Self-Affirmation and Ego Transcendence: The Encounter of Christianity with Feminism and Buddhism

Abstract

Central to much Buddhist thought is the idea that human fulfillment comes through a transcendence of the ego. The appropriate aim of life, we are told, is to realize that there is no enduring and independent ego underlying experience, and then to embody within the flow of experience an openness to the world that has moved beyond egocentrism. The name for this egoless openness, and for the ontological fact that there is no substantial ego to begin with, is anatman or no-self. In dialogues between Christians and Buddhists, some Christians have been understandably attracted to the doctrine of no-self. While the doctrine may call into question classical notions of a substantial self, it nevertheless seems to support traditional emphases on the primacy of self-sacrificial love. It offers a way of affirming that we can our neighbors as ourselves, because it reveals that, within the depths of our existence, we have no substantial selves by which to be ontologically isolated from our neighbors in the first place. AsJohn Cobb explains, the encounter with Buddhism enables Christians to discover the possibility of a postpersonal mode of existence that aims toward a perfection of love (Cobb 1975, 220). Even as some Christians in the West have turned to Buddhism in the interests of love's enhancement, however, others are moving in what might seem to be a somewhat different direction. Feminist theologians are pointing out that the doctrine of self-sacrificial may itself be a problem if not combined with an emphasis on positive self-regard and personal self-affirmation (Saiving 1979, 25-42; Christ and Plaskow 1980, 51-94; Daly 1977, 84). The motif of self-sacrifice may be a worthy aim for those who already have a strong sense of self to be sacrificed, but it is less meaningful for one who has been denied the opportunity to develop a strong sense of self from the outset. The argument of feminist theology is that many women-and others who are approached primarily as helpmates within patriarchal societies-are in the latter situation. They suffer, not from too much self-affirmation at the expense of self-sacrifice, but rather from too much self-sacrifice at the expense of self-affirmation.