Independent  Study     Gabriel  Morgan  Rajashekar     Spring  2014  

Critical Perspectives in Religious Epistemology:

a case study of Advaita Vedānta and Islamic Philosophy

Introduction

This paper will explore the ways in which the epistemological perspectives of two

religious traditions may help to bring some balance to contemporary western debates concerning

religious epistemology. Specifically, this paper looks at Islamic epistemology according to

Mehdi Ha’iri Yazdi, and the religious epistemology of Advaita Vedānta according to several

Śaṃkara scholars and some of its critics. The epistemologies advocated by both of these

traditions resemble some aspects of phenomenology in European philosophy. For example, like

phenomenology, they both advocate a definition of knowledge as immanent presence to

consciousness, which they consider to be a more primordial way of knowing than

correspondence. The Hindu tradition of philosophy is extraordinarily insightful in this area, and

further contributes to the general task of religious epistemology by showing not only the need for

methodological criteria that emerge from the subject-matter itself (Boyd 1989, 232), but also of

the importance of oral recitation of scripture as verbal testimony for religious epistemology and

the correlative deconstruction of the strict dichotomy between writing and oral recitation

(Graham 1993, 67-77; Coburn 1989, 102-22). The bulk of the paper will be focused on these

respective epistemological systems, but will begin with an analysis of the Islamic perspective of

Yazdi as it transitions nicely into the subject matter.

Lastly, I will offer some Christian perspectives on these positions. I argue that Christian

dogmatics has something to gain from these traditions, including but not limited to the points

noted above. I also argue that they benefit Christian theology by clarifying certain constrasts.

Morgan     2  

Specifically, as these authors will themselves show, their positions are roughly equivalent to that

of the contemplative ascent of Neoplatonism, in contrast to a trinitarian epistemology when

deployed within an ontology of creation ex nihilo. For the former, the Logos mediates “the One”

by a progressive ladder of consciousness on the basis of an ontology of emanation, for which

knowledge is constituted by the stripping away of mental constructions in order to realize an

already existing ontological continuity with the divine. For the latter, the Logos mediates the

Father by combining two ontologically different realities, humanity and God, the created and the

uncreated, in a single person. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Nehemiah Goreh both argued, this

latter view stems from a word that proclaims a real beginning (DBWE 3:26; Boyd 1989, 46).

Islamic Epistemology

Mehdi Ha’iri Yazdi challenges the presumption of western philosophy to disparage

certain species of knowledge that do not fall within the subject-object dichotomy, such as what

can be scientifically verified or conceptualized according to a correspondence theory of truth.

Seeking to find the most primordial and ontological foundation of all knowledge, and thereby to

reconcile the concepts of Plato and Aristotle, i.e. between knowledge as intellectual vision and as

correspondence, Islamic philosophy asserts a theory of knowledge as presence, based upon an

ontology of emanation.

Yazdi begins by unpacking the historical forerunners of this view both from within and

without Islamic philosophy. Avicenna for example developed the philosophy of emanation;

Averroes a theory of knowledge as existential unification with the divine substance; and

Suhrawardi the first impulse toward a theory of knowledge as presence. Yazdi also

Morgan     3  

acknowledges, however, that this theory has significant roots in the neo-Platonic tradition

beginning with Plotinus, which represents the oldest form of this theory (Yazdi 1992, 9).

However, following a line more closely parallel to phenomenology, Yazdi argues that

Islamic philosophy goes further than neo-Platonism by asking “whether or not there are

existential grounds for all modes of human apprehension and epistemology, that is, grounds for

all modes of human knowledge” (Yazdi 1992, 10). Specifically, Yazdi is concerned, like his

predecessors within Islamic philosophy, to provide a framework within which mystical

apprehension or ‘irfān is understood as a valid source of knowledge that transcends the subject-

object dichotomy of more standard epistemological considerations (Yazdi 1992, 22-3). But in

order to do this, one must ask about the fundamental nature of all philosophical claims, to raise

an inquiry into metaphilosophy, following in the footsteps of Mullā Ṣadrā.

Such a metaphilosophy must begin, like for phenomenology, with Aristotle’s concept of

‘intentionality’, according to which we distinguish between two kinds of human action,

‘immanent action’ and ‘transitive action’ (Yazdi 1992, 27). With this corresponds a distinction

between the object of consciousness considered objectively, or as it exists in itself, and the object

of my consciousness immanently, that is, as it is presented to me subjectively.

Therefore, in this sequence of causation the idea of the object comes first, and is regarded as the prime cause of the cause of causation in the system of causality. And the objective reality of the same thing constitutes the last and final cause of the immanent act of knowledge (Yazdi 1992, 29).

As Husserl had explained it, following Aristotle and Brentano, all mental acts are defined by

intentionality, namely, that they intend some object. However, unlike for Husserl, the

epistemological question is not here bracketed for Aristotle’s correspondence theory, but made

the central consideration: the immanent mental act intends a certain object immanently, and may

or may not find objective fulfillment externally in a real object.

Morgan     4  

Thus, we end up with a threefold theory of knowledge by correspondence, “namely, the

subject as the knower, the object as the thing known, and the relation among them as knowing”

(Yazdi 1992, 30). However,

The distinction between subjective objects and objective objects does not merely serve to show how these two kinds of objects are bound together, providing a communion between the external and internal worlds of existence. In addition, the distinction enables us to understand that in our knowledge of the external world there is always an essentiality combined with a sense of probability in the relation between these two kinds of objects. The essentiality is that of the subjective objects, and is understood by the very definition of the notion of knowledge. The probability is that of the objective object. They both have to join together in order to make up our knowledge of external objects. Probability here means that those objective objects may or may not truly correspond to the subjective objects. Probability, however, characterizes our phenomenal knowledge (Yazdi 1992, 31).

Here “phenomenal knowledge” corresponds roughly with Husserl’s notion of the “natural

attitude.”

Yet, Yazdi now raises a problem very similar to Heidegger’s reflections on the problem

of correspondence: how can the truth of a correspondence be confirmed if, as Kant objected,

every conception of the external object to which my internal concept corresponds is itself another

immanent object of the mind? For, according to Kant, it is a contradiction in terms to speak of

any thought of the reality in itself, for all objects of cognition are necessarily conditioned by the

categories of the understanding. Thus, if the correspondence theory is pressed too hard it reduces

to absurdity because we never reach the thing in itself. So we arrive at an epistemological aporia.

Can Aristotle’s model be permitted to move to a point wherein the immanent and transitive

objects of conscious mental acts are identical? Yazdi in this way intends to answer Kant’s

critique, while still admitting Aristotle’s thesis that “the intellect and what is understood are

identical [idem est intellectus et intellectum]” (Yazdi 1992, 32). For epistemology requires a

solution wherein we have knowledge of real external objects without collapsing the distinction

Morgan     5  

between objects as they are immanently presented to my consciousness and transitive objects as

they exist in themselves in the world.

“From all this we are now able to understand how these circumstances justify

suppositions by illuminative-oriented thinkers, such as Mullā Ṣadrā, who asserted that things

belonging to the order of the external world are to be held as absent objects as opposed to present

objects” (Yazdi 1992, 38). Since essentiality and necessity are constitutive of the very notion of

knowledge, and because only immanent objects can be so essential and necessary, it is in fact not

correspondence but immanent presence that proves to be the most fundamental meaning of the

term ‘knowledge’ (Yazdi 1992, 31-2). Yazdi concludes:

the analysis of the notion of knowledge logically implies that since the object is nothing but the immanent and essential, the meaning of the objectivity of this object is, as we have just shown, analytic and manifested in the very constitution of knowing. The transitive object, on the other hand, being on the whole accidental, does not constitute the essential core of human consciousness. The transitive object is thus constitutive only when the knowledge of an external object is in question. This is a particular species of knowledge that we shall in our terminology call “knowledge by correspondence” as opposed to “knowledge by presence.” However, in the primordial form of knowledge that is knowledge by presence, and all the more in the theory of knowledge, the external transitive object does not serve as a constituent part of the general concept of knowledge at all (Yazdi 1992, 40).

Because knowledge by presence is “noetic and objective by its nature,” it therefore

“satisfies all essential conditions of the conception of knowledge, although it has no transitive

accidental object” (Yazdi 1992, 41). It likewise is “not eligible for falsity” because there is no

possibility of failure for correspondence (Yazdi 1992, 50). For this reason, knowledge by

presence cannot be categorically denied any objectivity. We will hear Vedānta make very similar

claims later on. “Likewise, there is no reason to call for a kind of transubjectivity in mystical

apprehension which is, as we shall see, a species of knowledge by presence” (Yazdi 1992, 41).

Such knowledge by presence, unlike the Aristotelian theory of correspondence, does not

conceive of knowledge as the complex relation between two objects, but rather seeks to show

Morgan     6  

something about the already fundamental ontological unity that persists prior to phenomenal

knowing (Yazdi 1992, 51). This is similar to Heidegger’s fundamental ontology in his critique of

skepticism concerning the reality of the external world, which proves prior to any

epistemological investigation to be ontologically constitutive of Dasein. Similar arguments can

also be found in Merleau-Ponty and in Husserl’s later writings on the lifeworld.

Abstraction in Aristotle’s system is then placed in a new light.

“Abstraction, therefore, is not to be construed as the sum of perceiving the whole material object, then separating its form from the matter keeping the form in the mind, and leaving the matter in the external world. The subjective power of knowing does not, and cannot, import anything from outside itself. It is rather the innate power of representation of the pure forms of things that makes the simple essence of our knowledge possible. On this illuminative basis, all kinds of our knowledge enjoy a proportionate degree of transcendentality. An empirical sense-perception, for instance, because of being a sense-representation of the pure form of a physical object, counts as an imperfect primitive form of the transcendental object. The existential status of a sense-perception can never be classified as a material object; it is, rather, an immaterial entity that represents the pure form of the material object. It stands for the form of that material object without having its external matter” (Yazdi 1992, 40).

Yazdi now proceeds to make a claim concerning this ontological unity, namely the

common emanation of all being from the first Principle, the One, or God. In the vacuum of

nothing, no other objects or even time and space within which objects can exist, Yazdi asks:

“How and in what manner did God, as the First Cause, relate Himself to another thing as His first

effect and bring it into being, while there was nothing of any element of being to start with?”

(Yazdi 1992, 51). This argument is very similar to Plotinus’ positing of a third mediation

between the One and the Logos, namely an active monad which emanated from the One and

which could therefore generate the Logos. For if “the One” is eternal and changeless, how can it

“do” anything?

Again, by a further hypothesis one can, for the sake of clarity, conceive that the first effect, because of its simplicity, is so absorbed in that overwhelming light of the Principle that it is existentially indistinguishable, and literally undetachable from the existential radiance of

Morgan     7  

the First Cause. If so, how can we possibly account for the relation between one separate existence and the other? Can the relation of two such things be expressed by a language other than that of illuminative relation? (Yazdi 1992, 51).

Thus, Yazdi predictably concludes that there is no alternative to the language of “illumination

and emanation as distinct from causation by generation and corruption” (Yazdi 1992, 52). So we

have an epistemology of presence that is “based entirely upon the analysis of emanation” (Yazdi

1992, 115).

The central point at issue in this rather peculiar doctrine is that the hierarchy of emanation implies continuity and total dependence of the lower mode of emanation upon its immediate principle which is, in turn, totally dependent on its own immediate principle (Yazdi 1992, 117).

This continuity is that primordial ontological continuity that constitutes the prior intimacy

between the subject and object of knowledge prior to the division into the subject-object scheme

of regular, day-to-day phenomenal knowing.

Yazdi then proceeds to deal with Thomist objections to the theory of emanation, namely

that it predicates of God a nonrational and nonintentional act (Yazdi 1992, 119). Yazdi points out

that Avicenna and other classical Islamic philosophers knew of this problem, and asked whether

a Necessary Being could have contingent or non-necessary intentional acts and will. “Can God

be a Necessary Being in His essence, but a contingent and possible being in His will and

knowledge of the universe and in His creation and, for that matter, in all of His attributes?”

(Yazdi 1992, 120). His answer, following Avicenna, is to argue that, no, a Necessary Being

cannot be contingent in will; the very question is rendered nonsensical by the emanative

paradigm itself. This is similar to Tillich’s argument that there is no distinction in God between

freedom and necessity, which he held in his ongoing debate with Barth.

So Yazdi illustrates his Plotinian ontology by a pyramidal diagram with descending

levels of being, each of which mediate the level prior and after. Because of this emanative

Morgan     8  

continuity, there is a direct analogy between God’s relation with the world, which is His

emanation, and that between the self and its “imagination and private states” (Yazdi 1992, 130).

We can therefore apply the same methods used in this local relationship to the cosmic, such as

the modes and forms of modal logic. All statements can then be placed into the modal

disjunctive of either being necessary, possible, or impossible. God’s existence, for example,

cannot be merely possible, since this would not be the God who is the eternal origin of all things.

But God’s existence is also not impossible, for there is no overwhelmingly persuasive argument

against it. Therefore, the only disjunctive remaining, by process of elimination, is that God’s

existence is necessary. Yazdi does not consider “unnecessary” to be a logically legitimate fourth

option.

The ultimate purpose of this model, however, is not simply to establish and remain at the

level of modal logic and phenomenal knowing within the subject-object dichotomy, but indeed to

transcend that dichotomy in a mystical recognition of the primordial unity of being of God and

the universe.

In illuminative philosophy this relation is, as we said before, called “the ascending ladder” of existence (al-silsilat al-su’ūdyah). A mystic ascends to unitary consciousness and becomes united with God in the sense of absorption (Yazdi 1992, 146).

Here we refer to an ascent of conscious awareness wherein the subject-object dichotomy is

finally left behind. The knowledge gained in this mystical awareness is meant, among other

things, to confirm and illuminate what is revealed through sacred scripture.

Now one might think that the knowledge of God by presence is understood ultimately as

the identity of self with God (Yazdi 1992, 148). Just as God is inseparable from his “act” of

emanation, from which my own being is derived, so the knowledge by presence of this

emanation is also knowledge of God. Eventually one may come to perceive, in the transcendence

Morgan     9  

of the subject-object dichotomy, that in fact the ontological continuity of self and God actually

constitutes an identity. Following Plato, Yazdi argues however that this cannot hold because this

would imply a transubstantiation of the realm of being to becoming and vice versa (Yazdi 1992,

149). In such a case, God would not be the First Principle of all being, but rather the final cause

or telos of human consciousness. This no doubt is meant to bar any Christian doctrine of the

incarnation as well as any form of advaita as we will later find in Śaṃkara.

How then is mystical knowledge by presence, on the basis of emanation, to be

understood? The same ontological continuity mentioned before is to be understood not as

climaxing in an identity, but in an interchangeable participation of “self-in-God” and “God-in-

self.” In fact, Yazdi argues that these two are identical, and that this is the actual climax of

mystical awareness on the basis of the ontology of emanation. The difference lies in the

perspective from which it is approached, the one side ontologically, the other side from our

conscious awareness. Thus, while an essential identity is to be rejected, “Nonetheless, at this

stage of illumination and absorption, God and the self are existentially identical, because both are

present in this mode of existence” (Yazdi 1992, 151). While there is no ultimate identity, there

can be no duality either because of the ontological continuity of emanation. This position, as will

be seen, very closely approximates that of Rāmānuja.

Of course, one could argue that a mystical knowledge of God by presence, that

transcends the subject-object dichotomy, for this very reason necessarily must result in the actual

identity of self with God. This is the position of the brilliant philosopher Śaṃkara, the architect

of Advaita Vedānta, who takes these ontological and epistemological considerations to an new

level.

Morgan    10  

Epistemology in Advaita Vedānta

Advaita means literally “nondualilty” and Vedānta “the end of the Veda” (Coburn 1989,

108). Karl Potter offers a most succinct statement of the matter for advaita Vedānta in the

following words:

The most distinctive notion in Advaita is probably that of pure, undifferentiated or objectless consciousness. To be sure, a distinction between two kinds of awareness—nirvikalpaka or construction-free and savikalpaka or construction-filled—is a common one in Indian philosophy by Śaṃkara’s time, especially as found in the Yoga systems of Buddhism and Hinduism. But Advaita elevates the distinction to new heights by identifying construction-free awareness with reality, Brahman (Potter 1981, 92).

Metaphysics and epistemology are therefore inseparable, as they proved to be with Islamic

epistemology according to Yazdi.

We have, in Śaṃkara’s philosophy, three kinds of existence : (1) pāramārthika, or ultimate reality ; (2) vyāvahārika, or empirical existence ; and (3) prātibhāsika, or illusory existence. Brahman is of the first kind, the world of space-time-cause of the second, while imagined objects, like silver in the shell, are of the third kind (Radhakrishnan 1993, 520).

Just as in a dream we may be triggered by something to awaken or become lucid, so too in this

world we may be awakened to construction-free consciousness wherein pure consciousness and

pure being are identical (Satprakashananda 1974, 63). The dream world is simply illusion, but

the empirical world has a certain reality relative to our mode of awareness in our day-to-day

affairs. But this mode of awareness by differentiation is brought about by cosmic illusion or

māyā, and covers over the ultimate truth that Being or Brahman is undifferentiated: tat tvam asi,

“that art thou.” Let us now look more carefully at how this all breaks down in advaitan

epistemology.

Consciousness is the central category; it is the “foundation of human knowledge” and,

like for Descartes, is the self-evident existence of atman (Satprakashananda 1974, 16, 231).

Consciousness is always the observer or knower and never known or observed (Potter 1981, 95).

Morgan    11  

Thus, contrary to western philosophy, consciousness is not seated within the mind, since the

rational structures of the mind are observable by consciousness, a point quite similar to Husserl’s

phenomenology (Satprakashananda 1974, 46-7).

Within this broad category is a distinction between different types of conscious

awareness (jñāna). Pure consciousness (anubhava) is a “witnessing” sort of awareness

(sākṣījñāna) that is identical with Self and is construction-free (nirvikalpaka). This is to be

distinguished from ordinary awareness that is construction-filled (savikalpaka) and involves “the

functioning (vṛtti) of internal organs” (Potter 1981, 92). However, anubhava is not actually

different from ordinary awareness, since this would again presume distinction. It is rather that

pure consciousness is always already known by us in ordinary awareness, but it is not rightly

known or recognized for what it is. Likewise, pure consciousness is not an act of any sort for

Śaṃkara, and he accuses his critics of making this mistake frequently, such as the school of

Mīmāṃsā. Acting requires differentiation, so pure consciousness, which is precisely

undifferentiated, is therefore not an act. Thus, “the whole model for understanding awareness has

to be abandoned” (Potter 1981, 92). One ought not even speak of the Self as “Witness,” which is

again to presume differentiation, although this way of speaking proves inevitable even for

Śaṃkara himself.

Here advaita differs from Buddhism, Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā. Unlike ordinary awareness,

which is dependent upon sense organs, pure consciousness is eternal, not dependent upon

anything, and shines continually. However, in the second chapter of the prose of

Upadeśasāharsrī, an important objection to this notion is raised by the student. In deep sleep, all

consciousness seems to cease, so how can pure consciousness remain?

The teacher replies that the pupil’s analysis of deep sleep is incorrect. How could we know enough to report that we knew nothing in deep sleep unless we were conscious during that

Morgan    12  

period? It is that consciousness, which is never lost, that is constitutive of the true Self about which the pupil asks (Potter 1981, 93).

Now one might object that this consciousness cannot be seen, so how can it be said to endure

even during dreamless sleep? Satprakashananda recounts another story: there are ten boys who

go for a swim in a local oasis. When they emerge, they all count the group to ensure everyone

has returned. But they each only count nine, and begin to panic. Another boy counts, and also

finds only nine. Then finally a traveler comes and asks them of their problem. He too counts

them and says there are ten. They ask “where is the tenth?” He replies, “thou art the tenth.” That

is, tat tvam asi, “that art thou.” You are yourself the eternal consciousness which you seek. For

this reason, the way to attain this awareness is nothing other than the systematic removal of all

constructions in consciousness, the removal of all attributions, is to remove those things which

prevent us from seeing the truth. Thus, unlike ordinary awareness, pure consciousness has no

dependence upon an object for its existence, but like the sun simply shines indiscriminately

without being in the least effected by other objects.

What does this mean for the Vedānta conception of knowledge? For Śaṃkara, knowledge

(jñāna) is not a product of the mind or any verification procedure, but belongs as an intrinsic

quality to the self (ātman) (Satprakashananda 1974, 88-9). Knowledge is not defined here

fundamentally either as correspondence or as coherence, both theories that advaita argues are

mired in irresolvable aporias, which we saw in our discussion of Yazdi. Rather, knowledge is

here defined as pure consciousness, or “simple awareness of an object” (Satprakashananda 1974,

89-90). This is similar again to the phenomenological tradition and to Yazdi’s argument for

knowledge as presence to consciousness, which is more primordial than the subject-object

relation. Śaṃkara considers even ordinary knowledge not to be a mental act, since it does not

effect the object known, whereas later phenomenology acknowledged the interpretive character

Morgan    13  

of all mental acts. Essentially, knowledge is not a product of the mind. “Knowledge is revelatory.

It discovers, it does not create; it apprehends an object as it is, it does not construct or transform.

Its sole purpose is to unveil what is” (Satprakashananda 1974, 90).

Thus, also akin to Husserl’s phenomenology, the validity of knowledge is both intrinsic

and self-evident (Satprakashananda 1974, 112). Valid cognition or knowledge arises “when all

the necessary conditions are fulfilled” (Satprakashananda 1974, 114). All cognition is therefore

“apprehended as valid by the cognizer until he has reason to doubt its validity”

(Satprakashananda 1974, 114). This resembles the epistemology of Hans-Georg Gadamer and

later phenomenology, which consists in the legitimization or de-legitimization of Vorurteile or

prior understandings in the subject matter itself. The Kantian objection that we never know the

reality in itself because of the categories of the understanding would not be acknowledged by

advaita because, again, these structures belong to the mind, and consciousness does not reside in

the mind. Unlike for Kant, for advaita consciousness is not primarily a psychological

phenomena. As for Plato’s Meno, we all already have knowledge, but it is an unknown known.

The question is: what is this unknown known, and what are its bases? How is it to be

recognized? Better put: what is preventing me from recognizing what I already know? But also:

what are the criteria of knowledge in general, day-to-day considerations? How have I come to

know what I know?

There are, arguably, six sources or criteria (pramāṇas) of valid knowledge for advaita:

“perception (pratyakṣa), inference (anumāna), comparison (upamāna), verbal testimony (śabda

or āgama), presumption (arthāpatti), and negation (abhāva)” (Potter 1981, 97). Among these

sources of knowledge, some argue that verbal testimony or scripture is the priority, while others

Morgan    14  

seem to argue that it is intuition in meditation, which ultimately displaces the authority of

scripture. Potter explains it this way:

the priority in terms of importance is clearly with verbal testimony, which, for an Advaitin, mainly means scripture (śruti). Yet Śaṃkara emphasizes that even scripture is ultimately “false,” presupposing the workings of avidyā as do the other pramāṇas (Potter 1981, 97).

In my view, as I hope to show, Potter overestimates the authority of scripture for Śaṃkara and

underestimates the continuity between perception and anubhava, and the reason is because he

desires to vindicate Śaṃkara from the charge that his position is functionally equivalent to that of

Buddhism. After all, “Darśana, for instance, ‘seeing,’ is the standard word for ‘philosophy’” in

Hinduism and “bears this heritage of ‘spiritual apprehension’” (Coburn 1989, 111).

Radhakrishnan and Satprakashananda are more honest in this regard, in my opinion, as they both

acknowledge the close affinity between Śaṃkara’s position and that of Buddhism and its

emphasis on the epistemological significance of meditative intuition as the ultimate source of

liberation (see Satprakashananda 1974, 231, 245). However, Potter is right to insist on the

authority of scripture for Śaṃkara, which does indeed distinguish him from Buddhism, since

scripture for him is the only way to gain knowledge of the truth in the state of illusion.

Nevertheless, because pure conscious intuition or anubhava is rooted in the schema of perception

and resides within it as though hidden, we must spend some time specifically discussing its

nature in addition to scripture for advaita. First we look at perception.

Śaṃkara’s view of perception is fragmentary, but some things can be said. “In sense

perception there is an actual contact between the percipient and the object of perception”

(Radhakrishnan 1993, 488). Perception and inference are to be distinguished, in that “in

perception the given element and its interpretation are welded together in a unity, while the given

Morgan    15  

and the inferred elements are kept distinct in the act of inference” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 489).

Also, “There are different kinds of perception,” which either are or are not caused by the senses

(Radhakrishnan 1993, 489). Śaṃkara also distinguishes between determinate and indeterminate

perception, where for the former, “we have the distinction between the thing determined, the jar,

and the determining attribute, jarness” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 490). For indeterminate, all such

attributes are left out of view, hence anubhava finds its root schema in perception. Determinate

perception seems roughly to correlate with phenomenology (see also Radhakrishnan 1993, 500).

Also, “Iśvara as a personal centre has the same relation to the world as the jīva to the organism”

(1993, 490).

What happens in illusory perception? This question is significant since it bears also on

the larger discussion about māyā.

In the case of illusory perception, we have two modes, one of thisness (idam) and the other of apparent silver. The former is correct presentation and the latter has memory for one of its causes. The “ silver ” is supposed to be out there for the time being as śuktyavidyāparināma. The same consciousness unifies the two modes, one true and the other false, and so error arises. Even an illusory object is not simply nothing at all, else there were no illusion. When we call an object illusory we admit that it is something, but call it illusory since it has not the status in the world that it claims to have. Though even real silver is not absolutely real according to Śaṃkara’s metaphysics, there is a difference between the empirically real silver and apparent silver. The perception of apparent silver is purely personal. This apparent silver is cognised by the witness self alone, and, like pleasure and pain, closed to other selves (1993, 491).

So Śaṃkara’s position does not entail the simplistic assertion that everything is an illusion, or on

the opposite end that because we all already have knowledge, error is impossible. These two

misunderstandings of Śaṃkara’s view are two sides of the same coin. The empirical world is

indeed to be distinguished from dreams and illusions by the constants of space and time,

causation, and non-contradiction. For example, we might mistake a rope for a snake; in these

instances of error we are “misled by a similarity between what is presented to us and something

Morgan    16  

we remember from previous experience, and thus misled we erroneously project something false

onto the presented item and consequently misinterpret it” (Potter 1981, 93-4). As is now

apparent, in all modes of knowledge, error arises not from lack of knowledge, but always from

the admixture of what is known with elements by which we know it wrongly. While

Radhakrishnan admits that the Advaitin theory of perception is “rather crude on the scientific

side,” nevertheless its great merit “is its open admission of the impossibility of reducing

consciousness to a mere material change” (1993, 492-3).

Now Śaṃkara wishes for us to take this model of empirical error “and expand it to

explain cosmic creation” (Potter 1981, 93-4). Just as we may awaken from a dream state or the

empirical world, so we may awaken from the illusions of this empirical world to know Reality.

But the expansion carries with it an awkward implication : there must be something really presented that the projective avidyā leads us to misinterpret, and the only real thing is consciousness itself. Now consciousness is characterized in scripture as that which is never an object—Brahman is that by which all else is known but which is itself not known. The objector points to the inconsistency : if Brahman is not known It cannot be the object that is misinterpreted through the cosmic avidyā (Potter 1981, 94).

This was also Nehemiah Goreh’s rational objection to advaita.

Śaṃkara answers in several parts. (1) “First, though the Self is not an object of pure

consciousness, it does not follow that it can’t be the apparent object of empirical or ignorant

awareness. Indeed, whenever we speak of ourselves in the first person as knower we are (though

we do not know it) aware of the Self. Thus it is in a sense an object, although not of pure

consciousness” (Potter 1981, 94). 2) Second, inasmuch as a person has ordinary awareness,

which as we now know advaita construes as a reflection of the “light” of the pure Self, of pure

consciousness, he is constantly aware of that “light,” aware of pure consciousness, or Brahman,

just as one who mistakes a rope for a snake is aware of the rope in a sense even though he calls it

a snake” (Potter 1981, 94). 3) “And third, there are types of error that do not seem to require that

Morgan    17  

something be presented as an object on which to superimpose; consider our supposing that the

sky is a blue-colored dome, whereas in reality there is only space (ākāśa)” (Potter 1981, 94).

Śaṃkara insists that the lamp requires consciousness to become conscious of itself as a lamp

lighting its environment.

Yet, are these arguments really persuasive? Potter admits that this third point is not

altogether persuasive, since Śaṃkara will use it precisely to defend realism against the Buddhists

on the other side. But if this is the case, then cannot a Buddhist retort that for precisely this

reason, namely that there is only space, therefore by analogy consciousness is also only space,

that is emptiness or shūnyatā? As Radhakrishnan states: “Śaṃkara, as a Hindu, claims that,

beyond the unsatisfactoriness of its phenomena, in its deepest depths, there is the real spirit

which embodies all values. Yet Śaṃkara’s conception of mokṣa (freedom) is not much different

form the Buddhist view of nirvāna” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 473). This is because “The

phenomenalism of the Buddhists is akin to the doctrine of māyā” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 472). So

Radhakrishnan, sympathetic as he is with Śaṃkara, understandably defends Buddhism as a

natural part of the Hindu tradition.

After all, the very definition of shūnyatā for Buddhism is functionally equivalent to

Brahman for Śaṃkara. As Michael von Brück explains, shūnyatā for Buddhism is not a concept,

but “a symbol of non-determination” (Coreless & Knitter, 47). It points toward the state of

reality in which the subject and object of experience are one, and all things in reality and reality

as such (tathata) are seen as being devoid of determinations and inaccessible to reason (Coreless

& Knitter, 49).

First, shūnyatā refers to the interrelatedness of reality. Here it has the same meaning as pratītya-samutpāda and is primarily a matter of phenomenological observation and interpretation... Second, shūnyatā also refers to a level beyond all phenomenal reality. It points toward the transcendent mystery of reality. It is total beyondness... Nothing exists

Morgan    18  

independently or can have existence on its own (svabhāva). In other words, everything is empty of self-existence—that is, everything is shūnya (Coreless & Knitter, 49-50).

Existence is plenum-void (Govinda 1979, 36; in Coreless & Knitter, 51). Prajñā is “insight into

reality as it really is, without the limiting and conditioning defilements of the mind” (Coreless &

Knitter, 50). It is a non-dual intuition which perceives that existence is this plenum-void that is

empty of determinations or own-being (Coreless & Knitter, 52).  Paramārtha-satya means the

“absolute standpoint” of perception from which non-duality is perceived, whereas samvrti-satya

is the “relative viewpoint” in which dualisms make sense (Coreless & Knitter, 50). So the only

difference turns out to be that, while Śaṃkara says what is found in construction-free

consciousness is Pure Being, Brahman, or Spirit, the Buddhist says that what is found is, in fact,

nothing at all.

Śaṃkara’s realism would seem to commit him to a kind of dualism, as baffling as this

may seem. However,

The apparent dualistic implication of this does not trouble Śaṃkara at all, it would seem, because, though awareness requires external objects, consciousness does not, for one can have objectless consciousness as in deep sleep. Further, the objects need not be real, and consciousness has no actual relation to any objects they (that?) are the result of superimposition. It is in this very odd sense that Śaṃkara believes in the self-luminous character of consciousness (Potter 1981, 95).

But then it seems we are saying that external objects are real for ordinary awareness, but are still

not actually real in themselves, since this would presuppose differentiation. But is this not to

equivocate on the meaning of “real” in precisely the sort of way that constitutes a real problem

with this position? Are we faced here with a genuine paradox, or are we in reality covering up an

inherent aporia of Śaṃkara’s philosophy?

Recall that “What is not accepted, on Śaṃkara’s view of self-luminosity, is that

consciousness knows itself. Consciousness is pure subject, never object; it never has anything to

Morgan    19  

do with objects” (Potter 1981, 95). However, if Brahman, Self, or pure consciousness is never an

object of consciousness, then is Brahman known? This leads to a serious problem that Śaṃkara

seems to shrug off without much fuss. If yes, then it becomes an object of knowledge, and we

must again admit illusion. But if it is not known, it seems it can never be known and inquiry is

pointless. “We know of Brahman’s existence, he notes, on the grounds of tradition and

experience, but the Brahman we know of is one on which there are various erroneous opinions.

To remove these false notions is the point of Advaita teaching” (Potter 1981, 95). So Śaṃkara

admits that we never do know Brahman in a positive way, since “all characterizations have been

rejected,” so that “pure consciousness will remain unqualified by adjuncts, and that state of

understanding will constitute liberation” (Potter 1981, 96). So pure consciousness is neither true

nor false, “it just is” (Potter 1981, 96).

Thus, all of the criterion or “pramāṇas can only operate as long as avidyā holds sway, as

long as differences are recognized and accepted as such” (Potter 1981, 96). But, as Potter points

out,

The admission cuts deep, however. The objector points out that, if the pramāṇas do not tell us the truth, the point of instruction is lost; the teacher is unable to give veridical proofs to convince the pupil what to do or believe in order to gain liberation. And since instruction is required in order to realize one’s Self the impossibility of receiving that instruction would seem to preclude the possibility of liberation, and Advaita is reduced to a kind of skepticism or worse (Potter 1981, 96).

Potter continues:

Śaṃkara’s response is astonishing when first heard, although it is not new with him : Nāgārjuna the Buddhist had offered it centuries earlier. It is that even though the pramāṇas are unreal they may nevertheless assist in “producing” liberation that is real, just as one may die from a fancied snakebite. The objector retaliates that the analogy won’t do : the effect—dying—is just as unreal as its cause, the snakebite, whereas the supposed analogue is between an unreal cause and a real effect. But we know by now that Śaṃkara’s response will be to deny that liberation is an effect at all—as effect, it is unreal. The point, however, is that one may be jogged to an improved awareness by something in the realm from which

Morgan    20  

he is escaping, as something violent happening in one’s dream may cause one to awaken [or to become lucid] (Potter 1981, 97).

Thus, “The teacher’s business, then, is to gauge the level of his pupil’s confusion and to use the

pupil’s mistaken categories to job him to higher and higher levels of understanding, a process

that is admirably illustrated in the prose passages of Śaṃkara’s Upadeśasāhasrī” (Potter 1981,

97). So the teacher must utilize the canons of truth (pramāṇas) in the ordinary sense in order to

convince the student and bring them along.

Reason and experience, however, will never suffice to prove the truth of nonduality

alone, since this truth inherently transcends all differentiation and thus all rationality and

empirical perception. The method of Vedānta, as mentioned, is first to demonstrate this truth

philosophically and then follows meditation. “The purpose of meditation is to turn the mediate

knowledge into the immediate apprehension” (Satprakashananda 1974, 195). But to take up

meditation without an authoritative guide is to be helpless against one’s own fancy and

imagination. “Without a definite knowledge of the Truth, right meditation is not possible”

(Satprakashananda 1974, 195). This is no doubt directed toward Buddhism, which denies the

principle of scriptural authority as a valid source of knowledge, in favor of meditation alone. Of

course, we must ask in passing whether we are not then opening the door to acknowledging that

not all non-dual awareness is true? Surely Vedānta must reject this, since it identifies pure,

undifferentiated consciousness with pure being. Or, if Śaṃkara is not to follow this path, he

would be forced to claim instead that Buddhists think they have attained to pure consciousness

but in fact have not, and have rather simply followed their own imaginative fancy, and thus do

not find Spirit but only emptiness. Yet, does this not seem a stretch, given the functional

equivalence of the descriptions of Brahman and shūnyatā?

Morgan    21  

Suffice to say for now that this truth of nonduality must be conveyed by a legitimate

authority who has known this for himself and can guide the practitioner. In contrast to much

western philosophy, external or verbal testimony is accepted by Vedānta as an independently

valid source of knowledge (Satprakashananda 1974, 175).

The information gained from an authoritative source is valid knowledge. It needs no verification, unless there is cause to doubt its reliability. If all we learn from testimony were to await confirmation, if authority were not accepted as a source of valid knowledge, then the bulk of human knowledge would have to be regarded as baseless and the advancement of knowledge would be impossible (Satprakashananda 1974, 175).

This position of course closely parallels that of Gadamer and Ricoeur. Knowledge gained from

authority is not inherently invalid or mere belief, for “The words of the trustworthy (āptavākya)

are a veritable source of human knowledge” (Satprakashananda 1974, 189). Of course, if this

were denied, the entire edifice of the law courts would also be rendered invalid, since knowledge

concerning crimes committed is often based upon testimony. Further, perception and inference

can of course also be cast into doubt. If the potential doubt concerning a source of verbal

testimony were legitimate to render all verbal testimony invalid as a source of knowledge, then

all other sources would by that very argument also be rendered inherently invalid

(Satprakashananda 1974, 188). “The point is that the method of verification of any knowledge

does no produce the knowledge in question. It only proves or disproves the information that is

already gained” (Satprakashananda 1974, 188). Like for Gadamer, knowledge and truth are not

the product of method, but the direct apprehension of the thing or subject matter itself. Thus,

true knowledge has not to be verified by any other knowledge. It is its own proof. Its validity is due to the very conditions that cause it and is certified by them. As shown, for advaita the knowledge of a fact or truth is intrinsically valid and its validity is self-evident. It carries conviction. Doubt arises in the mind of the cognizer only when he is aware of some drawback in the conditions that produce the knowledge. In that case verification is needed for the removal of the doubt and not for establishing the validity of the knowledge in question (Satprakashananda 1974, 190).

Morgan    22  

Thus, unlike western philosophy, Vedānta does not restrict the term “knowledge” only for

extrinsically verifiable knowledge. Such verified knowledge is called “pramā”, whereas

knowledge in general, both valid and invalid, is simply referred to as “jñānam”

(Satprakashananda 1974, 112-3).

It might be objected that what we claim to “know” by verbal testimony is reducible to

memory, perception, or inference, since it conveys nothing beyond what we already know of the

meanings of the words themselves. However, Śaṃkara argues that verbal testimony is not

reducible to memory, perception, or inference for two reasons. First, the words of verbal

testimony have a synthetic effect that generate new knowledge (Satprakashananda 1974, 177).

The comprehension of the meaning (śābda-bōdhaḥ) does not depend solely on the knowledge of the meanings of the component words. The meanings of the constituent words are previously known to the cognizer. What he has to know from the statement is the relation of the meanings of the words. It is this fact that distinguishes the process of verbal knowledge from that of perception or inference and characterizes śabda as a separate means of valid knowledge (Satprakashananda 1974, 178).

Thus, language has a synthetic effect that, for Śaṃkara, is not reducible simply to the meanings

of the individual words, but has to do with their relations, a point which seems to open out into

broader hermeneutical considerations.

While the knowledge conveyed by verbal testimony is not reducible to the meanings of

the individual words, at the same time, the meanings of individual words are also not arbitrary.

Thus, “According to Vedānta, the relation between a word and its meaning is natural, and not

conventional; it is eternal . . . Words exist with the universals prior to the particulars. As the

universals are eternal so are the words” (Satprakashananda 1974, 181). Thus, the meanings of

words are fixed eternally by God, and refer primarily to universals and only secondarily to

particulars. This position is roughly akin to a theory of words revealing essences as held by

ancient Lucianism and neo-Arianism. Such a position is necessary to affirm if on the one hand it

Morgan    23  

is recognized that all thought is linguistic in character, as Vedānta acknowledges, but on the

other that there really is such a thing as pure consciousness that can be discovered on the basis of

real knowledge and meditation. For the Vedānta method proceeds first from a demonstration of

the truth that atman is Brahman, and then secondarily in a contemplative ascent to directly

apprehend this for oneself. For how can the contemplative ascent be made unless the rungs on

the ladder are sturdy, i.e. that words reveal essences? Without this presumption, the entire

paradigm of contemplative ascent collapses. Otherwise we are forced to recognize the

constructive character even of pure consciousness. In such a case, we would be left dependent

entirely upon the historical manifestations of the divine, such as in Ricoeur’s position, and my

adaptation of it with Nazianzus and Bonhoeffer.

Finally, verbal testimony “can even serve as a means of immediate knowledge

(aparōkṣa-jñānam) . . . when the knowledge of the self, empirical or transcendental, is

concerned” (Satprakashananda 1974, 191). Verbal testimony alone can convey the most sublime

truths which transcend reason and the senses, namely Brahman, dharma, and karma

(Satprakashananda 1974, 219). That verbal testimony which is authoritative to speak on such

transcendental truths is scripture or śruti.

As William Graham has shown, the concept of śruti is especially helpful for recovering

Luther’s own biblical hermeneutic as a hearing of the concrete address of God’s Word, and

Thomas Coburn for his part even prefers to call his study of śruti a typology not of scripture but

of the Word, so let us dwell briefly on this aspect of Hindu thought more generally (Graham

1993, 67-77, 141-54; Coburn 1989, 118). Luther, as is well known, refers both to Scripture and

to the proclaimed word as the Word of God. This creates confusion for us because in our modern

print-based culture we have lost touch with the oral character of the written word. We may agree,

Morgan    24  

at least in part then, with Derrida’s assessment that the strict dichotomy between writing and

speech deconstructs itself, although we do not thereby abandon the distinction altogether, as

Graham makes clear throughout his text. For the spoken word does indeed have some priority

here, contra Derrida. For “most traditional cultures see the loci . . . of both truth and authority

primarily in persons and their utterances, not in documents and records” (Graham 1993, 68).

Prior to our modern print-based culture, written texts therefore bore authority not because they

were elevated over spoken word, but because they were the spoken word set down in writing for

the purpose of future recitation and proclamation.

Thus, the proper performance of recitation was important for conveying the presence of

the voice of the text. This is more greatly emphasized by no tradition save Hinduism, for which

“scripture comes alive only as the sacred word of truth spoken, and only spoken, by teacher to

pupil” (Graham 1993, 68). Indeed, despite the variety of the various schools, “the oral word has

remained the only fully acceptable and authoritative form for sacred texts for over two, possibly

over two and one-half, millennia after the implementation of writing” (Graham 1993, 68). This is

indeed a remarkable fact. For it was not an inability to write that led to preserving the oral and

performative transmission of sacred texts, but rather “the conscious choice of oral transmission

as the only appropriate vehicle for holy utterance” (Graham 1993, 68).

Thus, for Hinduism, the primary “hermeneutical task lies in reconstructing the

relationship between text and speaking” (Graham 1993, 69). This can be seen in the six

hermeneutical criteria of advaita: “(1) upakrama (commencement) and upasaṁhāra (conclusion)

; (2) abhyāsa (reiteration) ; (3) apūrvatā (novelty) ; (4) phala (fruit) ; (5) arthavāda (explanatory

statements) ; and (6) upapatti (illustration)” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 469). As can be seen, these

principles make the greatest amount of sense not as criteria for deciphering information from a

Morgan    25  

silent text, but rather of understanding a spoken utterance or message. They of course can be

applied with silent interpretation, but the text is nevertheless read is if heard, where the hearing is

then mentally simulated.

The vocabulary of Hindu religion also reveals this intimate relationship between devotion

and orality. The term pūjā by itself means personal worship, but is seldom used by itself. It is

more often used as a compound: pūjā-pāṭha. Here the second term in the compound refers to

“recitation, recital, study” (Graham 1993, 69). Graham cites a student explaining the relationship

in this way: “its presence in the compound reflects the importance, for Hindus, of the oral/aural

dimension of ritual, and the notion that it should ideally include recitation of the sacred word”

(Graham 1993, 69). As Graham will later show, complimenting the scholarship of Oswald

Bayer, this is close to Luther’s understanding of meditation, or the threefold oratio-meditatio-

tentatio, which is really a recitation and rumination on the text as God’s external Word. Thus, the

practice of properly reciting and sounding the text has been “meticulously and faithfully

transmitted” by the “most rigorous and intricate mnemonic techniques imaginable” that include

up to eleven different modes of recitation, some of which purposefully reverse and modify word

order (Graham 1993, 72). “In these ways, together with strict traditions of accentuation and

melodic rendering, the base text is mastered literally backward and forward in fully acoustic

fashion as a hedge against faulty transmission of any word or syllable” (Graham 1993, 72). Thus,

as Luther learned in the monasteries, proper study involves memorization by repetitive recitation

(svādhyāya), or simply repeating aloud or “tossing over” the text (abhyāsa) (Graham 1993, 73).

The Vedas, “what is known,” are the prototypical Scriptures of Hinduism (Graham 1993,

70). They were not committed to writing until Max Müller in the 19th century, as to do so was

considered virtually taboo and a violation of what the Vedas fundamentally were, so that even

Morgan    26  

after written deposit they remained authoritative only in the oral form (Graham 1993, 72-3). The

human listener of the Vedas does not simply receive information from the texts, but is effected

by an “indescribable revelatory experience” that is produced by the cumulative force of the

recitation. “It seizes one with a unique and irresistible immediacy” (Coburn 1989, 109). The

revelation of the transcendent and the power of spoken word is therefore intimately connected

(Graham 1993, 70). For example, “Viśvakarman, the “All-Maker”, or creator of all, is called

Vacaspati, “Lord of Speech”, in Ṛg Veda 10.81.7” (Graham 1993, 70). In this respect the Vedas

are akin to poetics, where the overall effect of the text is more important than its literal meaning.

But of course poetry is for this very reason recited, where it better has its effect upon the hearer

than in silent reading. In fact, Graham points out the profound connection that “Brahman itself

apparently meant, in the Ṛg Veda, the “formulation” of the sacred utterance of truth, or magical

word of power, by the inspired poet who, as one capable of such formulation, was known as a

brāhmaṇa” (Graham 1993, 71).

Thus, there is a “strong magical element” here that perceives writing as a “ritually

polluting activity” (Graham 1993, 74). In fact the personal relationship to a guru or teacher is so

essential to understanding the written texts that “there exists a widespread custom that if a

teacher does not find a student worthy of inheriting his manuscripts, he will, in his old age,

simply discard them by throwing them into a river” (Coburn 1989, 111). The parallel with Luther

comes to an end here, since the written word seems to have lost its power in the Hindu view

when committed to writing. “Written documents, unvivified by personal relationship, are

lifeless” (Coburn 1989, 111).

In later texts such as the Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads, considered tradition or smŕti,

“brahman came to refer to the ritual power and even the very ground of truth, or ultimate reality,

Morgan    27  

itself” (Graham 1993, 71). Some later thinkers even combined the term śabda, the notion of the

“eternal meaning or essence of word or speech,” into śabda-Brahman, “sound Brahman”, or

parā vāk, the “supreme Word” or self-revelation that is the Veda (Graham 1993, 71). This

evolution of the notion from the power of the spoken word to ultimate reality is profoundly

revealing for the Hindu understanding of revelation. For the very term, śruti, means “what is

heard” (Graham 1993, 71). For this reason, a theology of the proclaimed Word, such as in

Luther, makes a great deal of intuitive sense for Hinduism; although for this reason a sacramental

theology tends to get neglected in Indian theology, and perhaps a Lutheran theology that

specifically understands the sacraments as the Word tied to a material element can help to move

away from the tendency toward an ex opera operato understanding (see Boyd 1989, 249).

The Vedas are considered to have no author, as they are revealed by Iśvara at the

beginning of each new cycle, preserved in oral form so as to preserve the original power of the

revelation-word (Graham 1993, 73; Satprakashananda 1974, 216).

The Veda is eternal wisdom, and contains the timeless rules of all created existence. The Vedas are of superhuman origin (apauruṣeya) and express the mind of God. While the significance of the Vedas (vedārtha) is eternal, the texts themselves are not so, since they are re-uttered by Īśvara in each world-age (Radhakrishnan 1993, 495).

The Vedas are revealed truth, but also the perfect expression of that truth (Coburn 1989, 107).

Thus, “the closest analogy that we ordinary mortals have for its nature is that it is verbal, has

sound-form” (Coburn 1989, 118). “Since the successive worlds have their constant form

(niyatākṛti), the authoritativeness of the Vedas is not impaired at any successive world-epoch”

(Radhakrishnan 1993, 495). They are an eternal Word-wisdom-revelation, where the compound

cannot be dissected. We may say, then, that “the major thing Hindus are saying when they call

certain verbal events “śruti” is that they are eternal, intrinsically powerful, and supremely

Morgan    28  

authoritative . . . Indeed, mantras do not “mean” anything in the conventional semantic or

etymological senses. Rather, they mean everything” (Coburn 1989, 119).

In comparison to śruti, “what is heared”, tradition or smṛti, “recollection”, including texts

such as the Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads mentioned above, “has not absolute validity” for advaita

(Radhakrishnan 1993, 496). It is to be followed only as it conforms to śruti. These texts are able

to be set down in writing because they do not carry the same eternal Word-revelation potency as

the performative Vedas. They are an “easier” interpretation that expand on this eternal Word

(Mackenzie Brown, cited in Coburn 1989, 107, see also 121). However, there are important

exceptions, where the Purāṇas are the subject of substantial literature on proper recitation as well

(Graham 1993, 76). Since the Vedas have become today a bit of an obscurity for the average

Hindu, and because of the availability of written texts for popular consumption, the smṛti tend to

be more popular among Hindus today (Graham 1993, 75).

Is the acceptance of such powerful external authority as the Vedas a rejection of reason?

No, answers Śaṃkara, for reason is not contradicted by the śruti, only transcended. “Even śruti

cannot supersede science on the question of matter and its properties. It is, however, the sole

authority on questions of virtue and vice (dharma-adharma)” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 496).

Scriptural truth does not negate all empirical truth, but renders it penultimate, i.e. “relegates it to

the state of ajñāna” (Satprakashananda 1974, 219). “A sentence [of Āgama or scriptural

testimony] is valid if the relation implied by its meaning is not falsified by any other means of

knowledge” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 494).

The Śruti is the authoritative source of knowledge in suprasensuous matters, but not in matters within the range of perception. The scriptural text cannot controvert facts of experience. Any statement that is obviously contradictory to them should not be taken literally (Satprakashananda 1974, 220).

Morgan    29  

This position is of course akin to that of Origen. “Vedānta philosophy does not accept the

authority of the Śruti against the evidence of perception” (Satprakashananda 1974, 220). Since

there is no diversity ultimately in Brahman, and everything ultimately is Brahman, then Śruti

cannot flatly contradict empirical knowledge, but only transcend it. “When one person says, ‘The

sun moves’, and another with his astronomical knowledge says ‘The sun does not move’, the two

statements do not contradict each other, but represent two different view-points regarding the

sun” (Satprakashananda 1974, 221).

For reason, independently of Śruti, simply cannot determine the nature of God. As Luther

points out in the 1539 Disputation Concerning the Passage “The Word became Flesh,” reason

depends primarily on syllogistic inference. But such syllogisms presume that the object of

inference can in fact be an object of rational thought. But “God, the Omnipotent and Omniscient

Being”, is not subject to syllogisms (Satprakashananda 1974, 228). Thus, external authority is

necessary:

Acceptance of authority does not mean the rejection of reason. In most secular matters we depend on authority. Why not in religion? Man’s knowledge is limited. He cannot know everything, nor can he know equally well all that he knows. So he has to depend on especially qualified, trustworthy persons more or less. Just as there are specialists in secular subjects so are there specialists in religion. In religion there is a greater need for dependence upon authority, because it deals with suprasensuous truths, which are beyond perception and inference (Satprakashananda 1974, 223-4).

But what of inferences either by analogy or effect? If by analogy [of being], then the

Śruti is no longer the sole source, and reason is in fact capable of understanding God.

But Advaita Vedānta does not recognize this type of inference. It views this method of reasoning as a case of argument (tarka), and not as a case of inference (anumāna). Inference has no scope in the realm of the suprasensuous. Inferential knowledge, mediate as it is, bears the mark of certitude, while the conclusion reached by argument (tarka) is only a probability. By analogical argument one cannot attain certain knowledge. It can make God’s existence probable, and not decisive (Satprakashananda 1974, 230).

Western philosophy of religion seems to confirm this judgment (see Quinn 2002).

Morgan    30  

Yet reason still plays a key role in the interpretation of śruti. For “though reason cannot

determine transcendental truths, independently of the Śruti, yet it serves as the key to unlock that

treasury” (Satprakashananda 1974, 222). Reason is, after all, necessary for the hearer to ascertain

the import of the sacred texts. Such hearing is not devoid of a thorough investigation that

otherwise would remain simply at the literal meaning. This seems then to call for hermeneutics

in a way that Coburn argues is more secondary in his account (1989, 121). Perhaps

understanding is as important as effect after all? In any case, faith in the Vedas for Śaṃkara is

also grounded on reason.

The Śruti, aided by reason, is the means to true knowledge of the Self. This Self is the

pure, eternal consciousness, that cannot be seen or observed precisely because it is always the

observer. It is different from and prior to all mental operations. And it is self-evident because it is

the nature of consciousness. Thus, “the self is self-revealing. It is authority by itself . . . A man

can disavow anything, even God, but not his self” (Satprakashananda 1974, 231). Thus,

Satprakashananda states, “Consciousness is primary. It cannot be derivative. It is self-manifest.

That which is self-manifest must also be self-existent” (Satprakashananda 1974, 237).

Satprakashananda concludes, “Ātman and Brahman are not unknown, but wrongly known. The

Śruti removes this wrong knowledge and the consequent misery by disclosing their identity”

(Satprakashananda 1974, 239).

Satprakashananda parallels this mystical recognition with the contemplative ascent of

Plotinus and Porphyry (Satprakashananda 1974, 251). One ascends the ladder of consciousness,

which is the ladder of being, to attain a contemplation of the One, in a unitary or undifferentiated

consciousness. Plotinus is reported to have attained this four times, and Porphyry once. And, like

Morgan    31  

for ancient asceticism, so too Satprakashananda argues, citing Sri Ramakrishna, that samādhi is

attainable only for those who caste all the world and its pleasures into an infinite resignation:

Only when the man of the world becomes absolutely indifferent to all kinds of enjoyment, whether of this world or of the next, and attains, on the strength of purity, a position higher than that of gods, he comes to the nondual mood, with the help of which he realizes the attributeless Brahman, in which the whole universe together with Iśvara, its creator, preserver, and destroyer, has its eternal being and on the attainment of which the acme of life is reached (Sri Ramakrishna, in Satprakashananda 1974, 253-4).

Once the seeker is convinced of the arguments of Śruti and Vedānta, the seeker then sets

aside all the books and turns to meditation for direct apprehension of the truth. For the Śruti are

“intended for the unillumined” (Satprakashananda 1974, 303). This parallels the attitude toward

the scriptures of the Valentinians, in contrast to Irenaeus, for whom the authority of the

Scriptures are not transcended by a spiritual élite (see Adv. Haer. 1.3.1, 1.10.3). Thus, “Both

Yōga and Vedānta stress the practice of meditation as the means of Self-realization”

(Satprakashananda 1974, 302). For “after being aware of the true nature of the self through

discrimination, the aspirant has to fix the mind on the Self and the Self alone” (Satprakashananda

1974, 302).

As noted, Potter seems to ascribe higher authority to scripture for Śaṃkara than

Radhakrishnan or Satprakashananda would, though of course it is not in either case as high as for

Rāmānuja, who rejects yogic meditation as an independent source of knowledge. According to

Radhakrishnan, “Śaṃkara refers to three sources of knowledge : perception, inference and

scriptural testimony. Later writers add comparison, implication and negation. Memory (smṛti) is

not included under right knowledge, since novelty is said to be a feature of all knowledge”

(Radhakrishnan 1993, 488).

What then do we say of Śaṃkara’s position on the authority of Scriptures? On the one

hand, Scriptures have authority because they are “eternal and self-luminous, since they reveal the

Morgan    32  

character of God, whose ideas they embody. Their validity is self-evident and direct, even as the

light of the sun is the direct means of our knowledge of form” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 496). On

the other hand, its statements are to be taken as true only in so far as “the relation implied by its

meaning is not falsified by any other means of knowledge” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 494).

“Śaṃkara recognizes the need of reason for testing scriptural views” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 517).

Thus, in the model of Kendall Folkert, this view of Śaṃkara means that scripture (śruti) is a

vectored source, or Canon II, and not a vector in itself as for Protestant Christianity, or a Canon I

authority (Levering 1989, 12-13, 173). In terms familiar to Lutheranism, Scripture for Śaṃkara

is a norma normata, as the Confessions are for Lutherans, rather than a norma normans.

But if Scripture is a vectored source, a norma normata, what, then, is the primary vector

for Advaita, the norma normans? We have already noted the continuity of perception and pure

intuition or anubhava discovered in meditation, which places Śaṃkara’s view closer to

Buddhism. Potter argues,

Perception, among the pramāṇas, is regularly identified as providing direct knowledge, and one might suppose that it would ultimately be perception that delivers the immediate awareness that constitutes liberation. Furthermore, if one is put in the position of defending the possibility of Self-knowledge, surely verification through direct experience constitutes the most fundamental proof. Yet Śaṃkara and his fellows look to scripture, to language, as the critical means of proof (Potter 1981, 97-8).

In my view, this argument by Potter is technically true, but misleading. For we have already

shown that since all argument is done on the level of avidya, therefore of course direct intuition

cannot be appealed to for argumentation. Scriptures bring the highest Truth down, in a sense,

into the level of avidya, not by conveying it literally, but by their effect upon the student. They

intend to trick the mind, so to speak, into recognizing the truth. After all, “Avidyā is the fall from

intuition” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 574). Scripture is for those who yet lack this intuition for

themselves.

Morgan    33  

Those who have had no direct insight into reality are obliged to take on trust the Vedic views which record the highest experiences of some of the greatest minds who have wrestled with this problem of apprehending reality (Radhakrishnan 1993, 514).

This means that the truths of the Vedas as scripture are to be confirmed by direct intuition,

anubhava. If this is the case, then we are narrowing in on the position that scripture is indeed a

vectored, Canon II source of knowledge and authority for Vedānta. Its purpose is to point us

onward to something that we are to discover for ourselves.

Thus, Radhakrishnan is surely right in arguing that it is trained consciousness or

anubhava that is the ultimate source that finally supersedes scripture (see also Pandit 1981, 39). I

cite the following text at length, because it summarizes the matter rather well.

Śaṃkara admits the reality of an intuitional consciousness, anubhava, where the distinctions of subject and object are superceded and the truth of the supreme self realised. It is the ineffable experience beyond thought and speech, which transforms our whole life and yields the certainty of a divine presence. It is the state of consciousness which is induced when the individual strips himself of all finite conditions, including his intelligence . . . Foretastes of such bliss we have in moments of selfless contemplation and aesthetic enjoyment. It is sākṣātkāra or direct perception, which is manifested when the avidyā is destroyed and the individual knows that the Ātman and the jīva are one... The Yogin is said to see God in the state of saṁrādhana, which Śaṃkara explains as sinking oneself in pious meditation. Śaṃkara admits ārṣajñana, by which Indra and Vāmadeva realized identity with Brahman. Psychologically it is of the nature of perception, since it is direct awareness of reality ; only the latter is not of the nature of an existent in space and time. Anubhava is not consciousness of this or that thing, but it is to know and see in oneself the being of all beings, the Ground and the Abyss . . . anubhava of nondual existence is the innermost experience of which whatever we know and believe of the supersensual world depends (Radhakrishnan 1993, 511).

Of course, this is precisely the sort of argument that Potter desires to steer away from because it

brings Śaṃkara closer to Buddhism by regarding anubhava psychologically as of the nature of

perception (see Satprakashananda 1974, 231, 245). Though I am unable to argue the historical

point concerning Śaṃkara’s actual teaching, from a strictly philosophical point of view,

Radhakrishnan’s and Satprakashananda’s interpretations of Śaṃkara are more coherent.

Morgan    34  

This means that Scripture’s authority is to be understood as an expression of the

discovery of anubhava in the past. “Anubhava is the vital spiritual experience which can be

communicated only through the language of imagination, and śruti is the written code

embodying it” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 518). Thus, while it is not to be neglected for this very

reason, it also does not bear inherent authority, for it is itself grounded in the anubhava of the

sages of the past. This means that scripture must conform to anubhava. “Śruti, of course, has to

conform to experience and cannot override it” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 518). Likewise,

in religious discussions scriptural statements have to conform to the intuited facts. The highest evidence is perception, whether it is spiritual or sensuous, and is capable of being experienced by us on compliance with certain conditions. The authoritativeness of the śruti is derived form the fact that it is but the expression of experience, and since experience is of a self-certifying character, the Vedas are said to be their own proof, requiring no support from elsewhere (Radhakrishnan 1993, 518).

But, of course, this means that they require no proof beyond what one can discover for

themselves by pure intuition.

Nondual awareness is open to all, though few attain it. To the question of how this

occurs, the revelation of the truth, “no better answer than assigning it to the grace of God is

possible” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 515). Śaṃkara can take this position because of his threefold

metaphysics, mentioned at the beginning of this section. Like Buddhism, gods and all other

things belonging to the ordinary level of awareness are not Real in the ultimate sense, namely in

that their differentiation from us is not Real, but unlike for some forms of Buddhism, they do

actually have reality for us and are “real” within the ordinary level of awareness within māyā,

and actually exist independently of the finite mind (Radhakrishnan 1993, 581-2). They are “real”

in the sense that they are all actually spirit, Brahman, which is eternal. Thus, “worship of God is

not a deliberate alliance with falsehood, since God is the form in which alone the Absolute can

be pictured by the finite mind” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 649).

Morgan    35  

However, “Sākṣātkāra, or intuition of reality, is the end of religion” (Radhakrishnan

1993, 649. “Religion, in the popular sense, is something to be transcended. It is an imperfect

experience, which exists only so long as we fail to rise to the true apprehension of reality”

(Radhakrishnan 1993, 650). So too is any doctrine of God’s salvation by grace as an election for

some to attain this revelation and not others a position for which Śaṃkara has no sympathy

whatever (Radhakrishnan 1993, 513-4). Ultimately, “Every philosophy of religion should offer

some explanation of such declarations [of śruti] as “I am Brahman” (aham brahmāsmi), “That art

Thou” (tat tvam asi), in which the difference between the creature and the creator is transcended”

(1993, 650). Thus, Śaṃkara’s system “grounds religious reality in the centre of man’s

consciousness, from which it cannot be dislodged” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 655).

At the end of the day, what we get with Śaṃkara, in the words of Emerson, is that “Every

man is God playing the fool” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 596). “Freedom is not the abolition of self,

but the realisation of its infinity and absoluteness by the expansion and illumination of

consciousness” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 636-7). “When all is said, what we find is that Śaṃkara

has combined a penetrating intellectual vision into things divine with a spirit of mystic

contemplation” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 655).

Critical Perspectives on Śaṃkara

Śaṃkara rejects the theological standpoint in favor of a general philosophy of religion.

Radhakrishnan has this to say about his approach:

Unlike many other interpreters of the Vedānta, Śaṃkara adopts the philosophical, as distinct from the theological attitude in matters of religion. A theologian generally takes his stand on a particular denominational basis. As a member of a particular religious community, he sets himself to systematize, expand and defend the doctrines of his school. He accepts his creed as the truth with which his religion stands or falls. The philosopher, on the other hand, in so far as he is a philosopher, does not confine himself to any one religion,

Morgan    36  

but takes religion as such for his province, without assuming that the religion in which he is born or which he accepts is the only true religion. In Śaṃkara we find one of the greatest expounders of the comprehensive and tolerant character of the Hindu religion, which is ever ready to assimilate alien faiths (Radhakrishnan 1993, 652).

Radhakrishnan no doubt writes this with great relish. But, of course, it is not true at all (see also

Boyd 1989, 257-8). For one thing, many alternative forms of Hinduism lead to very different

epistemological paradigms that are incompatible with his own. The various systems within

Hinduism are themselves often mutually exclusive. Hindu systematic theology itself began to

develop as a response to Buddhist skepticism and is in this way already inherently antagonistic to

Buddhism (Radhakrishnan 1993, 25). Among the major Brahmanical systems were a plethora of

some more or less compatible approaches. The strong logical realism of the Nyaya schools and

the atomistic pluralism of the Vaisesika schools were incompatible with the more fluid concept

of ultimate reality in the Samkhya schools, and in fact the latter tended to totally undermine

theistic religion and creation theology in favor instead of the idea of a positive potentiality

(prakrti) in eternity which gives birth impersonally to the universe by interaction with the infinite

number of eternally pre-existent spirits (Radhakrishnan 1993, 248). The Yoga system of

Patanjali tended to disfavor scripture as a source of knowledge in favor instead of direct intuitive

experience through yogic discipline as a means of self-salvation, and Buddhism took this school

to a natural conclusion by ultimately denying the revelatory and inspired character of sacred texts

(Radhakrishnan 1993, 338-40). Although much of Hinduism is genuinely monotheistic, it is by

no means a conclusive voice. The Purva Mimamsa tradition, the most dominant of all schools of

thought in modern Indian law and legislature, is “frankly polytheistic” and elevates the duty of

ritual observance to the highest concern (Radhakrishnan 1993, 375-6). And, within the last and

perhaps most influential tradition of Hindu thought, the advaita Vedānta, there is a split down

the middle about the significance of monotheistic devotion, with the tradition following Śaṃkara

Morgan    37  

insisting upon the ultimate identity of the self with God, such as Vivekananda, and that of the

traditions following Rāmānuja insisting on the distinction between the self and God in ultimate

union through devotion, such as the modern Hare Krishna movement. Hinduism is indeed

pluralistic, but this does not mean that one system is actually embracing the others. On the

contrary, these systems are sometimes downright mutually exclusive.

Of course, Radhakrishnan and others who subscribe to religious pluralism on the basis of

advaita Vedānta, following Vivekananda, may declare those who disagree with their pluralism

“fundamentalist” or “exclusionary.” But they are themselves without question exclusionary,

because their “inclusion” is predicated on the acceptance of a very specific epistemology and

methodology that is itself rooted in an ontology and metaphysics of emanation rather than

creation, as Goreh never tired of pointing out. Such “tolerance” is itself an illusion. For if we

begin from the ontological difference between Creator and creature, rather than from an

ontological continuity in a doctrine of emanation, then we must reduce our own experience and

inner intuition as a source of knowledge, for which there is no prior ontological guarantee of

immanence, and increase external testimony. Paul Ricoeur’s reflections on our historical and

hermeneutical conditionality as a critique of the “fortress of consciousness” in western

philosophy seems applicable here as well (Ricoeur 2013, 145). A doctrine of emanation does not

in fact admit a true beginning, but thinks in a circle and affirms only eternity for itself and the

world. A doctrine of creation, however, against all our reasoning, affirms a true and real

beginning to all things (Bonhoeffer, DBWE 3:26; Boyd 1989, 46). This is also why narrative,

character, and time all remain aporias about which Śaṃkara and his followers have little to say

(see Ricoeur 1984).

Morgan    38  

It is also worth noting that there is significant qualification if not dissent among many

scholars from the idea of a real convergence of the religions at the mystical or experiential level,

as Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan claim on the basis of advaita Vedānta. Rudolf Otto argued

that “mysticism admits of wide variations . . . in spite of ‘convergence of types’ between East

and West . . . [and] the very different ground upon which mysticism rose in Europe also colors

the highest mystical experience in a way which is Christian and not Indian” (Otto 1932, 179).

And William James for his part states that in characterizing “mysticism” as such he has “over-

simplified the case,” and that if one takes the mass of mystical experiences seriously, the

“supposed unanimity [among mystical experience] largely disappears” (James 2002, 463). Such

multiplicity is reason to doubt the particular mystical experiences in contrast, even on Śaṃkara’s

own grounds (see also Quinn 2002, 534). This stands against appeals to mystical experience as a

sufficient ground for religious knowledge in general.

We must add to this also the hermeneutical consideration of the interpretive character of

consciousness. Recall that Śaṃkara argues that anubhava transcends the ordinary interpretive

and constructive character of perception. This is both because consciousness does not reside in

the mind, since it is the eternal perceiver, and also because the “rungs” on the ladder of the

ascent of conscious awareness are secured by a theory of words revealing eternal essences, a

position which denies the constructive character of language. But can this really be admitted?

Hermeneutical phenomenology after Gadamer and Ricoeur would argue that this

phenomenological sphere, indeed more primordial than the subject-object dichotomy and indeed

the ground and horizon of all our cognitive endeavors, as both the Islamic and advaita Vedānta

epistemologies rightly show, is nevertheless interpretive. Is this not precisely why there is

discontinuity mixed in with the continuity in mystical experiences? If Śaṃkara responds that

Morgan    39  

these other persons have not truly discovered pure consciousness, does this not undermine the

claim of the convergence of the religions at the mystical level? And if the discontinuity in

understanding what is discovered there is accepted, does it not imply that consciousness, even at

the mystical level, is still interpretive? Either way, the position faces a serious challenge from

phenomenology on this score: the human being cannot transcend its historical finitude.

Further, “a lingering doubt oppresses the large majority of mankind, who very rarely get

into these exalted heights” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 657). As Rāmānuja argues, pure philosophical

systems such as Śaṃkara’s “do not comfort us in our stress and suffering” (Radhakrishnan 1993,

659). In Śaṃkara’s system, “Personal values are subordinated to impersonal ones, but the theist

protests that truth, beauty and goodness have no reality as self-existent abstractions”

(Radhakrishnan 1993, 660). Rāmānuja is in good company with early Trinitarian theology,

where it was argued, as by Gregory Nazianzus for example, that the divine ousia does not exist

abstractly apart from the hypostases or persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (see Beeley 2008,

222). Such personal values belong to God, who’s innermost being is “not solely the realisation of

eternal truth or the enjoyment of perfect beauty, but is perfect love which expends itself for

others” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 660).

The Vaiṣṇava schools of monotheism, which Rāmānuja represents in his own way, “all

agree in rejecting the conception of māyā, in regarding God as personal, and the soul as

possessed of inalienable individuality, finding its true being not in an absorption in the Supreme

but in fellowship with him” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 661-2). This of course more easily relates

with Christianity as is part of the reason many Indian theologians have preferred this tradition to

that of Śaṃkara for the development of an Indian Christian theology (see Boyd 1989). These

argue that heart of the Purāṇas is “Devotion to God,” or bhakti, “which is said to be the most

Morgan    40  

effective means of salvation in this Kali age” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 664-5). This seems to

readily connect with faith in God’s promises for Christianity. While Rāmānuja, like Śaṃkara, is

still working within a system of emanation, according to which the world is more the body of

God than a distinct creation, nevertheless he insists on an irreducible individuality and identity to

each soul in relation to God, so that salvation is not finally absorption into the absolute, but an

eternal communion of love. This position roughly correlates with that of Yazdi, who also

maintains a distinction within an ontological continuity and emanation.

What epistemology, then, do these philosophical and theological differences lead to?

“Rāmānuja accepts perception, inference and scripture as valid sources of knowledge, and is

indifferent about the rest” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 672). However, “Yogic perception is not

admitted as an independent source of knowledge” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 673). Still, “Rāmānuja

admits the distinction between determinate and indeterminate perception” (Radhakrishnan 1993,

672). But by indeterminate perception, he does not permit the idea of “the apprehension of an

absolutely undifferentiated object or pure being,” as is the very heart of Śaṃkara’s system, but

by undifferentiated means rather how “we perceive the individual for the first time,” wherein we

do not yet recognize it as a particular class or type of object (Radhakrishnan 1993, 672). This is

an enormous difference, for Rāmānuja reduces to banality what Śaṃkara regards as the heart of

all truth.

This also has a corollary in the philosophy of language and universals. “For Rāmānuja

the individuals alone are real” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 673). The basis of the use of terms like

“class” is a resemblance. Thus, there is no need to appeal to a theory of words revealing eternal

essences, since such essences are not real in themselves, but conventional associates in human

Morgan    41  

language. Thus, inferences from general principles are themselves derived by induction from

particulars.

Inference is knowledge derived from a general principle. As a matter of fact, a single instance suggests the general principle. A number of instances helps us in removing our doubts. By means of tarka or indirect proof, and the use of both positive and negative instances, we eliminate the non-essentials and establish the general rule” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 673).

Rāmānuja also advocates the use of the basic three part or five part syllogism. Comparison and

implication are not independent categories, but belong under inference.

Rāmānuja’s position on the nature of Scripture is similar to Śaṃkara’s, though he does

not admit yogic meditation. For Rāmānuja,

Scripture is our only source regarding supersensuous matters, though reason may be employed in support of scripture. The Vedas are eternal, since at every world-epoch Īśvara only gives utterance to them. The smṛtis and the Epics expound the ideas contained in the Vedas, and so they are also authoritative. The Pañcarātra Āgamas may also be accepted as valid, since they owe their origin to the divine Vāsudeva. Aitihya or tradition, when it is true, is a case of scriptural knowledge (āgama) (Radhakrishnan 1993, 674).

Yet while Rāmānuja rejects Yogic perception as an independent source of knowledge,

nevertheless a form of meditative intuition remains the highest source of knowledge, namely

bhakti or devotional meditation, not an outward focus on the deity rather than inward on self. But

like Śaṃkara, what is revealed in bhakti or devotional meditation also transcends the subject-

object dichotomy of regular cognition.

Nehemiah Goreh, a pillar of 19th century Indian Christian theology, argued for these and

other reasons that the advaita Vedānta tradition of Śaṃkara was to be rejected by Christianity,

and that the bhakti tradition of devotion to God, as we find in Rāmānuja, was the preferable

partner for Christian theology. In his Rational Refutation, he argued that the advaita position

reduces to absurdity, since it forces us to posit that Brahman and māyā are identical (Boyd 1989,

Morgan    42  

48). If all is Brahman, then māyā too is Brahman; Brahman divides and thus deludes itself into

the state of illusion. Goreh also argued that the advaita philosophy is a reduction to impersonal

abstraction, and that indeed Iśvara or personal God is higher than Brahman. Further, the

fundamental problem in the Hindu systems is misidentified as ignorance (māyā, avidyā) rather

than sin.

While Goreh’s arguments here are basically correct, nevertheless, Brahmabandhab

Upādhyāya had very good reasons for attempting to work with advaita Vedānta after all.

Upādhyāya believed that if Indian Christian theology was to develop in a truly Indian way, it had

to use the best of the Indian tradition, and certainly Śaṃkara is a philosopher of the highest

caliber. After all, the advaita tradition has not only become one of the dominant traditions within

Indian philosophy, it has also exerted an enormous influence upon the religious culture of the

United States as well (see Miller 2009). So a wholesale rejection seems problematic if for no

other reason than being conversant with major trends of thought. Surely there is more to be said

than what we are left with after Goreh’s criticisms.

Take, for example, the problem of translating the term “God.” We could render it with

the etymological equivalent of theos, Devi, but the problem here would be that the term is

basically never used in the singular. It is used to refer to the “gods” of the pantheon. We could,

then, render “God” with the specific term for personal God, Iśvara, which Goreh advocated, and

this would make the most sense given the direct rendering. However, our advaitan audience in

such a case will respond: “Well, that is nice for you, at your level of awareness, but Brahman is

greater than Iśvara.” Upādhyāya does not want to concede in the very translation of the term that

the Christian God is anything less than the highest. For Brahman is “the highest possible

conception of God . . . to stop short at anything less than this, any mere personal God or Iśvara,

Morgan    43  

would amount to an admission that the God whom Christians worship is less than the All-

highest” (Boyd 1989, 72). Because in the advaita Vedānta tradition, the reality of personal God is

admitted only on the level of practical awareness, to identify the Christian God with personal

God (Iśvara) is to admit that the Christian God is one more deity at the relative level of practical

awareness and is not ultimately real.

Thus, Upādhyāya seeks to find a suitable Christian interpretation of Brahman, by

correlating “the Thomist idea of God as pure Being with the Vedāntic conception of Brahman”

(Boyd 1989, 71). Thus, God or Brahman is not unknowable (Boyd 1989, 71). Rather, Upādhyāya

argues that the Infinite is indeed approachable and knowable in a personal relation that is for him

the condition for the possibility of Reason (Boyd 1989, 71-2). Likewise, the advaitan notion of

pure consciousness is tied instead to the Roman Catholic doctrine of the beatific vision of the

divine essence (Boyd 1989, 72). So rather than rejecting the concept altogether, as Goreh, he

instead seeks to reinterpret Brahman in a way more suitable to Christianity.

Yet to make such a connection means to speak of a pure consciousness of God as nirguṇa

Brahman, God without relation or attribute. But this creates a problem, for “How can God, who

is ‘unrelated’ (nirguṇa), have a Son? What is the meaning of the traditional phrase ‘eternal

generation’?” (Boyd 1989, 73). Upādhyāya argues that God may be immanently self-related in

the sense of having a self-knowledge that is the Cit-Logos (Boyd 1989, 73). Here Upādhyāya

advances his famous analogy of Sat-Cit-Ananda (Being-consciousness-bliss) with the Holy

Trinity. This is an interesting idea, and has the merit of running parallel to the understanding of

the Logos in pre-Nicene theology. However, Upādhyāya, like these pre-Nicene theologians, does

not clearly hypostatically distinguish the Logos from the Father, which needs to be done more

clearly. But in so doing, it raises the very problem that Śaṃkara’s system cannot accept, namely,

Morgan    44  

the affirmation that an hypostasis, a particular being qua particular being, is God. Whereas

Rāmānuja accepts only the reality of particulars, i.e. hypostaseis, Śaṃkara on the other had

accepts only the reality of the eternal essence or ousia of Brahman, which is One, and no

particulars (hypostaseis) have any ultimate reality since this precisely presumes differentiation.

The identification of a particular being or hypostasis within history with God as such, in such

wise that is not the case for the rest of us, is precisely what Śaṃkara’s system cannot allow. For

this would also mean then that God could be known by perception, as Luther says, remaining

with what is visible of God through suffering and the cross (see Forde 1997, 71). Interestingly,

Boyd here suggests also seeing nirguṇa Brahman as a correlate with what Luther means by the

deus absconditus (Boyd 1989, 234).

Many later theologians have criticized this analogy, however, and Panikkar seems to have

avoided it as well (Boyd 1989, 298). Yet, precisely because of its parallel with the early

creativity and intellectual pathways of pre-Nicene theology, it deserves some respect. After all,

Upādhyāya’s insistence that the personal God (Iśvara) is identical with nirguṇa Brahman

parallels the identity of the economic and immanent Trinity. Still, I myself wonder why we

couldn’t simply point to the older meaning of the term Brahman in the Vedas as Word-

revelation, and reverse the relationship: Brahman originates from Iśvara as the Logos from the

Father.

Upādhyāya also attempts to find favorable interpretations of māyā. He identifies māyā

with Thomas’ doctrine of creatio passiva, an interesting move, but this has been judged by many

to have taken him the farthest away from Christian theology. He wants say that all things are

indeed illusion, or darkness, apart from God, since all things have their being from God who is

Being (Sat). Thus, he can still speak of māyā as the means by which the world comes into being,

Morgan    45  

since māyā refers to how all things lack own-being. In our natural, sin-bound state, we find

ourselves turned away from God, and yet māyā makes us restless and long to return to God. So

he wants to give māyā a positive Christian spin, but the more he does so, the less it means what

Śaṃkara explicitly means by it.

This is because the greatest problem that stands between advaita and Christianity is the

doctrine of creation and the ontology of emanation. This whole paper has been building up to

this point. As we saw not only in Śaṃkara, but also in Yazdi’s exposition of Islamic philosophy,

epistemology and ontology are closely related. One cannot take a stand in one area without it

affecting the other. Yazdi is quite frank in pointing out that the epistemology of presence as a

basis for understanding mystical knowledge is itself based in an ontology of emanation. The

reason the removal of the subject-object dichotomy must yield a knowledge of God is because

my being is already an emanation from and therefore ontologically continuous with God the

ground of being, or Being itself. While Yazdi and Rāmānuja both put forth similar arguments

against any collapsing of the distinction between self and God into a simple identity,

nevertheless Yazdi is quite clear in affirming that, in mystical intuition, God and self are

existentially inseparable and indistinguishable. As Radhakrishnan is well aware, they may argue

with advaita, but they live in the same neighborhood, indeed on the same block. For, as has

already been argued, if we begin from an ontology of emanation, then the prior ontological

continuity or even identity between ourselves and God must simply be uncovered from beneath

the rubble of construction-filled consciousness, and thus anubhava must be elevated above

scripture. But if we begin with an ontology of creation, where the being of God is truly beyond

this world, then we would need to elevate external testimony over internal intuition.

Morgan    46  

“In the beginning God created . . .” (Gen 1.1). “The place where the Bible begins is one

where our own most impassioned waves of thinking break, are thrown back upon themselves,

and lose their strength in spray and foam” (Bonhoeffer, DBWE 3:25). Our thinking breaks

against this testimony because we are unable to think the beginning. “Why not? Because [the

beginning is the infinite, and because we can conceive of the infinite only as what is endless] and

so as what has no beginning” (DBWE 3:25). So too with freedom: we cannot conceive that God

in a truly free act, compelled by no external necessity, made a beginning of the world. For all we

can imagine of freedom is also in the context of necessities.

But why then do we always think with reference to the beginning which we cannot

conceive? Because the question “why?” is an infinite regress; our thinking can never answer its

own “why?” because at every answer we can again pose “why?” This is because, as sinners,

separated from God our true beginning, we think in a circle out of ourselves.

Our thinking, that is, the thinking of those who have to turn to Christ to know about God, the thinking of fallen humankind, lacks a beginning because it is a circle. We think in a circle. But we also feel and will in a circle. We exist in a circle. It is possible to say that in that case the beginning is everywhere. But against that stands the equally valid statement that for that very reason there is no beginning at all. The decisive point, however, is that thinking takes this circle to be the infinite, the beginning itself, and is thereby caught in a circulus vitiosus (DBWE 3:26)

Human beings now do not know the beginning, but live in the aporia of the middle. But of

course this beginning shapes so profoundly the direction we are heading, it has to do with who

and what we are. And so we pounce in anger on anyone who proclaims a real beginning, for this

is to proclaim something about who are what we truly are and thus to encroach upon our sense of

self-determination (DBWE 3:27).

So we cannot speak of the beginning or of who we are. “God alone tells us that God is in

the beginning” (DBWE 3:29). Therefore,

Morgan    47  

There is no possible question that could go back behind this God who created in the beginning. Thus it is also impossible to ask why the world was created, what God’s plan for the world was, or whether the creation was necessary. These questions are exposed as godless questions and finally disposed of by the statement: In the beginning God created heaven and earth (DBWE 3:30).

No question can go back behind this beginning because it is a true beginning.

Thus we do not conceive of this absolute beginning in strictly temporal terms, for we can

always again go behind a strictly temporal beginning. “But the beginning is distinguished by

something utterly unique – unique not in the sense of a number that one can count back to, but in

a qualitative sense, that is, in the sense that it simply cannot be repeated, that it is completely

free” (DBWE 3:31). Neither is the Creator the cause and we the effect, since there is no law

between us that provides a context of necessity to God’s freedom. “There is simply nothing that

provides the ground for creation. Creation comes out of this nothing” (DBWE 3:31).

Philosophy also attempts to make sense of the “nothing” as it tries to make sense of the

“beginning.”

Nothingness, nonbeing, arises in our philosophical thinking at the point where the beginning cannot be conceived. Thus it is in the end never anything but the ground for being. Nothingness as the ground for being is understood as a creative nothingness . . . Nothingness, as humankind in the middle conceives it without knowing about the beginning, is the ultimate attempt at explanation (DBWE 3:32).

This “nothingness” is a nihil positivum, a positive nothingness that, though devoid of all

attribution, is nevertheless the wellspring of all being. So is Brahman conceived by advaita, and

shūnyāta by Buddhism. But the “nothing” of the creatio ex nihilo is no such positive nothing,

just one more attempt of the sinner at rational self-determination and self-justification. Neither is

it simply the concept of an absence. The “nothing” here is an absolute nihil; it means to say that

“in the beginning, God”, and that’s it.

There are myths of creation in which the deity imparts its own nature, so that the world springs from the natural fecundity of the deity. In these myths, then, creation is understood

Morgan    48  

as the self-unfolding of the deity of the deity’s giving form to itself or giving birth; the creation itself is a portion of what belongs to God’s very nature, and the pangs of nature, in its birth and in its decay, are pangs that the deity itself suffers (DBWE 3:38).

As philosophy abstracts from, interprets, and clarifies such myths, as Śaṃkara argues, then the

philosophy is itself grown out of this soil. So we find that Brahman, even in its demythologized,

philosophical form with Śaṃkara, is still basically the nihil positivum from which all things

emanate and partake of its being. The way this is explained philosophically is that all things are

Brahman, and the world [of differentiation] emerges as a result of māyā or illusion.

In opposition to all such myths, however, the God of the Bible remains wholly God, wholly the Creator, wholly the Lord, and what God has created remains wholly subject and obedient, praising and worshiping God as Lord. God is never the creation but always the Creator. God is not the substance [Substanz] of nature. There is no continuum that ties God to, or unites God with, God’s work – except God’s word (DBWE 3:38).

Thus, contra advaita and the Islamic epistemology which we saw in Yazdi, there is no ontology

of emanation to which we may appeal as a prior common ground. For the connection is nothing

other than God’s own Word. Anything less than this is a false transcendence that turns God’s

transcendence into a mere projection of our own rationalization, which it attempts to justify by

denying any contradiction between freedom and necessity in God.

But the human being, falling, in the middle, does not live any longer from this Word, and

so attempts every sort of explanation and rationalization that ultimately does away with a

beginning and with it a creation. Indeed, if the Word is alone our connection with God, the fall is

the fall away from this Word. And so the serpent poses the pious question, “did God really say?”

(DBWE 3:99-100). Of course, Adam and Eve here are not faced with a “choice” between good

and evil. They do not yet know this difference. The trees are of “life” and of “the knowledge of

good and evil,” this latter by which they become “like God”, sicut deus. By the very question

they are drawn into sorting it out on their own. “It requires humankind to sit in judgment on

Morgan    49  

God’s word instead of simply listening to it and doing it” (DBWE 3:100). Sicut deus—

“humankind like God in knowing out of its own self about good and evil, in having no limit and

acting out of its own resources, in its aseity, in its being alone” (DBWE 3:105). Thus we have it:

“God’s truth pointing to my limit, the serpent’s truth pointing to my unlimitedness” in becoming

like God, knowing good and evil (DBWE 3:104).

“Freedom is not the abolition of self, but the realisation of its infinity and absoluteness by

the expansion and illumination of consciousness” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 636-7). Again: “the self

is self-revealing. It is authority by itself . . . A man can disavow anything, even God, but not his

self” (Satprakashananda 1974, 231). Again: “Consciousness is primary. It cannot be derivative. It

is self-manifest. That which is self-manifest must also be self-existent” (Satprakashananda 1974,

237). And again: “[Śaṃkara] grounds religious reality in the centre of man’s consciousness, from

which it cannot be dislodged” (Radhakrishnan 1993, 655). Despite Śaṃkara’s claim that

revelation must be ascribed to God’s grace, this is true only at the level of avidya, and thus is not

ultimately true, because it still presumes the differentiation of self and God. So it is just as true to

say that Self saves itself, because self is the Self, only wrongly understood. The level of religion

and the personal God, Iśvara, is to be transcended for Śaṃkara, a position he maintains in no

uncertain terms. And so, as Bonhoeffer discusses in Creation and Fall, the human self here

makes of itself its own ground of being, and attempts to live out of itself and draw being from

itself. This is the cor curvum in se, the condition of Sin. Not sin, they may retort, but ignorance is

the problem! For what is sin, but another illusion of practical awareness? Where is this sin? Thus

said Nathan to David: Tat tvam asi, “you’re the man!” (2 Sam 12:7).

The epistemology of both of the systems here studied is grounded in a metaphysic and

ontology of emanation rather than creation (Yazdi 1992, 115). This is what human reason does

Morgan    50  

when left to its own devices to contemplate the beginning. It can no better understand the

beginning than itself or God. What Ricoeur critiques as a “fortress of consciousness” in western

philosophy can indeed be seen not just as a western problem, but as a universal problem that

precisely correlates with the Christian doctrine of original sin and the human attempt at “up

religion” by contemplative ascent. Yazdi even refers to his model as a “ladder of ascent” after

the model of Plotinus, and Satprakashananda also likens the advaita position to this model

(Yazdi 1992, 9; Satprakashananda 1974, 251). As Rowan Williams rightly points out, this

Plotinian model stands in contrast to one of God’s descent in the Trinitarian economy (2001,

123-6, 193-8). The fundamental conflict between these two models does not yet emerge fully in

the ancient church, but it comes close. Gregory of Nazianzus, for example, argued strictly that

God was not only beyond description, as Plato and Plotinus would say, but is also utterly beyond

knowledge, either by reason or contemplative ascent (see Plato, Tim., 28c; Nazianzus, Ora. 28.3-

4). The purpose of asceticism, apparently, is to discover this impossibility first hand, so that one

then learns to trust the “grand and sublime language of holy Scripture” (Ora. 29.17). Gregory:

“Though every thinking being longs for God, the first cause, it is powerless, for the reasons I

have given, to grasp him” (Ora. 28.13). Rather, how we know God is in the Logos of Theos who

took flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus Christ is theology, the Logos of Theos. By this Logos

incarnate, “the Incomprehensible might be comprehended” (Ora. 39.13; Beeley 2008, 113). This

is the core of Christian epistemology.

We could do worse at this juncture than to consult Karl Rahner. For if we deny the

ontology of emanation, why then is there an horizon of the infinite that the human being can

indeed discover in mystical awareness as a condition for the possibility of its mundane activities

and life? Rahner argued the fascinating thesis that the Hypostatic Union of the incarnate Christ

Morgan    51  

as such had ontological consequences for all of human existence since in the incarnation, the

Logos was hypostatically united with human nature as such. Specifically, the incarnation is the

condition for the possibility of general human transcendence, of the general dimension or

horizon of the infinite which resides underneath all of our more day-to-day categorical affairs.

This has the merit of affirming, on the one hand, that there is indeed such an infinite horizon of

all our spiritual life and that this horizon is God, as Śaṃkara wishes us to see, while at the same

time not grounding it in a general ontology of emanantion, as Yazdi or even Tillich would do,

but instead grounding it specifically in the incarnation. If we took this route, we would also

thereby affirm what Goreh and Upādhyāya both in their own way argued, namely that something

is indeed discovered in anubhava, but apart from the revelation of Jesus Christ it is not rightly

understood. For apart from this revelation, Rahner argued, the human being constantly mistakes

this horizon of the infinite for itself as its own ground of being. It has no choice but to come to

this conclusion, as Bonhoeffer shows, because it is fallen away from the Word of God and

tumbles in the aporia of the middle. Sin, then is both our continual flight from this infinite

horizon—Adam, where art thou?—or the attempt by the self to absorb it into itself, as in

Śaṃkara—the climax of “up religion.” The specific revelation of the person of Christ reveals

that this infinite horizon does not belong to us and that it is there in the first place because of

Christ. In this way, it seems we may affirm, as Upādhyāya wanted to say, that Hindu philosophy

represents a pinnacle of natural theology and philosophy, but like the Greek philosophy of the

ancients, it too must be corrected by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Thus, as Luther argued, truth is not the same in philosophy and theology (LW 38:239-

79). All thought must be brought under obedience to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). Yet, Indian philosophy

is an ally here as well. For because of the rigorous reflection on the interconnections of

Morgan    52  

epistemology, ontology, and method, these thinkers are aware that no a priori method can be

permitted to determine the subject matter of that which transcends what can be known by reason

or the senses. This is especially helpful in a time when scientific reductionism in the west does

not merely reject Christianity, but any sort of spiritual or theological truth.

The explication of the faith—the explication of the śruti and the anubhava—must be controlled from the side of the object, that is, by the inner logic of the subject-matter itself. This will involve deep and scholarly study of the Biblical evidence and a refusal to allow any a priori mould, however attractive, to shape theology. Even systems like those of Śaṃkara and Rāmānuja should be used only in so far as they serve to illuminate truths which emerge from the ‘inner logic’ of the object of faith (Boyd 1989, 232).

This is exactly what both Bonhoeffer and Oswald Bayer are attempting to demonstrate, as well

as Gregory and Luther in their own ways. This is what it means to reject a unified epistemology

from the side of philosophy, according to which reason must be permitted to be the final arbiter

over the mysteries of the subject matter of theology.

Conclusion In this paper, we have looked at the religious epistemologies of two traditions, advaita

Vedānta and Islamic philosophy. Both systems, as we have shown, are rooted in an ontology of

emanation, in contrast to an ontology of creation, where the Word or Logos, who took flesh in

Jesus, is alone the ontological bridge between God and creation. This leads to an epistemological

difference as well, where Christian epistemology concentrates in the person of Christ for its

knowledge of God, in contrast to these systems which variously attempt to expand the general

theory of knowledge as presence or consciousness into a contemplative ascent to nondual

mystical awareness.

However, it should be clear that while there are very serious problems in these

epistemologies from a Christian perspective, as Goreh was well aware, nevertheless there is

Morgan    53  

much to be gained for Christian theology from these philosophies, as Upādhyāya desired. We

here list five such positive contributions. 1) The Indian philosophical tradition is of an especially

high caliber, and shows a much needed methodological and epistemological sensitivity,

especially to the intimate interconnection between epistemology and ontology. For this reason, it

is recognizes that the methods for the study of theology must be derived out of the subject matter

itself, a point that lies at the very heart of dogmatic theology. 2) The Indian tradition, again,

offers a rich understanding of scripture as efficacious, spoken word, that is most certainly helpful

for recovering Luther’s own hermeneutic of God’s concrete address in Law and Gospel. 3) The

Indian tradition again offers powerful arguments for the validity of verbal testimony and external

authority as an independent source of knowledge, arguments that find mutual validation with the

writings of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur. 4) Both the Islamic philosophy of Yazdi and

the Indian philosophy of Śaṃkara and his scholars offer further arguments supporting the idea of

a phenomenological sphere of conscious awareness that is indeed more primordial than our

regular categorical dealings. This sphere of awareness demands a more primordial definition of

knowledge, not as correspondence but as a direct apodictic or conscious intuiting that bears its

own intrinsic Evidenz or self-evident force (see Husserl, Hua 3/1, § 141; in Pietersma 2000, 40).

Finally, 5) both of these systems provide an illustration of the difference between an

epistemology of contemplative ascent in contrast with God’s descent in the Trinitarian economy,

which helps to clarify a distinctively Christian epistemology.

By insisting that the epistemology and methods of theology be derived from the subject

matter itself, we have engaged in a convergence of comparative religion and dogmatics. But this

forces us to raise a question concerning the cultural conditionality of dogmatic theology, the

theme that is running underneath the surface of all these investigations. It is my hope that this

Morgan    54  

paper has reflected my general conviction that we must today simultaneously affirm the

constructive character of theology, while at the same time affirming that theology cannot be

reduced to human construction, since God has truly entered history in the person of Jesus Christ,

and has truly spoken a culturally transcendent Word through a culturally conditioned language

(Steinmetz 1999, 169). Thus, we must affirm also that it is neither possible nor desirable to have

a purely western or purely eastern Christian theology or philosophy. In this way I see this paper

as having a certain affinity with the work of Jarava Mehta, who also worked with Heidegger and

the phenomenological tradition in his exegesis of Indian philosophy. In order to remain faithful

to the dogmatic task, therefore, we must engage in some comparative religious studies in order to

enrich our theological engagement, but also to be driven to new perspectives on one’s own

cultural situation, which precisely helps to recognize the difference between human construction

and the Word of God. Thus, this task must be carried out not simply in the service of a new

cultural synthesis. It must rather be done as dogmatics, in service to the proclamation of the

gospel of Jesus Christ.

Audi, Robert. 2002. “The Sources of Knowledge.” The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology. New

York: Oxford University Press. Augustine. 1952. The City of God, Book 11. In The Fathers of the Church: Writings of Saint

Augustine, volume 7. Walsh and Monahan, trans. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, pp. 190-93. In Readings in Christian Theology. Hodgson and King, eds. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1985.

Beeley, Christopher A. 2008. Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Betz, John R. 2012. After Enlightenment: The Post-Secular Vision of J. G. Hamann. Malden:

Wiley-Blackwell.

Morgan    55  

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. 2004. Creation and Fall. In Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, volume 3. Martin

Rüter and Ilse Tödt, trans. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Boyd, Robin. 1989. Indian Christian Theology. New Dehli: ISPCK & ITL. Coburn, Thomas B. 1989. “‘Scripture’ in India: Towards a Typology of the Word in Hindu

Life.” Rethinking Scripture: Essays from a Comparative Perspective. Miriam Levering, ed. New York: State University of New York Press.

Coogan, Michael, ed. 2003. The Illustrated Guide to World Religions. New York: Oxford

University Press. Coreless, Roger and Paul F. Knitter, eds. Buddhist Emptiness and Christian Trinity: Essays and

Explorations. New York: Paulist Press, 1990. Chatterjee, Satischandra and Dhirendramohan Datta. 1960. An Introduction to Indian

Philosophy. Calcutta: Calcutta University Press. Clark, Elizabeth. 1999. Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity.

Princeton: Princeton University Press. Clooney, Franics X. 1993. Theology After Vedānta: An Experiment in Comparative Theology.

New York: State University of New York Press. Das, Ras-Vihary. 1958. “Pursuit of Truth Through Doubt and Belief.” Contemporary Indian

Philosophy. Radhakrishnan, S. and J. H. Muirhead, eds. London: Bradford and Dickens. Datta, D. M. 1958. “Knowledge, Reality and the Unknown.” Contemporary Indian Philosophy.

Radhakrishnan, S. and J. H. Muirhead, eds. London: Bradford and Dickens. Dupuis, Jacques, S.J. 2001. Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism. New York:

Orbis Books. Easwaran, Eknath, trans. 1985. The Bhagavad Gita. New York: Vintage Books. Eck, Diana. 2001. A New Religious America. New York: HarperCollins. Forde, Gerhard. 1997. On Being a Theologian of the Cross. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Graham, William A. 1993. Beyond the Written Word: Oral aspects of scripture in the history of

religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hiriyanna, M. 1958. “The Problem of Truth.” Contemporary Indian Philosophy. Radhakrishnan,

S. and J. H. Muirhead, eds. London: Bradford and Dickens.

Morgan    56  

James, William. 2002. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Random House/Modern Library.

Knitter, Paul. 2008. Introducing Theologies of Religions. Maryknoll: Orbis. Krishna, Daya. 1972. “Appearance and Reality.” Current Trends in Indian Philosophy. Bombay:

Andhra University Press & P. S. Jayasinghe, Asia Publishing House. Kugel, James L. 2008. How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now. New York:

Free Press. Legaspi, Michael C. 2010. The Death of Scripture and the Rise of Biblical Studies. New York:

Oxford. Loewenich, Walter von. 1976. Luther’s Theology of the Cross. Christian Journals Limited:

Belfast. Lyotard, Jean-François. 1984. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press. Malkani, G. R. 1958. “Freedom Through Knowledge.” Contemporary Indian Philosophy.

Radhakrishnan, S. and J. H. Muirhead, eds. London: Bradford and Dickens. McGuckin, John A. 2001. St Gregory of Nazianzus: An intellectual Biography. New York: St

Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Mehta, Jarava L. 1992. J.L. Mehta on Heidegger, Hermeneutics, and Indian Tradition. William

J. Jackson, ed. Leiden: E. J. Brill.   Miller, Lisa. 2009. “We Are All Hindus Now.” In Newsweek, August 2009.

http://www.newsweek.com/2009/08/14/we-are-all-hindus-now.html  Mitra, S. K. 1972. “Truth and Error.” Current Trends in Indian Philosophy. Bombay: Andhra

University Press & P. S. Jayasinghe, Asia Publishing House. Mohanty, J. N. 1972. “Phenomenology and Ontology.” Current Trends in Indian Philosophy.

Bombay: Andhra University Press & P. S. Jayasinghe, Asia Publishing House. Mukerji, A. C. 1958. “Suggestions for an Idealistic Theory of Knowledge.” Contemporary

Indian Philosophy. Radhakrishnan, S. and J. H. Muirhead, eds. London: Bradford and Dickens.

Muller, Richard A. 2003. Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of

Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. Norris, Frederick W. 1991. Faith Gives Fullness to Reasoning: The Five Theological Orations of

Gregory of Nazianzen. Lionel Wickham and Frederick Williams, trans. Leiden: E.J. Brill.

Morgan    57  

Novak, Philip. 1994. The World’s Wisdom: Sacred Texts of the World’s Religions. New York:

HarperOne. Otto, Rudolf. 1932. Mysticism East and West. New York: Macmillan Co. Pandit, Moti Lal. 1981. Śankara’s Concept of Reality. New Delhi: Select Books. Pannenberg, Wolfhart. 1991. Systematic Theology, volume 1. Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans. Pelikan, Jaroslav. 1971. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine: The

Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pietersma, Henry. 2000. Phenomenological Epistemology. New York: Oxford. Potter, Karl H. 1981. Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies: Advaita Vedānta up to Śaṃkara and

His Pupils. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Quinn, Philip P. 2002. “Epistemology in Philosophy of Religion.” The Oxford Handbook of

Epistemology. New York: Oxford. Radhakrishnan, S. 1993. Indian Philosophy, vol 2. New Dehli: Oxford University Press. Radhakrishnan, S., trans. and intro. 1960. The Brahma Sūtra: The Philosophy of Spiritual Life.

London: George Allan & Unwin Ltd. Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli and Charles A. Moore, eds. 1973. A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rahner, Karl. 1979. Theological Investigations, volume 16. New York: Crossroad Book. —1984. “Oneness and Threefoldness of God in Discussion with Islam.” In Theological

Investigations, 18:105-21. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1984. —1990. Foundations of Christian Faith. New York: Crossroad. Raja, C. Kunhan. 1972. “God Has No Place In My Philosophy.” Current Trends in Indian

Philosophy. Bombay: Andhra University Press & P. S. Jayasinghe, Asia Publishing House. Ricoeur, Paul. 1984. Time and Narrative, vol. 1. McLaughlin and Pelauer, trans. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press. —2013. Hermeneutics. Malden: Polity Press. Satprakāshānanda, Swāmī. 1974. Methods of Knowledge: Perceptual, Non-perceptual, and

Transcendental, According to Advaita Vedānta. Calcutta: Indian Press Pvt. Ltd.

Morgan    58  

Smith, Huston. 1991. The World’s Religions. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Steinmetz, David. 1999. “Luther, the Reformers, and the Bible.” Living Traditions of the Bible:

Scripture in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Practice. James Bowely, ed. St Louis: Chalice Press.

Tillich, Paul. 2000. The Courage to Be. New Haven: Yale University Press. —1951, 1957, 1963. Systematic Theology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Voelz, James W. 2003. What Does This Mean? Principles of Biblical Interpretation in the Post-

Modern World. St Louis: Concordia. Wilber, Ken. 1996. A Brief History of Everything. Boston: Shambala. —1983. Eye to Eye: The Quest for the New Paradigm. New York: Anchor Books. —1997. The Eye of Spirit: An Integral Vision for a World Gone Slightly Mad. Boston: Shambala. Williams, Rowan. 2001. Arius: Heresy and Tradition. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Yazdi, Mehdi Ha’iri. 1992. The Principles of Epistemology in Islamic Philosophy: Knowledge by

Presence. Albany: State University of New York.

Morgan    59