Vietnamese Syncretism and the Characteristics of Caodaism’s Chief Deity: Problematising Đức Cao Đài as a ‘Monotheistic’ God Within an East Asian Heavenly Milieu

C. Hartney
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Abstract

Caodaism is a new religion from Vietnam which began in late 1925 and spread rapidly across the French colony of Indochina. With a broad syncretic aim, the new faith sought to revivify Vietnamese religious traditions whilst also incorporating religious, literary, and spiritist influences from France. Like Catholicism, Caodaism kept a strong focus on its monotheistic nature and today Caodaists are eager to label their religion a monotheism. It will be argued here, however, that the syncretic nature of this new faith complicates this claim to a significant degree. To make this argument, we will consider here the nature of God in Caodaism through two central texts from two important stages in the life of the religion. The first is the canonized Compilation of Divine Messages which collects a range of spirit messages from God and some other divine voices. These were received in the early years of the faith. The second is a collection of sermons from 1948/9 that takes Caodaist believers on a tour of heaven, and which is entitled The Divine Path to Eternal Life . It will be shown that in the first text, God speaks in the mode of a fully omnipotent and omniscient supreme being. In the second text, however, we are given a view of paradise that is much more akin to the court of a Jade Emperor within an East Asian milieu. In these realms, the personalities of other beings and redemptive mechanisms claim much of our attention, and seem to be a competing center of power to that of God. Furthermore, God’s consort, the Divine Mother , takes on a range of sacred creative prerogatives that do something similar. Additionally, cadres of celestial administrators; buddhas, immortals, and saints help with the operation of a cosmos which spins on with guidance from its own laws. These laws form sacred mechanisms, such as cycles of reincarnation and judgement. These operate not in the purview of God, but as part of the very nature of the cosmos itself. In this context, the dualistic, polytheistic, and even automatic nature of Caodaism’s cosmos will be considered in terms of the way in which they complicate this religion’s monotheistic claims. To conclude, this article seeks to demonstrate the precise relevance of the term ‘monotheism’ for this
越南的融合与曹达教主神的特征:Đức曹Đài作为东亚天堂环境中的“一神论”神的问题
以广泛的融合为目标,新的信仰试图复兴越南的宗教传统,同时也吸收了来自法国的宗教、文学和灵媒的影响。像天主教一样,高教一直强调其一神论的本质,今天的高教教徒渴望给他们的宗教贴上一神论的标签。然而,这里要讨论的是,这种新信仰的融合性在很大程度上使这种说法复杂化。为了提出这个论点,我们将在这里通过来自宗教生活中两个重要阶段的两个中心文本来考虑佛教中上帝的本质。第一个是神圣信息汇编,它收集了一系列来自上帝和其他神圣声音的精神信息。这些都是在信仰的早期接受的。第二部是1948年至1949年的布道集,带领道教信徒们游览了天堂,书名为《通往永生的神圣之路》。它将显示,在第一文本,上帝说话的模式,一个完全无所不能和全知的最高存在。然而,在第二篇文章中,我们看到了一个更类似于东亚环境中玉皇大帝的天堂。在这些领域,其他存在的人格和救赎机制占据了我们的大部分注意力,似乎是与上帝竞争的权力中心。此外,上帝的配偶,神圣的母亲,承担了一系列神圣的创造特权,做一些类似的事情。此外,还有行政干部;佛陀、神仙和圣人帮助宇宙运转,宇宙在其自身法则的指引下运转。这些法则形成了神圣的机制,比如轮回和审判的循环。这些不是在上帝的范围内运作,而是作为宇宙本身本质的一部分。在这样的背景下,佛教宇宙的二元论、多神论,甚至是自动的本质,将被考虑到它们使这个宗教的一神论主张复杂化的方式。综上所述,本文试图证明“一神论”一词与此的确切相关性
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