한글 초록
선불교의 연기론적 관점에서 이해하는 캐서린 라쿠냐의 상호내재적 삼위일체 현대 기독교는 신앙의 역동성과 변혁적 능력을 상실하고 있다.
복음과 교회는 정치 ․ 문화적 세계와의 접점을 잃고, 신앙은 개인적인 결단과 내 면적 구원에 국한되는 경향을 보인다.
이러한 원인에 대해 캐서린 라쿠냐(Catherine LaCugna)는 전통적인 삼위일체 신학이 신과 세계를 분리한 결과라고 지적한다.
서구 신학 전통에서 삼위일체는 어느 순간 가장 불필요한 신학이론이 되어 갔다.
그이유는 내재적 삼위일체(Immanent Trinity)와 경세적 삼위일체(Economic Trinity)로 큰 크레바스가 생기기 시작했고, 그로 인해 신학이 실천적 영역과 괴리되는 결과를 초래했다고 본다.
라쿠냐는 삼위일체의 역동성을 회복하기 위해 페리코레시스 (Perichoresis)의 개념을 중심으로 삼위일체를 새롭게 이해하며, 이를통해 신과 세계의 관계성을 재구성하고자 했다.
본 논문은 라쿠냐의 페리코레시스, 즉 상호내주적 삼위일체 이해를 불교, 특히 선불교(Zen Buddhism)의‘상호의존적발생’(Interdependent Arising) 개념과 종교학적 비교를 한다.
라쿠냐의 삼위일체론은 신과 세 계가 본질적으로 분리된 것이 아니라 상호 관계적 존재임을 강조한다는 점에서 불교의 연기(緣起) 사상과 흥미로운 공통점을 가진다.
불교에서 연기론은 서구 철학의 존재론과 다른 존재론 혹은 체용론을 이해하고 선불교 사상을 이해하는 데 중요한 시작이 되는 사상이다.
연기론적 관점에서 개별 존재로, 독립적으로 존재하는 것은 없다.
모두가 상호 의존 적인 관계 속에서 형성되고 사라지는 것이다.
이는 라쿠냐의 삼위일체 론이 제시하는 관계적 상호내재적 존재 이해와 맥을 같이한다.
라쿠냐가 하려는 내재적 삼위일체와 경세적 삼위일체의 이해를 선의 연기론에 서 보게 되면, 더욱 유기적으로 역동적인 페리코레시스의 존재론적 움 직임이 가능하게 되는 것을 깨닫게 된다.
더불어 신학 이론적 지점에서 갖는 유사성뿐만 아니라 실천적 차원에서 도 유사성이 크다.
라쿠냐의 삼위일체와 선의 연기론적 존재론은 우리 가 잃어버린 신앙의 힘을 다시 발견하게 하는 데 큰 관심이 있음을 발견 하게 된다.
이는 현대 기독교가 직면한 신앙과 실천의 단절 문제를 해결 하는 데 크게 기여하고 있다.
주제어 ‖ 라쿠냐, 삼위일체, 페리코레시스, 선불교, 연기
I. Introduction
Modern Christianity has been challenged because of its lack of transformative power.
The gospel and the church are detached from the political cultural world and cornered into its own isolated spiritual world. Salvation is conceived as an individual decision and far from the real world.
Why does this situation happen?
Catherine LaCugna insists that this current situation is a result from a deep division between God and world.
To revive the dynamic power of the Trinity is to unite the divided aspects of Trinity: the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity.
Her insistence on the Trinity is done through the conception of “perichoresis.”1)
1) Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (San Francisco, Calif.: Harper & San Francisco, 1991), 19.
My reading of LaCugna’s understanding of the Trinity through the eyes of Zen implies several potential.
Her understanding on the Trinity shares similarities with Zen as she emphasizes an intrinsically relationship between the world and God and epistemological reading on the Trinity. Moreover, it is easier to understand her understanding of the Trinity with the eyes of Zen rather than through the Western theological tradition. Perichoresis is the concept that enables the relationship between the world and God to be closely interwoven. Perichoretic understanding on the Trinity has similarities with Zen. Both thoughts emphasize the undivided relationship between God and the world, and refuse isolated ontology, which has strong epistemological implications. The purpose of this study is not simply to compare Lacugna’s trinitarian theology with the interdependent arising of Zen, but to explore a new lens for spiritual insights. Looking at the doctrine of the Trinity with the eyes of Zen will supply new spiritual insights, which are difficult to gain only within its religious tradition and theology.
The aim of this paper is to find a new paradigm to understand and interpret Christianity in the contexts of tradition and modern social situation.
In the first section, I will describe challenges within the modern understanding of the Trinity. Because of those challenges, we need different angle to interpret the Trinity. Catherine LaCugna finds the answer in the conception of perichoresis.
Moreover, I shall address three implications for creating a new paradigm that shares accountability with the Zen thought. In the second section, I shall describe the concept of the interdependent arising in Zen, which explains the reality of the world, and in each explanation, I shall delineate similarities with the LaCugna’s Trinity.
The conclusion will state that LaCugna’s strong concerns in the relationship between God and the world enables the meeting with the interdependent arising in Zen.
II. The Defeats of the Trinity in LaCugna
LaCugna argues that the Trinity is a practical doctrine to the Christian life.
“The doctrine of Trinity is ultimately a practical doctrine with radical consequences for Christian life.”2)
The Trinity is not a boring but a serious doctrine, which affects the Christian life including the political and cultural life. The doctrine of the Trinity is to tell about who God is.
Asking about God is to ask about who we are.
Many modern Christians do not think the Trinity is practical.
LaCugna describes this situation as ‘the defeat of the Trinity.’3)
2) Ibid., 1.
3) Ibid., 19.
It has lost its powerful meanings and practical implications, and remains silent in social and political life.
What makes the Trinity unpractical?
LaCugna points out that the main cause of the defeat of the Trinity is the divided understandings of the Trinity: the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity.
LaCugna describes that the trinitarian dichotomy causes several consequences.
First, the Trinity lost its powerful implication in theology as well as in politics.4)
If the doctrine can only speak of the Trinity locked up in three Persons and not in relation to people, then it is no wonder that the Trinity has become socially uninteresting.5)
Second, the isolation of God from human history causes piety to be detached from society.6)
The piety without relationship with society can be easily asocial or ahistorical pietism.
Third, it deconstructs the integrity of the three divine Persons for redemption.
The focus on the intra-divine talk (theologia) has weak grounds to support essential connection with the incarnation and works of Jesus Christ.
There is no essential reason for the Holy Spirit to be active.
The Trinity redeems people and there is no need for the Holy Spirit to work actively in this society.7)
4) Ibid., 17.
5) Ibid., 2.
6) Ibid., 213.
7) Ibid., 298.
Another trinitarian dichotomy consequence is that God has been isolated into a privatized realm and marginalized. Augustine searched the place of God in the personhood, substance, and unoriginated origin for apologetic reason.
Kant also secured the God’s place in the Ding an Sich, noumenon or thing in itself.
Schleimacher placed God in human mind ‘absolute dependent mind.’
However, all these answers limited God in a corner of the human mind, not in the public square.
Gradually, God retreated from the public realm into the human private mind.
These apologetic answers caused questionable results in contrast to their intentions.
Modern Christians tend to believe or assume that faith is an individual decision.
Salvation is up to the individual’s decision without social and communal relations.
Salvation becomes a matter of inner private decision and cheap grace without making ethical moral decisions to challenge the injustice and oppression in human society.
The way to salvation is impossible to follow in fear of making decisions, although Jesus asks us to abandon present life style and follow him.
Salvation is integral one including the economic, political, and cultural dimensions.
LaCugna names these results as ‘the defeat of the Trinity.’8)
8) Ibid., 2.
Then we should ask of how to cure them.
LaCugna finds the way of healing them in a perichoretic understanding.
III. Perichoretic Understanding on the Trinity of LaCugna
LaCugna finds that we can regain the practical power of God with emphasis on the undivided relationship between the world and the Trinity.
The God who we may know is the God working and manifesting in the world.
We cannot understand God as an independent reality or an unoriginated origin.
This is a philosophical God not a biblical or personal God.
One of the important methods to know God is to use the concept of “perichoresis” which means the intimate union, mutual interpenetration, or mutual indwelling of the three Persons of the Trinity with each other.9)
Perichoresis in the Trinity was used to affirm the consubstantiality of the divine persons against Arianism and the distinction of persons against Sabellianism.
The conception of perichoresis is based on John 17:20-32.
“My prayer is not for them alone.I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me (emphasis added)?”10)
9) Donald K. McKim, Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, 1st ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996).
10) John 17:20-32(NIV).
According to this verse, the Father God and the Son God is in each other. Their existences are dependent each other. The God, Son, and Human being are not separated.
Their existences are interpenetrating each other.
Father, Jesus, world and we are related to each other: God in humans, humans in God, and humans in each other. God and humans are mutually inter-dependent.
To know about God, we should ask about human beings.
To know about human beings, we should ask about God.
When we know about God, then we can tell who we are.
When we know about us, we can tell who God is, because God is our ground of existence, and God provide the criterion of life.
The perichoretic understanding of the Trinity is the key to achieve the unity of the three persons and threeness in one God at the same time.
“The doctrine of the perichoresis links together in a brilliant way the threeness and the unity, without reducing the threeness to the unity, or dissolving the unity in the threeness.”11)
11) Jurgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God, 1st ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), 175
It enables each Person to interpenetrate and relate mutually to each other without hurting the uniqueness of each Person.
1. The Perichoretic Trinity: The Close Relationship with the World
Both LaCugna and Moltmann acknowledge that personhood already includes the meaning of relationality among the three divine persons.
The Personhood of Augustine’s Trinity has the meaning of relationship but it is still limited in the intradivine without the creatures and the world.
LaCugna says that person is not without its relational aspects:
God the Father is Father only in relation to the Son; Son is Son only in relation to the Father; the Spirit is person only in relation to Father and Son.
Nonetheless, this relationality is located only within the divine essence.12)
LaCugna insists that this relationship within the intra-divine is not enough to cure the diseases resulting from the defeat of the Trinity.
The understanding of the Trinity must expand and interpenetrate with the world and the creature closely.
The understanding of intra divine relationship exists in liberation theology but it is not enough to accomplish its purpose either.
Leonardo Boff understands the Trinity that still focuses on intra divine relationality.
LaCugna observes that his use of the perichoresis is the glue to hold together the three individual persons in a substantial unity13) but not with world and human society.
12) Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (1991), 247.
13) Ibid., 275.
While the relationship within intradivine is emphasized, the relationship with human community becomes less apparent.
“God’s relationship to the creature entails no distinction or relation ‘within’ God.”14)
LaCugna does not discriminate the relations between God and the world.
However, she criticizes Boff’s Trinity for two reasons.
First, Boff’s method in the end undercuts Boff’s real concern, which is to ground his social and political vision in God.15) Second, the immanent Trinitarian perspective presupposes the idea of person as an individual, even if the person is dynamically conceived as an individual-in-person.
For the purpose of liberation, she insists that the relationship between God and the world must be interrelated and essentially one.
“The world is neither inside God, nor is the world outside God, as if there were a horizon separating God and the world.”16)
14) Ibid., 251.
15) Ibid., 277.
16) Ibid., 225.
As it is no wonder to think together three Persons, it is also necessary to bond God and the world, society, and history. This Trinitarian understanding supports actively the liberation theology to liberate the exploited world and people from the injustice and exploitation.
Intra-divine God discourse (theologia) and God discourse within human history (oikonomia) are two aspects of one Trinity.
God’s discourse (theologia) cannot be isolated from this world (oikonomia).
The doctrine of Trinity is not just a teaching about “God,” but a teaching about God’s life with us and life with each other.17)
The Trinity is powerful and a creative doctrine when two-divided understanding such as the immanent Trinity and the economic Trinity becomes one.
The Trinity cannot tell only about the God as such.
If the mysterious God as such is revealed wholly in the world, we do not have any way to conceive God fully.
2. The Perichoretic Trinity: The Kenotic Trinity giving up closed self
To attain the relationship with others it is necessary to deny oneself. Without giving up oneself, it cannot achieve a relationship. Jesus is the one who gives his own life up to the world. The Son God gives up himself for others, and that enables him to be the Son God.
LaCugna also notes,
“God is ecstatic, fecund, self-emptying out of love for another, a personal God who comes to self through another.”18)
The nature of Trinity is to deny the isolated divine essence.
The Trinity God tries to communicate with humans in the form of humans. The form of humans is caused by the eternal nature of God, not temporal measure.
Moltmann states, “God’s limitation inwardly are de-limitations outward.
God is nowhere greater than in his humiliation. God is nowhere more glorious than in his impotence.
God is nowhere more divine than when he becomes man.”19)
17) Ibid., 228.
18) Ibid., 15.
19) Jurgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (1993), 119.
God reveals his/her divinity through God’s humiliation and in his weakness.
God is kenotic, a self-emptying God through incarnation.
Ontological distinction is unbiblical.
“An ontological distinction between God in se and God pro nobis, finally, inconsistent with biblical revelation... can result only in a unitarian Christianity, not a Trinitarian monotheism.”20)
20) Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (1991), 6. 21) Ibid., 217.
The divided understanding of the Trinity caused the conception of person, mind to be philosophical rather than biblical.
3. The Perichoretic Trinity: Epistemological Approach
To understand the Trinity as perichoretic, interpenetrating and mutually in relation inescapably moves the method of understanding the Trinity into an epistemological one.
It is easier to conceive the relationship of Trinity from the epistemological way rather than from ontological one. LaCugna acknowledges the necessity.
“This is crucial because if the distinction is ontological, then theologia is separated from oikonomia. If the distinction is epistemological, then oikonomia is our means of access to theologia, and it is truly theologia that is given in oikonomia.”21)
She argues that the theological method to unite two detached Trinity should free from the ontological detention.
But this view is not about insisting that the Trinitarian faith must be understood only through the epistemological method. She leaves the ontological space for God’s mystery beyond our understanding and reason, and her method is mainly epistemological.
She continually uses ‘epistemology of relation’ instead of ontology.
Nevertheless, she doubts that ontological understanding is an essential way to conceive the mystery of the Trinity.
She develops the doubts and insists that originally the Trinity was conceptual.
“An epistemological distinction between God and God for us has become an ontological one.”22)
There was no hint why she did not develop this conceptual aspect further.
I think this is an important implication to understand the Trinity, and a good place to meet Zen Buddhism.
The epistemological understanding can instigate dialogues with other religions.
She presumes that the distinction between economic and immanent Trinity, or between essence and energies, are conceptual.23)
It means that the Trinity is one of categories to understand the ineffable Mystery.
In another page, she describes the Trinity as an artificial category again.
“Our Trinity of revelation is an arbitrary analysis of the activity of God, which thought of value in Christian thought and devotion is not of essential significance.”24)
22) Ibid., 225.
23) Ibid., 231.
24) Ibid., 226.
It implies that there are many ways to conceive the Mystery, and the Christian Trinity is one of many ways depending on culture, thoughts, and religions.
IV. The Interdependent Arising of Zen and Similarities with the Trinity of LaCugna
One of the most important Zen doctrines is the “dependent arising(yon-gi 緣起).”
Without understanding it, it cannot explain what the enlightenment of Zen is, and what the difference of sudden enlightenment and gradual cultivation controversies (Don-jeom 頓漸) are in Korean Buddhism.
To know the doctrine of interdependent arising is the alpha and omega of the ultimate enlightenmen
It means that every phenomena is depending on others. Western ontology presumes ontology like God, ding an sich, self and unoriginated origin.
They are ultimate cause and origin from which every phenomena is possible.
However, Zen Buddhism do not have such ontology because, every phenomena is dependent on each other.
None can insist its own origin without relationship with other phenomena. Zen Buddhism does not presume ontological aspect like Western philosophy.
Reading LaCugna’s understanding on the Trinity through the eyes of Zen has two meanings.
First, it is more comprehensible to understand LaCugna’s interpretation of the Trinity with the eyes of Zen than within Christian tradition.
The interdependent arising of Zen emphasizes the interrelationship and denies the self-sufficient ontology.
Through the eyes of the Zen doctrine, we can find different perspectives on the Christian God.
I think this would be a good example of how we get a new interpretation and spiritual encouragement through other religious views.
Second, LaCugna’s understandings on the Trinity and the doctrine of the interdependent arising in Zen have several similarities.
Both religious doctrines emphasize the relationship with each other, and both of them deny the isolated subject or ontology.
Lastly, the epistemological approach to each doctrine is an easy way to understand other religions.
1. The Interdependent Arising as the Emphasis on the Relationship
The doctrine of interdependent arising strongly emphasizes the relationship between the whole universes. There is nothing, which exists independently. To exist means that it has a cause and effect. Enlightening the reality of the world means to know the doctrine of dependent arising. All things in the whole universe are related with each other. In the Majjhima-nikaya (Jun-a-ham-gyoung 中阿 含經), Buddha says that those who see ‘interdependent arising’25) will see the dharma; those who see the dharma will see ‘dependent origination.’26)
25) Sung Bae Park use ‘dependent origination’, but I will use ‘interdependent arising’ to avoid confuse caused by various terms.
26) Sung-Bae Park, Buddhist Faith and Sudden Enlightenment, Suny Series in Religious Studies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), 25.
The best way to see the dharma is through interdependent arising.
In the Samyutta-nikaya (Jab-a-ham-gyoung 雜阿 含經) Buddha says those who see the dharma will see me; those who see me will see the dharma.27)
The interdependent arising is same the dharma as well as the Buddha, because the interdependent arising is the way to be the Buddha and to know the dharma.
In Hua-yen school, this insight has been developed in the doctrines of li-shih wu-ai28) (Li-sa-mu-ae 理事無礙) and shih-shih wu-ai (Sa-sa-mu-ae 事事無礙)29).
Main conceptual categories in Western philosophy are the principle and phenomena, but Zen does not have these separations.
Zen philosophy does not allow any dichotomy to discriminate reason and sentiment, principle and phenomenon, sacred and mundane, Buddha and people.
All things in the whole universe are profoundly related and interdependent on each other.
No single being can exist and stand alone. There are no isolations, since they are mutually containing, it follows that individual phenomena also contain each other without obstruction.30)
27) Ibid.
28) It means non-obstruction between principle and phenomena.
29) It means non-obstruction between phenomena and phenomena or perfect interpenetration of phenomena.
30) Charles Muller, “The Key Operative Concepts in Korean Buddhist Syncretic of Zen.
Another good example is “the jewel net of Indra (Je-seok-gang 帝釋網)” in Hua-yen school. Fa-tsang (Beop-jang 法藏) introduced the Hua-yen thoughts by the analogy of Indra.
There are many jewels connected with each other in the Indian myth. Jewels shine through each other. All of them are interconnected and inter-reflected to each other.
In this image, the whole universe and dharma realm are interreflected.
The Hua-yen thought strongly insists the inter-connectedness. Each being seems to be solitary, but actually there are all universes in each being.
Zen says, “All is in one” and “one is in all.” Even though all dharmas penetrate each other mutually without obstruction, they still function separately and remain exactly as they are. The doctrine of dependent arising in Zen has similarity with the ontology of relation in Trinity.
Both thoughts emphasize the relational nature. Dependent arising emphasizes the interdependence in the whole universe, and LaCugna’s Trinity emphasizes the mutual correlation between God and the world.
Every being exists and live in relationships.
While the Trinity stresses the relationship of intra-divine Persons, Zen lays emphasis on the interrelationship among myriad phenomenon and principles.
The perichoresis of LaCugna becomes more comprehensible to understand from the Zen’s interdependent arising.
Her approach to the Trinity is in the neighboring Philosophy,” Bulletin of Toyo Gakuen University (1995): 3.
2. The interdependent arising as the denial isolated subject
The doctrine of interdependent arising challenges the idea of ontologically isolated being.
In Buddhism it is not easy to find out the ontology like western philosophy.
The dependent arising denies the closed and self-sufficient substance.
Zen master often argues Nonbeing (sunyata 空)”.
The idea of nonbeing is sometimes misunderstood as pessimism like Western existentialism, but it is far from pessimism. That is for denial of substance.
It is called nonbeing or emptiness because there is no closed ontology in Zen. It strongly rejects the interdependent being with ‘nonbeing’.
From this perspective Nagarjuna (Yong-su 龍樹) defines emptiness as ‘the origination dependently.’ Interdependent arising and emptiness (nonbeing) has the same views on ‘the dharma realm.’
‘No self (an-atman 無我)’ is to deny selfness like isolated ontological being, in other words, nothing in reality corresponds to such words or ideas as ‘I,’ ‘mine,’ ‘belonging,’ etc.
The self is not a fact.31)
31) Edward Conze, Buddhism: Its Essence and Development, 1st Windhorse ed. (Birmingham: Windhorse Pub., 2001), 19.
The whole universe is related to each other, therefore nothing insists independent Self and its own possessions.
This claim creates a ground of social ethics.
Edward Conze argues that the specific contribution of Buddhism to religious thought lies in its insistence on the doctrine of ‘no-self (an-atman)’.32)
It is interesting to realize when we deny the selfness, we can find our real self.
“We are urged to consider that nothing in our empirical self is worthy of being regarded as the real self.”33)
32) Ibid., 18.
33) Ibid., 19.
When we realize the self as delusion and no-selfness, we can get the real self existing in the web of world. This self is different from the old isolated self. The concept of interdependent arising helps us to understand the dharma realm.
The perichoretic Trinity is the place to meet the world and God. The interdependent arising and nonbeing delineate the significance of the interrelationship in all the beings. Those who enlighten the reality of interdependent arising can also find out the non- isolated selfless self. Accordingly, the perichoretic Trinity reveals the God giving Godself up to participate in the lives of human beings, history, and the world. The God embraces the brokenness and hope of the world and people in relationship.
3. The interdependent arising as the epistemological category
Zen enlightenment is not attained by trying. It is to open new eyes, that is, new paradigm revolution to conceive the world Zen teaches that current problems are caused by wrong conceptions attached to desires. Only by seeing existence with a new paradigm, people can get new changed present-day. The importance of the interdependent arising discloses the understanding of the four noble paths (Sa-sung-je 四聖諸). Sung Bae Park insists there are two interpretations about it in Korean Zen tradition. The first interpretation is called the four noble paths considering on the cause and removing of suffering (Saeng-myeol-sa-je 生滅 四諸), and the other interpretation is the four noble paths focusing on the non existence of suffering (Mu-saeng-sa-je 無生四諸). With the realization of the interdependent arising, it makes a completely different interpretation on the four noble paths.34)
34) Sung-Bae Park, Buddhist Faith and Sudden Enlightenment (1983), 31-36.
The former saeng-myeol-sa-je interpretation is interesting in what kinds of suffering are, and how humans can escape from suffering. First noble path, suffering means human statuses under four suffering in relation to human lifecycle: birth, being old, sick, and death, in other words, living is suffering. Second, human attachment to desires causes suffering. Third, the way to free from suffering is to remove desires as we recognize desires are the causes of suffering. Lastly, human can practice the eight ways to remove the desires. This interpretation is focusing on the cause of suffering and the ways to live in freedom.
People who are aware of their suffering must pursue a way to enlightenment.
Some encourage people to cultivate their minds and body in Buddhist temple to create a new set of the mind. The latter mu-saeng-sa-je interprets the four noble paths differently.
The cause of all problems is through humanity’s wrong conceptions which frauds and misleads wrong ways to enlightenment.
Humanity believes that we are under the sufferings. However, the problem is that we are under wrong conception that we are under suffering. The attachment to desire causes humans to misunderstand illusions as a reality.
If humans were able to overcome and remove false attachments, there is no suffering and no need to cultivate the eight ways to be enlightened.
Originally, there are no problems, but the only obstacle is human epistemological way that led to illusion.
These different understandings on the reality are more evident in the controversy between Hui-neng and Shen-hsiu.35)
35) There are questions about the sincerity of Hui-neng’s mind verses. It was assumed that Shen-hui made pseudohistorical propaganda in Platform Sutra about the Northern School.
Generally it is said that the golden age of Zen was caused by Hui-neng - sixth patriarch. Although he was illiterate, he knew what enlightenment was. When Shen-hsiu wrote his mind verse, Hui-neng knew that mind verse was not enlightening. This is the mind-verse of Shen-hsiu.
The body is the bodhi tree. The mind is like a bright mirror’s stand.
At all times we must strive to polish it in addition, must not let dust collect.36)
This implies that the Zen followers should try to gain the enlightenment gradually through cultivation.
On the other hand, Hui-neng disagreed: Bodhi originally has no tree. The mirror also has no stand.
The Buddha Nature is always clear and pure. Where is there room for dust?37)
36) John Robert McRae, The Northern School of Chinese Ch’an Buddhism, Studies in East Asian Buddhism (Kuroda Institue, 1983), 3; Another translation is Philip B. Yampolsky, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967); John C. H. Wu, The Golden Age of Zen (New York: An Image Book, 1996).
37) Ibid., 3.
There is no wisdom or Buddha nature itself to be cultivated.
The Buddha nature itself already exists in the mind, not to be found or gained gradually.
This famous mind verse denies the independent existence of the Bodhi or wisdom. In our mind, we have already the nature of Buddha.
There is no need to seek it out of minds. The Buddhahood is in our mind.
The enlightenment is not to gain but to realize that fact that we are Buddha by nature.
The only reason we fail to attain the realization is due to the lack of conception of the mind.
Originally, we are born to be free and we are already Buddha, so there is no need to cultivate and seek. However, human problems remind us of the presence of suffering. There is no suffering but we just consider our experience as suffering because we are attached to desires. We are poor because we desire to be rich and attach to economic desire.
The way of enlightenment come to the mind as a person realizes real “I” rather than cultivating mind.
The interdependent arising doctrine teaches us not what to see but how to see. Zen engages the way to see rather than objects to see.
The answer to human problems can be found in us contrary to the Trinity that emphasizes ontological aspect, what to see or to believe.
The ontological Trinity reveals that salvation is exterior of us and as an ontological being, on the contrary, Zen presents the way of enlightenment in the human minds.
V. The Differences between the perichoretic Trinity and the interdependent arising in Zen
As mentioned above, there are many similarities between the interdependent arising in Zen and the perichoretic understanding of the Trinity in Christianity in terms of relationship.
At the same time, it must be noted that there are the indigenous differences between two thoughts. First, perichoresis uses God’s relationship to the world exclusively. In contrast to the interdependent arising, it does not separate the mundane from the sacred. The worldview of Zen is to try to go beyond the boundaries and limitation of artificial conception and delusion. However, this difference becomes unconvincing, because LaCugna tries to go over the distinction between immanent Trinity and the world as the place of economic Trinity. Second, LaCugna goes forward to embrace the constructive meaning of the creature and history in economic Trinity, but she remains in the ontological area. She thinks the Trinity is ontology of relation. In contrast to the Trinity, Zen denies closed-ontological aspect. Its starting point is epistemological. Zen enlightenment starts with epistemological conversion. Although LaCuga implies epistemological aspects, her trinitarian theology is fundamentally ontological. She knows the Trinity as one category to understand the mystery but she remains in ‘the ontology of relation.’ On the contrary, the interdependent arising is epistemological. It describes how universe correlates with each other. Third, while the interdependent arising in Zen is about how to see, the Trinity is about what to see. Zen is to change the way of how to perceive, but the Trinity is about what to believe in. LaCugna’s argument has the possibility to reconcile this contrast by using the conception of perichoresis, but her approach does not have a strong voice. She regards the Trinity within the ontological category. The Trinity can be used as the epistemological one. There is no reason why the Trinity is the Israelite God shown in history. The historical Trinitarian God can be the paradigms of how to see politics and cultures in the global context.
VI. Conclusion
The doctrine of the Trinity can bring light to the life of communities of faith with its practical implication.
The nature of God is closely related with world, creature and society from eternity. LaCugna shows that in the Trinity God has an indispensable relationship with the world. God is working within history and society. Her understanding of perichoresis tries to go beyond the traditional understanding and reach the indispensable relationship between the creator and creatures. Although the traditional Trinity already has a relational emphasis, she wants to expand the perichoretic, interpenetration and undivided relationship with the world. Her perichoretic relationship between God and world is essential but not a fortuitous one. Zen strengthens this insight. The doctrine of interdependent arising in Zen enables Christians to see God in a different form and epistemological perspectives. Although these two doctrines emerge out 김이석 ｜ Reading Catherine LaCugna’s Perichoretic Trinity with the Interdependent Arising in Zen 31 of different resources, their interests and concerns for the world have similar aspects. These similarities disclose the hopeful possibility for inter-doctrinal dialogue. It is possible to have a dialogue not only in social and practical purposes but also in inter doctrinal one. Spiritually and religiously, both of them are trying to connect faith and society closely.
Bibliography
Conze, Edward. Buddhism: Its Essence and Development. 1st Windhorse ed. Birmingham: Windhorse Pub., 2001. LaCugna, Catherine Mowry. God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life. San Francisco, Calif.: Harper & San Francisco, 1991. McKim, Donald K. Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms. 1st ed. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996. McRae, John Robert. The Northern School of Chinese Ch’an Buddhism, Studies in East Asian Buddhism. Kuroda Institue, 1983. Moltmann, Jurgen. The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God. 1st Fortress Press ed. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993. Muller, Charles. “The Key Operative Concepts in Korean Buddhist Syncretic Philosophy.” Bulletin of Toyo Gakuen University 3 (1995): 33-48. Park, Sung-Bae. Buddhist Faith and Sudden Enlightenment, Suny Series in Religious Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983. Chinul and Robert E. Buswell. The Korean Approach to Zen: The Collected Works of Chinul. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983. Muller, Charles. “The Key Operative Concepts in Korean Buddhist Syncretic Philosophy.” Bulletin of Toyo Gakuen University 3 (1995): 33-48. Park, Sung-Bae. Wonhyo’s Commentaries on the “Awakening of Faith in Mahayana.” 1979. Wu, John C. H. The Golden Age of Zen. New York: An Image Book, 1996. Yampolsky, Philip B. The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. New York: Columbia University Press, 1967.
<Abstract >
Reading Catherine LaCugna’s Perichoretic Trinity with the Interdependent Arising in Zen
Kim, Isaac( Lecturer Baekseok University Theological Education Center Seoul, Korea)
Modern Christianity has lost the dynamism and transformative power of faith. The gospel and the church have lost their points of contact with the political and cultural world, and faith tends to be confined to personal decisions and inner salvation. Regarding this issue, Catherine LaCugna points out that traditional Trinitarian theology has resulted in a separation between God and the world. In the Western theological tradition, the doctrine of the Trinity gradually became one of the most unnecessary theological theories. This was due to the widening crevasse between the Immanent Trinity and the Economic Trinity, which led to theology becoming detached from practical life. To restore the dynamism of the Trinity, LaCugna reinterprets it through the concept of perichoresis, seeking to reconstruct the relationship between God and the world. This paper compares LaCugna’s perichoretic, mutually indwelling understanding of the Trinity with the Buddhist concept of Interdependent Arising, particularly in Zen Buddhism. LaCugna’s Trinitarian theology emphasizes that God and the world are not essentially separate but exist in mutual relationship, which shares intriguing commonalities with the Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination. In Buddhism, the theory of dependent origination is a crucial foundation for understanding Zen thought and represents an ontology distinct from that of Western philosophy. From this perspective, no being exists independently; all things arise and cease within interdependent relationships. This resonates with LaCugna’s Trinitarian theology, which posits existence as inherently relational and mutually indwelling. Viewing LaCugna’s understanding of the Immanent and Economic Trinity through the lens of dependent origination allows for a more organic and dynamic ontological dance of perichoresis. Furthermore, this comparison reveals not only theoretical similarities but also significant practical implications. Both LaCugna’s Trinitarian theology and Zen Buddhism’s ontology of dependent origination seek to rediscover the lost power of faith. They offer profound insights into addressing the modern Christian crisis of disconnection between faith and practice, contributing significantly to bridging this gap.
Keywords ‖ LaCugna,Trinity, Perichoresis, Zen Buddhism, Interdependent Arising ∙
투고접수일: 2025년 02월 14일 ∙ 심사(수정)일: 2025년 03월 08일 ∙ 게재확정일: 2025년 03월 12일
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