All Under Heaven: Transforming Paradigms in Confucian-Christian Dialogue (review)

Abstract

394 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 1995 The Remote Country ofWomen is one of Bai Hua's major works. For ordinary readers, it provides fresh and entertaining reading. For those who wish to learn about contemporary Chinese culture and history, it gives a tangible picture of the life ofa unique Chinese national minority, and ofhow their culture is placed within the broader context of the mainstream Han culture. Jason Jiang University ofWestern Sydney John H. Berthrong. All Under Heaven: TransformingParadigms in Confucian-Christian Dialogue. Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 1994. viii, 273 pp. Hardcover $64.50. Paperback $21.95. This book is an attempt to think through the consequences of certain changes in the present global situation, particularly the historical growth of the concrete pluralism ofthe postmodern world, as these changes impact on Confucian-Christian dialogue. It is written self-confessedly from a Christian standpoint, and ultimately must be read as addressing itselfmainly to a Christian audience, a community committed in various ways to Christian identity and which is grappling with the issues of dialogue and pluralism in various ways. Thus, a reader from outside that community may find many peculiarities in the handling of certain issues, which are doubtless appropriate to the concerns ofthat community but perhaps less centrally so to those outside it. The book must be judged a solid and commendable attempt to struggle with these questions, and one that in places is willing to delve into some ofthe problems of comparative metaphysics in patient detail and with great seriousness, providing, on the way, some valuable insights. However, there are also considerable problems blocking the path of this admirable project. It is necessary before all else to register a complaint about the relatively trivial matter of editing. This book is badly in need of careful proofreading, for it is marred by far too many typos, ungrammatical sentences, and redundancies; at times it seems that a passage was copied with a computer "cut and paste" command and inserted verbatim in several places (e.g., pp. 113 and 128). Ultimately , these reach a saturation point where they begin to interfere with one's reading. ofHawai'i Press^e organizahon ofthe sections and the construction ofthe arguments is also sometimes harmed by what appears to be haste or carelessness, and the footnotes in particular often seem to be afterthoughts haphazardly appended. Reviews 395 The work is at its best, at its most informative and insightful, when it is dealing self-consciously with the meta-issues ofthe theory ofcross-cultural encounter , as in the first two chapters. Here we get a clear and well-presented review of the history ofthis issue in Christian theological circles, the factions presently concerned with it, and the author's own position, which consists of an openness to the inevitability ofpluralism not only in a metaphysical sense but also in a cultural sense, as predicated on his commitment to a process theology, constructed largely on the basis ofthe work of Charles Hartshorne. Berthrong is refreshingly up front about his own "ultimate concerns" and metaphysical position, and inspiringly forthright and unembarrassed in maintaining that a metaphysical beliefmust inevitably inform any scholarlywork, must not be shunned or repressed, and has a legitimate and central role to play. He schematizes the conception of the world that informs his work as consisting ofthe "triple thread" ofform, dynamics, and unification, based primarily on Whitehead's categories of eternal objects, creativity, and concrescence as creative advance into novelty, which are then, rather too unqualifiedly for this reviewer, correlated with the concepts of Ii, qi, and tian-ming or xing, respectively, in Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism. Here already we see that the author is actually structuring his argument on the basis of a theological vision which he takes to be shared to some extent by both partners in the dialogue that it is meant to mediate—a mixing oflevels which carries the danger ofan uncritical begging ofthe question —that is, assuming as fact what is meant to be proved. The author is writing as someone who has already taken both traditions seriously, has embodied in some sense their dialogue, and has emerged with his own synthesis, or with...