Philosophical and Theological Concerns with Retaining Individuality and a View Towards Advaita-Vendanta (Part One)

I want to switch gears a bit to look at the most influential form of Hindu philosophy, in particular the Advaita-Vendata. To do so however, I want to venture into the nature of the world to come in Abrahamic religions in which individuality is often considered a non-negotiable trait to look at possible alternative ways of considering this very speculative area of theological concern. I will do this in two parts. The first part will look at the framework of individuality in the afterlife, and some of the problems it creates, and the second part (in another post) will look at the ways Advaita-Vendata may resolve some of those problems.

On the one hand, there is good philosophical structure for this belief in all Abrahamic religions, and that is that God made everything and because everything is contingent upon God, we do not exist of necessity. Glorification is about wholeness. One may say there can be no glorification if there is nothing to glorify and so the idea that beings do not co-exist with God dilute the meaning is one strong argument. But another argument means that if God truly is all powerful and worthy of all glorification, then his need for anything outside of himself weakens the meaning of that glorification. God’s dependence on others to glorify him means his glory is never all-encompassing, but contingent.

And so we have what I would call the practicable and existential scenario. Full glorification in either sense seems to create a weakness that is not easily overcome.

Let’s delve deeper…

What can we say about the theological structure of God’s oneness? Simply, that it is a messy subject to untangle.

Let’s take one of Paul’s eschatological visions. We tend to ignore it, but it is buried there in 1 Corinthians. It is the one that says Jesus will hand everything over (or be willfully subjected) to the Father, so that God can be all in all. I have often heard in church that through the fullness of time we will continue to get to know God. It was a romantic and hopeful vision. But I think this is more of an extension of Paul’s use of the Jewish aspaklaria (“looking glass” - a doctrine noted by Maimonides, the Babylonian Talmud and Judah ben Illia in the 2^nd century for the “seeing of God”) then it is on the verses from which it is derived. It does strike a cord with Hindu philosophy, since knowing rather than action is what creates enlightenment or intimacy. Still, Abrahamic religious followers desperately want to retain their individuality in the afterlife (olam haba). We want to recognize others we knew in heaven. But what does it really mean that in seeing God face to face we will know him because we are known of him?

"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror [aspaklaria]; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." – 1 Corinthians 13:12

So knowing again becomes a way we are tied into enlightenment. The seeing, which we assume implies individuality, doesn’t seem as important here, and is perhaps metaphoric. Certainly, in the Jewish tradition of aspaklaria, the Rabbis rarely thought this to be a visceral encounter as if God were simply another thing to apprehend (see my earlier post "Paul the Apostle and Maimonides on Seeing Through a Glass Darkly"). Moses' ability to see God, for example, is seen through the corridors of prophecy, through enlightenment, not physical contact. So we have to be careful about comprehending God here “face to face.”

These are the mysterious, dare I say, mystical arteries that run through Pauline thought. As far as visions of heaven go, we read some of the following:

Ephesians 2:6-7 - And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus

 Luke 23:43 - Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.

 2 Corinthians 5:8 - To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

 Conversely, we don’t here this one so much, at least I haven’t:

 1 Corinthians 15:27-28 For he has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when He says, "All things are put in subjection," it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all. (panta en pasin – Greek) 

So what are we dealing with here? Given that this occurs just prior to one of the most controversial verses in the New Testament, the baptism of the dead (practiced by Mormons and the New Apostolic Church sect), orthodox thinkers tend to roll over these passages, and they are generally never touched in sermons.

What does it mean then that Jesus subjects himself to God? Is this the dissolution of the Trinity? Is Jesus’ own individual godhead assimilated into God? Or is it somehow bigger then Jesus since in handing over all things to God, it would follow us humans would be included in that? Maybe we should just avoid this verse all together because there isn’t much of anything like it elsewhere in the scripture, lest we make a doctrine out of it? Maybe…but ignoring it won’t make it go away.

Let’s not forget that the popular depictions of hell that many of us grew up with, are no longer a part of serious conversation on the afterlife. Images of burning pits of fire and screaming souls being tortured by red devils with pitchforks, so prescient to the popular imagination, have fallen by the wayside. A few years ago, I even heard a very popular evangelical Christian philosopher, in answering this question, try to refute those depictions by saying that the Bible gives us a number of different images of hell. He didn’t go so far as to say that there were differing theologies in the Bible, because I believe he’s a “conscripted” inspirationalist, but at least there was some acknowledgement on his behalf.

This 1 Corinthians passage, most agree, tends to be addressing something going on in the eschatological age. Compare this to the Luke verse which speaks to an intermediary phase where those who die live with Christ until that time he returns in the Second Coming. As my one professor used to say there are at least a handful of ideas on the afterlife in the New Testament alone. Can someone say “soul-sleep” anyone?

I’m also familiar with elaborate attempts to exegete this 1 Corinthians 15 verse usually in apologetics against Muslims who claim Jesus is subordinate to the Father. But I admit that I am not convinced when Christian apologists attempt to justify this verse by assuring us that the individuation occurring here is not a diminution of essence but one of roles. I think this difficult because a) questions of essence don’t become prominent until the fourth century and beyond and b) it smacks of the same problem we encounter when we try to affix a modern notion of homosexuality on the bible. We say the act is wrong but the orientation is not. Well, I have to agree with my more conservative colleagues when I say that such dichotomies while useful in modern contexts, were unknown in late antiquity.

But then we come to Hebrews 2:7, where we see a similar word. God makes Jesus a little lower than angels.

ἠλάττωσας αὐτὸν βραχύ

If rank and order are implied here and not essence then this means that Jesus was made of lower rank than the angels. Yet, we are told at least in one other place that Jesus could command an army of angels, and in another place the angels come to nurture him. We have Satan continually threatening to reveal who he is (essence). How do you command an army of angels if they outrank you for the purpose of your mission? While this is only suggested as a possibility he could have acted upon, that fact that such a possibility existed makes the claim of his lowly state a bit more tenuous. So here we have a problem with understanding kenosis as self-emptying or merely restricting oneself) and yes, I am intentionally summoning different theological positions from different books of scripture to show that there is not one theology at work across these documents.

Apparently in Hebrews everything is subject to humanity (compare with 1 Corinthians 15, in which everything is subject to God)

Let’s continue….

So we may ask if the “all in all” is an existential position or a hierarchical one in which the godhead’s intrinsic value remains despite different roles and responsibilities. While I think this is the wrong question, I’ll at least say that the Greek word here seems to be about obedience. (hupotageesetai)

I’m still left scratching my head why Christ would need to be subordinate at any time to God in the eschatological world at the end of days. That subordination at least makes some sense as he appears as a man trying to show us an example of how we should live. But the diminishing of his reconstitution as God is not at all convincing, especially since the incorruptible spiritual body he is said to take on following his death is a result of some glorification. But even if this is not about existential being and the Greek word only speaks to rank, it still does little to connect me with the next part of the verse.  Christ is obedient to God until God becomes all in all.

Does this mean until God takes back all power?

Does this mean nobody has any responsibilities, Jesus included? We simply serve God or play our harps?

I don’t mean to sound intentionally nitpicky or simple, but it does make one wonder. Essentially, to take back all power, authority, glory, dominion, whatever words we use to absolutize some virtue of godhood means Jesus would have to be reduced to nothing. And if this is existential, it is even more problematic: how can God be all in all and still allow something differentiated outside his being? God would simply be of an essence more powerful, but not absolute, even medieval thinkers like Aquinas understood this. The simplicity of God is actually a tribute to his power. Any being that is divided is inherently flawed in his essence. This is why Trinitarians do not stratify multiple essences.  

 

Kenosis is effective in helping us understand the earthly ministry of Jesus who defers his power, but kenosis gives us no hint at how God remains all-powerful as long Jesus and we remain individuated.  The distinction made about one’s absolute intrinsic value vs. his station in life seems more like something of a modern concern than an ancient one. Certainly Paul’s view on slavery would attest to this. Onesimus is valuable to Paul’s ministry for what he can do. He is not released because of some intrinsic value he has that puts him above his position as a slave.

The NT writers were not interested in continuity and probably in most cases they did not have all the books that eventually became canonical to cross-reference their theology. What they had was a story of Jesus that went in a number of different directions, and each time they sought to add something they did so without the knowledge that their own take on the story could create problems with someone else’s take.