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Deus Trinitas: The Doctrine of the Triune God

lightenment. The only way to remedy this deficiency is to eventually change location (most likely in some future life). This position is rarely laid out quite so baldly, since the tradition believes spiritual advance takes place through stages, in which people work with lesser or fuller approximations of truth appropriate to their stage of development. Having traditionally understood parallel or eompeting Buddhist sects in terms of lesser vehides for those at lower stages of development, this group has expanded this spectrum to indude other religious traditions, which may be located somewhere below other Buddhist traditions. The Dalai Lama says often that it is important for seekers to choose the religion that is most suitable for them, that in essenee all religions have the same aim of human betterment and eompassion, that devout practice in any faith can advance one toward that aim and that it is an intrinsically good thing to have religious variety. He says as well that Buddhists feel no compulsion to convert others but only to eontribute to society in their own way and to respond to those who seek knowledge of Buddhism. As D'Costa points out, none of these statements conflict with the exdusivism that actually grounds them. People who hear these statements are apt to take them in another sense, as statements of equality between religions, for instance. But when read through the doctrinal suppositions of this tradition, they have rather a different meaning, affirming the tributary value of religions in a structure defined and crowned by dGe!ugsBuddhism. The Dalai Lama's view is "pluralist" only in rhetoric. And yet it offers significant toleranee and appreciation for other religions. In the second half of the book, D'Costa works out a Christian understanding of nonChristian religions, grounded in the frankly particularistic terms of aRoman Catholic trinitarian theology. He argues that this approach, which implicitly parallels the strengths D'Costa respects in the Dalai Lama's exdusivism, provides a more real-