What it’s About

In Without Buddha I Could Not be a Christian, theologian Paul Knitter explores numerous intersections of Christianity and Buddhism and the ways in which they both give shape to his own religious/spiritual life, beliefs, values, and ethics.¹Paul F. Knitter, Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian (London: Oneworld Publications, 2013). Writing from the first person and discussing his own take on these two major world religions, Knitter’s project in the book is, at its core, autobiographical. It is in this sense “a rather selfish book,”²ix. one goal of which is simply to clarify for himself exactly what he believes about Christianity (and whether it even still counts as Christianity), especially the important foundational doctrines of the faith and how those doctrines can be understood in light of Buddhist ideas and principles to which he also ascribes. However, as he makes clear early on, there is much he hopes others can take away, especially fellow Christians, that will be of help to them in understanding their own connection to their religious tradition. In other words, the book also doubles as a work of theology, and in describing his own views, Knitter in effect proposes a significant “reinterpretation of Christian belief,” one he hopes will help other Christians “review and retrieve their Christian beliefs and their efforts to understand, affirm, and live the gospel of Jesus.”³xiv.

For Knitter, the reason a reinterpretation of traditional Christian beliefs is necessary is that he’s been struggling with those beliefs for much of his adult life. As he describes it, the struggles stem from a disconnect between the basic doctrinal statements of the tradition and his own understanding and feelings developed through continued study and life experience (and as a former Catholic priest of nine years and a life-long professor of theology and religion, there’s been a lot of study and experience on which to draw). Happily, Buddhism has helped alleviate some of these struggles by providing an outside perspective and new insights, allowing him to reinterpret those teachings in a new way. Thus, the majority of the book is devoted to describing his struggles with Christian beliefs, what relevant insights he’s gained from Buddhism regarding those beliefs, and where this now leaves him. 

Several of Knitter’s struggles with Christianity have to do with the nature of God and God’s relationship with the rest of the world. To start with, God is often described in Christianity as wholly distinct from His creation – a “transcendent Other” who is so categorically different from (and superior to) his creation that he ends up appearing rather aloof toward that creation. While it’s true Christianity teaches that God “crosses the chasm” and saves his creation, even that is done in an apparently arbitrary and preferential way – at a particular point in history, in a particular place, among a particular group of people. For Knitter, the idea of such a transcendent and arbitrary God doesn’t cohere with the teaching that God is also infinitely good and loving, or that God dwells in and through his creation. Similar problems of incoherence exist regarding God as a personal being, who relates and makes decisions in much the same way as human persons, and with other official descriptions of God in Christianity, which for Knitter always seem to over-define something that is, and should remain, ultimately mysterious.  

Other struggles have to do with Christian ideas of the afterlife – heaven and hell as eternal destinations for the saved and the damned respectively. The trouble here is that these ideas too often rest on literal interpretations of Biblical passages, which Knitter finds difficult to take seriously both because they assume too much (e.g. that we will remain in any meaningful sense ourselves when we are renewed in the life to come) and because they don’t seem to cohere with other principles of Christian teachings on theology and ethics (e.g. that God truly loves his whole creation and that, after all, we shouldn’t be very concerned about ourselves and our personal rewards or punishments). 

Here with heaven, as with God, we encounter something that is a recurring theme throughout the book – that Christians throughout history have tended to rely too much on words – to describe and define too precisely things that are, and should remain, ultimately mysterious. For Knitter it’s not just that there might be ways to interpret scriptures and doctrinal statements about God and heaven other than literally, it’s that, when it comes to discussing theological and religious matters, all language is symbolic – everything we can say is only a symbolic approximation of something that is ultimately beyond expression.⁴In Knitter’s words, “We might say that basically symbols are objects, words, pictures, stories, or pieces of ordinary experience that make present or give expression to realities that otherwise would be shapeless and indescribable” (67-8). So, whether we can interpret some religious language literally or not, we must go beyond literal interpretations if we are to understand its deeper meaning for us and our spiritual lives. The problem with relying too heavily on certain language, then, is that it tends to obscure the deeper meaning toward which that language should move us, especially as we mature in our understanding of religion and spirituality. 

The far-reaching impact of Knitter’s interpretive stance on religious language becomes strikingly apparent when it comes to his struggles in understanding “the heart of Christianity:”⁵92. Jesus Christ, his nature, his identity, and how exactly it is that he saves humanity. Here again, Knitter finds that the traditional formulations – that Jesus is God’s “only begotten Son,” that he is “two natures in one person,” that he is the only savior of all humanity, that his blood has saved us from our sins, etc. – to be in discord with his own reason, emotion, and experience, and so he looks for reinterpretations and new symbols to understand the truth behind these formulations. Perhaps most strikingly, even the historical claims that form the foundation of the Christian tradition (and all traditions) are subject to a reinterpretation along these lines. This includes what he calls “the cornerstone of Christian faith”⁶102. – the resurrection of Jesus. In Knitter’s view, a physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus is a dubious historical claim on several counts,⁷Though he does not delve into much depth in explaining his reasons for doubting Jesus’s physical resurrection, Knitter briefly lists the following reasons: (1) Jesus himself as recorded several places in the Gospels suggests that one’s faith should not be based on witnessing miracles (as in, for example, John 20:29, when Jesus states to Thomas, ”Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe”). (2) Analysis by at least some New Testament scholars has revealed that the parts of the Gospels dealing with Jesus’s resurrection appearances involve “an even more lavish use of symbols and storytelling than in other parts of the Gospels,” 103. (3) These same chapters in the Gospels also include some discrepancies with each other that are difficult to reconcile, some of which concern the precise nature of Jesus’s resurrection appearances – specifically whether he had an ordinary physical body or one with more spiritual or ethereal properties. (4) “The very earliest account of the resurrection, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, doesn’t even mention an empty tomb and insists that the body that Jesus rose with was not ‘physical’ but ‘spiritual’ (1 Cor. 15),” 103. (5) Finally, some of the earliest communities of Christians in Palestine, didn’t appear to emphasize or even discuss the resurrection, but instead focused on Jesus being exalted with God, and on his eventual triumphant return. See especially p.102-103. and he therefore suggests that even this might rather be a symbol of some deeper spiritual truth and looks for a reinterpretation of these teachings in order to get at their deeper meaning. 

Two additional areas of struggle for Knitter involve what might be termed more practical matters – the things Christians actually do, or should do, to live out the beliefs they hold. The first of these areas is prayer. As with God and heaven, one basic problem with traditional Christian forms of prayer is that it is, simply put, “too wordy.”⁸135. Christians tend to do a lot of talking at God in terms that, if taken literally, seem almost childish or inappropriate.⁹As Knitter describes it, the words Christians tend to use can be childish or inappropriate both in the sense that the substance of prayers are often self-centered or immature (for example, asking God to solve my problems when those problems are things I might just as well try and solve myself and, anyway, may not be terribly important problems to begin with) and in the sense that we assume too much theologically about God when speaking to him. Related to this, Christian prayer also tends to be “too worshipful,” to emphasize too much the transcendent otherness of God and to obscure the mysterious nature of the Divine and the intimate connection it has with us, not to mention the personal responsibility we hold in connection with it. Knitter therefore looks to introduce more silence into the Christian practice of prayer as a corrective to these problems. 

The second practical area Knitter tackles falls under the category of ethics and centers around his experience working to promote peace and justice in the country of El Salvador for several decades during and following a period of bloody civil war in the mid-1980s.¹⁰See “Chapter 7: Making Peace and Being Peace,” p.167-212. Here the struggles have been over not so much what he should do as a Christian, as how he should go about doing it, and how he can possibly keep doing it in the face of what seem like overwhelming odds. As he describes them, his struggles first surfaced as a sense of futility about making any real or lasting difference in the corrupt and oppressive systems of the world. This sense of futility was drawn from personal experience with the continually stymied efforts in El Salvador, but also from some general Christian teachings – about the sinful nature of all humans that makes them inevitably tend toward evil, and about the end times, when God himself will finally usher in a perfect kingdom, a prospect which can sometimes cause Christians here and now to not try too hard themselves to make any difference at all. But, underlying this sense of futility was also a deepening sense that he had been going about working for peace and justice in the wrong way to begin with – that there was something missing and/or skewed in his understanding of the proper role and method in working for those ends. Specifically, he and others like him had too often taken on a sense of combativeness, an “us versus them” mentality that proved to be both ineffective and, in the final analysis, un-christ-like.

So, just what does Buddhism offer to help alleviate these struggles?

To start with, stark differences between Christian and Buddhist doctrines on some key issues mean an inevitable and radical shift in perspective when looking at the same world through a Buddhist lens. As a tradition that somewhat famously professes no Gods whatsoever, that has no widely accepted vision of the end of history, and has no particular theory or even much concern with justice, good, or evil in the classical Western senses, Buddhism stands in opposition to Christianity in many ways. For Knitter, this opposition is complementary rather than competitive – fertile ground for a broader perspective, new symbols, and fresh insights into the same mysterious truth toward which he believes both traditions point. 

As a good first example, consider God, who in Christianity (and other monotheistic traditions) is understood to be the “Absolute,” the perfect being, creator of all else, totally independent of creation, unchanging and unchangeable, eternally existent, and in fact the only independently existent, or self-subsistent, being there is. Opposite this, Buddhists hold that nothing is permanent or unchanging,¹¹Sometimes referred to as the Doctrine of Impermanence (Anitya in Sanskrit), this key idea is related to many other parts of Buddhist belief and practice. For example, to put it somewhat simply, since everything is impermanent and transient, nothing can ever truly satisfy us, because whatever it is won’t last or remain static. Thus, we must come to terms with the fact that life is ultimately unsatisfactory. This is the first of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. See more on this in note 12 below. that absolutely everything has dependent existence and is in fact transient and dependent on constantly fluctuating conditions for its existence.¹²This is another key Buddhist doctrine, sometimes referred to as “conditioned arising” or “dependent origination” and closely related to the Doctrine of Impermanence (see note 11 above). Importantly, this principle applies to absolutely everything, even things often thought to be somehow permanent or independent, including one’s spirit, soul, or consciousness. This leads to the Buddhist Doctrine of No-Self (Anatman in Sanskrit), which is a point of departure not just with most Western philosophical and religious schools of thought, but also with most forms of Hinduism and Indian philosophical schools as well. For more on the Doctrine of No-Self, see note 20 below. As Knitter outlines it, the only thing that could perhaps be considered an “Absolute” in Buddhism is Nirvana – the experience of detachment from all the dependent, transient, impermanent things of the world, including oneself.¹³As with “salvation” in Christianity, there are a number of different ways of understanding and describing nirvana in Buddhism, depending on the sect or school of thought to which one ascribes. Literally translated, Nirvana means something like “extinguishing,” as with a flame being blown out. In a basic sense, then, it refers to the extinguishing of craving, which Buddhists consider to be the cause of all suffering and dissatisfaction in life (the 2nd of the Four Noble Truths). But, nirvana is also sometimes described as a supremely blissful state of mind or state of being. In yet other contexts, nirvana is closely associated with Enlightenment – the attainment of knowledge or awareness of certain metaphysical truths. All of these concepts are of course related and somewhat overlapping. For Knitter’s purposes in the present work, what’s emphasized most about nirvana is that anyone can attain it; it is an awareness that transforms one’s life in the here and now, which is why it serves as such a good corrective to popular Christian views of salvation as something one looks forward to in the future. Closely related to nirvana is the concept of Sunyata, which can be translated variously as “Emptiness,” “Groundlessness,” or “InterBeing.” The general idea behind Sunyata is again that nothing has an independent, permanent existence by itself, but in fact everything and everyone is part of a larger interconnected and interdependent fabric of existence, an “energy field” of interconnectedness, or a process of continual becoming. 

So, just how can these seemingly conflicting teachings be reconciled? How does Knitter relate the Christian God, the ultimate being, to the Buddhist Nirvana/Sunyata, the ultimate emptiness of being? 

The rather simple but counterintuitive answer Knitter comes to is essentially that God is Nirvana/Sunyata. Or, to use the term he seems to prefer throughout most of the book, God is InterBeing.¹⁴See especially p.14-23. Importantly, the evidence Knitter cites in coming to this conclusion includes not just Buddhist teachings and his own feelings and experiences, but also Christian teachings drawn from both scripture and some influential Church leaders throughout history, especially mystics.¹⁵Among the mystics Knitter mentions specifically are “Dionysius the Areopagite, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Meister Eckhart, [and] Julian of Norwich,” 56. This gets at another couple key themes that run throughout the book: (1) the reinterpretations he introduces to traditional Christian teachings have precedent within the history of the faith, or at least are consistent with and justifiable according to some long-standing – albeit often overlooked or forgotten – teachings of the faith,¹⁶For this reason, in discussing God as a divine Mystery, he is able to make the claim that “this is sound Christian – I add, Catholic – doctrine” (65). and (2) he suggests that in order to develop a mature understanding of Christianity, one must become more mystical in their approach. This second idea entails, among other things, relying on one’s own personal experience of God in order to understand, evaluate, and reinterpret doctrine, which is a large part of what he himself is doing in the present work.¹⁷In calling Christians to this greater emphasis on mysticism, Knitter is following his teacher, Karl Rahner, who he quotes as saying “In the future, Christians will be mystics or they will not be anything” (15). There are numerous reasons for this rather stark warning, related to other arguments that appear in the text, but the most basic reason is probably just that without one’s own experience to draw on, one’s faith isn’t truly substantive or genuine. As Knitter puts it, “without such a personal, mystical happening, one cannot authentically and honestly call oneself religious,” 16. 

By conceiving of or symbolizing God as InterBeing, Knitter is able to alleviate some of his many struggles with more traditional Christian conceptions of God. So, on this account, even if God is a transcendent Other, He is also an immanent Other, or rather, an immanent – and intimate – spiritual connection that dwells in, with, and through all. Far from being aloof or disinterested in creation, or an arbitrary or preferential savior whose acts are limited to special cases, God is present in all parts of creation, living and working through it in all times and places. Similarly, rather than being best conceived as a supernatural “person,” who makes unilateral decisions according to his divine will, some of which inexplicably bring about mass suffering, God as InterBeing becomes a participant in the world, an animating Spirit, whose will is worked out in and through all sentient beings to the extent that they participate with it. Suffering, then, can be understood in a classically Buddhist way as either the result of our own ignorance and selfishness or simply the circumstances that come about naturally in the world. Finally, God as InterBeing better maintains the mysterious nature of the Divine; it lets God be and lets us find Him (or Her or It) as He is rather than restricting Him to a clearly defined doctrinal statement. In this sense, it sets God free. 

With this significant theological shift, other areas in Christian thought shift as well. So, if God is InterBeing, who exists in, with, and through all beings, then Jesus is not exactly unique in sharing a substance or connection with God the Father; we all have such a connection, at least potentially. Rather, what makes Jesus unique in Knitter’s view is the strength and depth of his connection with God as InterBeing, and his perfect embodiment of this connection in his life and actions, even unto death. So, if Jesus is the Son of God, on this account he is so not because he was literally begotten of God the Father, but because he came to realize in a unique way his connection with God the Father. Knitter tentatively suggests this realization was something that Jesus went through during his early life, prior to his ministry as recorded in the Gospels, and he describes it as an “awakening.” Jesus “woke up to” the reality of the Divine in him, the presence and action of God’s Spirit. The connection here to Buddhism is with the concept of Awakening, or Enlightenment, believed to have been attained by the historical Buddha,¹⁸For those unfamiliar, “Buddha” is a title, which literally translates to something like “Awakened One.” According to the traditional accounts, what the Buddha woke up to was the true nature of things, the most significant insights of which were passed down as the Four Noble Truths (along with other teachings), including instructions on how to attain nirvana for oneself. with the important implication that this is possible for all humans. Just as Buddhists believe that Enlightenment and nirvana are attainable for all, Knitter maintains that the realization of Divinity accomplished by Jesus is attainable by all. In this sense, Jesus’s true accomplishment was just in realizing “the full potential of human nature.”¹⁹116. Knitter attributes this particular insight about human nature to his teacher, Karl Rahner, who he says recognized this way of understanding Jesus’s divinity earlier than he, albeit in some different terms. 

So, what about all the traditional Christian promises about Jesus – for example, that he died to save us from our sins, that through faith in him we may have eternal life, or that without faith in him, we may end up in hell? 

Regarding salvation, since the same awakening Jesus attained is attainable for us all, the primary way in which Jesus saves us is actually by teaching, or revealing, both through explicit instruction and – no less importantly – by example, the reality of our connection with God and each other and the path whereby we might also experience awakening to this reality for ourselves. This being the case, salvation is reconceptualized to be something that can happen for us here and now, much more than something that only happens after our physical or bodily death. In other words, the emphasis is on the spiritual transformation that can take place during this life, whatever happens in the next. 

As for exactly what does happen in the next life, Knitter first of all warns against too much speculation and against taking statements about the afterlife from any religious tradition too literally. The reason for this is both his understanding of religious language as necessarily symbolic and his own view that straightforward literal descriptions of heaven and hell in Christianity are unlikely to be true. In getting at just what is true about the afterlife, he compares Buddhist ideas of rebirth, karma, and no-self²⁰For those unfamiliar, to put it simply, the Buddhist doctrine of No-Self (Anatman in Sanskrit) states that sentient beings have no permanent self or soul. So, while Buddhists follow the vast majority of Indian philosophical schools in believing that sentient beings go through cycles of life, death, and rebirth based on karma, they depart radically from most by stating that there is not in fact any discreet self or soul that survives the process of rebirth. Instead, one life ends, and as a result of karmic consequences, another distinct life begins. with Christian ideas about dying to oneself and the transformed resurrected bodies of the saved,²¹See for example Paul’s discussion of the resurrection of the dead in 1 Corinthians 15. and – bearing in mind that teachings from both traditions are symbolic approximations of something more mysterious – he comes to a couple conclusions. The first is that whatever state we may find ourselves in for the next life, it quite likely will be so transformed from this present life that what we now recognize as our self may not exist in any meaningful sense at all.²²Following Karl Rahner on this point, he goes so far as to suggest that our existence may be transformed into something non-individual and unitive, perhaps even a “pancosmic” existence, 89. The second is that the basic but important practical lesson in teachings on the afterlife from both Christian and Buddhist perspectives seems to be to take seriously our actions in this life, as whatever happens in the next will be affected in some way, for better or worse, by what we choose here and now. 

This brings us to the matters of Christian prayer and ethics. Overall, as Knitter outlines it, the biggest thing to be gained from Buddhism for Christian practice is, in a word, silence. Regarding prayer, this means engaging in more silent prayer, or meditation. He points out that while Christianity does have a long history, and numerous methods, of meditation, silent prayer, contemplation, etc., these methods tend to rely on the use of images and concepts to fill silence. In other words, they’re not silent enough. He therefore suggests that Christians might adopt one or more of the many methods of meditation present in Buddhist traditions and also might take away from Buddhism a general lesson on the purpose of such methods – to cultivate a deep realization of the transient, impermanent nature of the self, and a connection to all other beings. Regarding ethics, he suggests Christians can take a lesson from the Buddhist emphasis on mindfulness, or wisdom (prajna), as a prerequisite to action. One benefit of this is to fully understand and accept the state of things as they are before trying to fix them. But, on another level, this means ensuring that one’s actions are truly done out of selfless compassion in the first place, not motivated or directed by ego or fleeting passions. This way of approaching work for justice, he argues, will actually get much closer to what Jesus himself calls for in the Gospels.²³See especially p.201-12.

As he outlines it, Knitter has gained a lot from Buddhism. It has allowed him to reinterpret important Christian teachings with which he has struggled for many years and to rediscover some teachings that he may have otherwise missed or overlooked. In fact, it’s been so helpful to him, at least in certain areas, that he describes it as being a necessary part of maturing in his faith. This is, as I take it, because without the aid of Buddhist symbols, concepts, and paradigms to look to, he wouldn’t be able to continue to honestly profess belief in key Christian doctrines. It is for this reason that he describes the title of the book – Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian – as “definitely true.”²⁴xiii.

In a final reflection on the implications all this has for his identity now, he confesses that he now carries a “hybrid” identity, that he is, in loyalty and in practice, both a Buddhist and a Christian. But, it doesn’t end there. While this hybrid religious identity certainly puts him on the edge of the mainstream Christian community, he expresses his belief and hope that it’s actually the “cutting edge,”²⁵217. that more and more Christians will do what he has by engaging in dialogue with other religious traditions in order to better understand their own. This, he believes, “can not only help renew the churches. It can also produce Christians better able to help renew the world.”²⁶217.

A Few Thoughts

I found Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian to be compelling, thought-provoking, and above all, refreshingly open and honest. Rather than presenting a dry intellectual argument, or an abstract theological exposition, Knitter writes with straightforward honesty, out of his own real-life experiences and personal convictions. Though he is obviously critical of numerous popular Christian beliefs, the tone of the book is not harsh or condescending. Rather, he is as charitable as seems possible in presenting his criticisms and remains humble in the way he offers his own ideas as correctives. This is somewhat naturally accomplished by keeping the focus autobiographical throughout, and the whole book ends up reading like a spiritual journal of sorts. In many ways, that’s precisely what it is. As he puts it, he’s “been writing this book for the past forty years,”²⁷xv. with many of the chapters including real examples of formative interactions and experiences he’s had over those years as well as relevant excerpts from his actual spiritual journal kept during that time. 

Overall, the structure and style of the book make for an easy and accessible read. Each chapter is divided into three main sections, describing first, a particular struggle Knitter has had with traditional Christian beliefs; second, what he’s learned in relation to those beliefs by “passing over” to Buddhism; and third, how he’s been able to reinterpret or understand in a new light those beliefs upon “passing back” to Christianity. While some of the subject matter discussed can be challenging to grapple with and understand fully (such is, perhaps, just the nature of metaphysics), Knitter manages to keep the theological jargon to a minimum and takes the time and ink to tease apart some complex and subtle distinctions in terms that are accessible to a broad audience. When it comes to Buddhist concepts and terminology, this means taking the time to introduce and define these before delving into their implications for Christianity. Thus, in the process, he provides something of a rudimentary introduction to Buddhism for his readers, and those with little to no familiarity with Buddhism should have no trouble following along. Additionally, he is clearly conscious that he’s speaking from his own limited perspective about some vast and variegated sets of traditions, as he acknowledges several times when presenting his own interpretations of both Buddhist and Christian doctrines. The result is one man’s honest and humble take on where he finds himself after years of seriously grappling with life, religion, and spirituality and all the mess, mystery, and confusion that comes with them. 

But, if this is just one man’s take, how much weight does it carry for the rest of us? Is there truly a lesson to take away that can be generalized or an argument worth considering for all of us here? 

Despite the book’s autobiographical nature, I think there definitely is something here well worth considering for many, at the very least for the Christian community, and quite possibly for the rest of us as well. For one thing, this isn’t just any old person sharing their views on religious matters. Being trained in Catholic theology and doctrine from a young age and serving as a priest for nine years, then working as a professor of religious studies for decades thereafter, Knitter knows something of what he’s talking about.²⁸He has also written a number of other books dealing with comparative theology and religious pluralism more generally and in a less autobiographical format. One could say he actually wrote the book on “theologies of religion” – that is the theological theories held by Christians of the role and status of non-Christian religions. See Paul F. Knitter, Introducing Theologies of Religions (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2002). Nor is he relying solely on book-knowledge, but as the personal anecdotes he cites throughout the book and his emphasis on personal experience show, he also practices some of what he preaches, and his views are informed by other real people who no doubt take their practices seriously as well. To me, this is reason enough to give the ideas and arguments in this book a fair shake.  

Beyond that, Knitter himself mentions that he suspects he’s not alone in forming those ideas – that many others might share similar struggles with traditional Christian doctrines and might find the solutions he’s found similarly helpful. Here, I think he’s at least partly right. To start with, there are plenty of people who struggle with Christianity for one reason or another. One clear indicator of this is the now fairly well-known fact that, while globally Christianity is growing in total number of adherents, it is on the decline in the United States and many parts of Europe, regions that have historically been home to a large majority of Christians. Furthermore, a significant amount of this decline is attributable to “religious switching,” to people leaving the Christian fold for another religion, or for no religion at all.²⁹For a good resource on understanding this decline and the numbers involved, see this report created by the Pew Research Center: The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050 | Pew Research Center. For information on the United States specifically, see this report: America’s Changing Religious Landscape | Pew Research Center. It would be speculative to generalize too freely about the main causes of this decline, but certainly among the causes sometimes cited are several issues that Knitter touches on at various points in the present work. These include (1) a sense of inconsistency between the notion of an all-loving God and the preferential treatment that God apparently gives to some over others, (2) a similar sense of inconsistency between such an all-loving God and the existence of hell as a place of eternal punishment, (3) a sense of injustice regarding the exclusive and elitist nature of traditionally understood Christian salvation, (4) doubts or flat-out disbelief regarding some of the key historical and prehistorical claims contained in the Christian scriptures, and perhaps most commonly, (5) disillusionment with the attitudes, actions, and affiliations of many apparently devout Christian practitioners. My own experience confirms this, as many people I’ve spoken to struggle with one or more of these issues whether they choose to remain a part of the Christian fold or not. 

On the other hand, some of the struggles Knitter describes strike me as much less common. For example, when he picks apart the precise language of the Nicene Creed or the precise formulations about Jesus being two natures in one person and the only begotten Son of God, I suspect he’s moving beyond where the average Christian bothers to go. This, after all, is usually the realm of scholars, pastors, and theologians – those with the authority and the luxury to deal with such things. In my experience, most Christian laypeople are content to simply accept such language as it is written and trust the authority of tradition and their church leadership that it is both meaningful and true, even if they might not understand it themselves. It’s what might be called more practical matters – concerns such as those listed in the previous paragraph, about salvation, ethics, and relationships with neighbors – that I think arouse much more widespread interest. 

However, this is absolutely not to say that lay-Christians shouldn’t be concerned about the finer doctrinal formulations, because as Knitter shows, they inform what we tend to think of as the practical matters, whether we recognize it or not.³⁰Perhaps the best example of this is the language surrounding Jesus Christ – that he is the only savior of humanity, the only begotten Son of God, or that there is no other name by which we may be saved. As Knitter points out in several places throughout the book, much of this language is first of all quite confusing, especially to those who haven’t been brought up in the Church and so taken it for granted, and secondly it can lead to a whole host of habits and attitudes that are in tension with what he intuitively feels to be true about God and the world and with some of what Jesus himself apparently taught and embodied in his earthly ministry. This is, in my view, one of the most brilliant and refreshing features of his work in this book – that he balances the theological with the practical and draws out the connection between the two for his readers. He understands the doctrinal language and foundations of Christian tradition well enough and takes them seriously enough to question their implications and ultimately their adequacy in getting at the truth about God and the world. To describe this another way, while I suspect many people are disturbed by various aspects of Christian teaching, few are able or willing to analyze them to the extent that Knitter does here, to follow those disturbances all the way down to their roots and to look for ways to resolve them if possible, even if that means transforming long-standing ways of thinking about their own faith or falling out of favor with large swaths of their own religious community. Whether one ultimately agrees with the conclusions he draws or not, this certainly takes some patience and courage on Knitter’s part. 

So, what of those conclusions? Even if Knitter is right about numerous other Christians sharing similar struggles, are the conclusions he draws about those struggles reasonable and coherent? Are the theological reinterpretations he offers something that others can benefit from as well? 

This is where things get complicated, because whether one agrees with Knitter’s theological claims in this book or finds them helpful will depend on one’s own perspective and approach to theology and religion generally. As we’ve seen, Knitter adopts an epistemological perspective that views religious language as necessarily symbolic and advocates for a mystical approach to religious truth, one that emphasizes personal experience as not just a supplement, but also at times a counterbalance to scripture and tradition. In a particularly revealing passage, in the context of explaining his reinterpretation of both traditional Buddhist and Christian views of the afterlife, Knitter describes his “theological method” as one that values actions over beliefs. As he puts it, “The purpose of doctrine is not primarily to fill our heads but to shape our lives.”³¹81. This emphasis on action seems to be one of the major reasons he’s willing to reinterpret so many of the fundamental doctrinal statements of the Christian (and Buddhist) tradition. The theory here is that new words are sometimes warranted, even necessary, in service to the goal of maintaining the proper practice of the faith.³²Knitter’s own words on this point are worth quoting at length here: “We express our beliefs in words in order to express our beliefs in actions. The words are meant to promote deeds . . . But we can change the words without necessarily changing the action. In fact we often have to change the words if we are going to be able to figure out how to translate them into action when faced with the new questions, new problems, new discoveries that come up as history moves along. So if a new interpretation of— that is, new words for – a traditional Christian belief enables people to live their lives according to the spirit of the Gospel, it’s probably a faithful ‘reinterpretation’ or a valid new understanding of that belief, no matter how different the words may be. In theological jargon, right acting (called ‘orthopraxis’) is more important than, though it is dependent on, right believing (‘orthodoxy’),” 81-2. This is of course consistent with his view that God is always ultimately mysterious, ultimately beyond what any words can adequately describe. 

I have little doubt that many readers will find this approach and method problematic on the grounds that it is inherently subjective or at least can lead to subjective standards of truth for the reason that so much depends on what each person judges to be correct practice in the first place. And, certainly, so far as this objection goes, I have to agree. In fact, I suspect Knitter wouldn’t even argue the point. After all, in numerous passages throughout the book, he makes reference to his own feelings or intuitions as evidence that traditional words or formulations of Christian teachings aren’t quite right or that new perspectives or insights he’s gained from Buddhism are closer to the truth. For better or worse, this seems to be part and parcel of the mystical approach he has come to adopt. 

However, it would be unfair to characterize Knitter’s approach to theology as entirely subjective or idiosyncratic, because he certainly does include evidence of a more objective nature, including writings of influential Christian and non-Christian thinkers throughout history and critical historical scholarship regarding the historical Jesus, the early Church, and the New Testament documents. Indeed, it is partly on the grounds of historical scholarship that he draws into question traditional ideas of Jesus’s resurrection, or the precise nature of Jesus’s divinity and relationship to God the Father. In the end, it seems Knitter’s approach is aimed at taking into account and weighing numerous types of evidence – scriptural; traditional; historical; his own personal experiences; and the testimony of a host of others across time, space, cultures, and religions. Whether he succeeds in weighing and interpreting this evidence to construct a likely picture of reality is the key question. In what follows, I’ll provide my own thoughts on that question for what they’re worth. 

The first thing I’ll say about Knitter’s theological claims is that I hope he’s right. As someone who for a long time has felt himself between worldviews and attracted to numerous religious and philosophical ideas, including both Buddhist and Christian, I find much in the picture that Knitter paints that resonates with me. It is a beautiful picture, one in which the ugliest parts of traditional Christianity – its exclusivism and dogmatism, not to mention the threat of hell – are stripped away while some of the most beautiful parts – its calls to fraternity, love of neighbor, and social justice, as well as the promise of eternal life free from suffering – remain and are even made more attainable in the here and now when reinterpreted in Buddhist terms. 

Of course, a beautiful picture can be a mere fantasy, so the second, more important thing I’ll say about Knitter’s theological claims is that they hold a certain plausibility and coherence. I do think that he takes into account enough evidence and analyzes it thoroughly enough that he’s able to make a decent case for something that really might be true – or at least closer to the truth than many other pictures of reality. To put it about as briefly as possible (while adding some explanatory footnotes), some of the reasons I find his Buddhist-Christian synthesis a plausible account of the real world are: (1) it takes into account a broad spectrum of evidence,³³As I noted previously, the evidence he considers includes scripture, tradition, history, and testimony from religious practitioners throughout time and space, whether Buddhist, Christian, or otherwise, as well as his own personal experience. Nor in my estimation is his treatment of this evidence shallow or narrow. Rather, he seems to want to account for as much of the richness and diversity of the traditions he encounters as possible. (2) it involves critical analysis,³⁴What I mean is that, first of all, Knitter doesn’t shy away from problems and, on the contrary, uses them as his starting point to search for deeper understanding, but also, he is open to considering methods and evidence of critical inquiry even when those might draw into question long-standing doctrines, scriptural passages, or other traditionally authoritative sources of knowledge. This is the case, for example, when he questions the Biblical accounts of Jesus’s virgin birth and resurrection, not to mention the literal truth of the Nicene Creed, which for many Christians is the statement that authoritatively defines what it means to be Christian. With Buddhist doctrines, Knitter is less openly critical, but he is clearly aware that Buddhist traditions are subject to critical scrutiny as well. When discussing the life of the Buddha, he observes that “The Buddhist sources on the life of Gautama the Buddha, like the New Testament sources on Jesus the Christ, tell us what the early community believed about their founder, not precisely what happened in their founder’s life. These are religious texts, not history books,” 104. (3) I believe it to be sincere,³⁵This point is more subtle and may not hold much weight for some readers. After all, one can have sincerely held beliefs that are patently false, and determining with any degree of certainty whether someone is sincere in their beliefs or statements in the first place is difficult if not impossible. What I basically mean is that in both his self-described purpose and his approach throughout the book Knitter seems committed to unearthing the truth about the real world, whatever be the social or political consequences of that process. This in itself is a rare thing in my experience, and I’m inclined to give weight to the perspective of those who at least attempt to do this. Another way to put this is that he seems to adopt an approach that is philosophical in the Socratic sense – nothing is so sacrosanct as to be beyond question in pursuit of the truth. and (4) it resonates with my own personal experience. 

The first three of these points are really based on my assessment of the arguments and evidence Knitter presents in the book, and whether one agrees will no doubt depend on a number of factors including one’s prior perspective on Christianity, the Bible, and Church tradition, not to mention all sorts of epistemological considerations. So, for the purpose of this review, I’ll let my statements in the preceding paragraphs suffice, and encourage others to read the book for themselves to see what they think. Regarding the fourth point, my own personal experience, I think it’s worth saying a bit more. 

I should state at the outset that my own history of personal religious/mystical experience is severely limited. I can count on one hand the number of times I would judge I’ve had anything close to a feeling of a divine presence, communion, or profound spiritual connection. This is not necessarily for want of trying, as I’ve been involved in or close to religious communities (mostly Christian) for my entire life, though admittedly I have not engaged in any formal or disciplined type of meditation, contemplation, or centered prayer for any significant length of time. So, when I speak of my own personal experience I am not speaking of that sort of mystical experience. 

Rather, I suppose what I mean when I speak of my own personal experience is what might best be termed my life experience – my own total experience of what it means to be a human and live in the real world. This includes practical experience of a basic kind – i.e. navigating the laws of nature and the way things tend to happen – and, more to the point, practical experience of a social or interpersonal kind – i.e. navigating the much less consistent laws of human nature and they way people tend to act and interact – as well as intuitive or spiritual experiences to the limited extent I have had them. To this list I hasten to add – indeed, I cannot separate out – my accumulated knowledge and beliefs about the world, whether first-hand or (far more often) second-hand or further removed. 

When I consider this total life experience as measured against the picture Knitter paints through his Buddhist reinterpretation of Chrisitanity, I find that his picture resonates with me on multiple levels. 

On an intellectual level, the picture Knitter paints makes sense, or at least makes more sense to me than the traditional Christian picture. The traditional picture of God as a divine person dwelling in a heavenly realm, who sends his angels to do his bidding and to battle with Satan and his demons over the souls of humans increasingly strikes me as fantastical and unlikely to be literally true. More importantly, the way that God has supposedly interacted with the world throughout history according to the Biblical account seems inconsistent at various points with evidence from archaeology, history, geology, and biology. This is not to mention the apparent internal inconsistencies within the Biblical account itself.³⁶I am well aware that these last two statements would be debated by some, especially Christians of a more traditional persuasion. While I could be wrong on one or more finer points, I maintain there are good reasons to doubt the Biblical picture of God on all these grounds and certainly good reasons to doubt the internal consistency of the Bible. The authority of the Bible is a huge and complex topic that I’ve dealt with in a limited way elsewhere, and I welcome any questions or further discussion on this topic. Knitter’s reinterpretation of God as InterBeing working within and through all parts of the world, and by implication through all human traditions, makes more sense to me in that it liberates the concept of God from its anthropomorphic, Judeo-Christian-Islamic limitations and reconceptualizes God in a way that seems more consistent with what we all know of the natural world, the rest of human history, and human experiences outside the monotheistic fold. It also allows for scriptures, and specifically in this case the Bible, to be something we can look to for insight without being imbued with a superhuman or absolute sort of authority, an authority that’s difficult to maintain in the face of critical analysis. 

On a moral/ethical level, Knitter’s picture also makes more sense to me than traditionally articulated Christian ethics, or perhaps more accurately, metaethics. To describe this about as briefly as I can, I’ve come to find that we can account for selfish, greedy, and hateful attitudes and actions much more readily and consistently by understanding them as the result of ignorance and natural human limitations than as the result of the inevitable draw of some sort of sin nature inherited from an event in human prehistory, much less the result of demonic forces working on us to choose evil. In my view, humans are quite capable of choosing evil without the aid of demons. As an educator, I also have a firm belief in the power of education to transform lives, including overcoming ignorance, greed, and hate. In this I am heavily influenced by Confucian thought, but also somewhat by the Buddhist concept of Enlightenment on which Knitter draws in his account. Whether or not Jesus saves humanity in a traditional substitutionary sense (i.e. paying the price for our sins, so we don’t have to) it seems to me he certainly provides salvation in the educational sense that Knitter highlights (i.e. calling humans to a higher standard of ethical responsibility based on the true nature of things, so they can live more fulfilled lives).

Closely related to these ethical considerations are some of the more metaphysical, or spiritual, aspects of Knitter’s conclusions regarding us as humans, specifically that humans and all other sentient beings may be connected through a process of continual becoming and that afterlives may not consist of us being resurrected into a heaven or hell or a new Earth, but we may in fact be transformed into something entirely different. Regarding the first idea – the interconnection of all sentient beings – I think the preponderance of evidence from psychology, neuroscience, physics, biochemistry, etc. clearly indicates that indeed we are all connected through a process of continual becoming in at least some sense. To this I can add my own subjective experience, as I do believe I’ve felt this connection in some way, though as previously mentioned not often in a profound or intense way, and I’m honestly not entirely sure what to make of it. As for the precise nature of afterlife, setting aside authoritative statements from scripture (which Knitter would argue require non-literal interpretation anyway) and the limited testimony of near-death experiences (which is, in my understanding, inconclusive), what we’re left with is largely speculation anyway. So, I’m in agreement with Knitter when he objects that the main problem with traditional Christian explanations of the afterlife are that “we really don’t know what we’re talking about.”³⁷75. 

Finally, I must say that the picture Knitter paints in his account resonates with me on an emotional level for some pretty specific reasons, and here I am acknowledging some of my own bias. 

To put it bluntly and honestly, I do not want the traditional Christian understanding of salvation to be true. The traditional understanding I’m referring to here is basically that Jesus offers salvation and eternal life to everyone, that we can access this salvation by believing in and following Jesus (or believing something specific about Jesus), but that anyone who does not believe will be damned to eternal punishment in hell. It’s that last part that I find not just troublesome but truly horrifying. I simply know too many people, and know of too many people, that for one reason or another do not appear to make the cut. And, the more I consider the rationale or standard for that sort of exclusion, the less I can fathom that a loving God would truly hold that standard, and the more I have to believe, or at least hope, that is not the reality. So, Knitter’s recasting of salvation as something that is accessible to all, even those outside the Christian fold, and as an awakening or enlightenment that one comes into rather than a reward one gets for believing the right things is a welcome reinterpretation for me emotionally.³⁸For those wondering how Knitter makes sense of the exclusive statements contained in the Bible and Christian liturgy about Jesus being the only way to salvation, he briefly offers the explanation that according to “scholars of the New Testament” this is “confessional” language, or “love language” meant to express the singular intimate devotion Christians have to Jesus but that it should not be used around those whose primary loyalty lies outside Christianity. It is “meant to extol Jesus, not to put down others,” 124. Furthermore, I would think that for those who consider their own salvation in this way, it would tend to lead them to a more beautiful way of life than the traditional view. And so, I certainly hope Knitter is right. 

But, all of this being said, I must acknowledge there are some problems with the conclusions Knitter draws, and more precisely with the approach he takes in getting to those conclusions. 

The first problem has already been mentioned and concerns his emphasis on personal mystical experience. We’ve seen that this can be problematic in that it leads to a subjectivism in which we each determine for ourselves what’s likely true and good based on our subjective intuition or experience of God, the Divine, InterBeing, Sunyata, etc.. So, when two people disagree on this or have different experiences of it, where does that leave us? Can we resolve this problem? 

In a word, I would say “yes.” For me, while this subjectivism is a problem, I don’t think it’s an insurmountable one. Here we’re venturing into the thick and tangled woods of epistemology, and the considerations can get complicated pretty quickly. So, without going too deep into these woods, allow me to make just a few points to clarify my position. 

The first question to consider is whether personal subjective experiences or feelings should be considered at all in this sort of investigation. It seems to me that to say no to this question causes more problems than it solves. After all, many key teachings of Christian theology are based on exactly this sort of subjective experience.³⁹Examples are countless. Consider Paul’s vision of Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-9), the numerous references throughout the New Testament to the internal witness of the Holy Spirit, or to Christ living within Christians in some sense, not to mention all the knowledge revealed through prophecy in both the Old and New Testaments, which I take to have been revealed to the prophets often in some internal, subjective way. This is not to say that all the key teachings of Christian theology are based entirely on subjective experience, since Christians base many of their theological claims on some historical claims of a more objective nature (e.g. Jesus’s miraculous healings, or his physical resurrection). Rather, my point here is that Christian teachings are based in part on subjective evidence, and I’d venture to add that Christian theology doesn’t get very far without relying heavily on that subjective evidence. To take perhaps the most obvious example, it is one thing to claim that Jesus resurrected physically three days after having been crucified, or even to claim he ascended into heaven (an event arguably witnessed by some of the disciples). It is quite another to then claim that he is now dwelling in a heavenly realm at the right hand of God the Father, and that he is alive within Christians themselves as well, or that there is a Holy Spirit that has since been sent to guide the Church. This second set of claims, it seems to me, is almost always verifiable only by internal, subjective experiences. At least, I have trouble seeing how else one could verify those claims, and that’s often how the Christians I know tend to speak about it themselves.This is arguably even more true of Buddhism, on which Knitter is drawing so heavily in this book, and I would venture to say this is a feature of just about any religious tradition we could name. The fact is that when dealing with religion, we’re almost always dealing with things beyond normal empirical verification, and we can’t avoid relying at some level on the subjective experiences of one or more people. Beyond this, I would add that even outside of religion and metaphysics, much of our knowledge depends on subjective experiences at some level and in some measure. 

Once we acknowledge that we need to consider subjective experiences in pursuing religious truth, the question becomes how to do so responsibly, how to do so in the way that will best lead us to the truth. In my experience, one of the main things that concerns people about “subjectivism” is that it can be individualistic and idiosyncratic, that if we rely exclusively on our own experience, we are extremely limited in the evidence we’re considering, and it’s evidence that is colored by our inculturation and a host of biases, not to mention the simple unreliability of memory and perception. This is certainly a problem, and we need some measures to protect against it. I would suggest that the key measure we’ll want to adopt to this end is avoiding relying exclusively on our own subjective experiences. This means we’ll want to take into account, first, the subjective experiences of others along with our own and, second, other evidence of a more objective nature. One can hardly criticize Knitter on the first point, as we’ve seen that he goes beyond where most do in this regard, taking seriously the experiences of Christians throughout history and in his own day as well as the experiences of many outside the Christian community, especially Buddhists. On the second point, we’ve also seen that Knitter takes the history behind the New Testament seriously enough to consider at least some of the critical scholarship around it, so I think it’s fair to say he has taken some of these important measures in his pursuit of the truth.

But, skeptical readers, myself included, might still wonder if it’s enough. This brings me to a second problem with Knitter’s approach, and to unpack it will lead me to explain some of my own views in what follows. 

To put it simply, while Knitter does employ some critical analysis in his approach, I wonder whether he’s critical enough of the religious ideas he considers, both Christian and Buddhist. We’ve seen that he questions the historicity and literal truth of certain Christian claims, but ultimately he preserves the overall spirit of the Gospel and maintains that it’s all true in some theological sense. When it comes to Buddhism, he similarly is willing to question whether Buddhists are correct in viewing Sunyata as being totally empty, or that karma works in exactly the way it is traditionally thought, but he never openly questions that these concepts are true in at least some sense. 

I suppose my question is just “why?” Why think that any of this is true? And, why focus on these two traditions and not others? Granted, religious language might sometimes be a symbol that points to a mysterious truth, but might it not also sometimes be pointing to something that’s just plain false? How can we know the difference?

Perhaps I’m being unfair by raising these questions as they may be outside the scope of what Knitter’s trying to do in this book. He is after all starting from a standpoint of lifelong faith in Christianity, and he’s wanting to preserve that if possible while also making sense of what he’s come to see as true from Buddhism. The goal is not to question everything. He also makes clear at one point that he’s “writing this book for those struggling Christians caught in the middle ground between the black-and-white certainty of fundamentalists, for whom nothing is true unless it’s literally in the Bible, and the black-and-white certainty of secular materialists, for whom nothing is true unless you can measure it or put it in your wallet.”⁴⁰83. So, the book is clearly written by a Christian primarily for other Christians. 

Yet, for me this just begs the question, “why is it necessary to preserve Christianity in the first place?” Whether it’s outside the scope of this book or not, I think this question is worth asking, and while I can’t be certain of how Knitter would respond, I suspect his answer would have a lot to do with experience. As his strong emphasis on personal experiences and his calls for others to become more mystical throughout the book clearly indicate, personal mystical/spiritual experience carries a lot of weight in his view. Given this, I suspect that part of the reason he wants to preserve his faith in Christianity is that he’s experienced it in some significant way to be true in his own life. And so, this really brings us full circle back to the first problem mentioned above: with so much dependent upon personal subjective experiences, how can we account for all the different experiences people seem to have, especially when those experiences sometimes appear incompatible? 

While Knitter doesn’t exactly answer this question directly, there is a sense in which the entire book is a case study for how to answer this question, and I think it hinges on a key insight that is a recurring theme throughout the book. That insight is what he has to say about religious language – that its purpose is to describe something ultimately beyond description and so all religious language is necessarily only symbolic. As I’ve considered this, I’ve realized that it matches with a notion I’ve already been finding to be increasingly convincing for some time, namely that all language is symbolic, religious or otherwise. This is to say that all language is representative of a reality the full nature of which is not contained within the representation. To put this another way, all language is perspectival. Even a seemingly basic, straightforward description of something (e.g. “the sky is blue”) is only a partial description from a certain perspective (“The sky is blue” from one person’s subjective experience viewing “the sky” [however that’s understood] from Earth at a particular time in a particular place.) If there’s a difference with religious language as Knitter seems to maintain, I think it’s just that the content of what religion attempts to describe is so often obscured, hidden, ethereal, metaphysical, or, to use his preferred term, mysterious that the symbols we use are inevitably rather poor indicators of what the reality is in its full nature. 

At the risk of over-philosophizing here, allow me to note a few implications of this insight. If the symbols we use to describe religious experiences are poor indicators of the full realities of those experiences, then when we’re considering two apparently inconsistent experiences, we’re really comparing two apparently inconsistent descriptions of those experiences, descriptions known to be poor in the first place. Furthermore, if we allow for the possibility that the experiences themselves, even before any attempt at description, are already interpreted by each of us according to our inculturated and preconceived biases, then it’s quite possible that what we might call the bare experiences (insofar as such could be discerned) are not nearly as different as we might tend to think. In other words, we may be able to account for the apparent incompatibility of different religious experiences by understanding that this is a consequence of the mysterious nature of the full truth behind these experiences. To return to the example that’s the focus of the present work, it’s not that both Christian and Buddhist understandings of reality are correct; it’s that both are partly correct and partly false in the way they describe a reality that is beyond them both. 

On this account, maybe when Christians speak of being filled with the Holy Spirit or sensing the presence of God, they really are describing something that’s the same or similar to what a Buddhist might describe as resting in Groundlessness or in the Emptiness of being. I think this is at least plausible, and it allows us a way around the difficult problem of our disparate subjective experiences. I think this account also brings with it a warning to not take our personal experiences as absolute or the final word and to not take the language with which we’re most familiar as the only way to describe such experiences. In other words, in addition to taking into account the subjective experiences of others and taking into account more objective evidence, we need to be self-critical in the way we understand and describe our own subjective experience. 

As a disclaimer, I should note that, for myself, a lot of this is theoretical. As I’ve already mentioned, I have had very little of what I’d describe as spiritual or mystical experience in my life thus far. Maybe that’s why I find it so interesting. In any case, I find Knitter’s approach to these issues refreshingly critical, and while many of these ideas are not exactly new to me, the way he’s framed them has allowed me to see some very familiar ideas in a new light. 

In the past, I’ve often been frustrated by the language employed in Christian creeds and statements of faith and questioned whether it’s intelligible at all, let alone an accurate description of what’s likely to be true. Knitter has made me realize that, as strange as it sounds, perhaps my problem is that I’ve actually taken this language too seriously, that the language is just a symbol of a truth that goes far beyond it, and that I might be able to view Christians more charitably by realizing that they are only resorting to the limited tools they know of to describe a reality that’s ultimately beyond us all. Even with this insight, however, at the time I write this I’m not about to recite the Nicene Creed and honestly believe it to be meaningful, accurate, and true in all its wording, because, as Knitter also warns, though they are only symbolic, the words we choose are important in the way they lead – and mislead – our conceptions and actions.⁴¹As he puts it, “Words are important in the differences that exist among them. The different words that we use for Mystery are not just different ways of saying the same thing; each word is saying something different about the same thing, the same Mystery. Therefore, the differences matter,” 72.

So, while I find Knitter’s theological claims to be largely plausible and coherent, and an attractive account of reality, I am not personally ready to adopt the same exact view he does and describe myself as a Buddhist Christian (or a Buddhist, or a Christian for that matter). There are some other traditions that have had a significant influence on me that I would want to consider as well, but beyond that I have a number of ongoing questions and see so many possibilities that, to be perfectly honest, I find myself as usual between many things. Still, I think his project in this book is valuable and contains some important lessons for us all, not the least of which is the importance of understanding the limitations and implications of human language when it comes to describing ultimate reality as well as the importance of learning from religious traditions outside of the one that is most familiar. I have certainly found that to be a valuable practice to the extent that I’ve done it, and I hope, as Knitter does, that this way of practicing religion is on the cutting edge, and more and more people pursue being religious interreligiously as he has in this book. 

The Bottom Line

If you are a Christian who is struggling with any part of your faith or tradition, I definitely recommend Without Buddha I Could not Be a Christian. You will find in it an honest and carefully considered attempt to deal head-on with some common struggles in a way that doesn’t simply criticize or abandon Christianity but takes it seriously enough to try and resolve those struggles and get at what’s ultimately true. Knitter offers a perspective that is rare and well worth considering for anyone who finds themselves dissatisfied with the conventional answers to some of Christianity’s toughest challenges. 

If you are a Christian of a conservative persuasion, who tends to rely on the authority of the Bible or tradition, you are unlikely to be convinced by some of the lines of thinking contained in this book. However, if you have the patience, I still would recommend it, as it raises some issues well worth considering and some questions well worth asking. 

If you are a non-Christian, and perhaps especially someone who considers themselves non-religious, I think this book is worth a read for the insights Knitter offers regarding the nature of religion in general, the role of language in defining and discerning spiritual truths, and the approach he advocates for all of us in dealing with the many perspectives on ultimate reality and the often confusing and mysterious nature of what life is all about.