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

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 SK Tang” by Professors Lai and So respectively. 1. The consequence of employing On the Awakening of Mahāyāna(Mahayana Awakening of Faith) to understand the humanity of Christ leads unavoidably to Docetism since the mind of perishing is not the essential structure of the mind of purity. 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, 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 and Ab-grund(non-ground, no original) in Tien-tai Buddhism.