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Footnotes and references for
Has ISKCON Anything to Offer Christianity
Theologically?
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- As late as 1974, in the Lausanne Covenant, Evangelical
Christians formally rejected the belief that God may be known
apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ: "We recognise that all
men have some knowledge of God through his general revelation
in nature. But we deny that this can save, for men suppress the
truth by their unrighteousness. We also reject as derogatory to
Christ and the gospel every kind of syncretism and dialogue which
implies that Christ speaks equally through all religions and ideologies"
(Shorter, 1983:179). G.C. Berkouwer, a conservative Protestant
theologian, looks upon extra-biblical religion not as revealed
but as a "depraved answer to the revelation of God" (Dulles, 1983:7).
(The latest and most daring Evangelical attempt to come to terms
with this issue has just come to my attention. In The Scripture
Principle, Clark H. Pinnock has granted that the general revelation
alluded to in the Bible must be saving if it comes from a saving
God [p.7l]. This is an encouraging step forward for Evangelical
theology.)
- For current studies of revelation by Christian
theologians, see Dulles, 1983; Shorter, 1983; and Abraham, 1982.
For a wide-ranging contemporary study of revelation in the Indian
traditions, see Murty, 1959. For a sophisticated philosophical
exploration of revelation from ninth-century India, see Jayanta
Bhatta's Nyaya-manjari, Anhika IV (1978:484-617).
- A good example of a dialogic, constructive theology
of the sort I am describing-and one that remains profoundly devotional-can
be found in Thomas Merton's foreword to the first edition of Bhagavad-gita
As It Is (Bhaktivedanta, 1968:18-22). A careful study of that
short essay will give some indication of how Christianity can
be enriched by its encounter with the Vaiñëavism preached by Prabhupäda
and ISKCON. (Also see Paul F. Knitter's recently published No
Other Name? for a daring Roman Catholic attempt to move beyond
Rahnerian inclusivism.)
- This method immediately destroys itself, since
denying the usefulness of predication is itself a negative predication.
- Dionysius the Areopagite, or Pseudo-Dionysius,
was most likely a late fifth century Syrian mystic. Along with
his other writings, The Mystical Theology, in which he
gives expression in extremely daring form to a radical apophaticism,
he exerted a significant influence over subsequent mystical and
dogmatic theology in the Eastern and Western Churches.
- By means of his principle of analogy, Thomas
(1947:I.158) is able to forcefully maintain the thesis that "the
name person pre-eminently belongs to God". (Summa Theologica
I.29, 4) Thomas's argument is succinct and reminiscent of a similar
argument that appears frequently in Prabhupada's writings. "Person",
writes Thomas, "signifies what is most perfect in all nature....
Hence, since everything that is perfect must be attributed to
God, for as much as His essence contains every perfection, this
name person is fittingly applied to God." (ibid.)
- Prabhupada (Bhaktivedanta, 1973:99-100) uses
a form of argument similar to Thomas's analogia entis where
he states that,
The Mayavadi philosophers cannot understand these two prakritis,
or natures-material and spiritual-but one who is actually intelligent
can understand them. Considering the many varieties and activities
in material nature, why should the Mayavadi philosophers deny
the spiritual varieties of the spiritual world? Mayavadi philosophers,
however, cannot clearly understand spiritual varieties; therefore
they imagine a negation of the material world to be the spiritual
world.
The latter sentence gives an example of negative theology unchecked
by a positive theology. The first section of the above quotation
is a good example of analogical reasoning; it maintains a dialectical
balance between positive and negative predication. See also Bhagavad-gita
7.24 and Prabhupada's purport (Bhaktivedanta, 1983: 403). The
implication of this verse is that personality (vyaktim) cannot
arise from impersonality (avyaktam), since personality is of a
higher ontological order than impersonality.
- "The Supreme Personality of Godhead", writes
Prabhupada (Bhaktivedanta, 1973:100), "...has a spiritual body
which is distinct from material bodies, and thus His name, abode,
entourage and qualities are all spiritual."
- The anthropomorphism of the older Biblical materials,
especially the Yahwist sources, gradually gives way to the spiritualised
(incorporeal) deity of the prophets and the New Testament. Compare
Genesis 3:8, Isaiah 40:18-20, and Romans 1:22-23.
- One form of the anthropic principle attempts
to explain the unique factors involved in the evolution of the
universe by asserting that the universe evolved in such a way
as to generate the conditions necessary to human life. This view
is opposed to the more traditional view that life emerged as an
accidental consequence of the coincidence of various conditions.
For the mathematical, cosmological and metaphysical arguments
for the anthropic principle, see Gale, 1981.
- See also Robinson, 1952:9; S.V. McCasland in
IDB, 1962, vol. 1:452; E.W. Saunders in IDB Supplement,
1962:740; and Othmar Schilling in Bauer, 1981:759-763.
- See Revelation 3:12, 21:1-22:5; and Isaiah
11:6-9, 65:17-25.
- The following summary description of Goloka
Vrindavana may be found in Teachings of Lord Chaitanya
(Bhaktivedanta, 1974:321):
In Brahma-samhita the transcendental land of Vrindavana is described
as being always spiritual. That spiritual land is populated by
goddesses of fortune, who are known as gopis. These are all beloved
of Krishna and Krishna is the only lover of all these gopis. The
trees of that land are kalpa-vriksha, wish-fulfilling trees, and
one can have anything he wants from them. The land is made of
touchstone and water of nectar. In that land all speech is song,
and all walking is dancing, and one's constant companion is the
flute. Everything is self-luminous, just like the sun in this
material world. The human form of life is meant for understanding
this transcendental land of Vrindavana, and one who is fortunate
should cultivate knowledge of Vrindavana and its residents. In
that supreme abode are surabhi cows that overflood the land with
milk. Since not even a moment there is misused, there is no past,
present or future. An expansion of this Vrindavana, which is the
supreme abode of Krishna, is also present on this earth, and superior
devotees worship it as the supreme abode. [i.e., Gokula Vrindavana,
the Vrindavana that is in India, the earthly location of many
of Krishna's terrestrial pastimes].
This description of the perfections of Goloka Våndävana calls
to mind Thomas's theory of super-eminence: God is the super-eminent
source of all perfections that are imperfectly experienced in
this finite, sin-blasted world. "God prepossesses in Himself",
writes Thomas, "all the perfections of creatures. Being Himself
absolutely and universally perfect..." (Summa Theologica
I.13, 2 Thomas Aquinas, 1948:101) "Hence, it is necessary that
whatever is found to act in anything whatever must be found in
God in a more eminent way than in the thing itself." (Summa
Contra Gentiles, I.28, 7 Thomas Aquinas, 1975:1361)
- For Prabhupada's use of emblem, see Bhaktivedanta,
1974:326.
- For current examples of Catholic and
Protestant misunderstanding of the status of non-Biblical religions
as bearers of divine revelation, see Dulles, 1983:17576. Dulles
writes that Eastern religions are not overtly revelational since
they do not claim to be based on divine revelation. He generously
allows for the possibility that these non-Biblical religions might
contain enough revelation to bring about the condemnation of their
followers.
References
Abraham, William J. 1982. Divine Revelation and the Limits
of Historical Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Altizer, Thomas J. J. and Max Myers, et. al. 1982. Deconstruction
and Theology. New York: Crossroad.
Aquinas, Saint Thomas 1947. Summa Theologica, trans.
Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger
Brothers.
1948. Introduction to Saint Thomas Aquinas (selections
from the Summa Theologica), ed. Anton C. Pegis. New York:
Modern Library.
1975. Summa Contra Gentiles, trans. Anton C. Pegis. Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame.
Bauer, Johannes B., ed. 1981. Encyclopedia of Biblical Theology:
The Complete Sacramentium Verbi. New York: Crossroad.
Bhaktivedanta Swami, A. C. 1968. The Bhagavad-gita As It
Is, first edition. New York: Macmillan.
1973. Sri Chaitanya-Charitamrita of Krishnadasa Kaviraja
Goswami, trans., Adi-Lila vol. 2. Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta
Book Trust.
1974. Teachings of Lord Chaitanya. Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta
Book Trust.
1983. Bhagavad-gita As It Is, complete edition. Los Angeles:
Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.
Carman, John B. 1974. The Theology of Ramanuja: An Essay in
Interreligious Understanding. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Dionysius the Areopagite (Pseudo-Dionysius) 1940. The Divine
Names and The Mystical Theology, trans. C.E. Rolt. London:
SPCK
Dulles, Avery 1983. Models of Revelation. Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday.
Gale, George 1981. "The Anthropic Principle". Scientific
American 245.6:15s171EIDB 1962. The Interpreter's Dictionary
of the Bible (four volumes and a supplementary volume).
Nashville: Abingdon.
Jayanta Bhatta 1978. Nyaya-Manjari: The Compendium of Indian
Speculative Logic, vol. 1, trans. Janki Vallabha Bhattacharya.
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Kar, Bijayananda 1978. The Theories of Error in Indian Philosophy:
An Analytical Study. Delhi: Ajanta Publications.
Kaufman, Gordon D. 1981. The Theological Imagination: Constructing
the Concept of God. Philadelphia: Westminster.
Knitter, Paul F. 1985. No Other Name? Maryknoll, N.Y.:
Orbis.
MacNicol, Nicol 1968. Indian Theism: From the Vedic to
the Muhammadan Period, second edition. Delhi: Munshiram
Manoharlal.
Monier-Williams, Monier 1890. Hinduism. London: SPCK
Murty, K. Satchidananda 1959. Reason and Revelation in Advaita
Vedanta. Waltair: Andhra University Press.
Otto, Rudolf 1980. India's Religion of Grace and Christianity
Compared and Contrasted, trans. F.H. Foster. New York: Macmillan.
Peukert, Helmut 1984. Science, Action, and Fundamental Theology,
trans. James Bohman. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Pinnock Clark H. 1984. The Scripture Principle. New
York: Harper and Row.
Rahner, Karl 1975. A Rahner Reader, ed. Gerald A. McCool.
London: Dartmon, Longman and Todd.
Robinson, J. A T. 1952. The Body: A Study in Pauline Theology.
London: SCM Press.
Shorter, Aylward 1983. Revelation and its Interpretation.
London: Geoffrey Chapman.
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