|
|
|
|
|
|
Resources |
|
|
|
A Buddhist View of Human Salvation
| Article
# : |
11194 |
|
|
Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
|
| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1986 |
5,359 Words |
| Author
: |
Masao Abe
Masao Abe is Margaret Gest Professor at Haverford College.
This paper is printed with permission from Paragon House. |
In this presentation, I would like first to discuss the Buddhist view of human salvation as I understand it--in comparison with the Christian view of salvation and, on that basis, to clarify Shin'ichi Hisamatsu's notion of FAS as an example of a contemporary Japanese Buddhist view of the issue.
Any religion, if it is authentic, is concerned not only with the salvation of the individual person, but also with the salvation of all humankind. Needless to say, these two aspects are inseparable. When, however, religion is concerned with the salvation of the individual, it opens up a most fundamental dimension which is beyond time and space, because religious salvation of the individual person is not possible in a merely humanistic, secular, and relative dimension which is limited by time and space, but only in a trans-human, sacred, noncreative eternal dimension. In this regard, religion is concerned with a "vertical" dimension which elucidates the height and depth or transcendence and ultimate ground of human existence. On the other hand, when religion is concerned with the salvation of all humankind it is involved, even while deeply rooted in a vertical dimension of human existence, in a "horizontal" dimension of breadth and chronological length or world and history. In its breadth and length dimension, then, religion is involved in social transformation and the development of history.
Although these two aspects, individual salvation and the collective emancipation of humankind, are, as already mentioned, inseparably from one another, and are included equally by all higher religions, the relation between transcendent individual salvation and social liberation, between vertical and horizontal, differs among the various religions, some
... (1998 of 33773 Characters)
Read Full Article
|
|
