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Dilatato Corde 5:1
January - June, 2015 
Robert Magliola Augustine famously wrote, in Book XI of the Confessions (trans. Henry Chadwick), “What then is time? Provided that no one asks me, I know. If I want to explain it to an inquirer, I do not know.” When, early in Facing Up to Real Doctrinal Difference, Robert Magliola brings into play Jacques Derrida’s musings on time and space, I was reminded of Augustine’s puzzlement, especially the Bishop of Hippo’s further exercise in deconstruction when he suggests that “we cannot truly say that time exists except in the sense that it tends towards non-existence.” Derrida is notoriously opaque. Magliola, in “Foreword: Pertaining Thought-Motifs from Jacques Derrida,” strives mightily to make him intelligible, and comes perhaps as close as anyone could be expected to. At least that’s what I thought before I got to the “First Annex: On God and Dissymmetry.” Here Magliola makes excellent and illuminating use of Derrida’s thinking “outside the box”—literally: “The square or, as you wish, the cube, will not close itself up.” The fog lifted, and I saw swimming into view not only Augustine but also Pascal and Kierkegaard and even T. S. Eliot. I can understand why, in commenting on an earlier book by Magliola about his thought, Derrida wrote to him in a letter published as Appendix 2, “I play much at watching you play so seriously.” Facing Up to Real Doctrinal Difference has two distinct, though interrelated, goals. One is to inform, advance, and deepen the dialogue between Buddhism and Catholicism (Magliola insists that his concern is not with Christianity in general, but specifically with Roman Catholicism as defined by the official Magisterium). The other is to inform, advance, and deepen Catholic theology’s understanding of its own inherent deconstructing motifs and tendencies. Magliola tellingly reminds us that in the 13th century Aristotle was initially no less suspect theologically than Derrida is today. Magliola’s life is the thread tying the two goals together. A Carmelite lay tertiary since 1982, he has spent decades in close association with Buddhists of many varieties, has published widely in both Buddhist studies and French philosophy, and draws on the experience of countless periods of meditation and prayer alongside Buddhists. He thinks it important for Catholics to know what Buddhists think Catholics’ chances for nirvana are, and for Buddhists to know what Catholics think Buddhists’ chances for heaven are. The book’s section called “Buddhism and Catholicism Appraising Each Other,” and Part Two, “Buddhist and Catholic Practice—Fruitful Interrelations and the Future,” are level-headed and nuanced, the latter making remarkably clear use of Derridean “double-bind” and “overlap-in-the-obverse.” The “Appraising Each Other” section is preceded by “Buddhist and Catholic Doctrines—Samenesses and Irreducible Difference,” where Magliola zeroes in on “self-power” and its analogue “Same-power” (Buddhist), and “other-power” (Catholic), as the irreducible difference, which in Derridean topsy-turviness grounds the samenesses that nearly all participants in dialogue, especially the “dialogue of practice,” report. But the stark conclusion Magliola derives from this is a stinging rebuke of any claim that these “real doctrinal differences” can be reconciled by an appeal to a “common ground” that the two religions are tied to or are even seeking, which would be, in his view, a direct challenge to official and unchanging Magisterial Catholic teaching. I don’t know enough about Buddhism to judge definitively Magliola’s portrayal, but I know enough to say that it rings true, and he tells us he has submitted the manuscript to many Buddhists and Buddhologists who have endorsed what he says (indeed, in some instances he altered his argument in light of their critique). He acknowledges that Buddhism doesn’t have a central doctrinal decider, and he is certainly acquainted with a wide spectrum of Buddhist belief and practice. However, there are moments in the book when I think he de facto posits a kind of “normative Buddhism” that rules out certain versions, e.g., Japan’s True Pure Land school, “in which self-power is considered an affront to (and by its very nature a blockage of) the absolute saving other-power of Amitabha.” The Catholic Magisterium draws lines; it’s not clear who wields the marker for Buddhists, but occasionally Magliola seems to want to set the boundaries for them. The Second Annex, “’Hellenized’ Catholic Theology and Its Encounter with Buddhism—Some Future Possibilities,” is especially provocative and insightful. If you are skeptical that Derrida has anything positive to offer Catholic theology, Magliola’s argument will likely deconstruct your skepticism. Magliola’s life history and life’s work are concentrated in this sentence (p. 161): “Perhaps we are entering a time when Asian modes of thinking can initiate a quantum leap in the Church’s theology at large,” and “such a development would do much to leaven the Asian Church while simultaneously abetting the Church everywhere.” Churches—not just the Catholic—can use all the leavening and abetting they can get! Magliola lists several doctrinal issues for which Derridean cross-hatching points to Buddhist insights that open Catholic possibilities. Two (pp. 162-63) seem to me especially salient. First, “impersonality” and “non-entitativeness” (this latter not a word you hear every day, but in context crystal clear) can actually cast light on the Trinity. Second, “In general, European theology has identified lack-of-wholeness exclusively with the consequences of Original Sin, and healing has been taken to mean, almost always, the restoration of wholeness. But cannot fracture-in-wholeness also be a clue to God, a ‘trace’ of God in this sense?” Underlying this radical but appealing suggestion is Derrida’s unrelenting suspicion of “holism,” the box that argument thinks it can’t get out of—though of course (italics mine) it isn’t that simple: deconstruction, Magliola explains, “does not negate holistic structure but rather, depends on it: deconstruction exposes the shortcomings of a formulation but refuses to supply a substantive formulation in its place” (p. 146). Sounds to me a lot like Augustine on time. I’m not as sure as Magliola is that Magisterial teaching never changes. I’m delighted that respectful dialogue with representatives of other religions is now officially sanctioned, even mandated. There have been times, however, when Catholics (perhaps misunderstanding Magisterial teaching, but that seems to me to beg the question) murdered people because they refused baptism. I think Magliola would do the Magisterium a favor by subjecting it to some Derridean deconstruction. In one delightful footnote (p. 139) Magliola hints at such playfulness. “It astounds me sometimes how ‘deconstructive’ Pope Francis’s words and behavior are. He is particularly adept at the technique of ‘reversal,’ the crucial first step in ‘classic’ Derridean deconstruction. In his address to the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, he ‘deconstructs’ that institution’s ‘centrism’ by insisting that according to the ‘logic’ of God, ‘evangelical form … reaches the center from the periphery and returns to the periphery’ (rather than vice versa).” Magliola’s valuable contribution is this: With help from Derrida to better understand both themselves and each other, Catholics and Buddhists are provided with the resources for true encounter, with all the surprises that follow when the cubes—those of their own traditions, of their joint explorations, even of Magliola’s book itself—refuse to close up. |
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