Concepts of the Ultimate PDF
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CONCEPTS OF THE ULTIMATE Concepts of the Ultitnate Edited by Linda J. Tessier Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978-1-349-20329-1 ISBN 978-1-349-20327-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20327-7 ©Linda J. Tessier 1989 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1989 978-0-333-48867-6 All rights reserved. For information, write: Scholarly and Reference Division, St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Fmt published in the United States of America in 1989 ISBN 978-0-312-04141-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Concepts of the ulitmate : philosophical perspectives on the nature of the Divine I edited by Linda J. Tessier. P· em. ISBN 978-0-312-04141-0 1. God-Congresses. 2. Philosophical theology-Congresses. I. Tessier, Linda J. (Linda Jo) BT102.A1C67 1989 291.2'11--dc20 89-28754 CIP Contents Acknowledgements Vlll Notes on the Contributors ix Introduction xii PART I 1 Why God Must be Unlimited 3 Stephen T. Davis 2 Reply: Must God be Unlimited? Naturalistic vs. 23 Supernaturalistic Theism David Ray Griffin 3 Comment on Stephen Davis 32 John Hick 4 Response to John Hick 34 Stephen T. Davis PART II 5 A Process Concept of God 39 John B. Cobb, Jr. 6 Reply: Cobb on Ultimate Reality 52 Robert Merrihew Adams 7 Comment on John Cobb 55 Stephen T. Davis 8 Response to Stephen Davis 56 John B. Cobb, Jr. v vi Contents PART III 9 Feminism and the Christ 59 June O'Connor 10 Response to June O'Connor 75 Karen Torjesen PARTlY 11 The Yedic-Upanisadic Concept of Brahman 83 (The Highest God) Sushanta Sen 12 Response to Sushanta Sen 98 Margaret H. Dornish 13 A Rejoinder to Professor Dornish' s Response 104 Sushanta Sen PARTY 14 Emptiness: Soteriology and Ethics in 113 Mahayana Buddhism Christopher Ives 15 Reflections on Christopher lves's Commentary 127 Francis H. Cook 16 Comment on Christopher Ives 134 Stephen T. Davis 17 Response to Stephen Davis 135 Christopher Ives 18 Comment on Francis Cook 136 John Hick 19 Response to John Hick 138 Francis H. Cook Contents vii PART VI 20 The Real and Its Personae and Impersonae 143 John Hick 21 Reply: Can John Hick Say What He Said? 159 John K. Roth 22 Comment on John Hick 163 Stephen T. Davis 23 Comment on John Hick 165 John B. Cobb, Jr. 24 Comment on John Hick 167 Christopher Ives 25 Response to John Hick 169 Joseph Prabhu 26 Response 171 John Hick Index 177 Acknowledgements The discussions which comprise this volume have emerged out of a gathering of scholars at the annual Claremont Graduate School Philosophy of Religion Conference which took place at Claremont McKenna College in 1986. A number of organizations and indi viduals helped to make that event an intense and dynamic en counter among scholars interested in considering the ultimate from various religious perspectives. I wish to thank the James A. Blaisdell Programs in World Religions and Cultures at Claremont Graduate School for sponsoring the event along with the Religion Department of Claremont Graduate School and Claremont McKenna College. Certain individuals provided essential assistance in organizing this conference and gathering the scholars who participated, and I especially wish to thank John Hick and Stephen Davis for their help in these areas. The conference participants have been conscientious and co operative in providing the comments and responses which follow the initial discussions, and I wish to thank all the participants for their willing attention to deadlines and for their powerful ideas. Professor Hick has also been extremely helpful to me throughout the process of gathering and compiling the presentations, comments and responses through various stages. I also wish to thank the philosophy and religion editors at Macmillan, especially Pauline Snelson and Sophie Lillington, for their patience and most valuable assistance in the process of compiling this book. viii Notes on the Contributors Robert Merrihew Adams is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles. A collection of his papers in the phil osophy of religion has recently been published under the title The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology. John R. Cobb. Jr. is Ingraham Professor of Theology at the School of Theology at Claremont, A veryP rofessor of Religion at the Claremont Graduate School, Director of the Center for Process Studies, and publisher of the journal Process Studies. Among recent books are Beyond Dialogue and Christ in a Pluralistic Age. Francis Cook is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Riverside, where he taught in the Program in Religious Studies from 1970 to 1988. He has done extensive research in the area of Buddhist studies and is the author of Hua-yen Buddhism: the Jewel Net of Indra, How to Raise an Ox, and, forthcoming in 1989, Sounds of Valley Streams. He is also the author of numerous articles on Hua-yen Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, and articles con cerning Buddhist-Christian dialogue. He is currently translating the Denko-roku, by the medieval Japanese Zen master, Keizan Jokin. Margaret Domish was educated in the study of religion at Yale Divinity School and Claremont Graduate School and studied fine arts at the University of Southern California. She is Associate Professor of Religion at Pomona College and served as the editor of the Journal of the Blaisdell Institute. Her work in Buddhism includes extensive research concerning the writings of D. T. Suzuki. Stephen T. Davis is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Claremont McKenna College. His books include Faith, Skepticism, and Evidence: An Essay in Religious Epistemology and Logic and the Nature of God. He is also a contributing editor to Encountering Evil: Live Options in Theodicy and Encountering Jesus: A Debate on Christology (forthcoming). David Ray Griffin is a Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the School of Theology at Claremont and Claremont Graduate School, ix Notes on the Contributors X executive director of the Center for Process Studies, and founding president of the Center for a Postmodern World (in Santa Barbara). He is author of A Process Christology, God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theology, Process Theology (with John B. Cobb, Jr.), and God and Religion in the Postmodern World, and editor of Physics and the Ultimate Significance of Time, The Reenchantment of Science: Postmodern Proposals, and Spirituality and Society: Postmodern Visions. He is also editor of the SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought. John Hick is Danforth Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion at Claremont Graduate School and Director of the James A. Blaisdell Programs in World Religions and Cultures. He has chaired and served on numerous panels and councils involving inter-faith dialogue and has lectured extensively in Great Britain, India and the United States, including the Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh in 1986- 87. In addition to appointments at Cornell University, Princeton Theological Seminary, Cambridge University, Conville and Caius College, Cambridge, and Birmingham University, he has been a visiting professor at various universities in India and Sri Lanka. His numerous publications include Philosophy of Religion, Evil and the God of Love, God and the Universe of Faiths, Death and Eternal Life, The Myth of God Incarnate, God Has Many Names, and Problems of Religious Pluralism. His most recent book is An Interpretation of Religion. Christopher Ives is Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Puget Sound. In addition to publication of articles relating to Buddhism and process studies, he has translated a number of Japanese works on Buddhism. June O'Connor is Associate Professor and Chair of the Program in Religious Studies at the University of California, Riverside. She has authored articles and review essays on theology and religious ethics in a number of journals, including Religious Studies Review, Cross Currents, Christian Century, Journal of Religion and Culture, the Hastings Center Report, and Union Seminary Quarterly Review and has written a book entitled The Quest for Political and Spiritual Liberation: A Study in the Thought of Sri Aurobindo Chose. Joseph Prabhu is a citizen of India who was educated in economics and politics in Delhi and in philosophy and theology in Germany and Cambridge, England, before getting his PhD in philosophy
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