The World and God Are Not-Two: A Hindu-Christian Conversation

The World and God Are Not-Two is a book that explores the unique relation between the world and God in Christian theology, arguing that it is best understood as a non-dualistic one. It draws on Sara Grant's work on Advaita Vedānta and Thomas Aquinas' metaphysics of creation, highlighting Neoplatonic themes in Aquinas. It suggests that the fact that the world exists only as dependent on God means that world and God must be ontologically distinct, but also that they cannot be ontologically separate. The language of non-duality allows for both positions to be held coherently together without contradiction or disagreement.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 25 April 2023
Publisher: Fordham University Press

The World and God Are Not-Two is a book that explores the relationship between the world and God in Christian theology. The key argument of the book is that the relationship between the world and God is best understood as non-dualistic, meaning that they cannot be added up as separate, enumerable realities or contrasted with each other against a common background. The author, Soars, draws on the work of Sara Grant and Thomas Aquinas to develop this argument. Grant's work on the Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedānta and Aquinas's metaphysics of creation provide fruitful areas for comparative engagement with Vedānta. The author emphasizes that the fact that the world exists only as dependent on God means that the world and God must be ontologically distinct. However, the Advaitin perspective also holds that the world and God cannot be ontologically separate. The language of non-duality allows us to see that both positions can be held coherently together without any contradiction or disagreement at the level of fundamental ontology. In other words, what it means to be world does not and cannot exclude what it means to be God.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781531502058