Thinking the Creator and Creature Together’: How Rāmānuja’s Account of Scriptural Meaning Encourages Unitive Language in Christian Discourse about God and the World

The interest shown by Christian theologians in the work of Rāmānuja has tended to focus on his doctrinal account of God and his embodiment cosmology. This paper explores instead Rāmānuja’s account of language in general and then those Vedāntic texts that grammatically identify the world with the ult...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ganeri, Martin 1965- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Univ. 2018
In: Journal of Hindu-Christian studies
Year: 2018, Volume: 31, Pages: 9-17
RelBib Classification:AX Inter-religious relations
BK Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism
CC Christianity and Non-Christian religion; Inter-religious relations
KAE Church history 900-1300; high Middle Ages
NBD Doctrine of Creation
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
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Summary:The interest shown by Christian theologians in the work of Rāmānuja has tended to focus on his doctrinal account of God and his embodiment cosmology. This paper explores instead Rāmānuja’s account of language in general and then those Vedāntic texts that grammatically identify the world with the ultimate reality, Brahman. It shows how Rāmānuja is able to affirm the primary meaning of these texts, but in such a way as to express the complete contingency of the world on the ultimate reality as well as their distinction. The paper goes on to develop a theological dialogue between Rāmānuja and the Christian Scholastic theology of Thomas Aquinas. Whereas Christian theology has tended generally to avoid language that identifies the world with God as being pantheistic and opposed to the doctrine of creation, an appropriation of Rāmānuja’s account of language encourages the use of such unitive language as a powerful way of expressing the unique relation that is creation.
ISSN:2164-6279
Reference:Kommentar in "Rāmānuja at 1000 (2018)"
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of Hindu-Christian studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1695