The Qualification of Non-Dualism: Eckhart and
Rāmānuja Compared
Both Meister Eckhart (1260–1328), the German Christian theologian, and Rāmānuja (10751140), the Śrī Vaiṣṇava Indian theologian, use ‘the language of identity’ to describe the relationship between God and the world (Ganeri, 2015, p.116). And both, in different ways, attempt to safeguard the transcendent otherness of God. It is therefore possible to describe them as propounding forms of qualified non-dualism — which is used in this essay to mean a variety of metaphysical thought that attributes oneness to reality in some fashion, while still affirming the real existence of particulars and distinctions — instead of affirming an absolute oneness of being that implies only one singular entity in existence (Schaffer, 2016; McDermott, 2015).[1]
Eckhart uses different intellectual ‘systems’ (in the sense of linked coherent ideas) to characterise the One and its qualified non-dualistic relation to the Many. These include characterising God as One, being and the Intellect (Davies, 2011, 115). In effect, as Étienne Gilson has noted, multiple interpretations can be constructed to interpret Eckhart — and they can be so different as to be seemingly contradictory.[2] Nor does Eckhart make any serious attempt to bring his models together. By contrast, Rāmānuja takes a very different approach to expounding his qualified non-dualist philosophy (Viśiṣṭādvaita).[3] Where Eckhart might be said to base on his exposition on a deliberate cacophony of models whose juxtaposition explodes neat rational meaning — Rāmānuja sought to create a unified system based upon his exegesis of selected scriptures. This essay will delineate the differing exegetical principles of Eckhart and Rāmānuja, before showing how they impact the radically different expressions of Eckhart and Rāmānuja’s qualified non-dualism. Finally, it will relate these differences to the divergent agendas and visions of the two thinkers.
Eckhart and Rāmānuja : Exegetical Principles
The theologies of Eckhart and Rāmānuja are inextricable from their exegesis. Eckhart seeks the ‘literal’ sense of the text — but since the ‘literal sense is that which the author of a writing intends, and God is the author of holy scripture’, then whatever is the ‘true sense’ intended by God, that is the literal meaning (Prologue to the Book of the Parables of Genesis).[4] Literal meaning for Eckhart is thus not necessarily surface meaning, and is usually the anagogical meaning under the ‘shell’ of the letter (McGinn, 2001, p.28). This can be of ‘an immense and bewildering range’ (Ganeri, 2015, p.118). But a ‘check’ on this is Eckhart’s second exegetical principle in which an interpretation must be in harmony with the ‘natural principles, conclusions and properties’ of the philosophical learning that has been revived dramatically in Eckhart's era. Indeed, Eckhart has the faith that he can support Christian doctrine through ‘the help of the natural arguments of the philosophers’ (Commentary on John nn.2-3).[5] Thus, Eckhart’s readings tend to be anagogical, often paradoxical and, by his standards, rational and philosophical — though this co-exists with ‘polarity’ between different systems (Ganeri, 2015, p.117). The confusion created by his works contributes to his controversial reputation — with propositions condemned by the Church of his day, and yet celebrated by his many illustrious disciples, such as Tauler and Henry Suso.
By contrast to Eckhart, Rāmānuja succinctly states his exegetical principles as follows:
We have to interpret all these śrutis (scriptures) in such a manner that there is no contradiction between their statements, however diverse, and that their primary sense is not sacrificed. (Vedārthasamgraha, 84)
Unlike Eckhart’s anagogical reading, Rāmānuja takes scripture in as literal (primary) a sense as possible. He only assumes a figurative sense (lakṣaṇa-artha) if the literal sense (mukhya-artha) is incoherent given the semantic unity of a given text (Bartley, 2002, p.99). This view is inspired by the Pūrva-Mīmāṃsaka school of hermeneutics — which postulates an innate (autpattika) and invariable (nitya) connection between a Vedic word and its referent (Bartley 2002, p.4; Vedārthasamgraha, 137). Next, again inspired by the Pūrva—Mīmāṃsaka, Rāmānuja believes that interpretations as a whole must harmonise the contradictions between śrutis. Thus, Rāmānuja sought to create a coherent system that reconciles in toto the seemingly conflicting statements about the relation between the One and the Many in the most authoritative śrutis of the Vedāntic tradition to which he belongs, namely, the Upaniṣads, and their accompanying smṛtis (tradition), the Brahmasūtras and Bhagavad Gītā (Ganeri, 2015, p.121). And unlike his great Vedāntic predecessor, Śaṇkara, Rāmānuja gives equal authority to all scriptural discourse — both nirguna vākyas (‘apophatic’ discourse describing an Absolute without qualities) or saguna vākyas (‘cataphatic’ discourse describing an Absolute with qualities) have equal validity and the Mahāvākyas (great sayings) are equal to other texts (Lotte, 1976, p.20). Thus, there can be no ‘dismissal’ of texts—reconciliation is the only option.
Eckhart’s Systemic Cacophony
God as One
In his Latin works, Eckhart often describes God as unum, the One, and uses dialectical language to express the paradoxically indistinct/distinct relation between the One and the Many. Eckhart’s exegetical principles are on display in how he develops this model in his commentary on Wisdom 7:27: 'And since it is one, it can do all things', which is his most complete treatment of the matter.[6] This is one of the most difficult passages in Eckhart — and has been dealt with variously by different scholars. Following McGinn (2001)’s influential interpretation, one could set out three steps in Eckhart’s argument:
1) Predicating God as indistinct
2) Predicating God as indistinct and as distinct
3) Predicating God as being more distinct the more indistinct he is
Thus, Eckhart begins with the surface meaning ('[Wisdom] is one; second, a hint that because it is one it can do all things' (Commentary, n.144)) but rapidly moves beyond it — using philosophical arguments throughout. Thus, he posits two ways of understanding unum : one of ‘indistinction’ and one of ‘distinction’. The first consists of asserting that the term 'one' or unity is the same as ‘indistinction’ — for distinct things are ‘two or more’. Then, based on a number of arguments, God is shown to be one and therefore ‘indistinct’ (i.e. lacking in creaturely distinctions and division) from all things (Commentary, nn.145-146).
The second consists in asserting that the ‘one’ may be ‘indistinct’ and is thus ‘negative’ — and yet it is really affirmative: It is 'the negation of negation which is the purest form of affirmation and the fullness of the term affirmed' (Commentary, n.147). In other words, God’s indistinctness ‘negates’ everything (including negations, such as 'X is not') that we know ‘is’; but the negation of all that is opens up a dimension in which the Aristotelian distinction between ‘X is’ and ‘X is not’ no longer applies. Thus God as the negation of negation is simultaneously ‘total emptiness and supreme fulness’ (X is not and is) (McGinn, 2001, pp.93-94). And if God is as such, it must be beyond number and what is numerable (Commentary, nn.150-154) and is totally distinct from everything in the world.
Eckhart then shows that the two are linked in a dialectical pairing of opposites. First, God must be distinct from all things. As shown earlier, this is actually dialectically predicated on how he is indistinct from everything, i.e. in how he lacks creaturely distinction:
Everything which is distinguished by indistinction is the more distinct the more indistinct it is, because it is distinguished by its own indistinction. (Commentary, n.154)
God and Soul in One ‘Grunt’
Whereas the previous model can be described as one of qualified non-dualism — where the identity between God’s being and the soul’s being is affirmed but also denied — the God as grunt model is more ambiguous. In Middle High German, grunt could mean the physical ground. Abstractly, it could mean the origin or reason, or the inmost essence of a being (McGinn, 2001, p.39). While it is the last meaning that is of the greatest importance in Eckhart — the other connotations enrich the meaning of the metaphor.
This ground is applied to an audacious affirmation of divine-human identity. First, the same word is used to describe the ‘silent desert’ that is the ground of the Trinity (e.g. Sermon 60).[7] Next, it is also used to describe the most inward part of the soul. Thus, in many places, Eckhart proclaims the identity of the essence of the soul and God:
‘God sent His only-begotten Son into the world.’ You should not take this to mean the external world, as when he ate and drank with us, but you should understand it of the inner world. As surely as the Father in His simple nature bears the Son naturally, just as surely He bears him in the inmost recesses of the spirit, and this is the inner world. Here God’s ground is my ground and my ground is God’s ground. (Sermon 13b)
As in his Commentary, Eckhart moves from the surface meaning to explore spiritual meaning — first evoking one of his most common images : the birth of the Son in the soul — before signalling that this mystical birth is in the soul’s ground that is God’s ground. It may even appear that this is a monistic assertion of oneness of being with God.
Yet as McGinn writes, the grunt is the 'protean term everywhere at the centre of Eckhart’s mysticism, which, paradoxically, vanishes from our grasp when we try [to] contain it in a definable scheme’ (McGinn, 2001, p.38). The grunt defies ‘quantification’, or for that matter, qualification. A monism of shared being is certainly not what Eckhart has in mind. God himself ‘unbecomes’ in the ground, in one of Eckhart’s striking expressions (Sermon 56). The grunt is a mysterious nothingness Eckhart often compares to the bareness of the desert (McGinn, 2001, 48). Indeed, Eckhart explicitly puts this ground beyond being (esse):
There she grasp God nakedly in the ground, where He is above all being. Were there still being there, she would take being in being; but nothing else but one ground is there. (Sermon 70)
Being one with the ground is a sort of being ‘nothing’ — indeed, this is one of Eckhart’s supposed teachings condemned by the Church in the posthumous 1329 Bull (26th article). Eckhart’s grunt evokes by a kind of ‘poeticization’ of theological language (Davies, 1991, 180): the qualified non-dualistic relationship between God and world that is a oneness without implying a oneness of being. While this indistinction/distinction is akin in some sense to the description of God as unum, Eckhart does not relate the two models — nor is the relation between them self-evident. The grunt imagery is also more dominant in his German works — while the unum discussion predominates in his Latin works — as if Eckhart wishes the two models to stand without obvious unity.
Being is God ('Esse est Deus') and the Inquantum Principle
To make matters ‘messier’, Eckhart has other systems to relate the One and the Many, such as ‘Deus est Intelligere’, and the phrase that is found throughout his Three-Part Work : ‘Esse est Deus’. Eckhart stresses that creatures do not possess any perfection, including being (esse), in themselves (Davies, 2011). Instead, such perfections are found ultimately in God and are ‘borrowed’ from him and still ‘belong’ to him. As Eckhart puts it: 'God does not give creatures any goodness, but he lends it to them' (The Book of Divine Comfort, I). Eckhart then states that in so far (‘inquantum’ in the Latin works) as humans have being, or justice, or goodness, or another perfection, he is identical with that principle in God (e.g. 'Goodness is not created nor made, not begotten; it is procreative and begets the good: and the good man, in so far as he is good, is unmade and uncreated' (The Book of Divine Comfort, I)). And given that Eckhart accepts the indivisibility of God (a theological commonplace), humans are in fact identical with God in so far as they possess his qualities (a kind of qualified non-dualism).
It is notable that the inquantum principle does not relate to grunt. For the grunt is indeterminate and beyond being. It makes no sense to claim that in so far as humans have a ground, they are identical with God. The grunt model is not necessarily contradictory to 'Esse est Deus' — since it highlights the ineffable non-otherness of God, while what Eckhart calls the esse determinatum (determinate being) of creatures may still be rooted in the esse ipsum (absolute existence in itself — the Thomistic term used in Commentary on Wisdom with relation to unum) of God. Yet Eckhart does not reconcile the two models — he simply claims the grunt is beyond esse and leaves the two models, and the reader, hanging’ uneasily.
Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita System
At the heart of Rāmānuja’s system is his core concept of śarīra-śarīrī-bhāva that posits an analogous relationship between the Brahman and the world as that between the soul and the body (Bartley, 2002, p.74; Lott, 1976, p.28; Carman, 1974, p.247). This concept is based on quotations from various srutis, such as Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (3.7.3):
This self (atman) of yours who is present within but is different from the earth…who controls the earth from within—he is the inner controller, the immortal.
Based on such texts, he analyses the body-soul relation:
The relation between soul and body means the relation between substratum and dependent entity incapable of functioning separately (pṛthak siddhi anarha — alternately translated as ‘incapable of independent existence (Bartley, 2002)), between transcendent controller and thing controlled, between principal and accessory (śeṣaśeṣībhāva). (Vedārthasaṃgraha, 76)
The identity between the entities of the world and the Brahman is thus not a monistic ‘identity in essence’ for then ‘it is logically unsound to maintain difference’ between the imperfect world and the Absolute (Vedārthasaṃgraha, 60). Instead, it is the ‘identity-in-dependent-being’ (Ganeri, 2015, p.53) of the absolute dependence of an entity's existence on Brahman stated in terms of ‘a body-soul relation’ (Vedārthasaṃgraha, 60). The linguistic implication of this is used by Rāmānuja’s for reconciling seemingly monistic texts without a figurative reading — in that he can justify applying the words expressing creatures (e.g. ‘ox’, ‘fire’, ‘you’) to Brahman without asserting ontological identity by explaining that words denoting Brahman’s body reach up to It (Lipner, 1986, p.40-41) — 'in as much as all constitute the body of the Supreme Spirit, He can be denoted by all terms' (Vedārthasaṃgraha, 76). Probably the most important text in this respect, is the Mahāvākya: 'Tat tvam asi' (That you are) from Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.8.7:
Sa ya eṣo’ṇimaitadātmyam idaṃ sarvaṃ tat satyaṃ sa ātmā tat tvam asi.
The finest essence here—that constitutes the self of this whole world; that is the truth; that is the self (atman). And that's how you are, Śvetaketu.
The meaning of this verse implies a monistic identity between Brahman and the world — and, it is certainly in this sense that Śaṇkara, the Advaitin philosopher, took it. Yet, this seems contradictory to verses such as B.Up. 3.7.3 which postulates difference between Brahman and the world.
Rāmānuja seeks to reconcile these statements by asserting the grammatical construction of sāmānādhikaraṇya for 'tat tvam' (a relationship where according to Pāṇini’s grammar, the two terms shares the same case and refers to the same entity but on different grounds). First, Rāmānuja restates his principle about how the names denoting the modes of Brahman apply ultimately to Brahman:
'Tvam means 'you', i.e. you that…are in reality a modification of the Supreme Spirit because you constitute his body, and therefore you terminate in this Supreme Spirit. Hence tvam denotes only the inner Ruler of tvam as differentiated by the mode tvam. Since Brahman is the soul of the embodied individual soul, He has the same name… (Vedārthasaṃgraha, 20).
Then he proceeds to delineate how 'the word tat refers to the Brahman as the One who is the cause of the world, the abode of all perfections, the immaculate and untranslatable One; whereas tvam refers to that same Brahman under the aspect of inner Ruler of the individual soul as being modified by the embodied soul.' Thus, 'tat and tvam both apply to the same Brahman, but under different aspects' (Vedārthasaṃgraha, 20). In this way, the perfection of Brahman is preserved (Vedārthasaṃgraha, 20)—always a crucial point for Rāmānuja — in that he is not identified substantially with imperfect creatures. In line with this, apophatic sayings (such as Ch.Up 8.7.1) imply that Brahman is free of negative or creaturely qualities — not that he is free of qualities (Vedārthasaṃgraha, 84). The apophatic discourse of the scriptures is thus given a cataphatic interpretation by Rāmānuja.
While Eckhart leaves multiple systems ‘hanging’—Rāmānuja is careful to relate his discussions continually back to his theory of śarīra-śarīrī-bhāva. In his version of the satkārya theory of causation, in which ‘the cause becomes the effect when entering into another mode of being’ (Vedārthasaṃgraha, 34), and that therefore Brahman is both the ‘material’ and ‘operative’ cause of the universe (Vedārthasamgraha, 33) — Rāmānuja ensures that when he expands on the theory, he explicitly links these discussions back to śarīra-śarīrī-bhāva. For example, Rāmānuja immediately follows his discussion of satkārya in his Śrībhāṣya with the problem of how Brahman could ‘become’ the universe and yet remain untainted. The solution is śarīra-śarīrī-bhāva:
And as now a further doubt may arise as to how the highest Brahman with all its perfections can be designated as one with the world…Brahman is denoted by the term ‘world’ in so far only as it has non-sentient and sentient beings for its body. (Śrībhāṣya, II.I.15)
Brahman’s manifestation of the universe is the transformation of the un-manifest Brahman (in its ‘casual condition’ where all entities cannot be 'designated as apart from Brahman whose body they form') into Brahman with the universe as body (in its 'effected' state when all entities are in their 'gross, manifest state…having distinct names and forms') (Śrībhāṣya, II.I.15). And whatever 'change and imperfection belongs only to the beings constituting Brahman’s body'— Brahman itself remains untainted (Śrībhāṣya, II.I.15).
However, this section of the Śribhasya has proven controversial. There is a certain ‘polarity’ in the discourse (Lipner, 1986, p.134) on śarīra-śarīrī-bhāva and that of Brahman as material cause. For instance, the body of Brahman seems to be able to be the material cause of the universe by moving from their ‘uneffected’ state to their gross, manifested state (Ganeri, 2015, p.114) — and it has been argued elsewhere by Rāmānuja that properties of the body do not apply to Brahman (even if it is the ultimate referent for any naming words). Additionally, there are other sets of polarities in Rāmānuja’s works involving, for instance, Brahman as sole agent of knowledge and control, and its immutability and the ‘free will’ of individual selves (Ganeri 2015; Lipner, 1986). These have led scholars like Radhakrishnan (1929) to charge him with logical incoherence (Ganeri, 2015, p. 115).
Still, Ganeri (2015) has rightly argued that to interpret such polarities as ‘incoherence’ is partly a result of labelling Rāmānuja’s thought with the Western category of ‘philosophy’ — something both Western and Indian thinkers have done to legitimate Indian thought. This label, however, raises false expectations of logical coherence that takes precedence over everything else. Instead, if a Western analogy has to be sought, Rāmānuja could be more accurately understood with relation to medieval scholasticism, a type of ‘exegetical theology’ where the coherence sought has to take into account reason, tradition and scripture — and where the scriptural text itself often demands polarities that cannot be avoided without either a figurative reading or scriptural ‘negation’ (as Rāmānuja accuses Śaṇkara of doing) (Ganeri, 2015, p.43).
Based on the scholastic analogy, there is definitely coherence in Śribhasya’s account of satkārya and śarīra-śarīrī-bhāva (Ganeri, 2015, p.115—6). The same texts are used in the sections on both models — and similar exegetical principles are deployed. There is a unity of exegesis and texts; there is also the unifying motif of śarīra-śarīrī-bhāva which recurs in his corpus. We must therefore evaluate this text not according to ‘philosophical’ coherence, but according to the standards of the tightest possible corpus-wide coherence of texts, exegesis and logic that Rāmānuja sought to achieve.
Eckhart and Rāmānuja : Divergent Goals and Divergent Approaches
Ganeri’s characteristation of Rāmānuja as a scholastic raises questions about Eckhart — who is after all working in the high scholastic era of the 13th century. José Cabezón's study (1998) lists the defining characteristics of scholasticism — some of which do not apply readily to Eckhart. The first is ‘systematicity’ — which involves commitment to ‘consistency between former and later points’ — in contrast to Eckhart’s systemic cacophony. The second is ‘proliferativity’— which includes a propensity towards textual inclusivity. Eckhart, unlike many of his scholastic predecessors (e.g. Thomas Aquinas or Albert Magnus) who tended to write commentaries on complete biblical books, glossed only select verses (Duclow, 2013). In both these ways, Eckhart was unconventional — an unscholastic scholastic — though in his concern for tradition, rationalism and pedagogy, he was akin to his contemporaries. And Eckhart’s contrast with Rāmānuja highlights his unconventionality and provokes us to ask why.
Eckhart’s approach to his qualified non-dualism — especially his expression of the paradoxical indistinction/distinction of God is heavily based on that of the 5th century mystical theologian, Dionysius of Aeropagite (Turner, 2009, p.132). One of the main points throughout the Dionysian corpus is that God is 'beyond assertion and denial' (e.g. Mystical Theology, V.1), and that therefore this negation of affirmation and negation, makes him beyond 'similarity or dissimilarity' or 'nonbeing or being' (Mystical Theology, V.1). As Turner rightly notes, Eckhart’s argument on indistinction/distinction is basically a ‘gloss’ (Turner, 2009, p. 132) on this point.
Dionysius’s work thus affirms the ultimate inadequacy of human discourse in the face of the Absolute. Both affirmation and negation must be transcended. His influence ensures that it is unlikely that the ‘academic’ purpose of affirming one intellectual system over others was important for Eckhart. More plausibly, Eckhart’s philosophical poetry is fundamentally for the facilitation of contemplation. His dialectic, in particular, is 'meant to be playful and serious insofar as they ‘play’ a role in the practice of deconstructing the self and freeing it from all that pertains to the created world' (McGinn, 2001, p.49) — especially any fixed notion of the Godhead. And he reinforces this with a cacophony of systems that defy easy reconciliation. He clearly does not intend the reader to smugly rest in any totalizing system.
Arguably then, Eckhart’s theology is to aid in the human wrestle with the Ineffable — a wrestle that darkly prepares the ascent into Unknowing. For few could begin with silence — it is the discursive intellect that most must first wield. And the intellect must have its food— its earthly satisfaction of logic and discourse. And that, Eckhart satisfies, but only provisionally. In every place, he feeds the intellect but keeps it hungry by contradiction and paradoxes. For the true Bread lies elsewhere, above —and he invites it to speed its flight towards the Good for the sake of the Good. Eckhart’s strategy, precisely because it is convoluted and self-subverting, is actually straight and true.
4989 Words (excluding Bibliography and Title. Word count by Apple Pages.)
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[1] There are various taxonomies of historical ‘monisms’ by modern philosophers. In Schaffer (2016)’s taxonomy, ‘existence monism’, which postulates exactly one concrete existent, corresponds closest to an ‘absolute’ non-dualism. Thus, for two individuals, you and I, ‘the existence monist must either deny that at least one of us exists, or deny that at least one of us is a concrete object, or hold that we are identical’ (Schaffer, 2016).
[2] Translated quote in Davies (2011), p.6.
[3] Viśiṣṭādvaita is often translated as ‘qualified non-dualism’, this is either taken (as in this essay) as broadly describing a monism that is ‘less absolute’ (e.g. Radhakrishnan and Moore (1957)’s ‘non—dualism with a difference’ (p.508)), or ’the non-dualism of the Brahman with qualities’ (the ‘traditional’ sense related by Dr. Rembert Lutjeharms of Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies).
[4] Translation from McGinn (2001). There is no edition with English translations of all of Eckhart’s Latin works.
[5] Translation of Commentary on John from Eckhart (1981).
[6] Translation of Commentary on Wisdom from Eckhart (1986).
[7] All translations of German works from Eckhart (2009).
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