quote:

Most Hindus believe in Nirguna Brahman, or God without attributes, as well as Saguna Brahman, or God with attributes. Nirguna Brahman is beyond space, time and causation; It is the only final and absolute reality that exists outside of the material universe and is not bound by its dualities and limitations, such as male and female, hot and cold, pain and pleasure, etc.

Nirguna Brahman, however, is hard to worship because of the human being's limited capacity to understand or grasp a metaphysical entity that is without attributes. And Nirguna Brahman, being aware of our shortcomings and limits, voluntarily takes on many different forms, shapes, and names to help human beings better understand ourselves, nature, the universe, and God. This physical manifestation of Nirguna Brahman in the material universe is known as Saguna Brahman (or Ishvar or Bhagwan).

The above quote is from:Brief Introduction to Hinduism

And prompts a question:

One difference between the Hindu predication of time and that, let�s say, of St. Augustine, is that the former says that God exists in time, while the latter says that the universe was created with time. I need to examine some more predicates to move forward in my attempt to inhabit this monistic perspective.

Here is my next point of stuckedness.

In saying that God is unreceived existence and that, in God, existence and essence are the same, thomists are also saying that act and potency are the same, act equated with existence and potency equated with essence/quiddity. Therefore, if time is assymetrical, homogenous and continuous, even if relative and possibly cyclic (such as in an ergodic hypothesis), then, still, if, in nirguNabrahman, act and potency are the same, how could a transformation into saguNabrahman take place in time, which is to ask, wouldn�t the transformation be instantaneous?

I suppose that I could conceive of the nirguNabrahman to saguNabrahman transformation as an atemporal event that we are dimly perceiving as an implicate order, knowing that, as long as I remain chained to physicality and temporality, the implicate order cannot present itself to me in its entirety, in its fullness. I know this discussion is reminiscent of the old joke: Why did God create time? So everything wouldn�t happen all at once.

So, how does the Hindu predication of nirguNabrahman differ from the thomistic predication of God as far as existence/essence-act/potency is concerned?

pax,
jb

Well HUMPH....I was replying and it told me the topic was closed and then I find out Phil was moving it at the same time...LOL! Whew...*twilight zone music*..lol. *waving at Phil* So anyway, here's what I had written.

Hi JB,

This doesn't help any..lol..but as I read this over a couple times, it seemed to me that, in many ways, there is quite a similarity.

In OT times, the Hebrews used "human" attributes to speak about God (anthropomorphisms..which I'm sure you already knew). But anyway, in a book I read recently (Our Father Abraham: The Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith, by Marvin R. Wilson), there is this paragraph:

"The "living" and "active" God of the Hebrews is thus never reduced to mere impresonal abstraction. For instance, the Ten Commandments are said to be "inscribed by the finger of God" (Ex. 31:18). The prophet Isaiah states, "Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear" (Isa. 59:1). And again, a well-known proverb states, "The eyes of the Lord are everywhere" (Prov. 15:3)."

Instead of having God become different aspects of nature or life, they gave Him human mannerisms in order to "grasp" Him. But then we have what is possibly the stunning difference in that Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, actually presented Himself here on earth so that we could "know" God. He, being one of "us", and allowing us to move past the God that was "out there" to the God who is "right here". Then leaving us with the Holy Spirit in order to have God "with" us always.

It's almost like the main difference is that Christianity has taken the experience of God to a level beyond the Hindu idea...because of the manifestation of God among us.

But, I'm not exactly sure if that's what you were getting at.

Anyhow...just a couple cents worth of thought on it .

God bless,
Terri

Terri, you actually anticipated where I am ultimately headed with this! which will be the distinction between Jesus and Hindu avatars, metaphysically and theologically.

What I was driving at, in particular, was how, in Hindu cosmology, could the God of attributes, the Many, immanently, ever have been the One, the undifferentiated, transcendentally? This is hard to express. If God can be the Many, then its seems like s/he would have always been the Many, such potentiality being fully realized instantaneously. Our Christian metaphysics doesn't have this problem because we don't identify the Creator with the created. Further, we say that the universe was created with time and not in time.

pax,
jb

Hmmmmm....I think I'm beginning to see. If God is unknowable, yet knowable through various creations, then how could He have ever been unknowable? How can He be both at the same time? Especially if He is making this transformation within time itself?

If that's not it...you're going to have to break it down a bit more for me. I guess I'm having a little trouble because there are so many mysteries about God Almighty that are unexplainable, yet we don't question them (or well many of us don't...some do). So for them, possibly this isn't a problem of any kind because it's "God".

I read that page...wow...the religion seems complex, but strikingly similar in some ways to Christianity. For instance the 4 major "functions" of people...almost like the scriptures about some are called to be apostles, some are called to be teachers, etc...

I think one thing that struck me the most was the whole "evolving" idea. That smacks to me of no eternal Truth, but rather a Truth that changes from generation to generation. To me this would be difficult because there would seemingly be no absolute...nor authority.

God bless,
Terri

Hmmmmm....I think I'm beginning to see. If God is unknowable, yet knowable through various creations, then how could He have ever been unknowable? How can He be both at the same time? Especially if He is making this transformation within time itself?

Actually, Terri, you captured that well, with the emphasis of my question being on: transformation within time.

Of course, the way Christians resolve the issue is that we say we cannot know God's specific nature. But, we can very much know something of God through His effects, using analogies.

A Hindu friend of mine said that the way he'd answer my question is by discriminating between physical space-time, which was created, and an eternal notion of time. That solves the problems for the Hindu cosmology, I suppose, but it is incommensurate with any definition of eternity that predicates it as atemporal.

And, Terri, this stuff is hard to wrap one's mind around, in principle!

Thanks,
jb

It's not always easy to equivocate concepts from one religion to another, as the history of interreligious dialogue has shown. Hinduism, in particular, is filled with paradoxes that are maddening to Westerners, but of no troubling consequence to most Hindus. How God can be one and all simultaneously is an example, and they don't just pass it off to mystery, as we do. A more organic type of understanding prevails rather than the kind of analogical conceptualization the West--and Catholics, in particular--are comfortable with.

The best I can come up with on the one-and-all from Hinduism is that they view this as we do the body and mind. God is one--a being in God's own right--manifesting as the all of the universe. Creatures are "part" of God--not entities in their own right, as we view them in Western religions. God is present and acting in "creatures" the way the human mind and will act in and through the human body. Of course, it needs be said here that I am only speaking of the most radically pantheistic emphases in Hinduism, and there are others which do tend more toward a philosophy of creation that does recognize creatures.

A question that the pantheistic approach always leaves me with is that of evil. If there are no creatures with no independent intelligence and will, then God must be help responsible for evil and suffering. This is often explained in some vague evolutionary sense, but if the stuff of evolution is also God, then I don't get it. Saying good and evil are beyond our comprehension and that what we consider evil might not really be so also doesn't cut it.

.Of course, the way Christians resolve the issue is that we say we cannot know God's specific nature. But, we can very much know something of God through His effects, using analogies.

Yes. And let's not forget revelation.

Yes. And let's not forget revelation. natural theology being but the front porch of this mansion

Well said, Phil - thanks.

pax,
jb