Advaita is Sanskrit for “non-dual.” A + dvaita is a + dual.
Christianity is non-dual. This is not to say that it agrees with Shankara’s monism; indeed, it is not to say that Christianity is monist at all. Christianity is not monist; it is pluralist.
It is non-dual in that, as it insists, there is no being whatsoever that is not sourced and ended in God. God is the being of all beings.
It might help for me to flesh this out by means of some metaphors – some exactly true metaphors, some perfect metaphors.
Just as there really are finite numbers, so really are there creatures. There are other things than God, that are definite, and that are definitely not God.
And just as the difference between five and Infinity is infinite, so the difference between finite creature and Infinite Creator is infinite.
But there is no finity apart from the Infinite; no solute apart from the Absolute; no power apart from Omnipotence; no time apart from Eternity; no creature apart from the Creator.
Five is implicit in Infinity, and vice versa; so that five and Infinity come along together, as a package deal. Likewise this instant is implicit in Eternity, and vice versa. So then also likewise is the Creator implicit in the creature, and vice versa.
Yet there is no question as to the logical and ontological priority and superiority in these pairs: Eternity is prior and superior to yesterday morning, and its forecondition; likewise is Infinity to five, and Creator to creature.
Five is not Infinity; they are quite different sorts of things – inasmuch, e.g., as infinity is not a number at all, but a quantity. But five has its being in Infinity, and there is no part or aspect of five that has its being in any other way.
As every finite number implies the Infinite, so is it a sign thereof. Creatures then likewise are signs of their Creator. The signs and meta-signs are all there, right in front of us. Indeed, we are made of them. There is nothing else, but them. Everything is made of signs of God. It’s just that they look to us like ordinary dumb stuff. But in fact, they are all singing, all the time, as they shine.
God is ubiquitous, the Source and End of all things. So everything is a sign of his presence, even Lucifer. How, pray, could it possibly be otherwise, for Omnipotence? But we mistake the meanings of his signs to us, and so usually miss them altogether, because we construe them under the signs of our own devices and desires. We are idolaters. We err, and stray.
He has us already on his shoulders, the whole time.
So, just wait. The sign and the meta-sign have already been given to us, as the very matrix of our life.
Wait, knock, ask. Which is to say, repent, do penance, and pray. Soon enough, you will see that you had already arrived at your true Home, long since, and it will then be opened to you, and you will be answered.
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Kristor,
Which school of Vedanta do you think is the closest to Christian theism?
I would say a good argument can be made that it would be Advaita, but I am not sure if it succeeds. Sankara says, I think in the Viveka Chudemani, that Maya is most strange, neither sat nor asat, being nor non-being. Sara Grant and I believe Alfonso Levee as well, contend that is directly in line with Aquinas’s understanding of contingent being: all creation and God have no more being than God alone; all created being is only participatory. Which leads Martin D’Arcy (who corresponded with Ananda Coomaraswamy, I think) to say in his book on Aquinas that “So close is the connection of God and ourselves that the very word ‘and’ exaggerates it, and yet there is nothing in common.” It seems plausible that that’s precisely what Advaitans are getting at in their metaphysics of identity. And a significant amount of Christian saints, mystics, and metaphysicians have espoused just that view- Catherine of Genoa says that “My God is God; I do not know other outside my very God.”
But then again, under no circumstance could the Christian theist accept the identification of Atman and Brahman. A metaphysical knot, eh?
I think that the closest Vedanta comes to Christian metaphysics is in the Dvaitadvaita (“Dual-Not-Dual”) school of Nimbarka:
Hmmmm It almost seems like you’re saying that the non-contingent is contingent upon the contingent, if infinity is implied by 5.
Where am I going wrong?
Implication is not the same as contingency.
Notice first that 5 is not contingent. It is an eternal form, just like infinity. It does not continge upon infinity, but is an aspect or feature of infinity. Infinity and 5 are mutually implicit. You can’t get infinity without 5, and you can’t get 5 without infinity.
So 5 and infinity imply each other, but neither of them is contingent upon the other. Infinity is not the cause of 5, nor is 5 the cause of infinity.
Creature and Creator are a subtly different case. They imply each other – you can’t characterize a being as a Creator unless there is some creation it creates, and you can’t obtain a creation without a Creator. Likewise, there is no such thing as a father who has never fathered. But the creation is, indeed, contingent upon the Creator. The Creator causes creation, and not vice versa.
The analogy of the relations of 5 to infinity and of creature to Creator is perfect, then, in respect of the identical character of mutual implication present in each relation, but not in respect of the character of contingency present in each relation. It is in respect of the former character that Creator and creature are advaita; it is in respect of the latter that they are dvaita.
So then is it safe to say that eternal forms are contingent upon God? Or that they’re contained in Him as properties, which we experience?
I suspect the latter since God is the only necessary being.
The latter is closer to being accurate. As 5 is not contingent, neither are any of the other forms; all of them are eternal. And, because it is impossible that there should be more than one eternal thing, the eternal forms must somehow or other be aspects of God, rather than concrete eternals in themselves, and disparate from God.
Would they be dependent on God’s Will then or something else?
In other words, could God declare 2+2 makes 5? Or is how numbers (and other things) are a direct experience of God? Or something else?
Well, according to classical Christian metaphysics, it’s both much simpler than that, and also much harder for us to comprehend!
God is simple. He has no parts, and there is in him therefore no sequence. He happens all at once. So there are no causal dependencies in him. So, God didn’t run along for a while without having decided yet about the logical structure of the Forms (e.g., about whether he should make 2 + 2 = 4), and then one day make up his mind and exert his will to make it so. Rather, the logical structure of the Forms is somehow an aspect of God’s own eternal Nature, and given in it – or as it, or something.
The Forms are indeed a direct experience of God, but again, because he is simple, there is no point in his life at which he has not yet experienced them, or anything else for that matter. Nor is it as though he experiences anything by looking outside himself. Ex hypothesi, all his omniscient knowledge is of himself.
Groovy. Thanks.
I think I get it as much as I am able.
Hah! Yeah, me too: not much! It seems to be impossible for us to really *get* divine simplicity, just as it is impossible for finite minds to *get* infinity. We can do the math, but we have a really hard time seeing what the math means.
We can’t encompass him. He encompasses us. Our comprehension of him is like the fish’s comprehension of Ocean.
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