ABSTRACT
In an earlier essay in this volume I set forth my views concerning the nature of Buddhist theology as an academic enterprise. There I mentioned that I take this kind of theology to be a form of normative discourse that situates itself explicitly and self-consciously within the Buddhist tradition, and that, abiding by accepted scholarly norms, critically plumbs the tradition with a view to making relevant in a public and open fashion the meaning and truth of Buddhist doctrine and practice. Such a view of theology implies that it is, as it were, bifocal: attending, on the one hand, principally to the tradition as its chief source of intellectual and spiritual nourishment, and, on the other, to the exigencies of human existence that it seeks to address. These exigencies are of course many and varied. They range from very practical concerns, like what constitutes proper sexual conduct, to highly theoretical ones, such as the nature of knowledge. Whether practical or theoretical, the issues that preoccupy the academic Buddhist theologian are generally of two types. Some will emerge from, and hence be immediately recognizable to, the tradition (for example, the question of what constitutes valid knowledge). These we can call emic questions. 2 Others will emerge from outside of the tradition, and, even if not immediately recognizable to it, will become familiar to the tradition through a process of dialogue and translation, though this process is often complex and, in any case, not immediate. These latter types of questions we can call etic. Theoretical etic questions can arise from a number of sources: from other religious/theological traditions and from the secular, intellectual realm. This essay seeks to bring the resources of the Buddhist tradition to bear on one very important theoretical etic question that emerges from the discipline of Western philosophy: what is truth? Or, more specifically, what is it that we are saying when we say, of a particular doctrine, for example, that it is true?
