The Immanent Divine God, Creation, and the Human Predicament: An East-West Conversation

includes index and biblioraphy

1. The Immanent Divine and the Human Predicament / 1
How Far Is East from West? A Question for Comparative Theology / 1 Why Sankara, Why Tillich? / 7
A Method for Comparison: On the Idea of Comparative Categories / 12 The Human Predicament as Illness: The Medical Model
as a Tool for Comparison / 16
Disputed Theological Questions: What Is at Stake in the Conversation? / 18
Is a Christian Nondualism Possible? / 22
Comparative Theology as Interfaith Dialogue in Search of
Mutual Transformation / 23
A Concluding Note on the Term Immanence I 25
2. Sankara on the Human Predicament: Diagnosis and Etiology / 27
"The Hindu Refuses to Call You Sinners": Opening the Question
of the Human Predicament in Advaita Vedanta / 27
Sankara`s Anthropology: The Soul as Free Agent and Part of Brahman / 28
Sankara`s Diagnosis of the Human Predicament:The Suffering of Samsara / 37
Sankara`s Etiology of the Human Predicament / 45
The Impossible Possibility of Ignorance / 54
3. Sankara on Liberation from the Human Predicament: Prognosis and Therapy / 59
Is Healing Available Premortem or Only Postmortem? / 59
Knowing and Not Knowing Brahman: On Why Sankara Is Not a Mystic / 60
Sankara on Therapy: Preparing for and Becoming Established
in Liberating Knowledge / 80
Sankara`s Prognosis: On the Liberated Person and the Possibility
of Action after Liberation / 83
Immanence and Transcendence in Sankara`s Theology:On Apophatic Anthropology / 90
4. Tillich on the Human Predicament: Diagnosis and Etiology/ 95
Priming the Comparative Pump: Where Do We Begin? / 95
Preliminary Reflections on Courage: Arjuna`s Courage
and the Courage of Faith / 96
Introducing Tillich`s Ontological Apparatus / 103
Ontology and the Human Predicament: Tillich`s Etiology / 110
Tillich`s Diagnosis of the Human Predicament / 121
5. Tillich on Salvation as Ecstatic Healing: Prognosis and Therapy / 133
Ecstasy and Nonduality / 133
Transcendence and Immanence in Tillich`s Theology/ 136
God as Living; God as Spirit / 143
Tillich on Therapy: Salvation as Ecstatic Healing /149
Tillich`s Prognosis: Sanctification, Doubt, and the Ineradicable Fact of Estrangement / 163
6. Relmagining Immanence:Toward a Christian Nondualism / 169
Moving from Comparison to Construction / 169
Diagnosis: The Human Predicament as Self-Enclosed Finitude / 174
Comparing Etiologies / 177
Comparing Prognoses: Liberation and Salvation / 180
Evaluating the Medical Model / 182
Toward a Dynamic Apophatic Nondualism / 184
The Religious Possibilities Offered by Dynamic Nondualism / 195
Apophasis, Ecstasy, and Divine Immutability / 202
On the Coincidence between Immanence and Transcendence / 204