也談罪身、罪性及方法的問題：敬答賴品超博士及蘇遠泰博士

Rethinking Sinful Flesh, Sinful Humanity and the Problem of Method: A Response to Professors Lai Pan-chiu and So Yuen-tai

Andres S. TANG

This paper is a response to “Sinful Flesh, Sinful Nature and Tathāgatagarbha: An Investigation on Christological Anthropology” and “Reflections on Christian Mahāyāna Theology: A Response to Andres S. K. Tang” by Professors Lai and So respectively. 1. The consequence of employing On the Awakening of Mahāyāna（大乘起信論）to understand the humanity of Christ leads unavoidably to Docetism since the mind of perishing（心生滅門）is not the essential structure of the mind of purity（清淨心）. 2. The sinful human body/flesh that Edward Irving speaks about is exactly the sinful human nature. According to contemporary biblical studies, the sinful flesh of Christ means that the humanity of Christ, including his flesh, is sinful. 3. Irving considers that the person of Christ is not constituted by his humanity but out of his obedience to and dependence on the Holy Spirit. Hence any type of understanding of the humanity of Christ in terms of “autonomous nature” is to be rejected. 4. It is not necessary for us to understand the Christology of the Chalcedon Creed as positing either the sinful human nature or the sinless human nature of Christ since the Chalcedon Creed merely speaks of the relation between the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ. 5. Concerning the round and perfect teaching（圓教）, the round and prefect in terms of salvation and the round and perfect in terms of the eschaton are not mutually exclusive. The former is directed towards the latter, while the latter implies the former. 6. Finally, clarifications are made on the translation of hypostasis and the basic status of the doctrines of momentary mind of ignorance and Dharmata（一念無明法性心）and Ab-grund（non-ground, 無本）in Tien-tai Buddhism.