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Dilatato Corde 5:1
January - June, 2015 .jpg)
A REPLY TO PATRICK HENRY'S REVIEW OF Facing Up to Real Doctrinal Difference: How Some Thought-Motifs from Derrida Can Nourish the Catholic-Buddhist Encounter I thank Dr. Patrick Henry for reviewing my book. I most sincerely appreciate both his interest in my book and his positive appraisal of it. However, I find that he interprets my text from a frame-of-reference that differs very much from my own, and for this reason I feel compelled to offer a response. Though he has the right to introduce his agenda for dialogue, I do wish he had attended more to my declared objectives and whether I have accomplished those objectives. I believe that sometimes his agenda—dare I say it?—blinds him to what my text actually asserts and then demonstrates. At the outset, let me address what I find to be the most glaring misdirection. Henry says, “I’m not as sure as Magliola is that Magisterial teaching never changes.” The fact of the matter is that I clearly affiliate with the declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith itself, which asserts that the “ordinary Magisterium” of “either a valid ecumenical council or the pope when carrying out his official functions” can change its “teachings and judgments” (my p. 61). I continue, “Such definitions/judgments are, in the words of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “not irreformable,” that is to say, they are subject to change, or may indeed prove to be wrong.[1] Let me add here that the history of the Catholic Church clearly shows that such changes—sometimes big changes—can happen and, in fact, have happened. I am bewildered that Patrick Henry thinks I can hold otherwise. My book treats the topic of Church authority on pages 56-62, and I think I have made my exposition as careful and nuanced as it can be, given that my purpose in all of Part One is to explain Catholicism to “Sangha Buddhists” and Buddhism to “pew Catholics” for the sake of their more informed encounter. This is a central purpose of my book—to function as “a key tool” at the “grassroots” level, as Father James Loughran, SA, puts it in his squib for my book—though Henry seems to overlook this purpose in his review. The topic of infallible teaching, that which is “solemnly” defined in the technical sense, and thus unchangeable, is addressed on pages 60-61, and my text specifies that “The preponderance of a Council’s assertions are not infallible. Nor are papal definitions and judgments infallible unless they are declared to be such (and there are remarkably few instances of these)” (p. 61). The important role of “developmental theology” is given much attention (pp. 1, 21, 101, 129, and 157), in large part because the Church’s oncoming “Asian turn”—a subject of the book’s Annex Two (pp. 157-182)—will no doubt generate such development. My book is designed to present—for the sake of professional dialogists on the one hand and rank-and-file Catholics and Buddhists on the other—an alternative to “dual-belonging” (understood to mean that one can be a Buddhist and Catholic at the same time) and “common ground” (understood to mean that the unique claims of each religion should be diluted so that “Interbeing” may be approached via the lowest common denominator). Buddha and Jesus are portrayed as “Awakeners,” messengers of syncretistic creeds reflecting the “one universal Spirit.” In his recent book, Paul Knitter proposes the current most popular version of “Interbeing,” but other variants seem to be proliferating. [2] My alternative to “common ground” is the Derridean argument that pure difference founds the samenesses that are superjacent to it. This does not render the samenesses less fertile and beautiful but, in fact, makes them more so. The philosophical “Foreword” of my book exposits the theoretical operations of pure difference, and the rest of my text makes the relevant applications to the Buddhist-Catholic encounter, demonstrating how “self-power,” either in the form of “own effort” (as in Theravada Buddhism) or “Same-power” (realization that the self is truly Buddha, as in Mahayana/Vajrayana), characterizes the mainstream Buddhisms; and, counterposed to “self-power,” how “other-power” characterizes Catholicism (the graced soul “partakes” of God’s divinity but also remains necessarily distinct from God. Grace is an unmerited gift). Henry, citing the counter-example of Japan’s True Pure Land School (Jōdo Shinshū), which affirms “the absolute saving other-power of Amitabha” (he is quoting from my account of that school, actually!), implies that I arbitrarily “set the boundaries” for Buddhism. In fact, it is he who is setting the boundaries for me by claiming that my account reflects the totality of all Buddhist sects and their respective tenets. Instead, I affirm that I am reflecting the beliefs of the (numerically) majority Buddhist traditions as represented by their most widely received and respected teachers, whom I quote throughout, and in detail. These Buddhist teachers, and all the recognized academic sources I know of, assert that the True Pure Land School (which differs even from the other contemporary Pure Land schools—Japanese, Chinese, or otherwise) is an anomaly in terms of the global Buddhisms. Though very large in Japan (about 10 million members),[3] it is dwarfed by the 488 million Buddhists in the world.[4] I do not in any way disdain Jōdo Shinshū. Rather, I very much honor it, but it establishes its own unique “pure differences” from Catholicism. My book addresses Buddhism and Catholicism rather than Buddhism and the whole of Christianity because a work of the latter’s scope would require—given the differing Christian teachings involved—tomes upon tomes upon tomes. The section on how Catholicism appraises the possibilities of salvation for Buddhists, and on how the Buddhist traditions, in their various ways, appraise the possibilities of Catholics for eventual beatitude (Nirvana, Buddhahood, etc.), is intrinsically interesting, so I include it. My exposition of Buddhism was submitted to and approved by many well-known and respected Buddhist masters, Buddhologists, and dialogists: I name them and quite often quote them. With an eye towards “the dialogue of religious experience,” crucial segments of my book treat joint-meditation, and also propose Catholic adaptation of Buddhist practices such as gong’an (koans), etc. Jacques Derrida’s work is taken seriously, a fact attested to by thousands of philosophical publications throughout the world. Derrida’s “play” is Talmudic, and not the play of a Donald Barthelme, say. In my book’s Annex Two, I adapt (not adopt) the Derridean notion of “absolute negative reference” and compare it to the relationis oppositio clause (Council of Florence). Instead of God theologically accessed as a Plenum, God is accessed as a Unity of purely negative Trinitarian relations, a formulation better suited to Far Eastern thought (God is ultimately a Mystery, of course: we are just talking here of theological figurations). Patrick Henry closes his review with the recommendation that the Derridean resources (in my book) be directed towards the established traditions of Catholicism and Buddhism. To me, this sounds as if he wants me to align myself with the phalanx of so-called “liberal” theologians who “deconstruct” the Church’s theology in their lockstep way. I actually did my own “deconstruction” of the institutional Church some years ago in On Deconstructing Life-Worlds: Buddhism, Christianity, Culture (1997). The body of my current book—aside from the short theoretical “Foreword” and the two Annexes—has other purposes. I intend it to function as a reliable “guide” for Catholic diocesan Interfaith Directors, pastors, and laity who are newly involving themselves in dialogue (and for their Buddhist counterparts). It could not possibly do that if it simultaneously “deconstructed” the teachings of the Catholic side (or the Buddhist side). This reply has been impassioned. May dear Dr. Patrick Henry, my reviewer, remember the passion of his historical namesake and understand! NOTES [1] See the Instruction “Donum Veritatis” on the Ecclesiastical Vocation of the Theologian, #24, of said Congregation. [2] Please permit me to call attention to my review of Knitter’s book in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 78, No. 4 (pp. 1215-1218); reprinted in Dilatato Corde, Vol. II, No. 1 (January-June 2012). [3] See Ugo Dessi, The Social Dimension of Shin Buddhism, 2010, p. 71, as cited in G. Willis’ review thereof in the Journal of Buddhist Ethics, Vol. 20, 2013. |
_Web(2)_Web.jpg) Robert Magliola (chair prof., Grad. School of Liberal Arts, National Taiwan U.; prof. of philosophy and religious studies, interfaith Grad. School of Philosophy and Religions, Assumption U. of Thailand, retired), whose Ph.D. is from Princeton U. (1970), is a specialist in hermeneutics, comparative philosophy, and Catholic-Buddhist dialogue. Jesuit-formed and a Carmelite lay tertiary since 1982, he has trained in vipassana- satipatthana meditation at Wat Mahathat, Thailand, and in Chan with Taiwanese Buddhist nuns. He led a team of Thai Catholic and Buddhist scholars to the quadrennial international conferences of the Society of Buddhist-Christian Studies (1996, 2000), and presented on Catholic Meditation in Vajrayana Form before the Pontifical Council of Culture in 1999. Upon retirement, he continued his writing and interfaith work, becoming interfaith adviser for Ling Jiou Shan’s Buddhist center in N.Y.C. and an editor for the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (RVP), Catholic U. of America. Since 2012 he has been for part of each year a retreatant at Villa Vangelo e Zen, Desio (MB), Italy. In March 2013, he received from Vangelo e Zen an official Attestato (certification): the document declares him qualified to teach meditation “as transmitted in Zen, and in other Oriental forms” [in which he has been trained], to “priests, Religious, and laity of the Catholic Church,” in accordance with “the spirituality of dialogue promoted by Vatican Council II.” He has published four books: Phenomenology and Literature (Purdue U.P., 1977), Derrida on the Mend (Purdue U.P., 1984; 2000-2010; 2013- ), On Deconstructing Life-Worlds: Buddhism, Christianity, Culture (Scholars P. of AAR, 1997; Oxford U.P., 2000- ), and Facing Up to Real Doctrinal Difference: How Some Thought-Motifs from Derrida Can Nourish the Catholic-Buddhist Encounter (Angelico P., 2014- ). Mailing address: Dr. Robert Magliola Co-Editor, Delta Epsilon Sigma Journal (of the National Association of Catholic Scholastic Honor Societies), 411 10th St., Union City, N.J. 07087, U.S.A. Email address: Robert_Magliola@hotmail.com with copy to magliola.robert@gmail.com |