Hostname: page-component-669899f699-2mbcq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-25T20:58:12.190Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

De Lubac, Christ and the Buddha

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

David Grumett
David Grumett*
Affiliation:
Department of Theology, University of Exeter, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4RJ
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Cardinal Henri de Lubac (1896–1991) considered Buddhism to be, after Christianity, the greatest spiritual fact of history. His groundbreaking studies of it have nevertheless received little previous scholarly attention. De Lubac focuses on Amidism, also known as Pure Land Buddhism, because he regards this as the form of Buddhism possessing greatest affinity with Christian faith, particularly in its conceptions of charity and divine personality. Religion cannot be considered in isolation from culture, however. De Lubac argues that Christian-Buddhist encounter is, wherever it occurs, necessarily also an encounter between Western culture and Buddhism, in the course of which boundaries between religions and cultures are continually defined, dissolved and redefined, especially in the understanding of human personhood. He nevertheless defends the universality of faith in Christ, the Word made flesh, in whom the desire of nature for God characteristic of the whole of humanity is fully expressed and realized.

Keywords

Henri de LubacBuddhismAmidismChristculture
Type
Original Articles
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 89 , Issue 1020 , March 2008 , pp. 217 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © The author 2008. Journal compilation

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

1

I am grateful to Gavin D'Costa, Wendy Dossett, Owen Gartside, Tom Plant and Andrew Unsworth for comments on this article. It was first presented at the Society for the Study of Theology 2006 Annual Conference at the University of Leeds, UK, the subject of which was “Theology and the Religions.” A revised version was presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in San Diego, in the Roman Catholic Studies Group.

References

2 Lubac, Henri de, At the Service of the Church: Henri de Lubac Reflects on the Circumstances that Occasioned his Writings (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1993), p. 31Google Scholar; trans. by Elizabeth, Anne Englund of Mémoire sur l'occasion de mes écrits (Namur: Culture et vérité, 2nd edn, 1992)Google Scholar.

3 De Lubac, At the Service of the Church, p. 74.

4 His principal works in this field are: 1) AB I: Aspects of Buddhism, vol. 1 (London: Sheed & Ward, 1953), opening ch. “Buddhist Charity and Christian Charity” repr. in Communio 15 (1988), pp. 497–510; trans. by George Lamb of Aspects du bouddhisme, vol. 1: Amida (Paris: Seuil, 1951); 2) AB II: Aspects du bouddhisme, vol. 2: Amida (Paris: Seuil, 1955), trans. by Amita Bakha as History of Pure Land Buddhism, in Buddha Dhyana Dana Review 12, 5–6 (2002); 13, 1 (2003), at http://www.bdcu.org.au/BDDR; 3) RBO: La Rencontre du bouddhisme et de l’Occident (Paris: Cerf, 2000 [1952]), no trans.; 4) TF: Essays in Theological Fragments (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989); trans. by Rebecca Howell Balinski of Théologies d'occasion (Paris: Desclée, 1984).

5 Lotus Sūtra 7; 27.

6 Voragine, Jacobus de, “The Exaltation of the Holy Cross,” in The Golden Legend, I (2 vols.; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 168–173Google Scholar.

7 “Homily on the Vision of Jacob at Bethel,” 95.

8 Lubac, Henri de, The Mystery of the Supernatural (New York: Crossroad, 1988)Google Scholar; trans. by Sheed, Rosemary of Le Mystère du surnaturel (Paris: Aubier, 1965)Google Scholar.

9 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics I/2 (10 vols.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1936–77)Google Scholar, pp. 340–343. See Waldrop, Charles, “Karl Barth and Pure Land Buddhism,”Journal of Ecumenical Studies 24 (1987), pp. 574–597Google Scholar.

10 Nygren, Anders, Agapē and Eros (London: SPCK, 1982)Google Scholar; originally published in Swedish 1930–36; first French trans. by Jundt, Pierre, Erôs et agapé: la notion chrétienne de l'amour et ses transformations (3 vols.; Paris: Aubier, 1944–52)Google Scholar.

11 Rousselot, Pierre, The Problem of Love in the Middle Ages: A Historical Contribution (Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; trans. by Vincelette, Alan of Pour l'histoire du problème de l'amour au moyen âge (Munster: Aschendorff, 1908)Google Scholar.

12 For the Christian version, see Voragine, De, “Saints Barlaam and Josaphat,” in Golden Legend, II, pp. 355–366Google Scholar.

13 Examples are reproduced in Turnbull, Stephen, The Kakure Kirishitan of Japan: A Study of their Development, Beliefs and Rituals to the Present Day (Richmond: Japan Library, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, plates 2, 3 and 18.

14 Especially in Lubac, Henri de, The Motherhood of the Church (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1982)Google Scholar; trans. by Englund, S. of Les Églises particulières dans l'Église universelle (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1971)Google Scholar; The Eternal Feminine: A Study on the Poem by Teilhard de Chardin (London: Collins, 1971)Google Scholar; trans. by Hague, René of L'Éternel féminin: étude sur un texte du Père Teilhard de Chardin (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1968)Google Scholar.

15 See The Beginning of Heaven and Earth: The Sacred Book of Japan's Hidden Christians (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996).

16 von Balthasar, Hans Urs The Theology of Henri de Lubac: An Overview (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1991), pp. 54–59Google Scholar; trans. by Fessio, Joseph and Waldstein, Michael M. of Henri de Lubac: sein organisches Lebenswerk (Einsiedeln: Johannes, 1976)Google Scholar.

17 Lubac, Henri de, The Discovery of God (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), pp. 138–141Google Scholar; trans. by Dru, Alexander of Sur les chemins de dieu (Paris: Cerf, 1956)Google Scholar.

18 Fédou, Michel, «Henri de Lubac et la ‘Théologie des religions’», in L'Intelligence de la rencontre du bouddhisme, Études lubaciennes 2 (Paris: Cerf, 2001), pp. 111–126Google Scholar; Cuttat, Jacques, «Fait bouddique et fait Chrétien», in L'Homme devant Dieu: mélanges offerts au Père Henri de Lubac, ed. Guillet, J. et al., III (3 vols.; Paris: Auier, 1963–64), pp. 30–33Google Scholar.

19 Lubac, Henri de, Medieval Exegesis, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000)Google Scholar; trans. by Macierowski, E.M. of L'Exégèse médiévale: les quatre sens de l'Écriture, vol. 2 (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1959), pp. 20, 93–94Google Scholar.

20 “Declaration on the Church's Relation to Non-Christian Religions,” 2, in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, II (2 vols.; London: Sheed & Ward, 1990), p. 969Google Scholar. See Ruokanen, Mikka, The Catholic Doctrine of Non-Christian Religions According to the Second Vatican Council (Leiden: Brill, 1992), pp. 124–128CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Grumett, David, Teilhard de Chardin: Theology, Humanity and Cosmos (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), pp. 197–235Google Scholar.

22 Grumett, David, De Lubac: A Guide for the Perplexed (New York and London: T&T Clark, 2007), pp. 95–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 For origins, see The Path of Compassion: Writings on Socially Engaged Buddhism, ed. Eppsteiner, Fred (Berkeley: Parallax, rev. edn, 1988 [1985])Google Scholar.

24 Amstutz, Galen, Interpreting Amida: History and Orientalism in the Study of Pure Land Buddhism (Albany: State University of New York, 1997), p. 121Google Scholar.

25 Said, Edward, Orientalism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978)Google Scholar. Robert, Jean-Noël, «La perception du bouddhisme dans l'oeuvre de Henri de Lubac», in L'Intelligence de la rencontre du bouddhisme, pp. 45–56Google Scholar, discusses some subsequent critiques pursuing Said's own.

26 Dumoulin, Heinrich, “Excursus on Buddhism,” in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, ed. Vorgrimler, Herbert, III (5 vols.; London: Burns & Oates, 1967–69), pp. 146–150Google Scholar.