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Light from the East? Ninian Smart and the Christian-Buddhist Encounter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

L. Philip Barnes
L. Philip Barnes
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin, Republic of Ireland
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Extract

One of the most pressing tasks for the Christian theologian at the present time is the construction of a theology of the religions which can adequately account for the continuing diversity of religious belief and practice, and which offers a distinctively Christian approach to religious pluralism. In the last few decades this topic has increasingly commanded the attention of prominent writers (e.g. P. Tillich, W. Pannenberg, J. Moltmann). Not only has it become the subject of numerous monographs and articles, but it seems to have established itself as an indispensable theme within any comprehensive (systematic) presentation of the Christian Faith.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , February 1987 , pp. 67 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1987

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References

1 Tillich, P., Christianity and the Encounter of World Religions, New York, Columbia University Press, 1963Google Scholar; idem, The Future of Religions, New York, Harper and Row, 1966.Google Scholar

2 Pannenberg, W., Basic Questions in Theology, Vol. 2, London, SCM Press, 1971, pp. 65–118.Google Scholar

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4 Good bibliographical guides are provided by Hick, John and Hebblethwaite, Brian (eds.), Christianity and Other Religions, London, Collins Fontana, 1980, pp. 239–250Google Scholar; Race, Alan, Christians and Religious Pluralism, London, SCM Press, 1983, pp. 163–169Google Scholar; and Knitter, Paul, ‘European Protestant and Catholic Approaches to the World Religions: Complements and Contrasts’, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Vol. 12 (1975), pp. 13–28Google Scholar, valuable on German research on this theme.

5 E.g. Hanson, A. T. and Hanson, R. P. C., Reasonable Belief: A Survey of the Christian Faith, London, Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 50–58Google Scholar; Thielicke, Helmut, The Evangelical Faith, Vol. 3, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1982, pp. 300–375Google Scholar; and Wainwright, Geoffrey, Doxology, London, Epworth Press, 1980, pp. 369–387.Google Scholar

6 It was the Religionsgeschichttiche Schule, and particularly the German ‘liberal Protestant’ Ernst Troeltsch (1865–1923), who brought historical relativism to the forefront of theological discussion. His chief works of relevance to this present theme are The Absoluteness of Christianity, London, SCM Press, 1972Google Scholar; ‘Der Historismus und seine Probleme’, in Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 3, Tübingen, J. C. B. Mohr, 1922Google Scholar; and Christian Thought: Its History and Application, London, University of London, 1923Google Scholar. His views on the relationship of Christianity to other religions are systematised by Pye, Michael, ‘Ernst Troeltsch and the end of the problem about “other” religions’, in Clayton, John Powell (ed.), Ernst Troeltsch and the Future of Theology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1976, pp. 172–195Google Scholar. Troeltsch's conclusions have been subjected to perceptive criticism by Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Basic Questions in Theology, Vol. 1, London, SCM Press, 1970, pp. 43–50Google Scholar; and Abraham, William J., Divine Revelation and the Limits of Historical Criticism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982, pp. 92–140Google Scholar. Troeltsch has exerted considerable influence over Nineham, Dennis, The Use and Abuse of the Bible, London, Macmillan 1976Google Scholar, and Van Austin, Harvey, The Historian and the Believer, London, SCM Press, 1969.Google Scholar

7 Race, op. cit.

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9 A sustained philosophical critique of relativism is Trigg, Roger, Reason and Commitment, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1973Google Scholar; also his ‘Religion and the Threat of Relativism’, Religious Studies, Vol. 19 (1983), pp. 297–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar (my terminology differs significantly from Trigg's); also Helm, Paul, The Divine Revelation, London, Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1982, pp. 47–55.Google Scholar

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13 Sharpe, Eric J. in Faith Meets Faith, London, SCM Press, 1977, p. 157Google Scholar, accuses Davis, Charles, Christ and the World Religions, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1970Google Scholar, of precisely this error.

14 This is one possible interpretation of Nostra aetate, ‘Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions’; for the English text, see Flannery, Austin O.P. (ed.), Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, Dublin, Dominican Publications, 1981, pp. 738–742.Google Scholar

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24 Nasr, S. H., Knowledge and the Sacred, New York, Crossroad, 1981Google Scholar; and more recently, ‘The Philosophia Perennis and the Study of Religion’ in Whaling, Frank (ed.), The World's Religious Traditions: Current Perspectives in Religious Studies. Essays in Honour of Wilfred Camwell Smith, Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1984, pp. 181–200.Google Scholar

25 Otto, Rudolf, The Idea of the Holy, London, Oxford University Press, 1931.Google Scholar

26 Cf. Gombrich, Richard F., Precept and Practice: Traditional Buddhism in the Rural Highlands of Ceylon, Oxford, Clarendon Press 1971Google Scholar; and Spiro, Melford E., Buddhism and Society, London, George Allen and Unwin 1971.Google Scholar

27 Smart's, fuller views on Christianity and its variations are given in The Phenomenon of Christianity, London, Collins, 1979.Google Scholar

28 Smart, Ninian, Reasons and Faiths, London, Routledge and Regan Paul 1958, pp. 54–107Google Scholar; idem, The Yogi and the Devotee, pp. 65–75; and idem, ‘Mystical Experience’, Sophia, Vol. 1 (1962), pp. 19–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and idem, ‘Interpretations of Mystical Experience’, Religious Studies, Vol. 1 (1965), pp. 75–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 ‘Paramarthasalya, or Absolute Truth, is the knowledge of the real as it is without any distortion … categories of thought and points of view distort the real. They unconsciously coerce the mind to view things in a cramped, biassed way: and are thus inherently incapable of giving us the truth … the absolute truth is beyond the scope of discursive thought, language and empirical activity’: Murti, T. R. V., ‘Samvrti and paramartha in Madhyamika and Advaita Vedanta’ in Sprund, M. (ed.), The Problem of Two Truths in Buddhism and Vedanta, Dordrecht, Reidel, 1971, p. 17.Google Scholar

30 As Hegel correctly recognised, the notion of Being, abstracted from all particular determinations of beings is exactly equivalent to nothingness; cf. Scruton, Roger, A Short History of Modern Philosophy, London, Ark Paperbacks, 1984, p. 170.Google Scholar

51 In an earlier study, originally published in 1970, Smart seems, after considerable equivocation, to espouse this view: The Philosophy of Religion, London, Sheldon Press, 1979, pp. 41–73Google Scholar. I hold that the shift in his position, from a metaphorical to a literal interpretation of ineffability, is necessitated by his pluralistic theology of the religions.

32 Stace, W. T., Mysticism and Philosophy, London, Macmillan, 1960.Google Scholar

33 Zaehner, R. C., Mysticism: Sacred and Profane, London, Oxford University Press, 1961.Google Scholar

34 Garside, Bruce, ‘Language and the Interpretation of Mystical Experience’, International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 3 (1972), pp. 93–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Katz, Steven T., ‘Language, Epistemology and Mysticism’, in Katz, S. T. (ed.), Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, London, Sheldon Press, 1978, pp. 22–74.Google Scholar

35 Smart, Ninian, ‘Interpretations of Mystical Experience’, Religious Studies, Vol. 1 (1965), pp. 75–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 This notion has been subjected to telling criticism by Yandell, Keith, ‘Religious Experience and Rational Appraisal’, Religious Studies, Vol. 10 (1974) pp. 173–187CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Oakes, R. A., ‘Religious Experience and Rational Certainty’, Religious Studies, Vol. 12 (1976), pp. 311–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 E.g. Happold, F. C., Religious Faith and Twentieth Century Man, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1966, pp. 33–43Google Scholar; and James, William, Varieties of Religious Experience, London, Collins, Fontana, 1960, pp. 73 and 87Google Scholar. On two former occasions Smart refers to this analogy; in Philosophers and Religious Truth, London, SCM Press, 2nd edn., 1969, pp. 121–122Google Scholar, in order to reject it; and in The Religious Experience of Mankind, London, Collins, Fontana, 1971, p. 28Google Scholar, in order to accept it. In the second instance he simply assumes its validity.

38 Nielsen, Kai, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, London, Macmillan 1982, p. xiiCrossRefGoogle Scholar, identifies himself with Empiricism.

39 Cf. Martin, C. B., Religious Belief, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1959, pp. 64–94Google Scholar; I disagree with Martin on his assertion that there are no agreed tests to identify and establish genuine experience of God (p. 67). I hold that there are in the case of the God of ‘classical theism’, but not in the case of mystical experience.

40 Wainwright, William, Mysticism, Sussex, Harvester Press 1981, p. 101.Google Scholar

41 London, Cresset, 1960.

42 A highly sophisticated and plausible account of this type of explanation is provided by Melchert, Norman, ‘Mystical Experience and Ontological Claims’, Philosophy and Phemonenological Research, Vol. 37 (1976–1977), pp. 445–463.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Cf. Russell, Bernard, Religion and Science, London, Oxford University Press, 1935, p. 188.Google Scholar

44 A careful reading of the articles on Augustine, Gnosticism, Mystical Theology and Neo-Platonism in Alan Richardson and John Bowden (eds.), A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, is sufficient to indicate the plausibility of my judgement.

45 Ritschl, Albrecht, Geschichte des Pietismus, 3 vols., Bonn, A. Marcus, 1880–1886.Google Scholar