Finding Beauty in the Other: Theological Reflections across Religious Traditions

by Peter Casarella

Overview

Finding Beauty in the Other explores how beauty can be found in religions and cultures. It also views how the beauty of the Christian gospel should be communicated in different religious and cultural settings. This valuable collection of essays features a host of highly respected scholars, presenting a unique treatment of the concept of beauty as seen in a variety of religions and cultures. These include Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. In addition, beauty as seen in various African cultures is discussed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780824523374
Publisher:	PublishDrive
Publication date:	12/03/2018
Sold by:	PUBLISHDRIVE KFT
Format:	eBook
Pages:	380
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Peter Casarella has been since 2013 an Associate Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, where he currently serves as Interim Director of Latin American North American Church Concerns and Area Coordinator for the Ph.D. program in World Religions World Church. Mun'im Sirry earned a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from the University of Chicago Divinity School (2012). His academic interests include political theology, modern Islamic thought, Qur'anic studies, interreligious relations, and Southeast Asian religions and cultures. Sirry's most recent book, Scriptural Polemics: The Qur'an and Other Religions (Oxford University Press, 2014) examines difficult passages in the Qur'an that have usually been viewed as obstacles to peaceful co-existence among different religious communities.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

BEAUTY AND TRUTH IN THE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY OF RELIGIONS

Catherine Cornille, Boston College

In everything which gives us the pure authentic feeling of beauty there really is the presence of God.

— SIMONE WEIL, Gravity and Grace, p. 137

An unobtrusive work of art can epitomize much patient negotiation.

— HENRI DE LUBAC, Catholicism, p. 154

Of the traditional transcendentals, the category of "beauty" has played a minimal role in Christian theology of religions. Official Vatican documents have focused on what is "true and holy" (Nostra Aetate) or on the presence of "goodness and grace" (Dominus Iesus 8) in other religions. And theologians themselves have been mainly preoccupied with the salvific status of non-Christians and the presence of salvific truth in other religions and in relation to the truth claims of Christianity. Reflections on the process of discernment of truth in other religions have also centered predominantly on ethical virtues and the presence of analogous or homologous teachings in other religions. Nostra Aetate speaks in positive terms of "ways of conduct and life," of "precepts and teachings" of "good things, spiritual and moral," and of "socio-cultural values," which are to be respected and affirmed and which reflect a ray of truth. Throughout history, the process of inculturation has involved engagement of aesthetic elements of other religions: architecture, symbols, robes, dance, and so forth. But there has been little or no explicit discussion of the experience of beauty as a sign or expression of the presence of God's grace in other religions.

On the one hand, this neglect of the category of beauty is not surprising. The category of beauty has not been very central to theological reflection as a whole. While recognized as an expression of and a pathway to God, natural and artistic beauty has also been viewed with some suspicion because of its elusive and subjective nature, its elitism, its association with pleasure and desire, and because of the fact that it may also come to serve as a substitute for the divine. In addition to this, beauty is also often culturally and religiously particular or relative, and what is considered beautiful according to the aesthetic sensibilities of one culture may be considered ugly or tacky within another cultural and religious context. Moreover, questions of the discernment and valuation of beauty in other religions loom even larger in inter-religious than in intra-religious reflection. Finally, classical notions of beauty do not encompass the ways in which God may be revealed in other religions, where symbols of terror, ugliness, and disorder may also be of revelatory value.

On the other hand, Christian theology of religions has come to focus primarily on the Spirit as the means through which God may become manifest in other religions, and beauty is often associated with the Holy Spirit. Beauty may also be regarded as one of the most universal and unmediated expressions of the divine, as such providing a ready entry into or access to other religions. But it may play a more ambivalent role in Christian theology of religions. While sensitizing the tradition to the possible presence of truth in the other religion, it may also come to be defined in such narrow terms as to exclude the recognition of any traces of it in other religions.

Theology of religions tends to focus on internal religious reflections on the reality of religious plurality. It involves, as Alan Race has put it, "the endeavour to adumbrate some doctrine of other religions to evaluate the relationship between the Christian faith and the faith of other religions." As such, it does not necessarily (even if desirably) involve actual engagement with other religions. However, such theological reflection inevitably arises in response to the encounter with the teachings, practices, and artefacts of other religions. One would thus expect beauty or aesthetics in general to be at least one element informing theological reflection.

I here suggest that the experience of beauty, or aesthetic appreciation of other religions, is closely related to theological preconception of the truth and value of those religions. The notion of beauty is not limited to purely aesthetic enjoyment, but involves any experience of the sublime, of transcendence which may become manifest in both pleasing and shocking or disorienting aesthetic forms. But the very openness to recognizing such transcendent beauty is based on theological views of revelation and its dissemination. I hope to illustrate this through the example of four Christian theologians who, in different epochs and contexts, have written powerfully of their experiences of beauty in other religions: Abbe Dubois, Henri de Lubac, Thomas Merton, and Jyoti Sahi.

Rejection of Beauty or Aesthetic Exclusivism

Until the early twentieth century, Christian views of other religions were largely shaped by a conception of the Church as the exclusive reservoir of revelation and means to salvation. Engagement with other religions thus also took the form of denunciation and demonstration of the superiority of Christianity. This is reflected in the attitudes and observations of Christian missionaries who lived in the midst of non-Christians and who were confronted on a daily basis with their teachings, practices, and artefacts. A powerful account of such attitudes may be found in the text Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, traditionally attributed to the French missionary Jean-Antoine Dubois (1765–1848), but currently thought to reflect the writing and re-writing of several Christian missionaries who lived and worked in India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The text offers a wealth of information about social and ritual practices in South India and was for many decades one of the most detailed accounts of Hindu life and customs. The text, however, provides not only information but also clear and explicit judgment of the principles and practices observed. While the author (or authors) could muster some admiration for the elaborate detail of some Hindu temple architecture, when it came to the Hindu Gods, there is nothing but contempt for their representation and form, as reflected in this one of any number of descriptions:

In vain are Hindu idols decked with rich ornaments; they are not rendered thereby less disagreeable in appearance. Their physiognomy is generally of frightful ugliness, which is carefully enhanced by daubing the images from time to time with a coating of dark paint. Some of the idols, thanks to the generous piety of rich votaries, have their eyes, mouth, and ears of gold or silver; but this makes them, if possibly, yet more hideous. The attitudes in which they are represented are either ridiculous, grotesque, or obscene. In short, everything is done to make them objects of disgust to any one not familiar with the sight of these strange monsters.

Clearly, little effort is made to try to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of these images, even if only for believers. They are judged hideous, grotesque, obscene, and in no way comparable to the beauty of Christ and of Christianity. The alleged ugliness of their form is here clearly thought to confirm the falsehood of belief in these gods or idols. There is a faint admission in the last sentence of the possibility that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, and in the eyes of faith. But it is made clear that such appreciation is delusional and that there is nothing religiously or aesthetically significant about these idols. The book is not entirely critical of Hinduism. The authors express some admiration for the caste system. But there is no receptivity for the aesthetic qualities of religious objects or practices that might contradict the Christian faith.

Like other missionaries before and after him, Dubois adopted the simple lifestyle and clothing of Hindu sages. But this did not in any way sensitize him to the possibility of finding elements of truth and goodness in the Hindu tradition. As was the case with other missionaries, it was a way of rendering themselves, as well as the teachings of Christianity, amenable to Hindu tastes.

Though it is difficult and dangerous to generalize on the basis of only one example, it is probably fair to say that it was the theological denunciations of other religions that also barred Christians from appreciating the beauty or meaning of their artistic or symbolic expressions. Certain practices may have moved Christian observers. (Matteo Ricci, for example, was impressed with the ethical and social teachings of Confucius.) But a sharp distinction between cultural and religious practices allowed the exclusive religious truth claims to remain intact, or unaffected by cultural appreciation. Short of some recognition of God's Spirit at work outside Christianity, it thus seems difficult to attain some degree of aesthetic resonance with other religions, or to allow such experience to impact one's theological views.

Dependent Beauty or Aesthetic Inclusivism

In the course of the twentieth century, Christian attitudes toward the presence of truth and beauty in other religions gradually changed, mainly as a result of greater knowledge and deeper understanding of those religions. Access to the scriptures and the philosophical texts of other traditions revealed depths of spiritual and religious insight as well as similarities with Christianity hitherto unsuspected. This led to greater attention to and receptivity toward the religious and aesthetic expressions of other religions. The appropriation of religious forms in the process of inculturation also led to a greater reflection on their original meaning and possible message for Christianity. And theologians became more vocal about the presence of beauty in other religions.

In 1955, Henri de Lubac wrote a little-known book, Aspects du Bouddhisme, Vol. 2: Amida. In his preface to the book, he expresses his response to the images of Amida Buddha in the following moving terms:

Rarely has human nostalgia taken form in a dream more pure. Rarely has man seemed to better experience his misery and yet draw near to a religion of grace. Few symbols are as evocative of the supernatural world and its sovereign invasion than the Amida paintings of the "Descent" with their colossal Amida, luminous and serene, advancing in silence, Strength at once compassionate and implacable.

While most French scholars of Buddhism at the beginning of the twentieth century regarded Pure Land Buddhism as a popular and therefore inferior form of Buddhism, theologians such as de Lubac and Karl Barth were intrigued by the similarities between this type of Buddhism of grace and Christianity. In this description of a painting of Amida, probably observed in the Musée Guimet in Paris, de Lubac does more than describe what he sees. He is clearly moved by the image and attempts to capture it in poetic, if not spiritual terms. Immediately following this description of Amida, however, de Lubac states:

... all of this, however, remains far from the Christian supernatural. Disengaged from the puerility of its fable, Amidism remains profoundly driven in the crepuscular thought and spirituality belonging to all "natural" religion, as to all "natural" mysticism.

These words bring the aesthetic experience squarely within the fulfillment theology of the times. While there may be elements of truth, goodness, and beauty in other religions, these are to be brought to completion or fulfillment in Christianity, the only true or supernatural religion. This attitude of inclusivism had become more widespread in the first half of the twentieth century. Though it may already be found in the writings of the Church fathers, who regarded certain philosophical teachings as "preparatio evangelica," it became more prevalent in relation to other religions through such texts as J. N. Farquhar's The Crown of Hinduism (1912) and Pierre Johanns's To Christ through the Vedanta (1930). De Lubac was also close to Jules Monchanin, a French priest who, with the famous French Benedictine monk Henri Le Saux, attempted to establish a Benedictine Ashram in India based on a deep respect for the Indian spiritual tradition.

De Lubac's beautiful description of Amida thus reflects this theological current of greater openness to discovering elements of beauty and truth in other religions. For him, the universality of the Church meant that she should be able to encompass all forms of beauty or all types of artistic expression. "Why," he asks, "should she wish to make the rising sun show the colors of the sunset? As she is the only ark of salvation, within her immense nave she must give shelter to all varieties of humanity. She is the only banquet hall and the dishes she serves are the product of the whole of creation." Whatever beauty is manifest in other religions is thus to be affirmed and taken up by Christianity. A prime example for him is the chapel of Charles de Foucault in El-Abiodh, where "From the flat roof the Angelus gives the call to prayer, and in the chapel an extra station in the Way of the Cross, a recess pointing toward Jerusalem as the mihrab of the mosques points towards Mecca, reminds all Abraham's children of the love shown by Christ in agony."

The inclusivism of de Lubac expresses itself not only in the idea of the fulfillment of all beauty in Christianity, but also in the discernment of what is beautiful or pleasing or aesthetically moving. It is probably no coincidence that de Lubac found beauty in an image that resembles, at least thematically, the figure of Jesus Christ as savior. It would be difficult to imagine, for example, de Lubac or any other fulfillment theologian speaking in the same appreciative terms of, for example, Vairochana, or Vajrayogini, or Kali. Recognition of beauty in other religions is thus still clearly conditioned by and dependent on the familiar images and tropes of Christianity. And this beauty also finds its meaning and completion in Christ and in the "Christian supernatural." He states that "the beauty itself of the worship of Amida, and the depth derived from the Buddhist faith to which it remained faithful, only serve to put this teaching (of the universal transformation through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ) in a more shining light." De Lubac thus maintained a distinction, prevalent in his day, between natural religions and the supernatural religion, Christianity. As such, the beauty of Amida both reveals itself and is overshadowed by the beauty of Christ. This is why one may speak of aesthetic inclusivism.

Autonomous Beauty and Aesthetic Pluralism

Increasing familiarity with the teachings and practices of other religions has led in the second half of the twentieth century to ever greater receptivity to the presence of beauty and truth in other religions and to the possibility of spiritual enrichment and growth. Monastics have played an important role in this process. Through inter-monastic dialogue and exchanges, Christian monks came to adopt, at times, certain Eastern meditative practices and to establish Zen gardens or practice tea ceremonies in Christian monasteries. These were seen not merely as derivative of Christianity, but as means to deepen and enhance the Christian experience. The experience of the beauty of Zen gardens may thus be regarded as autonomous, insofar as it did not immediately derive from analogous Christian aesthetics or teachings and as reflective of the belief that God's beauty may be refracted even in symbols, practices, and artefacts that are different from Christianity. To be sure, such beauty will tend to remain in continuity with basic Christian teachings and sensibilities. But it may also lead to aesthetic surprise or transformation, and to genuinely new insights and experiences. I believe that Thomas Merton's experience at Polonnaruwa may be an example of this.

This experience did not occur without context or preparation. Merton had for some time immersed himself in the study of other religions, in particular Taoism, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhism. In the course of studying these traditions and encountering monks from them, he increasingly came to believe in the deep unity of spiritual traditions, which he expressed in the following terms in a famous address to Hindu and Buddhist monks:

The deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear brothers, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.

(Continues…)

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

A Note on Transliteration and Translation ix

Introduction Peter Casarella Mun'im Sirry 1

Part I Beauty and The Catholic Theology of Religions

1 Beauty and Truth in the Christian Theology of Religions Catherine Cornille, Boston College 33

2 Hidden Beauty and Hope: The Face of the Other Maria Clara Lucchetti Bingemer, Pontifical Catholic University, Brazil 51

3 Tragic Beauty: The Cry of the Suffering and Interfaith Aesthetics Peter Casarella, University of Notre Dame 73

4 The Beauty of Love and Forgiveness? Lawrence E. Sullivan, University of Notre Dame 97

Part II Beauty and Islam

5 Divine Mercy in the Qur'an Gabriel Said Reynolds, University of Notre Dame 125

6 Recognizing the Divine in the Other's Religion: An Islamic Perspective Nayla Tabbara, Adyan Foundation, Lebanon 169

7 The Qur'an, Salvation, and the Beauty of the Other Mun'im Sirry, University of Notre Dame 189

Part III Beauty and Hinduism

8 Traveling the Via Pulchritudinis-Both Ways Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Harvard University 213

9 The Mystery of the Infinite in the Hindu Spirituality and Theology of Non-Duality Bradley Malkovsky, University of Notre Dame 245

10 Contemplating the Divine with a Sense of Wonder Anantanand Rambachan, St. Olaf College 271

Part IV Beauty and Buddhism

11 Finding Beauty in the Other: Buddhist Perspectives Donald W. Mitchell, Purdue University 279

12 Seeing Beauty in Everyday Life According to the Lotus Sutra Gene Reeves Rissho Kosei-kai 295

Part V Beauty and Africa

13 Of Rainbow Nations, Rente Cloth, and the Virtue of Pluralism: Navigating the Beauty and Dignity of Difference in Search of a Livable Future in Africa Teresia Hinga, Santa Clara University 305

14 Agwa bu Mma: Virtue and Beauty in an African Community Paulinus Ikechukwu Odozor, C.S.Sp, University of Notre Dame 343

Notes on Contributors 359

Index 365