These posts are extracts from the online discussions at the foot of the article.
David Armstrong (DA) says:
It’s an interesting point ... Yogananda integrates Jesus as simply another avatar – though, uniquely, an avatar that elected incarnation in the kali yuga – but he does so within a familiar Vedantic/Trinitarian context to what DBH (David Bentley Hart) writes about in, say, The Experience of God.
DBH replies:
An avatara, of course, is not a deity or demigod, but an incarnation of the one transcendent God. So Hindus who regard Jesus as an avatara – Ramakrishna, Yogananda, etc. – already concede that Jesus is not one god among others. They are not inducting him into the pantheon; they are interpreting him in terms of Hindu monotheism (usually Vaishnava). The issue is whether he is one incarnation among others. That’s a different discussion, one that concerns the nature of history and myth, as well as degrees or modes of divine manifestation.
DA:
Which would mean that the real question for Christian theology, at least, is whether, in identifying Jesus as the ultimate avatar of God, there is room for any other avatars. But of course, ancient Israelite and Early Jewish texts already assume that there had been. That’s why the chrismation and coronation of the king in the Tanakh clearly identifies him as becoming an epiphanic, divine being attached to YHWH, and why Moses et al. are deified in the apocalypses, etc. Can we not apply the same logic to Rama and Krsna?
Another says:
Brahmabandhav Upadyay believed that other gods were avatars of Brahman whilst holding onto the incarnation of the Logos as Jesus. Tbh I don’t see a contradiction here.
Perhaps some sort of ‘Trinitarian idealism’ would be helpful to work this out. If creation was made through the Logos, and if creation itself is incarnation, and all things are the manifestation of God (who is eternally manifest in his Image), I can begin to see how in Jesus the divine and human perfectly perfectly meet in one person, but all creation also participates in the Logos and has its being from him and some divine beings may be said to be an incarnation of Brahman (to a ‘lesser’ extent)
DBH says:
I am in agreement with the both of you.
David Armstrong (DA) says:
It’s an interesting point ... Yogananda integrates Jesus as simply another avatar – though, uniquely, an avatar that elected incarnation in the kali yuga – but he does so within a familiar Vedantic/Trinitarian context to what DBH (David Bentley Hart) writes about in, say, The Experience of God.
DBH replies:
An avatara, of course, is not a deity or demigod, but an incarnation of the one transcendent God. So Hindus who regard Jesus as an avatara – Ramakrishna, Yogananda, etc. – already concede that Jesus is not one god among others. They are not inducting him into the pantheon; they are interpreting him in terms of Hindu monotheism (usually Vaishnava). The issue is whether he is one incarnation among others. That’s a different discussion, one that concerns the nature of history and myth, as well as degrees or modes of divine manifestation.
DA:
Which would mean that the real question for Christian theology, at least, is whether, in identifying Jesus as the ultimate avatar of God, there is room for any other avatars. But of course, ancient Israelite and Early Jewish texts already assume that there had been. That’s why the chrismation and coronation of the king in the Tanakh clearly identifies him as becoming an epiphanic, divine being attached to YHWH, and why Moses et al. are deified in the apocalypses, etc. Can we not apply the same logic to Rama and Krsna?
Another says:
Brahmabandhav Upadyay believed that other gods were avatars of Brahman whilst holding onto the incarnation of the Logos as Jesus. Tbh I don’t see a contradiction here.
Perhaps some sort of ‘Trinitarian idealism’ would be helpful to work this out. If creation was made through the Logos, and if creation itself is incarnation, and all things are the manifestation of God (who is eternally manifest in his Image), I can begin to see how in Jesus the divine and human perfectly perfectly meet in one person, but all creation also participates in the Logos and has its being from him and some divine beings may be said to be an incarnation of Brahman (to a ‘lesser’ extent)
DBH says:
I am in agreement with the both of you.