[Reader-list] Non-Dualist/Monistic, Monotheism and the Polytheism

[Sagar Sanyal]

There are some interesting points in this piece of writing, especially in
the description of some dharma-oriented views and in suggesting that the
dharma views are better considered in monistic/polyistic terms rather than
in monotheistic/polytheistic terms. I enjoyed reading it for these reasons.

However, the confrontational tone seems to me to undermine the interest. The
piece implicitly suggests that the dharma oriented views generally are (or
Hinduism in particular is) more encompassing than the Abrahamic traditions
(Judaism, Christianity, Islam) and also preferable because they are more in
keeping with science. In implying the judgments about the relative merits of
Hinduism and the Abrahamic faiths, it resorts to an unduly limited view of
the latter faiths and intellectual traditions. Just as the philosophy and
religious practice assocaietd with Hinduism is varied, so is the philosophy
and religious practice associated with the Abrahamic faiths.

In particular, it seems to me to be arbitrary to assert that all Abrahamic
faith and associated thought is dualistic and none of it is monistic. It is
arbitrary because while this may be true of some denominations, it is not
true of other denominations or it is not true of other systems of thought
that emerge from the intellectual and conceptual tradition of Abrahamic
faiths. It is also a bit simplistic to speak of monist and polyist views, as
these positions can be understood in different ways, for example as
ontological or as epistemic.

Off the top of my head I can list a few complexities for the simplistic
presentation of Abrahamic traditions.

Saint Thomas Aquinas's (1225-1274, a key Christian thinker) teleological
view has similarities to what Rabinder Kumar Koul includes in his
description of dharma. Aquinas thought that each being, living or
non-living, was governed by the eternal law (which is the rational plan by
which all creation is ordered). Each being has its end or goal - what it is
meant to do. Humans are not merely determined by the law, but can actually
think about it, and come to discover it by reason. By discovering the
natural law - the ends that humans are meant to achieve - humans have a
guide to action or an ethics. We can discover who and what we are by
considering our place in the world and this can also direct us in how we
ought to act in the world.

Bishop Berkeley (1685-1783) was a Christian monist. Gottfried Leibniz
(1646-1716) was another monist who adhered to a concept of god that emerged
from the Abrahamic faith. They were both enormously influential in the
European Enlightenment.

Kant (1724-1804) was a philosopher following in a tradition of thought that
owes much to Judaeo-Christian theology and philosophy. He was a monist as he
thought that the only substance that exists is physical substance persisting
in space and time. He thought that the best way to think of some of the key
theological ideas (of the Christian theologians) about God is to see the
ideas not as talking about a separate reality, but as ideals that structure
human thought. God becomes (among other things) an ideal principle of order
in the universe. Kant was one of the foremost thinkers of the Enlightenment.

It seems a bit of a simplification to see the philosophical tradition
associated with the Abrahamic faiths as incompatible with science. The
beginnings of the modern science of physics and the period of scientific
revolution involved key input from various thinkers who considered
themselves religious (in a tradition of religion that was Abrahamic). This
includes Isaac Newton (1643-1727), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)and Leibniz.

Moreover, it is simplistic to imply that contemporary discussions in Western
philosophy (which take the possibility and success of science as being
central) is monistic. The debates about dualism have become transformed as
philosophers have sharpened their thinking about aspects of dualism that
they think are unnecessary and aspects that are arguably necessary. So in
the philosophy of mind, the major views include ones that are "property
dualist" but not "substance dualist". Property dualism developed as a
sharpening of substance dualism.

Following some of the many strands of thought that developed from Kant's
views, prominent views in contemporary philosophy of science (which is an
academic discipline that seeks to understand science) include ideas whose
intellectual lineage includes Abrahamic monotheism. For instance, some of
these views suggest that science cannot be understood without reference to
particular ideals that structure human thought - such as the guiding ideal
that an all-encompassing view is possible in which there is no internal
contradiction.

Even from a brief survey of ideas such as this, it seems to me a bit of a
pointless exercise to categorize the enormous diversity of views under a
handful of oppositional labels. At worst this may result in chauvinism or
may blinker us from the good ideas to be found elsewhere. It seems more
worthwhile to seek enlightening aspects of views from various intellectual
traditions instead (whether Abrahamic, dharmic or otherwise). This has both
the advantage of breeding tolerance as we see similarities in other
traditions and the advantage of developing our own views in case we turn up
a novel view.