Review: Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian, by Paul F. Knitter

I could have written a book with this title, and meant it quite sincerely. (But, I hasten to add, it wouldn't have been nearly as good.)

Paul Knitter, presently the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture at Union Theological Seminary in New York, is well known for his work on the subject of religious pluralism. This book is not like his other books, at least not the ones that I've read, or read from. Knitter has never been one to try to hide his authorial presence behind dry academic prose, but here we find him writing very personally, sharing his struggles with elements of the Christian faith, and relating how his study of Buddhism -- and his own Zen practice -- have helped him through the struggle. Indeed, he describes himself as a "Buddhist Christian" (which is a little bit further than I'd go myself).

Knitter, who was a priest from 1966 to 1975, and whose teachers included such luminaries as Jesuit Frs. Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, admits that he has struggled for much of his career with what many would insist are essential Christian beliefs -- "not the ethical teachings of Jesus and the New Testament witness," or "the controversial ethical or practical teachings" of the Catholic Church:¹

No, when I say I'm struggling, I mean with the big stuff -- the stuff that applies to all Christians, not just my own Roman Catholic community. I'm talking about the basic ingredients of the Creed, the beliefs that many Christians proclaim together every Sunday and that are supposed to define who they are in a world of many other religious beliefs and philosophies. I'm talking about "God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth," who as a personal being is active in history and in our individual lives, whom we worship and pray to for help and guidance. I'm talking about "his only-begotten Son" who "died for our sins" and will "come again at the end of time" and who will grant eternal life and personal immortality to the body and souls of all those who answer God's call, while those who reject the call will be dispatched to a hellish punishment that will never, ever end.²

Knitter claims that the traditional sources of Christian theology have proven inadequate to the task of helping him through his struggle. He has come to realise, he says, that he has "to look beyond the traditional borderlines of Christianity to find something that is vitally, maybe even essentially, important for the job of understanding and living the Christian faith: other religions."³ Following the example of people like Raimon Panikkar, Aloysius Pieris, Bede Griffiths, and Thomas Merton, Knitter says he has come to realise that he has to do his theology dialogically. "Or," he says, "in current theological jargon: I have to be religious interreligiously."⁴

Each chapter in this book follows a similar pattern: First, Knitter describes some traditional Christian belief that he finds problematic. Second, he "passes over" into Buddhism, explaining some aspect of Buddhist thought that might be relevant. Third, he "passes back" to Christianity, and explores how the Buddhist ideas might help to provide a solution.

The chapters are as follows:

Preface: Am I Still a Christian?

1. Nirvana and God the Transcendent Other

2. Nirvana and God the Personal Other

3. Nirvana and God the Mysterious Other

4. Nirvana and Heaven

5. Jesus the Christ and Gautama the Buddha

6. Prayer and Meditation

7. Making Peace and Being Peace

Conclusion: Promiscuity or Hybridity?

I won't say too much about the contents just yet, as I intend to blog about this a fair bit in the near future. I will say that I found it to be quite a satisfying read.

The book is clearly aimed at open-minded Christians willing to consider how another religious tradition might inform their own religious perspective. Knitter does not presume that the reader will know very much about Buddhism (I kind of wonder, though, how many people without a considerable prior interest in Buddhism will actually bother to read this book).

I expected it to be somewhat predictable, and I occasionally found myself thinking that I already knew exactly where he was going to go with each chapter. Sometimes I was right, but more often I was pleasantly surprised.

Towards the end Knitter discusses some of the elements of Christianity that, at least on the surface, would seem to be in stark contrast with Buddhism. One is Christianity's emphasis on history and eschatology, found most significantly in Jesus's teachings about the kingdom of God. For Buddhists, as Knitter puts it, "the world isn't going anywhere."⁵

Another difference is the traditional Christian commitment to social justice. Actually, this was one of the more interesting things in the book, at least for me. Buddhism, Knitter says, has long been concerned with peace, but not justice, which is not something I had given much thought to before (although I'm certainly aware of the relatively recent emergence of "Engaged Buddhism," as exemplified in the work of people like Thich Nhat Hanh, Maha Ghosananda, and Sulak Sivaraksa, among others). Knitter, who in addition to being a theologian is also a social activist, shares some wonderful insights into the relationship between contemplation and action, which was one of the many rewarding aspects of this book.

It is often noted that Buddhism poses an intellectual challenge to Christianity. This is true, but there is no need to take a defensive posture. Paul Knitter has shown that engaging with Buddhist thought can greatly enhance Christian faith. Knitter finds that "the more deeply one enters into the core experience that animates one's own tradition, the more broadly one is enabled and perhaps moved to enter into the experiences of other traditions."⁶ Whether one is finally interested specifically in Buddhism or not, Knitter has provided a very compelling, personal, and accessible account of how fruitful this engagement with another tradition can be.

Notes

[1] Knitter, Without Buddha, x. Of the latter, Knitter mentions "matters such as birth control, divorce, the role of women, homosexuality, clerical celibacy, episcopal leadership, and transparency." He adds, "Certainly these are matters of grave concern, but with many of my fellow Catholics I've realized that, as has often been the case in the history of our church, on such issues the "sense" or "voice" of the faithful has a few things to teach the pastors. It's a matter of time."

[2] Knitter, Without Buddha, x.

[3] Knitter, Without Buddha, xi.

[4] Knitter, Without Buddha, xii.

[5] Knitter, Without Buddha, 180.

[6] Knitter, Without Buddha, 216.

Pluralism and Indifferentism

Introduction

A few years ago, after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released the infamous Dominus Iesus, the secular press picked up on the fact that this was a controversial document. But they generally misunderstood the controversy. An Associated Press article, for example, ran under the title, “Vatican Rejects Equality of Religions.” As if that was news.

Dominus Iesus certainly had an arrogant tone, and this was indeed lamentable. But the suggestion that the Vatican might have affirmed that all religions are equal, and that their failure to do so was somehow newsworthy, was remarkably naïve. Never mind that it would have been a sudden and dramatic reversal of a nearly 2000 year old position, the bigger problem is that it doesn’t even make sense. It simply isn’t possible to coherently affirm that all religions are equal.

Why not? I’ll explain.

First of all, it has to be recognised that religions are not monolithic entities. If we wanted to decide which was better, Christianity or Buddhism, we would first have to decide which form of Christianity and which form of Buddhism we were going to compare. Within every religious tradition is a diversity of religious perspectives, some of which will be closer to the truth, or more conducive to “salvation” (however defined), than others.

Now, if I was to assert that all religious perspectives are equal, this would itself be a religious perspective. But the opposite of this – that all religious perspectives are not equal – is also a religious perspective. So I cannot assert that all religious perspectives are equal without also affirming the opposite. I would be contradicting myself.

We All Believe Our Beliefs Are True

If I affirm one perspective, and you affirm another perspective, I cannot coherently claim that your perspective is superior to my own. As soon as I decide that your perspective is superior, I would effectively be adopting that perspective.

One might argue that it is possible to affirm one perspective while acknowledging the other as an equally valid perspective. Actually, this is not possible.

Imagine two hypothetical religious traditions, which we’ll call P and Q. Traditionally the adherents of these religions have considered their own religion superior to the other. But times have changed, and people are becoming uneasy with the traditional triumphalism. On both sides there are some who maintain the superiority of their own tradition. We’ll call their positions Pe and Qe.

Let’s say I want to continue to call myself an adherent of P, I want to continue to attend services in a P house of worship, I find great richness and beauty and spiritual nourishment in the P tradition, etc., but I don’t want to affirm Pe. I can come up with a new position, which affirms that P and Q are equally valid. I call it Pp.

Have I succeeded in affirming a position without claiming that it is superior to others? No. If I affirm Pp, I nevertheless have to find my position superior to those who affirm Pe and Qe. If I affirm that P and Q are equally valid (i.e., Pp), I have to find Pp superior to Pe and Qe, because they deny that P and Q are equally valid. If I’m right, they must be wrong.

There’s probably a simpler way of saying that. But the point is, it is simply not possible to coherently assert that all religious perspectives are equally valid. Religious indifferentism is intrinsically incoherent.

Pluralism

So what about the so-called “pluralist” theologies? Traditionally, pluralism has been distinguished from not only exclusivism (which asserts that salvation is not available to those outside of a given religion), but from inclusivism as well.

Inclusivism, as it is usually understood, takes many forms, from the “anonymous Christian” idea of Karl Rahner (see Theological Investigations 6.390-398), to the less articulated position taken by the magisterium (see Vatican II’s Gaudium et spes).

An inclusivist believes that only their own religious perspective is fully “true,” but admits that those who share other perspectives can be saved. However, this salvation happens the way the inclusivist understands it. In other words, a Christian inclusivist might admit the possibility of a Muslim being saved, but they would likely assert that it is through Christ that the Muslim will be saved, and not through their submission to the will of God as defined by the Qur’an.

John Hick

This kind of inclusivism is rejected by John Hick, who is probably the best known pluralist theologian. Hick rejects inclusivism because, like the “intolerant exclusivism” that preceded it, inclusivism “rests upon the claim to Christianity’s unique finality as the locus of the only full divine revelation and the only adequate saving event” (Disputations 84). As Hick sees it, inclusivism doesn’t do enough to address what he calls the “destructive effects of the assumption of Christian superiority” (79).

Instead, Hick says Christians should see Christianity not as a superior religion, but “as one of the great world faiths, one of the streams of religious life through which human beings can be savingly related to that ultimate Reality Christians know as the heavenly father” (emphasis in original; 85).

I have a few problems with Hick’s “pluralist hypothesis,” but for now I’m only going to concentrate on one, which is his insistence that he has somehow transcended inclusivism. Inclusivists, as he sees it, believe that their religious perspective is true, and other religious perspectives are at least somewhat inferior. Still, unlike exclusivists, inclusivists admit the possibility of salvation for those not sharing their perspective. Only this salvation, if it will happen, will happen for the reason known to the inclusivists, not for the reason believed by those holding inferior perspectives.

Understood this way, how is Hick not an inclusivist? He believes that his pluralistic perspective is true, and that inclusivists and exclusivists are in error. Still, he admits that inclusivists and exclusivists can be saved, but for the reason understood by Hick. So what’s the difference?

The problem is with seeing exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism as discrete categories along a single axis (i.e., the traditional typology). Theologies are either exclusivistic or inclusivistic. Here the distinction concerns the scope of salvation: is it limited to the adherents of one religion, or not.

Within inclusivism there is a further division, along a different axis. There are the traditional inclusivist theologies, like Rahner’s, and the pluralistic inclusivist theologies, like Hick’s. Here the distinction concerns not the scope of salvation, but something quite different.

As for what this “something” is, I can offer only a tentative suggestion. It seems to me that the traditional inclusivists see their religion as, if not an entirely divine product, at least the product of a unique divine initiative. A traditional Christian inclusivist sees Christianity as the religion specifically intended by God. A pluralistic inclusivist like Hick sees Christianity as one of several human responses to the “infinite Real,” the differences between it and other religions being the result of the “different cultural ways of being human” (Interpretation 14). Not surprisingly, non-pluralist inclusivists and pluralist inclusivists tend to disagree over the doctrine of the incarnation, at least as it is traditionally understood.

Hick’s idea has much to recommend it, and I agree with a lot of what he has to say, but his failure to acknowledge that it is impossible to avoid asserting the superiority of one’s own views over those with whom one disagrees is very problematic. I have a few other problems with his work as well, but that will have to wait for another day.

Recommended Reading

S. Mark Heim, in his book Salvations: Truth and Difference in Religion offers a similar critique of Hick (and others), but for somewhat different reasons. I disagree with some of Heim’s conclusions, but it’s one of the best critiques of the pluralism-as-distinct-from-inclusivism perspective I’ve come across.

John Hick has a number of very interesting articles on his official website. And they're not just about pluralism.