2 Alongside the dialogical and integrative relationship between Christianity and natural science, the Buddhist community’s interest in natural science becomes striking.3 It is intriguing to look at and update the wisdom of Buddhism through the scientific way of thinking. The relation between religion and science demonstrates its limitation when it ignores an interfaith interest in discussing a theory of evolution in a Buddhist-Christian relation. Scientific theory has to find its locus in the Buddhist view of Sunyata and the reality of dukkha and the Christian discourse of God and creation. Here, the Christian concept of God and imago Dei meets the Buddhist concept of Sunyata and Buddha nature at the scientific level. The Buddhist-Christian relationship expands its horizon and relevance in a more holistic and practical manner in view of the theory of evolution for the affirmation of the beauty of life and an ethic of utopian desire for a better topos in favor of those who are marginalized and voiceless in society.

Darwin and Adam For Christianity, Darwin (1809–1882) became a dangerous name, posing a serious challenge to its belief in God’s creation and human beings as created in God’s image. The controversy over evolution divides Christianity into two different camps: one of biblical creationism (associated with scientific creationism and Intelligent Design), and the other of theistic evolution which affirms both Christian faith and accepts Darwinian theory as a scientific research model. It is important to begin with a brief understanding of what the theory of evolution means. Darwin’s book, On the Origin of Species (1859), attempted to give an account of the variety of species of different life forms in the web of regnum naturae rather than demonstrating or

2 Ian G. Barbour, Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues, rev. exp. (New York: Harper San Francisco, 1997), 294–295. 3 Matthieu Ricard and Trinh Xuan Thuan, The Quantum and the Lotus (New York: Crown Publishers, 2001).

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proposing a theory of origin or creation.4 Regarding living creatures and their diversity, Darwin was concerned with finding the reason for inherited traits surviving over long periods of time. Over millions of years, deep time, diverse modifications, or adaptations accumulated that fit them to specific ways of life. Darwin combined his theory of natural selection with several ideas. A) Random variation refers to a change in inherited traits and demonstrates the occurrence and inheritability of small variations among the individual members of a species. B) The struggle for survival confers an advantage in the intense competition for existence in a given environment among members of a species and between different species. C) The survival of the fittest would result in natural selection over a long period of time and gradual transformation of the species would occur. Given this fact, Darwinism is the scientific belief that natural selection is the main factor and source of determining the direction of evolutionary change, although it is not the only one. These related ideas became central and pivotal for Darwin to explain evolution in terms of descent with modification over deep time with a slow and gradual rate of change. However, Darwin’s idea of natural selection met challenges from the scientific community because Darwin supposed natural selection to produce everything for the greatest good. Faced with critics, Darwin’s idea of natural selection was later combined with random variation in genetic inheritance through neo-Darwinian synthesis. The Darwinian model of evolution or evolutionary biology thus became accepted as the paradigm or research model in the scientific community for the study of human nature and biology.5 In The Descent of Man (1871) Darwin attempted to explain all human characteristics in terms of the gradual modification of anthropoid ancestors by the process of natural selection. According to him, human moral and mental faculties differ in degree rather than in kind, thus comparing them to the capacities of animals. Human existence is analyzed within the sphere of natural law which is applied to other

4 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, vol. 49, Great Books of the Western World, ed. Robert M. Hutchins (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952). In the first edition, Darwin did not use the word evolution. Instead, he referred to decent with modification. 5 Genetics and evolutionary theory are brought together in a systematic neo-Darwinism, for which Julian Huxley in 1942 coined the term “the Modern Synthesis.” See Julian Huxley, Evolution: The Modern Synthesis (London: Allen & Unwin, 1942).

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forms of life on the same basis. The Darwinian concept of random variation and natural selection claimed to give an account of Adam in an evolutionary perspective and with evolutionary terms. Darwinian theory underlines the unpredictability of variations and the opportunistic character of selection. Darwin rejected evidence of design and benevolence in the web of creaturely life. Facing misery in the world of nature, Darwin was not convinced of a beneficent and omnipotent God who, with design and purpose, would have created a world in which a cat could play well with mice.6 The reality of natural life, which in Darwin’s view, was characterized by assault, waste, victims and extinction, led Darwin to no longer be able to reconcile a God of compassion or benevolent design with the ruthless natural and biological world. Already in the kingdom of nature Darwin found it difficult to accept an image of God proposed by theologia naturalis in the Christian tradition. Natural theology is a study which is dedicated to discovering the Creator’s plan by studying nature. William Paley published Natural Theology in 1802 in which he proposed that an object or system was designed or adapted for a particular function and purpose.7 The clock analogy was favored in describing a relation between God and nature. From the concept of God as the divine Clockmaker, nature is not the work of chance but of an intelligent artifice. The Clockmaker God, as its designer, created the world as a clockwork mechanism. However, for Darwin, nature is a complex web of life interacting in organic interdependence. In this web there is too much misery and suffering. Sin and suffering are inevitable realities. Adam is not a special creation of God, but a child of blind chance or necessity.8

6 Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter, ed. Francis Darwin, 2 vols. (New York: Basic Books, 1959), 2:311. In discovering the Ichneumondiae, whose larvae are usually internal parasites of other insect larvae, Darwin opposed an image of God with omnipotence and benevolence. Cf. Ted Peters and Martines Hewlett, Evolution from Creation to New Creation: Conflict, Conversation, and Convergence (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 23. 7 William Paley, Natural Theology: Or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature (New York: American Tact Society, 1802). 8 In a letter to Asa Gray, Darwin wrote: “I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details left to the working out of what we may call chance.” Later in his life, Darwin was uncertain about the idea of design, and remained content with agonisticism. Cf. Ian Barbour, Religion and Science, 58–59.

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God’s Activity in Self-Limitation There are a number of theologians whose view of Scripture accepts and recognizes the implications and significance of evolution for a Christian theology of creation. This position is compatible with appreciating evolution as God’s way of creating.9 Hence, the God of gaps or intervention, or of violating natural laws, is not recommendable in the circles of a theology of nature. God can be understood as both the transcendental Creator and the immanent, continuous Creator. God is acting everywhere in, with, and through natural processes to bring forth physical and biological complexity and novelty. Evolution is thus considered the way God creates life. This broad position in circles of theology of nature is often called “theistic evolution,” with a view to a proleptic or panentheistic concept of God.10 Theologians of theistic evolution tend to situate both creatio ex nihilo and the creatio continua either within a proleptic concept of new creation, or within a process-panentheistic framework. Despite differences in interest they commonly utilize a classic argument of a free-will defense of God’s self-limitation for discussing divine action in relation to a free space for the evolutionary world. For the sake of creaturely self-determination, God freely decides to limit divine power. Natural selection becomes a space for the mechanism of speciation. However, God does not need to be removed entirely from the evolutionary scene because God’s power does not restrict human freedom, but allows it. Therefore, God acts in, through, and under the evolutionary process with creativity.11 God’s free activity in self-limitation, absorbed in open-endedness and unpredictability, becomes the basis of comprehending that God’s being is in becoming. In this light it is instructive to deal with Arthur 9 In a statement in 1996, John Paul II stated that evolution is more than a hypothesis, and at the same time, he affirmed that each human soul is immediately and specially created by God. This position is ascertained by Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett in their common book, Evolution from Creation to New Creation, 168–169. However, Lux Mundi, a liberal Anglican manifesto, (1889) defended Darwinian evolution. In this circle, traducianism is affirmed. That is, the soul is not a special divine creation but is inherited with the body in each new human life. 10 Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett, Evolution from Creation to New Creation, 115–157. 11 For a critique of the deistic residue in the concept of the free-will defense of God, ibid., 130–131.

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Peacocke whose scientific theology seems to be more open to the Buddhist world view in an emerging process.

Semper Creator For Peacocke, God’s self-limitation can be found in God’s omnipotence and omniscience. God’s self-limitation comes from God’s free decision. God’s freedom toward self-limitation allows the material world to engage in self-organization and self-development. The open-endedness which God bestows upon creation allows for God’s omnipotence and omniscience to be modified, restricted, and curtailed. God has made the world in such a way that there are certain realms over which God has chosen not to exercise power. Along with human free will at the theological level, for instance, the future of certain systems cannot be known to God because of their character of unpredictability and open-endedness (Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle at the sub-atomic level). God has no hidden variables in the Heisenberg case. This is the contingency of God’s way that Peacocke articulates as the self-limitation of God’s omniscience.12 God is the ultimate ground and source of both law (or necessity) and chance.13 Peacocke conceptualizes an idea of God as the ground and source of law (necessity) and chance in terms of the interplay of chance and law which is creative within time. This combination of the two allows new forms to emerge and evolve. Natural selection in this regard appears to be opportunistic.14 The interplay and consequences of random processes in the law-like framework of the rule is given, and as a result this aspect of “givenness” is interpreted to be a God-endowed feature of the world. Chance operates with this given framework, making it the basis of the inherent creativity of the natural order, enabling, evolving, and generating new forms, patterns, and organizations of matter and energy.15 Such potentialities—for instance, a creativity of interplay between chance and law—are written by God into creation and are gradually

12 Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming-Natural, Divine, and Human (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 122–123. 13 Ibid., 117. 14 Ibid., 118. 15 Ibid., 65.

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actualized by the operation of chance which stimulates their coming into existence. Therefore, Peacocke argues that the potential of the being of the world is made manifest in the process of becoming which is made actual by the operation of chance.16 God as composer creates in the world through the operation of randomness or chance, while chance appears to work like a Godsearching radar. From a theistic perspective of God’s creativity through this searching radar, the actual course of the process of the world is innovative and adaptive, open-ended without a predetermined purpose. God the Creator is involved in exploring many kinds of unfulfilled potentialities, such that God is busy creating continuously, exploring them through an interplay of evolutionary chance with necessity along with the open-endedness and unpredictability of the world’s process. God is semper Creator, and the world is a creatio continua.17 God is busy exploring, acting, evolving and creating anew. God cannot rest even on or after Sabbath. This is how semper Creator is related to created time. The Darwinian idea of chance and natural law in creative interplay testifies to semper God in becoming. Here, the world of Christian faith becomes complementary to the world of natural science. However, this view also leaves room for the possibility of reducing the first article of the Creed to the natural scientific method and empiricism. How can God as semper Creator, unlike Peacocke, be understood in matters of God’s self-resting and humanity as imago Dei?

Imago Dei in a Covenantal-Eschatological Perspective Darwin’s theory of evolution posed a challenge to the status of humanity. A Darwinian account of humanity can find no place for the notion that the species suddenly acquired a property called the image and likeness of God. What do we think about theological anthropology in light of evolutionary biology? In Genesis 1:26 men and women are said to be created in the image (zelem) and likeness (demut) of God. God made human beings in God’s own image and likeness, making them into God’s representatives in their care-taking stewardship within creation.

16 17

Ibid., 119. Ibid., 105.

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However, the giving of dominion in Gen 1:28 associated with God’s image has been under fire since it has led to the unrestricted exploitation of nature by modern technology and industrial society which has resulted in our current ecological crisis. The image of God is not a quality that humans possess by themselves, but according to Martin Luther, it is a relationality in an ongoing interaction between God and humanity.18 Imago Dei is a dynamic principle through which we understand our relationship with God in the past, present, and future. The imago Dei is fulfilled in the second Adam, Jesus Christ, who is the image of God. We are to be transformed into the same image (2 Cor 3:18). The eschatological view of new humanity is manifested in Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:45f.) who is to come again. The concept of co-humanity corresponds to our openness to God in Jesus Christ. However, the Bible also sees humanity as rooted in nature, sharing finitude, creatureliness, and death with all living things, returning “to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19ff.). Imago Dei means a copy, analogy, or mirror coming out of the ground and the dust. Humanity was formed from the dust of the ground (Gen 2:7) and became a living being through God’s activity of life-giving breath. The breath of God’s life was given “to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth” (Gen 1:30). God gives “drink to every animal,” and “the young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God” (Ps 104:11, 21). Human creation in God’s image and according to God’s likeness is essentially open in relationship with and participation in God’s life. In this relationship, animals are not excluded so long as they breathe. God’s image is also a basis for relationship between humans and other living creatures. This image of relationship between God and human beings in the context of Noah’s covenant is expanded to God’s universal covenant relationship with all living creatures and the earth. According to God’s covenant with Noah, every living creature comes into God’s covenantal relationship. A flood will not violate or destroy the laws of the earth. The law of nature in its independent and free course belongs to God’s promise. God loves the world in God’s promise and freedom, establishing the covenant, and allowing for the world to be free

18

LW, 1:62–63.

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in their time and course of life. The sign of God’s universal covenant is extended beyond Noah toward all future generations. God is no longer a God of distance or gaps, but a God of establishing covenantal relationships with creation and allowing God’s self-limitation according to this covenant so that the world of nature is driven by natural law and rhythms and open to God’s promise and freedom. At this juncture, natural science describes the grammar of nature and the regulation of the game of the universe, while God’s creation, as confessed by the Christian Church, refers to the game itself—namely, the content of nature. A biblical story of creation testifies to the beginning which is present in all events.19 Imago Dei can be seen in the mirror of God’s relationship with divine life (Gen 1:26) as well as in human relationships with each other and is expanded into promissio Dei for establishing God’s universal covenant for universal shalom. “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them” (Isa 11:6ff.). God’s covenantal promise does not take away the evolutionary freedom of the earth, but places within it a sign of grace accompanying, transforming, and guiding it to God’s universal shalom in Jesus Christ who is the image of God. God’s rest on the seventh day implies that God is not merely busy creating and bringing forth new creatures as evolutionary theists or process theologians argue. God is free to be in a state of self-resting. Through God’s self-resting, evolution has its time and locus in a biblical context. In spite of contradictions, conflict, and extinctions, the process of evolution can become a means, an expositor of God’s creation, in terms of its creative combination and the interconnection of chance and necessity. In the creaturely world there is always a beginning, a cessation, and a new beginning. There is no becoming without the perishing of old forms, no perishing without new becomings. Evolutionary-ecological creative movement comes from God’s word of covenantal promise which grants dynamic rhythm in the course of an unbroken and never-ceasing cycle: “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Gen 8:22). Creatio continua is reassured by God’s 19

Christian Link, “Schwierigkeiten im Gespräch zwischen Naturwissenschaft und Theologie,” in In welchem Sinne sind theologische Aussagen wahr?, Zum Streit zwischen Glaube and Wissen, Theologische Studien II (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2003), 147.

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promise of universal covenant. Thus, a scientific theory of evolution becomes an integral part of a biblical narrative of God’s creation rather than accommodating a Christian theology of creation toward scientific methodical atheism. The illuminating, dynamic reality of evolution, which is impregnable, unalterable, and indestructible in spite of its shadow side and limitations, can be a conscription to the service of God’s grace and glory in speaking of the goodness of the original creation. God’s creative activity is not a mere reproduction of existing forms. A theory of evolution can be instituted, installed, and ordained for the service of the promise and freedom of God’s speech act (ministerium Verbi Divini) because all sciences might ultimately be a theology in analogical witness to the grace of God’s speech act.20 In light of the irregularity of God’s words in creation, a scientific theory of evolution may become an analogy of evolution in the service of God’s Word of Sabbath. An analogy of evolution is a way of metaphorically and hermeneutically seeing God’s on-going creative activity in the constant bringing forth of what is new in light of irregularity of divine action. Nevertheless, God is not merely the God of evolution, but the God of alpha and omega, establishing the covenantal promise with humanity and creation towards God’s final rest within them in which God’s indwelling does not mean ceasing to be God the Creator. Furthermore, in Ps 19 and Rom 1:20 human experience of nature is described as the experience of God, so that since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and nature has been understood as being seen “through the things” God had made. Instead of an identification between natureexperience and God-experience, however, the Hebrew Bible carefully distinguishes the name revelation of the God of Israel (YHWH) from God’s self-manifestation to all people in creation (Elohim). The revelation of God’s name constitutes the core of the historical tradition of Scripture, while God’s self-manifestation in creation refers to a theme of Hebrew wisdom (Proverbs and Job). Biblically speaking, a dialogue between theology and natural science belongs to the area of Elohim-experience. However, the revelation of God’s Name (YHWH)

20 Paul S. Chung, “Karl Barth and God in Creation: Towards an Interfaith Dialogue with Science and Religion” in Theology and Science, vol. 3 Nr. 1 (March 2005), 58.

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is not a predicate of Elohim-experience. Thus, the scientific order of the world is not fully adequate to claim itself as the discovery of the biblical God.21 Hermeneutically speaking, it is also important to distinguish nature from creation in a discrete way, while still recognizing that a biblical concept of the creature cannot be conceived of without its connection to nature. In Ps 8.4ff., we read: “what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you came for them?” Here we are aware that the biblical perspective is grounded in a certain and definitive place in which humans live. This perspective argues for God’s lifeworld within which human existence stands in communicative and interpretive relation. In the eschatological assertion that God will be over all (1 Cor 15:28), God’s indwelling and rest within humanity and all creatures are already projected in the protological sense of God’s Sabbath, the crown and consummation of creation. Divine cessation implies the divine perfection of creation so that divine rest becomes the basis for creatio continua. Evolution as an analogy of God’s word of creation finds its time and course in protological sense in mystery of God’s rest. God’s menuha (God’s final rest) refers to the God who speaks in promise and freedom and loves in reconciliation and self-limitation for all creaturely life. God’s Sabbath as God’s world-immanence articulates God’s covenantal “yes” to all creatures, refurbishing the evolutionary process as an instrument to serve God’s universal shalom. Scientific laws and formulae, the observation and investigation of the natural sciences, discover divine action in its partial validity in the dynamic rhythm and life-circle of the world, becoming witnesses to the being of God who is becoming in the coming of God’s final rest.

A Suffering God In the context of natural selection pain and suffering and the consciousness of pleasure and well being emerge. The emergence of pain and suffering appears to be an inevitable consequence of the continuous 21 Christian Link, “Schwierigkeiten im Gespräch zwischen Naturwissenschaft und Theologie,” in Link, in welchem Sinne sind theologische Aussagen wahr?, 152.

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increase and ability of process. Therefore, pain as one of the emergents has an energizing effect, and suffering goads action.22 Both pain and suffering are located within the creatures’ right to survive, continually facing new problem situations which challenge their existence and survival. Pain and suffering are a necessary condition for survival, rather than a consequence of failing or sin. For Peacocke, God is a suffering God with the natural evils of the world. His theology of divine passibility comes from a scientific perspective about the inevitability of pain, suffering, and death in the universe which is capable of evolving free, intelligent persons.23 The sin and death of homo sapiens changes Adam’s sin so that the sin might be a contributing factor toward an advanced humanity through the evolutionary-creative process of becoming. The arrival of homo sapiens became possible from the interplay of chance (or randomness) together with law-like regularities within which chance operates. This is the matrix for the emergence of homo sapiens with free will and self-consciousness. For the arrival of homo sapiens, God is instantiated as one who inevitably wills the means of natural evil. Natural evil, constituted by the random effects of chance, becomes the inheritance of all. God’s self-limitation can be characterized by the world’s open-endedness and flexibility which generates and evolves complexity, consciousness, and freedom on the part of homo sapiens. Likewise, God’s grace of covenant neither violates nor eradicates the life of nature in the evolutionary progress, but prepares, transforms, and completes it in the light of God’s coming. God is known only through God who is becoming through God’s grace in Jesus Christ and who is consummating the life of creatures. All living creatures, as larva Dei, (Martin Luther) have a covenantal image and a right to live according to it, open to the divine invitation to new creation. However, sin has to be conceptualized in the covenantal relationship between God and creatures rather than in naturalistic idea of homo sapiens. Therefore, imago Dei, human and non-human, can be understood as a covenantal—eschatological image, open and invited to God’s promise and grace. Jesus Christ, as the image of God, and his death and resurrection demonstrate an ontic and objective ground for a covenantaleschatological image of God’s reconciliation with the world of evolution

22 23

Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age, 68. Ibid., 127.

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by experiencing the shadow side of evolution—waste, suffering, and death—and taking them up into the divine life of new creation. All things in heaven and on earth were created in, through, and for Christ, the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation (Col 1:15). The end comes “when Christ hands over the kingdom to God the Father” (1 Cor 15:24). A concept of creational covenant (God of regnum naturae) anticipates and moves toward the Christological concept of universal reconciliation (God of regnum gratiae), within which the framework of the green grace of God in creation and the red grace of God in reconciliation will be integrated, renewed, and transformed through God’s promise of final rest and consummation in the new creation. Therefore, a covenantaladventist aspect comes from an eschatological dimension and direction of God’s Word in promise, reconciliation, and freedom rather than starting from God’s futurum, or prolepsis. God’s promise of the future is based on the eschatological dimension of God’s Word and God’s presence in Jesus Christ who becomes the ontic and objective ground for Christian hope of God’s eschatology in reference to covenant, creation and reconciliation. God is alpha and omega, but God is not limited chronologically to becoming the First or the Last. God’s eternity is in God’s uncreated time of Jesus Christ in the presence of the Spirit. Time does not flow from the future, but belongs to God’s grace of creation in God’s life-giving activity. God’s final novum is neither completion nor perfection of what has been produced by evolution, but completely God’s new act of transformation and final rest through the resurrection of the dead and God’s presence in the Spirit. A theology of God speech act in promise, reconciliation, and freedom refers to the eschatological novum of God. The resurrection begins with the parousia in its first historical-eschatological sense. Christ the Reconciler gives a telos to the evolutionary process of creation, making it open and faithful to God’s covenantal promise of new creation. Jesus’ death in the world of evolution and resurrection took place in our present, taking up all perishables in the regnum naturae toward the novelty of regnum gloriae. In this light, we are called to be co-workers of God in striving for a better topos of life in utopian longing. This desire for progress and betterment is deeply connected to our accompaniment with and partisanship for those who are alienated, wasted, and marginalized in the evolutionary process of history and the world. God’s speech act in

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promise, reconciliation, and freedom refers to God who transforms all in all really and materially in the midst of the reality of lordless powers.24 God who speaks in promise, reconciliation, and freedom, and acts in self-limitation is the subject of the speech act in that it makes interconnections between regnum naturae, regnum gratiae, and regnum gloriae. In this framework, the fall is not entirely conflated with the achievement of progressive evolution. The extinction of species and the suffering of innocent victims in the history of nature are not considered to be unredeemable waste. God’s love in freedom and life-giving activity through the Spirit indicates that God shares in the pain and suffering of those who are victims. Evolution as an analogy in service of the irregularity of God’s speech act needs to be more ethically conceptualized in view of God’s universal shalom and Christ’s solidarity with minjung. God is basically onesidedly a God of the lower but not a God of the upper. Indeed, without reservation, God is God of the small and the totally marginal. God is the one who “not only sheds new light on, but materially changes, all things and everything in all things.”25 Theologia crucis manifests itself as God’s mysterious presence in the life of victims and marginals through Christ, in whom God’s selflimitation assumes the reality of bringing the innocent victims of suffering and evil into God’s life. In the process of natural selection the reality of evil has no covenantal relationship with God, and it must not to be ignored in the historical life of the human community. Rather, God is present in the process of suffering and extinction. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the victimized and crucified, God heals, renews, and transforms the reality of suffering, death, and evil. Thus, a concept of imago Dei and theologia crucis in perspective of irregularity of God’s speech act with respect to covenant and eschatology constructs a prophetic-emancipatory critique of a social ideology tainted by evolution. Not the fittest, but the stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone (Ps 118:22, Lk 20:17).

24 25

Gollwitzer, Krummes Holz-aufrechter Gang, 185. Barth, Church Dogmatics II/1:258.

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Buddhism and Natural Sciences As science has developed, it has challenged the traditional doctrines of Christianity. Contemporary views of geology, evolution, and cosmology pose a serious question to biblical accounts of the origin of the earth, life, and the cosmos. In the scientific community, scientific dogma becomes untenable. Einstein’s relativity is not final, like Newton’s Principia. Science is not fully exempt from scientific dogmatism. To what extent could we speak of a relationship between science and Buddhism? As for dealing with the relation between Buddhism and science, it is important to begin with the Buddha’s objective and principle: to lead people to the shore of enlightenment for overcoming pain and suffering. In contrast to the spirituality and wisdom of Buddhism, science is based on empirical observation and analysis. The Buddha performed the art of scientific analysis in tracing and scrutinizing every phenomenon from the perspective of the middle way. Critical investigation and personal verification is central to the Buddhist understanding of morality and a religious quest of the truth in which the law of cause and effect operates. The principle of cause and effect includes physical laws, biological laws and moral and spiritual laws. In this light, a Buddhist understanding of rebirth as the law of continuity might be accepted as a hypothesis which can be scientifically verified rather than a dogma that is taken for granted.26 How is Buddhism comparable to a scientific endeavor? The Buddhist idea of ultimate truth (paramartha-satya) is beyond linguistic comprehension and definition. Buddhists affirm that Sunyata represents a spiritual truth which is different from the empirically observable truth of science. In the teaching of anatta, a religious or metaphysical quest for a world beyond is rejected. The historical Buddha established Sunyata as a radical counterproposal to the Hindu view of Brahma and Atman. As a way of explaining reincarnation and karma, the Hindu concept of atman, or changeless soul, articulates that a permanent soul is the agent of all the actions and experiences, their subsequent fruits reaching the climax in monistic union with Brahman.

26 K. N. Jayatilleke, “Buddhism and the scientific Revolution,” in Buddhism and Science, ed. Buddhadasa P. Kirthisinghe (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas Publishers, 2004), 11–12.

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Against this, the Buddha maintained that the individual continues to act and react to his/her environment, conditioned by a physical past and genetic constitution of one’s body originated from one’s parents. “It would be better, bhikkhus, for the unlearned worldling to regard this body, built up of the four elements, as his self rather than the mind. For it is evident that this body may last for a year, for two years, for three, four or ten years . . . or even for a hundred years and more. But that which is called thought, or mind, or consciousness, continuously, during day and night, arises as one thing, and passes away as another thing.”27 Later, Madhyamika defined this as the middle way, penetrating the emptiness between something and nothing. It is neither an everlasting essence behind all phenomena, nor nihilism. Buddhism began with analyzing the phenomena of the world by experience rather than a metaphysical speculation of what exists beyond the world. If all life on earth is interdependent, emptied of substantial self and functioning in radical relationality, then it is in continuous flux and each is conditioned by environmental factors. This indicates, in fact, the unsatisfactory nature of life. The Buddhist term for this is dukkha (suffering, pain and anguish). This said, everything that can be affirmed in the evolutionary process is in dukkha. As long as Buddhism begins with the experience of dukkha and Sunyata it does not contradict scientific method and observation. Although the truth of Sunyata cannot be conceptualized in linguistic-epistemological terms, Buddhists do not refute the relative truth of Sunyata in terms of symbol, metaphor, and rituals. According to Nagarjuna (ca. 150–250 CE), the founder of the middle school (Madhyamika), the absolute truth points to total actual experience which denotes the direct experience of reality. The relative truth points to a linguistic or ritual term which conveys any truth in words or symbols. The theory of dependent co-arising is a type of relation such that two factors comprise the relation of dependent co-arising. Emptiness (Sunyata) is not even a permanent and absolute substance. As Nagarjuna argues, “What is dependent co-arising we call emptiness. That is representation by words and that is the middle way.”28 27

Cited in Bhikkhu Nanajivako, “Aniccam—The Buddhist Theory of Impermanence,” in Buddhadasa P. Kirthisinghe, ed. Buddhism and Science, 25. 28 Cited in Tachikawa Musashi, “Mahayana Philosophies,” in Buddhist Spirituality: Indian, Southeast Asian, Tibetan, Early Chinese, ed. Takeuchi Yoshinori, vol. 8 of World

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Scientists are also aware that the highest truth they aspire to is relative truth, such that any descriptive formula is relative to the experience it describes, relative to the meaning of the other parts. Theories are conceptual or symbolic models and are constantly adjusted to take account of new information and discoveries from observation and new results. Scientists do not use their formulas or theories as absolutes or ultimates.29 In this light, the Buddhist approach to the truth can appreciate critical realism, yet in more openness to a postmodern idea of an ongoing exchange between social constructions and historical conditions. Buddhism as a contemplative science is fundamentally similar to natural science in methodology.30 According to Heisenberg, what we observe is not pure reality as such, but it is nature exposed to a human method of inquiry. What we observe and define is dependent on a human verbal and conceptual designation. The Buddhist centrist view, called conceptual relativity, calls into question the realist ontological assumptions that underlie the Western scientific method. As Alan Wallace argues, no one conceptual system accounts realistically for the complexity among natural phenomena because “objects exist relative to the theory-laden consciousness that experiences them.”31 Thus, there is not a conflictual relationship between science and Buddhism as is generally seen in Christianity. Buddhism deemphasizes faith in the personal deity (except for the Amida faith in Pure Land Buddhism). If science is a means (upaya) to the end of alleviating the reality of suffering, it can be in consonance with the Buddhist ethical idea of compassion for those who are in the samsaric world. Besides, the Buddhist epistemology of impermanence, no-self and radical relationality can become the entry points for dialogue with quantum physics. However, if a scientific world view tends to reduce every phenomenon into empirical materialism, Buddhists would reject this.

Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 193. 29 Barbour, Religion and Science, 115–121. Cf. Ricard and Thuan, The Quantum and the Lotus, 229–250. 30 Buddhists seem to find a lack of Buddhist non-dual transcending of human rationality in Ian Barbour’s critical realism. Cf. Ricard and Thuan, The Quantum and the Lotus, 231, 247. 31 Alan Wallace, Choosing Reality: A Buddhist View of Physics and the Mind (Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1996), 121.

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The method of science formulates a hypothesis, tests it, and states a new hypothesis on the basis of knowledge that is obtained by experimentation. It is open to change by new models or paradigms. Buddhism emphasizes the character of the impermanence of all. The ego changes, so the physical form has changed. Acts are pre-conditioned by preceding acts. The karmic principle exhibits itself as a hermeneutical way of relating to what has shaped human existence in historical, biological, physical, and psychological ways. Human existence is regarded as a cyclic and potentially eternal course. Although there is no theory of evolution mentioned in Buddhist texts, humanity, society and the world are depicted as changing and evolving in accordance with the principle of cause and effect. According to early Buddhism’s view of humanity as a psycho-physical unit, the human mind is regarded to be under the influence of three types of desires: the desire for sense-gratification, the desire for self-preservation, and the desire for destruction.32 Buddhism and the evolutionary sciences draw a strikingly similar map of mental and emotional life, agreeing on the fundamental laws of nature and living systems. What is the origin of life? Buddhists do not speak about the first cause of life because there is no-self. According to dependent co-arising, cause and effect are in interrelationship and complementarity. The Buddhist notion of samsara, which is the world of the on-going recurrence of birth and death, can be aptly described as a cycle or wheel. Ascertaining the beginning of such a wheel of cause and effect is not possible. In this recurrent wandering a first cause of being cannot be perceived. Life is a process of becoming and in a constant state of flux. The Buddhist teaching of anatta (no-soul) indicates that all things, animate or inanimate, are subject to change. Everything is in the flux of impermanence, because nothing is unchangeable. The abundance of life is a major factor in the evolution of life. As Charles Darwin argues, abundance inevitably leads to natural selection. In nature which is characterized by the overproduction of organisms

32 These three types demonstrate a parallel to Freudian concept of the eros, libido, and thanatos. See K. N. Jayatilleke “Buddhism and The Scientific Revolution,” in Buddhism and Science, 10.

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and an inevitable struggle for existence there is a survival of the fittest. In the evolutionary process the theory of natural selection indicates how modification in the course of descent came about. That is the theory of descent with slow successive modification. Darwin maintained that humans are derived from a single stock of ape-like animals inhabiting the old world. This single stock had been diversified into numerous species or races. They were adapted or acclimatized by natural selection to resist the diseases of the environments in which they live. The brute rule of natural selection excludes intelligent design or telos within nature. For neo-Darwinian synthesis, randomness or chance explains that the process is directionless and purposeless. The Blind Watchmaker (Richard Dawkins) may articulate the Buddhist insight into the reality of dukkha in the samsaric world. The study of geographical variations and isolation, the evidence of comparative anatomy and embryology, the modes of hybridization, and the advantages of hybrids in no way contradict the Buddha Dharma. Buddha’s teaching of the karma of evolution is known as the “law of karma.” Every action is followed by a consequence, often referred to as individual inherited circumstances and temperament. Buddha’s understanding of karma is summarized in the Sanskrit phrase pratitya samutpada, which translates as “dependent co-arising.” It is outlined as twelve interlinking processes that condition our reality. The schema of dependent co-arising indicates a profound acknowledgement of our human condition and all life in nature. In a Buddhist teaching of anatta, all things, animate or inanimate are impermanent, subject to change. Thus, there is no permanent entity in the form of soul or self. According to the Pali Canon, the Buddha stated, “Monks, form is impermanent. What is impermanent is suffering. What is suffering is nonself . . . Feeling is impermanent . . . Perception is impermanent . . . Volitional formations are impermanent . . . Consciousness is impermanent’. . . . ‘If, monks, a monk’s mind has become dispassionate toward the form element, it is liberated from the taints by non clinging’. . . . ‘By being liberated, it is steady; by being steady, it is content; by being content, he is not agitated. Being unagitated, he personally attains Nibbana.’”33

33 Teaching of the Buddha. In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon, ed. Bhikhu Bodhi (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2005), 342–343.

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Despite differences in emphasis in Buddhist schools, it is worth noting that all elements and phenomena are mutually interacting and influencing each other throughout the cosmos through all time. Nothing arises independent of causes and conditions. We then may recognize ourselves and each moment of our experience as interwoven with life of all sentient living creatures. Buddhist hermeneutics of reality finds a parallel in the philosophical hermeneutics of Heidegger or Gadamer: human existence in the world is disclosed to the fore-stricture of understanding. In all understanding the efficacy of history is at work on the individual existence. A hermeneutical circle of individual existence and history is in interaction for the sake of a fusion of horizon between individual life and lifeworld of the tradition and history. Thus, understanding is participation in an event of tradition of lifeworld.34 Although there was no theory of evolution in Buddha’s time, the concept of life evolving becomes compelling to Buddhism. From this perspective, Buddhism does not hesitate to agree with the NeoDarwinian beliefs of atheism and scientific materialism. Be that as it may, according to the Mahayana tradition, the Buddha nature in a universal sense aims at attaining true-Self. In the Lotus Sutra, all living beings are expounded to possess the Buddhahood, that is, the Buddha nature of all living beings. This term is identical with the quality of being for liberation (nirvana). There is no-self without true-self (Buddha nature), as conversely there is no true-self without no-self. The Buddhist middle way in the Chinese tradition has developed more ecologically, more cosmically, and more compassionately with a view to all living beings in dukkha. The Mahayanist idea of the Buddha nature and Bodhisattva’s praxis do not endorse the idea of the survival of the fittest in the ethical realm. Buddhism may see humans from the perspective of evolution out of Sunyata. The right to dominate animals is not given to humans. All are seated in the same boat of samsara. Nevertheless, a human rebirth is a precious one compared to other types of rebirth. For humans, occupying this special place is not necessarily a justification for dominating and exploiting other living beings. Human beings and nature are inseparable and in a non-dual relationship.

34

Gadamer, Truth and Method, 290.

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The Buddha Nature and Bodhisattva’s Compassion Despite different interests in the Buddha nature among Buddhist communities, the Mahayana teaching is convinced of the enlightenment of all sentient beings. Buddha nature refers to Buddhahood, or the natural capability of realizing and attaining the true self of enlightenment. According to Buddhist tradition, after enlightenment Sakyamuni affirmed that all sentient beings are endowed with the intrinsic capacity for and wisdom of enlightenment. All sentient beings without exception enter into a universal relationship with Buddhahood, so that they become Buddha. Buddha is permanent with no change at all. In the Nirvana Sutra we read: “All sentient beings without exceptions have the Buddha nature: Tathāgata (Buddha) is permanent with no change at all.”35 The Nirvana Sutra becomes a source for those who followed the idea of sudden enlightenment. A spiritual journey would be unnecessary if there was no distance to cover between Buddha nature and the human mind. However, we do not ignore evidence in the sutra itself that regards Buddha nature as a latent quality which is in need of gradual and steady cultivation and practice of the spiritual-religious way. The Tian-tai monk, Chan-jan (711–82), argued that if the Buddha nature is the immutable and permanent base of all phenomena nothing could be excluded from Buddhahood. For Kukai (774–835), the founder of the tantric Shingon school in Japan, all phenomena, either sentient or non-sentient, are manifestations of Maha-vairocana Buddha which is the prerequisite for Buddhahood. Dogen (1200–53), the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, went further, radicalizing the idea that all beings are the Buddha nature rather than a manifestation or possession of the Buddha nature.36 In this way, a universal and cosmological idea of the Buddha nature is of ecological relevance, broadening the Bodhisattva’s praxis of altruism in a universal and non-discriminating way. The word “bodhisattva” comes from the Sanskrit roots, bodhi (awakening, or enlightenment) and sattva (sentient being), which etymologically includes the intention to awaken. Bodhisattva’s ideal

35

Cited in Abe, Zen and Western Thought, 27. Graham Parkes, “Voices of Mountains, Trees, and Rivers: Kukai, Dogen, and Deeper Ecology” in Mary E. Tucker and Duncan R. Williams, ed. Buddhism and Ecology (Cambridge: Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, 1997), 113–125. 36

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in its universal framework is a key concept for actualizing Buddhist compassion for those who have the capacity for Buddha nature to attain lucid, illumined, and awakened liberation, yet are entangled in the reality of the samsaric world. The Bodhisattva’s vow is a commitment to the way of enlightenment for the benefit of all in the spirit of non-discrimination.37 In the famous text from the Lotus Sutra, we read of the Bodhisattva’s compassion: “Every evil state of existence, Hells and ghosts and animals, Sorrow of birth, age, disease, death, All will thus be ended from him. . . . Regard of pity, Regard compassionate, . . . Wisdom’s sun, destroying darkness, . . . Compassion wondrous as a great cloud, Pouring spiritual rain like nectar, Quenching all the flames of distress.”38 In the Western tradition, humans alone are rational beings. It is held that human beings alone possess an immortal soul, which defines their true nature and relationship to God. This unique status appeared to be denied by the theory of evolution. The distinction between human and animal characteristics was indeed minimized by Darwin and his followers. Absorbed into the chance and necessity of natural selection, humanity seemed to be the product of accidental variations and the struggle for survival. From this perspective, biological and political ideas merged into what has been called Social Darwinism and evolution became tainted by social ideology. Understood in this way, the survival of the fittest became the instrument for the evolution of society. For instance, British colonialism could be justified on such grounds. No one doubts that there is the close relationship between science, power, and economics. Dr. Hisato Yoshimura (1907–90), who received the highest Japanese award in 1978 for his work on the science of environmental adaptation, was a team director responsible for frostbite under “Unit 731” during the Second World War. There was scant attention given to ethical issues in the research circles of genetics and atomic energy. However, the Mahayana emphasis on compassion, egalitarian orientation, and the bodhisattva ideal places Buddhism in opposition to the political ideology of evolution. Buddhist altruism is deeply concerned with the well-being of others.39 37 Taigen Dan Leighton, Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and Their Modern Expression, rev. (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003), 32. 38 W. E. Soothill, trans. The Lotus Sutra of the Wonderful Law (Oxford: Clarendon, 1930), cited in Palmer, The Jesus Sutras, 132. 39 For the Buddhist critique of the scientific alliance with political ideology, Ricard and Thuan, The Quantum and the Lotus, 7–22.

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The reality of identity and interdependence in Hua yen Buddhism in the Avatamsaka Sutra, is reflected by the image of the Jewel Net of Indra, expounded by Fa-tsang (643–712). This image provides a pivotal foundation for a socially engaged Buddhism by illustrating the holistic dimension of Indra’s net for complementarity between Sunyata and fullness. In Indra’s net each jewel exists only as a reflection of all the others, thus having no self-nature. In the infinite world of Indra a jewel is placed at each knot so that each jewel reflects every other one. It is generated and sustained through the web of interdependence, or the mutual inter-being of the entire net, so that the reality of identity is empty apart from mutuality and interdependence. From this new way of looking at things we overcome fragmentation and prejudices in term of a cosmic and universal ecology. We treat other people and things with the same intention as our own body. We are able to love our neighbors as our own body. The opening of the third eye refers to a spiritual awakening through Chan. However, such an awakening should lead to opening the fourth eye in the social and cultural context of the Dharma, especially highlighting social ethical implications.40 As Thick Nhat Hanh argues, “If you have compassion, you cannot be rich. You can be rich only when you can bear the sight of suffering. If you cannot bear that, you have to give your possessions away.”41 True-self aims to attain liberative enlightenment from the evolutionary process characterized by samsaric reality chained into birth, suffering, and death. For Buddhism, evolution can be a way of affirming the Buddhist reality of dukkha and the interconnection of all. However, the concept of natural selection is not adequate for understanding Buddha’s non-discriminating compassion over all who are perishable and victimized. The Buddha nature is universal, innately realizing enlightenment hic et nunc. However, the Buddha nature (imago Buddha in Christian terminology) does not necessarily contradict the Buddhist longing of the coming Meitreya which has ignited the messianic dream of the minjung for revolutionary praxis toward the complete novum of the world. Unlike the afterlife view of Pure Land Buddhism, Meitreya Buddhism,

40 Ken Jones, The New Social Face of Buddhism: A Call to Action (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003), 113. 41 Daniel Berrigan and Thick Nhat Hanh, The Raft Is Not the Shore (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975), 102.

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a Buddhist eschatology argues that the Buddhist paradise is to be realized in this world rather than after death.

Conclusion: The World is in Flux, Yet Open to the Future Creatio ex nihilo is a post-biblical concept coming from the writings of early Judaism (2 Macc 7, 28f.) in connection with a narrative of the martyr. Creatio ex nihilo points to God’s glorious creation of a new heaven and a new earth (Isa 65:17), a final resurrection of the dead through God’s resurrection of Jesus Christ in the past. A radical biblical faith in God’s creation does not stand in competition with natural scientific deliberation. Rather, creation depends on God’s life-giving activity to the world. Creatio ex nihilo therefore needs to be understood as a biblical protest of the self-veneration and glorification of the world and nature. The biblical statement of creation looks ahead, belonging to the connection of hope and eschatology. Its essential dimension is not the past, but the future under the influence of God’s promise and presence in Jesus Christ. What is said in the beginning is a promise, not a conservative ideology to support literal or scientific creationism. Nature and history, creation and evolution, cease to be contradictions of each other through God’s act of speech in promise and freedom that takes place in God’s self-limitation and reconciliation by handing over Jesus Christ to the created time of evolution. God’s speech act can be heard and discerned in the created time of evolution which is declared to be good in God’s Word of creation. Seen from this biblical perspective, Darwin offers theological insight. Out of the struggle of nature, hunger, and death, the highest emerges, the production of a higher and more complete existence. All life forms are different from each other and dependent upon each other in a complex, entirely uncontrolled, and fortuitous manner that is generated and produced by the laws of natural selection. “In this view of life,” according to Darwin, “there is grandeur,” . . . “having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one.” “This planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most wonderful and most beautiful have been, and are being evolved.”42 42

Darwin, The Origin of Species, 408.

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From this beautiful statement, Darwin is keenly aware that there is an aesthetical dimension of grandeur in the evolutionary view of life originally breathed by God and at the same time, in perception of a reality of dukkha in samsaric-evolutionary life. He affirms the goodness of creation in the evolutionary process from the simplest form to the most wonderful and most beautiful life rather than remaining pessimistic toward the reality of suffering, victim, and waste as it really is. The Buddhist principle of the middle way is concerned with evolutio ex Sunyata, something coming from emptiness which is replete with fullness. Here, a Buddhist realistic perception of the reality of dukkha as it is in the samsaric world is exalted to the affirmation of the beauty of Buddha nature as grounded in all living creatures, accentuating ethical compassion in commitment to those who are wasted, victimized, and left behind. In the Buddhist idea of dependent co-arising, no time and no space are in non-dual complementarity with something, the “suchness” of Sunyata. Where all in all are in dukkha, Sunyata will be all in all. Nothing can be excluded from the interdependent arising and ceasing. An affirmation of the beauty of life in the midst of dukkha expresses a Buddhist utopian longing for a better topos as seen in the eschatology of Maitreya Buddhism. Regarding God and Sunyata, Masao Abe states: “God is ‘dazzling darkness’ because in God, who is infinite love, self-emptying as-it-is selffulfillment, self-fulfillment as-it-is self-emptying. Sunyata is ‘dazzling darkness’ because in Sunyata, which is boundless openness, samsara as-it-is nirvana, nirvana as-it-is samsara.”43 A scientific theory of evolution does not necessarily contradict a Christian idea of God’s act of creation or the Buddhist epistemology in perceiving the natural and social reality as it is. Darwin’s insight into religious views lies in understanding how natural forces and movement shaped the life of the world as it really is, rather than fitting it into God’s will or design.44 God, Sunyata, and dukkha in the reality of life find consonance in Darwin’s concept of evolution which affirms an aesthetic dimension of grandeur and the wonderful in the view of life’s complexity.

43 Abe, Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue, ed. S. Heine (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995), 148. 44 Kenneth R. Miller, Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (New York: Harper Perennial, 2002), 286.

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However, it is certain that conceptualizing evolution as progress is vulnerable to scientific justification for a naturalistic ethic which collaborates with the ruthless logic of global capitalism, ethnic racism, scientific eugenics, militarism, and war. Evolution in the realm of regnum naturae is a creative process at many levels through law, chance, and emergence, but it is not redemptive at all. If the theory of evolution articulates the interdependence of all beings in an ecological and holistic understanding of the web of life connection among creatures, it resonates with a Buddhist insight into the mutual interplay and influence of all elements and phenomena with each other in the karmic process of evolution. In fact, natural selection does not necessarily need to be used to justify the survival of the fittest under the conditions of competitive struggle. Rather, in the process of natural selection we recognize the important relationship between cooperation and competition along with natural selection. In the study of the ecosystem’s complex patterns of symbiotic cooperation and interdependence it is certain that symbiotic cooperation between two species becomes an important factor enabling both of them to survive.45 Thus, a theory of evolution is not merely reduced to survival of the fittest, but includes an ethically oriented dimension of mutual aid and cooperation among species. Chance, law, and history in the process of evolution would be consistent with the will of God’s long suffering allowing for self-limitation and vulnerability to the suffering of all creatures in the process of natural selection by hoping all things and enduring all things (1 Cor 13:7). An ethical insight which a theory of evolution offers for mutual aid and coexistence is juxtaposed with and renewed by Christian ethics for massa perditionis and the Buddhist ethical ideas of altruism and compassion. The ethical vision of these two religions do not merely conflate evolution with optimistic progress, but challenge the metaphysic of evolution to stand more in ethical commitment. In fact, Buddhists and Christians agree that social ethics should not be grounded in the biological idea of the struggle for survival. We are too realistic to be baptized into Darwinism without reservation. However, Darwin’s theory of evolution can be apprehended as a way of understanding the reality of life complex in the world and ecologi-

45

Barbour, Religion and Science, 222.

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cal interconnection in nature as it really is. Christianity and Buddhism appreciate an evolutionary view of ecological interconnection and assess the Darwinian model of evolution more positively and meaningfully in light of God’s speech act in the promise of a new creation or in light of the novum of the coming Maitreya. Buddhism is aware of a coming Buddha, the future Maitreya Buddha. Maitreya’s call for the future embodies the unfulfilled aspect of the bodhisattva. A Buddhist concept of Maitreya stands against the idea of history as a march of progress, driven by science and technology. It also speaks out against the Buddhist emphasis of identifying timeless eternity with the present which is vulnerable to ethical responsibility. Maitreya helps the Buddhist pursuit for a better topos and underlines the promise of the future and responsibility for future generations. This future Buddha has inspired messianic hopes and utopian dreams, challenging the inadequacies of the present. Lord Buddha’s kingdom renews and transforms the life of creatures and the samsaric reality of the world. He will herald a climactic new golden age, opening heaven and earth anew. This Buddha has been understood as the overriding principle of the messianic movement in the East Asian context, proclaimed as the herald of apocalyptic configurations and introducing a new age of peace, justice, and egalitarianism. At this point, the Buddha nature can be open to the future rather than relegating all times into the present time of being.46 Christianity and Buddhism can share their common hope and ethical commitment to the dignity of others, and cooperate for the universal shalom in the community of all living beings, and in the messianic expectation of world transformation. In the world of dukkha there is an on-going hope and expectation about the children of God or Buddha. “For creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. . . . we know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now” (Rom 8:19, 22). Hearing Paul’s expectation of the revealing of the children of God, Buddhists recite the following passage of the Bodhicaryāvatāra: “May I become the protector of those without protection, the guide for those on the path, the boat, the bridge, and the causeway for those wishing to go to the other shore.”47 This said, scientific theory of evolution

46 47

Taigen Dan Leighton, Faces of Compassion, 254. Brassard, The Concept of Bodhicitta in Sāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra, 46.

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finds its locus in the irregularity of God’s speech act in creation and reconciliation for the sake of the eschatological and ethical vision. An Asian theology of God’s speech act which embraces a Buddhist ethic of compassion and eschatological vision marks a new field as compared to several models of Asian contextual theology. There has been a creative engagement and challenge on the part of Asian contextual theologians in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan regarding Reformation or Reformation-oriented theology (Luther, Barth, and Bonhoeffer). An introduction of several models of Asian contextual theology and a construction of a new model of Asian irregular theology will be the final chapter in this book.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE FUTURE OF IRREGULAR THEOLOGY IN EAST ASIA: ASIAN CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGY: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

There are diverse models of Asian contextual theology in critical engagement with Western Protestant Theology. Asian contextual theology is emerging from the Asian religious matrix and has been formed and developed in an ever changing context. Beginning with the indigenous and religious-cultural assumptions rooted in an East Asian context, several models of Asian contextual theology pose a challenge to the Western way of thinking. Nevertheless, we perceive that there is an influence from Reformation thought present in the formation and development of several aspects of Asian contextual theology. At issue here is not a generalization of diverse and different models of Asian contextual theology, but a selective intention by focusing several models of Asian contextual theology which are critically engaged in Reformation or Reformation-oriented theology (Martin Luther, Karl Barth, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer). In discussing the trajectory of Asian contextual theology we will map out its past, present, and future. For a model of Asian contextual theology in the past, attention will be given to Kitamori’s theology of God’s pain and Katsumi Takizawa’s theology of Urfaktum Immanuel in Japan in their interpretation of Martin Luther and Karl Barth. For a model of Asian contextual theology in the present, we will discuss minjung theology in South Korea in reference to Kitamori’s theology of God’s pain and C. S. Song’s theology of the Third-Eye from Taiwan. Because minjung theology makes a positive reception of Bonhoeffer and critical view of Barth, we will deal with Takizawa’s interfaith reception of Barth after the discussion of minjung theology. Toward the advancement of a future model there will also be a further discussion of Luther, Barth, and Bonhoeffer for their relevance to a model of Asian irregular theology. Finally, we will outline the meaning, argument, and direction of Asian irregular theology in a postfoundational and hermeneutical contour in view of that which has been

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pursued and examined for the sake of the Asian face of Christianity in this book.

Kazoh Kitamori and A Theology of God’s Pain The contextualization of Luther’s thought in Asia began with Kitamori’s seminal book, The Theology of The Pain of God.1 On the basis of Luther’s insight of God’s suffering Kitamori appropriates Japanese cultural terms such as tsurasa in order to articulate and actualize a theology of the cross for the Japanese people who faced failure and frustration during the war and in the postwar and post-Hiroshima situation. Kitamori questions Greek theology and its orthodox dogma with his articulation of the pain of God. Regarding Jeremiah 31:20, he appreciates Luther’s translation “Darum bricht mir mein Herz” (“Therefore my heart is broken”) for conceptualizing his theology of God’s pain. Utilizing Luther’s metaphor of “death against death” on the cross of Christ, Kitamori characterizes his theology in terms of “pain against pain.” Luther takes Golgotha to be a place of “God fighting with God.” Kitamori is attracted to this insight and is thus able to articulate his idea of “God in pain” as one who embraces those who do not deserve to be embraced. Therefore, Kitamori argues that God in pain mirrors not only the wounded heart of God who loves and those who should not be loved but also represents an image of God who sacrifices God’s only Son.2 With this twofold sense of God’s pain in mind, Kitamori is sharply critical of the Barthian dialectical theology which was prevalent in Japan. Kitamori’s principle—embracing the non-embraceable, or forgiving the unforgivable—functions as a leading theme for distinguishing the uniqueness of God’s pain from the compassion of Amida Buddhism. According to Kitamori, Amida Buddha neither knows nor comprehends real pain.3 Kitamori’s contribution can be found in the way that he takes seriously pain as the essence of God. This insight comes basically from his 1

Kazoh Kitamori, The Theology of the Pain of God (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, rep. 2005). 2 Ibid., 138. 3 Ibid., 27.

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reading of Luther’s statement, “the absolute necessity for the sacrifice of the Son is grounded in God himself.”4 Greek theology, which has been ashamed to take up pain as the essence of God, is critiqued by Kitamori as bolstering theologia gloriae. Theologia crucis becomes possible where the essence of God can be comprehended only from the word of the cross.5 At stake here is Kitamori’s interpretation of Deus absconditus in Luther’s thought. Under the influence of the modern Luther Renaissance, represented by Karl Holl in Berlin and also supporting Seeberg’s Luther study, Kitamori accepts the latter’s ground thesis that the hidden God is “the fundamental principle of Luther’s theology”6 out of which all the rest of Luther’s thoughts arise. In this regard, Kitamori moves to conflate the hidden God with the God in pain, thus distancing himself from both Luther’s reflection of Deus absconditus and Deus revelatus. According to Kitamori the hidden God was, from the beginning, enmeshed with God in pain. Bringing up this insight, he deepens Luther’s remark of “an absolute, inter-divinely grounded necessity of the delivering up of the Son” (my translation: Eine absolute, innergöttliche begründete Notwendigkeit der Dahingabe des Sohnes).7 God’s eternal decision of delivering up the Son for the world becomes a hermeneutical grounding for Kitamori to propose his idea of the analogy of pain through which he is confronted with the Roman Catholic concept of an analogy of being (analogia entis), as well as the Barthian concept of an analogy of faith (analogia fidei). According to the Roman Catholic teaching of analogy there is a natural way to come to God through an ontological capacity (analogia entis), apart from the revelation of Jesus Christ. Against Roman Catholic teaching, however, Barth argued that God can be known only through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Emphasizing this grace of God, Barth employs the term analogia fidei from Rom 12:6 (analogia tes pisteos) because faith comes into right relationship to God.8 However, challenging the Catholic teaching of analogia entis as well as Barth’s concept of analogia fidei, Kitamori argues that God’s pain can be known by 4

Ibid., 45. Ibid., 47. 6 Ibid., 107. 7 Ibid., 45. 8 During the period of National Socialism in Germany, Barth denounced this approach, along with Brunner’s concept of point of contact, to be antichrist because it obscures the revelation of Christ and is exposed to serve German Nazi ideology without reservation. 5

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the analogy of human pain. Hence Kitamori’s theology of the cross adopts the concept of analogy from the standpoint of pain, which is analogia doloris.9 Kitamori integrates and transforms Luther’s teaching of justification into a mysticism of pain. For the sake of the perception of pain mysticism he prefers to use the Japanese word tsurasa which comes from the spirit of Japanese tragedy. Tsurasa becomes a grounding metaphor of aptly formulating the wounded heart of God who loves the unlovable through sacrificing God’s only Son.10 The mystery of the hidden God, which can be discernible in God’s eternal decision of delivering up and sacrificing God’s Son corresponds to the redemptive suffering of God. This is born only in silence. Silence and tsurasa are the guiding catalysts for featuring Kitamori’s theology of the cross in a Japanese setting. However, Kitamory’s sacrificial interpretation of theologia crucis in light of tsurasa is inclined to reduce God’s pain to an individualistic understanding of pain in human life and mystic relationship with pain through silence.

A Socio-biography of Jesus with Ochlos Silence, as a form of theologia crucis in a Japanese perspective, faces a serious challenge from minjung theology in South Korea. Minjung means the mixed crowd of the poor in the Christian community and the non-Christian world. Minjung theology set its agenda by listening to the outcry (the Korean term for this is han; denoting the victim’s cumulative and corporate feeling) of those who are alienated, oppressed, suppressed and marginalized in society. Kitamori’s book was heavily criticized in this context because the real victims during and after the war in Japan were the Chinese and Korean minjung, who suffered Japanese colonization and who were forced to work in Hiroshima after the bomb. According to minjung theology, Kitamori’s theology of God’s pain does not indicate any sign of repentance concerning the Japanese historical crimes and genocide of the Chinese and Korean people. It was argued that Kitamori’s theo-

9 10

Kitamori, The Theology of the Pain of God, 56. Ibid., 138.

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logical language of God’s pain is meaningless without demonstrating repentance for the Japanese sins of oppression and genocide toward their neighbors. Here, minjung theology exhibits itself as a theology which represents the victim. Minjung theology is a political theology which arose out of progressively minded Korean theologians, church leaders, and lay people in resistance to the political dictatorship of military elites in the 70s and 80s. The head of this theology is Ahn Byung-Mu, Professor of New Testament at Hanshin Seminary. Although there are diverse streams of minjung theology, we focus on Ahn’s interpretation of Jesus as ochlos-minjung. During his doctoral study at the University of Heidelberg in the 60s Ahn disagreed with Luther’s teaching of justification. According to Ahn, Luther’s justification becomes meaningful as long as it is related to Jesus’ faithfulness to the ochlos. The reign of God which Jesus proclaims takes sides with the ochlos of Nazareth against the temple of Jerusalem. In Ahn’s hermeneutical imagination, the laos, the people of God, became the ochlos, the wrenched people of God’s land under the Roman authority. In the context of the Hebrew Bible, according to Ahn, am haaretz is etymologically connected with the Apriru who were bondsmen in Egypt. They settled there as free herdsmen and were later enslaved. God listened to the misery and outcry (tseaka, Ex 3:7) of these people and empowered Moses to become their leader. God’s minority people are not exclusively made up of Jews, but include a mixed multitude of people with non-Jewish backgrounds (erev rav, Ex 12:38). In the Exodus liberation, the non-Jewish multitude was allowed to join God’s liberating act. Abraham bowed low, even to the Hittites, the am haaretz (the people of the Land) (Gen 23:7). In Exodus 5:4–5, the people of the land became a threat to Pharaoh in their opposition of the ruling class. Later however, am haaretz became a derogatory term in Rabbinical usage, referring to people of the countryside who refused to follow Rabbinical laws.11 Ahn Byung-Mu translates the Apiru, am haaretz, and ochlos into the Korean term: minjung. Ahn’s minjung theology is a political theology of solidarity with the massa perditionis (the public lost multitude) in

11 According to the Oral Torah, the vast body of Rabbinical laws and traditions, anyone who refuses a Rabbinical invention and Mishna are regarded to be am haaretz, no matter how they follow biblical teaching.

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our contemporary context by proposing his christological contour of Jesus’ social biography with ochlos. According to Ahn, Jesus’ faithfulness to God’s reign and the ochlos can be discerned in his messianic consciousness when Jesus challenges the Rabbinic Pharisaic interpretation of the written Torah. Therefore, the messianic consciousness of Jesus should be discussed in relation to his openness and solidarity with discriminated people of Jewish as well as non-Jewish backgrounds. In Mk 8:30, we perceive that Jesus does not want to be systematized through the people’s expectations or disciples’ confession of him as the Messiah. Rather, Jesus begins to teach that the Son of Man will undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes (Mk 8:31). Jesus’ response to Peter’s confession in reference to the suffering messianic Son of Man constitutes a basis, criterion, and attestation for an Asian minjung theological deliberation of the Human One (Dan 7:13f .) in light of a passive form of Jesus as the suffering servant. Here, Jesus as the Human One, “the holy ones of the Most High” (Dan 7:27) assumes suffering humanity in a corporate sense, as seen in his socio-biography with ochlos-minjung. In a similar fashion, the suffering servant in Isa 53 cannot be unilaterally reduced to an individual personality of Jesus. Jesus as the collective person stands from the beginning in connection with mass sufferings of the innocent victims. The Son of Man in Dan 7 and also the suffering servant in Isa 53 provide an insight for Ahn Byung-Mu to provocatively conceptualize his concept of the socio-biography of Jesus of Galilee with the public multitude of innocent victims in our contemporary context. Jesus stands as the border person between the church and lifeworld of ochlos-minjung. Galilee was a multiethnicly populated area and was geographically and socially open in many directions. A great multitude (ochlos) from Galilee followed Jesus. This group was made up of the poor of Jewish and non-Jewish backgrounds so that Galilee became a central place of Jesus’ mission and ministry with the ochlos. The resurrection of Jesus and his promise, “I am going to Galilee ahead of you” (Mk 16:7), becomes an ochlos-based reading of the Gospel of Mark for Ahn’s theology of outcry (han). The risen Christ works constantly with his people in Galilee until the end. For Ahn, the city of Galilee represents the outcry of the poor in today’s global context. There is no Jesus without the ochlos-minjung, as conversely there is no ochlos-minjung without Jesus. Jesus is no longer

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the Christ of the Church with his golden crown. Jesus should be seen from the angle of the forsaken, naked, and castigated minjung. Ahn’s minjung Christology challenges the Reformation principle of justification by faith alone, making it dependent on Jesus’ faithfulness to the ochlos in light of God’s reign. The Reformation principle of semper reformanda should not remain metaphorical language, but must be concretized in our discipleship and solidarity with the strange, ugly, and even ominous voice and picture of the minjung.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth in Minjung Theology Ahn made a significant discovery for his minjung theology from Bonhoeffer’s theology of prison letters. Ahn demonstrates his second step to update the christological relevance of the ochlos-minjung. Ahn’s teacher in Europe was Rudolf Bultmann and followers such as Günter Bornkam and Ernst Käsemann. Nevertheless, Ahn’s basic question was how to overcome Bultmann’s theology of kerygma for the sake of the real and historical picture of Jesus in his life setting (Sitz im Leben). Ahn utilizes redaction criticism for his hermeneutical reading of the socio-biography of Jesus and ochlos in the context of Mark’s Gospel. In this way, Ahn reconstructs the picture of Jesus in a more historically concrete and politically relevant manner. According to Ahn, Mark, the gospel writer, is the first theologian using the ochlos-minjung to portray Jesus as the friend of tax collectors and public sinners. Ochlos is the favorite term for Mark’s theological imagination in his characterization of Jesus’ ministry and mission and his identity among them. However, Barthian theologians in South Korea and Japan adamantly protested against minjung theology. In the context of a confrontation with neo-orthodox Barthian theology, Bonhoeffer is fully respected in the circles of minjung theology. Contrasting Bonhoeffer with Barth, Ahn took into consideration Bonhoeffer’s openness toward people who suffer outside the walls of the Christian church. Bonhoeffer charged Barth with being a theologian of positivism of revelation and lauded, above all, Bultmann’s intellectual integrity in his commentary on the Gospel of John and the hermeneutical program of demythologization. This fact impressed Ahn, so Bonhoeffer is accepted as a representative of the theology of the outcry of the ochlos-minjung in South Korea. Bonhoeffer came into competition with Barth regarding the Gospel and

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social responsibility.12 Against the positivism of revelation in Barthian theology, Bonhoeffer argued that if Jesus Christ remains the exclusive Lord of the Church, then the world is left to its own devices. Does not Barthian theology, from above, speak so positively of revelation without Jesus’ connection with the world? Arguing against the narrowness or parochialism of Barthian theology of revelation from above, Bonhoeffer boldly insisted on an inseparable connection between Jesus Christ and the people who suffer in the world. During his period of imprisonment, Bonhoeffer made a provocation for the necessity of a theological view from below. This is a prophetic stance, adopting “the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled—in short, from the perspective of those who suffer.”13 This line of thought fired the theological imagination of Ahn Byung-Mu to propose a christological unity of Jesus and the ochlos in terms of Jesus’ social biography with public sinners. In Ahn’s minjung theology there is also an affinity to Daoism and Buddhism. Ahn tries to integrate the non-dualistic principle of Shang Sheng (the mutual interconnection among all) of philosophical Daoism, or the middle way of Buddhism into his theological vision on the sociobiography of the ochlos Jesus. He appreciates a famous quote from the Daodejing throughout all his life: “When the work is done, he [the sage] does not dwell with it.”14 This statement refers to Ahn’s contextual understanding of Luther’s justification. The Lutheran forensic understanding of justification is infused into the Taoist and non-artificial way of non-action. When the sage dwells in his/her achievement and self-righteousness he/she remains undeserving, relying only on works righteousness. This idea entails a critique of power. Christian solidarity with minjung must be a form of discipleship in following Jesus’ accompaniment with the minjung rather than works righteousness. This non-artificial sense of justification comes from the spirituality of the Daoist mutual interconnection among all.15 From the perspective 12

Pangritz, Karl Barth in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 79. Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 17. 14 Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching: The Richard Wilhelm Edition, trans. H. G. Ostwald (Arkana: Penguin books, 1990), ch. 2, 25. 15 This principle of Shang Sheng helps find the Buddhist idea of dependent co-arising in Chinese cultural soil when Buddhism, as a foreign religion, came into China from India. Buddhism in a Chinese spiritual and religious matrix became fully contextualized. Such process explains a sinification of Buddhism. 13

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of mutual relationship, the Enlightenment principle, Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am), is hard to agree with. For us, it is: I coexist, therefore I am. Life in coexistence precedes the being of the individual person. A Human being always exists in connection with the world of the Other. This Asian principle of relationality led Ahn to integrate his previous study of Heidegger into his critical historical study of the Gospel of Mark in light of redaction criticism. From the communal perspective of the socio-biography of the ochlos Jesus, Ahn argues that in the Hebrew manner of thinking there is no clear distinction between the individual and the community. For example, the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 should not be understood as an individual, but as a life history of the suffering servant in community with the social history of his people. Ahn’s life-long confrontation with Moltmann lies in the former’s interpretation of the Son of Man in a corporative sense with regard to Jesus Christ, the suffering servant, in a corporeal relationship with the ochlos-minjung.16

C. S. Song and the Asian Theology of the Third Eye C. S. Song, in his book, Jesus, The Crucified People,17 combines the insight of Japanese Roman Catholic novelist Shusaku Endo of God’s silence under the Christian persecution of seventeenth century Japan with the minjung theological concept in order to develop his theology of the crucified people. He argued for a theology of christas according to which the suffering of the ugly, emaciated people replace Jesus Christ completely. According to Song, all of the minjung become christs because Jesus means crucified people without reservation.18 The Jewish character and Graeco-Roman assumption must be transformed and replanted into the Asian religious matrix and their experiences of suffering. C. S. Song’s critique of Western theology and his hermeneutical dealing with Asian narratives and the wisdom of World religions are open to discussion. Song’s theology of the Third Eye comes from the Japanese Zen master, Daisetz Suzuki, whereby Zen opens a third eye which is the Buddhist

16 For Moltmann’s critique of Ahn’s Christology, see Moltmann, Experiences in Theology: Ways and Forms of Christian Theology, 257. 17 C. S. Song, Jesus, The Crucified People (New York: Crossroad, 1990). 18 Ibid., 215.

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enlightenment experience of prajna (truth-wisdom).19 However, underlying Song’s writings is a Western liberal principle of identification or totalization rather than the qualified non-dual Asian principle. He controversially argues that all Western theological thinking be discarded because it is not grounded in the daily lives of people.20 Song’s Asian way of Third-Eye theology begins with appreciating indigenous people’s symbols and images as a way of critiquing Western theological thinking and, simultaneously, of retrieving Asianness to be implanted into biblical interpretation and theological discourse. According to C. S. Song, theology is defined as human talk rather than God-talk: “Human realities are theological realities.”21 If one consistently and logically follows this line of thought, one will inevitably end up with Feuerbach’s thesis that the secret of theology is anthropology. God who speaks in love, promise, and freedom is replaced by the anthropocentric experience of human life. Ludwig Feuerbach challenged such anthropocentric assumptions in nineteenth century liberal theology in Germany. Here, it is important to review the Western anthropocentric tendency present in Augustine. In the Augustinian framework, the concept of enjoyment of God as the summum bonum is indebted to Neo-Platonism. By claiming that our restless hearts find peace in God by experiencing God as peace, we remove God from the context of lived life. For Descartes who inherited the Augustinian legacy, the “thinking subject” is conformable to the truth. Therefore, the religious world, as subject to human subjectivity, becomes questionable under radically suspicious rationality. This infamous “subjectism” dislocates the locus of God since a theological discourse about God’s activity in Christ through the Spirit is grounded in human religious experience. Human relationship with God is approached only in terms of human experience. The subjective anthropology dominant in Western liberal theology makes God a projection, reducing God to a human feeling of dependence (Schleiermacher). Hence, human reality is a theological reality without eschatological reservation. At this point, C. S. Song’s theology of the

19 Song, Third-Eye Theology: Theology in Formation in Asian Settings, rev. ed. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991), 26. 20 Ibid, 128. 21 Ibid., 12.

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third eye would be epistemologically localized between a Feuerbachian and Schleiermacherian orientation.

Katsumi Takizawa and Urfkatum Immanuel Unlike Neo-orthodox Barthians in Japan and South Korea, Katsumi Takizawa attempts to read the theology of Barth more relevantly in an interreligious context. Takizawa grew up in a Zen Buddhist community and studied philosophy at the Kyoto school in Japan. After his study he asked his teacher Nishida, a founding father of the Kyoto school and a life long dialogue partner with Paul Tillich, about more advanced studies. Takizawa wanted to go to Heidegger. However, surprisingly enough Nishida advised him to go to Karl Barth, who was at the time at the University of Bonn in Germany. As Takizawa wrote, “Since my fortunate encounter with Karl Barth in Bonn, the name of Jesus Christ has in a miraculous way become something from which I can no longer. . . . detach myself.”22 Takizawa was inwardly Bultmanian and became a student of Barth with a critical mind. Despite the friendship between the Western teacher—Karl Barth—and the Japanese pupil—Takizawa—there remained theological disagreement. In his article, which was dedicated to the Festschrift of Karl Barth, Takizawa explains why he is not baptized into the theology of Karl Barth.23 He challenged Barth’s parochial understanding of Jesus Christ from above and also his ecclesiology in its early stage. However, utilizing the Buddhist idea of soku (the non-dualistic mercy and compassion of dharmakaya, which is a Buddhist principle of Sunyata), he transforms the Barthian theology of election into God’s inseparable relationship with the world. He calls this hermeneutical principle Urfaktum Immanuel. The Urfaktum Immanuel denotes that God’s Immanuel began in God’s intradivine life by electing the Son of God for the world. This act of God in the election of Christ and

22 Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 203. 23 Katsumi Takizawa, “Was hindert mich noch getauft zu warden,” in Das Heil im Heute, Texte einer japanischen Theologie, ed. Theo Sundermeier (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987), 37.

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the world executed its mission in the historical form of the incarnation. The name Jesus Christ means, according to Takizawa, Urfaktum Immanuel. As we have already seen, the Lutheran-Barthian legacy of God’s eternal election of Christ is transformed by Kitamori in his theology of tsurasa, while in Takizawa it is changed to the Japanese term soku (God’s original fact of eternal Immanuel with the world). Takizawa distinguishes the Barthian theory of correspondence between the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity, interpreting the immanent Trinity according to his Buddhist-Christian term soku (Urfaktum Immanuel). In so doing the immanent Trinity (God in se) is the Urkatum Immanuel which is beyond the historical and economic Trinity (God for us) and human comprehensibility and not captive to Christian faith. This perspective becomes the basis for Takizawa’s engagement with the Buddhist community. According to Takizawa, Christ outside the flesh (logos asarkos) corresponds to Urfaktum Immanuel, while the former transcends the historical Jesus. Thus, the Reformed Christology of extra Calvinisticum is transformed by Takizawa to bolster his metaphysical interreligious framework and direction.24 The Christ principle should not be reduced to the life of the historical Jesus.

An Irregular Perspective on Martin Luther, Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer So far we have seen the extent to which Reformation thought was contextualized and transformed in East Asia in our discussions of Kitamori, minjung theology, and Takizawa. Unlike these theologians, C. S. Song’s third eye theology demonstrates his closeness to liberal theology, demonstrating a controversial challenge to Reformation-oriented theology. In what follows, my concern is to hermeneutically create a new

24 However, Barth critiqued Reformed Christology as a way of presupposing two abstract Christs. He thus turned away from his early appreciation of Reformed Christology and fully accepted the Lutheran perichoresis between Jesus and Christ. At this point, unlike Takizawa’s speculation, Barth strongly affirmed Lutheran Christology of divine possibility, even in theopschite terms which were contrary to John Calvin and Zwingli who held that God cannot suffer. This is an important Lutheran influence on Barth’s thought. Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/2: 357. See further Paul S. Chung, God’s Word in Action (Eugene: Cascade, 2008), 345–376.

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space for Reformation thought in order to advance a model of Asian irregular theology with respect to religious cultural reality of bamboo and sociopolitical reality of minjung. 1. I begin with Luther. For Luther, the Christian’s theology of the cross is symbolized by the white rose standing beneath the cross. A black cross in the midst of a heart does not contradict the reason and wisdom of white roses.25 Luther’s symbol of the Reformation through the rose offers an aesthetic dimension to divine suffering. However, an aesthetic sense of suffering does not necessarily idolize suffering. Rather, it is a desire in the quest for utopia, striving toward the transformation of the world and inspiring a hermeneutics of audacity and resistance. Given the realities of multi-religious encounter and transformation in the East Asian context, I attempt to read Luther as a theologian of creation in recognition of the Other. Luther entails a marvelous sensitivity to nature. For Luther, God reveals Godself as a good creator and gives us all good things which are testified to by the sun and moon, heaven and earth, and all the fruits that grow from the earth. Luther’s keen sensitivity to the beauty of nature is of special significance in the development of Asian irregular theology of God’s Word in the direction of a more ecological and sustainable way. I hear Luther’s marvelous sense of nature which appears in his usage of a metaphysical metaphor from an ancient Greek sage: “We have become deaf to what Pythagoras aptly terms this wonderful and most lovely music coming from the harmony of the motions that are in the celestial sphere.”26 We may be encouraged to listen attentively to the most beautiful and lovely harmony of music which comes from the world of non-Christian religions. Along this line Luther provocatively states in openness for Turkish government that “God has subjected and submitted secular rule to reason . . . That is why the pagans . . . can speak and teach well on this subject. And to tell the truth, they are far more skilled than Christians in such matters . . . For God is a gentle and rich Lord who subjects a great deal of gold, silver, riches, dominions, and kingdoms to the godless, as though they were chaff or sand. In the same way, he also makes lofty

25 26

Löwith, From Hegel to Nietzsche, 19. LW, 1:126.

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reason, wisdom, languages and eloquence subject to them, so that his dear Christians seem to be mere children, fools and beggars by contrast with them.”27 God performs God’s work through non-Christians, sometimes better than through Christians. At this juncture, Luther’s theology of the cross becomes a realistic basis for God’s universal reign in creation and in the world. Glory— kabod in Hebrew, doxa in Greek,—a theology of doxology does not contradict the theology of the cross, which seeks divine beauty in the ugly face of Jesus on the cross who was, is, and will be in companionship with ochlos. The reformation language of analogia fidei needs to be deepened as a language of recognizing the suffering of the other—as an analogy of the Other. God speaks to the Christian Church through the nature and the face of those who are considered Other. However, Luther was not able to systematically develop his theology of the Word of God in an extrabiblical manner. His deliberation of the Other, especially in view of the Jews and Moslems, remains a field of controversy. Thus, Asian irregular theology challenges Luther and renews his fragmentary intention for the Other by radicalizing Luther’s deliberation of creation, divine aesthetic, theologia crucis, and God’s universal reign expressis verbis in light of a provocative side of God’s freedom to speak to the world in every direction and in all ways. This perspective offers a postfoundational (or postecclesial) insight to transcend instrumental reason which is captive to the incomplete project of modernity. As opposed to the journey of Odysseus—a symbol of individualism in Western civilization—the journey of Abraham into foreign lands is characterized by audacity and expulsion.28 According to Luther, we may appropriate Abraham’s journey to advance a new way of doing theology of the cross in reference to a divine scapegoat because Christ’s audacious solidarity with innocent victims is done for God’s sake. In John’s Prologue, the passion of the Logos is anticipated because the world does not comprehend him. The discourse of expulsion in the framework of the Johannine Logos parallels the words of John the Baptist. Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world

27 WA, 51; 242, I-8.15–19; cited in Gerhard Ebeling, Luther: An Introduction to His Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), 186–187. 28 Auerbach, Mimesis, 12.

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(Jn 1:29). Jesus as the scapegoat who is victimized serves as a connection between an Asian irregular theology of massa perditionis and a postmodern divinity of God the victim. The logos of expulsion becomes the antidote to the human logos of violence and exclusion. The ontological and universal title of the Lamb of God challenges and protests the social mechanisms of self-justification and the scapegoating of those who are Other. In the idea of divine death, one discerns one’s own passivity in relation to the Infinite. When the Infinite comes to the finite, the Infinite interrupts one’s consciousness so that it locates itself as one’s ethical responsibility for Others. A theologia crucis in this regard remains a constant reminder for Christianity to be sensitive and audaciously responsible in relationship with the Other. “Ethics occurs as an an-archy, the compassion of being.”29 In Luther’s teaching of justification a deliberation of economic justice is strikingly grounded in the shape of an ethical direction of justification for the Other. In Luther’s critique of usury and capital monopoly we perceive how deeply Luther’s theology of God in the first commandment is interconnected with his critique of the socioeconomic reality in the commandment: “You shall not steal.” God as an alternative to mammon constitutes a driving force for Luther in shaping and characterizing his prophetic theology of justification on behalf of those who are alienated, maltreated and economically weaker.30 In his article An die Pfarrherren, wider den Wucher zu predigen (To the Pastors Preaching against Usury)31 Luther analyzed and criticized the problem of capital accumulation and expansion by using the metaphor of a devouring capital. In this light, Marx regarded Luther to be a prophetic denouncer of capital accumulation associated with the practice of usury and Western colonialism. Social economic justice was a vehicle for Luther to characterize the essence and meaning of God’s justifying grace and compassion in light of a prophetic interest in emancipation. At this point, Helmut Gollwitzer argues that “the real Luther is the unknown Luther.”32 Today’s theology

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Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 10. F.-W. Marquardt, “Gott oder Mammon aber: Theologie und Oekonomie bei Martin Luther,” in Einwürfe, eds. F.-W. Marquardt, Dieter Schellong, and Michael Weinrich (Munich: Chr, Kaiser, 1983), 189. 31 D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1955–67), 51, 331–424 (= WA). 32 Helmut Gollwitzer, “Begegnung mit Luther,” in Luther, ed. Karl Gerhard Steck (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Bücherei, 1962), 7. 30

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must take in earnest, ethically and critically, the Christian character of capital accumulation and monopoly in the World economy system.33 God’s act of speech in God’s universal reign forms and shapes a biblical-universal history of effect in which one’s existential and self-understanding of the Christian Gospel assumes a more dialogical and public character. Asian existential connectedness with the lifeworld of East Asian religions constitutes another history of effect for Asian Christians, helping them to pay attention to the multiplicity of Christian discourse horizons in the presence of the difference of religious outsiders. In “The Smalcald Articles,”34 Luther proposes the content of the Gospel in the fifth form: mutual colloquium and fraternal consolation. In this regard, Luther’s theology of the Word of God is rich, profound, and diverse. This fifth form of the Gospel articulates a dialogical-colloquial dimension for Luther’s theology of God’s Word. Corresponding to Hebrews 1.1—“God spoke to us in many and diverse ways”—Luther’s fifth form of the Gospel offers a task of inculturation and cross-cultural learning which a model of Asian irregular theology actualizes and radicalizes regarding a religious cultural reality of bamboo and the social reality of minjung. 2. Now enter Karl Barth. Sharing a theology of the Word of God with Luther, Barth continues to deepen Luther’s theology of God’s Word for his theological direction in light of God’s freedom in love. In his project of dialectical theology Barth articulates the mystery of God associated with the divine speech act. “As theologians we ought to speak of God. We are, however, humans and as such cannot speak of God. We should recognize both our oughts and our cannots.”35 Barth’s dialectical theology does not remove the incomprehensiveness of God. His dialectical theology does not only speak of human limitations in talking about God, but also opens up an awareness to see the many ways in which God reveals God’s love. Continuing this

33 Gollwitzer, “Die Kapitalistische Revolution,” in Gollwitzer, . . . dass Gerechtigkeit und Friede sich küssen: Aufsätze zur politischen Ethik, Bd.1 (Munich: Kaiser, 1988), 125–209. I am aware that there is parallel between Luther and Bartholome de Las Casas (1474–1566) who denounced the Spanish encomienda system in the Indies. Cf. Bartolomé de Las Casas, The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account, trans. Herma Briffault (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). 34 BC, 319. 35 Anfänge der dialektischen Theologie, Teil I Karl Barth, Heinrich Barth, Emile Brunner ed. Jürgen Moltmann (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1962), 199.

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concern of dialectical theology and divine speech, Barth formulates his deliberation of the mystery of divine speech in his theology of the Word of God. “. . . We finally speak of the Word of God as the mystery of God. The issue is not an ultimate ‘assuring’ but always a penultimate “de-assuring” of theology . . .”36 This freedom of God becomes obvious and manifest in Barth’s definition of the God who loves in freedom.37 God’s love in freedom integrates a mysterious and infinite horizon of God’s Word with respect to political affairs and the world of religions. As Barth argues, “God may speak to us through Russian communism, a flute concerto, a blossoming shrub, or a dead dog.”38 God’s love in freedom has a political consequence in Barth’s challenging articulation of God’s being, which refers to God’s action that really and materially transforms all in all.39 Barth’s concept of God denotes an aspect of God’s revolution which takes sides with the poor, that is, basically “a one-sided movement from below.” Therefore, God is “onesidedly a God of the lower but not a God of the upper, indeed, without reservation, a God of the small (i.e., the totally marginal).”40 This provocative side of God’s Word constitutes Barth’s theology in a daring, universalist, and revolutionary manner. For Barth, an irregular theology deals with unmethodical, chaotic, and provocative dimensions in the deliberation of the Word of God. In this irregular approach a more productive result would be gained than what regular and systematic methodology achieves. This irregular and postfoundational aspect protects dogmatic theology from the dangers of dogmatization, encapsulation, and parochialism, and it is no less scientific than the regular systematic theology.41 However, Barth was not capable of consistently developing his thesis of the irregularity of God’s Word because of his excessive dogmatic thinking and Christocentrism.

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Barth, Church Dogmatics 1/1: 164–165. Barth, Church Dogmatics 2/1: § 28. 38 Barth, Church Dogmatics 1/1: 55. 39 Barth Church Dogmatics II/1: 258. As Barth states, “. . . They should and must live with the fact that not only sheds new light on, but materially changes, all things and everything in all things—the fact that God is.” See further F.-W. Marquardt, Theologie und Sozialismus, Das Beispiel Karl Barths (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1972), 240f. 40 Barth, Der Römerbrief, unveränderter Nachdruck der ersten Aufgabe von 1919 (Zurich: 1919), 367. 41 Barth, Die Christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf Bd.1 (1927), ed. Gerhard Sauter (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1982), 151. 37

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It is certain that Barth never lost sight of the significance of culture in his theological undertakings: “Theology is a specific activity of humanity. The problem of theology and dogmatics can also be seen as wholly set within the framework of the problem of culture.”42 A theology of God’s Word is always related to God’s action in which grace and social justice, theology and emancipation, gospel and law are intertwined and imbued with each other for the sake of divine action and human discipleship. Social, cultural, and political realms can become a predicate of the Gospel so that the Gospel permeates the reality of life. I hear such political radicalism in Barth’s statement: “We are standing deeper in the No than in the Yes, deeper in the critique and protest than in the naiveté, deeper in the yearning after the future than in a participation in the present.”43 For an Asian irregular hermeneutic of multi-religious horizons, I attempt to integrate and radicalize Barth’s insight of divine speech act for the advancement of a hermeneutical model of Asian irregular theology with emphasis on the cultural lifeworld of bamboo and the political reality of minjung. This refers to Asian irregular minjung theology in distinction from Ahn’s minjung theology which reduces Barth’s theology merely to a theology of positivism of revelation. Thus, my interpretation of Barth for an Asian theology of the irregularity of the divine speech act stands in contrast to Neo-orthodox Barthianism. Nevertheless, it is certain that Barth shows a lack of demonstrating a human understanding of God’s reign in encounters with the wisdom of non-Christian religions. In Barth’s theology of Israel, Jewish self-understanding of God and Torah remains an arena of critique.44 Barth was not ready to hear in the Jewish “No” to the Christian Church, the Jewish faithfulness to the Torah. In my constructive yet critical conversation with Barth’s theology, there is still a theological dimension of recognizing a reality of religious pluralism. In his so-called doctrine of lights45 Barth states that a radical desire for salvation and emancipation belongs to one of the true words of God alongside Jesus Christ. “We may think of the radicalness of the

42

Barth Church Dogmatics 1/1: 284. Barth, “Der Christ in der Gesellschaft,” in Moltmann, ed. Anfänge der dialektischen Theologie, 28. 44 Marquardt, Die Entdeckung des Judentums für die christliche Theologie: Israel im Denken Karl Barths (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1967). 45 Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/3.1. § 69. 43

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need of redemption or the fullness of what is meant by redemption if it is to meet this need.”46 Pure land Buddhism, on which Barth has reflected regarding its wholly providential disposition in his earlier teachings of revelation and religion,47 is appreciated now in the context of divine lights and words as one of the true words of God. This form of Buddhism can be accepted as a free communication of divine speech—so-called true words extra muros ecclesiae.48 Nevertheless, Barth’s understanding of Buddhism assumes a theocentric and revelational approach rather than fully integrating a Buddhist self-understanding of the ultimate reality, humanity, and world. Barth’s radical understanding of divine action challenges the power and principalities of lordless powers in the world, encouraging and renewing the human praxis of discipleship in a utopian-eschatological direction toward more democracy and more social justice. In this light Barth argues that Jesus Christ is the “partisan of the poor,” a representative of massa perditionis (the lost public mass: minjung in Korean) who belonged to the party of the godless assailed by the Pharisees.49 At this juncture, there is parallel between Barth’s christological deliberation of Jesus and massa perditionis and Asian irregular theology of minjung as massa perditionis. In this interpretation, Barth can be appreciated as a theologian who encourages Asian irregular theology to recognize those who are Other in light of God’s mystery and mobilizes a resistance to the status quo of the lordless powers.50 Thus Barth may remain a theologian who encourages the East Asian Church and theology to do something audacious for God’s sake, a prophetic diakonia for minjung in the civilization of globalization rationality. Doing theology in new terrain requires audacity in order to speak out against instrumental reason and the reification of globalization.51

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Barth, Church Dogmatics IV 3.1: 125. Barth, Church Dogmatics 1/1: 372–377 where Barth regards Jodo-Shinshu Buddhism as a religion close to the grace religion of the Reformation. 48 Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/3.1:130. 122f. 49 Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/3.2: 587. 50 Barth, The Christian Life, Church Dogmatics Vol. IV. part 4. Lecture Fragments, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Erdmans, 1981), 213–233. 51 Paul S. Chung, Karl Barth: God’s Word in Action (Eugene: Cascade, 2008), 475–483. 47

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3. I also insist that Protestant theology in an East Asian context learns from Bonhoeffer for the sake of an Asian hermeneutic of resistance. To what extent does Bonhoeffer offer insight for a new way of Asian irregular theology regarding inculturation and emancipation? In which way can we appreciate the legacy of Bonhoeffer regarding the period of global Empire? Human life in today’s world lies in a whirlwind of social contradiction and struggle, surrounded by instrumentalizing reason and a process of reification under economic globalization. It challenges and uncovers the concrete misery and social suffering of the underside of history in the framework of the universal history of globalization. Reified reason falsifies consciousness, drives humanity to the desire of power and domination, and tempts it into a new barbarism. An emancipatory interpretation of God’s grace and social critique of the lordless powers underlines an Asian hermeneutical reflection of theologia crucis as we encounter a pluralistic perspective and reality. The radicality of God’s grace is the presupposition for a prophetic and emancipatory critique regarding the phenomenon of the “iron cage” (Max Weber) furthered and built up in instrumental and global rationality and the colonization of the lifeworld. Through a reification, which commodifies and colonizes a life-world, human life and nature turn into objects under calculation, control, and manipulation. Regarding a gloomy phenomenon of late capitalism during the racist ideology of Germany in the 30’s, Bonhoeffer argued that “the Church confesses that she has witnessed the lawless application of brutal force, the physical and spiritual suffering of countless innocent people, oppression, hatred and murder, and that she has not raised her voice on behalf of the victims and has not found ways to hasten to their aid. She is guilty of the deaths of the weakest and most defenseless brothers of Jesus Christ.”52 Bonhoeffer’s reflection on the suffering God in contrast to a Greek form of deus ex machina can be re-appropriated for rethinking a theological hermeneutic of resistance for the development of an Asian irregular theology in an inter-religious fashion. In some ancient Greek dramas, an intervention of god is prepared as a solution to insoluble crises and predicament. This god, portrayed as a machine, is literally translated as deus ex machina.

52

Bonhoeffer, Ethics (New York: Touchstone, 1955), 114.

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Bonhoeffer’s critique of religion is a protest against bourgeois selfsatisfaction, or “a convenient reversal of the Gospel.”53 It is not oriented against people of other faiths per se. Rather, his critique of deus ex machina is related to his positive reception of secular modernity and autonomy whereby he strives to liberate Western Christianity from its bourgeois encapsulation. In a letter written in Feburary 1928, Bonhoeffer demonstrated his interest in Gandhi of India and also the world of the Buddha. Bonhoeffer’s interest lay in Gandhi’s pacifistic method of struggle. In another letter written in May 22, 1934, Bonhoeffer boldly stated that there are more Christians in the world of the heathen than in the whole state church of Germany.54 Bonhoeffer’s non-religious theology paradoxically opens a space for a model of interreligious dialogue in the horizon of the Gospel which embraces and recognizes the poor and people of other faiths. Inspired by Bonhoeffer, Ahn’s minjung theology attempts to transvalue an Enlightenment project of subject-object relationship in terms of locating Jesus Christ into non-dual companionship with ochlos. What Bonhoeffer and Ahn’s minjung theology have in common is that in each there is critique of ideology, a hermeneutics of suspicion regarding deus ex machina, or a hermeneutic of being in co-existence against Heidegger’s ontology in the world which sets aside the Other. For Bonhoeffer, in Christ’s reconciliation, “the abyss of the love of God encompasses even the most abysmal godlessness of the world.”55 God’s grace rooted in the innocent victim Christ swims against the current, advocating for the dignity and human rights of Lazarus-minjung who are burdened by the sins of the powerful in the world. God’s disruptive grace in no way supports an oppressive idea of furthering human immature dependence upon God, as Karl Marx speculates. Given this fact, Bonhoeffer’s dictum, which is said to have come from Luther, finds its locus in the human praxis for freedom and emancipation from a colonized consciousness toward a liberated consciousness of service to the poor and the ungodly. “The curses of the godless sometimes sound better in God’s ear than the hallelujahs of the pious.”56

53

Ibid., 64. Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Theologe, Christ, Zeitgenosse (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1967), 138, 184, 379. 55 Bonhoeffer, Ethics, 72. 56 Bonhoeffer, Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic 54

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In the face of the victims we find the Otherness of God. Ethics for the Other in the presence of God the Infinite accentuates an ethical concretization in terms of thinking out from the Other. Karl Barth once characterized Bonhoeffer’s ethical and irregular line and direction, which Barth regretfully missed in his theological framework, but which Bonhonffer rightfully conceived of: “Ethics—co-humanity—servant church—discipleship—social justice—peace movement—all in all, political commitment.”57 Along this line, it is of special significance to take a step further for the advancement of an Asian hermeneutic of the irregularity of the divine speech act and its resistance in the presence of those who are Other against the reality of lordless powers.

A Summary: Asian Irregular Theology and Hermeneutics in Pursuit of an Asian face of Christianity Thus far, we have discussed the contextualization of Reformation theology and Reformation-oriented theology in view of different models of Asian contextual theology. Then we articulated a reading of Luther, Barth, and Bonhoeffer to advance a model of Asian irregular theology of Verbum Dei in a postfoundational and hermeneutical sense. As a concluding remark, it is instructive to review and outline what has been pursued and discussed in an attempt to advance the future of Asian irregular theology in view of inculturation and emancipation as explored in pursuit of the Asian face of Christianity in this book. From an East Asian perspective, an Asian hermeneutical project takes seriously a theory of interpretation. This can be seen in the model of the life of the seven sages, a philosophical Taoist understanding of Dao (its dynamic act of speech through de and qi), and Zhu Xi’s theory of analogical interpretation in order to promote a distinguished feature of Asian theological uniqueness and difference in our global and crosscultural context. In view of the lifeword of East Asia which is characterized in its rich and profound religious and cultural heritage, an Asian irregular theology attends and underlines a cultural-religious lifeworld of bamboo Theology, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works Volume 2, trans. H. Martin Rumscheidt (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 160. 57 Barth’s Letter to Bethge (May 22. 1967), in Karl Barth, Briefe 1916–1968, eds. J. Fangmeier and H. Stoevesandt (Zurich: TVZ, 1975), 404.

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and a socio-political reality of minjung. This aspect of bamboo and minjung is articulated and accentuated when theological discussion in this book comes to Reformation teachings of justification, social justice, and Buddhist concept of self-cultivation. Furthermore, God in Judeo-Christian sense comes into view of the mystery of Tao, and Trinitarian discourse. Attention is given to the Christian mission of Mattei Ricci’s legacy, a cross-cultural significance of religious pluralism, and the science-religion dialogue regarding an evolution in BuddhistChristian context. In so doing, a model of Asian irregular theology is constructed and refurbished in light of the irregularity of Verbum Dei in a postfoundational and hermeneutical manner. In reference to the life of Ruan Ji in the bamboo forest, his understanding of Tao in creative combination with Confucian and Taoist philosophy facilitates the pursuit of an Asian irregular theology regarding the religious cultural lifeworld of bamboo and the social reality of minjung in an aesthetical-utopian sense for the sake of an Asian face of Christianity. Ruan Ji’s interpretive creativity demonstrates resistance against political accommodation to the status quo at his time and retrieves aesthetic-utopian ethics of non-action. Although the justice of God cannot be reduced to the beautiful, a theological aesthetic, which underlies the utopian longing for a better topos, retains a prophetic character in critique of pseudo-beauty in our society generated by commercial fetishism. Thus, the aesthetic and the ethical are mediated to each other for the sake of God’s justice in the perspective of Asian irregular theology by recognizing the cultural and social reality of bamboo and minjung, challenging the metanarrative of globalizing civilization. For the construction of an Asian irregular theology it is of significance to retrieve a hermeneutical articulation of the archaic turn and return (as in the case of Zhu Xi’s investigation of things). This demonstrates a Confucian contribution to self-cultivation and the pursuit of the truth through the human analysis of worldly affairs and an understanding of the principles of the world. A quest for the truth begins with an analysis of human life in co-existence with the Other. It speaks for a critical hermeneutic against an ontology of being-inthe-world which belittles a human being as a reified being in a society. Zhu Xi’s interpretive imagination in the expression of the truth of Dao is of analogical and critical character. Zhu Xi’s hermeneutical concept of the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge can be

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applied and appropriated to the point where we make an investigation of the provocative and unexpected voice of God and extend such knowledge of God’s Word in an East Asian context. A philosophical Daoist concept of longing for life-utopia without action and reward brings the Reformation theology of justification and grace into new terrain by accentuating its meaning in a more natural, non-discriminating, and harmonious fashion. Justification should not be distorted into a virtue of merit (as in the case of Matteo Ricci). Rather, it can be an expression of grace of Dao-watercourse in human life which is characterized by gratitude to and harmony with God’s Way accompanying people of other faiths. The Taoist concept of Daode-qi offers a basis for promoting an Asian discourse of Trinity in a non-discriminating manner in light of the irregularity of God’s speech (Tao’s speech) in a culture of religious pluralism. The Mahayana Buddhist contribution for heartfelt compassion with all living creatures in dukkha becomes a basis for ethic of the Other in contrast to the Western individualistic model of anthropology and ethic. Along this line, a scientific theory of evolution is appreciated by Christianity and Buddhism to the degree that an aesthetical dimension of evolution should be found in its ethical orientation for mutual help and existence among all living sentient creatures. An ethically shared vision between Christianity and Buddhism is corrective to an ideological distortion of evolution. For instance, Social Darwinism is only for the sake of the struggle of the fittest. In conversation with a theory of evolution, a Christian concept of imago Dei is expanded in view of the universal framework of the Noah covenant and in recognition of a universal concept of Buddha nature in light of eschatological novum. Asian irregular theology and its interpretative mode attempts to set Asian Christianity free from its Babylonian captivity to the Western model of instrumental rationality and ecclesial triumphalism. Thus, Asian irregular theology retains a task of inculturation and emancipation in order to actualize Christian discipleship as a prophetic, diaconal, and interfaith action: doing something audacious for God’s sake in God’s world of reconciliation and in recognition of religious outsiders in light of God’s speech event. This said, Asian irregular theology is a constructive and critical deliberation of the irregularity of God’s Word in promise, reconciliation, and freedom as it exegetically and interculturally develops an interpretative imagination and analogical correlation of the biblical

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lifeworld in engaging with non-Christian religious classics and in the face of God’s Lazarus-minjung—massa perditionis. In this light, Asian irregular theology radicalizes Asian minjung theological insight into Jesus’ socio-biography with massa perditionis by positively accepting Jewish “No” to ecclesial triumphalism and proposing a new minjung discourse of parrhēsia. Jesus’ discourse of parrhēsia (Mk 8:32; speaking openly, frankly or bodly) regarding Peter’s confession can be seen in Jesus’ frank discourse of his upcoming rejection, crucifixion, and resurrection. In contrast to the relatively few appearances of parrhēsia in classical Greek, parrhēsia is used extensively with reference to Jesus, especially in the Gospel of John. This discursive form has played an important role in the debate over Jesus’ life and his messianic consciousness. Mark’s form of parrhēsia must be sought in Jesus’ socio-biographical solidarity with ochlos-minjung. A parrhēsia form of discourse expresses a spirit of audacity and resistence in questioning the institutionalized dominion and authority in religious and political sphere; Parrhēsia, speaking to each other frankly, finds its socio-critical, political, and religious meaning and discourse in the public sphere in view of the marginalized, the victim, and the voiceless for the sake of recognizing and promoting their full humanity. The whole of parrhēsia in which we live as Asian Christians is undercut by the threat of inhumanity, one’s exploitation of one’s neighbor, and a dominant form of civilization initiated and caused by the Western globalization. Consequently, the discursive form of parrhēsia, which resists an ideologically distorted form of culture and lifeworld, also retains an immanent critical function in distanciation from a fanatic tendency of minjung-messianism or revolutionary excessivism. This considered, the irregular side of God’s speech impels us to articulate and highlight Jesus’ socio-biographical solidarity with massa perditionis in connection with Jesus’ discourse of parrhēsia. Such a theological endeavor and vision pave the way to interpret God’s Word in a richer, more profound way in the non-Christian context in light of a postfoundational hermeneutic which appropriates a theory of interpretation and aesthetic in cultural religious lifeworld of East Asia. A religious cultural lifeworld of bamboo serves as analogical reality and medium through which God’s speech act takes place constantly in religious classics and the life of ordinary people at a grass roots level. At issue here is to deepen the theological recognition of the Other as an extraordinary way of God’s communication and to actualize our discipleship in faithfulness to God’s accompaniment with

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today’s’ Lazarus-minjung—those who are burdened, marginalized, and victimized by the sin of the powerful in global civilization. Thus, a dialogue with Western Christianity finds its apprehension, renewal, and transformation in pursuit of an Asian face of theology and the Church in light of God’s speech event. Such dialogue leads to practically mobilize the resistance of those who are Other against instrumental reason and reification as is immanent within today’s civilization. Hence, a pursuit of the Asian face of theology and Christianity refers to an Asian spiritual and intellectual endeavor and vision to crossculturally and ideology-critically examine and reframe the missional influence and limitation of Western Christianity in recognition of and respect for the Asian religious lifeworld of bamboo and the socio-political reality of minjung in a postcolonial perspective. In this process the other side of God’s grace is revealed as a surprise, a delight, and a challenge to Western Christianity as well as East Asian Christianity. Such a process of surprise, delight, and challenge is on the way—eschatologically open for the future—because Asian irregular theology exhibits itself as theologia viatorum in terms of hermeneutical imagination when it comes to God who speaks in promise, reconciliation, and freedom to us in every way and all directions. The Word of God, which comes in Jesus Christ as a speech event, speaks to the Christian Church, as surprise, delight, and challenge. Thus, an Asian theology of Verbum Dei seeks a triple dialogue with cultures, religions, and God’s massa perditionis and paves a way of an Asian theology of the irregularity of God’s speech act as it engages with the subject matter of inculturation and emancipation. Verbum Dei quaerens intellectum et dialogum.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Analogia entis: Analogy of being. The Roman Catholic Church, before the second Vatican Council instructed that human beings are capable of knowing God through human ontological capacity, or natural reason. The human being as an image of God is capable of knowing God, apart from or without the revelation of Jesus Christ. Analogia fidei: Analogy of faith. Against the Catholic teaching of analogia entis, Karl Barth coined this term, according to which a human being is capable of approaching God only through faith in Jesus Christ. Am ha-aretz: People of the land in Hebrew. According to minjung hermeneutics, am ha-aretz is etymologically connected with the Apiru who were bondsmen in Egypt, but were later enslaved. Amita (Chinese), Amida (Japanese): The Buddha of measureless light and life. Before becoming a Buddha, he was a monk called Dharmakara, who vowed to welcome into his Pure Land in the West all who called on his name, drawing upon his vow. Bodhi: Awakening; enlightenment; the conquest of ignorance through the awakening to perfect wisdom. Bodhisattva: One who undertakes the path to enlightenment; one who strives to attain the wisdom of the Buddha; a future Buddha; a compassionate being. Buddhism of flower garland: This is one of the important Buddhist sects in China which influenced Buddhism in Japan and Korea and Vietnam. Hua-yen means Flower Garland, a Chinese name of the vast Avatamsaka Sutra. It is known as Kegon in Japan and Hwaum in Korea. This teaching articulates Vairocana—the Great Illumination Buddha—the interconnection of the cosmic Buddha in all living sentient creatures, accentuating compassion and non-discrimination, offering a basis for engaged Buddhism.

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Qi: The concept qi is translated as breath, energy, ether, or matterenergy. Qi is pervasive in the universe, giving rise to all things endowed with life and energy. Qi belongs to the realm within shapes. Deus absconditus: God hidden. God is not known through human righteousness or creation. Deus revelatus: God revealed. God is known through the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Dharma: Teaching; element, the ultimate constituent of existence; the law that governs all things; the ultimate truth as taught by the Buddha. Dharmakaya: The body of Dharma; the body of truth; the eternal essence of the Buddha; the cosmic body. Dukkha: Suffering, disquiet, strife, ill, disvalue, displeasure; condition of the nature of human existence in interconnection with others and the world. Erev rav: In the account of Ex 12:38, a mixed crowd (erev rav) also went up with the Israelites journeying from Rameses to Succoth. Facere quod in se est: The requirement laid upon a human being by God if he/she is to dispose himself/herself towards the reception of the gift of grace. Fourth-eye theology: This term comes from the language of engaged Buddhism. The third eye after enlightenment is not enough. The third eye without the praxis of Bodhisattva’s compassion remains elitist, arrogant, and egotistical. The third eye should be followed the fourth eye of compassion praxis. Han: Korean term which denotes a cumulative feeling of victims, a psychological expression of a collective outcry of the oppressed and the marginalized over centuries in a social and cultural life setting. Xin: It is usually translated as mind or mind and heart. The heart as well as the mind is the source of moral principle in the thinking of Mencius. Nature is full of principle (li), so the mind is full of qi.

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Xing: A character compounded of two words: the mind (or heart) and life. It refers to human nature as well as to the natures of other creatures endowed with life. Li: The two principles of mind and heart in coordination constitute all things. In Hua-yen Buddhism there is a distinction between the two realms of li (the noumenal) and shih (the phenomenal). For Zhu Xi, li as the principle which makes all things what they are, with their being and goodness. The one Li between Heaven and earth has multiple manifestations. Li belongs to the realm above shape. Logos asarkos: The logos must exist outside the flesh or incarnation. This concept forms Reformed Christology in contrast to Lutheran Christology based on logos ensarkos, according to which the logos must exist only in the flesh or incarnation. Mahayana: Grand Vehicle; the path of those Buddhists who choose to strive for Buddhahood as opposed to Hinayana (little vehicle) Buddhism. Meritum de condigno: Merit in the strict sense of the term—i.e., a real merit, a moral act performed in a state of infused grace and worthy of divine acceptance on that account and in cooperation with divine grace. Meritum de congruo: Merit in a weak sense of the term—i.e., a half credit, a moral act performed outside a state of infused grace. Although it is not meritorious in the strict sense of the term, it is considered an appropriate ground as a fitting reward for the infusion of justifying grace. Ochlos: According to minjung hermeneutics, ochlos forms an environment of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. The Evangelist Mark is the first theologian who portrays a socio-biography of Jesus as a companion with the ochlos in the synoptic context. Unlike laos (people of God), ochlos were those tax collectors and public sinners who were always around Jesus. Perichoresis: John Damascene in the eighth century used the term perichoresis to highlight the three divine persons as being-in-oneanother in terms of permeation without confusion. The term expresses

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the co-inherence and immanence of each divine person in the other two. Three divine persons inhere mutually in one another and exist by relation to one another. Positivism of revelation: In his prison letter, Bonhoeffer critiqued Karl Barth as a theologian of positivism of revelation because in Barth’s theology there is not sufficient openness to the world come of age. Because of Barth’s one-sided commitment to revelation from above, the worldly issues are left behind, according to Bonhoeffer. Prajna: Consummate knowledge or wisdom of the truth attained in enlightenment. Pratitya-samutpada: Dependent co-arising; co-origination; dependent origination. Shang Sheng: According to a statement of Daodejing, “ugly” can not be ugly without “beautiful.” Everything and everybody are in a mutual relationship. It refers to the wisdom of non-discrimination. Sunyata: Emptiness; the lack of any substantial being; the fundamental Buddhist concept of ultimate reality. Tai-ji/Wu-ji: T’ai-chi literally means the Great Ultimate. For Zhu Xi, it denotes the Tian-li, or Heavenly principle, which is transcendence in immanence within the universe and every individual human and thing. Tai-ji is also li, the Great Ultimate which is also nature (xing) in human beings. For Zhu Xi, Wu-ji literally means the Infinite and Limitless—that which is beyond concept and language. This other face of the Great Ultimate keeps the Heavenly principle from falling into pantheism. Daodejing: the philosophical canon of Daoism. Third-eye theology: This term comes from the language of Zen Buddhism. After the Zen enlightenment, the practitioner is awakened to the third eye of wisdom. C. S. Song borrowed this term from Dr. Suzuki in Japan and developed his third-eye theology from the perspective of Asian narratives.

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Tsurasa: Japanese term which literally denotes bitterness, sorrow, and pain of loss. This term implies also a sense of burden in one’s heart and spirit, a painful outlook on loss in life’s journey. Urfaktum Immanuel: Kazumi Takizawa coined this term by comparing the universalism of Zen Buddhism with Barth’s theology of election in its universal scope. The term denotes that there was the original fact of Immanuel before the foundation of the world.

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INDEX

Abe, M. 82–84, 181 Aggadah, 60, 73 Alopen, 4 Amida, 27, 32–34, 38, 40, 173, 186, 211 Am haaretz, 189, 211 An Byung-Mu, 189, 190–193 Analects, 104, 105, 113 Analogia doloris, 188 Analogia entis, 187, 211 Analogia fidei, 187, 198, 211 Anatta, 171, 174, 175 Ancestral rites, 123, 124 Apiru, 189 Atman, 92, 171 Barth, K. vii, 21, 24, 38, 90, 91, 151, 184, 187, 191, 195, 196, 200–203, 211, 214, 215 Bhagavad Gita, 54, 142 Bodhidharma, 4, 30 Bodhisattva, 6, 30, 33, 71, 177, 178, 211 Book of Changes, 52, 76, 84, 98, 106, 109, 110, 119 Bonhoeffer, D. vii, 24, 184, 191, 192, 196, 204–206, 214 Brahman, 92, 171 Brunner, E. 151 Buddha nature, ix, 30, 176–179, 183 Bultmann, R. 191 Ch’e-yong, 40 Ch’ing-t’an, 11 Creatio continua, 161, 163, 165, 167 Creatio ex nihilo, 64, 67, 68, 79, 161, 180 Creatio ex Dao, 68 Dainichi, 124 Dao-de-jing, 49–52, 54, 57, 59, 64, 65, 73, 76, 79, 80, 82, 85, 192, 214 Darwin, Ch. 158–160, 178, 180, 182 Das ganz Andere, 134 Dependent co-arising, 29, 58, 93, 175, 181 Deus absconditus, 187, 212 Deus ex machina, 204, 205 Deus revelatus, 187, 212

Deusu, 124 Dukkha, 25, 28, 33, 47, 158, 172, 175, 176, 179, 181, 183, 208, 212 Eckhart, 56, 84 Eliade, M. 134, 135 Evolutio ex Sunyata, 174, 181 Evolutio ex Dao, 79 Erev rav, 189, 212 Exitus-emanatio, 56 Extra Calvinisticum, 196 Extra muros ecclesiae, 38, 203 Facere quod in se est, 122, 212 Feuerbach, L. 194 Filioque, 84 Foucault, M. 138, 154 Freud, S. 1, 12, 44 Gadamer, H.-G. 8, 43, 128 Gandhi, 205 Geertz, C. 7, 8 Gnosis, 136, 137 Guanyin, 6 Halakha, 60, 73 Han, 180, 188, 190, 212 Hegel, 19–21 Heidegger, M. 43, 44, 98, 195, 205 Homoousios, 71, 97 Homo sapiens, 168 Honen, 33 Horkheimer, M. 12 Hui Neng, 31, 32 Hung-jen, 31 Imago Dei, ix, 22, 163–165, 168, 170, 208 Iustitia aliena, 19 Ji Kang, 13 Kabbalah, 50, 59, 62, 63, 65–67, 82 Kang, xi, 123 Kitamori, K. 185–188, 196 Koan, 31 Ko-i, 4

226

index

Larva Dei, 78, 168 Laozi, 50–56, 59, 65, 69, 71 Lee Jung Yung, 82, 84, 92 Lebenswelt, 43 Levinas, E. 3, 139 Logos asarkos, 151, 196, 213 Logos ensarkos, 213 Logos spermatikos, 151 Luria, Isaac, 66 Luther, M. vii, viii, 7, 19, 24, 34–36, 39, 41, 42, 44, 47, 184, 186, 187, 196–199, 205 Makom, 70, 71, 80 Marx, K. 1, 11, 43, 44, 205 Menuha, 167 Meritum de condign, 122, 213 Meritum de congruo, 213 Metanarrative, 1, 138, 139 Midrash, 60, 61, 63 Ministerium Verbi Divini, 166 Mishnah, 59, 60 Moltmann, J. 49, 83, 85, 99, 146 Mysterium fascinans, 9, 134 Mysterium tremendum, 9, 134 Nagarjuna, 172 National Socialism, 126 Nembutsu, 33, 34, 38 Nietzsche, F. 1, 44 Nirvana, 28, 176, 177 Ochlos, 19, 26, 97, 188–193, 198, 205, 209, 213 Otto, R. 9, 134, 136 Panikkar, R. 18, 83, 92–94, 143–146 Pannenberg, W. 142 Paramita, 29 Parrhēsia, 209 Perichoresis, 89, 93, 213 Pieris, A. 137 Positivism of revelation, 191, 192, 214 Prajna, 29, 194, 214 Pure Land Buddhism, ix, 32–34, 38, 173, 179, 203 Qur’an, 147 Rahner, K. 99, 140 Reality Principle, 12 Reditus-restoratio, 56

Ren, 147 Ricci, M. v, 9, 10, 101, 103–129, 207, 208 Rite Controversy, 123–126 Ruan Ji, ix, 13, 14, 207 Samadhi, 29 Schleiermacher, F. 133, 134, 194 Shang-di, 107, 108, 113, 124, 125, 127 Shang Sheng, 57, 192, 214 Shekinah, 76–79 Shinran, 33, 34, 40, 41 Shoah, 83 Sila, 29 Silk Road, 4 Sunyata, v, 23, 29, 58, 83, 93, 112, 157, 158, 172, 176, 177, 179, 181, 195, 214 Tabula rasa, 103, 124 Theologia irregularis, 75 Thelogia viatorum, 25, 80, 210 Thick Nhat Hanh, 179 Tian-ju, 108, 124 Tillich, P. 135, 136 Tsurasa, 186, 188, 196, 215 Tzimtzum, 65–70, 75 Tzu-yan, 64 Upaya, 173 Urfaktum Immanuel, 185, 195, 196, 215 Vedanta, 94 Verbum Dei, viii, 3, 26, 154, 206, 210 Via negativa, 108 Viva vox evangelii, 95 Voluntas signi, 122 Wang Yangming, 58, 106 Wirkungsgeschichte, 144 Wonhyo, 40 Wu-wei, 75 Wholly Other, 12, 134, 135 Xavier, F. 34 Zhu Xi, 9, 10, 58, 106, 109–123, 128, 129, 206, 214 Zhuangzi, 16, 50–56, 68, 72, 74, 77 Zohar, 12, 62–64, 67, 72, 86