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- To End All Suffering
Both Buddhism and the Christian gospel promise the ending of suffering. However, each defines and interprets morality, compassion, proof, and truth according to starkly different worldviews. This is why adjudicating rival claims between these religions has proven so difficult. Two alternate approaches have emerged: treating religious claims as mere personal opinions, or postulating some higher standard outside of religion to which each religion much submit. However, both of these approaches to comparative religious research implicitly deny that any religion can present a story about the totality of reality, including ultimate standards for proof and truth.
This book takes a different approach entirely, demonstrating a way that religions can self-critically engage one another using their own respective standards. Within this framework, early Buddhist philosophy and the Christian faith enter into philosophical dialogue. In the process, To End All Suffering pointedly demonstrates that on its own terms, Buddhism cannot account for the very doctrines necessary to show that the Buddha's teachings end suffering. Written primarily for Christians and Buddhists interested in interreligious dialogue, To End All Suffering is a course book suitable for individual study or for college or seminary courses in comparative philosophy or religion.
Michael Collender (DPhil, University of Stellenbosch) has taught philosophy and ethics at Gonzaga University for over a decade. He has been a visiting fellow in the Philosophy Institute of the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and has researched and lectured at the Joint Forces Staff College, Norfolk, VA. He is the producer of the audio journal Saint Anne's Public House. His academic website is www.collender.org.
"In the worlds of interreligious dialogue and Christian apologetics, nothing is more needed than for Christians to engage with other religions solidly grounded in non-Christian beliefs without conceding the truth of Christianity--and to do so without creating unnecessary hostility . . . I am delighted that Mike Collender's insights are now available to a large reading audience."
--Winfried Corduan, author of In the Beginning God