Comparative theology is a better way of responding creatively and
responsibly to the fact of religious pluralism than a theology of
religions. The article that follows proceeds from this premise. In lieu of
a generalized theory of religion or a systematic theology of religions, I
will offer a limited exercise of comparison leading to tentative findings.
Comparative theology is not comparative religions. It is not interested in
investigating a theory of religion in general. It does not begin in a
pan-religious perspective. Comparative theology is Christian theology in
its basic sense: the project of interpreting the Christian tradition. In
the case at hand, however, interpretation will be driven by placing
Christian texts in conversation with a Buddhist text. This article is also
founded on a hope, viz. that non-Christian religions pose not only a threat
to our present theological understandings, but also offer resources for a
creative revision of those understandings.

Specifically, I propose a rereading of the Thomistic doctrine of the
incomprehensibility of God by means of a reading of Nagarjuna's The Stanzas
on the Middle Path. This will entail a three-part structure. The first part
is devoted to a analysis of selected texts from Thomas's Commentary on
John, with the aim of clarifying some ambiguities attending his doctrine of
divine incomprehensibility. The second part is given to an analysis of
Nagarjuna's text. The aim here is to reach an understanding of this
philosopher's approach to the seminal Buddhist notion of emptiness. The
third part seeks to work a comparison of Thomas and Nagarjuna in which the
familiar (Thomas) is reinterpreted with the unfamiliar (Nagarjuna).

               THOMAS'S DOCTRINE OF GOD'S INCOMPREHENSIBILITY

The doctrine of God's infinite incomprehensibility remains an aspect of
Thomas's theology which richly deserves further discussion.[1] Although
pertinent texts can be located in the Summa theologiae, the
incomprehensibility of God is most clearly seen as an issue in the
scripture commentaries, especially three sequential sections of the
Commentary on John.[2]

The eleventh lecture of this text (sections 208-222) is devoted to a
discussion of John 1:18, "No one has ever seen God; it is the Only Begotten
Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, who has made him known." Sections
208-10 address our need for wisdom in the face of human ignorance of God
with references to Augustine (209) and the seeming contradictions in other
passages of Scripture (210). Then, in section 211, Thomas asks, "How are we
to understand what the evangelist says: 'No one has ever seen God'?"

Section 211 enumerates three ways of seeing God. First, God is seen by
means of a created substitute, as with the appearance of the three visitors
to Abraham at Mamre. Second, God is seen in representations to the
imagination, such as with Isaiah's vision in the temple. Third, God is seen
as an intelligible species abstracted from material things, as with the
intellect discerning the greatness of the Creator reflected in creation, or
is seen "through a certain spiritual light" infused by God into spiritual
minds during contemplation. It is in this latter manner that Jacob can be
said to have seen God face to face (Genesis 32:30). Then comes a
qualification. "But the vision of the divine essence is not attained by any
of the above visions: for no created species . . . is representative of the
divine essence as it is." This is because "nothing finite can represent the
infinite as it is." For this reason, instead of a knowledge of the divine
essence, we are left with a knowledge that is "dark and mirrored, and from
afar." Thomas's point in this section may be taken to mean that God's
incomprehensibility is the necessary re-suit of the ontological
disproportion which obtains between the infinitude of God and the finitude
of the created intellect.

Section 212, however, argues against those who would claim that the divine
essence will never be seen by the created intellect. Thomas rejects such a
position as "false and heretical" in three ways. First, citing i John 3:2
and John 17:3, this view is seen to be contrary to Scripture. Second, such
a view is to be rejected because "the brightness of God is the same as his
substance, for he does not give forth light by participating in light, but
through himself." God is not seen in the ordinary fashion as an object that
becomes visible to the eye by being bathed in a light which shines on it
from without. God is the light by which we see light itself. Thus to see
the light of God is to see God. Finally, he reminds the reader that, in
accordance with Christian teaching, "it is impossible for anyone to attain
perfect happiness except in the vision of the divine essence." Thomas
supports this third claim with an analysis of the natural desire of the
intellect, which is "to understand and know the causes of all the effects
it knows." This fundamental desire cannot be fulfilled unless the intellect
attain an understanding of the ultimate causes of all. "Therefore, to take
away the possibility of the vision of the divine essence by man is to take
away happiness itself." In support of his view, Thomas again quotes
Scripture: "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God" (Matthew
5:8). In contrast to the ontological disproportion noted in the previous
section, here Thomas wants to remind the reader that the promise of a full
vision of God can be expected with the assurance of faith.

Section 213 is the most troubling of the three, because Thomas does not
resolve the contradiction of Christian faith and metaphysical reason in the
manner one might expect. Once again, he makes three points. First, in
keeping with the ontological disproportion established in section 211, the
divine essence will never be seen by the bodily eye, which can only see
"sensate bodily things." Second, we are told that "as long as the human
intellect is in the body it cannot see God, because it is weighed down by
the body so that it cannot attain the summit of contemplation." Now we
might expect to hear that the intellect, freed from the body by death and
entered into the fullness of contemplation in the beatific vision, will see
the divine essence in conformity with Christian faith in ultimate
beatitude. But Thomas's third point comes as a surprise: "no created
intellect (however abstracted, either by death, or separated from the body)
which does see the divine essence, can comprehend it in any way." This
leads to an unexpected conclusion: even in the beatific vision, God remains
incomprehensible.

Thus, in order to reach an adequate understanding of Thomas's teaching
regarding the incomprehensibility of God, three separate claims must be
reconciled: (1) that God's incomprehensibility results from an ontological
disproportion (211); (2) that indeed, God remains incomprehensible even in
the beatific vision (213); and yet despite this, (3) the ultimate happiness
of the human person in the immediate vision of the divine essence is a
revealed doctrine of faith (212). An adequate interpretation of Thomas
requires that points i and 2 be understood in such a way as not to preclude
point 3. In other words, we must understand the immediate vision of God in
such a way that God's incomprehensibility is preserved, not overcome, and
we must understand the incomprehensibility of God so as not to diminish the
fullness of the immediate vision.

Our exercise in comparative theology will explore this aspect of Thomas's
thought in conversation with the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna (second
century C.E.) in the hope that a careful reading of a Buddhist text may
suggest new ways of understanding the Thomistic doctrine.

                    NAGARJUNA: THE DOCTRINE OF EMPTINESS

Nagarjuna is noteworthy for his approach to Buddhist emptiness in his most
famous work, The Stanzas on the Middle Path (Mulamadhya-makakarika).[3]
Although legendary material exists in abundance, little is known reliably
about his life.[4] More important for present purposes would be to note
that he is revered as a patriarch by almost every Mahayana Buddhist sect.
This widespread recognition should serve notice that his thought
encapsulates something fundamental for Buddhists of the Mahayana tradition.
It also signals the existence of a considerable conflict of
interpretations. Nagarjuna's most influential modern interpreters include
Paul Williams, David Seyfort Ruegg, Christian Lindtner, and Gadjin Nagao
(whose work has been influential in Japan).[5] These authors see Nagarjuna
as one of the earliest expressions of Mahayana thought. In contrast to this
line of interpretation, David Kalupahana takes a more controversial
position, arguing that Nagarjuna is not a Mahayana thinker and indeed, more
of a commentator than an innovator, who sought to return Buddhist thinking
to the original teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddhaft
Given my research interests in Japanese Buddhism, my approach to Nagarjuna
has been largely shaped by Nagao. However, Kalupahana's critical edition of
Nagarjuna's Stanzas cannot be ignored and his translation will be used
throughout. For comparative theology, the most sensible approach would be
to rely on the scholarly consensus and to bring the conflict of
interpretations into the discussion where useful. In the case at hand,
scholarly consensus lies with Nagao who identifies Nagarjuna with the
beginnings of Mahayana thought. Near the end of this article, however, the
considerable differences between Nagao and Kalupahana will be introduced
into the discussion.

The historical Buddha taught a practical path for finding release from
suffering. Since suffering arises as a result of attachment to things that
are in fact transient, the end of suffering can be realized by bringing an
end to attachment. The Buddha's counsel of nonattachment included not only
material things, but also our obsession with religious dogmas and
philosophical theories. The earliest historical materials indicate that the
Buddha advised his disciples not to become entangled with two
much-controverted philosophical views: (1) the idea of an immortal soul
(atman) subsisting beneath the appearances of the personality, and (2) the
nihilistic denial of karmic law operating across births, based on atman,
which forms the basis for moral order. In lieu of these two philosophical
positions, the Buddha taught a middle path between such metaphysical
preoccupations with the aim of leading his disciples to release (nirvana)
from the suffering generated by egocentric desire and intellectual
obsessions. In the absence of an eternal soul, the experience of
individuality was explained as the re-suit of a momentary amalgamation of
components which cause one another by arising dependently on one another
(pratitya-samutpada). Obsession can be extinguished by bringing this mutual
causation to an end, like a flame deprived of its fuel.[7]

Given the controversial nature of these teachings and the polemical
atmosphere of northern India in the formative years of the Buddhist
movement, a philosophical analysis of the Buddha's doctrines was
inevitable. This period of intellectual creativity produced a body of
scholastic literature known as the Abhidharma. According to this early
Buddhist scholasticism, we become attached to the world by reifying
experience into false views (macchaditthi) so that things appear to possess
an inherent existence (suabhaua = "own being"). Attachment generated by
false views is the origin of suffering. By means of scholastic analysis,
false views can be factored into their component parts (dharmas) and shown
to have no inherent existence. By deconstructing our illusions, attachment
ceases and suffering is overcome. In their effort to understand the arising
of false views, the Abhidharma scholastics generally took a realistic
approach to the dharmas. Unlike our false views, the dharmas have an
inherent existence (suabhaua). Nagarjuna sought to deconstruct even the
Abhidharma's realism. Not only is our reified view of the world and
ourselves without inherent existence, the dharmas themselves arise
dependently and exist only momentarily. All dharmas are empty and
impermanent mental constructs; no suabhaua is to be found. In this manner,
in The Stanzas, Nagarjuna argues that all our conceptual categories are
merely conventions. However useful, concepts do not name eternal,
substantial realities.[8]

Nagarjuna accomplishes this task in The Stanzas by means of a four-part
structure. Chapters 1-2 are concerned with the doctrine of dependent
arising. There is nothing that exists inherently. All arises dependently by
being caused by factors that in turn are contingent on other factors.
Chapters 3-15 are devoted to an analysis of Abhidharmic terminology with an
aim of expunging any misunderstanding of these terms as representations of
transcendent or substantial realities. Chapter 15 ends this section with a
lengthy discussion of substances. Nagarjuna argues that interpreting
experiences in terms of inherent existence or mere nothingness is not in
keeping with the middle path of the Buddha. "Those who perceive self-nature
(svabhava) as well as other-nature (parabhava), existence as well as
nonexistence, they do not perceive the truth embodied in the Buddha's
message."[9] In chapters 16-26, Nagarjuna turned to an analysis of the
basic doctrines of Buddhism itself with the same aim: if scholastic
concepts are not ultimately real, neither is the teaching of the Buddha to
be enthroned as an absolute, eternal truth. In these chapters Nagarjuna
 demonstrates the radical lengths to which he is willing to go in showing
that all our mental constructions are empty of inherent existence. The
final chapter summarizes the work by restating the early Buddhist notion of
"right view" (sammaditthi). Since I am concerned with Nagarjuna's use of
the principle of emptiness, especially in relation to his fourfold
dialectical negation, I will restrict my comments to material in the third
section (chapters 16-26).

In chapter 25 of The Stanzas, Nagarjuna addresses the problem of a proper
understanding of nirvana. Does nirvana exist as a metaphysical state of
being beyond the contingencies of dependent arising? Should nirvana be
thought of as a transcendental realm in opposition to samsara? Does nirvana
lie beyond this world of suffering as something to be desired? In his
opposition to any transcendental or ontological understanding of nirvana,
Nagarjuna makes use of a fourfold negation (the catuskoti). Note that in
the following texts Kalupahana translates the Sanskrit nirvanam (a cognate
form of nirvana) as "freedom."

     Freedom, as a matter of fact, is not existence, for if it were, it
     would follow that it has the characteristic of decay and death.
     Indeed, there is no existence without decay and death.[10]

     If freedom is not existence, will freedom be non-existence? Wherein
     there is no existence, therein non-existence is not evident.[11]

     If freedom were to be both existence and non-existence, then release
     would also be both existence and non-existence. This too is not
     proper.[12]

     The proposition that freedom is neither existence nor non-existence
     could be established if and when both existence and non-existence are
     established.[13]

The fourfold negation excludes all possible metaphysical positions
vis-a-vis nirvana. Nagarjuna's position is not (1) that nirvana exists, nor
(2) that it does not exist, nor (3) that it both exists and does not exist,
nor (4) that it neither exists nor does not exist. Thinking of nirvana as
an ultimate reality opposed to this world and a transcendental state to be
desired is not a "right view" conducive to finding release from suffering.
Like other metaphysical concepts, nirvana is empty, i.e. not to be desired
for release from suffering.

     When all things are empty, why [speculate on] the finite, the
     infinite, both the finite and the infinite and neither finite nor the
     infinite? Why [speculate on] the identical, the different, the
     eternal, the non-eternal, both or neither?[14]

Metaphysical speculation does not lead to an adequate understanding of
nirvana. Yet this exercise in logic is helpful for reaching a right view
(sammaditthi) of this basic Buddhist teaching, in that it lays bare the
mind's tendency to distort reality in very specific ways. The right view of
nirvana does not entail the presumption of its inherent existence or its
nonexistence, or both, or neither. When these four speculative positions
are abandoned, the right view of nirvana arises.

This connection between strategic negation and emptiness is evident in
Nagarjuna's discussion of the status of the Buddha after death as well.
Nagarjuna raises this question in the context of a discussion of the
eternal soul (atman) in chapter 18 and continues the argument in chapters
22 and 25. Early scriptural texts speak of the Buddha as the Tathagata
("thus gone") after the end of his physical existence. Even if there is no
atman, does the enlightened one exist eternally after death as the
Tathagata? In answering the question, Nagarjuna resorts to the fourfold
negation once again. "It is not assumed that the Blessed One exists after
death. Neither is it assumed that he does not exist, or both or
neither."[15] To cling to any of these assumptions would be to take a
metaphysical view of the Tathagata incompatible with the middle path which
leads to release. Instead, like the term nirvana, the Tathagata is empty
and not to be thought of as a supernatural state or transcendent god.

The roots of Nagarjuna's philosophy become evident when we compare this
section of The Stanzas with one of the Sutras. In the "Discourse to
Vacchagotta on Fire" the wandering monk Vacchagotta asks the Buddha about
the status of the Tathagata. The Buddha responds with the familiar
four-fold negation:

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata is after dying."

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata is not after dying."

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata both is and is not after
dying."

I, Vaccha, am not of this view: "The Tathagata neither is nor is not after
dying."[16]

When Vacchagotta then asks, "What is the peril the revered Gotama beholds
that he thus does not approach any of these (speculative) views?" we are
told,

     Holding a view, the wilds of views, the wriggling of views, the
     scuffling of views, the fetter of views; it is accompanied by anguish,
     distress, misery, fever; it does not conduce to turning away from, nor
     to dispassion, stopping, calming, super knowledge, awakening, nor to
     nibbana (nirvana). I, Vaccha, beholding that this is a peril, thus do
     not approach any of these (speculative) views.[17]

The purpose of the fourfold negation is not to promote a philosophical
agnosticism about our ability to reach a right view of the Tathagata. The
question regarding the status of the Buddha is not to be abandoned in
frustration, but rather transformed. The mind's normal way of raising the
question, i.e. in terms of inherent existence or nonexistence, must be
overcome in order to reach a right view. a is not ultimate reality, then is
emptiness itself to be thought of as ultimate foundation of all? Enthroned
as ultimate reality, emptiness readily functions like a metaphysical
substratum or ontological ground. Apparently Nagarjuna was well aware of
this danger. For instance, in The Stanzas 13:8 he complains that "those who
are possessed of the view of emptiness are said to be incorrigible." Then
in 24:13 Nagarjuna accepts no blame for those who make emptiness itself
their obsession. And but two verses before this we find the famous monitum:
"A wrongly perceived emptiness ruins a person of meager intelligence. It is
like a snake that is wrongly grasped or knowledge that is wrongly
cultivated."[18] In claiming that all viewpoints are empty, Nagarjuna does
not intend to promote emptiness as a metaphysical equivalent to Being.
Emptiness itself is empty and not to be taken as a metaphysical foundation.
This is the reason Nagarjuna refrains from making the statement "all is
empty" despite the fact that the term emptiness appears everywhere in The
Stanzas. Instead, we consistently find statements such as "all this is
empty" (emphasis mine).[19] There is no emptiness beyond the emptiness of
particular things. Thus, not only are the conceptual categories of the
Abhidharma empty, but also the teachings of the Buddha as well. And beyond
even this, neither is emptiness itself to be reified into an absolute.

Is Nagarjuna then a nihilist? Many of his opponents have thought so.
Nagarjuna's use of the fourfold negation precludes any attempt to
hypostatize emptiness into a metaphysical foundation. Are we not left then
with dread before the utter meaninglessness of life? If emptiness is not
Tillich's Being Itself, is it Nietzsche's nicht Sein? In a less radical
vein, we might ask if Nagarjuna is an agnostic about the metaphysical
nature of things. Does emptiness imply that we are simply to stop thinking
about nirvana and the Tathagata? But for Nagarjuna, emptiness is more than
the acid of deconstruction applied to our presuppositions regarding the
inherent existence (svabhava) of religious ultimates. Right views of
nirvana and the Tathagata can be realized only when these presuppositions
are transformed. The right view of the teachings of the Buddha arises when
subjectivity is set free from its obsession with svabhava. Nagarjuna's
fourfold negation of nirvana and the Tathagata does not lead to nihilism,
but rather to awakening.

Emptiness, as employed in The Stanzas, is neither a metaphysics nor a
nihilism. Nagarjuna sees it as identical with dependent arising itself. "We
state that whatever is dependent arising, that is emptiness. That is
dependent upon convention. That itself is the middle path."[20] This verse
of The Stanzas also links emptiness with the Buddha's middle path. In this
respect, emptiness is Nagarjuna's restatement of the Buddha's practical
religious wisdom regarding metaphysics and nihilism. In the Buddhist
tradition, wisdom (prajna) has to do with the reorientation of subjectivity
which leads to a release from attachments. Wisdom releases the person from
obsession. More positively stated, the aim of wisdom is to liberate one for
relating to the world in freedom. Herein lies the scholarly consensus
regarding emptiness in The Stanzas.[21] Emptiness should not be understood
metaphysically. Neither should it be mistaken as a form of nihilism.
Emptiness, in The Stanzas, is equivalent to the Buddhist wisdom of
nonattachment.

                       A BUDDHIST READING OF AQUINAS

The earlier reading of the Commentary on John led us to factor Thomas's
doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God into three statements: (1) God's
incomprehensibility is the result of an ontological disproportion between
the finitude of the created intellect and the infinity of God; (2) God
remains incomprehensible even in the beatific vision; and yet (3) the human
person's final happiness in the immediate vision of God must be affirmed as
a revealed doctrine of faith. These findings suggest the following problem
for interpretation: How can the ultimate fulfillment of the human person in
the immediate vision of God be reconciled with God's incomprehensibility
even in the beatific vision? The remainder of this article proposes to
place Nagarjuna's notion of emptiness in conversation with Thomas in order
to illuminate this issue.

In The Stanzas, Nagarjuna develops a doctrine of emptiness in the form of a
Buddhist wisdom of nonclinging. Can God's incomprehensibility be read in a
similar fashion? An answer to this question is suggested in the discussion
of incomprehensibility found in the Summa theologiae.[22] In Part 1,
Question 12, Article 7, Aquinas asks the question, "Can a created mind
comprehend God's essence?" In the reply we are given a negative answer
supported by a three-point argument: to comprehend is to understand
perfectly; to understand perfectly is to understand a thing as well as it
can be understood; and, God is incomprehensible because God is infinitely
understandable. This last statement is noteworthy for what it does not
claim, viz. it does not claim that God's incomprehensibility is rooted in a
part of God that remains eternally denied to the finite intellect in its
quest of understanding. "When we say that God is not comprehended we do not
mean there is something about him that is not seen, but that he cannot be
seen as perfectly as intrinsically he is visible."[23] In the beatific
vision, incomprehensibility results not from a deficit in the lumen
gloriae, but rather from its fullness which overwhelms the finite
intellect. Thomas's subtlety on this point is noteworthy. In rooting God's
incomprehensibility in God's unlimited ability to be comprehended, he
succeeds in avoiding alternatives unacceptable to Christian faith. On the
one hand, if God's incomprehensibility resulted merely from an ontological
disproportion (statement 1), then the final happiness of the human person
would not be achievable (a violation of statement 3). Like the "virtuous
pagans" of Dante's limbo, the ultimate truth of human existence would be to
say," . . . without hope, we live on in desire."[24] On the other hand, if
God were ultimately comprehensible in the beatific vision (a violation of
statement 2), then in comprehending God, human subjectivity would transcend
God. In this case, Nietzsche would have the last laugh: in the death of
God, the finite subject would be burdened with the unhappy obligation of
being its own god. Thomas's solution is to speak of the incomprehensible
God as the infinitely understandable God.

But more exactly, how is God incomprehensible by being infinitely
understandable? Nagarjuna's notion of emptiness as Buddhist wisdom may be
illuminating. As a Buddhist, Nagarjuna looks on life as utterly transient.
Suffering arises when the mind churns illusions into attachments which
reify life into static categories. As a purely practical matter, concepts
are necessary. Suffering results when conceptual views are absolutized.
What is in fact merely conventional and useful leads to suffering when made
ultimate. The "happiness" of the human person (or more accurately, what
early Buddhism calls "bliss") consists in being liberated from obsessions.
For Thomas, the happiness of the human person consists in knowing the
truth. The final happiness of the human person, which we can hope for with
the assurance of faith, is possible only if God is infinitely
understandable. As noted above, the human person's ultimate happiness would
be impossible if a part of God remained eternally concealed to the created
intellect or if God were ultimately understandable. A more Buddhist
approach to this Thomistic insight would emphasize that unhappiness results
when the finite intellect becomes fixated on a false view of God which is
purely a conventional truth at the expense of entering into a deeper
know]edge of God. That God is incomprehensible because endlessly
understandable is, as the citation of ST 1, q. 12, a. 7 shows, Thomas's own
approach to incomprehensibility. Reading Thomas after Nagarjuna also alerts
us to a truth at least implicit in Thomas's texts: the ultimate unhappiness
of the human person results from the refusal to surrender fully to God in
an act of self-transcendence through knowledge.

Emptiness as the wisdom of the middle path suggests new ways of reading
Thomas. The Thomistic doctrine can be read as a Christian wisdom of
nonattachment, which is at once similar and different from Buddhist wisdom.
For Thomas and Nagarjuna, ultimately the human person is not bound: for
Nagarjuna, not bound to obsessions; for Aquinas, not bound to false gods,
however orthodox these ideas of God might be from a purely doctrinal
perspective. Every understanding of God is preliminary. As an initial
finding, therefore, let it be noted that both incomprehensibility and
emptiness are required, in their respective contexts, as integral parts of
differing religious soteriologies. If Thomas is to succeed in affirming the
human person's ultimate potential for happiness, he must also affirm the
abiding incomprehensibility of God as the infinitely understandable. If
Nagarjuna is to succeed in affirming the human person's ultimate potential
for freedom from attachments, he must also argue for the emptiness not only
of nirvana and the Tathagata, but of emptiness itself. If God is not
incomprehensible in the Christian context, and if emptiness is not empty in
the Buddhist, then the human person is ultimately bound. Emptiness and
incomprehensibility must be understood as religious soteriologies.[25]

It would be a mistake, however, to equate Thomas's incomprehensible God
with Nagarjuna's emptiness. Thomas's God is not empty. Comparative theology
should not proceed by underscoring similarities while ignoring differences.
The sizable differences separating Thomas and Nagarjuna may prove to be
greater resources for Christian theological reflection than even the
similarities.

For example, in Nagarjuna, there is transformation without transcendence in
the Platonic sense. This observation opens up a line of comparison whose
potential will not soon be exhausted. Nirvana is not to be misunderstood as
a transcendent realm beyond this world. Nagarjuna knows nothing of
transcendence in the Platonic sense so familiar to Aquinas. However, for
Mahayana Buddhism, being in the world while also being free from attachment
to the world constitutes a kind of transcendence. This latter sense of
transcendence is surely intended by Nagarjuna and evoked when Kalupahana
translates nirvana as "freedom." In The Stanzas, emptiness functions as a
tool for the reorientation of subjectivity whose object is a religious
transformation: freedom from obsessions. But in contrast to Thomas,
Nagarjuna's negative dialectics do not lead to a via negativa, if this is
understood as an ascent of the soul into God. The fourth line of the
catuskoti ("do not say neither/nor") entails a rejection of negation as a
path to transcendence that we associate with Christian Neoplatonic
mysticism and theology. Since Thomas is indebted to this tradition as much
as he is to Aristotelianism, Nagarjuna's use of the cataskoti must be seen
as an alternative to the exitus-reditus structure of the Summa. The
Thomistic use of negation always implies a prior affirmation. This is not
the case with Nagarjuna, for whom even emptiness itself is not a position
about ultimate reality. In ST 1.12.7, the via negativa constitutes the path
of the soul in its quest for knowledge of the infinitely understandable
God. Nagarjuna's dialectical use of negation, in contrast, is not in the
service of a mystical ascent. It is not an itinerariurn, at least not in
the tradition of Christian scholasticism. In The Stanzas there is negation
and there is transformation, but negation and trans- formation do not lead
to a Platonic ascent beyond the world of appearances. In place of the
Christian doctrine of creation, The Stanzas speak only of dependent
arising. Instead of the depth metaphors of Christian scholasticism (e.g.
transcendence into the super-natural), The Stanzas ,, contribute to the
"rhetoric of immediacy"[26] which we have come to associate with the Zen
movement in Japan (i.e. the "suchness" of all things as they arise in
nondiscriminating consciousness). Perhaps most strikingly, if the doctrine
of incomprehensibility entails a manifestation of the holiness (otherness)
of God, then Nagarjuna's emptiness must be seen as the negation of that
holiness.[27]

Differences such as these are not superficial, and efforts to declare them
merely apparent are wrong-headed. But as stated above, Buddhism may prove
to be most stimulating to Christian theological reflection precisely where
it presents itself as Christianity's radical Other. Based on the texts
under discussion, let me suggest two examples which merit further
reflection and development by comparative theologians.

First, if Nagarjuna's emptiness overcomes the holiness of the Christian
God, does it not also overcome dualistic understandings of God and
creation, natural and supernatural, nature and grace? This may be true in
two ways. First, emptiness may negate the transcendence of God and the
Christian doctrine of creation so as to render God a principle entirely
immanent within the world. Theologically this would lead to pantheism, or
perhaps panentheism. Metaphysically, this would lead to monism. But
Nagarjuna is meticulously clear about the unsuitability of interpreting
emptiness as a metaphysics. Emptiness is Buddhist wisdom, not a
philosophical foundationalism. Therefore, a second alternative for relating
emptiness to Christian theism would be to recognize that emptiness
critiques dualistic views of God and creation without leading necessarily
to pantheism. In this regard, it may prove fruitful to compare The Stanzas
with the attempts of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner in the middle of this
century to break away from the neo-Scholastic theology of creation, or with
the Latin American theologians in their attempts to move away from
transcendental understandings of salvation history.[28] If the doctrine of
creation does not allow God to be juxtaposed dualistically over against the
world, and does not allow God and the world to be identified monistically,
does not Christian faith in the Maker of heaven and of earth require
Christians both to construct and then to deconstruct metaphysical positions
vis-a-vis God and creation? If metaphysical constructions eventually break
down in their attempts to inscribe Christian faith, does this imply
nihilism or agnosticism? Or does the ultimate failure of metaphysics to
account adequately for the Christian experience of creation suggest the
need for a new reading of the Christian wisdom tradition? Here Nagarjuna's
transformation without transcendence might prove to be stimulating to
Christian theologians in revising their theological understandings.

Second, the possibility of grace would seem to be a major casualty of
Nagarjuna's understanding of religious transformation without a Platonic
model of transcendence. Thomas construes God's incomprehensibility in terms
of the lumen gloriae. As a metaphor, lumen suggests disclosure,
manifestation, and revelation. In the beatific vision, God's
incomprehensibility is fully revealed and the human person is fully
beatified. The language of grace effortlessly accompanies the language of
light, revelation, and transcendence. In contrast, the annulling of
transcendence at work in The Stanzas would seem to preclude the possibility
of grace. Emptiness is a matter of deconstruction, not disclosure. However,
a closer reading of Nagarjuna will complicate matters considerably, and
entail a look at the commentarial material.

As mentioned above, David Kalupahana must be counted among the more
influential contemporary commentators on The Stanzas. Kalupahana sets out
to demonstrate the continuity between Nagarjuna and earlier Buddhism and to
argue against the widespread view which identifies Nagarjuna with the
beginnings of the Mahayana movement. Nagarjuna, in Kalupahana's view, is a
critic not only of metaphysical tendencies of Buddhist intellectuals, but
also of Mahayana teachers who emphasized faith in a transcendent
Buddha.[29] Emptiness is merely a word, but a word useful for achieving
"right views" which lead to release from obsessions. Sorrow is constructed
by the mind. Freedom is realized in the deconstruction of sorrow. Given
this reading of The Stanzas, emptiness would seemingly require a religious
rhetoric of self-help, not grace. In contrast, Gadjin Nagao, arguably the
most prominent commentator on Nagarjuna in Japan, interprets Nagarjuna as a
Mahayana thinker. Moreover, Nagao is much indebted to the Japanese Pure
Land (Jodoshinshu) tradition with its strong emphasis on grace.[30] In Pure
Land Buddhism, the realization of emptiness is construed not as an act of
self-help (jiriki = "self-power"), but rather as a transformation brought
about by emptiness experienced as grace (tariki = "other-power"). "Only
when the duality of self and other has disappeared in the sole presence of
an inconceivable and unfathomable power," writes Nagao, "is there an
'other-power' that is not self."[31] "Other-power" is not an objective
other which stands over against the subject. Rather, it arises when
dualistic consciousness (and the obsessions which characterize such
consciousness) is overcome in the realization of emptiness. Although
"other-power" language is foreign to The Stanzas, the Pure Land movement
explains emptiness in terms of a nondual transforming power (and feels no
compunction in claiming Nagarjuna as its first patriarch). Thus the wisdom
of the middle path which leads to release from obsessions is for Nagao a
transformation involving grace, and yet there is no corresponding belief in
the intervention of a supernatural being. How might the experience of
grace, understood as the realization of wisdom as emptiness, serve as a
resource for Christian theologians trying to rethink their tradition in an
era when the voices of a dogmatic secularism and a resurgent naive
supernaturalism dominate public discussion?

Comparative theology aims neither at protecting Christianity from the
threat of other religions nor at harmonizing religions by means of a
hierarchy of truths. Good comparison is suspicious of homologies and
incommensurates. Instead, methods of comparison should contribute to the
imaginative revision of our theological affirmations. For this reason,
comparative theology should not content itself with the superficial
comparison of terms. The comparative theologian seeks to place Christian
discourse in conversation with discourses taken from various religions in
the hope that they might enhance one another. How does a particular
non-Christian religious claim, a claim that may be radically at odds with
the claims of Christianity, require and enable us to revise our present
understanding? To do Christian theology in such a manner is to place
Christian self-understanding at risk. To fail to do so would be to lose an
opportunity for the enrichment of faith.

1 Karl Rahner, S.J., may be credited with opening the contemporary
discussion of this aspect of Thomas's work with a series of articles
published roughly during the last decade of his life. See Rahner's "Thomas
Aquinas on the Incomprehensibility of God," Journal of Religion 58
Supplement (1978) S107-25.

2 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on John, Part One, trans. James A. Weisheipl,
O.P., and Fabian R. Larcher, O.P. (Albany, N.Y.: Magi, 1980).

3 Various translations of the original Sanskrit are available in English.
See, among others, David Kalupahana, Nagarjuna: The Philosophy of the
Middle Way (Albany: State University of New York, 1986), Kenneth K. Inada,
Nagarjuna: A Translation of his Mularnadhyamakakarika with an Introductory
Essay (Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1970), and Frederick Streng, Emptiness: A Study in
Religious Meaning (New York: Abington, 1967).

4 For a discussion of some of this legendary material, see Paul Williams,
Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (New York: Routledge, 1989)
55-56.

5 Paul Williams, Mahayana Buddhism 55-76; David Seyfort Ruegg, The
Literature of the Madhyamaka School of Philosophy in India (Wiesbaden: Otto
Harrassowitz, 1981); Christian Lindtner, Nagarjuniana (Copenhagen:
Akademisk, 1982), and Master of Wisdom: Writings of the Buddhist Master
Nagarjuna (Berkeley: Dharma, 1986); Gadjin Nagao, The Foundational
Standpoint of Madhyamika Philosophy, trans. John Keenan (Albany: SUNY,
1989), and Madhyamika and Yogacara: A Study of Mahayana Philosophies. The
Collected Papers of Gadjin Nagao, ed. and trans. L. A. Kawamura (Albany:
SUNY, 1991). The conflict of interpretation predates the modern period.
Within the Madhyamika school itself, Buddhapalita and Bhavaviveka initiated
two diverging paths for interpreting Nagarjuna. Candrakirti is generally
held to be Nagarjuna's most influential ancient commentator. For a detailed
discussion of this tradition of commentarial conflict, see Ruegg 47-86.

6 For a classic summary of early Buddhist teaching, see Walpola Rahula,
What the Buddha Taught (New York: Grove, 1959).

7 Classic texts from the Buddhist sutras include the Kaccayanagotta-sutta
and the Dhammacakkappavattana-sutta, both of which are collected in the
Samyutta-Nikaya, ed. Leon Feer (London: Pali Text Society, 1890).

8 Ruegg, The Literature 12.

9 The Stanzas 15:6.

10 Ibid. 25:4.

11 Ibid. 25:7.

12 Ibid. 25:11.

13 Ibid. 25:15.

14 Ibid. 25:22-23.

15 Ibid. 25:17.

16 Aggi-Vacchagottasutta 484-485.

17 Ibid. 485.

18 The Stanzas 24:11.

19 Kalupahana observes that Nagarjuna always employs the demonstrative idam
("this") in order to particularize his claims about emptiness (Nagarjuna
85-86).

20 The Stanzas 24:18.

21 See Kalupahana, Nagarjuna 67-69, Nagao, Foundational Standpoint 89, and
Streng, Emptiness 82-98.

22 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, trans. Herbert McCabe, O.P. (New York:
Mc- Graw-Hill, 1964).

23 Summa theologiae 1, q. 12, a. 7, reply.

24 Inferno 4:42.

25 Rahner reaches an interpretation of the Thomistic problematic which has
similarities and differences with the reading of Thomas being developed
here in connection with Nagarjuna. He interprets the Thomistic doctrine as
an implicit theological anthropology which affirms the unlimited capacity
of the human subject for self-transcendence into God as incomprehensible
mystery ("Thomas Aquinas on the Incomprehensibility of God," Sl16-25).
Reading the Thomistic problematic in connection with The Stanzas does lead
to a recognition of the soteriological function of the doctrine of
incomprehensibility, a point on which Rahner would readily agree. A
Buddhist reading does not, however, lend itself to a heightened
appreciation of mystery in Rahner's theological sense. For a discussion of
Rahner and Buddhist emptiness, see Hans Waldenfels, S.J., Absolute
Nothingness: Foundations for a Buddhist-Christian Dialogue (New York:
Paulist, 1980).

26 The phrase is taken from Bernard Faure; see his Rhetoric of Immediacy: A
Cultural Critique of Chan/Zen (Princeton: Princeton University, 1991).

27 Also note that this transformation without transcendence precludes
Nagarjuna from developing a doctrine of analogical language as Aquinas
does. In Nagarjuna, there is no symbolurn because there is no realissimum.
There can be no analogical predication because there is no prime analogue.
However, my discussion of The Stanzas does not deal with Nagarjuna's notion
of the "two truths" or with language as "skillful means" (upaya). To
continue this experiment in comparative theology, one might read this
aspect of The Stanzas with the Summa theologiae, Part 1, Question 13.

28 For de Lubac, see The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. Mary Sheed
(New York: Herder and Herder, 1967). For Rahner, see "Concerning the
Relationship between Nature and Grace," in Theological Investigations, vol.
1, trans. Kevin Smyth (Baltimore: Helicon, 1961) 297-317. For the Latin
American theologians, see Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation
(Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1973) 53-77.

29 Kalupahana, Nagarjuna xiii-xv.

30 For a discussion of grace in relation to Mahayana Buddhist teaching on
emptiness, see Yoshifuni Ueda and Dennis Hirota, Shinran: An Introduction
to His Thought (Kyoto: Honganji International Center, 1989) 128-31.

31 Nagao, Foundational Standpoint 7.