The Coming of Yin Christ: Jesus Christ as the Tao^[1]
 Heup Young Kim

 

Love never ends. But as for prophecies [praxis], they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge [logos], it will come to end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully; even as I have been fully known. And now faith [logos], hope [praxis], and love [tao] abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. (St. Paul, 1 Cor. 13:8-13 NRSV)

 

The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you've gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit; once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words [logos] exist because of meaning; once you�ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man [of the Tao] who has forgotten words so that I can have a word with him? (Chuang-tzu:26).[2]

1.   Problemmatic: Christological Impasse

The contemporary christological crisis consists of two basic problems: modern historicism and the dualism in Western thought between logos and praxis. The most salient example of modern historicism in the biblical field is the quest for the historical Jesus that began in the nineteenth century and continues today through the so-called second and third quests.[3] Demanding historical proofs, these scholars have challenged Christian faith and created a strange dichotomy between the historical Jesus and the kerygmatic Christ, between the earthly Jesus and the risen Christ, or between the pre-Easter Jesus and the post-Easter Christ. They reflect a historical positivism or absolutism, an uncritical attitude toward, or a blind faith in the modern myth of history.[4]

 

The dualism between logos and praxis, two 'root-metaphors' of theology, has deepened with the emergence of liberation theology.[5] Many liberation theologies have radically questioned the relevance of church doctrines to historical situations (esp., in the problem of radical evil). They argue that the primary task of theology has to do with right practice (orthopraxis) to transform unjust socioeconomic conditions, and they reject traditional logos theology (orthodoxy) as oppressively dogmatic, metaphysically abstract, and naively ahistorical. This powerful challenge divides contemporary systematic theology into two major camps, theo-logy and theo-praxis.[6] This division is further sharpened in christology; namely between christo-logy (Christ as [the incarnate] logos) and christo-praxis (Jesus as the praxis [of the reign of God]).[7]

Despite their holistic religious contexts, Asian theologies are also divided into two poles between Asian liberation theologies (liberationists) and Asian theologies of religions (inculturationists). Focusing on the historical situations of Asia, liberationists call for an emancipatory struggle for socioeconomic justice; inculturationists emphasize the contextual and hermeneutical imperative of Asian 'anthropocosmic' (humanity and the cosmos being interrelated) religious visions.[8] A classic example of this dualism appears in the christologies of two great Indian theologians, M. M. Thomas and Raymundo Panikkar.[9] On the one hand, Thomas' a posteriori christology sees the functional Christ in the historical and inner transformation (reformation through modernization) of Asia and Asian religions (The Acknowledged Christ of the Indian Renaissance). On the other hand, Panikkar's a priori christology finds the suprahistorical presence of a homologous Christ in Asian religions (The Unknown Christ of Hinduism). In Korean christologies also there appears a sharp distinction between the two opposite camps of minjung theology (Jesus as the oppressed people) and contextual theology of religions (Christ as the Sage or Bodhisattva).[10]

Hence, dualism is a dilemma prevalent in contemporary christology. It is an unavoidable consequence as long as a christology holds logos as the root-metaphor, because logos, based on dualistic Greek thinking, is vulnerable to an unfortunate split between theory (logos) and practice (praxis), between form and content, or between thought and feeling. Furthermore, blind faith in the modern myth of scientific history forces Western christologies to reach an impasse, as is soberly illustrated by the recent North American debates among scholars surrounding the Jesus Seminar.[11]

How can we get out of this swamp of dualism between logos and praxis and the myth of history? This is the koan (an evocative question or problemmatic) of this paper. How can we construct an East Asian christology that neither neglects historical situations nor falls into Western dualism and historicism? In other words, how can we thematize an emancipatory christology embodied in the soteriological nucleus of Asian anthropocosmic religions?

This christological enterprise may call for an entirely new hermeneutical paradigm with a new root-metaphor. I will argue that tao is such an alternative root-metaphor for Jesus Christ.[12] And I will propose a christotao that may overcome the dualism between christology and christopraxis.[13] Vindications for this adoption are already apparent from several sources. First, from the confessional point of view, the adoption of tao for the formation of East Asian christology is as legitimate as logos was for the fourth-century Christian church in developing the Nicene-Chalcedonian christology. Second, remember that the original title for both Jesus and Christianity was the way (hodos) (John 14:6; Acts 16:17, 18:25, 18:26).[14] Third, contemporary theologies and biblical scholarship illuminate more transparently the viability and cogency of the adoption of tao as an alternative post-modern title and metaphor for Jesus.

Ironically, the third quest for historical Jesus seems to have arrived at a conclusion close to my thesis: that Jesus is more like a sapiential teacher of the Way (tao), a Sage, than either a founder of orthodox religion (logos) or an eschatological revolutionary (praxis).[15] Western theologian J�rgen Moltmann rejected classical logos christology and explicitly employed the way-metaphor in his recent christological formulation. He claims, "I am trying to think of Christ no longer statically, as one person in two natures or as a historical personality. I am trying to grasp him dynamically, in the forward movement of God's history with the world." Moreover, Moltmann submits three reasons for the adoption of the way-symbol: it "embodies the aspect of process," "makes us aware that every human christology is historically conditioned and limited," and "invites" the unity of christology and christopraxis.[16]

Asian theologian Aloysius Pieris has also made a helpful suggestion. He has attempted to overcome the division among Asian theologies between liberationists and inculturationists by formulating an Asian liberation theology of religions through a genuine intrareligious dialogue between Asian religions (Love Meets Wisdom).[17] In his recent book, he divided Christian theology into three patterns -- the logos model ("philosophical or scholastic theology"), the dabhar model ("liberation theology"), and the hodos model ("theology as search for wholeness"), and searched for a holistic model that "weaves together all three aspects of Christian discourse: Jesus as the word that interprets reality, the medium that transforms history, and the way that leads to the cessation of all discourse."[18]

These are some examples of clear signs anticipating the coming of christotao, the tao paradigm of christology. However, the holistic but fundamentally apophatic and elusive universe of tao is strange and foreign to modern people (including modernized Asians). We may need an enlightenment to leap into this new hermeneutical vista from the contemporary linear, scientific worldview. This enlightenment requires an experience more profound than that of "rhythmic pulses" and "cosmic dance of energy" which Fritjof Capra described,[19] for an innocent dance of the cosmos is a romantic interpretation of tao. An adequate interpretation must be more complex, because tao is a fully loaded term as old as logos. Tao has often been used in ideologies of the powerful to oppress the powerless in the political history of East Asia. Tao also should be regarded as a broken symbol in a fragmented form. Thus its interpretation must be not only creative and imaginative but also critical. An imaginative hermeneutics of retrieval should be combined with a proper hermeneutics of suspicion.

Kim Chi Ha, a well-known Korean poet, whose thought and practice motivated Korean Christians to formulate minjung theology (a Korean indigenous liberation theology from the perspective of the oppressed people), wrote an insightful essay in which, I think, he made such a critical but imaginative interpretation of tao.[20] I will use this essay, "The Ugŭmch'i Phenomenon", as a parable to provoke readers to leap into the world of tao so that we may find a solution to the koan (problemmatic) of this paper.[21]

 

2.   A Parable: Return of Fish

Summary of the Ugŭmch'i Phenomenon

To heal his sickness from the long period of imprisonment by the military dictatorship, Kim Chi Ha retired to a small city in the southwestern part of Korea. In front of his house was a little stream. Wastes resulting from regional industrialization now hopelessly polluted the stream, which had been famous for its clean water. Nevertheless, when it rained, the situation changed. The rain not only swept out the wastes but also made the water clean again. Moreover, he was surprised to see many small fish swimming upstream against the flood of water! How could such feeble fish swim upward against such a turbulent flow? This question puzzled him.

During his meditation with his wife, he experienced a transcendental feeling in which his mind became unified with hers so that they were able to read each other's thoughts instantaneously without verbal communication. Suddenly, with this experience, he was enlightened  to the fact that  such a thing  can  happen by the work of sin-ki 神气 [shen-ch'  i] " vital energy." [22]  The movement of one's sin-ki capacitates one to know of the sin-ki of others. When the sin-ki of a feeble fish becomes united with the sin-ki of water, it can swim even against a mighty turbulent flood. Furthermore, as ki 气[ch' i], " energy", always consists of yin 阴 and yang 阳, the ki of water also moves in both directions of yin and yang. From the exuberant palpitation of the sin-ki of many fishes in union with the yin movement of the water, Chi Ha discovered a clue to understanding the mystery of the Ugŭmch'i War[23] in which the feeble minjung - literally a multitude of people (in this case several hundred thousands) - fought vigorously against allied forces of their government and Japanese troops who were armed with powerful mechanized weapons. The collective sin-ki inspired and empowered the minjung to participate courageously in the movement and to be united with the primordial ki, in the same manner as the feeble fish which swim vigorously upstream against the formidable flood to be in union with the yin movement of water. The fierce palpitation of the minjung against the turbulent flood of historical demons is in fact a great cosmic movement united with the yin-yang movement of ki. Chi Ha called this the ugŭmch'i phenomenon.

The first realization of Chi Ha in this parable was an ecological insight that nature (rain) has a self-saving power to bring forth life even in a fateful environment (polluted water) seemingly beyond remedy. He saw hope for life in this spiritually fragmented and ecologically destructive world spawned by the developmental ideology of modern technocized, commercialized, and cemented culture. A more important realization for us, however, is that from the tao world he found the clue to transcending historical dualism and the real source of life energy which outpours such a vigorous vitality to the feeble fish and the minjung in Ugŭmch'i.

This marked a radical turning point for his thought. Before this point, Chi Ha formulated the most creative and subversive Korean hermeneutics of suspicion from the perspective of han, "  the suppressed, amassed and condensed experience of oppression caused by mischief or misfortune so that it forms a kind of '  lump' in one's spirit." [24] Chi Ha's conception of han is comparable to J. B. Metz's notion of " the dangerous memory of collective suffering," though the former refers more closely to a psychosomatic feeling.[25] In a manner similar to Metz�s formulation of dangerous memory, Chi Ha argued for a dialectical praxis of han in which the minjung use the historically accumulated han as the source of transformative energy. He contended that minjung must be awakened to cut themselves from the vicious circle of han-riddenness and participate in the emancipatory movement to resolve their han. This inspired some progressive Korean theologians to formulate minjung theology, and han has become not only a major issue of minjung theology but also a famous idiom in Asian liberation theologies. Some minjung theologians argued even that a main task of theologians is to become a priest of han in order to motivate and participate in a movement of hanpuri (a collective action to release han) of minjung and women.[26] After the enlightenment, however, Chi Ha states:

Aha, I too know now. From the palpitation of the persistent and dynamic sin-ki of the fishes in returning home, [I now understand] the mystery of the Ugŭmch'i War where the exultant sin-ki had the minjung of several hundred thousands jumping soaked with blood and going persistently upstream.... It may end with such misconceptions as a literary expression like the explosion of continuously accumulated han or as a superficial socio-economic observation like an upward uprising or a poverty uprising... Although it looks like that, it is not. Han, poverty, or the demand for class liberation, without the knowledge of the movement of minjung's collective sin-ki that acts in everything, cannot uncover the mystery of Ugŭmch'i... What kind of force on the earth made the minjung of several hundred thousands, who were almost bare handed, armed only with firelocks and bamboo spears, attempt to climb the hill through the scorching fires of the demonic cannons of Japan and the Yi Dynasty?[27] What was the origin of the power that enabled them to advance for freedom, forming a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, experiencing failure after failure, and crossing death over death?...

The collective sin-ki of the self-conscious minjung is a great cosmic movement to be united with the primordial sin-ki of history, i.e., the yin-yang movement of ki, against the demonic currents of the history which poured down against them. I will call this the ugŭmch'i phenomenon. Ah, Ah. The sin-ki of our minjung� has been displaced, alienated, rooted out, oppressed, disgraced, divided, imprisoned, neglected, destroyed, and enslaved by -- therefore, has been slaughtered until now -- the wrong foreign ideas of the West or Japan. Even now, the flags of death are waving in the street. Only few people are searching around for the true subjectivity of minjung. This is the time when we look into the ugŭmch'i phenomenon in order to find our genuine subjectivity.

This passage depicts the moment when Chi Ha finally returned to the old tao world and began to formulate a critical and creative hermeneutics of retrieval in and through the tao tradition. It tells of a paradigm shift in his thought from a Korean version of the dualistic mode of contradiction (han) to the East Asian correlative mode of complementary opposites (yin-yang). The shift involves his enlightenment to the true source of the tremendously life-empowering force manifested by the feeble fishes in the turbulent flood and the multitude of minjung in the Ugŭmch'i War. The key to revealing this mystery of the ugŭmch'i phenomenon is the notion of ki, a very East Asian term. Just like pneuma, ki is not so much dualistic and analytic as holistic and embracing; at the same time, it is both the source (primordial energy) and the medium of primordial empowerment. In the light of this phenomenology of ki, the East Asian anthropocosmic vision can be expanded to the new horizon in the unity of Heaven (God), the human, and Earth (cosmos) through the spirit (ki, pneuma), namely, "  a pneumatoanthropocosmic vision." [28]

Further, this shift involves a hermeneutical leap in his thought, from a linear-historical horizon to the cosmogonic-anthropocosmic horizon of tao. Here is a new Taoist interpretation of history articulated by Chi Ha:

The ki of water moves in both directions of yin and yang. While the yang of water runs the downward movement, the yin of water runs the upward movement. While water flows downward, water flows upward at the same time. In the river, there must occur counter-currents in the majestic movement of big waters! This is a phenomenon that occurs simultaneously in the movement of il-ki (i-ch' i, a primordial energy) of water. This phenomenon arises exactly when the nature of a fish's sin-ki becomes united with the nature of this ki.

Does history progress forward only? No. History progresses forward; at the same time, it goes backward. Although it is stated as a matter of quality and quantity, this is a matter that arises simultaneously..... [It] is not right to say this in terms of either front and back or progression and retrogression. Rather, it would be better to say this in terms of a simultaneously converging-diverging movement of '  in and out' and '  quality and quantity'. And the whole movement after all returns to its origin. It returns, not in vain but creatively. This is the yin-yang movement of il-ki, i.e., a primordial ki of the cosmos. Humans can do this with self-consciousness.

Furthermore, this tao universe consisting in the cosmogonic rhythm of yin-yang compels us to make a paradigm shift in our basic mode of thinking; namely, from the " either-or" thinking of contradiction to the " both-and" thinking of complementarity. In this hermeneutical universe, this is grasped as T'aegŭk 太极 (the Great Ultimate) or I 易 (the Change) through the correlative movement of yin and yang. Chou Tun-i (1017-1073) summarized the cosmogony in An Explanation of the Diagram of the Great Ultimate:

The Ultimate of Non-being [Non-Ultimate] and also the Great Ultimate! The Great Ultimate through movement generates yang. When its activity reaches its limit, it becomes tranquil. Through tranquility the Great Ultimate generates yin. When tranquility reaches its limit, activity begins again. So movement and tranquility alternate and become the root of each other, giving rise to the distinction of yin and yang, and the two modes are thus established.[29]

3.   Tao: A New Root-Metaphor for Jesus Christ

As Jaroslav Pelikan has pointed out, the "momentous" adoption of logos as the title for Jesus (christo-logy) by the fourth-century Christian Church was accompanied by another kind of monumental adaptation of Jesus as the cosmic Christ (the Savior of the cosmos).[30] Although it brought unfortunate consequences in the modern period, the adoption of logos was to articulate not only the cosmic but also the cosmogonic natures of Christ in the Greek philosophical language. The Nicene Creed explicitly states, "We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God ... hrough him, all things were made." This faith in the cosmogonic Christ was not new, but had been already articulated by John and Paul: "All things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Col. 1:16-7; cf. Jn. 1:3).

 

Tao is a metaphor more congenial to the cosmogonic nature of Christ than logos: "Tao is Great in all things, complete in all, universal in all, whole in all. These three aspects are distinct, but the reality is one" (Chuang-tzu: 22).[31] Tao refers to the ultimate reality beyond the realm of naming with any cultural-linguistic metaphor, symbol, and form; it is radically apophatic: "The Tao that can be told of is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; The Named is the mother of all things" (Tao-te ching: 1).[32] Hence, the naming of tao is only heuristic: "I do not know its name; I call it Tao, for the lack of the better word" (Tao-te ching: 25). Remember again that Jesus and primitive Christianity originally had a similar heuristic name, hodos.

Tao-te ching describes tao with basically feminine metaphors: "mother of all things," "the root," "the ground" (of Being), or "the uncarved block" (the original nature). Tao is called "the mystical female": "The spirit of the valley never dies. It is called the mystical female. The gateway of the mystical female is called the root of Heaven and Earth" (6). "Can you play the role of the female in opening and closing the gates of the Heaven?" (10).[33] This feminine vision is based on Lao-tzu' s principle of "  reversal." A. C. Graham explicated that Lao-tzu always put the preferential option to the strategy of yin rather than that of yang in the following chain of oppositions:[34]

 

Yang	Yin	Yang	Yin
Something	Nothing	Before	Behind
Doing Something	Doing Nothing	Moving	Still
Knowledge	Ignorance	Big	Small
Male	Female	Strong	Weak
Full	Empty	Hard	Soft
Above	Below	Straight	Bent

This principle of reversal is closely connected with the principle of return. In fact, this is the hidden source for the vitality depicted metaphorically by the return of fish in the ugŭmch'i phenomenon. " Attain complete vacuity, maintain steadfast quietude. All things come into being, and I see thereby their return. All things flourish, but each one returns to its destiny. To return to destiny is called the eternal (Tao). To know the eternal is called enlightenment" (Tao-te ching: 16).[35] The paradoxical power of weakness and emptiness is further developed in the principle of wu-wei  无为 (non-action action). Bede Griffiths (1907-93), a Benedictine mystic who had lived many years in Indian ashrams, made helpful remarks on the implications of Tao-te ching to Western religion:

The most typical concept in the Tao Te Ching is that of wu wei, that is " actionless activity." It is a state of passivity, of "  non-action", but a passivity that is totally active, in the sense of receptivity. This is the essence of the feminine. The woman is made to be passive in relation to the man, to receive the seed which makes her fertile. But this passivity is an active passivity, a receptivity which is dynamic and creative, from which all life and fruitfulness, all lives and communion grow. The world today needs to recover this sense of feminine power, which is complementary to the masculine and without which man becomes dominating, sterile and destructive. But this means that western religion must come to recognize the feminine aspect of God. This leads to the paradox of the value of emptiness. " We make pots of clay," it is said, "  but it is the empty space in them which makes them useful. We make a wheel with many spokes joined in a hub, but it is the empty space in the hub which makes the wheel go round. We make houses of brick and wood, but it is the empty spaces in the doors and windows that make them habitable." This again is the value of " non-action", what Gandhi called ahimsa.[36]

4.   Korean Quests for Christotao

How can we conceive Jesus Christ with this new root-metaphor? In fact, Korean Christians in this hermeneutical universe have comprehended Christ from this vantage point of tao since the beginning. For Korean Christians, the adoption of tao as the root-metaphor in understanding Christ is no less legitimate but more congenial than logos was for the fourth-century Greco-Roman Christians. The following are three examples of christotao formulated by Korean Christian thinkers, Yi Pyŏk, Ryu Young-mo, and Lee Jung Young.

Jesus as the Crossroads of the Heavenly Tao and the human tao: Lao-tzu claimed that the ultimate Tao (the Way) is apophatic and ineffable beyond human reason and language. At the same time, however, he said even more about sapiential taos (ways) of life (te, 德 ). Tao refers to the heuristic metaphor not only for the ineffable ultimate but also for practical ways people can participate in the transformative praxis of the anthropocosmic trajectory. In the history of East Asian thought, this distinction is normally recognized by the complementary opposites of Taoism and Confucianism.[37] Taoist tradition takes more seriously the apophatic dimension of the Ultimate (the Heavenly Way); Confucian tradition focuses on the kataphatic side of human living (the human way). Hence, Yi Pyŏk (1754-86), the brightest Neo-Confucian scholar of his time, the first Christian theologian in Korea, and the spiritual founder of the Korean Catholic Church, found the unity of these two taos in Jesus Christ.[38] Yi conceived Christ as the Sage par excellence, the crossroads of the Heavenly Way and the human way, in whom divinity and humanity become united.[39]

Jesus as Being-in-Non-Being: Ryu Young-mo (1890-1981), a Korean Christian-Taoist ascetic, heavily influenced by Confucianism and Buddhism, thematized the cosmogonic Christ from the deepest heart of the East Asian hermeneutical universe of tao. The statement on the Non-Ultimate and the Great Ultimate in the Chou Tun-i' s diagram denotes the ultimate complementary and paradoxical opposites of the ineffable Vacuity and the Cosmogony. From the vantage point of this supreme cosmogonic paradox of Tao, Ryu "  understood the cross as both the Non-Ultimate and the Great Ultimate... Jesus is the one who manifested the ultimate in Asian cosmology. Through the sacrifice of himself, he achieved genuine humanity (jen, 仁 ). That is to say, by offering himself as a sacrifice, he saved the human race and opened the kingdom of God for humanity." [40]

In Christ, the Non-Ultimate and the Great Ultimate become one. In the historical scene, this is revealed as the affectionate and filial relation between father and son, as Jesus uttered, " I [the Son] am in the Father and the Father is in me" (John 14:11). Ryu described the cross as " the blood of the flower" (kkotpi)[41] through which the Son reveals the glory of the Father and the Father the glory of the Son. Seeing the blossom of this flower of Jesus (at the cross), he envisioned the glorious blossom of the cosmos (cosmogony). For Ryu, "the cross is a rush into the cosmic trajectory, resurrection is a participation in the revolution of the cosmic trajectory, and lighting up the world is the judgment sitting in the right-hand side of God."[42]

From the perspective of the supreme paradox of non-being and being, Ryu formulated furthermore a unique Korean pneumato-apophatic christotao. He called Jesus "the Primordial Breathing (sumnim)." Jesus is the One who "Is" in spite of "Is-Not," that is to say, "Being-in-Non-Being (Ŏpshi-gyeshin nim)." Whereas we are those of non-being-in-being, He is the One of Being-in-Non-Being. Whereas we are the "forms" that are "none other than emptiness" (Heart Sutra), He is the "emptiness" that is "none other than form."[43]

Jesus as the Perfect Realization of Change: Lee Jung Yong (1935-95), a Korean constructive theologian, formulated an East Asian christology in a systematic fashion with the metaphysics of change. Advocating for change as an appropriate mode of future theology, Lee argued consistently for a paradigm shift in the theological mode of thinking from the substantial mode (being), through process (becoming), to that of change (being and becoming).[44] As the discoveries of modern physics such as Einstein's relativity theory and quantum theory have revealed, the ultimate reality is neither so much being (substance) in Greek metaphysics (Aristotelian logic, Euclidean geometry, and Newtonian physics), nor becoming in (Whiteheadian) process metaphysics, as being and becoming in the Change (or the Great Ultimate in the complementary opposites of yin and yang)."Change is, then, the matrix of all that was, is, and shall be. It is the ground of all being and becoming. Thus theology of change, which characterizes the ultimate as both being and becoming."[45]

The "either-or" logic is so deeply rooted in the intellectual life of the West that it is hard for Western theology (including process theology) to transcend it. However, the either-or logic is false as Wilfred Smith also said: "In all ultimate matters, truth lies not in an either-or, but in a both-and."[46] Lee argued, the "both-and" logic of change is the right metaphysics of theology (God as the Change). "Change in the I-Ching is certainly beyond categorization. It is simultaneously personal and impersonal, male and female, immanent and transcendent."[47] This total affirmation (both-and), however, is complementary to the total negation (neither-nor). In the supreme paradox, the Great Ultimate signifies the total affirmation; the Non-Ultimate the total negation. Hence, God as the great Tao is simultaneously personal and impersonal, male and female, immanent and transcendent; at the same time, however, it is neither personal nor impersonal, neither male nor female, neither immanent nor transcendent.

Furthermore, Jesus Christ can be conceived as the perfect realization of Change:

In Jesus as the Christ man and God are in perfect harmony. Jesus' identity does not preclude his humanity but presupposes it, just as yang presupposes the existence of yin. Furthermore, perfect humanity presupposes perfect divinity. In his perfect complementarity of divinity and humanity, or of the change and the changing, he is both perfect man and perfect God. Being the symbol of perfect harmony between the change and the changing, Jesus Christ is the ultimate reality of change and transformation.[48]

Christ as the perfect realization of Change is also both personal and impersonal, male and female, and individual and communal.[49]

Lee's proposal, though it has many brilliant points, has not been paid as much attention to as it deserves. His proposal is, perhaps, metaphysically positivistic and excessively rhetorical, as if making a universal claim for change as an alternative metaphysics for a new theology. His hermeneutics of retrieval is excellent, but innocent and romantic, without a proper hermeneutics of suspicion upon his own tradition. His theology is a good model for Asian speculative theology of religions; but not for Asian liberation theology, another pole of Asian theology, without sufficient consideration of historical situations. In a passionate polemic against Western metaphysics of contradiction, Lee, contrary to his intention, also fell into the metaphysical assumption that tao can be named objectively. However, tao by definition cannot be described objectively but only heuristically. Tao as the constant change has no fixed face; it has many faces constantly changing from context to context and from people to people. Hence, in the dynamic hermeneutics of tao, the context and the role of an interpreter are mutually important. Tao hermeneutics is a creative and holistic engagement consisting of an interpreter (a community of interpretation), the context, and the trajectory of tao. At the same time, it itself is a tao (skill) for an interpreter to discern how she or he can participate appropriately in the cosmic movement of tao at any given time.

5.   Jesus Christ as the Theanthropocosmic[50] TAO

A more profound dimension of tao thinking lies in the possibility of christological utterance with respect to the ultimate in such a way that the ineffable tao can be somehow articulated while transcending fallacies of metaphysical positivism; namely, by the both-and and the neither-nor mode of thinking. In fact, the genius of the Nicene-Chalcedonian formulas lies in its articulation of the ultimate and cosmogonic nature of Christ beyond the Greek dualistic framework. Christian faith empowered the fourth-century Christians to transcend the either-or logic of Greek philosophy. The Nicene Creed (325) used the both-and mode to articulate Christ as both vere deus and vere homo. Furthermore, the Chalcedonian formula (451) employed the neither-nor mode to express that the two natures in the Christ are neither confused, changed, divided, nor separated. To say it more sharply in East Asian terms, the fourth-century Christians intuitively had perceived the cosmogonic nature of Christ as the supreme paradox of the Great Ultimate (total affirmation of the both-and) and the Non-Ultimate (total negation of the neither-nor).

In fact, this tao mode of paradoxical thought appears not only in the Gnostic Gospels but also in creative early Christian theologians such as Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 395) and Dionysius the Areopagite (fl. 500), in Christian mystics such as Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), Meister Eckhart (d. 1327), and Julian of Norwich (b. 1343), and most explicitly in the principle of coincidentia oppositorum formulated by Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64).[51] Remember that St. Paul already proclaimed, "  There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female ... in Christ" (Gal. 3:28).

Christ as the New T� aegŭk: With Ryu' s profound pneumato-apophatic insights, christotao can be further thematized. Jesus is the Tao, the supreme paradox of the Great Ultimate and the Non-Ultimate (T� aegŭk and Mugŭk 無極), the Primordial Breathing, the Being-in-Non-Being, and the complete emptiness (kenosis or sunyata) that is none other than the complete form. The cross refers to the rush to the cosmic path, and resurrection signifies the christological transformation of the theanthropocosmic trajectory. The crucifixion of Jesus was a cosmogonic crucifixion which changed the cosmic path. Furthermore, it signifies a radical opening of the vicious circle of the old metaphysical world of Tao (T' aegŭk and I).[52] This is the great openness of the Ultimate. The cosmogony of the old T� aegŭk was crucified into the Mugŭk, and resurrected as the New T� aegŭk, i.e., a great eschatological movement of the supreme paradox. It is neither just a dogmatic revolution (logos) nor only a messianically inspired social revolution (praxis), but it is a cosmogonic revolution (tao). The christotao of the crucified and risen T 'aegŭk entails the cosmogonic revolution of the Christ. Christ rushed into  the old anthropocosmic cycle of T� aegŭk through the crucifixion, changed it to the new "  serendipitous" theanthropocosmic trajectory (Tao), and opened the new aeon of T' aegŭk.[53]

Christ as the Serendipitous Pneumatosociocosmic Trajectory: This new serendipitous theanthropocosmic trajectory is real, but hidden. It is not yet fully waxed, but eschatological.[54] The ugŭmch'i phenomenon renders ki (pneuma) as a significant hermeneutical key, which introduces a pneumatoanthropocosmic vision. Ki, a holistic and embracing term, signifies both the spiritual power and its material manifestation, and both the source of primordial ki and the medium of its empowerment. The pneumatoanthropocosmic vision can cultivate a symbiosis of the life network through the communication of ki which fosters the human race's relationship with other lives more holistically and profoundly.

Furthermore, this vision invites us to thematize the sociocosmic biography of the exploited life, creatively pushing beyond the dialectical sociobiography of minjung and the innocent anthropocosmic vision.[55] Theotao tells the story of the sociocosmic network of the exploited life constituted by the spiritual communion of ki whose primordial ki is salvific, both emancipatory and reconcilatory. The ugŭmch'i phenomenon is an example of the sociocosmic biography of the exploited life, metaphorically telling the story of the two exploited lives, the feeble fishes in the turbulent stream and the multitude of minjung in the Ugŭmch'i War. In addition, ki as both spirit and matter can be a clue to solve the problem of incarnation. The birth story of Jesus depicts the pneumatoanthropocosmic vision par excellence, and the passion narratives of Christ tell the sociocosmic biography of the exploited life par excellence. Therefore, Jesus Christ as the theanthropocosmic Tao entails the serendipitous pneumatosociocosmic trajectory in the life-giving spirit of the primordial ki.

Since the pneumatic hermeneutics of ki and the sociocosmic biography of the exploited life are its constitutive parts, christotao (Christ as the Tao, the serendipitous pneumatosociocosmic trajectory) is a spiritual and emancipatory christology. Hence, christotao (Christ as the New T'aegŭk) is a paradigm of emancipatory christology embodied in the soteriological nucleus of Asian spirituality. That is to say, christotao (Jesus as the theanthropocosmic Tao) is an appropriate solution to the koan of this paper, overcoming modern historicism and Western dualism, the two basic problems of the contemporary christological impasse.

6.   The Coming of Yin Christ

Christ as the New T'aegŭk (both yang and yin) is both divine and human, male and female, personal and impersonal, individual and communal. Nonetheless, this description is erroneous if it falls again into an objective and abstract description of Christ as the old T'aegŭk. But christotao must involve a prophetic hermeneutics of the Tao of Jesus Christ as the New T'aegŭk -- that is to say, a responsibility to expose the new manifestation of pneumatocosmogonic transformation, i.e., the great reversal of the Tao. Whereas the time of yang Christ is waning, the period of yin Christ is waxing! Griffiths affirmed:

This may sound very paradoxical and unreal, but for centuries now the western world has been following the path of Yang--of the masculine, active, aggressive, rational, scientific mind--and has brought the world near destruction. It is time now to recover the path of Yin, of the feminine, passive, patient, intuitive and poetic mind. This is the path which the Tao Te Ching sets before us.[56]

Indeed, we are now witnessing a kairological moment of the great christological turning point. I-ching describes: "After a time of decay comes the turning point. The powerful light that was banished returns. There is movement, but it is not brought about by force... thus the movement is natural, arising spontaneously... The old is discarded and the new is introduced."[57] There are already plenty of these natural and spontaneous signs for the coming of Yin Christ; for example, eco-feminist (sister), sophia, Christo Mater, Christa, female, Black and Asian womanist, liminal-marginal, and the second axial cosmic christologies.[58] The contemporary christological impasse is de facto an impasse of the white androcentric logos christologies, namely, the impasse of yang Christ. Those christologies are false and based on an ethnocentric myth whose demythologization provokes some emotional and awkward scholarship, the clear signs that they have reached their points of reversal. Remember that T'aegŭk has the subtle principle of reversal: When yang reaches its maximum intensity, it will revert to yin. Hence, in fact, this is a most creative moment for the interpretation of Jesus Christ. Whereas those "masculine, expansive, demanding, aggressive, competitive, rational, analytic" yang ('old') christologies are 'decarded,' "feminine, contractive, conservative, responsive, cooperative, intuitive, synthesizing" yin ('new') christotaos are 'introduced.'[59] The contrast between the yang christology and the yin christotao can be characterized as follows:[60]

Yin                      <--                       Yang                                               Yin               <--          Yang

tao                                                   logos/praxis                               feminine                     masculine

christotao                                        christology/christopraxis             uterine (womb)           phallo

intuitive (contemplative)                   analytic (rational)                        wholistic                    dualistic    

apophatic (kenotic)                         kataphatic (phonocentric)           mutuality                    domination

circular (cyclical)                            linear (historical)                          receptivity                  violence

wu-wei (non-action action)            yu-wei (action action)

 

Christ as Mystical-Prophetic Female: In the coming ages, Jesus as the Tao will be the mystical female, the cosmic womb. Christ as the New T'aegŭk will be the prophetic cosmogonic energy. And Jesus Christ will be the "Mystical-Prophetic" Female who embraces and heals the sociocosmic trajectory of the exploited life in her great bosom.[61] Christ the Tao will overcome the cosmic violence with her mysterious power of wu-wei (non-action action), with her paradoxical power of weakness and emptiness (according to Graham, 'the preferential option to the strategy of yin'), and with her revolutionary power of the return.[62] Tao-te ching states, "In Tao the only motion is returning; The only useful quality, weakness. For though Heaven and Earth and the Ten thousand Creatures were produced by Being, Being was produced by Non-being" (40). The ugŭmch'i phenomenon is a metaphorical example of these mysterious, paradoxical, revolutionary, and radical powers of return. The return of fish introduces a simple sign for the Great Return of the Mystical-Prophetic Female (the Tao) with the cosmogonic breathing of the Primordial Ki.

The millennial crusade of the patriarchal, hegemonic (kataphatic), phallo-onto-christology with the Western face of the yang (masculine) Viking-Rambo Jesus is now waning; a millennial march of the matrilineal, kenotic (apophatic), uterine-sapiential-christotao in the Asian heart of the yin (feminine) Sage Christ is rising. Through great non-action action in her uterine tranquility and sociocosmic serenity, Christ as the Mystical-Prophetic Female will heal this fragmented, divided, world torn down by the aggressive lynching of incarnated macho images, and will recover the harmonious wholeness through a radical return to the pneumatosociocosmic trajectory. The revolutionary non-action action is the dynamic spiritual upward movement of life against the apocalyptically disastrous downstream of history. Christ will dance not just an innocent cosmic dance but a revolutionary pneumatosociocosmic dance of life reverting upward against and transforming the vicious downstream of gloomy history together with (perichoresis) the feeble fishes in the polluted river (the exploited nature) and the minjung in Ugŭmch'i (the marginalized people).

Then, the task of Christian theology in the coming age will be the telling of the Tao of Jesus Christ, that is, the sociocosmic narrative of her and his pneumatic dancing with the exploited lives to transform the theanthropocosmic trajectory to the right path (so to speak, orthotao). Jesus Christ is the New T'aegŭk who has completed and generates the cosmogonic paradigm shift through crucifixion and resurrection. Christ as the theanthropocosmic Tao is also the outpouring primordial ki, the life-generating Energy-Spirit who empowers the exploited lives to return to the serendipitous pneumatosociocosmic trajectory.

Chuang-tzu had Confucius saying: "Ki is empty and waits for the external things. Only the Tao gathers in emptiness. The cause of emptiness is the fasting of the mind-and-heart" (4). After all, Christ the Tao directs us to 'return' to the Tao, like the fish of the ugŭmch'i phenomenon, in the radical power of emptiness (kenosis) and reversal (Sermon on the Mount), through the fasting of the mind-and-heart (metanoia), under the direction of the Spirit (sin-ki). And Jesus said to Simon and Andrew: "Follow me and I will make you fish for people" (Mark 1:17).[63]