RT Article
T1 God in All Things: Ramanuja's Divine Ontology for Christian Panentheism
JF Interreligious studies and intercultural theology
VO 6
IS 2
SP 153
OP 171
A1 Sydnor, Jon Paul
LA English
YR 2022
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1886421129
AB 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.
K1 Christian Theology
K1 Comparative Theology
K1 Constructive Theology
K1 Cosmology
K1 Panentheism
K1 Pantheism
K1 Platonic Idealism
K1 Ramanuja
K1 Rāmānuja
K1 Theism
K1 Vedanta
K1 Visistadvaita Vedanta
K1 Dualism
K1 Idolatry
K1 Nondualism
DO 10.1558/isit.19095