The Divine Quest, East and West , livre ebook

THE DIVINE QUEST, EAST AND WEST
THE DIVINE QUEST, EAST AND WEST
A Comparative Study of Ultimate Realities
James L. Ford
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2016 State University of New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ford, James L. (James Lowry), 1957- author.
Title: The divine quest, East and West : a comparative study of ultimate realities / James L. Ford.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015020843| ISBN 9781438460536 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438460550 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Religion. | Religions. | God.
Classification: LCC BL48 .F585 2016 | DDC 200.9—dc23
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For
Betsy and Aubrey
Contents
List of Figures and Tables
Preface
A Note on Orthography
Acknowledgments
Part One. Approaching the Ultimate
Defining “Ultimate Reality”
The Phenomenological Approach
Peter Berger, Social Construction, and the Sacred Canopy
Imagination
Snapshots in the Evolution of a Tradition
The “Axial Age” and Its Legacy
Toward What End?
Part Two. God: From Early Judaism to Postmodern Christianity
Introduction
Setting the Stage: God in Ancient Israelite Religion and Early Judaism
Act 1: The Evolution of God in Ancient Israelite and Early Jewish Traditions
The Emergence of Christianity
Act 2: God of Early Christianity
Act 3: From Augustine to Thomas Aquinas and Natural Theology
Act 4: Luther and the Reformation
Act 5: “God” and the Enlightenment Encounter
Act 6: Beyond Theism: “God” Meets Postmodernism
Summary and Conclusions
Part Three. Hindu Traditions: Brahman and the 330 Million Gods and Goddesses of India
Introduction
Act 1: Vedic Religion and the Gods of Sacrifice
Act 2: The Late Vedic Period and the Axial Age
Act 3: Devotional Hindu Traditions
Act 4: Debating the One and the Many in Classical Hindu Theology
Act 5: Hinduism’s Colonial Encounter and Its Theological Consequences
Act 6: “Hinduism” in America
Reflections on the Ultimate in Hindu Traditions
Part Four. Buddhist Traditions: From Nirvana to Emptiness
Introduction
First Things First: A Basic Introduction to Buddhism
Act 1: Searching for the Ultimate in Early Buddhism
Act 2: From Nikaya to Mahayana Buddhism
Act 3: The Chinese Transformation of Buddhism
Act 4: The Buddhist Encounter with the West
The Ultimate in Buddhist Traditions: From Early Nikaya to the West
Part Five. Reflections on the Divine Quest
Introduction
Morphology of the Ultimate
New Visions of Ultimacy: Revelation, Mystical Discovery, and Imagination
The Ethics of Ultimacy
Reconciling Ultimate Realities and Truth Claims
Evolving Toward Process?
Ultimate Contingency
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Figures and Tables
Table 2.1. Key Periods of Biblical History
Figure 2.1. Map of Ancient Near East
Figure 3.1. Map of Ancient India
Table 4.1. Social and Divine Hierarchies in China
Table 5.1. Personal and Impersonal Conceptions of the Ultimate
Preface
T here is no shortage of books on “God.” In the last few decades, several well-received studies trace the conceptual development or evolution of God within monotheistic traditions. Examples include Karen Armstrong’s A History of God (1993) and A Case for God (2009), Jack Miles’s God: A Biography (1995), and Robert Wright’s The Evolution of God (2009). These are fine studies, each with its own interpretive slant—historical, theological, literary, and philosophical—on the conceptions of God within monotheistic traditions. And each, in its own way, shows us that narrative depictions and conceptualizations of God within the great monotheistic traditions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—are far from monolithic. Within and between each tradition, the way God is understood, symbolized, and conceptualized (i.e., theologized) is multifarious; moreover, “God” clearly evolves over time in each tradition, contingent upon the religious, philosophical, social, cultural, and even political contexts. The God of Moses is quite different from the God of the Christian medieval thinker Thomas Aquinas or the Islamic mystic Rumi. Even within the three main monotheistic traditions, as both Armstrong and Wright demonstrate, “God” evolves in provocative ways. In short, “monotheism” fails miserably in capturing the multiplicity of theologies one encounters in these traditions.
As a scholar of Asian religious traditions, however, I found these studies wanting in terms of their rather narrow “monotheistic” scope. From studying Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese, and Japanese religious traditions over a few decades, I knew that these cultures and traditions too had their own conceptions about what I am going to label Ultimate Reality. While, generally speaking, we are not talking about “God” in a monotheistic sense, we are talking about sacred or divine realities that often function within these religious systems in ways very similar to God in the three great monotheistic traditions. Without assuming that the ultimate referent is actually the same, surely it would be worthwhile to examine these Asian conceptions of ultimacy, how they function and how they too might evolve over time. So I embarked on this project with this grand comparative vision in mind.
When I first approached the editor of my first book on a twelfth-century Japanese Buddhist monk about this project, her immediate reaction was, “Jay, no one person can write this book. Why don’t you recruit colleagues specializing in the various traditions you plan to cover and ask each to contribute one chapter?” I feared, however, that such an approach would lack coherence since each participant would very likely approach their sphere of expertise in decidedly disparate ways. A uniform and evenly applied methodological approach was needed, and I had a pretty clear idea about how I envisioned pursuing the project. So to my previous editor’s sage advice, I simply responded that I would rather try to do it myself, without fully understanding exactly what I was taking on. Now some five years later, I have a deep appreciation for the demands of such a broad comparative project. Although I was pretty comfortable with my knowledge of Buddhist traditions, the Jewish, Christian, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Hindu traditions were an entirely different matter. The background reading required to do this project justice was daunting.
The further challenge inherent in such a broad comparative study relates to the not inconsiderable hazards of comparative studies within the humanities and social sciences generally. This has been the topic of much discussion and scholarship since the mid-twentieth century. Without rehashing that debate, let me at least acknowledge the general points of contention. Comparativists have been criticized rightly for their evolutionary assumptions. Robert Segal lists other criticisms, which include:
1. Finding only similarities among phenomena and ignoring differences
2. Confusing similarity with identity
3. Generalizing too broadly
4. Generalizing prematurely
5. Taking phenomena out of context
6. Generalizing at all 1
Perhaps the harshest criticism, fed by postmodern insights, is number five on this list. Comparativists are accused of comparing phenomena without paying due attention to difference in the contexts out of which they emerge. I would refer anyone to Segal’s able defense of the comparativist approach in which he basically argues that none of these features is inherent to the comparative method. This is not to say that comparativists have not been guilty of these missteps or that these do not represent important hazards to avoid when employing the method. But as the reader shall soon discover, I am particularly emphatic about the importance of context in understanding any tradition’s conception of ultimacy. Indeed, contingency will be a resounding theme throughout this book. And the emphasis in this study will be more on differences, both within and between traditions, than on similarities. In this regard, I would have to say that my approach is heavily influenced by postmodern sensibilities.
One of the most alluring aspects of religious studies is its interdisciplinary nature—this despite the fact that so many of us are culturally conditioned, whether we grew up Protestant or not, to think that religion is all about “belief.” A comparative study of the Ultimate in different religions, based on this received view, might just survey what followers “believe” about God, gods, brahman , nirvana , or the Dao. But there are so many other ways to approach this topic. One could compare, for example, the historical development of certain conceptions of the Ultimate. Or one might analyze their social, political, economic, or theological effects. A feminist approach, for example, might explore the social implications of certain patriarchal models of the Ultimate. Is it the case, as many feminists have argued, that a male model of God (e.g., king, lord, and father) legitimates a patriarchal structure of society by divinizing, as it were, the male gender? While we will touch on the sociocultural implications of various conceptions of the Ultimate in this study, several other questions will also drive this analysis and thus influence our approach.
How do we make se