On honeymoon

Commonweal, Jan 17, 2003 by Paul J. Griffiths

All converts know the experience of being asked by cradle Catholics, in a puzzled tone, why anyone who wasn't already burdened with Catholicism would take it on. To the convert--and certainly to the kind of convert that Williams seems to be--this question is deeply puzzling. For Williams, Catholicism is true, and the church, therefore, is a great gift. It is hard to see, from such a position, why anyone would find membership in it a burden or a problem. Gratitude and joy are the main threads in the fabric of this book, and this explains why conversion narratives have been and continue to be so important for the church. They remind jaded, bored, and conflicted Catholics how surprising and delightful the faith can appear to someone freshly bathed in the baptismal waters. They confront an unbelieving world with the fact that the gospel in the hands of the church can still seduce some of its cultured despisers into submission. This is a book to be grateful for in times like these. Perhaps all cradle Catholics should be required to read at least one conversion narrative a year, just to remind them of who and what they are.

None of this is to say that new converts see the church more clearly than those who have been in her embrace since before they can recall--and this is true whether that embrace is seen as tender or boa constrictor-like. Naive enthusiasm can be as problematic as weary cynicism, and all converts need (as Williams clearly sees) to be led into the mysteries by those who have long inhabited them. Perhaps, though, it can be allowed that the long-married have as much to learn about marriage from newlyweds as the other way about. What is learned will of course be different in each case.

It will be interesting to observe Williams's future work. He is a man of obvious intellectual gifts and burgeoning theological interests. He may become a serious contributor to the enterprises of Catholic philosophy and theology, and if he does, his contributions will inevitably be flavored by his knowledge of Buddhism. This, too, is something the church needs: as Catholic thought was transformed by its appropriation of the Egyptian gold of Aristotelianism in the thirteenth century, so it may be transformed by the riches of Buddhism in the third millennium. If it is, then Williams could be an important contributor. In this book, though, he is mostly concerned to show how clear and deep are the divergences between Buddhism and Catholic Christianity, and this is important to emphasize against the easy syncretism of our times. There are also hints of the fruitfulness that Buddhist concepts and patterns of argument might have, if applied to the tasks of Christian theology. Williams begins to sketch, for example, how Christian understanding of the unacceptability of prideful self-righteousness might look, if done with the help of the battery of Buddhist concepts developed for the presentation of the doctrine of no-self--the idea, that is, that none of what we take ourselves to be essentially and permanently is in fact what we are. He stops almost as soon as he begins; but this is precisely the kind of question it would be fruitful to ask and answer at length, with care, and with the kind of precise technical knowledge that Williams has. I hope the church will find ways to encourage such contributions by Williams, and that he will find time and energy to make them. He is right that Buddhism and Christianity are utterly incompatible in everything of moment; but this does not mean that the thought of the church cannot be seeded by Buddhist thought.