Monday, 28 September 2026

There is no substantive difference between ortho-trad Christian monotheism, and Hindu-Buddhist pantheism

There is no substantive difference between, on the one hand, the theology of orthodox-traditional Christian monotheism - with its Omni-God who created every-thing from no-thing; and, on the other hand, the pantheism of Hindu-Buddhist philosophy - where God is the totality of everything.

Metaphysically-speaking: monotheism just-is pantheism - and the differences are matters of superstructure: of doctrines, dogmas, attitudes, practices etc.  

Because if one God made every-thing, then God is everything.  


This happened (probably) because Jesus Christ's actual work and teaching was swiftly embedded-into pre-existing, Greek-Roman-descended "Platonic" philosophy that itself had Indian-Hindu roots; and is the likely reason why so-many self-identified ortho-trad Christians, past and present, have so-easily slid into de facto pantheism. 


Orthodox-traditional Christian theology tried to distinguish its Omni-God from pantheism by emphasizing the Hebrew tradition of monotheism, with a personal creator God. But because this was a monotheism it left no space for a divine Jesus Christ - which is why Jesus the Son had to be conflated with God the Father in the paradoxes of Athanasian Trinity dogma.

(i.e. The historical Jesus of Nazareth could not be affirmed to be essential to salvation, except by assimilating Jesus into the Omni-God of the Father.) 

And, this assimilation of Jesus with the Father, restored Hebrew monotheism (and also metaphysically united ortho-trad Christianity with the yet-to-happen Islam) - and thereby pantheism... 


Orthodox-traditional theology is stuck with this metaphysical incoherence - of trying to assert the essential role of Jesus in context of a monotheistic-pantheistic reality; and there is no way out of it given the assumptions - except by deceptions of obfuscation through abstraction, complexity, and the declaration of incomprehensible "mystery". 


2 comments:

  1. The ortho-trads couldn't care less about Jesus. To them its all about his mother Mary. I suppose they also inherited Quan Yin from Buddhism.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @EO - I think you are missing my point: it is not about "caring" it is about fundamental metaphysical assumptions.

    Plenty of other-trad people *care* strongly about Jesus, in a personal way. And IMO veneration of Mary has been, historically, mostly A Good Thing; altough it has near zero scriptural basis.

    https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2025/12/mercy-versus-justice-and-mary-mother-of.html

    My point is that in philosophical terms, monotheism-pantheism has no essential place for either of these; tending always to confuse, undermine, and weaken faith - even down to our present paltry level in The West.

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