God in All Things
Ramanuja’s Divine Ontology for Christian Panentheism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/isit.19095Keywords:
Panentheism, Pantheism, idolatry, Rāmānuja, Platonic Idealism, nondualism, dualismAbstract
One divine ontology can account for multiple religious experiences. Specifically, the theological metaphysic of Ramanuja integrates four distinct encounters with the holy. Due to its openness, Ramanuja’s theology resonates with Western panentheism—the belief that God is both within and beyond the material universe. We can experience 1. a personal, transcendent God, 2. a divine humanity, 3. a sacred cosmos, and 4. an awe-inspiring rational order. If the experiencer thinks exclusively, then they may believe that their experience is the only legitimate experience. But if one divine ontology can accommodate the varieties of religious experience, as does Ramanuja’s, then such exclusivism is unnecessary. This article proposes a panentheistic Christian ontology based on the Hindu (Visisitdvaita) theology of Ramanuja that accounts for the four religious experiences listed above. It then provides celebratory examples of each experience in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, thereby providing biblical support for Visisitdvaita, Christian panentheism. Finally, I argue that Ramanuja’s personalist panentheism better serves Christian faith than impersonalist Platonic Idealism.
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