Sep. 1998
Pp.410-412
Copyright by E.J. Brill (The Netherlands)
Ninian Smart. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993. Pp. 147, index. The management of complexity is as much the challenge for the scholar in comparative religion as for the executive in corporate business or government service. While philosophers warn against mixing apples and oranges, those engaged in cross-cultural studies of religious traditions find themselves not simply in fruit baskets but in busy markets, with bags soon full of vegetables, meats, handcrafts, textiles, whatever. Ninian Smart, J.F. Rowny Professor of Comparative Religions at the University of California, Santa Barbara has long since mastered the skills required for such shopping for ideas. His book about the comparison and contrast of Buddhism and Christianity demonstrates them: clarity of method, openness to the different, empathy for the particular, analysis of implications, comprehensiveness. What is more, the spontaneity of style makes its reading an interactive experience, as one is led through the market from item to item, stimulated to question some purchases and bargain for others. While the announced focus of these chapters may seem narrow, their context is global, with suggestive references to all the major religious traditions. Smart's thesis is that because Christianity and Buddhism, particularly in its Theravada forms, stand at different ends of the continuum of religious belief, theist vs. atheist, other-dependency vs. self-dependency, their communication with each other can provide the key to the communication of all religions in a pluralist world. He is too careful an historian of religion to oversimplify the differences: he contrasts devotion to the Buddha with commitment to Christ, the architecture of the temple with that of the cathedral, the rituals of Theravada with the sacraments of Catholicism. He points out that such differences are hardly incidental or peripheral but to the discerning eye disclose opposing world-views: a fundamental affirmation of the impermanence of all things, on the one hand, and an assertion of substantial being, of self, world, God, on the other. He thus cannot accept the thesis of an "underlying unity" behind all religions, the "perennial philosophy" thesis of Aldous Huxley, Swami Vivekenanda and John Hick, of "one noumenal Reality of which the various religious presentations and experiences are so many phenomena" (p. 21). These ignore the reality of Theravada Buddhism, or make the highly questionable claim of understanding the beliefs of others better than they do themselves. On the other hand, Smart is too able a philosopher of religion to be satisfied with a contextualism which so emphasizes the particularity of religious experience as to make comparisons impossible. He gives an implication rather than a reason for his refutation: "This would be a kind of methodological fideism, which would be stultifying to all theory about religion and all dialogue" (p. 42). Actually, the reason contextualism is inadequate is that it lacks explanation for the commonalities of human experience, the fact that Christians are moved to reverence in Buddhist temples and Buddhists are entraced by New Testament narratives or more profoundly, that mystics of all traditions converge remarkably in their descriptions of mystic states. Contextualism with its relativism is refuted by the very question which drives the study of comparative religions: how is it that I find truth in traditions other than my own? One key is to keep the distinction between literal and analogous language. Smart criticises Francis H. Cook for asserting that the Western god is "outside" the creation and thus incompatible with an Asian view by showing that transcendence is a metaphor whose spatial implications depend on one's world view. Smart finds the model for inter-religious dialogue in a pluralist world in the confluence of the Chinese traditions, the san chiao. Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism interpenetrated each other in Chinese civilization, enhancing and enriching each. Hua-yen Buddhism with typical Chinese positivism, reinterprets the Buddhist metaphysic as an organic interconnectedness of all things, transforming the notion of emptiness into an affirmative source of appreciation of the world. The combination of an ethic, a naturalism and a disciplined awareness from the various traditions brought mutual critique and creative insight. The failure of the Maoist attempt to eradicate all three demonstrated their mutual strength so that the future civilization of China may well be, according to Smart, a szu-chiao, an amalgam of four traditions. With such a method and such a model, Smart spells out why Buddhism and Christianity may be understood as allies as well as rivals, in their complementarity with one another. Each is a complex tradition, with the many dimensions, mythical, ritual, doctrinal, experiential, etc. that Smart has analyzed in many lectures, essays, books. Here he asserts that they may critique as well as respect each other, in fact, learn from each other about the fuller implications of their own realizations of or encounters with religious reality. Christianity's cosmology can be enlarged by Buddhist metaphysics; Buddhism's social ethic may be energized by Christian practice. What Smart seeks is a unity of religions through an acknowledgement of their pluralism. "Unity will not be substantial agreement, but it will be promoted by mutual respect and decent debate, and by a dialogue of lives" (p. 120). This would not be "too tight a unity" for that would "stifle human creativity and the dialectical interplay which interaction between the great world-views promises" (p. 125). In dialogue, the religions can not only keep each other honest but nurture new views. What Smart has done in this book is to unfold the inner logic of the scholar of comparative religions in managing complexity. My quarrel with Smart in this book is not about the project or the method but the mood and chosen issues. The kind of dialogue Smart proposes is one in which Buddhists and Christians will critique their own views in the light of appreciations they gain of how things look in the world-view of others. That is to be applauded although his optimism is questionable. Buddhism's letting go of the doctrine of reincarnation or Christianity of substantial views of self and world are not as likely, I suspect, as Smart seems to suggest. More promising, I think, than continuing debate on the traditional issues of the nature of Ultimate Reality or the techniques of meditation would be an exploration of even more basic issues. A profound difference between Buddhist and Christian world views is revealed in the Christian contention that we live in a fallen world, full of alienation and conflict, which requires transformation while the Buddhist assertion is to the contrary, that our perception is distorted and life in the world is to be accepted as it is. An exercise in complementarity of thought on that issue could lead to some creative reformulations. Or consider the implications of the fact that the two religious traditions, along with the rest, now in a pluralist world share the same history. How will each understand that history and its context in a cosmic history? While these are issues particularly on the Christian agenda, they can be pursued without the colonialism Smart reminds us all to deplore. In the end, though, I wonder if complementarity of religious world-views, as stimulating as it is for historians and philosophers of religion, may miss the devotees. Smart's dismissal of Karl Barth as a narrow Biblicist reflects the theologian's myopia concerning other religions but does not appreciate his recovery of the dynamic of faith. The implications of a complementarity of faiths rather than world-views for religious dialogue present a complexity not managed yet.