Explorations in the Theology of Benedict XVI

Chapter 4: A Depth of Otherness

114 chapte r f our A DEPTH OF OTHERNESS Buddhism and Benedict’s Theology of Religions R obeRt M. G iMel l o In 1951, fourteen years before the publication of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s great summons to the mutually entailed enterprises of theology of religions and interreligious dialogue, Henri de Lubac, later to be recognized as a guiding light of the Council, published a learned account of the Christian West’s slow, hesitant discovery of Buddhism.He prefaced his study with the following observation: The West that is groping its way, little by little and in various ways, toward the discovery of Buddhism, is, broadly speaking, the Christian West. More than the growth in the understanding of Buddhism, we consider here the succession of reactions to it over the course of centuries. For us, therefore, the history of this discovery is not an entirely secular undertaking. It touches not only on the history of civilization and humanism, but still more on the history of religions. It involves the history of Christian missions, w A Depth of Otherness 115 of apologetics, of great spiritual conflicts. It is one line—among many, certainly—that delineates the face of this Europe where we live, one component the explanation of which contributes to our explanation of ourselves. Far from complete, it has just entered, we believe, its most crucial phase. It now forces the Christian intellect to grapple with a reflection that cannot be ignored without cost.1 Today, more than six decades after Père de Lubac wrote these words, we are still early in the “crucial phase” of Christianity’s encounter with Buddhism, and the demand that Buddhism makes upon Christianity ’s reflective attention is now, if anything, even more urgent, the danger of harm should Christianity neglect Buddhism even greater, than seemed to be the case in the middle of the past century. Cardinal de Lubac,one must note,was an admirer of Buddhism— a critical and discriminating admirer, to be sure, but an admirer nonetheless .2 He was even willing, in the conclusion of his 1951 study, to quote a rather ardent, but not unqualified, encomium of the Buddha from Romano Guardini’s The Lord: [There is only one man whom we might be inclined to compare with Jesus: the Buddha.] This man is a great mystery. He lived in an awful, almost superhuman freedom, yet his kindness was powerful as a cosmic force. Perhaps Buddha will be the last religious genius to be explained by Christianity. As yet no one has really uncovered his Christian significance.Perhaps Christ had not only one precursor, John, last of the prophets, but three: John the Baptist for the Chosen People, Socrates from the heart of antiquity, and Buddha, who spoke the ultimate word in Eastern religious cognition. Buddha is free; but his freedom is not that of Christ. Possibly Buddha’s freedom is only the ultimate and supremely liberating knowledge of the vanity of this fallen world. Christ’s freedom is based not on negative cognition, but on the love of God; his whole attitude is permeated with God’s earnest will to heal the world.3 116 Robert M. Gimello To this, however, de Lubac adds still further qualification: If we may, as Guardini suggests, seek an analogy for Buddhism in the Old Testament, it is decidedly not in the prayer of the Psalms or the prophecy of Isaiah that we must expect to find it, nor in any of the preparations for nor actual foreshadowing of the Gospels ; such an analogy is to be found only in Ecclesiastes (without implying, of course, any similarity in doctrine). On its face, the reality of Buddhism is profoundly ambiguous. We will not claim, with Bergson, merely that it rests on “an incomplete mysticism” because “it has not comprehended the efficacy of human action,” and that it “lacks warmth.” This characterization clearly captures Buddhism’s absence of charity, which follows from the absence of faith and hope. However, we will conceive of it still more as an immense,drastic,and subtle pars purificans, a negative preparation achieved by means of emptiness, with the terrible danger that this emptiness will remain so enamored of itself that the message of Easter will not resound with triumphant notes in the Buddhist soul.4 Both de Lubac and Guardini, two major influences in Joseph Ratzinger’s theology, anticipated in their views of...