Christianity and Hinduism: On Manifestations of Divinity

Hinduism is a polytheist religion whereas Christianity is monotheist. Many gods versus one seems like a clear distinction, and I submit that it basically holds. Yet nuances exist that make the distinction murky both in Hinduism and Christianity. The key to clearing up the ambiguity lies in deciding whether being a manifestation of something else is enough to count as existing as an entity. In simpler terms, is a manifestation real, or is it merely an appearance?

The foremost Hindu philosopher thus far is without doubt Shankara, who lived during the eighth century, C.E. in southern India and whose school, Advaita Vedanta, is essentially non-dualism—monism being the competing school of thought.  Shankara held that the deities in the Hindu pantheon are manifestations of brahman, which can be thought of as the substratum that pervades the universe. Only brahman really exists. The essence, content or substance of the individual soul, or atman, is brahman. To be a manifestation is to exist in the realm of appearance, rather than being something (i.e., an entity) that is real (or in the domain of the real). Shankara’s metaphysical framework also includes the realm of illusion, and it is important to keep in mind that the deities, such as Vishnu, Shiva, Krishna, and Ram, are not illusionary. Rather, they are manifestations of something that is real, namely brahman.

One of my professors, Keith Yandel, argued that Hinduism is thus monotheistic because its deities do not exist as entities, but are merely manifestations of one thing (brahman). But brahman is not a deity, but can be thought of as ether that is everywhere.  This cannot be said to be monotheism, even though brahman is one rather than being composed of distinct entities. Yandel’s basis was in Western philosophy and Christianity, and I believe he interpreted Hinduism through those prisms to expand the domain of monotheism in religion.

The problem is that the word “manifestation” is also in Christian theology in reference to the divine—in particular, to the Trinity, which is composed of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Although the Latin word personae used to denote these three “persons” of the Trinity strongly implies that they exist metaphysically as entities, unlike Shankara’s Hindu deities, the corresponding word used in Eastern (Orthodox) Christianity translates as “manifestation.” That puts us in the soup. For if the three manifestations of the divine in the Trinity do not absolve Christianity of being monotheist, then neither do the Hindu deities as manifestations keep Hinduism from counting as monotheist.

Ironically, praying to Jesus, if He is taken to be a distinct entity that really exists as such metaphysically, corresponds to the dualist camp in Hinduism, which holds that the deities, such as Vishnu and Shiva as well as their respective successive incarnations, are metaphysically real as entities. In short, if Jesus really exists as a distinct deity even though it is of the same substance as the Father and the Helper, and the latter two are real entities too, then from the standpoint of Hindu theological philosophy, Christianity is not monotheistic. But Christianity descends from Judaism, whose basic plank is that God is one. Preliminarily, it seems like Orthodox theology has a better understanding of the nature of the Trinity than does Roman Christianity and its descendants (i.e., Protestantism). To be a monotheist, it would seem that a Christian oriented to Jesus Christ would pray to a manifestation of the divine rather than to a particular deity. Jesus appears to be a deity, and thus an entity, yet in terms of metaphysical reality is an appearance of something that really exists: God. But then Hinduism would also be monotheistic because its deities are manifestations too.

Even if Western Christians come to think that they are praying to a specific manifestation of God (i.e., Jesus), such an understanding of the Trinity would imply that Hinduism is monotheist. Furthermore, to claim that Jesus is divine seems, at least to my Western mind, to mean that the Son of God is itself an entity that is real (i.e., exists as an entity, rather than as a manifestation of something even though that something is of the same substance). This way of understanding Jesus is consistent with dualism in Hinduism, in which its deities are real entities and so Hinduism is polytheist.  But then wouldn’t Christianity be as well? Must Jesus be a manifestation of the divine for Christianity to be monotheist? But then does it even make sense to pray to a manifestation that is in the realm of appearance rather than the real? Is there any way to finally square this circle?

If divine reality goes (or is sourced) beyond the limits of human conception, perception, and emotion as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite suggested in the late 5^th or early 6^th century, C.E., then all we have access to is manifestation (and illusion). Faith is oriented beyond this, hence to what only can be belief that Jesus exists as a real entity, but the content of this belief can only be a manifestation to us. But then why can’t Shakara’s Hinduism be monotheist? Furthermore, if revelation holds that the persons of the Trinity exist metaphysically as entities even within the limits of our cognitive reach, then how can we stop the inference from the Hindu school of dualism that Christianity is actually polytheist—assuming that the Father and the Son really exist as distinct entities even though they are consubstantial (i.e., of the same substance). Put another way, can divine manifestation be applied in one religion with it being monotheist and yet be applied in another religion that is polytheist, or are both Christianity and Hinduism monotheist faiths? Can Christianity be thought of as being monotheist with three distinct really-existing entities of the Trinity while Hindu dualism is needed to keep Hinduism polytheist?

To say that the whole thing is a mystery is true, but this is also a cop-out (i.e., a way to side-step or escape the problem without solving it). In Hinduism, Krishna is associated with love, and in Christianity, Jesus is too. Can we say that a Hindu prays to the Lord Krishna while a Christian prays to the Lord Jesus? This makes both religions seem polytheist. But Augustine and Paul both wrote that God is love, and it can be said that Jesus is a particular manifestation of love both personified (manifesting as such, rather than really existing as an entity) and preached in the Gospels. But then would not Lord Krishna as such make Hinduism monotheist?

The solution might lie in distinguishing Christian theological love (i.e., God is love) from Hindu brahman (i.e., the ether that pervades existence). Christian agape (i.e., self-emptying, or selfless) love may manifest metaphysically as the Trinity in a way that maintains oneness to a degree that Krishna as a manifestation of brahman does not. The key may lie in the distinction between theological love and metaphysical ether. If so, do we even know how theological love is distinct from the varieties we encounter and experience in our world? Can we say that brahman as ether counts as divinity as distinct from metaphysical substance, or else how it is that manifestations that are divine (i.e., deities as appearances) can be of something that is not itself divine in its very nature? Lord Jesus and Lord Krishna may be pointing to two very different things, the difference of which affecting what it means to manifest something.