Buddhism, Christianity and the Question of Creation

Perry Schmidt-Leukel has a Diploma in Theology (Munich, 1982); MA in Philosophy of Religion (Munich, 1984) with a dissertation on Pali-Buddhism; Dr. theol. (Munich, 1990) with a thesis on Buddhist-Christian Hermeneutics; and Dr. theol. habil. (Munich, 1996) with a habilitatio on Theology of Religions. From 1987-2000 he has had teaching posts at the Universities of Munich, Innsbruck and Salzburg, and since 2000 was Professor at the University of Glasgow. He has been a member of the secretarial board of the 'European Network of Buddhist-Christian Studies' since 1997. Perry has authored five books, co-authored two and edited ten (e.g. Buddhist Perceptions of Jesus, St. Ottilien 2001; War and Peace in World Religions, SCM 2004; Buddhism and Christianity in Dialogue, SCM 2005). He has had more than 100 scholarly publications in the field of Systematic Theology, Theology of Religions, and Buddhist-Christian Dialogue. Perry Schmidt-Leukel is currently Professor at the Institute for Religious Studies and Inter-Faith Theology at the University of Muenster, Germany.

• Contents: Introduction, Perry Schmidt-Leukel. Part One Buddhist and Christian Perspectives on the Issue of Creation: Hindu doctrines of creation and their Buddhist critiques, Ernst Steinkellner; Three Buddhist views of the doctrines of creation and creator, José Ignacio Cabezón; Buddhist forms of belief in creation, Eva K. Neumaier; Creation and the problem of evil, Armin Kreiner; Refuting some Buddhist arguments about creation and adopting Buddhist philosophy about salvation history, John P. Keenan; Creation and process theology: a question to Buddhism, Aasulv Lande; Buddhists, Christians and ecology, John D'Arcy May. Part Two The Unbridgeable Gulf? Towards a Buddhist-Christian Theology of Creation, Perry Schmidt-Leukel: Preparing the ground; Buddhist criticism and its motives; Bridging the gulf; Conclusion. Index.

'I think the contents of this book are of considerable interest and represent a very important contribution to the discussion of theism in the context of Buddhist-Christian dialogue.' Dr Rupert Gethin, Department of Religions, University of Bristol, UK