Someone
or Nothing? Nishitani's
Religion and Nothingness as Foundation for Christian-Buddhist Dialogue,
Asian Thought and Culture, Vol. 27 (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.,
1995), by Russell H. Bowers, Jr. xi
+ 251 pp. $49.95 cloth.
Even
the irrepressible Alan Watts, who has been called the Norman Vincent Peale of
Buddhism for his ebullient introductions to Zen for Westerners, nearly despaired
of any attempt to marry Eastern thought to Christianity.
Describing Christianity as a "contentious faith" that requires
an "all-or-nothing" commitment, he observed: "My previous
discussions did not take proper account of that whole aspect of Christianity
which is uncompromising, ornery, militant, rigorous, imperious, and invincibly
self-righteous."
Bowers'
book presents Christian-Buddhist ecumenists with a blunt
antithesis--"Someone" OR "Nothing" (Christ OR Sunyata)
--reminding
us that the uncompromising, unassimilable aspect of Christianity noted by Watts
is anything but dead and should not be written off precipitously as a passing
historical or accidental deformation of a religion otherwise amenable to the
amiable goals of "mutual transformation" or "unity beyond
differences."
A
Ph.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary, Bowers writes from an evangelical
Protestant perspective whose landmarks include publishing houses like Baker Book
House, Eerdmans, Moody, InterVarsity, and Zondervan, and whose guiding lights
include authors like Norman Geisler, Carl Henry, John MacArthur, Alister
McGrath, Ronald Nash, James Packer, Charles Ryrie, Francis Schaeffer, James
Sire, John Stott, and Anthony Thiselton. This
might tempt some readers to dismiss Bowers' unbending (anti-) thesis with a
disdainful ad hominem yawn towards "American Fundamentalism";
but this would be ill advised for two reasons.
First,
the uncompromising stance towards non-Christian religions found in Bower's book
is characteristic not only of Protestant Fundamentalism but, ultimately, of the
entire tradition of the Catholic magisterium down to our own day (one only has
to recall the loudly-protested remarks by Pope John Paul II about Buddhism in
his recent book, Crossing
the Threshold of Hope). Even
where Catholicism refuses to exclude the possibility of salvation outside the
Christian faith (as in its concept of "baptism of desire"), it insists
that its only basis is Christ's atonement.
As such, the aspect of Christianity decried by Watts may well turn out to
be an ineluctable part of its essential nature, and not a quirky historical
accident which, even by much effort, can be removed.
Second,
Bower's book, even if a bit plodding and pedantic at times (one chapter has 328
notes, and fully one-third of the book is devoted to endnotes, bibliography and
index), is a carefully researched study of Keiji Nishitani's Religion
and Nothingness, the magnum opus of the late great dean of the Kyoto
School of Buddhistic phenomenology. As
such, it deserves serious consideration, particularly because of its
perspective, which represents a reality that cannot be ignored.
Bowers accurately grasps the seminal significance of Nishitani's work,
and while inter-faith ecumenists may find his conclusions disappointing, his
assessment of the implications of Nishitani's work for Christian-Buddhist
dialogue is sincere, forthright, and fair, and will provide them with an
accurate profile of the unyielding aspect of Christianity that continues to
challenge and defy their work in behalf of a higher Christian-Buddhist
synthesis.
Bowers
devotes his first two chapters to the nature of inter-religious dialogue in
general, and to understanding the history and goals of Christian-Buddhist
dialogue in particular. He notes
how the purpose of dialogue has evolved from mutual understanding (Dumoulin) to
mutual transformation (Cobb) and the quest for unity (Ingram), under the
influence of various non-traditional theologies and denaturing (kenotic)
Christologies. He addresses the
lamentable lack of conservative evangelical involvement in Christian-Buddhist
dialogue, as well as the issues of religious pluralism and charges of
exclusivism leveled against traditional Christianity.
Chapter
three offers an extensive expository summary of Nishitani's Religion and
Nothingness. The analysis is
accurate, even-handed and reasonably clear, although it naturally mirrors the
indirect circularity of Nishitani's own logic.
Sometimes it is hard to tell whether Bowers is slipping over from
exposition into commentary, especially where he is treating Nishitani's view of
Christianity. Technical terms like
"circuminsessional" and "autotelic" are not defined for the
reader.
Chapter
four ("Is Unity Possible?") is spent primarily showing why evangelical
Christianity and Buddhism are incompatible.
Admitting that Nishitani makes common cause with Christianity against
scientific materialism, nihilism, and atheistic existentialism, Bowers hastens
to show the superficiality of these common concerns.
He suggests (using Francis Schaeffer's phrase) that Nishitani's own
uncritical acquiescence in the modern ateleologic scientific worldview
compromised his ability to accurately assess the traditional Christian view of a
"personal-infinite God." Consequently,
Nishitani's treatment of such Christian concepts as God's "personal"
nature, Christ's "compassion," "selfless love," and
"kenotic" (self-emptying) self-sacrifice, denatures and transmutes
them into sublated Buddhistic concepts utterly foreign to their original
significations. Bowers notes that
Nishitani, at this point, has more in common with various
"non-evangelical" theologies--Mystical (Eckhart and Heidegger),
Radical (Altizer), Liberal (Ritschl, Bultmann, etc.), Process (Cobb), as well as
deconstructionist hermeneutics--continuing to write as though "evangelical
theology" were something self-evident and unconnected to Catholic
tradition.
Chapter
five ("Where Now?") summarizes Bower's thesis, recapitulating his
evangelical concerns. At times, he
seems to be writing here primarily for evangelicals, as when he suggests that
the chief purpose of inter-faith dialogue is to "contribute to
understanding which will enhance effective proclamation," or calls (in good
"altar call" form) for "making a choice."
Yet he suggests several profitable topics for Christian-Buddhist
discussion, such as the relation between "Sunyata" in Buddhism and
"meaninglessness" in Ecclesiastes, or the human experience of
repugnance towards evil in relation to the benign indifference of "Sunyata"
in Buddhism.
For
some readers, a significant obstacle to an appreciation of Bowers' thesis will
be the seeming harshness with which he states some of his conclusions, such as
his description of Buddhist meditation as "a self-induced
brainwashing." A more serious
difficulty, not of Bowers' general thesis but of the details of his analysis, is
the disjunctive logic that he indiscriminately forces upon a whole range of
terms and concepts. If truth can be
"propositional," does this mean it can't also be
"existential"? If
humanity's basic problem is "sin," does this mean it can't also
involve "ignorance"? If
God is "personal," does this mean his nature is no longer
"incomprehensible" (as theologians from Aquinas to Cornelius Van Til
admit)? If some
"mysticism" begins in mist and ends in schism, does this mean that the
rich traditions of mysticism from St. Anthony of the Desert to St. John of the
Cross and patristic mystagogia (for which the central acts of worship are sacred
mysteries) have no place in Christianity? In
spite of these and other shortcomings, Bowers' study presents the
Christian-Buddhist dialogue with a challenge that deserves to be carefully
considered.
Philip Blosser
Lenoir-Rhyne College
Hickory, North Carolina
Copyright © 1996 The Japanese Journal of Religious
Studies. All rights reserved.
Adapted: February, 2004