Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Simplicity of the Ultimate: East and West

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Aquinas, Education and the East

  • 728 Accesses

Abstract

Eastern and Western philosophy have been haunted by the ideal of an ultimate simplicity in which all the dualisms of finite experience are overcome and which is apprehended in an awareness that goes beyond ordinary reasoning. In Aquinas the doctrine of divine simplicity becomes ever more prominent, until in the Summa Theologica it commands the entire theological enterprise. Resistance to the claims of simplicity, on both logical and experiential grounds, is also found in both traditions. These tensions can be resolved if simplicity acquires an existential and phenomenological reference, so that it betokens the presence of gracious ultimacy here and now.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Alighieri, Dante. 1982. The divine comedy: Paradiso. Trans. Charles S. Singleton. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Angot, Michel. 2007. Taittirīya-Upanisad avec le commentaire de Samkara. Paris: Collège de France.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aquinas, St Thomas. 1955–1957. Contra Gentiles: On the truth of the Catholic faith, ed. Joseph Kenny. New York: Hanover House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aquinas, St Thomas. 1964–1970. Summa Theologiae. Trans. Thomas Gilby et al. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aquinas, St Thomas. 1975. Summa Contra Gentiles. Trans. Anton C. Pegis et al. Notre Dame/London: University of Notre Dame Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aquinas, St Thomas. 1981. Summa Theologica, complete English edition in five volumes. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Allen Christian Classics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bareau, André. 1951. L’Absolu en Philosophie bouddhique: Évolution de la notion d’asamskrta. Paris: Tournier et Constans.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barth, Karl. 1957. Church Dogmatics II/1. New York: Scribner’s.

    Google Scholar 

  • Biardeau, Madeleine. 1969. La philosophie de Mandana Miśra. Paris: Maisonneuve.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bodhi, Bhikkhu (trans.). 1995. The middle length discourses of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bodhi, Bhikkhu (trans.). 2000. The connected discourses of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bugault, Guy (trans.). 2002. Nāgārjuna: Stances du milieu par excellence. Paris: Gallimard.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cattin, Emmanuel. 2010. Vers la simplicité: Phénoménologie hégélienne. Paris: Vrin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conze, Edward. 1970. Buddhist thought in India. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conze, Edward (trans.). 1983. Perfect wisdom: The shorter Prajñāpāramitā Texts. Totnes, Devon: Buddhist Publishing Group.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garfield, Jay (trans.). 1995. The fundamental wisdom of the middle way: Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārika. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halfwassen, Jens. 1992. Der Aufstieg zum Einen: Untersuchungen zu Platon und Plotin. Stuttgart: Teubner.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kapani, Lakshmi. 2005. La dialectique du dépassement et le dépassement de la dialectique en Inde. In Catégories de langue et catégories de pensée en Inde et en Occident, ed. François Chenet, 125–170. Paris: l’Harmattan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kearney, Richard. 2001. The god who may be: A hermeneutics of religion. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lacombe, Olivier. 1937. L’Absolu selon le Védânta. Paris: Geuthner.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamotte, Étienne (trans.). 1944–1980. Le traité de la grande vertu de sagesse de Nāgārjuna, 5 vols. Louvain-la-neuve: Institut Orientaliste.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamotte, Étienne (trans.). 1962. L’Enseignement de Vimalakīrti. Louvain-la-neuve: Institut Orientaliste.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamotte, Étienne, and Sara Boin-Webb. 1976. The teaching of Vimalakīrti. London: Pali Text Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Larson, Gerald James, and Ram Shankar Bhattacharya. 1987. Encyclopedia of Indian philosophies IV: Sāmkhya, a dualist tradition in Indian philosophy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lossky, Vladimir. 1998. Théologie négative et connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart. Paris: Vrin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loy, David. 1988. Nonduality: A study in comparative philosophy. New Haven /London: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mathis II, C.K. 1992. Parallel structures in the metaphysics of Iamblichus and Ibn Gabirol. In Neoplatonism and Jewish thought, ed. Lenn E. Goodman, 61–76. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGinn, Bernard. 2001. The mystical thought of Meister Eckhart. New York: Crossroad.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meister Eckhart. 1984ff. L’œuvre latine de Maître Eckhart, ed. Alain de Libera. Paris: Éditions du Cerf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meister Eckhart. 1986–1987 (repr.). Die deutsche und lateinische Werke, ed. Ernst Benz, Josef Quint et al. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meister Eckhart. 1995. Selected writings. Trans. Oliver Davies. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murti, T.R.V. 1960. The central philosophy of Buddhism. London: Allen & Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Leary, J.S. 1996. Religious pluralism and Christian truth. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Leary, J.S. 2006. Questions to and from a tradition in disarray. In After god: Richard Kearney and the religious turn in continental philosophy, ed. John Manoussakis, 185–207. New York: Fordham University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Leary, J.S. 2007. Divine simplicity and the plurality of attributes (CE II 359–386; 445–560). In Gregory of Nyssa: Contra Eunomium II: An English version with supporting studies, ed. Lenka Karfíková et al., 307–337. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Meara, Thomas F. 1982. Romantic idealism and Roman Catholicism: Schelling and the theologians. South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pasqua, Hervé. 2006. Maître Eckhart: Le procès de l’Un. Paris: Éditions du Cerf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plotinus. 1988. Enneads. Trans. A.H. Armstrong, vol. VII. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radde-Gallwitz, Andrew. 2009. Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and the transformation of divine simplicity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saddhatissa, Hammalawa (trans.). 1985. The Sutta Nipāta. New York: Humanities Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thibaut, George (trans.). 1962. The Vedānta Sutras of Bādaryana with the commentary by Śankara. New York: Dover.

    Google Scholar 

  • Viévard, Ludovic. 2002. Vacuité (śūnyatā) et compassion (karunā) dans le bouddhisme madhyamaka. Paris: Collège de France.

    Google Scholar 

  • von Glasenapp, Helmuth. 1964. Der Jainismus. Hildesheim: Olms.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walser, Joseph. 2004. Nāgārjuna in context. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walshe, Maurice (trans.). 1987. The long discourses of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weigel, Peter. 2008. Aquinas on simplicity: An investigation into the foundations of his philosophical theology. Oxford: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wippel, John F. 2007. Metaphysical themes in Thomas Aquinas II. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Woodward, F.L. (trans.). 1985. Minor Anthologies, vol. II. London: Pali Text Society.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English Literature, Sophia University, 7-1 Kioicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 102-8554, Japan

    Joseph S. O’Leary

Authors
  1. Joseph S. O’Leary
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joseph S. O’Leary .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, Stamford Road 90, Singapore, 178903, Singapore

    Thomas Brian Mooney

  2. , School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, Stamford Road 90, Singapore, 178903, Singapore

    Mark Nowacki

Glossary

Advaita Vedānta

The philosophy based on the Upanishads, perfected by Śankara in the seventh century CE. Central tenet: the non-duality of ātman and Brahman (self and absolute).

Analogy

Knowledge of divine attributes on the basis of the finite likeness of creatures to their infinite divine cause.

Apophatic theology

Negative theology, which proceeds by negation (apophasis) and removal (aphairesis).

Dependent origination

The basic ontology of Buddhism, the arising of phenomena in mutual dependence.

Dharma

A phenomenon or element; supreme reality; the teaching of the Buddha.

Dharmakāya, dharma-body

The ultimate reality of a Buddha, as the embodiment of supreme reality; contrasted with the other two Buddha-bodies.

Emptiness, Śūnyatā

The lack of self-existence in all dharmas.

Hypostatic Union

The teaching of the Council of Chalcedon, 451 CE, that the human and divine natures of Christ are united in one hypostasis.

Madhyamaka or Mādhyamika

The central philosophy of Buddhism, formulated by Nāgārjuna in the second or third century CE, vindicating the emptiness of all dharmas as taught in the Perfection of Wisdom sūtras.

Mahāyāna

The ‘great vehicle’ Buddhism expounded in a series of sūtras in the early centuries CE.

Nirvāna

Release from the painful condition of worldly existence and the cycle of rebirths.

Samsāra

Worldly existence in its pain, impermanence, and bondage.

Skillful means, Upāya

Teaching devices of a Buddha, accommodated to the capacity of the hearers.

Svabhāva, self-existence

The illusion of permanent substantial identity.

Trinity

The Christian doctrine, finalized in 381 CE, that the one God subsists in three hypostases.

Zen (Chan)

Monastic, meditative Buddhism developed in China, which foreswears dependence on linguistic and conceptual mediation, aiming at direct insight.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

O’Leary, J.S. (2013). The Simplicity of the Ultimate: East and West. In: Mooney, T., Nowacki, M. (eds) Aquinas, Education and the East. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5261-0_8

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation