Owers: Eviews

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Russell H. B OWERS , Jr., Someone or Nothing? Nishitanis Religion and

Nothingness as a Foundation for Christian-Buddhist Dialogue. Asian Thought
and Culture 27. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1995. xi + 251 pp.
$49.95 cloth, ISBN 0-8204-2832-9.
EVEN THE IRREPRESSIBLE Alan Watts, who has been called the Norman Vincent
Peale of Buddhism for his ebullient introductions of Zen for Westerners,
nearly despaired of marrying Eastern thought to Christianity. Describing
Christianity as a contentious faith that requires an all-or-nothing commitment, he observed: My previous discussions did not take proper account of
that whole aspect of Christianity which is uncompromising, ornery, militant,
rigorous, imperious, and invincibly self-righteous.
Bowerss book presents Christian-Buddhist ecumenists with a blunt
antithesisSomeone or Nothing (Christ or nyat)reminding us that
the uncompromising, unassimilable aspect of Christianity noted by Watts is
anything but dead, and should not be written off as a passing historical deformation of a religion otherwise amenable to the goals of mutual transformation and unity beyond differences.
A Ph.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary, Bowers writes from the evangelical Protestantism represented by authors like Norman Geisler, Carl
Henry, John MacArthur, Alister McGrath, Ronald Nash, James Packer, Charles
Ryrie, Francis Schaeffer, James Sire, John Stott, and Anthony Thiselton, and
by publishing houses like Baker Book House, Eerdmans, Moody, InterVarsity,
and Zondervan. This might tempt some readers to dismiss Bowerss unbending (anti-)thesis with a disdainful ad hominem yawn towards American
Fundamentalism, but this would be premature for two reasons.
First, the uncompromising stance towards non-Christian religions found in
Bowerss book characterizes not only Protestant Fundamentalism but, ultimately, the entire tradition of the Catholic magisterium down to our own day
(one only has to recall the loudly protested remarks by Pope John Paul II on
Buddhism in his recent book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope). Even when
Catholicism acknowledges the possibility of salvation outside the Christian
faith (as in its concept of baptism of desire), it insists that its only basis is
Christs atonement. As such, this aspect of Christianity may well turn out to
be an ineluctable part of its essential nature, and not a quirk that can, with
effort, be removed.
Second, this book, even if a bit plodding and pedantic at times (one
chapter has 328 notes, and fully one-third of the book is devoted to endnotes,
bibliography, and index), is a carefully researched study of Keiji Nishitanis
Religion and Nothingness, the magnum opus of the late great dean of the Kyoto
school of Buddhistic phenomenology. As such, its perspective deserves serious consideration. Bowers accurately grasps the seminal signicance of
Nishitanis work, and while interfaith ecumenists may nd his conclusions
disappointing, his assessment of the implications of Nishitanis thought for
the Christian-Buddhist dialogue is sincere, forthright, and fair. It also provides ecumenists with a clear sense of Christianitys unyielding side, a side
that continues to challenge and defy their work toward a higher Christian-
210
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23/12
Buddhist synthesis.
Bowers devotes his rst two chapters to the nature of interreligious dialogue in general, and to the history and goals of Christian-Buddhist dialogue
in particular. He notes how the purpose of dialogue has evolved from mutual
understanding (Dumoulin) to mutual transformation (Cobb) and the quest
for unity (Ingram) under the inuence of various nontraditional theologies
and denaturing (kenotic) Christologies. He addresses the lamentable lack of
conservative evangelical involvement in the Christian-Buddhist dialogue, the
issues of religious pluralism, and the charges of exclusivism leveled against
traditional Christianity.
Chapter 3 offers an extensive expository summary of Nishitanis Religion
and Nothingness. The analysis is accurate, evenhanded, and reasonably clear,
although it naturally mirrors the indirect circularity of Nishitanis own logic.
Sometimes it is hard to tell whether Bowers is slipping from exposition to
commentary, especially when he takes up Nishitanis view of Christianity.
Technical terms like circuminsessional and autotelic are not dened for
the reader.
Chapter 4 is primarily spent showing why evangelical Christianity and
Buddhism are incompatible. Admitting that Nishitani makes common cause
with Christianity against scientic materialism, nihilism, and atheistic existentialism, the author hastens to show the superciality of these concerns. He
suggests (using Francis Schaeffers phrase) that Nishitanis own uncritical
acquiescence in the modern ateleologic scientic worldview compromises his
ability to accurately assess the traditional Christian view of a personal-innite
God. Consequently, when Nishitani treats such Christian concepts as Gods
personal nature and Christs compassion, seless love, and kenotic (selfemptying) self-sacrice he denatures them and transmutes them into sublated
Buddhistic concepts utterly foreign to their original signications. Bowers
notes that Nishitani, at this point, has more in common with deconstructionist hermeneutics and various nonevangelical thelogiesMystical (Eckhart
and Heidegger), Radical (Altizer), Liberal (Ritschl, Bultmann, etc.), and
Process (Cobb). Meanwhile he continues to write as though evangelical theology were something self-evident and unconnected to Catholic tradition.
Chapter 5 summarizes the authors thesis, recapitulating his evangelical
concerns. At times he seems to be writing here primarily for evangelicals, as
when he suggests that the chief purpose of interfaith dialogue is to contribute to understanding which will enhance effective proclamation, or calls
(in good altar call form) for making a choice. Yet he suggests several
protable topics for Christian-Buddhist discussion, such as the relation
between nyat in Buddhism and meaninglessness in Ecclesiastes, or the
human experience of repugnance towards evil in relation to the benign indifference of nyat in Buddhism.
For some readers a signicant obstacle to appreciating Bowerss thesis will
be the seeming harshness with which he states some of his conclusions, such
as his description of Buddhist meditation as a self-induced brainwashing. A
more serious difculty, not of Bowerss general thesis but of the details of his
analysis, is the disjunctive logic that he indiscriminately forces upon a whole
REVIEWS
211
range of terms and concepts. If truth can be propositional, does this mean
it cant also be existential? If humanitys basic problem is sin, does this
mean it cant also involve ignorance? If God is personal, does this mean
his nature is no longer incomprehensible (contrary to what theologians
from Aquinas to Cornelius Van Til have believed)? If some mysticism
begins in mist and ends in schism, does this mean that the rich traditions of
mysticism from St. Anthony of the Desert to St. John of the Cross and patristic mystagogia (for which the central acts of worship are sacred mysteries)
have no place in Christianity? In spite of these and other shortcomings,
Bowerss study presents the Christian-Buddhist dialogue with a challenge that
deserves to be carefully considered.
Philip Blosser
Lenoir-Rhyne College
I SOMAE Junichi r2s, Dog to kamen: Jmon shakai no shky kz

FXo6s3klu;r. Tokyo: Azekura Shob, 1994. 236 pp.
8,240 (cloth), ISBN 4-7517-2420-7.
THOUGH STILL IN HIS early thirties, Isomae Junichi has already made a reputation for himself as a leading scholar of Jmon gurines and masks. Dog to
kamen is a collection of eight papers written between 1985 and 1992; seven of
the papers have been published previously, though the author has made
some corrections and amendments. The rst chapter deals with masks and
the rest with various aspects of clay gurines, with particular emphasis on the
Thoku region in the Late and Final Jmon phases.
Isomaes overall approach is perhaps best described as contextual.
Criticizing overly simplistic theoretical reductionism that attempts to
account for Jmon ritual as a whole, he argues that each region needs to be
seen on its own terms. A reference to medievalist Amino Yoshihiko on page 1
suggests that Isomae sees his work as part of a general trend towards the
decentralization of Japanese history. While I agree that detailed studies of the
context of gurine use and production are essential, I am less convinced by
Isomaes assumption (p. 1) that archaeological types are direct symbolic
representations of past social groups, an idea that has received considerable
criticism in Western archaeology over the past decade or so. Although
Isomaes eld is religious studies rather than archaeology, my most general
criticism of the book is that he fails to transcend a very archaeological obsession with typology and classication.
The rst chapter deals with masks (and was published originally in Kkogaku zasshi 77/1, not 76/4 as stated on page 3). Apart from a couple of shell
examples from Kumamoto, Jmon masks are made of clay and are mostly
rather small, with a diameter of between ten and twenty centimeters. Masks
rst appeared in western Japan in the early Late phase but then spread east;
in the Final Jmon they are known only in the eastern archipelago. Only
some fty-eight masks have been discovered from thirty-six sites. Thus,
although Jmon masks have a wide distribution, they are numerically rare

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REVIEWS

Russell H. B OWERS , Jr., Someone or Nothing? Nishitanis Religion and

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 23/12

I SOMAE Junichi r2s, Dog to kamen: Jmon shakai no shky kz

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