Community
Warren: …Now {William} Temple, {Christianity and Social Order, London: Penguin, 1941) rightly, as you and I believe, categorically repudiated that a man’s Faith is a personal and private matter, with the implication that it involves only matters of individual significance. But ‘No man is an island’.34 I am never for one moment an individual except for Tax Assessment! I am a Person in relationship and there is no limit to the range of those relationship. As a responsible person, I cannot escape from my responsibilities. What therefore integrates me must inform my discharge of my responsibilities, it must reveal itself in my personal relationship. I cannot keep myself to myself. And if, in however minuscule a degree ‘it is not I that live but Christ that lives in me’, {Galatians 2:20} then I cannot keep Christ to myself.
Is there any hole in this argument so far? (Letter 581 9 January 1977)—p. 387
34 ‘No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.’ John Donne, Meditation XVII. –Notes. 588, p. 387
DB’s Reflection: –No hole in such profound thought. It is complete. This is true not only in bhakti/faith but also in life. I often say that there is no private bhakti and private God according to Muktiveda. Our faith is not a one man operated corporation. –db
Warren: Individuation does not mean individualism. Individuation is the preconditioning experience which makes corporateness possible. You must be yourself if you are to be human and be part of the common life of mankind. The corporate is not the ‘collective’ of communism but the harmony of free persons who really are persons – whole persons. We today are in the gravest danger of being turned into a ‘collective’ which is not society at all. Society with its root ‘soc’ implies socius – friendship…. (Letter 583 19 January 1977)—p. 391
DB’s Reflection: –Very profound summary on society.—db
Contextualization
Warren: One thing he {Panikker} told me which you’ll find as interesting as I did. He spoke of the way the Roman Catholic Priest (& this applied to him of course) when intending to mediate the things of God to man & represent man to God puts on special clothes. But in this Indian religious tradition the priest (in Hinduism) puts off his clothes if he is going to offer sacrifices or in other ways mediate. In Indian religious thinking to mediate involves a man being as completely naked man as possible – at the very least naked to the waist. Doesn’t this throw a new light upon the Christ naked on the Cross? I found this a most revealing & intriguing challenge to my own thinking…. (Letter 10, 16 Apl. 1965.)—p. 180 (emphasis by db)
DB’s Reflection: –When I read this the only thing that came in my mouth was: O my God! O my God !! What a comparison. What the priests (not all and not possible in higher mountain regions) are required to do in ritual is compared with the punishment implemented in the Roman world. This shows the wrong understanding of religious practices in another culture. Each ritual demands its own form of wearing clothes. For example, a Brahmin when performing sandhyavandanam (this is limited mostly to south India) and other rituals (puja or ancestor rituals) need to wear the dhoti in panchakacham/padarni style. Women need to cover their head with the edge of their sari in North India but not in South India. There is no uniformity in this also as India is a vast country having regional variations when it comes performing rituals.—db
Warren: …I’m trying to work out something on the ‘Motherhood of God’ –beginning with the loss of meaning in most traditional and Biblical symbols because the frames of reference of a scientific and technological age find not {no?} place for them. But ‘Mother’ has symbolic meaning. I’m going to show the significance of Cybele in Asia Minor and then in the Roman World – Magna Mater – and then the Corn-Mother of Europe (p.317) and the Rice-Mother of Indonesia – and ten to the biblical evidence. I hope to end by bringing folk to see that if they can learn to take the motherhood of God seriously they’ll perhaps recover the meaning of the Fatherhood of God, and so break out of the prison of a mechanised universe…..(Letter 396 26 April 1973)—pp. 317-18
DB’s Reflection: –When I began to use She, for god several Christians became disturbed. But I continued. One requested me not to use it any more as it disturbed them. But I continued for some more time. See my response ‘God as She’ below.35 I like to use She for God alternatively to He. A Hindu bhakta can easily understand it as she is more familiar with such a narrative in which God is also a mother in Hinduism. In fact the mother-hood of God is so prominent in Hinduism where the Fatherhood is pushed behind her, particularly in Sakta sampradayas. But once a Hindu convert becomes a Christian she will miss this view about God.—db
35 In a recent meeting held at Chennai in Raman’s house, Chakaravsarthy, jovially asked ‘how long you are going to use “She” for God.’ In response I said, ‘to provoke and irritate others I deliberately used it. My intention is to show that as others put up with the irritation that we create for them, it is good for us to learn to live with such irritation caused by others. The day when others are ready to accept others ‘alternative’ views and begin to accept or at least ‘tolerate’ I can easily change back to ‘He’ for God. For this he said that initially his wife was a bit uncomfortable, but now she is used to it. “We are happy that you are not using “She” for the Lord’. Then I said, ‘Ok. Now I can change to ‘He’ for God too as everyone settled with it.
However the following points from Bailey will present my view from a scholarly perspective that through ‘Middle Eastern Eyes’:
God: Male and Female Metaphors
The Bible describes God using both male and female images. On the one hand, he is given the title Father, a male image. At the same time, believers are told that we are “born of God” (1 Jn 3:9). If God gives birth, then God acts like a female. These two are brought together in Deuteronomy 32:18: “You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you,/ and you forgot the God who gave you birth.”
If we reject the biblical images of God as Father (because it is an exclusively male image), then we also need to reject female images such as “the new birth” (because they are exclusively female). I stand on “Mother Earth” and eat the fruits of “Mother Nature” and serve “the church, the mother of us all” who is “the bride of Christ.” As a man, I do not want any of these changed. Jesus describes himself as a “mother hen” and as a woman who finds her lost coin. Paul uses the language of human birth by longing that “Christ might be formed in you.” Furthermore the devil is always male in the New Testament, and we will create a hornet’s nest of new problems if we try to develop “inclusive language” for our demonology. We can all rejoice that the Scriptures use both male and female metaphors to enrich the readers’ understanding of God who is Spirit and thereby neither male nor female. Yet God’s image contains both male and female in that both are created from that image (Gen 1:27). To substitute neutral terms for one or the other will inevitably impoverish the richness of the biblical similes and metaphors, or lead us to abandon them.
The Lord’s Prayer affirms the critical role of the community in which this title, Father, is used. When using the phrase “Our Father” the worshiper is obliged to look down the pew and across the world and see brothers and sisters in every land. Only in the unity of the family of God is the title “Our Father” legitimately invoked…..( Bailey, p. 101)
Hooker: …The early church ‘baptised’ Greek philosophy, made use of it to express the Gospel, and (perhaps?) saved the philosophy from decay. This is the challenge with which Hindu philosophy presents us. But for this to happen the philosophy must so to speak be desacralised, it cannot simply be added on to Christian theology, for that would be syncretism. Rather it must be used to express the Gospel…. (Hooker Letter 30 June 1973)—p. 321
DB’s Reflection:–I am not a philosopher or a theologian. But I never understood Indian philosophy, forget about Greek philosophy. But any comparison of Greek with Indian philosophy is not very easy, particularly for a lay person like me. Particularly the way ‘philosophy’ is understood and interpreted by the West, it becomes more complicated. Prof. Sharma’s recent book exposes such Western misconception about Indian philosophy, particularly in the context of comparing with Greek philosophy. Maybe a deep reading of Thomas McEvilley, Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, (2002), and Sharma’s writing on this topic in his book (224 t0 242)36 might help us to understand the comparison between them. And Scholars’ criticism of Christian approaches to both Indian and Greek Philosophies, like that of Balagangadhara’s37, is beyond my level of understanding for comment. However what Hooker wishes will never happen to Indian philosophy. This much I can say as Indian philosophy can never be ‘desacralised’. And Sudhakar shows the Hindu’s reservation about it:
Christian theology is the result of the meeting of the Christian Gospel and Greek thought. Western thinking has greatly influenced Christianity, and evangelism has introduced the western system of thought through Christian theology in India. Whereas in the west, philosophy and religion after moving together for a few centuries, parted company, in India, they have always been together. For a Hindu, it is impossible to think of philosophy without reference to the sacred scriptures….So the Hindus see evangelism as a move to take them out of their philosophical heritage and plant them in the alien soil of western thought. —Sudhakar, op. Cit. p. 176
36 Sharma states that, ‘ancient Greeks welcomed ancient Indian contributions to philosophy—but that modern Europeans have gone to extraordinary lengths to deny it.’(Sharma, 2017, p. 241) And he quotes McEvilley’s summary on this point:
In term so the priority issue, assuming that the chronologies conventionally used for Indian philosophies are more or less correct, the Upanisads seem to precede Parmenides in monism, and to have directly influenced Heraclitus’s view of the process of nature; Jain atmism and Carvaka materialism would seem to precede Democritus (though not by much). On the other side, Parmenides and Zeno formalized dialectic and Aristotle formalized logic well before Indian thinkers. One might say that India established the content of philosophy, and Greece pioneered its method and form. (McEvilley, op. Cit, 653)—Sharma, op. Cit. 242.
37 S.N. Balagangadhara, The Heathen in His Blindness, Asia, the West and the Dynamic of Religion, New Delhi, Manohar, 2005; S.N. Balagangadhara and Sarah Claerhout, Ancient Roman Culture and Early Christianity: A Pagan Perspective from India, Ghent University Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap Apotheekstraat 5, 9000 Gent Belgium
Hooker: …I can thus say that God can use Hinduism, or part of it, but once more I am brought up against my same problem. I cannot say anything about God’s activity within Hinduism before it is so used. I could say that in Hindu philosophy God is preparing a tool for the benefit of Christians, and thus he is indeed at work, but is not this insufferably patronising? (Hooker Letter 30 June 1973)—p. 322
DB’s Reflection: Definitely it is patronising.38
38 Hooker’s critique of this viewpoint is that it makes the benefit of Christians God’s only purpose: “ I’m sure there’s some good in Hinduism, though I’m not sure what.” We patronize someone when we know we are much better than they are but we allow that they are still alright, usually just to not hurt their feelings too much.
Hooker: …I am looking at other faiths and other men as a Christian and asking how God is at work among them, and so before I start I have already decided what kind of answers I am looking for. I have arranged the question in such a way that I am bound to arrive at the conclusion that Ramannuja is superior to Shankara. The frame of reference within which I move severely limits the range and depth of my enquiry… (Hooker Letter 30 June 1973)—p. 322
DB’s Reflection: Very true. When we study any Indian philosophy, how the tradition is further interpreted is much more important than what a particular philosopher said. The way Ramanuja and Sankara39 were interpreted by their respective followers further complicated their philosophy. Without keeping this in mind, we cannot ‘move within the frame of reference’ of any philosophy without severely restricting the range and depth of our enquiry.–db
39 Jan Gonda comments on the complexity of this idea in Shankara:
As however from the higher point of view Ishvara does not exist and any difference between creator and creation is a fallacy, how is the transformation to be explained? The answer is: Brahman manifests itself as name and form without undergoing any real change or transformation and without being touched or polluted by the association with maya (vivarta doctrine)….It is however difficult wholly to reconcile all passages in Shankara’s work exhibiting the term maya. Hence also the difference of opinion which finds expression in the works of his adherents…. Sureshvara (7th cent.?)…Vacaspati Misra (9th cent.)…Sarvajnatma Muni (9th cent.)…Prakasananda (1600).(Gonda1985, 184-185)
Olivelle gives a clear example of a disciple of Shankara rejecting his viewpoint:
That this was the view of Shankara, however, is confirmed by the fact that his pupil, Sureshvara, in his subcommentary on Shankara’s commentary on the Brhadaranyaka, clearly ascribes this position to his teacher. Sureshvara himself disagrees with Shankara and attempts to demonstrate that his teacher is wrong.(Olivelle, 1993, p. 197)
Nicholson provides a rather overwhelming example of disagreements among the advaitic successors of Shankaracharya regarding the doctrine of creation:
Appaya Diksita’s sixteenth-century catalogue of the various Advaita views, the Siddhantalesasamgraha (Brief Compendium of Doctrines), lists numerous opinions on the question of Brahman’s causality. Typically, these later Advaitins saw ignorance (avidya) or illusion (maya) themselves as having some part in creating the world. By reifying such terms and giving these entities autonomous causal power, they were likely quite far from the original position of their school’s putative founder, Shankara, with regard to the origin of the world. This was in part because Shankara himself was silent or ambiguous on certain puzzling issues regarding Brahman’s causality. Therefore these thinkers apportion the causal duties in various ways. Appaya Diksita lists a few of these alternatives:
i. According to the author of the Padarthatattvanirnaya [attributed to Anandanuhava or Gangapuri Bhattaraka], both Brahman and illusion (maya) are material causes. Brahman’s being material cause is not just a technical term, in the sense of “locus of apparent manifestation (vivarta)”. Brahman itself undergoes apparent manifestation, while illusion undergoes real transformation.
ii. Some [unidentified] others say that both Brahman and illusion are material causes. But they say that being material cause simply means “having effects that are non-different from that cause.” With respect to the world’s existence, it is non-different from Brahman with regard to existence, and non-different from illusion with regard to insentience.
iii. According to the author of the Samkshepasariraka [Sarvajnatman], Brahman is the material cause. However, because it is unchanging, it cannot be a cause by itself. Therefore illusion (maya) is a subordinate cause (dvarakarana).
iv. According to Vacaspati Misra, Brahman alone is the material cause, and is apparently manifested into the form of the world because it is made an object by the illusion (maya) situated in the self (jiva). Illusion is merely an assistant (sahakarin), not a subordinate cause (dvarakarana).
According to the author of the Siddhantamuktavali [Prakashananda], the power of illusion (mayashakti) is the material cause, not Brahman. Brahman can only be described as material cause in a secondary sense, as it is the locus of illusion.(Nicholson, 2011, p. 61)
Hooker: …At the level of philosophy, there are far more options open to a Hindu than to a Christian, the Vedanta stream for examples as indeed Saraswati@ had pointed out in his initial address. Thus Christianity appears to bear a family resemblance to just one of Hinduism’s many possible options and to insist that that one alone is the true one. How narrow, how ‘enclosed’ is Christianity?
How does the Christian cope with this one? It raises another question, namely the status of philosophy. For me qua Christian, philosophy is not a speculative choice between a number of equally valid options. Rather is it the discipline attempt to interpret the fact of Christ who on the one hand is the touch-stone by which all Christian philosophising must be judged, and who on the other cannot be finally contained within the bounds of any philosophy. Christianity perpetually remains a faith in search of a philosophy.
The answer to the implied charge of narrowness lies I think in the power of Christ to embrace and transform all philosophies, including Vedanta, bringing into captivity every human thought to his obedience. This total embrace is to be effected in and beyond history, and through mission. In this sense we ‘do not yet see all things subject to him’. {Hebrews 2:8} We need to stress the inclusive rather than the exclusive uniqueness of Christ and the open-endedness of Christian doctrine. (Hooker Letter: Lecture to Hindus on the Biblical Doctrine of Creation 2 august 1975)—p. 359
@Saraswati of the institute of Advanced Studies in Simla a very high-powered think tank.—p. 358
DB’s Reflection: As I never understand philosophy, I cannot comment on this. Hooker’s comment ‘Christianity perpetually remains a faith in search of a philosophy’ looks a very valid one for me. However, not knowing philosophy, I can say that considering the multi-centred-pluralistic inclusivistic nature of Hinduism (and its philosophies), one cannot search for a Hindu philosophy for Muktinath. If I understood correctly, Muktiveda centred around the covenant promise of God which he made with Abraham (who was thankfully not a Hebrew) and the entire Muktivedic narrative is centered on it. Still I cannot think of any such concept in Hinduism which comes closer to such a covenant promise of God choosing one nation to execute it. We can use Indian philosophical terms to express our bhakti and theology, but forming any (Indian) Christian philosophy based on them is impossible. The ‘open-endedness of Christian doctrine’ is possible only within Christian theology, not beyond it. Christians cannot do to Indian philosophy what they claim to have done to Greek philosophy.
Hooker: …Hindus who have a nodding acquaintance with Christianity think that we do preach the total depravity of man. Indeed that is the stock in trade of most preachers in these parts. Your comments on will and obedience may be sound but the will has no place in Hindu psychology. The nearest you can get to it is the word for ‘desire’ – the very thing which he is seeking to eliminate. One cannot talk about will and obedience to a Hindu as pointing to man’s moral dilemma, for this is not how he thinks. I become more and more convinced that the greatest heresy in popular Christian teaching and preaching is that you must begin with sin. But surely it is only as I begin to respond to Christ that I can even begin to understand what my sin truly is.
I must explain further what I meant when I wrote ‘Christianity perpetually remains a faith in search of a philosophy’. As an anti-Barthian@ I do not believe that the Gospel can exist on its own, suspended so to speak in space. I think it must ultimately be rooted in the local intellectual (and other) soil, i.e. it is always searching for the best philosophy through which it can be expressed, but at the same time it can never be finally expressed in Thomas Aquinas or anyone else. But I entirely agree that much depends on how we define philosophy which must ultimately be judged by its adequacy for the ordinary man. (Hooker Letter 31 August 1975)—p. 362
@ I think Barthian means Karl Barth’s theology.
DB’s Reflection: I agree with Hooker that the gospel cannot be suspended in space. But my solution for this is to allow it to ‘incarnate’ in any culture and tradition and allow it to work its own way of expression which addresses the needs of ordinary man. Neither Thomas Aquinas nor any Hindu Vedanta can finally express the gospel in their philosophical terms. When ordinary bhaktas (and converts) live peacefully with their simple faith, only philosophers break their heads and lose their peace of mind and soul. (See my bhakti Theology Song 996, 22-10-2018). Read the following view about Indian philosophy by Prof. Dayakrishna and further notes from Nicholson, Gavin Flood, Jan Gonda, and Olivelle, to understand the complex nature of Indian philosophy with diverse systems:
This simplistic construct of six orthodox schools of philosophy currently does more harm than good, as the philosopher and historian Daya Krishna points out:
(The schools of Indian philosophy) are treated as something finished and final. No distinction, therefore, is ever made between the thought of an individual thinker and the thought of a school. A school is, in an important sense, an abstraction. It is a logical construction springing out of the writings of a number of thinkers who share a certain similarity of outlook in tackling certain problems. Sankhya, for example, is identified too much with Isvarakrsna’s work, or Vedanta with the work of Shankara. But this is due to a confusion between the thought of an individual thinker and the style of thought which he exemplifies and to which he contributes in some manner. All that Shankara has written is not strictly Advaita Vedanta. Nor all that Isvarakrsna has written, Sankhya. Unless this is realized, writings on Indian philosophy will continuously do injustice either to the complexity of thought of the individual thinker concerned, or to the uniqueness of the style they are writing about.(Krishna, 1991, p.14)
Nicholson documents this position in various ways, including the following:
The Jain doxographer Haribhadra (eighth century), for instance, was one of the first to categorize the schools (darshanas) into six categories in his Saddarsanasamuccaya. Unlike later lists, however, Haribhadra does not mention the Yoga as a separate group apart from the Sankhya. Instead, his six schools are the Buddhists, Naiyayikas, Sankhyas, Jains, Vaisesikas, and Mimamsakas. But Haribhadra remarks in verse 35 that “Some Sankhyas are atheists, while others have Ishvara as their deity. But for all of them, there are 25 principles.” (2011, 81, quoting Haribhadra from Murty 1957, 46)
…like many texts that followed it (Cattanar’s Maṇimekalai), it lists the schools of philosophy (darshanas) as being six. Also like later doxographies, this number seems purely conventional. Although Cattanar lists six systems, he does so in the midst of a discussion of many systems and thinkers that do not find their way onto this official list. It seems that the notion of the “six systems” predated both Cattanar and Haribhadra, and both are working from an earlier template. Both thinkers are clearly aware that there are more than six schools total, but both also feel compelled to include this number. (2011, 149)
The purpose of doxography in India was clearly not the cataloging of all existing schools of philosophical thought, or all the schools that had existed throughout history. Despite Haribhadra’s assertion that “there are only six schools of philosophy” and the apparent promise of some doxographies’ titles to survey “all systems,” these doxographers knew quite well that there were other systems that fell outside their descriptive purview. (2011, 192, referencing D. Goswami 1905) Nicholson. op. Cit. Andrew J. 2011
As Gavin Flood points out:
Doctrinal issues have been discussed by Hindus throughout the ages with tenacity and with the understanding that there is always an aspect of absolute truth reflected in any particular religious doctrine. Although there has never been one central authority in Hinduism strong enough to decide the issue categorically, the numerous heads of the various Hindu churches have nevertheless established very rigorous canons from within which their understanding of orthodoxy is defined. Thus, they clearly determine which books have to be considered as revelation, which authors may be used as commentators, and which line of tradition must be followed. Students of religion in traditional institutions were not supposed to read other books or to listen to any other teacher.— An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1996, p. 59
Olivelle points out how Sureshvara, an immediate disciple of Sri Shankara, disagreed with his guru in his commentary on the Brhadaranyaka and attempted to demonstrate that his teacher is wrong .(Olivelle, op. Cit. 1993, p. 197)
Theological problem:
Kings: …He taught his disciples through startling parables, which reflected the culture of his day but ended with dramatic twists: i.e. theology through stories which, when written down, became theology through literature….—p. 80
DB’s Reflection: This may be true, but this is also a theologian’s problem—at the end they have to find theology in everything. We cannot avoid theology completely. But theology cannot have the final say when it comes to our bhakti.—db
Kings: The mediation of theology through both history and literature implies that revelation is intrinsic to everyday life rather than extrinsic from it: it is inherent in life and not separate ….—p. 81
DB’s Reflection: –Tatastu.–DB
Kings: This is typical of Warren’s approach to theology, which was essentially both exploratory and committed to the movement forward in discipleship, rather than defensive and stationary….which guided the way of discovery and involved following on the way oneself.40—p. 83
40 The technical term ‘heuristic’ may be applied to such a view of doctrine, for the heuristic method is such that the pupils are trained to discover things for themselves.—Notes, 3, p. 83
DB’s Reflection: –‘ defensive and stationary’ is nothing but another term of guarding the doctrine of a particular church from which they don’t want to depart. Doctrines are nothing but verbalizations of the theological understanding that one arrives at in a particular time. When the Spirit of God further inspires according to the need and (new) contexts, then we must give space for ‘way of discovery’. This is possible when the natives are motivated to reinvent their bhakti according to the need of their cultural-social and religious contexts. Warren is correct in saying that theology should never be ‘defensive and stationary’.—db
Kings: …Warren was careful in his wording: he did not use the word ‘influences’ but referred to their stimulations of this thinking. He then added Hendrik Kraemer41 who was:
… a continual source of stimulus, especially in thinking about the relation of Christianity with other religions. Again, I have not found myself able to go all the way with him, and in some respects I found myself compelled to take a very different line. But I have the utmost reverence for his wisdom and his spirit and his passion for the Gospel.—p. 87
41 Kraemer had been Professor of Comparative Religion at Leiden, the Netherlands.—Notes. 26. p. 87
Kings: In January 1972, Warren responded enthusiastically to Hooker’s report of how a former Muslim had described the coming of the Magi in his interpretation of Christmas to Muslims:
How right you are that the unsophisticated approach may be the best. But may it not have to be done by an unsophisticated Christian. Can one be theologically precise & spiritually simple? That is a fundamental question. It seems that theological precision is inherently divisive precisely because the Truth cannot be propositionally defined. It has to be felt & loved. This is all very depressing to those of us who try to think theologically. It ought to keep us mighty humble. After all the ‘inheritors of the kingdom of heaven’ are, on the highest authority, children, & that means unsophisticated. How hardly shall a man rich in theological knowledge enter (p.87) the kingdom of Heaven! I’m sure Jesus included that kind of wealth in his staggering remark. (Letter 323).—pp. 87-88
DB’s Reflection: Hooker claims that he was a theologian when he was requested to give some talk in the Philosophical department of BHU {Letter 27 February 1977, p. 393}. Anyhow, to remain ‘theologically precise & spiritually simple’ is possible depending upon our approach in our sharing about our bhakti. Where it is needed we should be ‘theologically precise’ but both in our personal sadhana and sharing our bhakti with others, we should also ways remember the advice of Clooney who said:
…Theology, to charaterize it in a non-technical fashion, is distinct from the study of religion (with which it overlaps in many of its procedures) because theology is an inquiry carried on by believers who allow their belief to remain an explicit and influential factor in their research, analysis and writing. Believing theologians are (usually) members of believing communities, and have those communities as their primary audiences whether or not the bulk of their writing is addressed to them. With their communities, they believe in some transcendent (perhaps supernatural) reality, the possibility of and (usually fact of) a normative revelation, and in the need to make practical decisions and life choices which (p.4) have a bearing on salvation. Theologians do their work with an awareness of and concern for these beliefs, and with a desire to defend and preserve them, even if at one or another moment they may have to question, recontextualize and finally reformulate them in modes of discourse quite different from those already familiar to the community.(Clooney, 1993, pp.4-5)
Kings: …IN Warren’s first way of humility, towards God, he stressed that redemption must be seen in the context of creation and cited passages which have now become well known in ecological reflections (P 50:10-11; Ps 19:1) and in recent discussions concerning people of other faiths.42 For redemption he focused on Colossians 1:15-20 and Ephesians 1:1043 and raised the issue of Omnipresent Christ. By this phrase he seemed to mean the Christ who is present throughout the whole of the universe…..—p. 130
42 Amos 9:7 Did I not bring Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Capthor and the Syrians from Kir?’ and Isaiah 19:23-4 where Egypt is called ‘my people’ and Assyria ‘the work of my hands.’—Notes. 72p. 130
43 Both of these passages also refer to creation.—Notes. 73. 130
These texts in Romans do indeed use the word ‘all’ but since a key underlying theme in that letter is the unity between Jewish and Gentile Christians in Christ (not between all Gentiles and all Jews) the ‘all’ refers to ‘both Jew and Gentile’ i.e. ‘all, without distinction’. This ‘Pauline universality’ is very different from, what may be termed, ‘theological universalism’ which considers the ‘all’ to refer to ‘every human being ever created’ i.e. ‘all, without remainder’…..—p. 131
DB’s Reflection: These kinds of biblical exegesis are beyond my level of understanding. So I leave it to the scholars. However the terms ‘Pauline’ versus ‘Johanine’ show that the way the gospel was understood and interpreted by the immediate disciples of the Lord and later by Sevanand (Paul) has different schools of thought. So what Muktivedic is depends upon our interpretation rather than the understanding of the plain text—which is important one.–db
Kings: We turn now finally in this chapter to consider one of the ‘further questions’, which concerns the distinction between this ‘universality’ (the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ is for everyone in the world and so is to be shared with everyone, without distinction) and ‘universalism’ in the sense that all people who have ever existed in the world, without remainder, will, in the end, be saved by God).
There was an interesting debate between Warren and Hooker in September and October 1971. In letter 301 Warren had mentioned John Robinson’s book In the End, God {Robinson, 1968} and said that he found the arguments for universalism in it to be ‘unanswerable.’ Hooker replied (9th October 1971) that this issue was ‘the one place where you and I part company’. He had been left unpersuaded by Robinson’s (p.144) book and found Donald Baillie’s concept of ‘paradox’ more helpful in his book God was in Christ. { Baillie, 1948} Hooker challenged Warren by insisting that the belief ‘only if I am free to reject God can I also be free to accept him’ was as important as ‘God’s love must triumph over all sin and evil or he will not be God’. He then continued by saying that he wanted to do some further study on the concept of anakephalaiosis, which is the noun related to the Greek verb used in Ephesians 1:10 to describe the ‘recapitulation’ or ‘summing up’ of all things in Christ.
Warren responded on 17 October 1971:
I am always grateful for being challenged on ‘universalism’. But with you I believe in paradox. I’m sure that two mutually inconsistent ideas may have to be held in tension in this our time of ignorance. I wholly agree that God only wants the free response of man and that must involve the possibility of a free rejection. Yet I find myself increasingly perplexed as to what to do with the multitudes an ever increasing number who are not free to reject because they know of no one to accept. Isn’t this one of the vastest problems of today….?
This, so it seems to me, gives a dimension of depth to all one’s thinking about ‘Universalism’ and the ultimate destiny of man and the meaning of anakephalaiosis….(Letter 305)
So was Warren a universalist? We noted above that Warren wrote clearly in his Theology of Attention: ‘Can we seriously believe that there are any men anywhere unaffected by this all-embracing redemption?’ and went on to claim ‘The cross becomes the place where all alienated mankind is brought home to God.’44 Yet he denied that he believed in a ‘facile universalism’45 and Pieter Meiring also stated, in his dissertation on Warren, that Warren did not support ‘an easy universalism’.46 Warren did not elaborate on this phrase and Meiring did not probe it further (p. 495). He could have asked what influence the adjective ‘easy’ had on the noun ‘universalism’. It seems from these quotations that Warren did hold to a belief in ‘universalism’ and in rejecting the adjective ‘easy’ he wanted to stress two things. Firstly, that his was a thoughtful position and not naïve; and secondly, that he did not thereby neglect the horror of the cross: the cost of all people in the end being accepted by God was the death of his beloved Son.
The conclusion that Warren was a universalist is also backed up by a quotation we noted above from his ‘Ecumenical Horizons’, where he insisted:
There is a deep and profound sense in which we can claim that because what happened at Calvary happened once and for all, all men have been redeemed. The difference between men is that some know it and some do not know it.47
This implied that those who were not yet conscious that they had been redeemed would either come to that knowledge through hearing the good news of (p.145) God in Christ (which, in Warren’s theology, could perhaps be designated ‘evangelisation through conscientisation’) or through the face to face revelation of God in Christ, and joyful realisation of redemption, on the last day.—pp. 145-46
44 Max Warren, (Madras: Christian Literature Society and ISPCK, 1971,21 and 22)—notes. 133. P. 145
45 Max Warren, ‘Ecumenical Horizons: The Full Report of the Conference on Ecumenical Principles and the Christian Encounter with Other Faiths, held in Israel, 6-7 March, 1967’. (Roger Hooker Archives, Max Alexander Cunningham Warren/1/1, Ecumenical Horizons, 6-7 Mar. 1967 and also Church Mission Society/Unpublished Papers/Warren Travel Diary Israel 1967). P. 27 and Warren, Theology of Attention. P. 21)—Notes. 134, p. 145
46 Meiring, Pieter G. C., ‘Max Warren as Sendingwetenskapliche’ D. D. thesis (Pretoria, 1968, p. 485)—Notes. 135, p. 145
47 Warren ‘Ecumenical Horizons’, p. 14. –Notes. 136, p. 145
DB’s Reflection — This section (5.5.2. Salvation and People of Other Faiths) is an important one for our understanding of Warren and Hooker. But this also challenges a lay person like me to have proper training in theology to know all the technical terms. I always uphold that such systematic theology, though very important and useful, inevitably creates paradoxes in understanding the teaching of Muktiveda which never tried to present such systematic ways for us to understand everything about it. I would rather go with the textual context of any verse to understand the historical and theological context of its teaching than try to understand it in a systematic way– acknowledging its importance. This I say as a lay person who is not trained in theology. –db
Kings: Firstly, methods of evangelism. Warren moved from a somewhat naïve approach towards people of other faiths, using evangelistic tracts amongst Muslims in Northern Nigeria in 1927, to an endorsement and encouragement of Hooker’s approach of patient friendship. His advice to Hooker in 1973 (letter 395), in which he commented that he would find it difficult identifying with the methods of evangelism of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, is indicative of this development {of approach}48….—p. 151 { One should read to understand this entire section: 6.1.2 Developments in the Theology of Warren and Hooke pp. 151-161}.
48 ‘I doubt very much if the brothers of the E. F. I. are in the least bit interested in understanding Hinduism and Islam. What further worries me about their efforts is that they stir up a few people and then disappear. They aren’t rooted in the local situation and don’t pretend to know it.’ Letter 375—Notes, 8. p. 151
Kings: It was after reading Panikkar’s book {1964) that Warren started using the phrase ‘unveiling Christ’: ‘It is still valid to say that anyone who has found the Christ of the New Testament must want to ‘unknown Christ’ to be fully encountered. This for me is the all sufficient ground of Mission. The ‘presence’ of Christ in other religions is a challenge to Christians to take part in the unveiling, which is mission. (Letter 181).—notes. 9. P. 151
…He {Warren} considered that dialogue could degenerate into a shouting match if there were not sufficiently intense and attentive listening.49—p. 152
49 He was not, however, fully consistent in his use of the word ‘attention’ and in later letters to Hooker continued to use the more popular word.—Notes, 13p. 152
…Generally, it may be posited that in approach Warren was more Pauline (with his rigorous, multi-directional energy all rooted in Christ and his highly situational combination of metaphors and themes) and Hooker was more Johannine (with his contemplative narrative and profound insight into the love of God in friendship)50…..—p. 153
50 See letter 9 where Warren recommends to Hooker: ‘For every three books on John read one on Paul!’—Notes, 20. p. 153
DB’s Reflection: These terms are very helpful for me. But I cannot understand how a bhakta can put herself in one category at the cost of the other. Though I have my doubts about systematic theology, yet we need to understand every book in the Uttaraveda both independently (according to their contexts) and collectively in order to understand the life and mission of the Lord along with the early mandali. –db
Warren: “I’m not a Paulinist trying to woo you from John. What excites me so much is the amazing affinity of Paul & John. Their language is different but they meet in an experience which is identical.
I’m sure that the greatest principle of Bible Study is to see that Scripture interprets Scripture. One Scripture may be the bridge over which one marches into another man’s mind. But behind that scripture comes the whole Bible, & the mind which thinks it can do with only a part of Scripture is in the strictest sense heretical. Hindu eclecticism is like Gnosticism51 in its ability to take what it likes & leave the rest. Hindus aren’t the only boys like that either! We can approach them in great humility because we share that bit of nature with them anyhow!(Letter 13 9 May 1965) —p. 182, italics original.
51 Gnosticism was a complex of religious movements, which appeared in developed from as a Christian heresy in the second century. These systems ranged from the genuinely philosophical to the extensively mythological and magical. {Oxford Dictionary of World Religions}Notes, 45.—p. 182
DB’s Reflection: An honest confession. But Hindu’s approach to scripture is completely different from the Christians as they have so many scriptures to consider. Above all, ‘…the Hindu attitude to scriptures is rather less formal, and that one is not bound by them in all their complex details….(Rajah, 2017 p. 77). So they cannot take the whole Scripture in the sense the Christians think. Above all I have my own reservation about this famous slogan ‘Scripture interprets Scripture’. Because with my limited knowledge in Muktiveda, I never found such statements or even practice in Muktiveda. If we read the context of the quotes or references that are used by the authors of the Uttara Veda (N. T) in the Pura Veda, they give their own interpretation. This can be accepted as the whole Muktiveda is now considered as one whole scripture. But when they wrote their books (gospels or epistles), Purvaveda was still recognized and considered as the scriptures of the Jews. Similarly, most of the books in the Uttaraveda were written in different contexts which were accepted as one unity only after the Canonization of the Muktiveda. I am not sure whether such understanding ever existed in the early mandali before Canonization. As I don’t know, I cannot say this. However, though this is a good slogan still keeping it as the criteria and to call Hindu’s approach ‘eclecticism or Gnosticism’ is not correct. Even now when this slogan is implemented in Muktivedic study, it is more that one’s personal interpretation rather than ‘scripture interpreting scripture’ is strictly practiced. —db
Regarding the role of canon in interpreting the scripture always remain a challenge. The scholarly discussion about the ‘Authority, Anxiety, and Canon’: Essays in Vedic Interpretation’ (Laurie L. Patton, ed. Albany, State University of New York Press, 1994) will help us to understand the complexity involved in such interpretation. What Patton writes in the Afterword would help us to understand the same ‘Authority, Anxiety, and Canon’ when it comes to our interpretation of Muktiveda also:
While this volume raises issues of authority, anxiety, and canon in the context of the cultural history of India, some of its early readers have suggested that it may raise relevant questions significant to other, larger inquiries—specifically those of the comparative study of religion, literatures, and histories.—Laurie L . Patton, Afterword, pp. 309-316, p. 309
Hooker: …Peter in the garden drew his sword to protect his Lord {John 18:10), yet he was really protecting himself and his own limited understanding of who and what his Lord was. This he had on two occasions done verbally. (This shall never be done to thee, and thou shalt never wash my feet) {Matthew 16:22 and John 13:8}. When Christ goes out in weakness and helplessness beyond the range of his followers’ ‘protection’, he does his greatest work. Our reluctance to see him ‘outside the camp’ among other men, is like Peter’s reluctance expressed in that drawn sword. Our reluctance is often expressed in the barrenness of argument in which we try to conquer, using our words like swords. All this as you can see is very much undigested, but I hope something relevant and intelligible will emerge. A minority community is terrified of being vulnerable but some of its members must be prepared for this if we are to get anywhere with men of other faiths. (Hooker to Warren 15 January 1972).—p. 285
DB’s Reflection: Wonderful. Muktinath should be delivered from the Christian captivity and protection with their doctrinal swords and denominational shields.—db
Hooker: …The proper way to understand the Bible was to see each verse in its context and in its relation to the whole of the rest of scripture. This drew from him the interesting comment that this was not true of Quranic exegesis, where you could understand a verse on its own. Surely there is a difference here between disembodied words and the word made flesh – the latter gives all words a context within which, and a background against which, they can alone be properly understood. In other words Christian and Muslim faiths lead to different understandings of the nature of language. (Hooker to Warren 11 February 1972).(Hooker Letter 11 February 1972)—p. 286
DB’s Reflection: As a lay person, I have one doubt here. For me though we need to understand all the verses from Muktiveda with the rest of the scripture, is it a Muktivedic claim or our own understanding and interpretation of it?–db
Hooker: I think Taylor’s remarks in Religion and Society for March 1972 are acceptable. I am always impressed by all he writes, but I wish he would write a bit more…
Going back to Taylor, most of CISRS {Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society (Bangalore)} writing reflects the situation in the south, where no doubt the question of baptism is a real issue. In the north, this is not so. For one thing the church has no theologians and no theology. For another the question of a ‘tertium gens’ does not arise, at least not in Varanasi. I hope and pray that one day it may. These discussions always seem to me to be a bit unreal.( Hooker Letter 10 March 1973)—p. 314
DB’s Reflection: I don’t know how the (Indian church) is going to take this statement ‘the church has no theologians and no theology’ seriously. I am interested to know how they reacted or responded to such statement.—db
Hooker: Second, my own theology is provisional. None of us is omniscient. We are influenced far more than we know by our background and our experience. It is surely blasphemous to suggest that just because, according to my limited understanding, I cannot see God at work, or being responded to, neither is happening. In this respect we often smile in slightly superior fashion at our nineteenth century predecessors. This is all right provided we remember that our twenty-first century successors will similarly smile at us. Yet, while recognising this, I must continue to be loyal to such truth as God in his mercy enables me to see. (Hooker Letter 30 June 1973)—p. 322
DB’s Reflection: –Yes sir, I am smiling and the future generation will laugh at me—db
Hooker: …I am used to functioning with a theology which looks for similarities, yet what I need is a theology which can embrace differences. Am I right in wanting to find one? If I am, where do I start looking? (Hooker Letter 30 June 1973)—p. 323
DB’s Reflection: Not in Scripture, theology and book, but looking at people who profess their faith. They never live based on any theological understanding about their faith. At least this is true with most of the Hindus. Even the elitist who can argue with other non-Hindus do so with limited understanding about the people as they argue based on their reading and interpretation of texts and theology.–db
Hooker: It was noteworthy that while there were a few references to western philosophers – Russell and Whitehead, there was no reference to Christian theology of which I would judge the speakers@ to be wholly ignorant, nor was (p.373) there any suggestion that Christianity might have something to say on these issues. I think the Gospel has been and still is presented in India as a closed system of doctrine, which does not allow for change. (Hooker Letter 4 April 1976. New Philosophies in the Indian Tradition).—pp. 373-74
@Speakers in the four day seminar at the Sanskrit University at Varanasi.
DB’s Reflection: Yes. It was never allowed to Incarnate in the Indian worldview. All the so-called attempts of ‘Indian Christian Theology’ were done based on Western approaches using only Indian philosophical technical terms. And the few exceptions like Brahmabandab Upadyaya were crucified on the Roman (Catholic) Cross while he was alive and later resurrected and glorified as the Father of Indian Christian Theology. Read, ‘Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology, Delhi, ISPCK, (1969), Reprint 2002,’ to understand my point.
—db
Warren: Credo ut intelligam52 is only a valid position of credo is a translation of pistis53 as a faith that is trusting (pisteuein). I do not believe the Apostle’s Creed in order that I may understand God. I trust God, and the Apostle’s Creed becomes a more or less adequate way of formulating the nature of the God in whom I trust. (Letter 581 9 January 1977)—p. 388
52 Latin for ‘I believe in order that I may understand’—Notes, 591, p. 388
53 Greek word for ‘faith’ or ‘trust’.—Notes 592p. 388
DB’s Reflection: Yes. As I say doctrine is nothing but verbal expression of my theological understanding through my reasoning on Scripture.—db
Hooker: …Theology’s real task is to reinterpret the tradition and retell the story in a way (p.390) which meets the genuine points of the mood’s criticism, but also challenges it….(Hooker Letter 23 January 1977).—pp. 390-91
Warren: Then in an exciting paragraph or two about the Reformation he says:
What saved the Reformation religiously was the rise of Pietism which rescued faith both from the politicians and the theologians. {Forsyth, 1962.}(Letter 585 6 February 1977). –p. 392
DB’s Reflection: The bhaktas always not only save the Reformation but even God from theologians.—db
Warren: …Indeed very few of the classical doctrines of the Trinity convey any meaning today. They are at best attempts to indicate a mystery. That in the most unique sense Jesus was related to God in Christian belief. Otherwise he could not be an object of our worship. What we know of God we know through Jesus. That is what the NT insists. But the doctrine of the Trinity is an elaborate effort at metaphysics. It is a courageous attempt to define the indefinable. (Letter 609 1 July 1977).—p. 398
DB’s Reflection: In Indian tradition, when it comes to talk about god, it is told to remain silent. There is a story in Upanishad. Here it is:
These passages (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad.IV.5.15; III.9.26=IV.4.22 and IV.5.15; III.8.8; IV.4.19; Chandogya Upanishad.VII.24.1; Sv.Up.VI.19; Katha Upanishad.IV.10-11) emphasize that it is impossible to describe what brahman is and that we can only say what it is not. Sankaraacaarya on V.S.III.2.17 refers to the dialogue of Baskali and Badhva declared the characteristic of brahman by his silence. Baskali said, ‘Sir, tell me about brahma’; then Badhva remained silent; when Baskali asked a second and a third time Badhva replied `we have been telling you indeed; but you don’t understand; this self is still (without any activity)’. J. Royce in `The world and the individual’ vol.I.p.148 is just like this episode of Baaskali and Badhva “Believe not those prattlers’ says one often quoted mystical work `who boast that they know God.’ Who knows Him is silent”…( Kane, vol. V. part. II p.1505)
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