religion · Shared topic · Revision 0

What is the difference between Advaita Vedanta and Christianity?

Advaita Vedanta and Christianity: Identity or Communion?

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Starting explanation, not independently reviewed

The current answer

The deepest fork in mysticism, and it runs inside both traditions

What remains uncertain

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Advaita Vedanta is not pantheism-lite: it holds that the innermost self is not joined to the Absolute but simply is the Absolute.

Imported citation, not independently checked: Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7; Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.10; Shankara (eighth century CE)

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Meister Eckhart pressed Christian mysticism toward the identity claim, preaching that the soul's deepest ground and God's ground are one ground.

Imported citation, not independently checked: B. McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart (2001)

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Read structurally, the 1329 papal bull against Meister Eckhart's propositions was Christianity refusing the identity claim at its border.

Imported citation, not independently checked: The papal bull of 1329 condemning propositions drawn from Eckhart's work

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Hinduism is not simply on the identity side: Ramanuja's qualified non-dualism keeps souls real, distinct and eternally related to God.

Imported citation, not independently checked: Ramanuja, Vishishtadvaita (eleventh-twelfth century)

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The Bhagavad Gita ends not on 'thou art that' but on refuge in Krishna, who describes himself in panentheist rather than monist terms.

Imported citation, not independently checked: Bhagavad Gita 18.66 and 9.4-5

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Advaita Vedanta and Christianity split over identity versus communion, but that fork runs inside both traditions, not between East and West.

Imported citation, not independently checked: Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7; Bhagavad Gita 9.4-5, 18.66; B. McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart (2001)

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Argument has not settled the fork between identity and communion; preferring communion over Advaita is a wager, not a refutation.

Imported citation, not independently checked: Advaita's two-truths doctrine (vyavaharika and paramarthika)

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