Abstract

The objective of this study is to reinterpret the idea of God's reality in relation to the world from the perspective of a nondual hermeneutic scheme, which is constructed on the basis of the East Asian worldview and its way of thinking. To achieve the goal of this study, the research process consists of three steps. ;First of all, the writer surveys the five major models of the God-World relation in the Christian tradition and critically examines the three contemporary approaches which try to reconstruct the idea of God in relation to the world. ;Secondly, in the next chapter, the writer formulates a nondual framework on the basis of an East Asian thought, especially Taoist philosophy. By investigating the five key concepts--tao, te, wu-wei, ch'i and yin-yang--the writer describes the East Asian view of reality as nondual, organic, dynamic, and holistic in a theoretical level. The characteristics of its worldview is depicted as cosmo-anthropology, world as dynamic whole, acosmogonic creativity, and world as aesthetic world. In the section of the nondual way of thinking, the writer deals with the characteristics of the yin-yang way of thinking: correlative, both/and, and event thinking. ;Finally, the writer reinterprets the idea of God's reality in relation to the world from three dimensions with three concepts: Change, Rhythm, Spontaneity which are derived from the East Asian thought. With the concept of Change, God is portrayed as "Change itself" that stresses the dynamic aspect rather than the immutable. In relation to the world, the mode of God's being is always in the dynamic pattern of rhythm: God is both transcendence and immanence, both presence and hiddenness, and both personal and impersonal. With the idea of spontaneity derived from the idea of wu-wei , it is conceived that although the spontaneous activity of God is permeating every thing in the world, it never controls or dominates them. Rather the spontaneous activity of God encourages and empowers all things to actualize their uniqueness