In Chapter 2, the ways how Abe interprets the Buddhist idea of sunyata for his western audience are explored. There are three characteristics in his interpretation, namely clarifying the meaning of sunyata in comparison with the western philosophical and religious concepts, emphasizing the subjective aspect of sunyata, and taking sunyata as a dynamic activity rather than a static state. Among these characteristics, the dynamic interpretation of sunyata is of the most importance. Abe's interpretation goes beyond the classical meaning of sunyata formulated by Nagarjuna, and distinguishes itself from the traditional Chinese Buddhist thought. This dynamic interpretation of sunyata is arguably an original interpretation made by Abe and might have been inspired by the western thought he dialogued with. / In Chapter 3, this thesis scrutinizes closely Abe's proposal of "kenotic God" and summarizes the Christian responses attracted. According to Abe, the kenosis of Christ involves the kenotic understanding of God, which means the original nature of God is self-emptying. Abe was not satisfied with the traditional Christian doctrine of Trinity, and proposed "Great zero" or "Absolute nothingness" as the ground of the divine Trinity. Except very few Christian theologians who totally agree or disagree to Abe's idea, most of them accept his idea of "kenotic God", but refuse to take "Absolute nothingness" instead of Trinity as the ultimate divine reality. It can be said that Abe's proposal of "kenotic God" aims at offering a Buddhist interpretation, which is based on the experience of sunyata, as an aid to help Christians to deepen their understanding of God. Although his idea is not completely accepted by most of the Christian theologians, it exercises some sort of transformative influence. Many Christian theologians admitted that their understandings of God had been significantly changed by Abe. / In chapter 4, the present study examines if the ideal of "mutual transformation" is fulfilled in Abe's endeavour in Buddhist-Christian dialogue. As demonstrated in Chapter 3, Abe's proposal of "kenotic God" aims at deepening the Christian understanding of the divine ultimate reality from a Buddhist perspective. And it does have some transformative effects among some Christian theologians, in this regard, one side of the "mutual transformation" is realized. The remaining side to be explored is if Abe's understanding of Buddhism has also been transformed by the Christian insight. On the social-historical level, Abe points out that Buddhism should learn from Christianity, especially its view of justice. Abe also attempted to develop the Buddhist social ethics and a Buddhist view of history through encountering Christian theologians. However, on the ultimate level, as Cobb criticizes, Abe shows a strong self-confidence in the Buddhist understanding of ultimate reality and an equally strong resistance to change. Nevertheless, through a comparative study of his interpretation of sunyata and process thought, it is found that Abe's understanding of ultimate reality, namely "Dynamic sunyata", might have probably been inspired by the dynamic structure of process thought together with its idea about the bipolar nature of God. It therefore can be concluded that Abe's understanding of Buddhism has also been transformed in a fundamental way by Christian thought. (Abstract shortened by UMI.) / Masao Abe was probably the most prominent and active Buddhist scholar in Buddhist-Christian Dialogue in the last few decades. / This thesis consists of five major parts: In Chapter 1, Abe's theory about interfaith dialogue, which includes the necessity of dialogue, the methodological issues, its final goal, and how to understand the plurality and unity of world religions, will be discussed. According to Abe, nowadays the validity of religion in general is seriously challenged by anti-religious ideologies, especially scientism and nihilism. To cope with this challenge, interfaith dialogue must go beyond mutual understanding, and engage in mutually creative transformation. For him interfaith dialogue should involve two steps: first, clarify one's own religious idea, and make ideas from different traditions encounter with each other; second, liberate oneself from one's traditional framework of doctrine and practice and learn from each other in order to realize mutually creative transformation. Only in a transformative dialogue, can religions demonstrate their deepest authentic spirituality and overcome the anti-religious ideologies. In respect of religious pluralism, Abe proposed to take the Buddhist three-body doctrine as a working hypothesis to establish the dynamic unity of world religions. Through comparing Abe's proposal with that of John Hick and John B. Cobb, Jr. respectively, this thesis argues that although Abe's proposal is more capable of explaining the plurality and unity of world regions as well as giving a theoretical support for mutual learning, the proposal also implies a kind of Buddhist superiority, which may prevent Buddhists from learning from other religions at the ultimate or inner most level. / 李宜靜. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2007. / 參考文獻(p. 195-212). / Adviser: Pan-Chiu Lai. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-02, Section: A, page: 0639. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Lun wen (zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2007. / Can kao wen xian (p. 195-212). / Li Yijing.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:cuhk.edu.hk/oai:cuhk-dr:cuhk_344032 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Contributors | 李宜靜., Chinese University of Hong Kong Graduate School. Division of Religious Studies., Li, Yijing. |
| Source Sets | The Chinese University of Hong Kong |
| Language | Chinese, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, theses |
| Format | electronic resource, microform, microfiche, 1 online resource (ix, 212 p.) |
| Rights | Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International” License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) |
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