"What Are They Saying? What Do They Mean? Questions and Comments about _Jesus and Buddha: Friends in Conversation_ by P. Knitter and R. Haight"

By Prof. Robert Magliola

My article argues that Knitter/Haight depend on an outdated Historical-Critical method the disparate conclusions of which are now displaced by new archeological findings, very recent discoveries of ancient Biblical manuscripts and papyri, and so on. Knitter/Haight also found their conjectures on a 19th and 20th century holistic metaphysics (Positivism and Scientism, for example) that Catholics can shatter by way of an orthodox Catholic deconstuction and Buddhists can shatter by way of Madhyamikan and other erudite doctrinal traditions. What Catholic theology can assimilate from Buddhism is not Buddhist teachings that are adverse to established Catholic ones but Asian thought-forms, such as the tetralemma: x is, x is-not, x both is and is-not, x neither is nor is-not. The tetralemma can serve Catholic theology very well indeed. Here is the link to my article: http://www.dimmid.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC=%7bC538F82D-A3DF-4827-AF97-171BA1C98EDA%7d