A DIALOGUE WITH FIDES ET RATIO OF JOHN PAUL II

Before his election to the see of Rome, Karol Wojtyla was already a celebrated philosopher in his own right, especially in the fields of philosophical anthropology and ethics, with a widely recognized expertise in Thomism and phenomenology.1  For helpful comprehensive introductions to John Paul II’s thought in English, see George H. Williams, The Mind of John Paul II: Origins of His Thought and Action (New York: Seabury, 1981); Ronald Lawler, The Christian Personalism of Pope John Paul II (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1982); Andrew Woznicki, A Christian Humanism: Karol Wojtyla’s Existential Personalism (New Britain, CT: Mariel, 1980); Rocco Buttiglione, Karol Wojtyla: The Thought of the Man Who Became Pope John Paul II, trans. Paolo Guietti and Francesca Murphy (Grand Rapids, MI: William Eerdmans, 1997); and Kenneth Schmitz, At the Center of the Human Drama: The Philosophical Anthropology of Karol Wojtyla/Pope John Paul II (Washington, DC: The Catholic University Press, 1993). As Pope, John Paul II has continued to demonstrate a deep concern, already pronounced in his philosophical writings, for the unity of human knowledge that is born out of the harmonious marriage between reason and faith. This concern is especially evident in the Pope’s encyclicals on Christian ethics in which he insists both on the autonomy of human reason and on the necessity of divine revelation, and urges a close collaboration between these two epistemological orders for a full knowledge of ethical truths.2  In the encyclical the unity of reason and faith constitutes the central focus of John Paul II’s reflections. No doubt the title Fides et Ratio (FR) with the et (and) rather than the aut (or) is emblematic of the Pope’s fundamental stance in this matter.3

This essay will carry out a critical dialogue with John Paul II’s teaching on the relationship between reason and faith as expressed in FR, especially with respect to the use of philosophy as a tool for the inculturation of the Christian faith in Asia.4  Again, the first part expounds the Pope’s view of the relation between reason and faith; the second part evaluates his proposal to use philosophy as an instrument for inculturating the Christian faith in Asia; the concluding part assesses the usefulness of this proposal with regard to some aspects of Confucianism.

The basic theme of the encyclical is beautifully expressed in its opening lines with a metaphor depicting faith and reason as "two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth." By this, says John Paul II, the human heart fulfills its God-given "desire to know the truth." Before examining how FR understands the relation between reason and faith, it would be helpful to delineate the context in which this relation is broached.5

The issue of the relationship between faith and reason is as old as Christianity, and, arguably, as old as revelation itself.6 Against biblical fundamentalism and fideism, it must be maintained that reason is unavoidably and inexplicably intertwined with revelation, at least in the sense that revelation, however supernatural and gratuitous a gift it may be, cannot but be received within the horizon of some particular human, even philosophical, understanding.7  In addition to this direct implication of reason within revelation, there is a further task that believers must perform, namely, to decide reflectively, on philosophical and theological grounds, which philosophical horizon, for example, Platonic, Aristotelian, or existential, is the most appropriate and valid (and not merely historically accepted) philosophy for an elaboration of the contents of the Christian faith. Finally, there are three other tasks that are incumbent upon believers in God’s self-revelation in history as they address the issue of the relation between reason and faith: first, to justify philosophically the possibility of such a self-revelation; secondly, to vindicate historically the credibility of such a divine self-revelation if it has occurred at all; and thirdly, and more fundamentally, to demonstrate whether this philosophical and historical foundationalism is compatible with the nature of the Christian faith, that is, whether the Christian faith would not be emptied of its specific character were it to be subjected to the tribunal of secular reason, be it historical or philosophical.8  In particular, on the issue of foundationalism in theology, see the helpful introduction by John E. Thiel, Nonfoundationalism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994) with discussions on philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wilfrid Sellars, Willard Van Orman Quine, and Richard Rorty and on theologians such as Karl Barth, George Lindbeck, Ronald Thiemann, Kathryn Tanner, Hans Frei, and Stanley Hauerwas. See also a good survey by Thomas Guarino, "Post-modernity and Five Fundamental Theological Issues," Theological Studies 57 (1996): 654-89. For a helpful collection of essays on post-modern theology, see Theology After Liberalism, ed. John Webster and George P. Schner (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). Among Roman Catholic theologians who argue for a nonfoundationalist approach, besides Francis Schüssler Fiorenza mentioned above, see Frans Josef van Beeck, God Encountered: A Contemporary Systematic Theology, vol. 1; Understanding the Christian Faith (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989); Nicholas Lash, Easter in Ordinary: Reflections on Human Experience and the Knowledge of God (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990); and James J. Buckley, Seeking the Humanity of God: Practices, Doctrines, and Catholic Theology (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992).

In his encyclical, John Paul II does not treat in any detail the above-mentioned issues, which are much debated in contemporary theology, though, of course, his answers to any of them can be inferred from his teaching on the relation between reason and faith. The Pope begins, on the one hand, by affirming the fact of God’s utterly gratuitous and supernatural self-revelation in history and consequently rejects the rationalist critique of the possibility of such a divine self-revelation. On the other hand, he also affirms the capacity of human reason to know God. As to the relation between the knowledge of God through divine revelation and that of God through reason, John Paul II contents himself with repeating Vatican I’s teaching that "the truth attained by philosophy and the truth of revelation are neither identical nor mutually exclusive" (no. 9).9  These two "orders of knowledge," are, according to Vatican I’s Dei Filius, distinct from each other both in their "source" and in their "object."

The basic issue to be elucidated then is the interplay between reason and faith. FR explicates this relationship in four parts. The first two (chapters 2 and 3) invoke the Augustinian-Anselmian formulas of "intellego ut credam" and "credo ut intellegam." The third (chapter 4), the heart of the encyclical, deals with the relationship between faith and reason; and the fourth (chapter 6) narrows this relation down to the "interaction between philosophy and theology."10

It is significant that in explicating the relationship between reason and faith, FR begins with the "credo" rather than the "intellego." While deeply convinced that "there is a profound and indissoluble unity between the knowledge of reason and the knowledge of faith" (no. 16), John Paul II clearly and repeatedly privileges the role of faith over reason as the path to the truth: ". . . Reason is valued without being overvalued. The results of reasoning may in fact be true, but these results acquire their true meaning only if they are set within the larger horizon of faith . . . . Faith liberates reason insofar as it allows reason to attain correctly what it seeks to know and to place it within the ultimate order of things in which everything acquires true meaning" (no. 20). This need of faith is of course caused by human sin whereby "the eyes of the mind were no longer able to see clearly: Reason became more and more a prisoner to itself" (no. 22). This is why, says the Pope, "the Christian relationship to philosophy requires thoroughgoing discernment" (no. 23). Here he invokes the Pauline opposition between "the wisdom of this world" and "the foolishness of the cross," not in order to suppress the indispensable role of reason but to affirm the necessity of faith for the discovery of truth: "The preaching of Christ crucified and risen is the reef upon which the link between faith and philosophy can break up, but it is also the reef beyond which the two can set forth upon the boundless ocean of truth. Here we see not only the border between reason and faith, but also the space where the two may meet" (no. 23).11 

Having affirmed the necessity of both faith and reason in the search for truth and value, FR moves on to discuss the ways in which their relationship has been enacted throughout Christian history (chapter 4). The purpose is not to present an exhaustive overview of how reason and faith interacted with each other in the past, but to derive instructive lessons for a proper understanding of their relationship.12  The first encounter between Christianity and philosophy took place of course in the first centuries of the Christian era. Of this phase, FR summarizes the main features as follows: (1) The earliest Christians preferred to dialogue with philosophy rather than with the prevalent religions of their times because the latter were judged to be infected with myths and superstition, whereas the former made a serious attempt to provide a rational foundation for a belief in the divinity. (2) The first and most urgent task for the early Christians was not an intellectual engagement with philosophy for its own sake but "the proclamation of the risen Christ by way of a personal encounter which would bring the listener to conversion of heart and the request for baptism." Indeed, the Gospel offered them such a satisfying answer to the hitherto unresolved question concerning the meaning of life that "delving into the philosophers seemed to them something remote and in some ways outmoded" (no. 38). (3) The early Christians were quite cautious in approaching the surrounding cultures. While deeply appreciative of their true insights, the early Christian thinkers were critical in adopting the philosophies of their times. FR highlights "the critical consciousness with which Christian thinkers from the first confronted the problem of the relationship between faith and philosophy, viewing it comprehensively with both its positive aspects and its limitations" (no. 41). (4) The early Christian thinkers did more than perform "a meeting of cultures"; rather their originality consists in the fact that "they infused it [reason] with the richness drawn from revelation" (no. 41). FR summarizes its survey from the patristic era to Anselm: "The fundamental harmony between the knowledge of faith and the knowledge of philosophy is once again confirmed. Faith asks that its object be understood with the help of reason; and at the summit of its searching, reason acknowledges that it cannot do without what faith presents" (no. 42).

To conclude his exposition on the relationship between theology and philosophy, John Paul II uses the image of a "circle" with two "poles" to describe it.13 On the one hand, is the Word of God that is the "source and starting point" of theology; on the other, is "a better understanding of it." Moving between these two poles is reason that "is offered guidance and is warned against paths which would lead it to stray from revealed truth and to stray in the end from the truth pure and simple. . . . This circular relationship with the word of God leaves philosophy enriched, because reason discovers new and unsuspected horizons" (no. 73).

For those familiar with the Roman Catholic traditional understanding of the relationship between reason and faith, especially as mediated by Thomas Aquinas and the two Vatican Councils, John Paul II’s teaching offers no new or surprising insights, and rightly so, since his primary task is not to innovate but to stand in continuity with the Tradition.14 Thus, he continues to affirm the autonomy of reason and philosophy vis-à-vis faith and theology, as well as their necessary harmony and mutual collaboration, while at the same time categorically emphasizing the primacy of Christian revelation over philosophy as its guide and norm. Not surprisingly, to non-Catholic philosophers John Paul II seems to want to have his cake and eat it, too. Whether this charge is valid or not is an open question, but the blame should not be laid at the Pope’s feet since he does nothing more than restate the traditional Catholic position on the relationship between faith and reason.

It is well known that the relationship between the Christian faith and cultures, or to use a neologism, inculturation, has been a constant and deep preoccupation of John Paul II’s pontificate.16  For helpful overviews of inculturation as a theological problem, see Marcello de C. Azevedo, "Inculturation," in Dictionary of Fundamental Theology, ed. René Latourelle and Rino Fisichella (New York: Crossroad, 1995), 500-10 and Hervé Carrier, "Inculturation of the Gospel," ibid., 510-14. General works on inculturation have recently grown by leaps and bounds. Among the most helpful, from the Catholic perspective, are: Aylward Shorter, Toward a Theology of Inculturation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988); Robert Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985); idem, The New Catholicity: Theology between the Global and the Local (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997); Stephen Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992); Gerald Arbuckle, Earthing the Gospel: An Inculturation Handbook for the Pastoral Worker (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990); Michael Gallagher, Clashing Symbols: An Introduction to Faith & Culture (New York: Paulist Press, 1998); Peter C. Phan, "Contemporary Theology and Inculturation in the United States," in The Multicultural Church: A New Landscape in U.S. Theologies, ed. William Cenkner (New York: Paulist Press, 1996), 109-30; 176-92; idem, "Cultural Diversity: A Blessing or a Curse for Theology and Spirituality?" Louvain Studies 19 (1994): 195-211.

In this essay, we will focus on the Pope’s proposal of philosophy as a tool for inculturation of the Christian faith in Asia.17 At the outset, it would useful to preface our discussion with a few remarks. First, it is important to recall that FR’s immediate objective is not to conduct a dialogue between the Christian faith and Asian philosophies and religions as such, but to defend the necessity of philosophy, particularly metaphysics, for theology and to heal the rift between the two disciplines: "Metaphysics thus plays an essential role of mediation for theological research. A theology without a metaphysical horizon could not move beyond an analysis of religious experience nor would it allow the intellectus fidei to give a coherent account of the universal and transcendent value of revealed truth" (no. 83). It is within this context that John Paul II speaks of the encounter between faith and culture. For a more complete presentation of the Pope’s view on inculturation, recourse must be made to his other writings.18 

Secondly, in his discussion of inculturation of the Christian faith in Asia in FR, John Paul remains at a very general level. It is no disrespect to him to point out that he is no expert in Asian philosophies and religions. Among recent thinkers whom he mentions as exemplifying a "courageous research" into the "fruitful relationship between philosophy and the word of God," no Asians or non-Asian thinkers who have worked in Asia, and of course no Asian religious founders, are named.19 Even though FR mentions the Veda and the Avesta, Confucius and Lao Tzu, Tirthankara and Buddha (no. 2), and Indian, Chinese, and Japanese philosophies (no. 72), it is clear that John Paul II’s knowledge of these is rudimentary.20 

The fourth reference occurs when FR explains the three stances of philosophy vis-à-vis Christian revelation, that is, a philosophy completely independent of the Gospel, Christian philosophy, and philosophy as ancilla theologiae (no. 75).21  Asian philosophies are said to belong to the first category because they were elaborated in "regions as yet untouched by the Gospel" and because they aspire to be "an autonomous enterprise, obeying its own rules and employing the powers of reason alone." This does not mean that they are cut off from grace, because "[a] s a search for truth within the natural order, the enterprise of philosophy is always open–at least implicitly–to the supernatural" (no. 75).

(1) The first criterion is "the universality of the human spirit, whose basic needs are the same in the most disparate cultures." By "universality of the human spirit" FR presumably means not only that certain fundamental philosophical and theological themes have been addressed by all cultures such as the nature of the self, the origin of the world, the problem of evil, and the eternal destiny of the individual (no. 1), but also that humans, despite their cultural diversities, can and should communicate with each other. In other words, FR indirectly rejects the theory of incommensurability proposed by some pluralists according to which humans are so socially situated that genuine mutual understanding and judgment of another person’s culture and values is logically impossible. As to the "basic needs" of the human spirit, FR does not elaborate on them, but in light of what FR has said elsewhere, these needs include the "need to reflect upon truth" (no. 6), and more specifically, the "truth of being" (no. 5).22 In addition, there is the need to formulate the certitudes arrived at in a rigorous and coherent way into a "systematic body of knowledge" (no. 4) and to proclaim them to others.

(2) The second criterion is that the church cannot "abandon what she has gained from its inculturation in the world of Greco-Latin thought." To reject this heritage, according to FR, is to "deny the providential plan of God, who guides the church down the paths of time and history." FR does not explain what it means when it says that Asian Christians cannot abandon what the church has gained from its encounter with the Greco-Latin heritage.23 Furthermore, because it is also part of the plan of divine providence that the Gospel be inculturated into the Asian soil, FR explicitly says that the fruits of this encounter will become in their turn "fresh cues for fruitful dialogue with the cultures which will emerge as humanity moves into the future" (no. 72).24

No doubt there is much in John Paul II’s proposal to use philosophy as a tool for the inculturation of the Christian faith into Asia that is valuable.25  His admiration for the riches of Asian philosophies and religions is genuine. His insistence on the possibility and necessity of dialogue across cultures and religions is well taken. His reminder that inculturation has been a practice of the church from its very beginning and that there are lessons to be learned from the past is helpful. His warning against the danger of cultural chauvinism and xenophobia is also salutary.

There are however certain affirmations in FR that are open to challenge or even seriously misleading. A word should be said first of all about FR’s charge that "certain conceptions of life coming from the East" betray "a lack of confidence in truth, denying its exclusive character and assuming that truth reveals itself equally in different doctrines even if they contradict one another" (no. 5). Because the encyclical does not specify which "conceptions of life coming from the East" it refers to, it may be presumed that it has in mind the celebrated capacity of Asian religions to absorb various and apparently conflicting philosophies and practices and the Asian inclusive worldview that is embodied in Daivism, the Middle Way of Nagarjuna, and the concepts of yin and yang. Admittedly, this Weltanschauung tends to see complementarity in different and even opposite (not contradictory) views and practices, but it is a caricature to say that it lacks "confidence in truth" because it is precisely in order to reach the truth that such opposites are held together. Needless to say, no Asian "conception of life" can be accused of holding "different doctrines, even if they contradict one another," if by contradiction is meant logical self-contradictory negation and not simply opposites.26  Perhaps, this charge is not simply a misunderstanding of a minor point in Asian philosophies, but is symptomatic of the fundamental difference between two ways of seeing reality.

In addition, it is significant that FR emphasizes the "exclusive character" of truth, which certain Asian "conceptions of life" are alleged to deny. The encyclical consistently speaks of "truth" in the singular and in the abstract, especially when it affirms the universal and absolute character of truth. This is particularly evident in the already cited text: "Every truth–if it really is truth–presents itself as universal, even if it is not the whole truth" (no. 27). Asian philosophies will have no problem with the first part of the Pope’s statement, namely, that every truth presents itself as universal. In terms of Bernard Lonergan’s cognitional theory with its four transcendental precepts (that is, "be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, and be responsible"), truth-claims are well-founded and so can be true when they are made as the result of due attention to relevant evidence (attention), careful consideration of a range of hypotheses (intelligence), reasoned affirmation of a particular hypothesis as best corroborated by the available evidence (judgment), and choice of the values implied in the affirmation (responsibility).27 

Asian philosophies would however make three significant qualifications.28  First, truths are not the same as apprehension, understanding, and formulation of what is true. Truth, or better still, what is true (ontological truth) is by its very nature universal, and the judgment in which this truth is affirmed is true (truth as adaequatio mentis ad rem), but a particular apprehension, understanding, and formulation of the truths need not and indeed cannot be universal, given the intrinsically finite, incomplete, and historical character of human knowledge. Furthermore, truths do not and cannot exist independently from particular apprehensions, understandings, judgments, and formulations, floating as it were above time and space like a Platonic form. Truth, or better, truths always manifest themselves and are grasped in these particular epistemological acts (truth as aletheia or manifestation); and their universality is always mediated in and through these limited and historically evolving acts of apprehending, understanding, judging, and formulating.

Secondly, Asian philosophies maintain that reality itself or what is ontologically true is not or at least does not manifest itself as one but plural. This view of reality itself as plural, or of the necessarily plural manifestation of reality, is found, for example, in Indian philosophies, even though they privilege the concept of the unity of all things in the universal Self (Brahman, atman) over the particularity of individual realities.29  It is espoused especially by the Chinese philosophy of yin and yang and of the Five Elements (wu-hsing), according to which the movement of reality–humanity and nature–is governed by an alternating multiplicity of contrary but unifying forces.30 It follows then that no act of apprehending, understanding, judging, and expressing reality at any given time can fully and totally express reality. The best that can be achieved is relative adequacy between the mind’s affirmation and reality.

The concluding part of this essay will assess John Paul II’s teaching on philosophy, and more specifically metaphysics, as a tool for inculturating the Christian faith into Asia by exploring its applicability to some aspects of Confucianism. The theme is no doubt extremely vast, and limited space will permit consideration of only two issues, the one methodological and the other substantive. The point here is neither to prescribe a method for the project of inculturating the Christian faith into cultures that are shaped by Confucianism, nor critically to review past efforts, both in theological reflection and church practices, to carry out this task.31 Rather attention will be drawn to some of the challenges and difficulties that the inculturation of the Christian faith into Confucianist Asia will encounter if the method recommended by FR is implemented in a simplistic manner.

FR argues vigorously for the use of philosophy in general and metaphysics in particular not only in theology but also in the inculturation of the Christian faith. To cure the "crisis of meaning" which he discerns in contemporary culture infected with eclecticism, historicism, scientism, pragmatism, and nihilism (nos. 86-90), John Paul II prescribes a threefold therapy: a recovery of philosophy’s "sapiential dimension as a search for the ultimate and overarching meaning of life" (no. 81), a re-affirmation of human reason’s "capacity to know the truth, to come to knowledge which can reach objective truth" (no. 82), and the use of "a philosophy of a genuinely metaphysical range, capable, that is, of transcending empirical data in order to attain something absolute, ultimate and foundational in its search for truth" (no. 83). John Paul II points out that by metaphysics he does not mean "a specific school or a particular current of thought" (no. 83), and he has already affirmed that "the church has no philosophy of her own nor does she canonize any one particular philosophy in preference to others" (no. 49).32

As to whether metaphysics is necessary for the inculturation of the Christian faith into Confucian Asia, the answer is straightforward if by metaphysics is meant simply the general affirmation of the human mind’s capacity to know reality objectively. No Asian philosophers–indeed, no philosopher of any stripe–can deny this capacity without self-contradiction, because the very act of denying it necessarily affirms it. They would concur with John Paul II’s affirmation of the "universality" of "truth," though with the three important qualifications elaborated above.33 In this context, Asian philosophers would no doubt consider unfounded and even offensive FR’s accusation that "certain conceptions of life coming from the East" betray a "lack of confidence in truth" because they allegedly assume that "truth reveals itself equally in different doctrines even if they contradict one another" (no. 5).

Of course, there has not been anywhere one style of philosophizing and one school of metaphysics. As Kenneth L. Schmitz has shown, in the West metaphysics has been developed both as a style of thinking (metaphysics as "fundamental enquiry") and a philosophical discipline (metaphysics as "ontological discourse"), and in this double form it has undergone radical shifts as a result of the triple revolution in modernity, namely, the empirio-mathematical, historical, and linguistic turns.34 Therefore, if Western (and even Christian) metaphysics is used as a tool for the inculturation of the Christian faith into Confucians Asia, both as a style of thinking and an ontological discipline, there must be a deep sensitivity first of all to the distinctive style of philosophizing in Confucianism.

In his masterful description of the Chinese way of thinking, Hajime Nakamura has argued that the Chinese characteristically did not develop "non-religious transcendental metaphysics."35 This does not mean, of course, that there is no "metaphysics" in China. Indeed, among the ancient Chinese philosophies, Taoism can surely be said to have a metaphysical character. Neo-Confucians were attracted to certain aspects of Buddhist metaphysics and developed their own metaphysics (for example, Chu-Tzi’s Sung-hsüeh philosophy). The Hua-yen sect incorporated some metaphysical doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism. However, metaphysical thinking was completely abandoned when Taoism turned into a religious art of achieving immortality; even Chu-Tzi, the founder of Sung-hsüeh philosophy, did not elaborate a metaphysical system; and in the Hua-yen sect, the Buddhist all-important distinction between Absolute Reality and the phenomenal world is rejected. This anti-metaphysical trend of Chinese thought was not due to a lack of intellectual sophistication, but to a distinct way of thinking, and awareness of this difference will help overcome what Robert Solomon calls the "transcendental pretense" of the Enlightenment.36

The style of thinking which accounts for the nondevelopment of metaphysics among the Chinese has been referred to variously as "emphasis on the perception of the concrete," "non-development of abstract thought," "emphasis on the particular," "fondness for complex multiplicity expressed in concrete form," "the tendency towards practicality," and "reconciling and harmonizing tendencies."37 David Hall and Roger Ames characterize the Chinese way of thinking as "first problematic, or alternatively, analogical or correlative thinking" and the Western way as "second problematic" or "causal" thinking.38 The Chinese way of thinking is described as "neither strictly cosmogonical nor cosmological in the sense that there is the presupposition neither of an initial beginning nor of the existence of a single-ordered world. This mode of thinking accepts the priority of change or process over rest and permanence, presumes no ultimate agency responsible for the general order of things, and seeks to account for states of affairs by appeal to correlative procedures rather than by determining agencies and principles."39

With this basic difference in modes of thinking in mind, it would be difficult to concur fully with John Paul II’s threefold recommendation for the inculturation of the Christian faith into Confucians Asia. First, he suggests that Christians in Asia should "draw from this [Asian] rich heritage the elements compatible with their faith in order to enrich Christian thought" (no. 72). This procedure seems to envisage inculturation as a straightforward business of adapting elements of one culture into another, without due attention to the different–at times, incommensurable–modes of thinking among cultures.40

Secondly, John Paul II appears to hold that nothing short of metaphysics can give a coherent account of divine revelation: "Metaphysics thus plays an essential role of mediation in theological research. A theology without a metaphysical horizon could not move beyond an analysis of religious experience nor would it allow the intellectus fidei to give a coherent account of the universal and transcendent value of revealed truth" (no. 83). Depending on what is meant by "metaphysics" and "metaphysical horizon," this view belittles the epistemological validity of the narrativistic and aphoristic mode of thinking, knowing, and expressing that is characteristic of Chinese philosophy and no less able to "give a coherent account" of its worldview. It seems to require that an Asian Christian theology must of necessity take the form of systematic exposition, as has been done so far in the West, if it were to achieve self-coherence.41

As a concrete example of the inculturation of the Christian faith into Confucians Asia, perhaps no doctrine and practice can be as illuminating and challenging, both historically and theologically, as the cult of ancestors.42  My interest here is neither to rehearse this painful episode in the history of the Asian churches in which cultural misunderstandings, theological dogmatism, ecclesiastical rivalries, and international politics were all deeply enmeshed with a praiseworthy desire to incarnate the Christian faith into the Chinese culture, nor to examine the theological and liturgical validity of the cult of ancestors in itself.43  Rather, I would like to show how the inculturation of the Christian faith into Confucians Asia with regard to the cult of ancestors cannot be adequately carried out on the sole basis of the method proposed by John Paul II in FR.

As is well known, the cult of ancestors posed a difficult challenge to the earliest missionaries to China and other countries influenced by Confucianism.44  Basically, the question was whether the cult is theologically acceptable. At issue was the nature of this cult, that is, whether it has a "religious" character or is a purely civil or political ceremony. If the former, then it is superstition and, therefore, must be forbidden; if the latter, then it may be tolerated, and Christians’ participation in it would be permissible, due care being exercised to prevent misunderstanding and scandal. The final position of the Catholic Church toward the cult of ancestors, after repeated and severe condemnations by several Popes, was acceptance, and the ground for this complete volte-face is the alleged nonreligious nature of this cult.45

The question of interest here is whether the issue of the cult of ancestors would have been more correctly and speedily resolved had the method of inculturation, which is now advanced by John Paul II, been known and applied? No doubt there were many metaphysical and, more generally, philosophical issues at stake. Philosophically, the cult of ancestors obviously implies certain views regarding the human person, the person’s survival after death, the nature of this post-mortem life, and the relationship between the dead and the living. Ethically, it concerns the heart of the moral life as Confucianism understands it, namely, as the proper performance of the duties entailed by various relationships, the most important of which being the relationship between the children and their parents.46 It has been rightly said that filial piety is the central virtue for every Confucian. Furthermore, the cult of ancestors has implications for marriage and the family, because a man who does not have children by his wife may be morally bound by filial piety to marry another woman and have children by her so as to perpetuate this cult. Politically, the cult of ancestors functions as the glue that binds society together, from the king as the August Son of Heaven to the humblest citizen of the country, and provides continuity across generations. Theologically, the cult of ancestors raises, at least for Christians, the question of the relationship between this cult and the worship of God.

Furthermore, metaphysics would not be the most effective tool to evaluate the cult of ancestors. The issue here is not whether Chinese philosophy would deny personhood or post-mortem survival or even the immortality of the "soul," all of which are postulated by the cult of ancestors.47 Nor is it about whether Chinese philosophy is open to the affirmation of "God"; in fact, the existence of a transcendent being may be said to be implied in the Chinese concepts of t’ien, t’ien ming, te, and tao.48 Rather, even after all these metaphysical realities are affirmed, it still remains to be determined whether the cult of ancestors with all its manifold rituals is acceptable to Christians ethically, politically, and theologically. And on this question there is little that metaphysics can settle apodictically.

As has been said above, to obtain a comprehensive understanding of John Paul II’s teaching on inculturation, especially the inculturation of the Christian faith into Asia, one should not limit oneself to FR. The Pope’s fuller and richer insights can be found elsewhere, especially his Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Asia, which he promulgated in the wake of the Special Assembly for Asia of the Synod of Bishops on November 6, 1999.49  FR’s somewhat narrow views should, therefore, be supplemented by those the Pope proposes in Ecclesia in Asia as well as in another Apostolic Exhortation, Ecclesia in Africa (1995). Only by taking these papal documents together can a relatively adequate method for the inculturation of the Christian faith into Asia be devised.

 1 Wojtyla’s best-known philosophical work, though generally recognized as highly abstract and abstruse, remains his Osoba i Czyn (Crakow: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1969). Its English translation by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, which bears the title The Acting Person (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Reidel, 1979), has been judged unreliable and criticized for having excessively phenomenologized Wojtyla’s language and thought. A collection of Wojtyla’s philosophical essays is available as Person and Community: Selected Essays, trans. Theresa Sandok (New York: Peter Lang, 1993).

 2 See his encyclicals Veritatis Splendor (August 6, 1993) and Evangelium Vitae (March 25, 1995). English translations of these encyclicals are available in The Encyclicals of John Paul II, ed. Michael Miller (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1996), 674-771 and 792-894.

 3 For the English translation of Fides et Ratio, henceforth FR, which was promulgated on September 14, 1998, see Origins vol. 28, no. 19 (October 22, 1998): 318-47. Citations of the encyclical will be followed by the number of the paragraph in parentheses.

 4 I have already examined FR in relation to Asian philosophies in "Fides et Ratio and Asian Philosophies: Sharing the Banquet of Truth," Science et Esprit 51/3 (1999): 333-49.

 5 For studies on FR, see Louis-Marie Billé et al., Foi et raison: Lectures de l’encyclique Fides et Ratio (Paris: Cerp, 1998); Fede e ragione: Opposizione, composizione? ed. Mauro Mantovani, Scaria Thuruthiyil, and Mario Toso (Roma: Libreria Ateneo Salesiano, 1998); Tomás Melendo, Para leer la Fides et Ratio (Madrid: Rialp, 2000); Faith and Reason: The Notre Dame Symposium, ed. Timothy Smith (South Bend, IN: St. Augustin’s Press, 2000); Per una lettura dell’enciclica Fides et Ratio (Città del Vaticano: L’Osservatore Romano, 1999); Peter Henrici, "La Chiesa et la filosopfia: In ascolto della ‘Fides et Ratio’," Gregorianum 80:4 (1999): 635-44; idem, "The One Who Went Unnamed: Maurice Blondel in the Encyclical Fides et Ratio," Communio (US) 26 (1999): 609-21; Joseph Kallarangatt, "Fides et Ratio: Its Timeliness and Contribution," Christian Orient 20 (1999): 22-39; Albert Keller, "Vernunft und Glaube," Stimmen der Zeit 217 (1999): 1-12; Job Kozhamthadam, "Fides et Ratio and Inculturation," Vidyajyoti 63 (1999): 848-59; Salvador Pié-Ninot, "La Encíclica Fides et Ratio y la Teología Fundamental: Hacia una propuesta," Gregorianum 80:4 (1999): 645-76; Kenneth Schmitz, "Faith and Reason: Then and Now [Dei Filius and Fides et Ratio]," Communio (US) 26 (1999): 595-608; Angelo Scola, "Human Freedom and Truth According to the Encyclical Fides et Ratio," Communio (US) 26 (1999): 486-509; Tissa Balasuriya, "On the Papal Encyclical Faith and Reason," Cross Currents 49 (1999): 294-96; Avery Dulles, "Faith and Reason: A Note on the New Encyclical," America 179 (Oct 31, 1998): 7-8; Anthony Kenny, "The Pope as Philosopher," The Tablet 253 (June 26, 1999): 874-76.

 6 Pierre d’Ornellas, auxiliary bishop of Paris, offers helpful reflections on FR’s concern with the unity of human knowledge in "Une préoccupation déjà ancienne pour l’unité de la connaissance," in Foi et Raison: Lectures de l’encyclique Fides et Ratio, 15-29.

 7 Awareness of this fact has profound implications for theology today, especially the discipline of historical theology, because it is the task of theology to bring about a contemporary understanding, which is itself historically conditioned, of another past understanding, which is also historically conditioned. Hence, the complex yet inevitable task of hermeneutics in theology.

 8 For recent studies of these issues, see Christliche Philosophie im katholischen Denken des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. Emerich Coreth et al., 3 vols. (Graz: Styria, 1987-1990); Wolfhart Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science (Philadelphia: Westminster,1976); Helmut Peukert, Wissenschaftstheorie Handlungstheorie Fundamentale Theologie (Frankfurt, 1978); Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Foundational Political Theology (New York: Seabury Press, 1979); Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, Foundational Theology: Jesus and the Church (New York: Crossroad, 1984); René Latourelle, Finding Jesus through the Gospels (New York: Alba House, 1979); idem, Man and His Problem in the Light of Jesus Christ (New York: Paulist Press, 1983); Problems and Perspectives of Fundamental Theology, ed. René Latourelle and Gerald O’Collins (New York: Paulist Press, 1982); David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1981); Franz-Josef Niemann, Jesus als Glaubensgrund in der Fundamentaltheologie der Neuzeit: Zur Genealogie eines Traktats (Innsbruck: Tyrolia-Verlag, 1983); George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984); Martin Cook, The Open Circle: Confessional Method in Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991); Avery Dulles, The Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System (New York: Crossroad, 1992); Thomas Guarino, Revelation and Truth: Unity and Plurality in Contemporary Theology (Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 1993).

9 On the relationship between Vatican I’s Dei Filius and FR, see the balanced study of Mauro Mantovani, "Là dove osa la ragione. Dalla ‘Dei Filius’ alla ‘Fides et Ratio’," in Fede e ragione: Opposizione, composizione? , 59-84. Mantovani rightly points out that there is a basic continuity between the two documents in their stance on the relationship between faith and reason, though there are of course novelties in FR, such as its rejection of contemporary philosophical errors, its recognition of certain valuable aspects of contemporary thought, and its appreciation of Asian cultures.

 10 André-Mutien Léonard, bishop of Namur and former professor of philosophy at the University of Louvain, provides a helpful overview of FR in "Un guide de lecture pour l’encyclique Fides et Ratio," in Foi et Raison: Lectures de l’encyclique Fides et Ratio, 31-73.

 11 Obviously John Paul II’s appeal to the Pauline contrast between the "foolishness of God" demonstrated on the Cross and "human wisdom" elaborated in philosophy is no endorsement of fideism and fundamentalism.

  12 For studies of FR’s view of the relationship between faith and reason, see Carlo Chenis, "‘Quid est veritas?’ Valore della ‘ratio’ nei processi veritativi secondo la ‘mens’ della Chiesa," in Fede e ragione: Opposizione, Composizione?, 85-105; Aniceto Molinaro, "La metafisica e la fede," in Fede e ragione: Opposizione, Composizione?, 107-118; Mario Toso, "La fede se non è pensata è nulla," in Fede e ragione: Opposizione, Composizione?, 119-30; Armando Rigobello, "Il ruolo della ragione, la filosofia dell’essere, la comunicazione della verità: Luoghi speculativi per un confronto tra ‘Fides et Ratio’ e pensiero contemporaneo," in Fede e ragione: Opposizione, Composizione?, 131-37; Francesco Franco, "La filosofia compito della fede: La circolarità di fede e ragione," in Fede e ragione: Opposizione, Composizione?, 155-75; and Rino Fisichella, "Rapporti tra teologia e filosofia alla luce di ‘Fides et Ratio,’ in Fede e Ragione: Opposizione, Composizione?, 177-85.

 13 However evocative is the image, speaking of a "circle" with two "poles" is geometrically infelicitous. Perhaps it would be better to speak of an ellipse.

 14 For a study of FR’s continuity with the Tradition and its relative originality, see Kenneth Schmitz, "Faith and Reason: Then and Now," Communio (US) 26 (1999): 595-608.

 15 Of course, John Paul II is neither the first nor the only one to denounce the various errors of modern philosophy. As Anthony Kenney has correctly pointed out, in criticizing modern philosophy he stands in the company of philosophers such as Gottlob Frege and Lugwig Wittgenstein, and it may be added, Martin Heidegger. See Anthony Kenny, "The Pope as Philosopher," The Tablet 253 (June 26, 1999): 875. On the other hand, feminists will argue that other no less pernicious errors of modern philosophy such as its patriarchal and androcentric bias have not received the Pope’s attention.

 16 This concern is demonstrated in John Paul II’s founding of The Pontifical Council for Culture in 1982 with its quarterly Cultures and Faith. John Paul II’s writings on the theology of culture are voluminous. For a study of this aspect of John Paul II’s theology, see Fernando Miguens, Fe y Cultura en la Enseñanza de Juan Pablo II (Madrid: Ediciones Palabra, 1994).

 17 Some of the material that follows is taken from my earlier essay "Fides et Ratio and Asian Philosophies: Sharing the Banquet of Truth," Science et Esprit 51/3 (1999): 333-49.

18 Among the most important are: Catechesi Tradendae (1979), nos. 52-54; Slavorum Apostolorum (1985); Redemptoris Missio (1990), nos. 55-56, and Ecclesia in Asia (1999), nos. 21-22.

  19 The thinkers mentioned are: John Henry Newman, Antonio Rosmini, Jacques Maritain, Etienne Gilson, and Edith Stein "in a Western context" and Vladimir S. Soloviev, Pavel A. Florensky, Petr Chaadev, and Vladimir N. Lossky "in an Eastern context" (no. 74). Apparently, the "Eastern context" does not include Asia in general (at least insofar as recent thinkers with whom the Pope is familiar are concerned). The list underlines John Paul II’s European cultural formation.

 20 For John Paul II’s comments on Buddhism, which have provoked a storm of protest from Asian Buddhists because of his reference to its "atheistic" system, see his Crossing the Threshold of Hope, ed. Vittorio Messori and trans. Jenny McPhee and Martha McPhee (New York: Alfred A. Knoff, 1994), 84-90. There is also a factual inaccuracy. FR mentions Tirkhankara as if he were an individual, like Gautama the Buddha, with whom he is paired. In fact, Tirkhankara (lit. making a passge, crossing, ford) is an honorific title in Jainism for a person who, by example and teaching, enables others to attain liberation. It designates 24 ascetic teachers in a line reaching back into prehistory, the most recent of whom was Mahavira (traditionally 599-527 BCE).

 21 According to FR, the first stance is adopted by philosophy before the birth of Jesus and later in regions as yet untouched by the Gospel. By "Christian philosophy" FR understands "a Christian way of philosophizing, a philosophical speculation conceived in dynamic union with faith." It includes "those important developments of philosophical thinking which would not have happened without the direct or indirect contribution of Christian faith" (no. 76). By viewing philosophy as ancilla theologiae, FR does not intend to affirm "philosophy’s servile submission or purely functional role with regard to theology," but to indicate "the necessity of the link between the two sciences and the impossibility of their separation" (no. 77). FR does admit that the expression ancilla theologiae can no longer be used today, but asserts that in this stance philosophy "comes more directly under the authority of the magisterium and its discernment" (no. 77).

 22 FR repeatedly asserts the duty of philosophy to search for ultimate and universal truth. Indeed, it laments the fact that contemporary philosophy "has lost the capacity to lift its gaze to the heights, not daring to rise to the truth of being" (no. 5). Instead of focusing on metaphysics, contemporary philosophers have concentrated their research on hermeneutics and epistemology, abandoning the investigation of being. On the contrary, John Paul II wants "to state that reality and truth do transcend the factual and the empirical and to vindicate the human being’s capacity to know this transcendental and metaphysical dimension in a way that is true and certain, albeit imperfect and analogical" (no. 83). Against post-modern agnosticism and nihilism (see no. 91), FR affirms that "[e]very truth–if it really is truth–presents itself as universal, even if it is not the whole truth. If something is true, then it must be true for all people and at all times. . . . Hypotheses may fascinate, but they do not satisfy. Whether we admit it or not, there comes for everyone the moment when personal existence must be anchored to a truth recognized as final which confers a certitude no longer open to doubt" (no. 27).

23 I will examine this criterion in detail in the last part of the essay.

24 I will draw out the implications of this statement for theological methodology today in the last part of the essay.

25 For an evaluation of FR in terms of inculturation, see Job Kozhamthadam, "Fides et Ratio and Inculturation," Vidyajyoti 63 (1999): 848-59; Scaria Thuruthiyil, "L’inculturazione della fede alla luce dell’Enciclica "Fides et Ratio," in Fede e ragione: Opposizione, composizione?, 249-55; and Mario Midali, "Evangelizzazione nuova: Rilevanti indicazioni del "Fides et Ratio," in Fede e ragione: Opposizione, composizione?, 257-76.

 26 For the Nyaya-Vaisheshika epistemology which analyses human knowledge in terms of the knowing subject, the object to be known, the known object, and the means to know the object, see Satischandra Chatterjee (ed.), The Nyaya Theory of Knowledge, 2nd edition (Calcutta: University of Calcutta Press, 1950) and Karl H. Potter (ed.), Indian Metaphysics and Epistemology: The Tradition of Nyaya-Vaisheshika up to Gangesa (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).

 27 See Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (London) and Method in Theology (New York: Herder, 1971). For studies on how FR understands the universality of truth, see Gaspare Mura, "L’universalismo della verità," in Fede e ragione: Opposizione, Composizione?, 139-43.

 28 For an informative contrast between the Western and Chinese ways of conceiving truth, see David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Thinking from the Han (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998), 103-46. Broadly speaking, Westerners ask, "What is the Truth?" ("Truth-Seekers"), whereas the Chinese ask, "Where is the Way?" ("Way-Seekers"). Western philosophy makes two assumptions, namely, that there is a single-ordered world and that there is a distinction between reality and appearance. The first assumption takes truth as coherence, the second takes truth as correspondence between mind and reality. These two assumptions are absent in classical Chinese philosophy. Instead of the single-ordered world, the Chinese hold that the world is but the "ten thousand things" (wanwu or wanyou) and, instead of the distinction between reality and appearance, the Chinese hold that reality is essentially polar (yin/yang). See also other works by the same two authors, Thinking through Confucius (Albany, NY: State University Press of New York, 1987) and Anticipating China (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 1995).

29 For an illuminating account of this characteristic of Indian philosophies, see Hajime Nakamura, Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples (Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii, 1964), 93-129.

30 For a brief and helpful explanation of this theory, see A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, translated and compiled by Wing-Tsit Chan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 244-88 and Fung Yu-lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (New York: The Free Press, 1948), 129-42.

31 The works of seventeenth-century Jesuits in China and Vietnam, such as Matteo Ricci and Alexandre de Rhodes, are well known. See Peter C. Phan, Mission and Catechesis: Alexandre de Rhodes and Inculturation in Seventeenth-Century Vietnam (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998).

32 This stance does not prevent the magisterium from acclaiming "the merits of St. Thomas’ thought" and making him "the guide and model for theological studies." But FR argues that "this has not been in order to take a position on properly philosophical questions nor to demand adherence to particular theses" (no. 78). There is no doubt a bit of revisionist history here, in light of Leo XIII’s Aeterni Patris (1879) and Pius X’s imposition of 24 "Thomistic" philosophical theses. For a study of the position of Thomas Aquinas in FR, see Georges Cottier, "Tommaso d’Aquino, teologo e filosofo nella "Fides et Ratio," in Fede e ragione: Opposizione, composizione?, 187-94.

33 FR itself explicitly acknowledges that "the objective value of many concepts does not exclude that their meaning is often imperfect" (no. 96).

34 See Kenneth Schmitz, "Post-modernism and the Catholic Tradition," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly LXXIII/2 (1999): 242. Schmitz argues that because of the empirio-mathematical turn in modernity, metaphysics as philosophical enquiry was replaced by epistemology as the primary philosophical discipline and Aristotle’s concept of contingency as the result of the unintended conjunction of the causes ("causal contingency") was replaced by Pascal’s concept of contingency as probability ("predictive contingency"). Later, because of the historical turn, metaphysics as a mode of discourse was forced to recognize its intrinsic condition of historicity, and the concept of contingency as predictive contingency was replaced by the concept of contingency as unrepeatable event ("non-predictive contingency"). Finally, in the linguistic turn, contingency is understood as the arbitrariness of linguistic signs (as in Saussurean linguistics) or as the conventionality of relations (as in Anglo-American language analytic philosophy). See Kenneth Schmitz, "An Addendum to Further Discussion," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly LXXIII/2 (1999): 277-79). This narrative of the recent career of metaphysics shows how complex the question about the use of metaphysics as a tool for inculturation, especially the inculturation of the Christian faith into Confucianist Asia, is.

35 Hajime Nakamura, Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples, 243.

36 See Robert Solomon, The Bully Culture: Enlightenment, Romanticism, and the Transcendental Pretense 1750-1850 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993). The transcendental pretense refers to the claim that rational objectivity and universal science, allegedly the fruits of the Enlightenment, should be the norm to judge all non-Western cultures.

37 See Hajime Nakamura, Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples, 177-294.

38 David Hall and Roger Ames, Anticipating China: Thinking Through the Narratives of Chinese and Western Culture (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995), xvii.

39 David Hall and Roger Ames, Anticipating China, xviii. Graphically, the difference between the Western and the Chinese modes of thinking is illustrated by the former’s preference for the circle and the latter’s for the square as images of perfection.

40 Apparently John Paul II is operating under the two Greco-Roman models of inculturation, that is, assimilation of non-Christian philosophy and incarnation in non-Christian culture, respectively. Aloysius has convincingly argued that these two models are not applicable to Asia. See his An Asian Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988), 51-53. See also Peter C. Phan, "Fides et Ratio and Asian Philosophies," 345-46.

41 It is unfortunate that the ratio in Fides et Ratio is successively reduced from rationality to philosophy to metaphysics. This gradual reduction is all the more misleading since "metaphysics" is currently understood not as reflective thinking or fundamental inquiry but mainly as a mode of ontological discourse (e.g., "onto-theology") and even, in popular circles, as astrology!

42 Systems of ancestor veneration are best known from Africa, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. In Asia, ancestor worship is an amalgamation of folk religion, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Shinto. It has been suggested that ancestor worship may have emerged from the worship of guardian spirits. This shift occurred when the family supplanted the clan or tribe as the basic unit of society, so that prayers addressed to tribal spirits were now redirected to the deceased members of the family. In Asian countries, ancestor veneration has been connected with other Taoist practices such as magic, divination, witchcraft, geomancy, and so forth.

43 For a history of the controversy, see George Minamiki, The Chinese Rites Controversy from Its Beginning to Modern Times (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1985).

44 I prescind here from the special question of the cult of Confucius in the Temple of Literature.

45 See the instruction of the Propaganda Fide, Plane compertum est (1939). See Peter C. Phan, Mission and Catechesis, 28.

46 The Doctrine of the Mean XX, 8 specifies five relationships and three virtues: "The duties of universal obligation are five, and the virtues wherewith they are practiced are three. The duties are those between sovereign and minister, between father and son, between husband and wife, between elder brother and younger, and those belonging to the intercourse of friends. Those five are the duties of universal obligation. Knowledge, magnanimity, and energy, these three, are the virtues universally binding. And the means by which they carry the duties into practice is singleness." See The Doctrine of the Mean, trans. James Legg (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1893).

47 FR affirms that "it is metaphysics which makes it possible to ground the concept of personal dignity in virtue of their spiritual nature" (no. 83). If it is meant that it is in virtue of metaphysics alone that personal dignity can be defended, then FR’s statement is gratuitous. Moreover, even if the statement is granted, there is still a further question to be settled, namely, which metaphysical argument for the dignity of the person is apodictic. For a study of the notion of person in FR, see Sabino Palumbieri, "Fides et Ratio": la persona, punto di sintesi," in Fede e ragione: opposizione, composizione?, 331-52.

48 For a discussion of t’ien and transcendence, as well as t’ien ming, te, and tao, see David Hall and Roger Ames, Thinking Through Confucius (albany, NY: University of New York Press, 1987), 201-37.

49 For an analysis and evaluation of this Apostolic Exhortation, see Peter C. Phan, "Ecclesia in Asia: Challenges for Asian Christianity," East Asian Pastoral Review 37/3 (2000): 215-32 as well as the essays by Michael Amaladoss, Edmund Chia, John Manford Prior, and James Kroeger in this issue.