The Incarnate Logos and the Rūpakāya Towards a Comparative Theology of Embodiment Thomas Cattoi Abstract: This essay offers some considerations on the value of the Chalcedonian paradigm as a resource for interreligious systematic speculation. The author’s analysis focuses on the Christology of Maximos the Confessor and the Buddhological speculations of the Tibetan thinker and monastic reformer Tsong kha pa. The paper explores the points of contact, as well as the differences, between these two approaches. In conclusion the author offers some constructive considerations as to the shape of a contextual Tibetan Christology that would appropriate the conceptual heritage of the local philosophy and culture. He also suggests how familiarity with Tsong kha pa’s epistemological horizon may be of help in gaining a better appreciation of the Christological paradigm behind Maximos’s vision.
T
he primary burden of this paper is to lay the initial foundations of a comparative theology of divine embodiment, focusing on the Christian and the Tibetan Buddhist traditions.1 My starting point is an exploration of the points of contacts and the differences between the Christological synthesis that became normative in the wake of the Council of Chalcedon (451 C.E.), and the notion of Buddha-bodies in the form this teaching takes in the religious life of Tibet. To this purpose, I offer a comparative reading of the Christology of Maximos the Confessor (580–662 C.E.) and the Buddhological speculation of the Tibetan dGe lugs master Tsong kha pa (1357–1419 C.E.). Maximos’ understanding of the hypostatic union—the simultaneous presence of humanity and divinity in the person of Christ—is taken by some as the culmination of Patristic Christology, while Tsong kha pa is the author of some of the greatest philosophical treatises in the Tibetan language.2
ISSUE
8, OCTOBER 2008
109