<italic>The Dream of the Red Chamber</italic> and Christian theology: Seeking a new philosophy of love from the Christian perspective.

Abstract: <italic>The Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng</italic> or <italic>The Story of the Stone)</italic>, composed by Cao Xueqin in the middle of the eighteenth century during the Qing dynasty, is celebrated as the greatest of all classical Chinese novels. However, little effort has been made to explore its theological dimension, as well as the theological interaction with Chinese classical philosophy in the field of Redology (the name for research around this text). This article aims to fill this gap to explore the theological influences upon the thematic ideas of this novel. Attending to the newly discovered theological materials in recent studies, I argue that the author of <italic>Honglou meng</italic> is not ignorant of Christianity, and in fact, used a triadic image to refer to the trinitarian persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]