HUMILITY115HUAYAN SCHOOL (a.k.a. HUA-YEN
SCHOOL). The Huayan School of
Mahayana Buddhism, known in Japan as
the Kegon School, emerged in the early
seventh century, growing out of study of
the Av at a m s a k a S u t ra (Chinese: Huayan
jing; Japanese: Kegonkyō). Using the meta-
phor of Indra’s Net, in which each ele-
ment of reality is reflected in each other
element, the Huayan School teaches the
interrelationship and interpenetration of
all aspects of reality. The Huayan School
had a significant influence of the devel-
opment of the Neo-Confucian cosmol-
ogy of the Supreme Ultimate and the
dualism of li (principle) and qi (matter or
material force).
HUGH OF St. VICTOR (1096–1141).
A highly influential contributor to mysti-
cal theology. He charted the ascent of the
soul to God though the stages of knowl-
edge, meditation, and contemplation.
His theological work on the sacraments
was accepted by Peter Lombard who
was instrumental in shaping the Roman
Catholic late medieval view of liturgy and
sacred rites. His works include On the
Sacraments of Christian Faith (c. 1134),
Didascalion, On the Mystic Ark, On the
Union of Soul and Body, and On the Soul.
HUMANISM. A term that today is often
thought to imply secularism, but was
originally used more broadly to refer to
those who gave a central focus and value
to human life. Erasmus and Thomas More
(now St. Thomas More, since his canon-
ization in 1935) were humanists but
hardly secular (except in the older, gen-
eral sense in that they were not monks).HUME, DAVID (1711–1776). Scottish
empiricist philosopher and historian. In
philosophy of religion he is most keenly
studied for his critique of natural theology
in Dialogues on Natural Religion (1779),
his case against the rational plausibility of
believing that miracles occur, his defense
of the moral legitimacy under some cir-
cumstances to commit suicide, his case
against an afterlife, and his thesis that the
internal self is as much a non-rational
belief as believing in the uniformity of
external nature throughout time. Scholars
are divided on Hume’s final views on God,
but it is likely he held a thin form of deism,
acknowledging that the cause and order
of the cosmos could very well be due to a
force that has some analogy to the human
mind. The net effect of his Dialogues
and other works has been to undermine
theistic arguments from design, contin-
gency, miracles, and so on. Hume’s other
works include A Treatise of Human Nature
(1739, 1740), Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding (1748), Enquiry Concern-
ing the Principles of Morals (1751), History
of England (1754–1762), and Natural His-
tory of Religion (1757).HUMILITY. Humility is a virtue with
a checkered history. We find reference
to it in both the Christian and Jewish