Perry Schmidt-Leukel is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology, and Senior Professor in the Cluster of Excellence "Religion and Politics." University of Münster. He is the author of a dozen books in German and English, including his Gifford Lectures (Orbis): Religious Pluralism & Interreligious Dialogue.
摘要
In his ground-breaking Gifford Lectures, published as Religious Pluralism & Interreligious Dialogue, Perry Schmidt-Leukel introduced his “fractal” theory of religions, challenging the tendency to distinguish religious traditions as discrete entities without acknowledging the wide variety within them, varieties essentially reproduced in different religious traditions. After offering an introduction to this new methodology to comparative religion, Schmidt-Leukel, in The Celestial Web, applies this method to a comparison between Buddhism and Christianity. Some of the points of comparison include their respective approaches to the world, ultimate reality, the “dark side” of human existence, and salvation/liberation in terms of the figures mediating it. Stereotypical approaches often treat these traditions as opposites, for instance, positing that Buddhism embraces an impersonal absolute, whereas Christianity affirms the primacy of one’s relationship with a personal God. Yet the fractal approach, which examines “intra-religious” varieties within the two traditions, reveals surprising points of congruence.
目次
Preface ix Introduction: The Celestial Web – Indra’s Net xiii
1. Comparing Religions: Why and What For? 1 1.1 Comparing Religions in Religious Studies 1 1.2 Comparing Religions in Theology 13
2. The Discovery of Fractal Structures: New Perspectives for the Comparison of Religions 23 2.1 Perspectives from Cultural and Religious Studies 23 2.2 Perspectives from Interreligious Theology 33
3. In the World 51 3.1 Renouncing the World or Affirming the World? 51 3.2 Renouncing the World and Affirming the World in Buddhism 58 3.3 Affirming the World and Renouncing the World in Christianity 68 3.4 Nonattachment and Loving Involvement 76
4. Ultimate Reality 85 4.1 Impersonal Absolute or Personal God? 85 4.2 Impersonal and Personal Notions of Transcendence in Buddhism 94 4.3 Personal and Impersonal Notions of Transcendence in Christianity 101 4.4 Speaking of the Ineffable 106
5. What Is Wrong with Us? 120 5.1 Delusion or Sin? 120 5.2 Delusion and Sinful Self-Attachment in Buddhism 124 5.3 Sinful Self-Attachment and Delusion in Christianity 132 5.4 Insight and Trust 138
6. Bearers of Hope 142 6.1 Awakened Teacher or Son of God Incarnate? 142 6.2 Awakening, Proclamation, and Incarnation 147 6.3 Disentanglement and Entanglement 157
7. The Path 167 7.1 Salvation: Self-Help or Other-Help? 167 7.2 Salvation by Self-Help and Other-Help in Buddhism 173 7.3 Salvation by Other-Help and Self-Help in Christianity 179 7.4 Salvation of the Self from the Self 181
8. Beyond the Horizon . . . 189 8.1 Blissful Cessation or Blissful Communion? 189 8.2 Individual and Social Facets in Buddhist Concepts of Salvation 195 8.3 Salvation as Union with God and as Perfected Society in Christianity 210 8.4 On the Complementarity of Eschatological Images 225
9. Buddhism and Christianity: A New Understanding—A New Relationship 232 9.1 In the Eye of the Beholder? 233 9.2 Fractal Structures as a Basis for Interreligious Learning 237
