重审耶佛对话的两种模式

Reflective Studies on Two Models of Christian-Buddhist Dialogue

宗教学家威尔弗瑞德·史密斯认为,信仰乃是基本的宗教范畴,其实质就是一种"参与"。从耶佛对话的角度看,基督教入华后分别采取了"辟佛—易佛""况佛—援佛"等文化参与模式。其中晚明天主教徒立足于实践和礼仪层面来展开"辟佛"和"易佛",但却错失了"性理之学"层面上与佛教思想熔铸的历史机遇。谢扶雅等现代基督徒学人提出的"基督学时代论"则是立足于佛学深度中国化的历史经验、从而具有史家视野的文化参与立场。时代论历史视野透露出一种可能性,即基督教与佛教在性理之学层面上具有深度会通的思想基础。得益于唐代开放的文化政策,景教采取了深度中国化的路线。以景净为代表的唐代景士在性理之学的"援佛入景"方面做了很多尝试,留下了宝贵的历史经验。过去学者常常批评景教过度迎合本土文化,而未能看到景教超越格义、实现思想的创造性熔铸的积极意义。当年王国维以史家的敏锐眼光,视景教敦煌文书为"世界宝籍",其着眼点恐怕就在于强调汉语景教文献的文化策略意义,不能不引起重视。

According to Wilfred Cantwell Smith,faith,as a basic religious category,actually means a kind of multiple cultural involvements. From the perspective of Christian and Buddhist dialogue,Christianity tries to use in its Sinicizing process two types of involvement models:(1) the replacement model and(2) the introjection model.Unfortunately,the Catholics in the late Ming Dynasty missed the opportunity to introject Buddhism at the level of metaphysics while they devoted themselves to criticizing and replacing Buddhism at the level of practices and rites. Xie Fuya(謝扶雅) and other modern Christian scholars proposed the theory of Christological times,which is a parallel attitude with an inquiring perspective based explicitly on the historical experiences of Buddhist indigenization in China. This parallel attitude allowed the possibility of a deep-going dialogue between Christianity and Buddhism at the level of metaphysics. Due to the open cultural policy of the central government,the Chinese Christianity(Jingjiao) in the Tang Dynasty was able to be deeply Sinicized. Great and meaningful efforts have been made by Christian scholars such as Jingjing(景淨) to introject Buddhism into Jingjiao. Modern scholars used to criticize Jingjiao for its over-fitting to traditional Chinese culture,and had unfortunately ignored its creative work in the trans-cultural transplantation. It is noteworthy that Wang Guowei once regarded the Dunhuang documents of Jingjiao as the great works in the world,and in his emphasis on the strategic significance of these documents lies the suggestiveness of his historian's perspective.