The Transcendent Unity of Religions

[Thomas]

The transcendent unity of religions is an axiom of the Perennial Philosophy. It's the title of a book by Frithjof Schuon, and it's taken as a given by the writers – usually called Traditionalists – in support of the Perennial Philosophy.

It's something of a mantra among the non-traditional (often anti-traditional) commentaries on spirituality in the current western mileau, but it is far removed from what the Traditionalists declare, and demonstrate, again and again.

It is something that I believe, which might seem odd, coming from a Catholic.

The issue here is that modernity fails to make an adequate distinction between the universal and the particular, the esoteric and the exoteric, the formless and the formal, the cosmological and the metacosmic. And because they do, they consistently assume this unity happens on 'this side' of the metacosmic horizon, and happily assure everyone that 'all religions are saying the same thing' when they clearly are not, if you have any decent grounding in the doctrines of any given tradition.

Huston Smith, in his introduction to Schuon's book, said:

the defect in other versions of this (esoteric/exoteric) distinction is that they claim unity in religions too soon, at levels where, being exoteric, true Unity does not pertain and can be posited only on pain of procrusteanism or vapidity. (my emphasis)

By proclaiming a particular system as the truth, one excludes all others, and by so doing denies Truth its essential unity and its infinite possibility of expression.

The 'Truth' as such transcends all and any expression, it can never be contained wholly and entirely in any given system.

But, by the same token, the 'Truth' as such is unattainable precisely because of its transcendent and formless nature. It is only though the Tradition, through its diverse formal structures, that the formless is accessible, and this underpins the idea of Union or Enlightenment spoken of in the theistic and non-theist traditions.

Whilst the nature of Truth is such that it cannot be univocally described by any one Tradition, this does not mean however that the Traditions are in themselves deficient, or that they might benefit or be completed by augmentation from without.

The oft-made claim that certain mystics – the Eckhart or the Rumi, for example – have somehow transcended the 'confines' of their parent Tradition, that they are 'thinking outside the box', is again evidence of a failure to comprehend the Tradition, specifically its metaphysic, which such commentaries so happily disparage. Had the critic been more converse with the traditional commentaries on the topic, they might have preserved themselves from such foolish errors. In short, try telling that to Eckhart!

Another popular mantra, "I am spiritual, but not religious" again makes the mistake of 'speaking too soon', assuming the spirit of the individual (psyche) equates with the Spirit (pneuma) spoken of in the Traditions.

 

[wil]

I don't hear a lot of people saying "they all say the same thing" I hear "they came from the same source", "they have similar goals", "cut from the same cloth", "all one G!d"....

I believe Jesus, was thinking outside the box, transcending the confines of his religion.... as well as Eckart, or Spong...while they were all saying they were being a good Jew, or Franciscan, or Episcopalian.... their leaders, the powers that be thought them as heretics.

Spiritual but not religious.... of those that I know that say this they are simply tossing off the issues they have with organized religions, they don't follow religiously, they don't go religiously, but that they are aware and honor a connection.

 

[wil]

The 'Truth' as such transcends all and any expression, it can never be contained wholly and entirely in any given system.

Now this.... we agree.

 

[Thomas]

I hear "they came from the same source", "they have similar goals", "cut from the same cloth", "all one G!d"....

Yes, the same sort of thing, really. The statement can be sublime or banal, depending on context.

 

[Nicholas Weeks]

Transcendence, yet Unity of the One or Reality is a profound truth and puzzle to me. But that is the way it is when using only conceptual mind. So transcendent unity of religions would suffer the same conceptual vs non-conceptual tussle.

Damascius begins his study thusly:

(I 1) "Is the so-called one principle of all things beyond all things or is it one
among all things, as if it were the summit of those that proceed from it? And
are we to say that “all things” are with the [first principle], or after it and [that
they proceed] from it?

If someone were to assert this last hypothesis, how could [it] be something
outside of all things? For “all things” means, stricto sensu , “that from which
nothing whatsoever is absent.” But the first principle is missing. Therefore,
what comes after the first principle would not be properly speaking “all things,”
but rather all things up to the point of the first principle."

From Damascius’ Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles, tr. by SARA AHBEL-RAPPE

 

[Thomas]

... as well as Eckart, or Spong... their leaders, the powers that be thought them as heretics.

Myth, I'm afraid. Eckhart was never declared a heretic nor even charged with heresy. Nor, to my knowledge, has Spong.

The difference, I suppose, is that when objections were raised against Eckhart's teachings, he declared he would withdraw and renounce any doctrine that contradicted the doctrines of the Church, whereas I'm sure Spong would be delighted to consider himself a heretic, although I'm not sure he has been officially charged with such?

If one considers what they preach, then if Eckhart is said to be a thinker 'outside the box' then it has to be said that Spong is so deep inside it, he cannot even see the sides! After all, Spong rigorously denies that of which Eckhart speaks, namely the universal / metacosmic / formless / esoteric /

Eckhart is held up as an exemplar by the Traditionalists (and is claimed by Zen Buddhists, Daoists, Sufis and others) whereas Spong embodies that which Guénon warned against in his excoriating critique of 'modernism' and the denial of metaphysics (and indeed philosophy) in The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, published in 1945.

 

[Thomas]

Transcendence, yet Unity of the One or Reality is a profound truth and puzzle to me. But that is the way it is when using only conceptual mind. So transcendent unity of religions would suffer the same conceptual vs non-conceptual tussle.

Yes.

As for Damascius, I'm not sure what conclusion he reached, so I cannot comment.

 

[wil]

Eckhart came into prominence during the Avignon Papacy, at a time of increased tensions between monastic orders, diocesan clergy, theFranciscan Order, and Eckhart's Dominican Order of Preachers. In later life, he was accused of heresy and brought up before the local Franciscan-led Inquisition, and tried as a heretic by Pope John XXII.[note 2]

• Hackett, Jeremiah (2012), A Companion to Meister Eckhart, Brill

http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/08/16/heresy-in-the-cathedral-2/

 

[Thomas]

Again, it's worth going to the sources.

1326: Eckhart was called before the Inquisition by the Franciscan Archbishop of Cologne, Henry of Virneburg. As Eckhart was a Master of Theology at the University of Paris, the Archbishop of Cologne did not have the authority to question him in court. Eckhart appealed to the Pope to judge his case, and his wish was granted.

1327: Eckhart is not on trial as a heretic, but being investigated for the possible censure of various doctrinal statements. Eckhart declares he will renounce any statement if it is judged heretical.

1328: Eckhart dies.

1329: John XXII issues the papal Bull, In agro dominico condemning 28 articles from Eckhart’s teaching. It also attacks Eckhart’s character. It does not formally declare Eckhart a heretic, nor is he personally condemned, but it does say 'he sowed thorns and obstacles contrary to the very clear truth of faith in the field of the Church and worked to produce harmful thistles and poisonous thorn bushes.’

Copies of his sermons continue to be circulated and widely read.

1980: The Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne refers to 'three great teachers in the history of the church in Cologne – St Thomas Aquinas, St Albert the Great and Meister Eckhart.'

1987: Pope John Paul II, during an audience, says:
"I think of the marvellous history of Rheno-Flemish mysticism of the thirteenth and especially of the fourteenth centuries… Did not Eckhart teach his disciples: “All that God asks you most pressingly is to go out of yourself … and let God be God in you” [cf Walshe Sermon 13b]? One could think that in separating himself from creatures the mystic leaves his brother humanity behind. The same Eckhart affirms that on the contrary the mystic is marvellously present to them on the only level where he can truly reach them, that is, in God."

1992: In a letter to the Eckhart Society, the Master of the Dominican Order says:
"My understanding is, though, that since he was never condemned in person but only various propositions, then he himself does not need any formal rehabilitation."

Again, it has never been argued that the 28 condemned propositions were actually heretical. The issue being Eckhart was not there to defend himself, or their meaning, and John XXII was being led by the Franciscan Archbishop of Cologne.

On the other hand, the Eckhart Society is of the opinion that:
1: Eckhart used very freely a dialectical method of arguing, frequently placing side-by-side seemingly contradictory statements, believing that the truth would emerge in the tension between the statements.
2: He used a very rhetorical style particularly in his preaching, setting out to shock his audience into a new awareness of an orthodox truth.
3: It will always be easy for a careless reader of Eckhart to think Eckhart is talking heresy, so there will always be some people likely to distrust him.

Eckhart can only be properly understood if one reads him as being orthodox. If one thinks him speaking 'outside the box', or contrary to the teaching of the Church, you'll probably get the wrong impression. It's easy to argue that Eckhart is more Zen than Christian, for example (I've got that book!), but that is just one of a number of popular myths about Eckhart that sprang up when his works started to receive popular attention.

Sadly that has waned. I don't think the 3 volume translation of his works are still in print ...

 

[wil]

As I read it....he was outside the box then....revered now.... as he was on trial he agreed to recant any statements which they objected .... that is something many would like to able to do eh?

So it goes on.... times change, thoughts about people change... tis obvious he was not the pillar in the 14th century that he was in the 20th century...

 

[Nicholas Weeks]

Yes.

As for Damascius, I'm not sure what conclusion he reached, so I cannot comment.

Those first 80 plus pages are extremely difficult, so I am not clear on his conclusion. Except that his Ineffable is in no way conceptually knowable, save by inference and is distinct from the One of Proclus. Anyway, here is how this first section ends:

"And thus we shall postulate three monads and three numbers, not simply

two as before, namely, the substantial, the unitary, and the Ineffable. And so

we shall posit this thesis, which we previously rejected, namely, that there are

one and many in the Ineffable, as well as a series consisting in first, middle,

and final terms, and, additionally, [the triad] of remaining, procession, and

return; and in general, we shall incorporate a great deal of that which can be

spoken of into the Ineffable. But if, as we maintained, one must not apply [the

expressions] “that” or “those” to the Ineffable, because we wish it to be beyond

the one and the many, therefore neither must we posit one [Ineffable] that

exists prior to the many [ineffables] and another that, by virtue of its participation

in the many is divided in the same way as they. It will not then be something

that can be participated in, nor does it give something of itself to that

which comes after it, nor is each god ineffable before it is one, in the way that

[each] is one before having an essential nature.

(I 26) But even here the argument, by its self-reversal, demonstrates that

that entity is, after all, ineffable, since it conceives the Ineffable in ways that are

fundamentally opposed and in terms of the natures that are inferior to it. But

how could this come as a surprise, given the kinds of difficulties we shall come

up against concerning the One, not to mention those concerning the Unified

and concerning Being? But these must await us." [my bold]

 

[Thomas]

As I read it....he was outside the box then....revered now....

He is often presented as such, but not really.

Everything Eckhart said and wrote is firmly rooted in the catechesis of the Fathers. He was a Dominican and steeped in the Dominican tradition. I don't think there's one opinion in Eckhart that cannot be traced back to the Fathers.

as he was on trial he agreed to recant any statements which they objected...

Ah, you miss the important detail. He agreed to recant any statement if it be judged to be heretical, but he was there to defend his statements, not simply to cave in and accept the opinion of the adjudicators. Sadly he died, so he never got the chance to defend himself, and I'm not sure anyone was called to defend the statements in his place. I think the Archbishop 'cut to the chase' as it were, and got the 28 (out of more than a hundred) condemned without any real defence or discussion.

So it goes on.... times change, thoughts about people change... tis obvious he was not the pillar in the 14th century that he was in the 20th century...

LOL, quite the reverse! Eckhart was highly revered in his time and his influence is there, even if he went 'underground' after the trial at Avignon. His writings were kept and copied and passed on, which is more than can be said of today!

 

[Thomas]

Those first 80 plus pages are extremely difficult, so I am not clear on his conclusion. Except that his Ineffable is in no way conceptually knowable, save by inference and is distinct from the One of Proclus.

Well he was, as I understand it, writing with regard to the Neoplatonism of Proclus.

"And thus we shall postulate three monads and three numbers, not simply two as before, namely, the substantial, the unitary, and the Ineffable. And so we shall posit this thesis, which we previously rejected, namely, that there are one and many in the Ineffable, as well as a series consisting in first, middle, and final terms, and, additionally, [the triad] of remaining, procession, and return...

This is the Platonic triad which I mentioned elsewhere as being revised by St Maximus.

It will not then be something that can be participated in, nor does it give something of itself to that which comes after it

This is close to the Orthodox theological position, that God can only be known in His acts, but not in Essence. It is not the Catholic position, which focusses more on the Mystical Body of Christ.

 

[Thomas]

Hey Skull –

Why Damascius, might I ask? Just wondering ...

wiki says "... Damascius inquires into the first principle of all things, which he finds to be an unfathomable and unspeakable divine depth, being all in one, but undivided. His main result is that God is infinite, and as such, incomprehensible; that his attributes of goodness, knowledge and power are credited to him only by inference from their effects; that this inference is logically valid and sufficient for human thought. He insists throughout on the unity and the indivisibility of God ... " Is that what the new translation is saying?

My objection to the idea of a 'prisca theologia' (apart from the obvious lack of any evidence whatsoever to support the claim) is that it robs those like Damascius of the reward of their genius. It seems to impute that no-one has an original thought in the realms of philosophy, metaphysics or theology, but that all knowledge is, to a greater or lesser degree, a corruption of some fabulous original text ... some of the Fathers thought Plato must have had access to the Pentateuch for example, they could not believe that it was possible for anyone to come up with anything close to the truth under their own intellectual steam, as it were ...

 

[wil]

LOL, quite the reverse! Eckhart was highly revered in his time and his influence is there, even if he went 'underground' after the trial at Avignon. His writings were kept and copied and passed on, which is more than can be said of today!

yes revered by his followers...not unusual....tis the powers that be that had issues with thought they thought splintered from their own....again...like Jesus, Luther, Buddha, Spong...

http://www.truthunity.net/mbd/damascus

Damascus, da-mas'-cus (Gk. from Heb. and Arabic)--activity; alertness, in respect to trade or possessions; sack of blood; bloodsack; red sackcloth.

Chief city of Syria. It is very beautifully located, and is believed by some to be the oldest city in the world. It still has a street called "Straight" (Acts 9: 11). A river, which is thought to be either the Abanah or the Pharpar of the Bible, flows through the plain of Damascus and makes it very fertile and beautiful (Gen. 15:2; II Sam. 8:6; II Kings 5:12).

Meta. Syria represents the intellectual sense domain, and the river Abanah represents a current of intellectual thoughts and reasonings about life. Damascus (meaning sack of blood) signifies a state of consciousness that is founded upon a material concept of life in the body; this concept has been sustained by the race from time immemorial. (It is not known when Damascus was first built, but the time was before Abraham. Abraham's steward, Eliezer, was of Damascus.) The truth is that this material concept of the body began with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; it had its inception in the desire for sensation, and it brought about their expulsion from Eden.

Damascus, too, stands for body sensation, which is held by the race to be the oldest and the most beautiful and pleasurable of all experiences (by the people of the East, Damascus is called the paradise of the world). But the desire for and seeking aftersensation have brought man into sensuality and lust; they have caused the body of man and the life in his organism to manifest very materially, and in the end lust burns up the cells and the tissues of the organism and destroys the body.

In Acts 9:2, Damascus (activity, alertness, in respect to trade or possessions), to which place Paul was going to persecute the Christians when he had the vision whereby he was converted, refers to the capacity of the intellect to engender strife and warring thoughts and conditions. The intellect of itself is selfish; when it is unsoftened by love and uninspired by spiritual Truth, it always stirs up strife because its reasonings are hard, sharp, and contentious; they are bigoted and are unmixed with Christian mercy and broadness of vision.

 

[Thomas]

tis the powers that be that had issues with thought they thought splintered from their own....again...like Jesus, Luther, Buddha, Spong...

Oh, Wil. I think you're being led by your own mythologising now ...

 

[wil]

Probably....aren't we all! Isn't change often precipitated by disagreement with the status quo...and moving on?

Then we have those stages of change.... he is a wacko.... get rid of him... and thousand years later....a saint. Me thinks ya'll weren't happy with Jefferson and Washington either...

 

[Nicholas Weeks]

Thomas, while the bodhisattva path of Mahayana Buddhism is my main love, I do find Platonic thought attractive. Since Damascius was the last head of Plato's school and his major work is now in English I thought to dip into it. As to the Wiki appraisal, sounds good to me, a neophyte in this realm.

You surely do not think that original thought in such areas is possible? Nor does every philosopher or mystic rely on a scripture. Even Buddha admitted he only discovered an ancient path that other buddhas had trod before.

So very few people over the aeons even ponder these matters, much less find a reliable path and follow it successfully; that in itself is their achievement.

"Ever that shall be that ever has been, that which has happened once shall happen again; there can be nothing new, here under the sun. Never man calls a thing new, but it is something already known to the ages that went before us" [Eccl. 1:9-10]

 

[Thomas]

... while the bodhisattva path of Mahayana Buddhism is my main love, I do find Platonic thought attractive...

That's a nice interfaith disposition. Catholicism is mine, and Platonism lends itself to that Tradition. A very wise man once said "Christianity is Hebrew Salvation theology seen in the light of the Greek Philosophical tradition."

Since Damascius was the last head of Plato's school ...

Good enough! The school closed, but Plato never goes away ... another wise man said 'all philosophy is a footnote to Plato'

You surely do not think that original thought in such areas is possible? Nor does every philosopher or mystic rely on a scripture. Even Buddha admitted he only discovered an ancient path that other buddhas had trod before.

And that a lot of what her did was a reaction against the prevailing ideas ... but what he brought out was something that has since been recognised as Buddhism, and not simply a rehash of existing ideas?

No two traditions are quite the same, and there are different schools within a given tradition, speaks of a kind of idea that if not 'original' then at least I would say it is 'genius'.

Take Greek philosophy. I am not saying there were not currents that fed into it, but I am saying it's marked by its particular genius. I'm sure if one was conversant with all the world's philosophies, one could read a tract and say, "Oh, that's so Greek" or whatever ... so I'm not saying the idea of God in the Greek is original, but I do hold that what we call 'the Greek Philosophical Tradition' contains much that is unique to itself.

Nor, as an aside, do I think heaven is quite so dismissive as we tend to be sometimes. I have had the odd 'breakthrough' idea in my day, with regard to the Christian Tradition, but then I've sat back, knowing pretty well that if I hunt back through the texts, I'll find that idea was there centuries ago ... but that's not the point ... what the gods love is that the idea rises anew somewhere else ... that it has found a home ... and no two homes are ever quite the same ...

 

[Nicholas Weeks]

"what the gods love is that the idea rises anew somewhere else"

Yes indeed! Plato also subscribed to periodicity re ideas; Gold, Iron etc ages.