The spirit of contradiction in Christianity and Buddhism [electronic resource] / Hugh Nicholson.
2016
BL53 .N525 2016eb
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Title
The spirit of contradiction in Christianity and Buddhism [electronic resource] / Hugh Nicholson.
ISBN
9780190455361 (electronic book)
Published
New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2016.
Copyright
©2016
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (xxi, 318 pages)
Other Standard Identifiers
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190455347 doi
Call Number
BL53 .N525 2016eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
202
Summary
The cognitive science of religion has shown that abstract religious concepts within many established religious traditions often fail to correspond to the beliefs of the vast majority of those religions' adherents. And yet, while the cognitive approach to religion has explained why these "theologically correct" doctrines have difficulty taking root in popular religious thought, it is largely silent on the question of how they developed in the first place. Hugh Nicholson aims to fill this gap by arguing that such doctrines can be understood as developing out of social identity processes. He focuses on the historical development of the Christian doctrine of Consubstantiality, the claim that the Son is of the same substance as the Father, and the Buddhist doctrine of No-self, the claim that the personality is reducible to its impersonal physical and psychological constituents. Both doctrines are maximally counterintuitive, in the sense that they violate the default expectations that human beings spontaneously make about the basic categories of things in the world. Nicholson argues that that these doctrines were each the products of intra- and inter-religious rivalry, in which one faction tried to get the upper hand over its ingroup rivals by maximizing the contrast with the dominant outgroup. Thus the "pro-Nicene" theologians of the fourth century developed the concept of Consubstantiality in the context of an effort to maximize, against their "Arian" rivals, the contrast with Christianity's archetypal "other," Judaism. Similarly, the No-self doctrine stemmed from an effort to maximize, against the so-called Personalist schools of Buddhism, the contrast with Brahmanical Hinduism with its doctrine of an unchanging and eternal self. In this way, Nicholson shows how religious traditions, to the extent that their development is driven by social identity processes, can back themselves into doctrinal positions that they must then retrospectively justify. -- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on February 11, 2016).
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Spirit of contradiction in Christianity and Buddhism.
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Table of Contents
Social identity and the development of doctrine
Part 1. Christological maximalism. An external history of Christological development
From Messiah to Logos
From preexistent Word to consubstantial Son: the Arian controversy
Part 2. Buddhist selflessness. Anatta in the Pali canon
Anatmavada versus Pudalavada in Abhidharmic and postcanonical literature
Theological creativity and doctrinal constraint.
Part 1. Christological maximalism. An external history of Christological development
From Messiah to Logos
From preexistent Word to consubstantial Son: the Arian controversy
Part 2. Buddhist selflessness. Anatta in the Pali canon
Anatmavada versus Pudalavada in Abhidharmic and postcanonical literature
Theological creativity and doctrinal constraint.