Robert Magliola’s review-article in the “Reflections/Réflexions” section of Dilatato Corde, Vol. VI, No. 2 (July-December, 2016) at the international multi-language website of the Dialogue Interreligieux Monastique/Monastic Interreligous Dialogue, the global dialogue organization comprised of hundreds of Catholic, Buddhist, and other monastics and contemplatives around the world. [In this version, textual Notes immediately follow the body of the review] WHAT DO JESUS AND BUDDHA MEAN? Questioning Jesus & Buddha: Friends in Conversation by Paul Knitter and Roger Haight ORBIS BOOKS (2015) Paul Knitter, the well-known theologian whose works in theology of religions and interreligious dialogue have influenced these fields for decades, joins with Roger Haight, the equally wellknown Jesuit theologian who writes in Christology and—more recently--“spirituality,” to co-author this book from Orbis press.[1] Entitled Jesus and Buddha: Friends in Conversation (henceforth, J&B), it seeks to dialogue on a level “beyond mutual cognitive understanding and disagreement” (ix). Of course, both of these authors—because they are widely read by the general population—or at least those segments of it interested in religious belief and practice—have an effect far beyond those whose lives are professionally associated with the fields in question. My most recent book (Angelico Press, 2014), Facing Up to Real Doctrinal Difference: How Some Thought-Motifs from Derrida Can Fertilize the Catholic-Buddhist Encounter (henceforth FRDD), is designed to counter Knitter’s approach while nourishing authentic dialogue and other forms of encounter with Buddhists—especially through joint-meditation and the sharing of religious experience.[2] Though Paul/Roger address their text to all Christians, my review analyzes their Christian interpretations in terms of Catholic Christianity simply because Catholic Christianity constitutes their own past personal history, and because “Christianity-in-general” is too heterogeneous for me to represent with any coherence. Given that in this book Roger Haight, as a follower of the more extreme versions of what goes by the name of the “HistoricoCritical method,” denies the physical Resurrection of Jesus (57, 58, et passim),[3] and Paul Knitter rejects the ideas of a primal creation and a climactic eschaton (103-105 et passim), the gap yawning between the more “liberal” theologians of the Catholic Theological Society of America’s type and the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) lies open for all to see. Our two interlocutors—hereinafter called “Paul” and “Roger” respectively, their preference in the text itself—produce a very carefully designed construct treating the subject of “spirituality,” all the more carefully worded, perhaps, because the CDF in a “Notification”[4] and more recently, a more severe measure still,[5] has limited Roger’s theological subject-matter to “spirituality” as such. Topics range, for example, from “What Is Spirituality?” (ch. 1) and “What Did Buddha and Jesus Teach?” (ch. 3) through to “The Problem in Human Nature” (ch. 7) and “Is Religious Double Belonging Possible?” (ch. 12).[6] Because the entire book is “dense-with-meaning” (I intend the phrase as a compliment), this review singles out those of its arguments (and they are arguments) that I consider most problematic. Because Paul/Roger declare that their book “is intended for Christians rather than Buddhists,” measuring “the influence that Buddhism might have on Christian spirituality” (xii), my review analyzes their presentations of both Christianity and Buddhism in considerable detail. To supply readers with a more thorough account of the book, I have prepared a detailed “objective” résumé or “précis, chapter by chapter (3790+ words!) that readers can find in the appendix entitled “Résumé” immediately below the “Notes” section following the body of this review. What I have to say further on in this review assumes that readers have already read this chapter by chapter summary. It will become obvious to anyone reading it, or better yet, reading J&B itself—which I urge the members of DIMMID to do—that Paul/Roger’s denial that they are dealing in doctrinal matters but rather in “spirituality” is a mere pretense, masquerading compliance with the CDF’s stipulation. The Historico-Critical method addresses the Bible insofar as it is a natural and not “inspired” text (there is nothing wrong as such with so doing, since science belongs to the human project and thus can be serviceable to religion too). As is well known, the quest for the “Historical Jesus” enters the modern era with David Strauss (1808-1874), Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860), Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1874), and Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), among others, then passes through and around the “demythologizing” phase associated with Rudolf Bultmann (18841976) and his disciples, and peaks in the 1980s and 1990s with the work of the highly publicized “Jesus Seminar” (John Dominic Crossan, Robert Funk, Marcus Borg, et al.). From its beginnings in Strauss and Baur, who argued, respectively, that the Gospels’ miracles were mythological and that the earliest Church judged St. Paul an apostate, through Schweitzer, identifying Jesus as an End-times fanatic, and Bultmann, labeling the post-Resurrection episodes “mythic retrojections,” to the later 20th century Biblical theorists naming Jesus variously as “a Galilean holy man, eschatological prophet, innovative rabbi, trance-inducing psychotherapist, political revolutionary, Essene teacher, proto-liberation theologian, and Hellenized Cynic sage,”[7] Biblical “progressivism” (it’s a code word) gained extravagant academic (and much popular) public attention. The controversial methods and conclusions--very disparate indeed--of the Jesus Seminar are surely familiar to the readership of Dilatato Corde, and for those who want to research the pertaining material more closely, bibliographies and electronic resources abound.[8] In my Résumé, I have cited pages and quoted verbatim several passages which clearly demonstrate Paul/Roger’s dependence on the most revisionist of the HistoricoCritical thinkers, and especially on the Seminar’s Crossan and Borg. John Dominic Crossan (b. 1934)—and I single him out as paradigmatic for so-called “progressive” Biblical scholars exerting influence on Catholics—left the Catholic priesthood when he was in his mid-thirties, accepted a teaching appointment at DePaul University (a Catholic university in Chicago, Illinois), and taught undergraduates Comparative Religion there until his retirement in 1995. His impact on biblical scholarship, including Catholic biblical scholarship, was extensive throughout this period because of his many publications and his prominent lecturing and conferencing. Meanwhile, the earlier influence of the Dominican, Edward Schillebeeckx (1914-2009) at the Catholic University in Nijmingen, coupled with that of several European and American Jesuits (such as the Spanish-born Jon Sobrino [1938], associated with the admirable social struggle of the Jesuits in El Salvador, but also with a very “progressivist” Christology), began to make great inroads into Catholic faculties in the United States and northern Europe. This has been especially the case in Jesuit institutions in the United States, where the Society of Jesus operates 28 universities and colleges and two prestigious Theology Schools. While what can be called this latter-day wave of revisionist Historico-Critical exegesis is now quite definitely on the wane (note the birth dates of its leading figures), its influence is now trickling down into Catholic parish life itself. At the Capuchin church (not my parish church) where I had occasion to attend Mass in New York City several weeks ago (12th Sunday in Ordinary Time), the Parish Bulletin distributed to all attendees comments on the question Jesus put to His disciples, “But who do you say I am?” (Lk. 9:20), by saying: “Is the human nature of Jesus seeking an understanding of who he is, uncovering the mystery of his divine nature during his time of prayer? [Implication: Jesus means the question for himself] Or is the story written by the disciples many years later in their own quest to understand who Jesus was even as he walked among them?” [Implication: Jesus never even asked the question; the question is retrojected into the Gospel narrative via a fabricated story]. Another example of this infiltration occurred some time ago at my own parish church, a Franciscan (O.F.M.) parish. After the Gospel reading wherein Jesus rhetorically asks, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?.... and then, answering the question by pointing to the disciples, says “For whosever does the will of the Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Mt. 12:48-50), the priest in his sermon balked and uttered, “We find lines like this in the Gospels sometimes, in regard to Mary. It is hard to know what to do with them.” In fact, Church exegetes for centuries have seized on this passage to make the point that Mary’s preeminent doing of God’s will is the most important lesson she can teach us. The priest seemed to be unaware (or to privately reject?) this straightforward interpretation. As a Carmelite Tertiary, I find this failure particularly sad, and indeed, heartbreaking. But lo and behold, there is now a new wave in Biblical exegesis, seismic in proportion because it is founded on recently discovered Biblical papyri and brand new archeological finds, and shrewder textual-analysis exploiting to the full the latest computertechnology. Largely driven by younger scholars, the wave is turning the tide against the old-school versions of the HistoricoCritical, yet Paul and Roger make no reference to it whatsoever. (How strange! Or maybe not.) In the English-speaking world, this new wave has gained impetus from the work of Luke Timothy Johnson (Emory University), the distinguished Catholic HistoricoCritical scholar (and former Benedictine monk) whose book The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (1996), deconstructed what James D. G. Dunn, in his commendation of the book, calls the “cheap scholarship, the Jesus-as-I-personally-like-to-imaginehim”[9] of the Jesus Seminar. Johnson continues, of course, his remarkable productivity: see for example, The Writings of the New Testament, updated [3rd] edition (2010), and Prophetic Jesus, Prophetic Church: The Challenge of Luke-Acts to Contemporary Christians (2011). To him can be joined the distinguished Jerome Murphy O’Connor, O.P. (École biblique, Jerusalem), eight years his senior, author of St. Paul’s Ephesus: Texts and Archeology (2008), and so on (a long list). In the last two decades, a large formation of younger Biblical scholars, either in parallel or jointly, are building what can be called the new Historico-Critical movement (though some of them disown the term “Historico-Critical” completely because of its associations, among other reasons). Quite a few of these are Catholic[10] and loyal to the Catholic tradition and the Church authority that represents that tradition. To name a few: the wellknown Scott Hahn (Distinguished Visiting Prof. in Biblical Theology, Mundelein Seminary, Chicago; founder of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, Steubenville, Ohio), prolific author, and inspiration for what is becoming a new, younger generation of Catholic scholars; Brant Pitre (Ph.D., Notre Dame; Prof. of Sacred Scripture, Notre Dame Seminary, New Orleans), whose The Case for Jesus—Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ (2016) is becoming an academic best-seller, and who with his colleagues is working much in New Testament studies and first-century Judaism; Leroy Huizenga (Ph.D., Duke U.), author of The New Isaac: Tradition and Intertextuality in the Gospel of Matthew (2012) and co-editor, with R. Hays and S. Alkier, of Reading the Bible Intertextually (2009); Michael Licona, who with the older Biblical specialist, Gary B. Habermas, has written the acclaimed The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (2004); and a host of others. Examples of the recent discovery of ancient New Testament manuscripts are those reported by Daniel B. Wallace, executive director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, who reports the number of New Testament papyri fragments from the first and second century is now up to eighteen, and that 43 percent of all New Testament verses are present in them. Comparison of their content with the content in the currently accepted Greek New Testament reveals that the latter is surprisingly close to their original Greek. Such a finding debunks the old Historico-Critical claim that the Greek in the manuscripts we have is massively corrupt, an invention of imaginative later writers.[11] There are many recent discoveries along similar lines, involving the non-Greek texts too. Conversely, several of the Gnostic texts that have been so sensationalized (Elaine Pagels, et al.) have either been pushed forward, now, to later chronological dates, or shown to be so outré (anti-feminine rather than “feminist,” etc.) that their roles in understanding Jesus are diminished rather than vindicated. Most of what are called the “apocryphal Gospels” were not in fact suppressed by the Church, but “simply relegated” to the “secondary position of private reading rather than public proclamation.”[12] They played a vital role in medieval Catholic piety. Only after the Reformation and because of it, were the apocryphal gospels suppressed, first by Protestants and then by Catholics.[13] Specialists in textual criticism like Dr. Georg Gäbel at the Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung (Münster), use the elaborate computer system, the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM), that compares every word and line in the New Testament against 5800 separate Biblical manuscripts spanning a thousand-year period, and tracks all changes and differences. His Institüt is able to print up a version of the Greek New Testament, accompanied by detailed notation of variants, etc., that approximates that of the original texts. The conclusion so far is that the present-day New Testament version is remarkably close to the earliest. The New Testament we have is not a later concoction.[14] Regarding recent archeological finds, often made by Israelis— either at archeological digs or by chance (driving piles for the construction of a new high rise building, for example)—many accounts of the New Testament are being confirmed. For decades the old Historico-Critical theorists claimed there was no place called Nazareth in Jesus’s time: now the remains of the village of Nazareth have been found, dating from well before Jesus’s day and continuing for centuries.[15] Old-wave HistoricalCritical theorists claimed that the Romans tied their victims to poles with ropes, that using nails could not support body weight, but the discovery of the skeleton of a crucified Roman prisoner proves otherwise.[16] And so on. There are many many examples. What can be called literary/stylistic criticism and other forms of semiotic criticism, often joined with a comprehensive (and not “selective”) comparison of chronologically-proximate sources, are being used by the new scholars to demonstrate the implausibility and often the downright logical absurdity of their older school predecessors. Brant Pitre has been particularly convincing in this, pointing out, for example, in the face of the “autonomous authors” thesis of the older Biblical analysts, that among all the ancient sources referencing the Gospel of St. Matthew—though they dispute who wrote the Greek translation (from the Aramaic)—not one attributes it to other than the Apostle Matthew.[17] Brant Pitre, in his deconstruction of Bart Ehrman--perhaps the best-known of the contemporary “hold-outs” for the older Historico-Criticism)—focuses at one point on the fallacy of petitio principi (“begging the question” or showing a “vicious circle” between premise to be proven and conclusion) that he finds in Ehrman’s rejection of Jesus’ Divinity.[18] This observation on Pitre’s part reminds me of the repeated times in J&B that I find Roger Haight guilty of the same fallacy. Here there is space for only one glaring example, to be found on p. 58, where Roger denies there was a Resurrection involving Jesus’s physical body, saying that “There were no recorded witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus.” He then continues, “Rather, the New Testament explains the conviction that God raised Jesus by encounters with Jesus’s being alive and interacting with his disciples in vivid visitations that emphasize the realism of Jesus’s victory over death.” The vicious circle: There was no physical Resurrection. And how do we know that? Because there were no witnesses to His physical Resurrection; there were only witnesses to His physically resurrected body after His Resurrection, and these were fabricated long afterwards. And how do we know that they were fabricated? Because we know that there was no physical Resurrection (Haight’s initial premise—that which was to be proved). Also, let me add an additional observation. Does it not occur to Roger that if the Gospel writers were fabricating the postResurrection literal or real “visitations,” they could just as well have lied about the “moment” of Resurrection as such (instead of providing no witnesses to the actual “moment” of Resurrection) but did not? Why so? Thus far I have addressed Historico-Critical thought, old and new, but as one who has had as one of his key specialties the French movement that can be called “Derridean deconstruction,” having published so much in it since the early 1980s, I recognize that even the new wave in Biblical Studies remains modernist in the Derridean sense (which both overlaps and diverges from what the Church called “modernism” in the late 19 th and early 20th centuries[19]). Derrida understands “modernism” to be an affirmation—either purposeful or “subtextual” (= operative at levels below consciousness) or both—that holistic formations (= “holism” in the broadest sense,--“that which is whole”) constitutes an accurate model on which thought pure-and-simple can be founded.[20] J&B’s model of “pluralism” is that of a whole with many parts (a modernist formulation) and some of its conclusions are based on either “common ground” (a modernist formulation) or the parity of religions (a modernist formulation). Derrida deconstructs “wholes,” that is, he finds the camouflaged flaws in an apparently holistic surface, and pursues the trail that leads from the flaw to the real cause of the structure in question. This process reveals that the apparently “whole” structure is really broken, off/center, “nonperfect” according to the norms of holism, so that the off/center is what really makes it function. This is how I even interpret how the Church functions: its own “foundation” (“ground” belongs to the modernist code) has cracks in its foundation (Petrine authority as the “rock”), just as Jesus (the Church’s ultimate foundation) has gashes in His own Glorified Body. When one understands the Derridean thought-modality I am invoking, it should be clear that these are not unorthodox assertions for a Catholic. The true in deconstructive thought is the holism-as-deconstructed. In a talk I gave at Vangelo & Zen in February, 2013,[21] I explained how, according to this Derridean mode, it can be said that the Church functions by way of a sacred but off/center charism deep below its surface. The truths the magisterium expresses sometimes manifest themselves longterm via a circuitous route, just as Jesus, the ultimate charism, uttered scriptural words whose fuller meanings burst up to the surface only later in history, and in unexpected ways. Such a “deconstructive” but orthodox interpretation of Church authority helped me keep the Catholic faith in a time, around three decades ago, when disruptions were simultaneously threatening my personal life and also shaking the Western Church “to its core.” What is required is “holy perseverance.” In the CDF’s Notification pertaining to Roger Haight, the results of Roger’s dialogue with “postmodernity” are declared to be contrary to the Faith; and elsewhere the CDF negatively criticizes “postmodern culture” itself. Derrida is often described as a “postmodernist,” so some distinctions become necessary for us here. Jacques Derrida routinely denied he was a postmodernist—he sought to distance himself from the right-wing politics of many post-modern philosophers and sociologists. Also, he disagreed with the “hodgepodge” methodology and results of much postmodernism. Derridean deconstruction can only be classified as postmodern in the widest sense: that is, as a mode of thought which arrives historically after modernism, and as an act that in one way or another disassembles modern “wholes,” that is, latently centered-and-framed structures. Derrida also deconstructs the much older and more encompassing “holisms” identified with outright entitative thinking, i.e., thinking based on being. This dominant Western thoughtcurrent starts with the Greeks, and transforms into Greco-Latin, Medieval, Renaissance, and 18th-century Enlightenment phases. Historically, the Catholic Church’s theology is of course expressed in adapted Greek form (a topic addressed near the end of this review). Paul/Roger label such expression outdated and “dogmatic.” (Modernism, for its part, is a displaced, extremist, but well-camouflaged version of entitative thought.) Derrida’s thought-motifs relate in fascinating ways to the postEinsteinian age that scientists tell us is dawning. The application I make here in this review is twofold. The sterile “18 th century Enlightenment” rationalism combined with proto-materialist 19th and 20th century positivism characterizing the old Historico-Critical scholars (with which Paul and Roger identify)—movements so modernist in their latent holistic assumptions—have come to a close. Even the “new” wave of Biblical study, Johnson and Pitre and the others—though very helpful and indeed, necessary in terms of historical (and scriptural) truth—is soon to be overshadowed by a sudden advance, a “breakthrough” at present literally inconceivable (“unthinkable,” i.e., un-thinkable”). How ironical that Paul and Roger would consider my belief in traditional Church teaching “old fashioned” while I regard their naïve modernism (almost the “contextual equivalent” to the old Newtonian physics in science!) very old-fashioned indeed. My preceding discussion of the old school Historico-Critical movement applies in analogous ways to the Historico-Critical revisionism now impacting Buddhist Studies in the West. That this is the case pertains here, because Paul’s cafeteria-style assimilation of Buddhism draws in part from the (heterogeneous) conclusions of Buddhist revisionism, and at several points he alludes approvingly to such “demythologizing.” As I shall lay-out in more detail momentarily, Buddhist demythologization was begun by Western scholars, and remains largely in Occidental hands. A telling example, in my opinion, of the latent Western hauteur and ethnocentrism showing its true colors is John D’Arcy May’s recent review, in Buddhist-Christian Studies, of my book FRDD, where he says “Western contexts” are “more at home with historical awareness and democratic institutions . . . ,”[22] so the role of authority in Buddhism is changing. Of course he means by “historical awareness” the arid secularism of “old school” Historico-Critical research, and by “democratic institutions” he means the secular democratization of the Buddhist Vinaya (regulations of the Sangha) and the Śīla (the moral precepts). The Historical-Critical scholars researching the “earliest Buddhist teachings” seem to be falling into the same trap as their counterparts did while looking for the “historical Jesus’—the projection of contemporary Western values and individual interests. In my own work, I have instead made the Derridean “move” called reversal, which enhances the “other” instead of denigrating it, showing as I do that what is called “French” deconstruction long ago already was functioning in Buddhist thought (and practice). When Pope Francis urges the Church “to go to the peripheries,” he is urging a “reversal” so the Church’s center serve the peripheries rather than vice-versa. His favorite contemporary philosopher and cultural historian is the Uruguayan Methol Ferré, who maintains that “only the Church is truly postmodern” because only it can break “hedonistic atheism,” a “modernism” of so-called First World culture.[23] Pope Francis, like several Popes before him and Vatican Council II itself, insists that the Christian mission to non-Christian “peripheries” be one of witness to the Faith and “learning from others,” not “proselytization” (subtle or not-too-subtle “inducing” of the “other” to convert[24]). The “quest for the historical Gautama” and “for pre-canonical Buddhism” via scientific research into written materials, archeological finds, textual comparison, etc., can be traced back to a cluster of Occidental Buddhologists beginning in the 19 th century, but the quest(s) take on full stature much later, becoming a “cottage industry” among academics in the 1990s and thereafter. The overwhelming majority are Westerners (though there are some contemporary Indians, Japanese, Singhalese, among them, most of them academics). Thus, for example, Johannes Bronkhurst tries to show that the classical methodology of “the four Buddhist jñāna-s” (jñāna = “deep meditation”) has its beginnings in the teachings of Gautama Buddha himself,[25] whereas Alexander Wynne aims to show that the four jñāna-s and their variants are assembled over a long period of time and from many non-Buddhist sources, including Brahmanical ones.[26] Richard Gombrich argues that the main structure of basic Buddhism is the work of the historical Gautama Buddha[27] and Ronald Davidson argues in contradistinction that very little of its early basic structure is traceable to him.[28] And so on and on. As I stipulated already in my references to Christianity above, the Historico-Critical mode as such can be useful, and surely this is the case in reference to Buddhism too. However, many Buddhologists and other “scientific” scholars in Buddhist Studies, especially the Western ones, are bent upon disproving longestablished teachings involving karma, rebirth, and the roles of “authority” in Buddhism. A large part of their agenda is to “find” a Buddhism more hospitable to “modern” secularism, though much of their impetus, it seems to me, derives from a more egotistical motivation: much as their Christian counterparts,[29] they are expert at the “game” of winning professional, and oft times even “popular” status. Historico-Critical “reduction” to isolated (potential) components (ancient inscribed tablets, archeological fragments, etc.) provides an ideal tool for this “game,” namely, it allows a skillful game-player to assemble them into a new configuration that is acceptable among peers but attracts attention. Such a shrewd gamester has a keen eye for the linear horizon (of theories): s/he knows how to spot a gap and how to contrive a new theory, filling the gap with “the next thing that has to be said,” a formulation that is acceptable (or no prestige is gained) but innovative (there’s a kind of mechanistic momentum to this game; whether a theory is true or not does not seem to figure in). In contradistinction, rather than “gaming the system,” my adaptation of French deconstruction to Catholic theology and interreligious dialogue has rendered my work “unacceptable”­—to Derrideans because of their secularism, and to religionists, because of their prejudice against deconstruction. Paul Knitter’s version of Buddhism is at such a variance from what I know and have experienced to be Buddhism, that I am— how to put it?—quite astounded. I do not at all mean this in a patronizing or ill-spirited or sanctimonious way. It is just that my experience with Asian Buddhism since at least 1983, when I first went to Taiwan, and then through my years in Thailand, and my fourteen years of affiliation with the Lin Jiu Shan (Taiwanese) Buddhist Center in New York, in short, my experience of Buddhism as a “lived religion” in countries and cultures where it constitutes the majority, strikes such a contrast with what Paul describes (invents?). In the Far East, I think of the circa 10,000+ Buddhist monastics in Taiwan alone—the Pure Land chant, the strict Chan monasteries, the esoteric practices of Mìzōng (Chinese Vajrayana), the elaborate rituals for the dead lasting for all of Ghost Month and participated in by millions. In Thailand I think of the hundreds of thousands of monastics (life-long and shorter term), and the intense devotion of the Thai people, and how a very non-secular and “super-natural” Buddhism saturates their everyday life. Even in the U.S.A. at the Lower Manhattan Meditation center (Theravada), where the Sangha (saṃgha, Skt.) is “Western” and largely Caucasian—in the year and a half I meditated there I found only strict adherence to “canonical” Theravada, and that strict loyalty to the “Tradition” that characterizes converts (and most were converts). The same can be true of what I found among the Westerners at the Lam Rim Buddhist Centre (Wales, U.K.), supervised by Ven. Geshe Damcho Yonten (Tibetan, Gelukpa), though one or two more “secular” Buddhists, Westerners, visited when I made a short retreat there (in 1994). The visitors spoke of Stephen Batchelor, who since that time has produced a whole stream of books advocating a “modern” Buddhism much like Paul Knitter’s. In Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening (1998), and in a cascade of books up to the present, he rejects traditional Buddhist teachings such as karma and rebirth, and—in his most recent—he extends his interpretation of Gautama Buddha as a “pragmatic ethicist.” (Please see the highly respected Bhikkhu Punnadhammo’s critique of Buddhism Without Beliefs at www.arrowriver.ca/dhamma/woBeliefs.html). The Sangharaja (Supreme Patriarch of the Sangha) in Thailand, when interviewed by my colleague Dr. Kirti Bunchua,[30] emphasized his conviction that the doctrine of kamma (karma), more than anything else, renders the social behavior of a Buddhist different from that of a Christian. I have personally found the same is the case with Chinese Buddhists, laity as well as monastics—that their interpretation of past karma heavily influences their behavior and judgments. Buddhism denies, of course, the existence of an intact “soul” that passes over and is reborn; rather, when one dies, that which is re-born is “neither the same nor another.”[31] Enough of the “same” is understood to reconstitute itself so that many Thai males, when they are in their short-term monkhood, offer their merit in part for their deceased relatives. I was told by several young Thai monks in my classes in Thailand, “I am offering my merit for my deceased mother.” In Mahayana Buddhism, which in general emphasizes the rebirth of the “same” much more than in Theravada, I find among Chinese that they attribute their circumstances—even why they are poor or suffer from an ill-tempered spouse—to their previous lives. The Majjhima Nikaya (M. 1350), a very early sutta (written down between 3rd cent. BCE and 1st cent. C.E.) appearing in both the Theravada and Mahayana canon, and attributed to Gautama Buddha, specifically says: “…. a certain woman or man is one who takes life— . . . merciless to living beings [sentient beings, not just humans] . . . . This is the way leading to a short life, . . . “; and “a certain woman or man has an angry and irritable nature . . . This is the way leading to being ugly . . . ”; and “a certain woman or man does not give food, drink, clothing [etc.] . . . to priests or contemplatives. . . . This is the way leading to being poor”[32]; and so on. These discourses attributed to the Buddha also very precisely correlate good deeds with future good rebirths, and are used by Buddhists to guide their present actions. Such “karmaic” thinking can be misused, of course, as an excuse for social nonintervention, but likewise, Christian doctrine has been misused to justify slavery, and so on. Actually the Buddhist scriptures uniformly recommend kindness and compassion, and good Buddhist authority-figures (respected monastics, revered teachers) preach precisely that. In his earlier book Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, Paul writes: “The focus of Buddhist energies and concerns is not on what comes after death. . . . Rather, it’s on this moment, now, right here”; and six lines later “Buddhists are fully convinced that if they can be fully present and responsive to what is going on now, then what will happen next will take care of itself.”[33] In his current book under review, he says: “I will live on as that which Buddha taught was my real nature . . . I will live on as an anatta, a not-self. After death there will be consciousness. But it won’t be individuated consciousness.. . . . Perhaps we can say that it will be ‘we-consciousness’ . . . .” (J&B, 140). Paul borrows his term “Interbeing,” the “interconnecting mystery,” from Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh.[34] “Interbeing” is a neologism that the influential Vietnamese monk, the founder of Plum Village in France, invented to represent his version of pratītyasamutpāda (“dependent rising” or “dependent arising”[35]). Paul borrows from Thich Nhat Hanh’s “engaged Buddhism” too, of course, relative to social justice/peace; and from Mahayana in general the notion of the co-inherence of Form and Emptiness (Emptiness is called “Great Space” in some Tibetan traditions). The Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh has brought Buddhism to many many Westerners, and his version of smṛti (“mindfulness”) is well-known and conducive to good practice. There is no doubt, however, that his is a “new age” style, and that he invents new rituals and possibly obfuscates his supposed lineage, making him suspect in the eyes of some respected Buddhist scholars.[36] Thus, though Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh intends to deconstruct individualism, he—much like Paul Knitter himself—actually very much goes his own way and thus abets individualism. Paul goes on to transform Interbeing into a formulation very congenial to the world that popular science continually preaches. Actually, he is ignoring much more fast-breaking news that is storming down upon us from post-Einsteinian physics/astrophysics, but more of this later. What I think I can say here with a good degree of confidence is that the Buddhism Paul describes is not the living religion of Buddhism that is practiced around the world, by 99.999+ percent of Buddhists, be they rankand-file laity or trained intellectuals. The question of “How religion works” (or how—to use words Paul would prefer—Mystery which is Love and Truth works) necessarily interjects itself at this point. I will address it too, ahead. Having said the above, let me make clear that I recognize that Paul’s Buddhism is very meaningful for him, and that it reflects his spiritual experience. I am not saying that his motivations are selfserving: he is not casually chasing after relevancy. He sees that Catholics, and especially “professionals” and university students in what Italians call “the tier of northern Atlantic countries” feel spiritually “starved,” and he wants to offer them a path, a “solution.” Nonetheless, I think he, and Roger too, are unintentional Pied Pipers. I think that they are right in saying that the solution involves a re-discovery of “mysticism” and “mystery,” but wrong in that they close off the deep presence of these in the Mystery of the Church and its Mystical Life. They do not meet Christ in the womb of His Spouse, the Church. In the aftermath of Vatican Council II, too many misguided clergy and Religious, especially in the “northern tier,” made decisions that starved the Catholic laity. Only now are there some signs that this Catholic community is returning to what Pope Francis calls “a mystical adherence to the Faith.”[37] For Catholics, the “real Jesus Christ,” the Living Jesus, lives in the Church His Spouse, and in our individual hearts in the Heart of the Church (these all “co-inhere”). The older Historico-Critical school, extrapolating from “fragmentary bits of what was observed, recorded, saved, and transmitted from the past,”[38] constructs variable and sundry images of Jesus Christ. Paul and Roger both seem to settle on “Jesus the prophetic teacher.” Then, by loosening the bonds between religious community and individual “spirituality,” Paul (insofar as he is a Christian) and Roger, each in his own way, enable an interaction between the individual subject and the ultimate Reality/Mystery, while retaining Jesus as the ideal Jewish teacher whose example (of this interaction) lives in the subject’s heart and inspires her/him (215220, 228-233, et passim). Paul, as a double-belonger— represents a more finessed position: the individual subject is discovering the ultimate Mystery, which is the co-inherence characterizing Interbeing, and this ongoing discovery is exemplified by the ideal images of Jesus and Buddha that live in the subject’s heart (221-227, 229-233, et passim). From my point of view, Paul and Roger are obliged to reduce Jesus to an inspiring example because their modernist scientism/rationalism permits the “historical Jesus” only to be long dead. The only presence their scientism/rationalism permits them is an imagined Jesus, or—as in Roger’s case—a Jesus whose memory is kept alive through “faith.” Thus, Jeremy Kirk, Haight’s student at Union Theological Seminary, completed “under his direction” an “in-depth analysis of Haight’s two Christological works . . . .” Interviewed by Jason Vonwachenfeldt for Religion Dispatches, Kirk explains: Following from this [understanding Jesus’s resurrection “on the basis of hope”], Haight would affirm that the resurrection was not an historical event that happened physically and empirically in the space-time continuum. When Christians bury a loved one, they put the body in the ground with the faith/hope that the person is resurrected in a way that does not deny the historicity of the physical burial. Haight would state that Jesus’ body did not go anywhere; it is not the resuscitation of a corpse. There was no zombie Jesus.[39] For Paul and Roger, there are only two options: either the body of Jesus was resuscitated as a living corpse, which is absurd, so they reject this option; or Jesus "lives" in the memory and image cultivated in the imaginations of people of "faith." Paul and Roger do not allow for a third status of presence, namely, that which was manifested at the Resurrection of Jesus—a super-natural presence that is preeminently real and can be in space-time and transcend space-time. The Resurrected Jesus is present to us—and Christians should not shrink from the word—as super-natural. Scripture makes clear that the Resurrected Jesus had a real physical body (“reach your hand here, and put it into my side”; and “Have you any food here? And he ate it,” etc.) but this one-and-the-same body has supernal qualities: the Resurrected Jesus passed through solid walls (John 20:19), and could trans-form (Mary Magdalene seeing a gardener, then suddenly recognizing it is the risen Lord; the disciples at Emmaus knowing Him in the breaking of the bread). Well more than a billion Catholics and many hundreds of millions of other Christians in the world continue to affirm the truth of this Resurrected Jesus, and hundreds upon hundreds of millions of them, I am sure, experience this Resurrected Jesus as true—we sense His real presence, and for us, this presence need not be an object of “blind faith” (not that “blind faith” isn’t meritorious, of course . . . more of this issue later). Paul and Roger think that humanity has outgrown the above theology, and they consider its literal account fictional (or rather, “symbolic” rather than literal). Regarding this problematic, I have a question for them. Both of them continue to accept the validity of “faith” and attempt to describe the “person of faith” (111), numbering themselves among persons “of faith.” When Paul Knitter affirms the “Spirit” (158) which courses through “interconnectivity,” or, as he otherwise puts it, is the “interconnectivity,” doesn’t such affirmation of Spirit (rather than just empirically accessible interconnectivity, say) require as much faith as belief in the literal truth of Jesus’s Glorified Body? When Roger affirms the immanence and transcendence of God (165) (rather than just scientifically accessible psychology, say), doesn’t this require as much faith as belief in Jesus’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, say? Aren’t Paul and Roger “just kicking the can down the road,” that is, deferring the same issue by tricking it out in more fashionable attire? The epistle to the Ephesians speaks of “having the eyes of the heart (ophthalmous tēs kardias)”[40] enlightened, and the consistent tradition of the Church has been to understand the “heart” here not as a metaphor for the emotional life, but as the seat of the soul. While guarding against an equation of such faith with “speaking in tongues” and personal ecstasy (as in Pentecostalism), the Church understands “faith” as enabled by the “interior succour of the Holy Spirit who moves the heart and turns it to God,”[41] and I have never met a Catholic who has lost his Catholic faith yet retained this heartful experience. The Greek scriptural word pistis, usually translated as “faith” in English, also means “trust,” “assurance”[42] and like words that imply the experience of a presence. The Catholic mystical traditions (Eastern and Western Church both) have frequently understood that there is even a special human faculty that can experience the supernatural, and sometimes the faculty itself is understood to transform into the supernatural presence of God or be the supernatural presence of God. More broadly speaking, the Western Church regards the theological virtue of faith to be an infused [43] power enabling belief: “faith” can be put to the test, of course, when such “assurance” seems missing in relation to some particular or in general, and thus especially meritorious. Roger and Paul punctuate their book with remarks referring to spiritual “starvation” among Christians, Catholics very much included, and with explanations exemplified by Paul’s statement that the “standard diet of doctrinal instruction and spiritualsacramental practice is not meeting the nutritional needs of many American and European Christians” (222). To this point, my responses insofar as Catholicism is concerned are several. First, as I have discussed already, a combination of post-Vatican Council II reckless liberalism among the clerical elites of the socalled First World (especially those that are English-speaking) plus the rampant materialism/secularism in such societies has impeded the access of the Holy Spirit to many hearts. Second, those factions that have lost their “hearts” should be humble enough to learn from the vast majority of the global Catholic population, the 68 percent[44] who live in Central and South America, Africa, and Asia, where Catholicism as a Living Religion is thriving. Indeed, this is a point that Pope Francis drives home again and again: “Go out to peripheries”[45] where the Real Jesus is best known. The “many American and European Christians” who Paul says are “starved,” rather than going off on their own way(s), should be humble enough to learn from the Universal Church. As an aside, but very pertinent one, let me add that the patronizing references of Paul/Roger towards the religious thought and practice of the Middle Ages and of all the historical periods preceding the 18th century’s “Age of Reason,” and their disdainful remarks directed against the “Church language of dogma and doctrine,”[46] show a like isolation from the “other,” and this—ironically—from those who claim to be most “open” to the “other.” Those who fancy themselves the most intellectual and professional must face the homely fact that—in the U.S.A., for example—the so-called ethnics who have not gone to college, and the so-called minorities new and old, have the true wisdom that enlightens “the eyes of the heart.” Catholic intellectuals and professionals can teach these “others” much, no doubt, but these “others” through their witness and practice have much to teach too. Sometimes the Church in the U.S.A. proceeds in a way so isolated from the rest of the world, even the rest of the Catholic world, that I am truly baffled.[47] Two Asian Jesuits, Fr. Petrus Puspobinatmo, S.J. (who is training seminary students in Myanmar) and Fr. Kang In-gun, S.J. (a missionary in Cambodia), sent me emails last year, telling me they will find my recent book very helpful in the Buddhist cultures where they are located. A Jesuit seminarian, Jaime M. Rivera, S.J., a Filipino but belonging to the Thai Jesuit jurisdiction, finished in spring 2016 a thesis in theology devoted to my work in dialogue, and its relevance to the Buddhist-Christian encounter in Thailand.[48] He makes, throughout, the point that any theory of “common ground” would be rejected apriori by Thai Buddhists, and that, contrariwise, my model of samenesses erected by pure difference, is very workable in dialogue with them. My question is this: how can J&B’s version of interreligious dialogue serve Roger Haight’s Jesuit confreres who are witnessing for Catholicism in Buddhist countries? The premises and proposals in the “It Seems To Us” closings at the end of each chapter of J&B would in effect dismantle the whole Sacramental System; the liturgical significance of the Mass; devotion to Jesus’s mother, Mary (whom Paul/Roger exclude from any mention); and the charisms of our Religious orders and congregations. Paul/Roger may intend their book for the disaffected among the college-educated of the rich industrially-developed countries, but I know for a fact that their book is distributed world-wide. How can it serve in either the mission fields, or in Asian dialogue? Paul and Roger talk of the sensus fidelium several times,[49] and how it often reflects their views, but even assuming that the preponderance of Catholics in the U.S.A. accepts their version(s) of Christianity (which is hardly the case), the Catholic population of the United States constitutes no more than 7% of the global Catholic population (8% with Canada included).[50] To which “faithful” are Paul/Roger referring? Let us hope their assertion is not received by the so-called “Third World” as yet another egregious example of Caucasian intellectual elites telling the rest of the world what to do. [The same applies, mutatis mutandis, for the infinitesimally small ratio of Caucasian Buddhists to the global Buddhist populations.] As adumbrated above, the Catholic center of gravity is shifting to Africa, Latin America, and Asia, all regions where the sensus fidelium is moving in directions directly counter to J&B’s vision of the religion/spirituality-to-come.[51] Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region as of 2010 accounted for 67% of the global Catholic population[52] (up to 68 % in 2012[53]). Throughout Latin America, the Catholic charismatic movement is checking the advance of Evangelical Christian sects, and devotion to Mary is as fervent as ever. In Africa, conversions are the most rapid, with vocations to the traditional religious orders and congregations booming: Africans are conservative in theology and affective in their popular devotion (rosary-recitation, and much singing). In Korea, the Church is multiplying exponentially in numbers and vocations; in Vietnam it is doing very well and marked by loyalty and fervor; and in The Philippines, devout laity go out to serve the world’s parishes and missionaries go out to evangelize Asia (the Church in all three countries is remarkably Latinate in preference, and Marian devotion is extremely potent). When one adds to these examples from the global South and East, the growth of the “new evangelical movements” and new religious congregations of European provenance, like the Neo-Catechumenate (Spain), the Fraternités monastiques de Jérusalem (France), Focolare (Italy), etc.; plus the continuing vitality of a traditional Catholicism in Poland, Portugal, and Italy, and the revival of Catholic intellectual life that few English-speakers know about, in France,[54]--then the true character of the contemporary sensus fidelium becomes apparent indeed. Jesus & Buddha understands itself to be a “conversation” between a Christian (Roger) who declares himself to be singlebelonger much enriched by Buddhism, and a “Buddhist Christian” (Paul) who at this point has moved to the “blended doublebelonging” stage wherein the two religions, while retaining their differences, “become one in the person of the double-belonging practitioner” (211). As someone who—for long periods of time-has not only lived with Buddhist believers but also practiced in Buddhist monasteries, and who received several months ago an invitation to live in Master Hsin Tao’s Buddhist monastery, Wushengsi (Fulian Village, Gung Liao, Taiwan) for the remainder of his--that is, my--life (I am now almost 76 years of age), needless to say I too engage in “comparative theology” (though I personally am troubled by the term),[55] intensely sharing religious experience with Buddhists. Because of both my bonds to my family and my ongoing affiliation with Vangelo & Zen in Italy, I do not think I will be able to accept his offer, but the fact that Master Hsin Tao, whom I have known since 2001, invites me to practice with his religious community en permanence, and with the understanding that I would attend Mass on Sundays at the nearby Discalced Carmelite monastery of Sisters, witnesses to the conviviality of close association between a Catholic Christian single-belonger and Buddhist monastic single-belongers. The Buddhist-Christian dialogue, its “encounter and exchange,” has never put me ill at ease:[56] rather, it has always been a great source of joy for me. All along, I have not had trouble adapting Buddhist doctrine and practice to my Catholic life, and my life is an “orthodox” Catholic life. In FRDD, my presentation of “Catholic gong’an [koans]” exemplifies this, as is my use of Buddhist somatic form in meditation, and my frequent use of Buddhist thought-structures (more of this latter, in a moment). Precisely for this reason I am so nonplused by the internal conflicts which have led Paul in particular to abandon some core Christian doctrines and to either adopt Buddhist doctrines even when they contradict Christian ones, or—as he does in many cases-- formulate new (and heretical) syntheses of the two religions. I here use the word “synthesis” advisedly because to synthesize dialectically is to modify contradictory elements and to subsume the modifications into a new unity. Likewise, I use the words “doctrine” and “heresy” very advisedly, because they are, when properly understood, as serviceable as ever and apply in Paul’s case (and in Roger’s too, but in a somewhat different way). That Paul and Roger disown such terminology stems, quite obviously, from our differing interpretations of how authentic religious life “goes on.” Where I do think Paul and Roger do their best work is in their deployment of “functional analogy” (the definition of which is given in the Résumé), and much of my work of adaptation has involved formal analogies of this kind. In FRDD, examples of it can be found in the section on “obverse overlap” (in Part II) and throughout FRDD’s Second Annex. In a forthcoming text,[57] the analogy I make is between Master Hsin Tao’s teaching that illusory lights (the conditioned), when properly understood, signal the invisible Reality of the Void (the unconditioned) and John of the Cross’ teaching that “specks of dust” (the conditioned), when lit up by the invisible light (and seeming darkness) of the heavens, signal the Eternal Light (God the unconditioned). Regarding interreligious relationship (and in particular, for the book under review, Buddhist-Christian relationship), Roger—while remaining a “single-belonger”—gravitates towards consensus (as a general model), or at least towards a common ground enabling a pluralism of “different but equal” religions; and Paul in particular prefers “eclectic spirituality” and personally affirms a “hypostasis” whereby his Buddhist and Christian natures remain distinct but “one.” My question at this point is: Why the extreme predilection, in both Paul and Roger, for unity (consensus, common ground, coincidence of opposites,[58] individual eclecticism, co-inherence, etc.)? Why does contradiction between religions, and why does “resting in irreducible difference” among religions, make Paul and Roger uncomfortable and dissatisfied? I so much like Fr. William Skudlarek’s observation, and he is referring to the inter-monastic “dialogue of experience” among Buddhist monastics, Catholic monastics, and Muslim Sufis: “It is not that we are on different paths all going up the mountain and going toward the same goal. We are on the same path [contemplation] going in different directions . . . we’re ending up in different places.”[59] He of course intently continues his religious ascent—to use his metaphor-- into the infinitely retreating horizon of the Divine Mystery, but clearly he is not disturbed by the declared different goals of the various religions. He is clearly not driven by the need to somehow find a “ground,” a formula to “frame” them either affectively or cognitively. According to my adapted “Derridean” or “differential” mode of thought (to be explained ahead), the aforesaid “contemplation” is the “sameness” erected or “appointed” by the ultimately irreducible differences between the core doctrines of—in this case—the three religions; thus, the fecundity of the shared experiences of contemplation is celebrated while the established teachings of the three religions are respected and retained. From the Catholic point of view, since we affirm that God chooses to give the grace of belief only to some, and that the Divine will in this regard is mysterious (and not determined by individual worthiness or lack thereof), and that, among those not sent the grace of belief, all good people--all those following the “natural law” of good deeds—are taken up into the heavenly Beatitude alongside good Christian believers, why the restlessness? Why the unwillingness to wait?[60] To borrow an East Asian metaphor, in comparison to all there is and all that is coming, we humans— despite our most recent “mind-boggling” astro-physical breakthroughs (alluded to, ahead)—remain mere fish in a fish bowl, not capable of understanding outside-the-bowl what is and what is oncoming, possibly aeons of time/space and unknown universes of time/space and that which transcends time/space. We Catholics simply can affirm the Revelation given us, witness our faith to others, share with and learn from others, and, as Mother Teresa often said, “watch” and “wait trustfully on the Lord.” Paul and Roger think that the Church’s claim to unique Divine Revelation is “arrogant.” It seems to me, instead, that to finagle with established Teaching and rush headlong into private human solutions is “arrogant.” In FRDD, in the long First Annex, “On God and Dissymmetry,” the reasons why “oneness” and “common ground” are “modernist” formulations (in the French deconstructive sense) are explained. Among the French deconstructionists there have been several prominent French feminist thinkers, and here it is to the point to reference one of them, the brilliant Luce Irigaray. Though I draw mainly upon (the early and middle-phase-) Jacques Derrida in my own work, Irigaray the feminist is relevant in terms of J&B because she demonstrates how the modernist obsession with “oneness” and “common ground” is a masculine or “phallocentric” trait (not in terms of physical gender, but in terms of existential engagement with the world).[61] The male drive is motivated by an unconscious need for individuated “control”—not in the sense necessarily of bodily control but in the sense of “command of possibilities,” “command of the outcome,” etc. Thereby, the individual male can “capture” or “frame” the domain-of-interest in a unitary formation. The feminine, instead, can better welcome the unknown, entertain the uncertain, and live with difference. Paul/Roger rush to package a new religious “rationale” that they call both “disciplined and structured.” They recommend it to an “audience . . . broad and general” and to “undergraduates” (xii, xiii). By so doing, to borrow Irigaray’s language, they manifest the preeminently “phallocentric” drive, discarding too much of the past and foreclosing (= ‘resolving beforehand’) the future that God will open up for us. Paul and Roger accuse the Church of being close-minded, but they foreclose on the yet-unknown that is God’s providentially designed future for us. That which deconstruction exposes is that modernist formulations (and the habitual human proclivity for them) block future advances in human apprehension. That which is “off balance” serves as a better “conductal clue,” and for quite a long time already I have been demonstrating that such is the case for many kinds of inquiry. Here it suffices, I think, to direct the reader to the immediately pertaining theological and philosophical discussion, in FRDD, pp. 137-144, 146-156, 158-169. Regarding Catholic inclusivism, my recent book proclaims the following with no discomfort whatsoever: “Wonder of wonders, . . . authentic Catholic teaching . . . sets forth a model that is much more askew and lopsided, . . . God sends one Savior into the world, saves only through Him, and yet enables the disciples of other religions to follow their own religions and still be saved! . . . Christ’s LifeBlood vitalizes not only His own rose, but the Buddhist water-lily too, beautiful in its own color and configuration. And wonder of wonders, sometimes that water-lily can strengthen (edify,” from Latin aedificare, “to build up”) the Savior’s own Rose. (There are other vitalized and edifying flowers too, as Vatican Council II points out).”[62] Regarding the accusation of triumphalism, let me quote here from FRDD at greater length: The accusation that such Catholic inclusivism is unfair and fundamentally unworthy of God disregards . . . that there is no mundane ‘comparison’ in the heavenly state and persons shall shine to the extent that they fulfilled the celestial proddings sent uniquely to them. The Jew will celebrate what was her/his unique Jewish role in life, the Muslim will celebrate what was her/his unique Muslim role, the Buddhist her/his unique Buddhist role, the Hindu her/his, the ‘secularist’ her/his unique role in life, and so on. Nor should vain comparison taint how a Catholic should approach other religionists or non-religionists in this present world. The Jews or Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus or secularist, and so on, may be holier than the unloving Catholic if they are doing what the celestial design is beckoning them to do. In this scenario, the non-Catholics are the faithful servants, and the condescending Catholics are the runaway sons. (142). Paul and Roger make, in relation to interreligious dialogue, what are modernist proposals, that is, proposals resting on holistic models. I present in my own published work, in relation to interreligious dialogue, an alternative proposal. My proposal deploys a Derridean approach counter to modernist holism, namely—the erection of “samenesses” via irreducible differences. Thus I think a brief example of how to think about “samenesses and irreducible difference” in a Derridean way is in order here. Derrida demonstrates that holisms are really “samenesses” jacent upon and erected by underlying differences.[63] Adapting this format to Buddhist-Catholic relations, I argue that the many fecund “samenesses” between Buddhism and Catholicism are founded on (or better phrased, “appointed by”[64]) more radical differences between them, and that their core-teachings are irreducibly different. Thus the samenesses between Buddhist nian fo chant, for example, and Catholic Gregorian chant, reduce to an ultimately different intent, and are ultimately founded by this difference.[65] This does not mean that these two forms of very beautiful chant (I personally love them!) cannot fertilize each other on their own level, nor does it mean that Buddhist and Catholic monastics cannot “share” their experiences and learn much from each other pertaining to chant. In J&B’s closing chapter, Roger presents what is a very finessed analysis of how an apathetic or somehow dissatisfied ‘subject’ (usually taken to be a “Christian” in this context) can initiate and follow through with a transition to “dual belonging” (215-220). Roger’s treatment is very impressive and obviously the fruit of much earnest thought. For our purposes here, let us examine the ‘path’ he proposes in terms of modernism, and counter-pose an alternative path using my “differential” format. The path Roger proposes can unfold according to more than one scenario. When one sorts out his description over its six pages, the dominant scenario is that the dissatisfied ‘subject’ seeking a “bridge” to a second religion, so s/he can become a dual-belonger, pursues the following scenario: s/he builds that bridge by proceeding from “spirituality” (defined as one’s individuated “tenor” in the face of “transcendent reality”) to religious “community” (meaningful identification with a religious tradition) to “curiosity” (so one experiments with the ‘other’ religion) to identification with the second religion too, so thus one becomes a “dual-belonger.” Another scenario within Roger’s six pages, usually in reference to the Christian subject, seems to proceed from community to eclectic spirituality to discovery of real transcendence (“absolute Mystery”) to more direct experience of two or more religions, since Transcendence founds all religions. Probably Roger sometimes means that some of these causes are co-causal, though he intends, surely, to ground them all in Transcendence. I note here that Roger’s path and its variant scenarios are all ‘grounded’ in terms of holistic formulae, entitative formulae (think of ‘substance’ in the vernacular sense of something there, be it substantive foundation or substantive ‘flow’). Thus Roger’s Transcendence is a ‘ground’—it is conceived as a substantive, a foundation which is there and “grounds”[66] “communities,” “religions,” and subjects (individual “persons”) no matter what causal tracks among them apply. Roger’s “spirituality” or “individuated tenor” is apparently a synthesis of two substantives, individuated ‘subject’ and “transcendent reality” (the Transcendent). “Curiosity” is apparently grounded in the ‘subject’ and the ‘subject’ in Transcendence. “Dual Belonging” is grounded in one subject (“person”) via either a juxtaposition of two religions or a synthesis (a “blend,” as in Paul’s case) of two religions. Juxtaposition places two substantives, two “religions” alongside each other in combination. Synthesis or “blend” produces a new substantive. My way to think about interreligious encounter/exchange proposes a Derridean mode that is particularly foreign to theologians or scholars trained in the Catholic academic tradition, because their formation almost always excludes the postphenomenological movements, and especially “deconstruction” (which Christian ecclesiastics have almost universally misunderstood because of extrinsic reasons having a politicocultural provenance).[67] Thus I ask my readers, especially Christian readers, to give some close attention to the very short demonstration that follows. Please also understand I shall be necessarily simplifying and abbreviating, condensing into a few lines an example of a new way of thinking. The most I can hope is to attract enough interest so that readers shall go on to delve into the content in more detail. Let us start off where Roger does (p. 215), namely, the dissatisfied subject—let us say for our purposes the dissatisfied Catholic Christian—who wants to transition to a “dual belonging” of Mahayana Buddhism and Catholicism. The “differential” (= Derridean) procedure could very well inspect “dual belonging” first, as a cluster of “samenesses” appointed by differences. Let us say the Catholic Christian likes and needs the belief that matter embodies “spirit” or the “spiritual” (s/he definitively rejects outright “materialism”). Let us say also that s/he has become increasingly offended by what s/he considers the “rigamarole” of the Church’s sacramental system. Both Mahayana Buddhism and Catholicism are the “same” in that they affirm that matter embodies spirit. The subject should then examine the differences between the two religions, the underlying differences that appoint this “sameness.” Mahayana Buddhism (across all of its mainstream traditions) affirms “the two truths”: mundane truth and Ultimate truth are mystically identical, that is, form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Catholic Christianity, for its part, has teachings such as the Indwelling of grace in the soul, and the presence of God in all things via “essence, presence, and power,” and several other degrees of the presence of the Ultimate in creation, but matter and the Ultimate are never regarded as absolutely identical. Thus, in reference to the Ultimate, Mahayanist affirmation of the absolute identity (via the dharmakāya [68]) and Catholic rejection of the absolute identity (at any “level” or “degree”) are two tenets that irreducibly contradict each other. In regard to the matter/spirit relationship, this is the “irreducible difference” between Mahayana and Catholicism appointing the pertaining “sameness,” “matter embodying spirit,” that the two religions share. The next step would be for the dissatisfied Catholic subject to choose between the pertaining Catholic teachings on matter/spirit and the Mahayanist teaching that contradicts them. The choice is decisive, because the Church’s pertaining teachings are authoritatively defined. If the subject rejects the Catholic teaching, thereby conscientiously leaving the Church, s/he can go on to become a “dual belonger”: s/he can construct whatever combination of teachings s/he wants, drawing from Catholicism and Buddhism both.[69] Catholic differentialist thought can proceed deeper and deeper down into this inverse “chain of being” (it is a “chain of nonbeing,”[70] if you will), and eventually it would approach the difference between the created and the non-created (God). God is Mystery, but via Revelation we know God is represented-for-us conceptually[71] as Unity/Trinity. In my last three books and elsewhere I have pointed out that the doctrinal provision of relationis oppositio declares that each Trinitarian “Person” qua “Person” (in the technical sense, of course) is defined by purely negative reference to the other Two Persons. This authoritative truth reveals absolute difference to be how (conceptually speaking, of course) the Trinity functions. Given it so happens that absolute (“pure”) difference is, in Derridean deconstruction, how “samenesses” arise, the connection I draw to differentialism should be obvious. In my work I have probed this question in considerable detail.[72] I always take care to attach all the theological cautions, of course. God is a Mystery—the Unity is one-and-the-same with each of the three Persons, so that there is “one God in three,” and so on. All these terms and concepts are not God, but just “pointers.” Nonetheless, I add as a private aside here that my discovery, many years ago, of the pertinence of the relationis oppositio clause, was a real Anschauung for me, an epiphanic insight that came to be inscribed even into my interior spiritual life. It is crucial for those like Paul and Roger who seem so impatient with “doctrinal complexity” to recognize that for personality types like me, the heart of flesh and blood and abstract ideas “co-inhere.” What repels them excites people like me, and even plays a vital role in our prayer lives. “Christ plays in ten thousand places,” in ten thousand kinds of personality—all different. Thus I find exhilarating that Jesus’s prayer to the Father in John 17:20-23 can be read in a differential manner. Jesus prays “that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, . . . . that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, . . . .” Because the relationis oppositio clause says that the Persons qua Persons are defined only by their pure negative differences from each other, what is the “same” in the Persons belongs to the Unity instead. The Father and the Son are “one” by way of the pure negative reference between them. Likewise, the disciples, because their oneness reflects how the Father and the Son are “one,” are “one” by their negative references to each other. In terms of relationis oppositio, nonbeing rather than being is at the core of God.[73] That is, in terms of relationis oppositio, the “I AM” who is God involves intraTrinitarian negative references. Of course, all of these approaches to the theology of God—Augustinian, Rahnerian, post-Rahnerian, “entitative,” “differential,” et al.—they all must be “crossed-out” in the end, having served their purpose for some people according to their time and circumstances, before the Divine Mystery. My proposal is that a Derridean or “differential” mode seems most apposite for our contemporary times, and even more so for that which is oncoming. In Catholicism, Divine Revelation is understood to come from the Mysterium that is God: thus, as super-natural, it is beyond philosophical or scientific breakthroughs. However, the Church’s theology—its authoritative teaching—develops: its tradition advances, gaining more and more insight into the infinite God, and into the unchanging Divine Revelation that reflects the infinite God. The Church’s theology, historically, has advanced by examining, adjudicating, and judiciously assimilating the thinking tools of the ambient culture. Thus Hebraic thought-forms yielded to Greek thought-forms, and the Church’s official theology came to be expressed in the Greek thought-forms of being, substance, etc.[74] Since the Divine truths expressed in Greek form are trueas-expressed, these “true expressions” cannot be changed. However, the Church can go on to develop these “true expressions” further. For example, the very early Church expresses the “Breath of God” in terms of Jewish thought-form, which is anthropologically-based, and later the Church, while retaining this thought-form, develops it further by expressing it in pneumatological terms based on Greek thought-form. My sense is—and it is almost a “presentiment” (“to feel beforehand”)—that human kind is on the verge of a “catastrophic leap” (or “evolutionary saltation,” in Chomsky’s technical sense[75]). With such a “leap,” a “saltation” in thought-forms, too, is inevitable. In astrophysics and quantum physics alone, consider just the following recent discoveries—most of them within the last twenty years (I list them here in a string without transitions, just to convey a sense of the breathless pace of it all). As late as the early 1990s it was still thought that the expansion of the universe was slowing down: now astrophysicists know that the expansion is accelerating.[76] Now astrophysicists know that they don’t understand at all what “dark energy” is, but just that it is approximately 68 percent of the universe. They likewise do not know what “dark matter” is, but it accounts for about 27% of the universe. The matter that they affirm they do at least basically understand, the matter making up all stars and galaxies, only accounts for 5% of the universe![77] Our galaxy alone, the Milky Way, has some 100 billion stars and 100 million black holes.[78] In the “observable” universe there are at least 100 billion galaxies. [79] This year, NASA reported the discovery of one black hole 17 billion times the size of our sun. [80] The number of black holes in the universe is impossible to estimate. About a hundred years ago, Einsteinian “general relativity” superseded the Newtonian universe. Albert Einstein’s “spacetime” combined the dimension of space with the conventional three spatial dimensions, showing that the observed rate at which time passes depends on velocity relative to the observer and on the strength of gravitational fields. Nowadays substantial challenges are being lodged against the classical Einsteinian model itself.[81] Likewise, in quantum physics and the study of sub-atomic domains, the “truism” that matter cannot be colder than absolute zero has recently been disproven: scientists have created a subabsolute zero quantum gas, thereby “changing the laws of physics.” [82] “Atoms behave like waves and each atom loses its self-identity and seems to be in all the others.”[83] What is more, molecular biology’s study of the human genome and neuroscience’s study of the brain are making equivalent breakthroughs that can impinge on the sciences humaines.[84] To conclude this review, I call the reader’s attention to the two discussions in J&B that are, for me, the most edifying and positively instructive. One is Paul’s discussion of compassion and justice in Chapter 11, and the other is Roger’s interpretation of “creation theory” in Chapters 5 and 6. In Chapter 11, Paul argues for the priority of compassion over justice, a message genuinely thoughtful and helpful for me, as a political Leftist who all of his life has supported Liberation Theology. The option for the poor— in Paul’s words—“cannot be an option against the oppressors” (199), though he grants that sometimes what Tibetan Buddhists call “wrathful compassion” may be necessary. According to Catholic teaching too, society should punish when absolutely necessary, but must still work for the spiritual (and physical, when possible) rehabilitation of the guilty. Alas, during the “Intercessions” at Catholic Mass, prayers seem to be offered regularly for the victims of ISIS and the Taliban, but not for the Taliban and ISIS militants themselves. Paul’s call for compassion over justice even rings true in terms of Pope Francis’s recent document, “Amoris Laetitia,” which, very controversially for some, calls for pastoral discernment that takes “subjective conscience” more into account. Roger’s treatment of creatio ex nihilo demonstrates how Catholic theology can share in what I would call a deeply significant “sameness” with Buddhist teaching. “Big Vehicle” Buddhism shares with Catholicism the notion that all that exists depends on the Unconditioned. In a perfectly orthodox but innovative way (because it appropriates Buddhist language), here Roger teases out, from the Thomistic definition of God as “Pure Act,” the following conclusion: “God as pure energy with no definition is nothing; God is a pure emptiness that is not negative but unimaginably creative dynamism and vitality” (83; see also 93, 100). Of course—let me point out—this “sameness” between the two religions is appointed by deeper differences: in Big Vehicle Buddhism, the Unconditioned (dharmakāya) is not a Creator-God; also, and as a consequence, “all that exists” (the conditioned or determinate) and the Unconditioned co-inhere or are “reciprocal”—existents are not in a one-way dependence on the dharmakāya; rather, each“manifests” the other because they are “identical.” Roger’s appropriation of the Buddhist term “pure emptiness” demonstrates an engagement in an Asian thought-form (one finds variants of “pure emptiness” in several Asian Indian religions), and the Church—in my firm opinion—needs to undertake much more of such engagement now. [85] Such thought-forms, besides developing an “Asian” theology for Asia, can be instructive for the theology of the universal Church, and for its meditative practice. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit’s tongues of flame are depicted as descending onto the heads of the Apostles because the fontanel or crown chakra is there; at Emmaus, the hearts of the disciples “burn within them” because the heart chakra is there; and in Colossians, Paul urges upon the brethren “the bowels [splankna] of compassion” (Col. 3:12) because Chan Buddhism’s dantian is there: these sites are bodily openings to the supernal. I close with a famous passage from a Mahayana sutra allowing Paul, Roger, me, and I hope the readers of this review to meet in a vitalizing/convivial? “sameness”: Manjusri asked: “What is the root of inverted thinking?” Vimalakirti replied: “Baselessness [un-groundedness] is the root of inverted thinking.” Manjusri asked: “What is the root of baselessness [ungroundedness]?” Vimalakirti replied: “Manjusri, when something is baseless [ungrounded], how can it have any root? Therefore, from this baseless [ungrounded] root, everything arises. —The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti: A Mahayana Sutra [86] NOTES [1] The book’s promotion declares it “2016 Catholic Press Award Winner,” which seems to misrepresent the award it did win, which is an “Honorable Mention” in the section representing “Spirituality.” I have little doubt that the tricky language of the promotion is due not to our authors, but rather the over-zealous marketing intentions of the publisher. [2] The book is based on an adaptation of a Derridean thoughtmotif, viz., that samenesses are superjacent to irreducible differences that erect them, in order to celebrate samenesses (and learn from differences) between Buddhism and Catholic Christianity, while preserving the deeper doctrinal differences between the two religions. The body of the book, pp. 5-24, 35135, is for “Sangha Buddhists” and “pew Catholics” who need reliable guidance when engaging the Buddhist-Catholic encounter, participating in joint meditation-sessions, etc. The Foreword explicating my Derridean “differentialism” (pp. 25-33), and the Two Annexes, “On God and Dissymmetry” (pp. 137-156) and “’Hellenized’ Catholic Theology and Its Encounter with Buddhism—Some Future Possibilities” (proposing new kinds of properly Asian theology/practice, pp. 157-184), are intended for specialists. [3] Paul concurs, defining Jesus as a Jewish prophet and teacher. [4] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dec. 13, 2004, Notification on the book “Jesus Symbol of God” by Father Roger Haight, S.J.: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/document s/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20041213_notification-fr-haight_en.html [5] See the report from Jan. 22, 2009, in chiesa.espressonlineitaly: http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/213869?eng=y [6] Most of the themes reflect the proposals Paul presented in his book, Without Buddha I Could Not be a Christian (2009,) which I reviewed in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 78, No. 4 (Dec. 2010), pp. 1215-1218; my review was reprinted, with permission, in Dilatato Corde, Vol. II, No.1 (Jan.June 2012)-http://www.dimmid.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={6F500F 52-36F0-4805-B08E-0D16BCEFD8AF} [7] Precise documentation of the authors identified with each of these theories can be found at Paul Rhodes Eddy, “Jesus as Diogenes? Reflections on the Cynic Jesus Thesis,” Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 115, No. 3 (1996), pp. 449, 450. [8] For a sound representation of opinions regarding the Jesus Seminar, see the text of a famous debate featuring John Dominic Crossan himself, and his academic adversary Luke Timothy Johnson, and Werner Kelber, who disagrees with both of them, in Crossan, Johnson, and Kelber, The Jesus Controversy: Perspectives in Conflict (1999). [9] From the squibs for Johnson’s book, front inner pages. Dunn is a highly regarded Biblical scholar who writes in the Protestant tradition. [10] Several of the prominent ones are former Protestants or Evangelicals. Several teach at Catholic seminaries, either because orthodox seminaries need them (a good reason) or because the “old guard” throws up walls against them in the universities (a sad reason—factional ruthlessness, “nature red in tooth and claw”). [11] Cited in Robert J. Hutchinson, Searching for Jesus (2015), pp. 70-71. Though Hutchinson is not a Biblical scholar, I highly recommend his book because he has done a labor-intensive job of researching the latest in Biblical research, assembling its findings, and reporting on them. [12] Quoted by Luke Timothy Johnson in his review of Philip Jenkins’ The Thousand Year Story of the Survival and Influence of the Lost Gospels (2016) in Commonweal, Jan., 2016. Philip Jenkins is the respected historian (Baylor U.) who also authored The Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way (2001). [13] Ibid. [14] For pertaining academic references, see Hutchinson, pp. 71, 88-90. [15] See Ken Dark, “Has Jesus’s Nazareth House Been Found?” Biblical Archeological Review 41:02 (March/April 2015), quoted in Hutchinson. [16] See Hershel Shanks, “New Analysis of the Crucified Man,” Biblical Archeology Review, 11:6 (Nov./Dec. 1985), also quoted in Hutchinson. [17] Pitre, The Case for Jesus- , p. 43. [18] See Brant Pitre, “’The Case for Jesus’ Course Introduction: Bart Ehrman and the Transfiguration of Jesus on the Mountain (Part 3 of 5), p. 2, at http://blog.catholicproductions.com/casejesus-course-introduction-transfiguration-jesus-mountain-part-3-5, accessed June 23, 2016. [19] “Modernism” as Pope Pius X meant it in his encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis (1907), comprises (1) a “rationalism” giving priority to reason over what is known via Divine Revelation, (2) a “scientism” giving the empirical method priority over what is known via authoritatively declared truth; and (3) a “secularism” separating Divine Law from the social construct. Derrida is a rationalist (but with openings to religious experience sometimes) who deconstructs reason, turning reason against itself. Modernism for Derrida is the post-Romantic rise—mid-19th century through to postmodernism—of an extreme though disguised rationalism (including reason’s dialectical opposites and syntheses, which belong latently to the same “code”). Derrida disavows “scientism,” but for reasons differing from the Church’s. Derrida regards “scientism” as an insidious example of modernism (in his sense) gone amuck: scientism is a selfenclosed mode, a “boxed-in” mode (which Derrida found very ironical indeed). [20] See my FRDD, First Annex, “On God and Dissymmetry,” pp. 139-141. Derrida regards “modernism” as a post-Romantic displacement and recuperation of holistic structure and values (I list examples from many disciplines). He regarded 19 th and 20th century modernism to be a more dogmatic though more latent version of holistic structure/value than that in the openly “entitative” holisms of the Enlightenment, Renaissance, Medieval, and Ancient periods. For detailed and scholarly treatment of Derrida’s deconstruction of holistic structure, see my Derrida on the Mend (1984; 2nd ed. 1986), Part One, pp. 1-54. I draw from what is the early and middle phase Derrida. For a discussion of how the late phase Derrida remains the same and differs, see my On Deconstructing Life-Worlds: Buddhism, Christianity, Culture (1997, still in print), Part Two, pp. 157-165 (this book has been praised by Jacques Derrida himself, who wrote “Your profundity, your boldness, and your independence amaze and impress me”— see photographed copy of his letter, FRDD, p. 189). The wellknown post-Catholic philosopher John Caputo draws, in his own work, from the late-phase Derrida and not the earlier phases. [21] “Introduzione: la mia testimonianza,” Istituto Vangelo & Zen, Desio, Italy, Feb. 22, 2013. [22] In Buddhist-Christian Studies, Vol. 35 (2015), p. 241. I assume because D’Arcy May knows the power-structure among Anglophonic dialogists is such that I cannot easily find a forum to answer his review, his review frequently misrepresents me. Thus he says on p. 239 of his review that I assert the “intentionalities” of “Buddhist doctrines such as no-self and rebirth are ‘ultimately contradictory’” (and he directs the reader to FRDD, pp. 117, 119), whereas I nowhere make any such assertion on those pages or anywhere else. Rather, I assert that Buddhist no-self and rebirth ultimately contradict Catholic teachings about individual identity and ‘only one birth’. In fact, I do not think the Buddhist doctrines of no-self and rebirth contradict each other: Gautama Buddha himself addressed this question very directly, and the Buddhist traditions long ago already explicated very satisfactorily-- in terms of the Buddhist doctrinal structure—that the two teachings do not contradict each other. Besides, nowhere in my book do I presume to interfere with the doctrinal structure of Buddhism. I respectfully report the Buddhist traditions—FRDD is in no way a polemic against Buddhism. Readers will read D’Arcy May’s review and come away from it with a deceitful portrait of what my book says. Another instance is his assertion on his review’s p. 239 that Magliola is aware “that Church teaching has erred in the past” (directing the reader to FRDD, p. 142, n. 12). In his self-fabricated context, D’Arcy May’s misrepresentation conflates what I call “ecclesial sins” (maltreatment of Jews, etc.) and magisterial teachings. Moreover, in the case of the magisterium, I am very careful to distinguish the few non-reformable teachings from the many reformable ones (see FRDD, pp. 56-62). Any reader of D’Arcy May’s review will, all told, come away from it with a highly inaccurate portrait of my book, and of my personhood as a scholar. [23] See report of March 31, 2014, in chiesa.espressonlineItaly: http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350753 [Italian original]. [24] A worse scenario, of course, was the manipulation of the foreign missions, centuries ago, by the Spanish and Portuguese Monarchs (the Spanish Patronato and the Portuguese Padronado) as “cover” for what was really politico-economic colonization of native peoples. [25] Johannes Bronkhurst, The Two Traditions of Meditation in Ancient India (1993). [26] Alexander Wynne, The Origin of Buddhist Meditation (2007). [27] Richard Gombrich, How Buddhism Began (1997). [28] Ronald M. Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism (2003). [29] For an excellent treatment of how such hunger for national “status” on an institutional level misdirects Catholic universities, see Anne Hendershott, Status Envy: The Politics of Catholic Higher Education (2009). [30] See FRDD, p. 46. [31] Questions of King Milinda (Milindapañhā), II.2.1. (FRDD p.46) [32] The Wings to Awakening: An Anthology from the Pali Canon, Translated and explained by Thanissaro Bhikkhu (1996), pp. 49, 50. [33] Without Buddha-, p. 78. [34] Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh adapts a formulation of Chinese Huayan Buddhism, changing it significantly in the process. [35]Pratītyasamutpāda (Skt.)/paṭiccasamuppāda(Pali), one of the key and most distinctive Buddhist teachings from very early on, has been the subject of enormous (and in my opinion fascinating) scholastic activity over the centuries, during which even its grammatical components have been in intense academic dispute. Since clearly Vajrayana and Mahayana Buddhism constitute the sources, in the broad sense, out of which Paul Knitter constitutes his notion of “Interbeing,” I recommend in particular Jeffrey Hopkins’ Meditation on Emptiness (1983; rev. ed., 1996), pp. 163168, 664-674; and for Pratītyasamutpāda’s twelve links (nidanas = “contributory causes” constituting the chain of “becoming” ), viz., ignorance->action->consciousness->name and form->six sources->contact->feeling->attachment->grasping->existence>birth->aging and death, p. 203 et passim; for Asanga’s version, pp. 707-711. Nagarjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā argues that the “chain” is “empty” (though by virtue of the “two truths,” also “full”). [36] See Charles Prebish and Kenneth Tanaka, The Faces of Buddhism in America (1998)—Cuong Tu Nguyen and A. W. Barber’s chapter, “Vietnamese Buddhism in North America: Tradition and Acculturation,” and Prebish’s endnote 9, p. 309. [37] Evangelii Gaudium, #70. [38] Luke Timothy Johnson, “The Jesus Controversy,” in America, Aug. 2, 2010. [39] See Religious Dispatches, June 22, 2009: http://religiondispatches.org/no-zombie-jesus-the-vatican-androger-haight/ , p. 2. [40] Ephesians 1:18. [41] The Second Vatican Council, citing the First Vatican Council, citing the Second Council of Orange (529 A.D.), quoted in The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church, eds. J. Neuner, S.J. and J. Dupuis, S.J. (7 th rev. & enlarged ed., 2001), pp. 59, #152; 45, #120; p. 802, #1919. [42] See The New World Dictionary-Concordance to the New American Bible (Collins pbk, 1970), pp. 183-185; F. W. Gingrich, Shorter Lexicon of the Greek New Testament (1965), p. 173. [43] Catechism of the Catholic Faith, #1813. The eastern Church’s theology puts the matter somewhat differently, but with like effect. [44] See, from the highly respected PEW Research Center, its latest report (statistics for the year 2010, released in 2013) on global Catholicism: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/02/13/theglobal-catholic-population/ The BBC News, deriving its latest statistics (based on the year 2012) from the World Church Database (also released 2013), supplies figures that show the geographical shifts reflected in the PEW report to be further increasing: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-21443313 The shifts are due both to higher birth rates in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, and to high conversion-rates. [45] Indeed, this is a point that Pope Francis drives home again and again: “Go out to peripheries” where the Real Jesus is best known. An image out of my own experience leaps to mind: that of the cadre of professors—among them clergy—at a prominent Catholic university in the U.S.A., discussing Buddhist-Catholic dialogue at a hosted soirée (at which my attendance, alas, was academically de rigueur at the time): how they treated the Mexican “bus boy” [sic, the attendant who clears away glasses, etc.) like so much human waste. [46] The negative remarks that Paul/Roger make in this regard make no sense to me, since I have always found the thoughtmode and associated terminology of Magisterial teaching eminently instructive. Indeed I have found them often rich in insights that, when teased out further, point towards exciting but orthodox developments in teaching. The new turn in Asian theology that constitutes the long Second Annex in my FRDD develops precisely in this way (while appropriating Asian philosophical motifs so Asian theology becomes what I am calling nowadays a “Water Theology”). [47] A telling example: When I mention to a Franciscan at my home parish in New York City that a Franciscan priest, an Iraqi, had been abducted in Syria during the past week, and his abduction had been promptly announced by his Order’s Custody of the Holy Land (and, needless to say, the Vatican itself), he told me that he and his confreres had “not heard about it.” [48] Jaime M. Rivera, S.J., “From Peripheries to Center to Peripheries: An Exposition and Evaluation of Robert Magliola on Buddhist-Christian Dialogue,” Theological Studies, Ateneo de Manila, 427 pp. [49] Paul Knitter points to the large-scale use of contraception by Catholics in the rich, industrialized nations, and uses it as an example of the Vatican rejecting the sensus fidelium. Here Paul deploys the fallacy of ignoratio elenchi (“ignoring the issue” via misdirection, irrelevancy). Most of the clergy among the monastics reading this review surely know that the official Church, quite soon after the promulgating of Paul VI’s Humanae vitae (1968), sent directives enabling confessors to understand contraception in particular as squarely located in the subjectivity/objectivity ethical space. That is, the penitent, while acknowledging that contraception is objectively wrong, is free to judge that in her/his subjective situation, the objective norm is bracketed-out or does not apply. Then the penitent’s decision is left for “God to decide” in the most internal forum, the forum constituted by God and the penitent. Sadly, for several years, many confessors, especially older or more conservative ones, failed to attend to this meliorating directive, a failing more in implementation than in Vatican policy. Actually, the Church in its wisdom had been enabling the subjective/objective ethical space for centuries already, when dealing with many moral issues. A contemporary case would be common among Catholics in Mainland China (PRC). Catholics may live in a district where the “underground Church” is accessible though attendance is legally forbidden so attendees may be blocked from necessary employment and their children blocked from adequate education. Confessors are enabled to grant penitents the subjective/objective space. Some penitents choose the underground Church anyway and some do not. [50] Statistics are from the Pew Research Center’s report on global Catholicism, referenced in full, above. [51] Geographically, power shifts are occurring on a massive scale in many regards. Note the boldness of two African Cardinals reflected in the following headline, “In chastising the U.S., African Cardinals are voice of the future,” Crux website, July 10, 2016: https://cruxnow.com/commentary/2016/07/10/williams-piece/ [52] The cited Pew Research Center report. [53] See BBC News, “How Many Roman Catholics Are There in the World,” referenced earlier. Its statistics for Africa and Asia are from the World Church Database, year 2012. [54] “In Francia rinascita della fede cattolica, in particolare tra gli intellettuali” [“The rebirth of the Catholic faith in France, especially among the intellectuals”], on website of the Unione Cristiani Cattolici Razionali (UCCR), August 29, 2012: see http://www.uccronline.it/2012/08/29/in-francia-rinascita-della-fedecattolica-in-particolare-tra-gli-intellettuali . [55] I mean “comparative theology” in the sense associated most recently with Fr. Francis X. Clooney, S.J. (whose work, by the way, I very much like) and briefly explained in the second paragraph of my Résumé of Jesus & Buddha. Actually, there is no “theology” as such in Buddhism: I have always been uncomfortable on its face with the term “comparative theology” for this reason and also because “theology” as such is a uniquely cognitive operation. However, the term is already established in interreligious dialogue. [56] I did suffer, many years ago, a dark period in my life caused by personal tragedies, but the dark period turned out to be a “dark night,” and—thank God—for a long time I have been happy and peaceful. The long first part of my On Deconstructing Life-Worlds recounts the dark period and my emergence from it. [57] Foreword to Maria Tu’s English translation, forthcoming from Cambridge Scholars Press, autumn 2016, of Master Hsin Tao’s Chinese book on a “deathless spirituality,” or “how to live Nirvana now.” [58] Paul/Roger invoke Nicholas of Cusa’s famous “coincidentia oppositorum” twice (pp. 54, 228): this formulation obviously closes opposites into a mystical “oneness,” and that it is mystical does not render it less unitary. An analogous deconstruction of mystical oneness is common among many Buddhist Masters, for example, the well-known Chan Master Sheng-Yen (recently deceased), who asserted that “to dissolve the unified state” was a crucial last stage towards enlightenment. See his Getting the Buddha Mind (1982), p. 28. Also, in my article entitled “Afterword” in Jin Y. Park, ed, Buddhisms and Deconstructions (2006), I cite several Buddhist traditions that insist on the deconstruction of mystical “oneness”—see pp. 246-250. [59] See “Benedictine finds dialogue with Buddhists, Muslims helps his prayer life,” in online Catholic News Service (CNS), Sept. 25, 2012. [60] The experience of “waiting” is treated in FRDD, pp. 19, 130135, 184. [61] See Ce sexe qui n’en est pas un (1977), Engl. trans.—This Sex which is not one (1985). Irigaray is very prolific. I much recommend her latest, published in Italian, Il Mistero di Maria (2010). Interreligious dialogists would benefit much from her thought. Alas, dialogists are very cliquish, so she doesn’t make it into their “canon” (apropos, see FRDD, p. 3). [62] FRDD, p. 142. [63] See FRDD, pp. 25-33. [64] For the significance of the verb to appoint, see FRDD, p. 29. [65] See explanation in FRDD, pp. 37, 38. [66] Roger’s very word, when referring to “common spiritual belonging,” for example: “it grounds the context of meaning” (p. 216). [67] John V. Apczynski understands deconstruction and correctly interprets the Rahnerian cast of my work: See his review of FRDD in Catholic Books Review, April 2015: http://www.catholicbooksreview.org/2015/magliola.html [68] The dharmakāya is the formless or “Truth-Body” that is identical with absolute undifferentiated Reality or emptiness. The Buddhist trikaya doctrine comprises two other “bodies,” the sambhogakāya (“Enjoyment-Body”) and the nirmaṇakāya (“Emanation-Body”), but the formlessness of the dharmakāya pervades both of them too. [69] The Church does say that such a person is responsible before God, and will be called to account for what and how s/he understands the Church’s teachings; as Pope Francis reminds us often, if that person has proceeded in good conscience and in love, only God knows and can judge, and that person can very well enter into heavenly bliss. [70] The chain of being is not Church doctrine, of course, but its use of being and substance is analogous to the Greek mode in which the Church has historically defined official teachings. I align myself with those who insist these Church doctrines must be retained in the Greek mode historically expressing them. Differentialism as I practice it does retain them, but with a nonentitative uptake. In this paragraph, I give an example of what I mean. [71] And with infinite inadequacy, of course (like “a finger pointing at the moon,” to cite the Buddhist metaphor Paul likes to quote). [72] See Magliola, Two Models of Trinity—French PostStructuralist versus the Historical-Critical: Argued in the Form of a Dialogue,” in O. Blanchette, T. Imamich, and G. F. McLean, eds., Philosophical Challenges and Opportunities of Globalization, Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change: Series 1, ‘Culture and Values’, Vol. 19.2 (Washington, D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy [CRVP], pp. 401-425 (online access, with permission, is available at the English-language Wikipedia treatment of my work, in ‘Anthology-articles’ section-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Magliola ). See also, Magliola, Derrida on the Mend (1984, 2nd ed., 1986), pp. 144-147; On Deconstructing Life-Worlds (2097), pp. 175-191; and FRDD (which makes some necessary revisions to my preceding formulations of Trinitarian “unity” and “trinity”), pp. 157-161. [73] I write “in terms of relationis oppositio, very advisedly, because in terms of the Divine Unity, the Divine Presence is not well represented by pure negative reference. [74] Thus they are “entitative” in Derrida’s sense. As entitative expressions bearing the truth, they must be retained, but what I call “water theology” (drawing upon the Chinese philosophical metaphor of water) shows how negative reference and other nonentitative formulations can rise in between these “solid” or entitative expressions. That is what the “pure negative reference” defining the Trinitarian Persons does when it is properly recognized, and the result is that Revelation is further expressed. [75] To read more about Chomsky’s definition of evolutionary “saltation” or “catastrophic leap” (as opposed to “gradualism”), see Douglas A. Kibbee, ed., Chomskyan (R)evolutions (2010), p. 343. [76] See http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2011/ [77] See https://home.cern/about/physics/dark-matter [78] See http://hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/black_holes/encyc_mod3 _q7.html [79] See http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2016/04/07/hubble_im age_of_galaxies_in_sculptor_implies_100_billion_galaxies_in_the .html [80] See http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/behemothblack-hole-found-in-an-unlikely-place [81] See https://www.newscientist.com/round-up/challengingeinstein/ [82] See http://phys.org/news/2013-01-gas-temperatureabsolute.html [83] PBS-Nova, “Fabric of the Cosmos,” Dec. 9, 2010. [84] See Centre for Molecular Biology, University of Oslohttp://www.cmbn.no/about.html; and the Centre for Molecular Microbiology Hamburg- https://www.zmnh.uni-hamburg.de [85] FRDD’s Second Annex, pp. 157-184, proposes possibilities for such a more intensive engagement. [86] Robert Thurman, trans., The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti: A Mahayana Scripture (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976), 58. See APPENDIX APPENDIX Robert Magliola: Résumé, chapter by chapter, of Jesus & Buddha: Friends in Conversation (2015), by Paul Knitter and Roger Haight I trodu tio : The joi t autho s he ei afte Paul a d ‘oge e plai that the o igi of thei olla o atio is Paul s ou se—offered at the Union Theological Seminary (N.Y.C.) in spring, 2012--e titled Jesus a d Buddha i Dialogue. ‘oge Haight as a ke esou e pe so fo that course. The procedure was to sketch the lives and teachings of the histo i al Jesus a d Buddha, a d the to look alte ati el at ho the story of Jesus might be presented in an objective way to Buddhists, and reciprocally, how various authors have presented Buddha to outside s, i ludi g Ch istia s. The e t step as to o side autho s who represented ways in which Jesus was received by Buddhists and Buddha app op iated Ch istia s. These ultiple iss-crossing but complementa ie s of the t o figu es foste ed a elati el deep app e iatio of diffe e es, a d a oss these, of a alogous a s of seei g thi gs i . “u h a app oa h is g ou ded i spi itualit athe tha a o pa iso of do t i es, Paul/‘oge tell us. “pi itualit is te tati el defi ed as esse tiall a fo of p a ti e that has ultiple layers that include sets of beliefs and teachings but is still disti guisha le f o the . “pi itualit possesses a e tai e iste tial p io it to do t i es, a d the spiritual life practiced in the two spiritual traditions [Buddhism and Christianity] is more readily a essi le tha the elief st u tu es a o pa i g a d shapi g the (x). It is from out of the above-described collaboration that the o e satio s comprising the present book arise. Paul and Roger next supply several directives essential for understanding the project upon hi h the a e a out to e a k. The ook is i te ded fo Ch istia s rather than Buddhists because it measures most pointedly the i flue e that Buddhis ight ha e o Ch istia spi itualit . The ook consists of conversations between Roger, a Christian, and Paul, a Buddhist Ch istia ho speaks i pa ti ula out of his stud a d p a ti e of Ti eta Buddhis . Paul/‘oge affi the mode of o pa ati e theolog , hi h e tails that eligio ists i ea h eligio e te as est as possi le i to the e pe ie e of the othe eligio , and then return to their own tradition, bringing back with them that which enriches their own religion (xii). Each of the twelve chapters addresses a key topic, and is formatted so that the two interlocutors each make an opening statement, followed by a response, each to the othe . Ea h hapte e ds ith a It “ee s to Us state e t articulating where Paul and Roger agree and where there are diffe e es that eithe ha e to e fu the e plo ed o si pl a epted i. Chapter O e, What Is “piritualit : Paul affi s that spi itualit , oadl speaki g, is hat o e does to sta o e ted, si e a satisf i g hu a life eeds ea i g a d e e g . The ea i g a d e e g a ise f o hat o te po a Buddhists all interconnectedness, or Interbeing,” a d hat Jesus a d his follo e s all the lo i g o i te o e ti g Spirit. “pi itualit t iggers a pa adig shift f o self-centeredness to other-centeredness, a d this shift can only be brought about via spiritual practice entailing Wisdom and Compassion. (2, 3) In fact, Compassion is Wisdom, since Reality is non-dual thus the Buddhist di tu , E pti ess is Fo /Fo is Emptiness). Christians, says Paul, seem to lack such a deep sense of the unity of all Reality. The mystery of non-duality, of the co-inherence of the Big Pi tu e a d little pi tu es, a o l e k own by nonthinking. Not that Buddhists do not also function conventionally, using thoughts, images, and feelings, but spiritual praxis should also get e o d the . He e Paul is efe e i g, though i less te h i al te s, hat is alled i Buddhist Big Vehi le s hools the T o T uthsi). ‘oge , fo his pa t, i t odu es the e se i ea le otio of fu tio al a alog , he e tea hi gs a d p a ti es that a k diffe e es between Buddhism and Christianity can be demonstrated to play structurally similar roles within their respective frames-of-meaning. Thus, fo e a ple, eatio s adi al o ti ge i Ch istia it is a alogous to Buddhis s eje tio of self-i he e e, that is, i Buddhis , appa e t e tities do ot fou d the sel es, o do e tities as such even (really) exist. Another example would be God s eatio out of othi g a d the o goi g e olutio of eatio —sustained continuously by God—is analogous to what Paul calls Buddhist i te o e ted ess . A d so o , ith othe do t i al parallels Paul/‘oge sh i k f o the o d do t i e, ut I use it as the adje ti e of the ou tea hi g, a o d the like. Fo ‘oge , spi itualit o sists i the a pe so s o g oups li e thei li es i the face of what they consider ultimately i po ta t o eal. “pi itualit is p io to eligio e ause of the f eedo of ea h pe so . ‘eligio is ulti atel o stituted the spi itualities of the e e s . Paul s espo se is to a gue that Buddhist spi itualit has a diffe e t sta ti g poi t, a el , the suspi io that hu a s do ot eall k o hat ulti ate ealit is. Ignorance is the fundamental human problem, and religious practice—meditation, acts of compassion, the teachings—is e essa . Ch istia s follo Jesus, ut Buddhists ome to the realization that everything is Buddha. Chapter T o, Ho Does I terreligious Dialogue Work : Paul/Roger affi , ithout a i g the as su h, the fou fo s of dialogue outlined by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue in its document Dialogue and Proclamation, but start in a different place from all of them, and then push radically beyond.ii Here I list seriatim so e of this Chapte s assu ptio s a d asse tio s. Dialogists ust recognize at the outset that religious pluralism is the atu al o ditio of hu a it . No si gle eligio a ha ess the i fi ite a d to absolutize religious teachings—as Christianity traditionally does-constitutes an obstacle, and indeed, foments dangerous situations. Religions accrete interpretations historically. Fruitful dialogue between Buddhists and Christians should use the Historical-Critical method to app o i ate the p i iti e a d o igi al o e tea hi gs of Buddha a d Jesus respectively (23). Paul, in contradistinction to Roger, affirms that the sta ti g poi t fo dialogue is not to e fou d i a o o e iste tial uestio of ei g , ut ith the o e e iste tial uestio , a el suffe i g . I these e t e e ti es, the eligio s ust all to o f o t the unjust ways and structures hi h th eate hu a it a d the hole o ld ith dest u tio . Dialogists t ust that the i o igi le diversity of religions and their latent commonality and their potential interconnectedness a e g ou ded i hat a e alled a ulti ate ‘ealit o Hol M ste . Chapter Three, What Did Buddha a d Jesus Tea h? : Buddha, Paul explains, taught that human suffering (dukkha, Pali; duḥkha, Skt.) is caused by craving (taṇhā, Pali). Buddha taught a pragmatic spirituality: to attai pea e, e ust ealize that e e thi g, e e God, is i pe a e t . The p o le is ot ithi us, as i Ch istia it s o igi al si , ut a ou d us, i the da k ess aused pe asi e ignorance. To attain true peace, we must become enlightened. To e o e e lighte ed is to fi d ou t ue atu e, ou Buddha- atu e. Ou eal self is ot ou i di idual self. Ou i di idual s all i ds a e eall pa t of a ig Mi d . Jesus, ‘oge sa s, tea hes that God is the lo i g eato of e e thi g, a d that God s pe so al ha a te i plies a o al u i e se. At the hea t of this u de l i g o alit is justice: Jesus, a o di g to his [Je ish] t aditio , i agi es thi gs a ati el i ti e . Humanity must move ahead, striving to esta lish the ule of God, hat the Je ish t aditio alled the Ki gdo of God. The ealizatio of God s ule lies up ahead . . . a e i f ag e ts he e a d o , ut [a i i g] a solutel i the e d (45). We know e little a out the histo i al Jesus. The sto ies surrounding his infancy are generally considered theologically oti ated lege ds . We a dis e that he pe fo ed the known roles of a Jewish tea he , heale , a d p ophet. Afte he as put to death, his follo e s e a e o i ed that God had aised hi f o death . . . . This faith o i tio e po e ed the fo atio of a Jesus o e e t that g aduall e ol ed i to a Ch istia hu h . . . . . Jesus did ot p ea h hi self ut the ule of God. . . . Jesus emptied hi self Philippia s : -11). Paul responds by pointing out the stark contrast between the respective emphases of Buddha and Jesus: Buddha ai s to ha ge hea ts a d i ds ; Jesus ai s to i g a out the eig of justi e. Granting that the core-teachings of Buddha a d Jesus a e i edu i l diffe e t , Paul a d ‘oge joi i the o i tio that togethe these tea hi gs o stitute a oi ide e of opposites that a help to heal the o ld. Chapter Four, Who Were Buddha a d Jesus? : I as reviewer foreshorten my synopsis of this chapter because much of my critique, later in this review, addresses the issues that Paul/Roger raise here. ‘oge , a d Paul o his Ch istia side , efle t the o je tu es a d tentative conclusions about Jesus that are associated with the Jesus Seminar (and its fellow-travelers), the most recent (and last?) wave of the historico-critical movement in exegesis that first gained strength through the work of German Protestants such as Semler, Baur, Schleiermacher, and Feuerbach (late 18th century/early 19th century and onwards) and peaked in the 1970 and 80s. The resurrection is a faith e pe ie e ; a d the eed to pe ei e the i isi le God p odu es dog as that de la e God is like Jesus Councils of Nicaea, Chalcedon, etc). Paul as Buddhist rejects the Christian imaginaire that hopes i a esu e ted Jesus o the othe side of fi itude a d ti e. Ni a a, sa s Paul, is fou d on this side or within finitude” (he means hat he alls I te ei g, his e sio of Ve . Thi h Nhat Hah s version of pratītyasamutpāda). (64) Paul and Roger conclude with four principles that are meant to guide their ongoing dialogue: (1) Dialogists should be non-competitive; (2) they should remain faithful to their own tradition but try to accommodate the spirituality of the other tradition; the should e og ize the autho it of the tea he [eithe Buddha o Jesus] ho is ot [thei ] o ;a d the should e efit f o the ode of fu tio al a alog -73). Chapter Fi e, Ulti ate Realit : Given that Buddhism affirms Śūnyatā and Christianity affirms a personal Creator-God, Paul and ‘oge he e p opose so e fu tio al a alogies that help the t o eligio s u de sta d ea h othe ette , a d e og ize sa e esses iii that at first blush seem not to be the case. From my point of view, this hapte is o e of the est i the ook: a magisterial o Chu htheologia a ag ee ith u h of hat it sa s. Paul alls the ‘eall ‘eal — devoid of individual identity, or substantial being, or specific lo atio . These a e good e ough as e pla atio s, I suppose, ut it see s to e that s holasti la guage su h as the u o ditio ed, o the ph ase la ki g dete i atio s, a tuall o veys much better what Buddhists mean by Śūnyatā. The Buddhist monk-scholars whom I have known find the scholastic language very congenial here. Strange that Paul/Roger seem so averse, on principle, to philosophical and theological terminology. Thus it comes as quite a surprise that, when seeki g a fu tio al a alog et ee Ch istia it s God a d Buddhis s Śūnyatā, ‘oge deplo s, a d e effe ti el , A ui as s u de sta di g of God as pu e, u i hi ited, utte l f ee, a d i fi ite power of being without a li iti g fo , o as Pu e A t . Paul describes service of neighbor via Compassion as a Bodhisattvic a ti it , a d the su o s ‘oge to a ou t fo Ch istia it s elief i a pe so al God. ‘oge eplies: The ele e ta desi e fo justice . . . reflects a built-in longing for a moral universe. And this basic longing, in turn, finds grounding, in a subjective, intentional, and pe so al God . Chapter “i , Where Did the World Co e Fro —And Where Is It Goi g? : Roger aims to re-interpret the Christian teachings of creation a d the es hatologi al futu e, so the e o e o e a essi le to the o te po a s ie tifi i dset. Thus he o es e phasis to God-asground, a d u de sta ds eatio p i a il as the o ti uall a ti g grou d of hate e e ists . The eschaton or climax of history he e plai s this a : The o e ho o ti uall eates ill i g ealit to its ightful e d . Paul sees o se se i the ideas of a p i al creation and a climactic eschaton. Interbeing ea s that e e thing has an end, but there is no end to everything, for the ever-changing, interconnecting energy carries on. There, every end is a beginning. No e d is o l a e d . He goes o to u ge upo Ch istia it his e sio of p o ess theolog : just as there cannot be, in Buddhism, E pti ess ithout fo , so the e should ot e, i Ch istia it , a God ho does t eed hat is eated. Chapter “e e , The Pro le i Hu a Nature : Christianity has o siste tl sought sal atio f o th ee a ks of e iste e, sa s ‘oge , a el death, ego e t is , a d ea i gless ess ,a d these arise from some negativity rooted in our being (120). Paul att i utes hu a it s plight to the lassi al Buddhist th ee poiso s, delusio , g eed, a d hat ed , ut e phasizes that thei ause is episte ologi al a el , hu a s thi k the a e i di iduals a d ot ontological (namely, intrinsic to their human being). Roger and Paul revise their respective traditions by shifting ethical awareness to the social collective— oth o igi al si a d ka a a e est u de stood as collective selfishness. Chapter Eight, The Pote tial i Hu a Nature : Paul emphasizes that Buddhist enlightenment is a mystical experience, and urges Christians to take the next step after theosis (becoming God-like, sharing in the Divine Nature), and actually realize they not only pa take of the Di i e atu e ut are the Unconditioned, they are God. Paul also u ges Ch istia s to ealize that afte death the ill go o diffe e tl , ot as o e tio al ide tities, ut as eo s ious ess I te ei g . ‘oge egi s de u ki g the otio that Buddhis is a ela o ate s ste of self-help, a d as su h, st i tl di hoto ous ith Ch istia it s outside help 42). I hope that he does not attribute so simplistic a dichotomy to my very detailed t eat e t of hat I all self-help, sa e-help, a d othe -help i my recent book. In fact, my book makes several of the main points that Roger does here, namely, that the presence of God in us is more intimate than a subject-object relationship (so God, strictly speaking, is ot outside us ,iv and conversely, as Paul explains in several places, Bodhisatt as help othe s v so a st i t Buddhist self-help does ot see to appl . I all Ch istia it a othe help eligio o l i the sense that—according to established Catholic teaching—the individual remains somehow distinct from God: the individual is not God.vi In the Mahayana tradition to which Paul belongs, enlightenment is precisely to recognize that one is the Unconditioned, Emptiness, Spaciousness a d ot outside … i deed, the e is no ‘eal outside : thus I a gue that Mahayanist enlightenment involves the gradual recognition of same-help, vii so that--at the moment of enlightenment--individuality is recognized as a fabrication, and the fabrication slips away into the sa e ess of the ‘eal, of E pti ess. The Maha a ist path towards enlightenment involves the gradual recognition of the true Buddhanature, which works upon individual fabrications that in fact are Really itself (the Buddha-nature): in short, the pure Buddha-nature is helping what is Really itself but concealed under the fabrication of individuality. Thus I ega d sa e help as the Maha a ist fo of self help The a ada s self-help o ks i a e diffe e t a , e ause Theravadic Nibbana is not Buddha-Nature, and there is no Interbeing in Paul K itte s se se . M ook ites ell-known Buddhist monk- scholars and Buddhologists who have approved the accuracy of my s he a of self-help a d sa e-help i Buddhis . Chapter Ni e, Words Versus “ile e i “piritual Pra ti e : Buddhism privileges silence over words, Paul says, and he warns Christians not to absolutize words: words are mischievous, a d do ot tell us hat is eall goi g o . Paul ites koans as a a that Buddhists use la guage to e ti guish la guage. U fo tu atel , he eso ts to D.T. “uzuki s dis edited popula izatio of ho koans work, regarding them as insoluble puzzles contrived to blast away discursive thinking, and catapult us into non-rational awareness. Actually, Buddhologists such as Steven Heine and many others have, over the last few decades, demonstrated that there are many ranks of koans, and that usually koans a e solu le, ut i a s that a e situatio all fluid a d ad hoc: they are elaborately designed to teach specific enlightened skills and perceptions, such as—for example-- all is i fi ite spa e, o all is i fi ite o s ious ess. The tea h spi itual k a ks that a e off/ atio al athe tha i atio al. viii Roger, granting the importance of Christian silence and apophaticism, also vindicates the crucial roles of words in prayer. Human beings have intellect and will, and these correlate to God who is ot a pe so ut ho is pe so al. Thus sometimes words of prayer, petition, etc., are necessary. Paul and ‘oge togethe ag ee that Wo ds ithout sile t e ou te a e e pt ; sile t e ou te ithout o ds has o o je t a d fails the o u it . Chapter Te , To Attai Pea e, Work for Justi e : Roger explains that the Ch istia li es i a dou le elatio ship to God a d to the o ld of othe pe so s a d ou o o ha itat. He e phasizes the prophetic vocation of all Christians to work for justice (178). Paul asserts that Buddha s u de sta di g of hu a atu e is e e o e so ial tha Ch istia u e t otio s. Weste Ch istia it , he e plai s, defi es the human being as an individual who has to have social relations. Buddhism views the human being as a network of relationships that bring about an ever- ha gi g i di idual . Paul e e ses the a ti ist sloga , If ou a t pea e, o k fo justi e uoti g Ve . Thi h Nhat Ha h, To ake pea e ou fi st ha e to e pea e. Ch istia activists often both suffer burnout and indulge self-righteousness e ause the li g to ego-thoughts a d a solutize ideologies. ‘oge and Paul agree that classical Buddhism can help contemporary Western culture be less individualistic; and that Christianity can help Western Buddhists i No th A e i a a d Eu ope f o falli g p e to the se ula p i atizatio of spi itualit . Chapter Ele e , To Attai Justi e, Work of Pea e : Paul opens by sa i g that e ause Buddhists hold to a p io it of o te platio o e a tio , the do t eall ha e a lea o ept of justi e. ix Paul a k o ledges that e ause justi e de a ds so ethi g o e tha ha it , a el , st u tu al ha ge su h as the Ci il ‘ights A t i the U.“.A. , Buddhists ha e u h to lea f o Ch istia s a out justi e. Buddhists, however, can teach Christians much about non-violence: violence leads to more violence, and seldom works in the long run. Furthermore, continues Roger, again quoting Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh, the p efe e tial optio fo the poo . . . a e da ge ous. A dualit et ee opp esso a d opp essed ust e o e o e, si e oth a e e p essio s of a d a e held i a d I te ei g. The a tio s of opp esso a d opp essed a e lea l diffe e t, ut thei ide tities a e the sa e . Fo ‘oge , o passio a d pea e a e ot oppositio al but complementary. He proceeds, saying that interreligious dialogue experiences an analogous problematic. Thus e should p ofess that o eligio is supe io to a othe . C eatio out of othi g i plies the u i e sal p ese e of God as Spirit.”x Thus, all eligio s e ist ithi the sphe e of o ki g of God s g a e, ut he e e Jesus Christ is introduced into a dialogue with other religions, he appears as pote tial alte ati e, if ot a tual i al, to the othe ediatio s of ulti ate ealit that a e i pla e . Ho a Jesus ot e di isi e if he is proposed by Christians as the true revelation and mediation of God? ‘oge asks, a d he atta hes a telli g foot ote he e: If Ch istia s hold that Jesus was not the only and the absolute mediator of God, but rather one among others, the theoretical problem would be resolved. . . . But for Christians the question of how this is a legitimate i te p etatio of the t aditio has to e e gaged. ‘oge a d Paul lose ith so e suggestio s. Bi li al iti is [ ea i g he e the Histo i oC iti al ethod ] gi es us the a ilit i so e easu e to disti guish Jesus of Nazareth from later interpretations of him even in the New Testa e t. E te i g i to Jesus s po t a al of the God of all ea s that the Spirit of the God he preached is actually present in . . . all eligio s, oadl o ei ed. Jesus, the Je ish p ophet a d tea he , ep ese ts authe ti hu a e iste e o atu e i the fa e of transcendence. . . . When Jesus is recognized as representative of all, it is right to think of him as awakened or enlightened. Therefore, Jesus, like Moses, Buddha, and Muhammad, does not stand above or et ee people ut a o g us all . Chapter T el e, Is Religious Dou le Belo gi g Possi le? Da gerous? Ne essar ? : ‘oge egi s disti guishi g et ee ei g spi itual, meaning the way persons directs thei li es i fa e of so e t a s e de t ealit , a d ei g eligious, ea i g the a so e people add thei spi itualit to a o u it a d t aditio . Dual elo gi g happe s he pe so s a e d a to li e ithi oe than one religion. Dual belonging becomes more plausible as an authe ti pla e to e he app oa hed ia spi itualit . ‘oge de ies that dual elo gi g i o je ti e te s o st u ts a thi d eligio ; i stead, he lai s its p ese e is i the su je ti it of those professing it. Paul emphasizes that dual belonging can happen because o e s eligio a e o e a p iso . Dual elo gi g e a les dou le ou ish e t, a d he goes o to affi the ode of ossi g o e a d ossi g a k des i ed Joh Du e o e forty years ago a d asso iated o ada s ith the o pa ati e theolog odeled F . F. X. Cloo e a d his s hool . Paul eje ts the a usatio of s etis e ause fo a dual elo ge the t o pe tai i g eligio s e ai disti t hile ou ishi g each other (225). He points to the example of Raimon Panikkar, who lived the religions as o ple e ta . ‘oge p oposes th ee easo s h authe ti dual belonging is possible: (1) Transcendence is infinite, so no religion can e lusi el oopt it; “pi itual e ou te d a s o e i to a sphe e t a s e di g fi ite ep ese tatio s fi ite ep ese tatio s elo g to eligio ; a d Plu alis pushes us to eak-through doctrinal i passes: it is a ea s fo the de elop e t of t uth. Ne t, Paul a d Roge i oke the o ept of o de , a d talk a out it i th ee a s. “t o g o de s efe s to the dut o e has to plu o e s own eligio , a d app e iate it i sofa as possi le. Fle i le o de s efe s to the e le ti is that pe its the ossi g o e a d etu i g of interreligious dialogue: historically Christianity at its best has always app op iated f o othe eligio s. Ble ded o de s o de s that see to le d efe e es hat a e alled a h postati u io of two religions, so one lives—as Paul says is his case—a co-inherence of two religions: for him (and he does not propose this mode for e e o e , it is ot that dou le-belongers have two religious homes. . . . Rather, they have only one home, but it has both Christian and Buddhist fu itu e a d de o atio s. Paul a d ‘oge lose thei ook with a statement meant to open towards the future: Whether double elo gi g ill e o e a e a of dialogue is o e of the ope uestio s a d ad e tu es of this dialogi al hu h. Maha a a a d Vaj a a a t aditio s o side the sel es Big Vehi le s hools e ause the lai to ake li e atio easie a d o e all-encompassing than does the Theravada tradition. In Buddhism, what are called the T o T uths a e the u da e a d the Ulti ate, a d The a ada also uses this te i olog . Ho e e , The a ada eje ts o -duality as the Big Vehicle schools understand it. The Theravada tradition understands the mundane to be the world of impermanence and the Ultimate to be Nibbana (not, for Theravadins, to be non-dually identified in any way with the mundane). i B the a , adi all fo e is not a ad o d: o e of ai a ade i spe ialties is F e h De idea de o st u tio , afte all. iii This word reflects my own treatment of the same question: it is explained in my review. iv See my Facing Up to Real Doctrinal Difference: How Some Thought-Motifs from Derrida Can Fertilize the Catholic-Buddhist Encounter (2014), hereafter FRDD, pp. 70 et seq., 169. v FRDD, pp. 40, 41. vi Also, the i di idual is not not-God : F‘DD, p. . vii FRDD, pp. 64-69. viii “ee, fo e a ple, Hei e s Visio s, Di isio s, ‘e isio s i “te e Hei e a d Dale “. W ight, eds., The Koan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism (2000). Also excellent on this question, in the sa e a tholog , is G. Vi to “oge Ho i, Koa a d Ke sho i the ‘i zai )e Cu i ulu . M a ti le Diffe e tialis i Chi ese C’han and French Deconstruction: Some Test-Cases from the Wu-men-kuan, Journal of Chinese Philosophy (U. of Hawaii), Vol. 17 (1990), pp. 87-97, draws from many pertaining sources to demonstrate the many off/rational modes of gong’an (koans). ix Paul omits what is the prime factor explaining why, historically, Buddhists have not become directly involved in issues of civil justice. F o the Buddhist poi t of ie , the u foldi g of e e ts is dete i ed karma, the Buddhist Law of Causality. In short, the Buddhist typically has i te p eted life s e e ts to e just, ot u just, e ause life s out o es a e deserved. I met both in Taiwan and Thailand during my years in these countries many a student who told me that their father maltreated their mother or their mother maltreated their father, but the whole family felt that the maltreated party was getting just recompense for pertaining faults of a p e ious life. M othe tole ates that fathe alt eats he e ause she ealizes she ust ha e alt eated hi i a p e ious life as a o o ef ai . I ha e e e hea d e i e t Buddhist monks attributing the rise and fall of nations to group-karma. Only now, with the rise of the e gaged Buddhis that Paul K itte efe e es, a e Buddhists e o i g o e so iall engaged in controversial issues—they usually do so by justifying such engagement as a form of compassion, even—for some of them—the indispensable duty of compassion. x The works of some recent theologians—and I do not mean those of Roger Haight in this instance—have prompted official Notification from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, because they have been seen to imply either or both of the following two erroneous propositions: (1) That the Holy Spirit directly inspires founders of religions other than Christianity, so that the other religions are salvific in their own right (this proposal disassociates the Holy Spirit from the unique saving mission of Jesus Christ); and (2) That the Word (the Logos) directly embodies in founders of religions other than Christianity (this proposal offends against the unique Hypostatic Union). ii