MONISM

 

SBC, NAMB Definitions

 

Monism

All is One: Everything that exists is One. All distinctions (including your sense of being distinct from everyone and everything else) are really illusions. The belief that All is One is closely related to the New Age tenet that everything is God. According to his book Conversations with God, Neale Donald Walsch states, "The first step in finding that we are not apart from God is finding that we are not apart from each other, and until we know and realize that all of us are One, we cannot know and realize that we and God are One."2

Biblical Response

Both our experience of reality and the teachings of the Bible contradict the belief that "all is one."

We experience ourselves as different from others. We perceive and treat our children differently from the offspring of others. Even New Agers find it difficult to live life as if "all is one." They treat their mates differently than they do someone else's spouse.

The teachings of the Bible agree with our experience of reality. The Bible indicates that the reason we do not experience life as being one is because all is not one. God has created a universe that contains objects that are both unique and precious. We experience ourselves as different from others because God has created us as unique beings distinct from other things and people. "For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him" (Col. 1:16, NIV).

Sharing Jesus With New Agers

  1. Share about the personal relationship you have with God through faith in Jesus Christ. Tell about the difference that God makes in your life.
  2. Ask the New Ager what he or she believes about God and Jesus Christ. Listen to their answers. There is a lot of diversity in the New Age Movement. Not all New Agers believe the same things. Start your witness from where they are.
  3. Lovingly share with New Agers some of the implications of their belief system. For example, many New Agers do not realize that one implication of pantheism is that God is impersonal. Also, one of the implications of their belief in karma and reincarnation is that there are no innocent sufferers.
  4. Since the New Age belief system denies our experience of reality, it is hard for New Agers to live as if what they believe is true. Gently point out the inconsistencies between what they claim to believe and how they actually live. For example, many New Agers take offense with the gospel message that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. They claim that there is no right or wrong way to God and that we are wrong to claim that there is. Ask: "If there is no right or wrong way to God then how can you claim that our gospel is wrong?" Lovingly point out that their position is illogical because it contradicts itself.
  5. Be loving and kind toward those in the New Age Movement. Remember that God loves them and wants them to place their faith in Jesus Christ.
  6. Trust in the Holy Spirit to convict New Agers of their need for Jesus.
  7. Do not get frustrated if you do not see immediate results. Most New Agers have to hear the gospel more than once before they trust in Jesus.
  8. Encourage them to read the Bible, particularly the Gospels, and to make a study of the life of Christ, Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (see Rom. 10:17).

http://www.namb.net/evangelism/iev/belief_bulletins/newage.asp

 

MONISM

Monism teaches that there is only one kind of ultimate substance, and hence that there is no duality. The mind awake or dreaming moves though maya (illusion) and only nonduality is the final truth. In India, this philosophy historically began with the 7th-century thinker Gaudapada and it was further developed by Adi Sankara into a philosophy called Advaita. Advaita claims that this truth is concealed by the ignorance of illusion. Advaita teaches that there is no becoming either of a thing by itself or out of some other thing. It teaches that there is no individual self or soul (jiva), only the atman (all-soul). Individuals may be temporarily delineated just as the space in a jar delineates a part of main space. When the jar is broken, the individual space becomes once more part of the main space.

Monism quite naturally leads to Pantheism, which teaches that all religious paths lead to the same ultimate end, since there is (according to monism) only one ultimate reality and everything else is maya. This has led many to think that these paths are like rivers that finally lead to the same ocean. This is error since all paths are not the same, and, when two paths contradict each other, both cannot be right.

When God created the heaven and the earth, God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. God saw His creation and it was beautiful and not an illusion. Then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Man was created in the image of God, but, was not God. The earth was in perfection as according to God's divine plan. However, Satan tempted man to disobey and rebel against God by saying that (Genesis 3:5)

Ye shall be as gods.

This seduction of Satan is fundamental to monists. Scholars indicate that Adi Sankara, who was also lured into monism, twisted an early Indian writing,

Aham Brahmasmi

This should be translated as, God is in me, but, Adi Sankara translated it as I am God. Man's enslavement to Satan's enticement never change.

When Adam and Eve sinned, evil entered God's kingdom on earth, dividing it again into two kingdoms, kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. Thus dualism is a present reality, and the universe exists in a state of conflict or spiritual warfare. This is revealed by an ongoing conflict between God and His kingdom confronting Satan and his kingdom. This warfare is recognized and described by different people in various ways, some speak of the struggle between good and evil. Others talk of the battle between right and wrong, while others describe it as light against darkness.

In the future God will completely destroy Satan's kingdom, and Satan and his followers will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire in torment, which is God's judgment for them. Satan's greatest weapon to destroy people is ignorance, and monism is his tool to blind men and women to his existence and working.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/2104/monism.html 2/10/03

 

 

Monism

The Catholic Encyclopedia

(From the Greek monos, "one", "alone", "unique").

Monism is a philosophical term which, in its various meanings, is opposed to Dualism or Pluralism. Wherever pluralistic philosophy distinguishes a multiplicity of things, Monism denies that the manifoldness is real, and holds that the apparently many are phases, or phenomena, of a one. Wherever dualistic philosophy distinguishes between body and soul, matter and spirit, object and subject, matter and force, the system which denies such a distinction, reduces one term of the antithesis to the other, or merges both in a higher unity, is called Monism.

I. IN METAPHYSICS

The ancient Hindu philosophers stated as a fundamental truth that the world of our sense-experience is all illusion (maya), that change, plurality, and causation are not real, that there is but one reality, God. This is metaphysical Monism of the idealistic-spiritual type, tending towards mysticism.

Among the early Greek philosophers, the Eleatics, starting, like the Hindus, with the conviction that sense-knowledge is untrustworthy, and reason alone reliable, reached the conclusion that change, plurality, and origination do not really exist, that Being is one, immutable, and eternal. They did not explicitly identify the one reality with God, and were not, so far as we know, inclined to mysticism. Their Monism, therefore, may be said to be of the purely idealistic type.

These two forms of metaphysical Monism recur frequently in the history of philosophy; for instance, the idealistic-spiritual type in neo-Platonism and in Spinoza's metaphysics, and the purely idealistic type in the rational absolutism of Hegel.

Besides idealistic Monism there is Monism of the materialistic type, which proclaims that there is but one reality, namely, matter, whether matter be an agglomerate of atoms, a primitive, world-forming substance (see IONIAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY), or the so-called cosmic nebula out of which the world evolved.

There is another form of metaphysical Monism, represented in these days by Haeckel and his followers, which, though materialistic in its scope and tendency, professes to transcend the point of view of materialistic Monism and unite both matter and mind in a higher something. The weak point of all metaphysical Monism is its inability to explain how, if there is but one reality, and everything else is only apparent there can be any real changes in the world, or real relations among things. This difficulty is met in dualistic systems of philosophy by the doctrine of matter and form, or potency and actuality, which are the ultimate realities in the metaphysical order. Pluralism rejects the solution offered by scholastic dualism and strives, with but little success, to oppose to Monism its own theory of synechism or panpsychism (see PRAGMATISM). The chief objection to materialistic Monism is that it stops short of the point where the real problem of metaphysics begins.

II. IN THEOLOGY

The term Monism is not much used in theology because of the confusion to which its use would lead. Polytheism, the doctrine that there are many gods, has for its opposite Monotheism, the doctrine that there is but one God. If the term Monism is employed in place of Monotheism, it may, of course, mean Theism, which is a monotheistic doctrine, or it may mean Pantheism, which is opposed to theism. In this sense of the term, as a synonym for Pantheism, Monism maintains that there is no real distinction between God and the universe. Either God is indwelling in the universe as a part of it, not distinct from it (pantheistic Immanentism), or the universe does not exist at all as a reality (Acosmism), but only as a manifestation or phenomenon of God. These views are vigorously combated by Theism, not only on considerations of logic and philosophy, but also on considerations of human life and conduct. For the ethical implications of pantheism are as detrimental to it as its shortcomings from the point of view of consistency and reasonableness. Theism does not deny that God is indwelling in the universe; but it does deny that He is comprised in the universe. Theism does not deny that the universe is a manifestation of God; but it does deny that the universe has no reality of its own. Theism is, therefore, dualistic: it holds that God is a reality distinct from the universe and independent of it, and that the universe is a reality distinct from God, though not independent of Him. From another point of view, theism is monistic; it maintains that there is but One Supreme Reality and that all other reality is derived from Him. Monism is not then an adequate equivalent of the term Theism.

III. IN PSYCHOLOGY

The central problem of rational psychology is the question of the relation between soul and body. Scholastic dualism, following Aristotle, maintains, that man is one substance, composed of body and soul, which are respectively matter and form. The soul is the principle of life, energy, and perfection; the body is the principle of decay, potentiality, and imperfection. These two are not complete substances: their union is not accidental, as Plato thought, but substantial. They are, of course, really distinct, and even separable; yet they act on each other and react. The soul, even in its highest functions, needs the co-operation, at least extrinsic, of the body, and the body in all its vital functions is energized by the soul as the radical principle of those functions. They are not so much two in one as two forming one compound. In popular imagination this dualism may be exaggerated; in the mind of the extreme ascetic it sometimes is exaggerated to the point of placing a too sharp contrast between "the flesh" and "the spirit", "the beast" and "the angel", in us.

Psychological Monism tends to obliterate all distinction between body and soul. This it does in one of three ways.

John Scotus Eriugena, influenced by the neo-Platonists, held the body to be a resultant from incorporeal qualities which the soul, by thinking them and synthesizing them, creates into a body for itself. In modern times, Berkeley included the human body in his general denial of the reality of matter, and maintained that there are no substances except the soul and God. The grounds for this belief are epistemological. Psychological Monism runs counter to common sense and experience. Historically, it is a reaction against materialism. To refute materialism it is not necessary to deny that the body is a reality. The unreflecting dualism of common sense and the scientific dualism which the Scholastics built on the facts of experience steer a safe and consistent course between the hasty generalization of the Materialist, who sees nothing but body, and the bold paradox of the Idealist, who recognizes no reality except mind.

Herbert Spencer uses the word parallelism in a slightly different sense: the separate impressions of the senses and the stream of inner conscious states must be adjusted by the activity of the mind, if the two series are to be of any use to the developing or evolving animal or man; that is, there must be a parallelism between a certain physical evolution and the correlative psychical evolution" (Principles of Psych., n. 179), while both mind and matter are mere "symbols of some form of Power absolutely and forever unknown to us" (op. cit., n. 63). This idea finds favour among the evolutionists generally, and has one distinct advantage: it obviates the necessity of explaining many phenomena of mind which could not be accounted for by the principles of materialistic evolution. Thus, under the name "double-aspect theory" it is adopted by Clifford, Bain, Lewes, and Huxley. Among empirical psychologists parallelism has been found satisfactory as a "working hypothesis". Experience, it is maintained, tells us nothing of a substantial soul that acts on the body and is acted upon. It does tell us, however, that psychical states are apparently conditioned by bodily states, and that states of body apparently influence states of mind. For the purposes of science, conclude the empiricists, it is enough to maintain as an empirical formula that the two streams of activity are, so to speak, parallel, though never confluent. There is no need to ground the formula on any universal metaphysical theory, such as the pan-psychism of Fechner and Paulsen. lt is enough that, as Wundt points out, the facts of experience establish a correspondence between physical and psychical, while the dissimilarity of the physical and the psychical precludes the possibility of one being the cause of the other. To all these parallelistic explanations of the relations between soul and body the Scholastic dualists take exception. First, the scholastics call attention to the verdict of experience. Up to a certain point, the facts of experience are capable of a parallelistic, as well as of a dualistic, explanation. But when we come to consider the unity of consciousness, which is a fact of experience, we find that the theory of parallelism breaks down, and the only explanation that holds is that of dualists, who maintain the substantiality of the soul. Secondly, if the parallelistic theory be true, what, ask the Scholastic dualists, becomes of the freedom of the will and moral responsibility? If our mental and bodily states are not to be referred to an immediate personal subject, but are considered phases or aspects of a universal substance, a cosmic soul, mind-stuff, or unknown "form of Power", it is not easy to see in what sense the will can be free, and man be held responsible for his mental or bodily acts.

In a minor sense the word monism is sometimes used in psychology to designate the doctrine that there is no real distinction between the soul and its faculties. Psychological dualism holds that soul and body are distinct, though incomplete, substances. But how about the soul itself? Plato's doctrine that it has three parts has had very little following in philosophy. Aristotle distinguished between the substance of the soul and its powers (dynameis), or faculties, and bequeathed to the Schoolmen the problem whether these faculties are really, or only notionally, distinct from the soul itself. Those who favour the real distinction are sometimes called pluralists in psychology, and their opponents, who say that the distinction is nominal or, at most, notional, are sometimes called psychological Monists. The question is decided by inferences from the facts of consciousness. Those who hold real distinction of function argue that this is sufficient ground for a real distinction of faculties.

IV. IN EPISTEMOLOGY

As in psychology, Monism is used in various senses to signify, in a general way, the antithesis of dualism. The Dualist in epistemology agrees with the ordinary observer, who distinguishes both in theory and in practice between "things" and "thoughts". Common sense, or unreflecting consciousness, takes things generally to be what they seem. It acts on the conviction that the internal world of our thoughts corresponds with the external world of reality. The philosophical dualist questions the extent and accuracy of that correspondence; he learns from psychology that many instances of so-called immediate perception have in them a large share of interpretation, and are, in so far, referable to the activity of the mind. Nevertheless, he sees no reason to quarrel with the general verdict of common sense that there is a world of reality outside us, as well as a world of representation within us, and that the latter corresponds in a measure to the former. He distinguishes, therefore, between subject and object, between self and not-self, and holds that the external world exists. The Monist in one way or another eliminates the objective from the field of reality, obliterates the distinction between self and not-self, and denies that the external world is real. Sometimes he takes the ground of idealism, maintaining that thoughts are things, that the only reality is perception, or rather, that a thing is real only in the sense that it is perceived, esse est percipi. He scornfully rejects the view of naïve realism, refers with contempt to the copy-theory (the view that our thoughts represent things) and is rather proud of the fact that he is in conflict with common sense. Sometimes he is a solipsist, holding that self alone exists, that the existence of not-self is an illusion, and that the belief in the existence of other minds than our own is a vulgar error. Sometimes, finally, he is an acosmist: he denies that the external world exists except in so far as it is thought to exist: or he affirms that we create our own external world out of our own thoughts.

However, the classical forum of epistemological Monism at the present time is known as Absolutism. Its fundamental tenet is metaphysical monism of the purely idealistic type. It holds that both subject and object are merely phases of an abstract, unlimited, impersonal consciousness called the Absolute; that neither things nor thoughts have any reality apart from the Absolute. It teaches that the universe is a rational and systematic whole, consisting of an intellectual "ground" and multiform "appearances" of that ground, one appearance being what the Realist calls things, and another what the Realist calls thoughts. This is the doctrine of the Hegelians, from Hegel himself down to his latest representatives, Bradley and McTaggart. All these forms of epistemological Monism — namely, idealism, solipsism, acosmism, and absolutism — have, of course, metaphysical bearings, and sometimes rest on metaphysical foundations. Nevertheless, historically speaking, they are traceable to a psychological assumption which is, and always will be, the dividing line between Dualism and Monism in epistemology. The Dualists, in their analysis of the act of knowing, call attention to the fact that in every process of perception the object is immediately given. It seems like emphasizing the obvious to say so, yet it is precisely on this point that the whole question turns. What I perceive is not a sensation of whiteness but a white object. What I taste is not the sensation of sweetness but a sweet substance. No matter how much the activity of the mind may elaborate, synthesize, or reconstruct the data of sense-perception, the objective reference cannot be the result of any such subjective activity; for it is given originally in consciousness. On the contrary, the Monist starts with the idealistic assumption that what we perceive is the sensation. Whatever objective reference the sensation has in our consciousness is conferred on it by the activity of the mind. The objective is, therefore, reducible to the subjective; things are thoughts; we make our world. In the dualist's analysis there is immediate, presentative contact in consciousness between the subject and the object. In the Monist's account of the matter there is a chasm between subject and object which must be bridged over somehow. The problem of Dualism or Monism in epistemology depends, therefore, for solution on the question whether perception is presentative or representative; and the dualist, who holds the presentative theory, seems to have on his side the verdict of introspective psychology as well as the approval of common sense.

In recent Pragmatist contributions to epistemology there is presented a different view of epistemological Monism from that given in the preceeding paragraphs, and a solution is offered which differs entirely from that of traditional dualism. In William James's works, for instance, Monism is described as that species of Absolutism which "thinks that the all-form or collective-unit form is the only form that is rational", while opposed to it is Pluralism, that is, the doctrine that "the each-form is an eternal form of reality no less than it is the form of temporal appearance" (A Pluralistic Universe, 324 sqq.). The multitude of "each-forms" constitute, not a chaos, but a cosmos, because they are "inextricably interfused" into a system. The unity, however, which exists among the "each-forms" of reality is not an integral unity nor an articulate or organic, much less a logical, unity. It is a unity "of the strung-along type, the type of continuity, contiguity, or concatenation" (op. cit., 325). Into this unfinished universe, into this stream of successive experiences, the subject steps at a certain moment. By a process which belongs, not to logic, but to life, which exceeds logic, he connects up these experiences into a concatenated series. In other words, he strings the single beads on a string, not of thought, but of the practical needs and purposes of life. Thus the subject makes his own world, and, really, we are not any better off than if we accepted the verdict of the intellectualistic Idealist. We have merely put the practical reason in place of the theoretical: so far as the value of knowledge is concerned the antithesis between Monism and Pluralism is more apparent than real, and the latter is as far from the saneness of realistic Dualism as the former. It is true that the Pluralist admits, in a sense, the existence of the external world; but so also does the Absolutist. The trouble is that neither admits it in a sense which would save the distinction between subject and object. For the Pluralist as well as the Monist is entangled in the web of subjective Idealism as soon as he favours the doctrine that perception is representative, not presentative.

V. IN COSMOLOGY

The central question is the origin of the universe. The early Ionian philosophers assigned, as the cause or principle (arche is the Aristotelian word) of the universe, a substance which is at once the material out of which the universe is made and the force by which it was made. As Aristotle says, they failed to distinguish between the material cause and the efficient cause. They were, therefore, dynamists and hylozoists. That is, they held matter to be of its nature active, and endowed with life. Without the aid of any extrinsic force, they said, the original substance, by a process of thickening and thinning, or by quenching and kindling, or in some other immanent way, gave rise to the universe as we now see it. This primitive cosmothetic Monism gradually gave way to a dualistic conception of the origin of the world. Tentatively at first, and then more decisively, the later Ionians introduced the notion of a primitive force, distinct from matter, which fashioned the universe out of the primordial substance. Anaxagoras it was, who, by clearly defining this force and describing it as mind (nous), earned the encomium of being the "first of the ancient philosophers who spoke sense". Dualism, thus introduced, withstood the onslaughts of materialistic Atomism and Epicureanism, pantheistic Stoicism and emanationistic neo-Platonism. It was developed by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who brought to their description of the world-forming process a higher notion of cosmothetic mind than the pre-Socratic philosophers possessed. It was left for the Christian philosophers of Alexandria and their successors, the Scholastics of medieval times, to elaborate the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, and thus bring out more clearly the rôle played by the Divine Power and Will in the formation of the universe. The order, harmony, and purposiveness evident everywhere in nature are cited by the creationists as evidence to show that mind must have presided at the origination of things. Furthermore, the question of dynamism or mechanism hinges on the problem of the nature of matter. This phase of the question has been developed especially in post-Cartesian philosophy, some maintaining that matter is essentially inert and must, therefore, have acquired force and activity from without, while others as stoutly maintain that matter is by nature active and, consequently, may have developed its own force from within. Evolution of the thorough going type takes the latter view. It holds that in the primitive cosmic matter was contained "the power and potency" of all life and movement, in such a way that no external agent was required in order to bring it to actual existence. Here, as in the question of Theism, Christian philosophy is frankly dualistic, although it acknowledges that, since actuality antecedes potency by nature and, as a matter of fact, the world originated in time, while God is eternal, there was, before creation, but One Reality.

VI. IN ETHICS

The word Monism is very little used. In some German works it is employed to designate the doctrine that the moral law is autonomous. Christian ethics is essentially heteronomic: it teaches that all law, even natural law, emanates from God. Kantian ethics and Evolutionistic ethics hold that the moral law is either self-imposed or emanates from the moral sense which is a product of the struggle for existence. In both the Kantian and the Evolutionistic systems there is only one source of the power of moral discrimination and approval. For this reason the word Monism is here used in its generic sense. In English philosophical literature, however, the word has no such signification. In accounting for the origin of evil, a problem which, though it belongs to metaphysics, has important bearings on ethical questions, some philosophers have adopted a Dualistic doctrine and explained that good and evil originate from two distinct principles, the one supremely good, the other completely and absolutely evil. This was the doctrine of the ancient Persians, from whom it was borrowed by Manes, the founder of the Manichean sect. Opposed to this is the Monistic view, that God is indeed the cause of all that is good in the universe, and that evil is not to be assigned to any supreme cause distinct from God. Whatever explanation be given of the existence of evil in the world, it is maintained that a supreme principle of evil is utterly impossible and even inconceivable.

VII. CONTEMPORARY MONISTIC MOVEMENTS AND SCHOOLS

In current philosophical literature, whenever no special qualification is added, Monism generally means the modified materialistic monism of Haeckel. Modern materialistic Monism in Germany begins with Feuerbach, a disciple of Hegel. Feuerbach was followed by Vogt and Moleschott. To these succeeded Haeckel, who combines Darwinian evolution with a materialistic interpretation of Spinoza and Bruno. Haeckel's works, both in the original and in English translations, have had a wide circulation, their popularity being due rather to the superficial manner in which Haeckel disposes of the most serious questions of metaphysics than to any intrinsic excellence of content or method. Haeckel is honorary president of the Monistenbund (Society of Monists), founded at Jena in 1906, for the purpose of propagating the doctrines of Monism. The society is openly anti-Christian, and makes active warfare against the Catholic Church. Its publications, "Der Monist" (a continuation of the "Freie Glocken" — first number, 1906), "Blätter des deutschen Monistenbunds" (first number, July, 1906), and various pamphlets (Flugblätter des Monistenbunds), are intended to be a campaign against Christian education and the union of Church and State.

The group of writers in America who, under the editorship of Dr. Paul Carus, have been identified with the "Monist" (Chicago, monthly, first number, Jan., 1891) are not, apparently, actuated by the same animosity against Christianity. Nevertheless, they hold Haeckel's fundamental tenet that Monism as a system of philosophy transcends Christianity as a form of belief, and is the only rational synthesis of science and religion. "Religious progress no less than scientific progress", writes Carus, "is a process of growth as well as a cleansing from mythology. . . . Religion is the basis of ethics. . . . The ideal of religion is the same as that of science, it is a liberation of the mythological elements and its aim is to rest upon a concise but exhaustive statement of facts" (Monism, Its Scope and Import, 8, 9). This "concise but exhaustive statement of facts" is positive Monism, the doctrine, namely, that the whole of reality constitutes one inseparable and indivisible entirety. Monism is not the doctrine that one substance alone, whether it be mind or matter, exists: such a theory, says Dr. Carus, is best designated as Henism. True Monism "bears in mind that our words are abstracts representing parts or features of the One and All, and not separate existences" (op. cit., 7). This Monism is Positivistic, because its aim is "the systematisation of knowledge, that is, of a description of facts" (ibid.). "Radical free thought" is the motto of this school of Monism; at the same time, it disclaims all sympathy with destructive Atheism, Agnosticism, Materialism, and Negativism in general. Nevertheless, the untrained student of philosophy will be likely to be more profoundly influenced by the Monistic criticism of Christianity than by the constructive effort to put something in place of the errors referred to.

All Monism may be described as resulting from the tendency of the human mind to discover unitary concepts under which to subsume the manifold of experience. So long as we are content to take and preserve the world of our experience as we find it, with all its manifoldness, variety, and fragmentation, we are in the condition of primitive man, and little better than brute animals. As soon as we begin to reflect on the data of the senses, we are led by an instinct of our rational nature to reduce manifold effects to the unity of a causal concept. This we first do in the scientific plane. Afterwards, carrying the process to a higher plane, we try to unify these under philosophical categories, such as substance and accident, matter and force, body and mind, subject and object. The history of philosophy, however, shows with unmistakable clearness that there is a limit to this unifying process in philosophy. If Hegel were right, and the formula, "The rational alone is real", were true, then we should expect to be able to compass all reality with the mental powers which we possess. But, Christian philosophy holds, the real extends beyond the domain of the (finite) rational. Reality eludes our attempt to compress it within the categories which we frame for it. Consequently, Dualism is often the final answer in philosophy; and Monism, which is not content with the partial synthesis of Dualism, but aims at an ideal completeness, often results in failure. Dualism leaves room for faith, and hands over to faith many of the problems which philosophy cannot solve. Monism leaves no room for faith. The only mysticism that is compatible with it is rationalistic, and very different from that "vision" in which, for the Christian mystic, all the limitations, imperfections, and other shortcomings of our feeble efforts are removed by the light of faith.

See works referred to under METAPHYSICS; also, VEITCH, Dualism and Monism (London, 1895): WARD, Naturalism and Agnosticism (2 vols., London, 1899); ROYCE, The World and the Individual (New York, 1901); BAKEWELL, Pluralism and Monism in Philos. Rev., VII (1898), 355 sqq.; BOWEN, Dualism, Materialism or Idealism in Princeton Rev., I (1878), 423 sqq.; GURNEY, Monism in Mind, VI (1881), 153 sqq.; Articles in Monist (1891-); ADICKES, Kant contra Haeckel (Berlin, 1901); GUTBERLET, Der mechanische Monismus (Paderborn, 1893); ENGERT, Der naturalistiche Monismus Haeckels (Berlin, 1907); DREWS, Der Monismus (Leipzig, 1908); Articles by KLINIKE in Jahrbuch für Phil. u. Spek. Theol. (1905, 1906); MALTESE, Monismo e nichilismo (2 vols., Vittoria, 1887); ABATE, Il monismo nelle diverse forme (Catania, 1893); HAECKEL, Der Monismus als Band zwischen Religion und Wissenschaft, tr, GILCHRIST (London, 1894); IDEM, Die Welträthsel, tr. McCABE (London, 1900). On Carus's School of Monism, besides The Monist (1891-) and The Open Court (pub. fortnightly, first number, Feb. 17, 1887), cf. CARUS, Primer of Philosophy (Chicago. 1896); IDEM, Fundamental Problems (Chicago, 1894); IDEM, Monism, Its Scope and Import (Chicago. 1891).

WILLIAM TURNER
Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter
Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume X, Copyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition Copyright © 2002 by Kevin Knight, Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor, Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10483a.htm  2/10/03

 

 

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Monism

 

THE INTERNET ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY

The term monism was first used by Christian Wolff in his discussions of the mind-body problem to depict both philosophers who would only acknowledge the mind (idealism or mentalism) and philosophers who only acknowledged the body (materialism). The meaning Wolff originally intended by using the term has broadened in scope through the centuries, and today applies to any doctrine or theory that claims that all things, no matter how many or of what variety, can be reduced to one unified thing in time, space, or quality. Monistic philosophers including Parmenides, Democritus, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, Hegel, and proponents of contemporary atomic theory. The denial of monism forces commitment to either dualism or pluralism.

Monists take different views about how many substances exist. Substantial monists, such as Spinoza, maintain that everything is part of a single substance. Attributive monists maintain that, although there may be many distinct substances, they are all attributes of one type of stuff. Other doctrines are classified as types of monism. These include neutral monism, idealism, traditional materialism, and partial monism. Traditional materialism is the variety of monism which sees that everything is based in the material and physical. Hobbes subscribed to this view. Neutral monism, a doctrine of Hume, Russell, and Mach, denies that reality is based in either the physical or the mental, but rather in one particular kind of substance that can be classified as neutral stuff. Phenomenalism, in most instances, is classified under neutral monism. Idealism is the form of monism which maintains that everything is based in the mental. The two philosophers most closely associated with idealism were Berkeley and Hegel, the latter's version bases everything in and on the World Spirit. Partial monism holds that if there are many realms of being, then there is still only one substance within one of the realms upon which everything is based. Descartes is a half-subscriber to this form of monism; he accepted this theory as far as matter was concerned, but rejected it when it was applied to the mind.

IEP

http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/m/monism.htm            2/10/03

 

 

HINDU  MONISM

Philosophical schools: Vedānta

When speaking of Indian philosophy, it has become a convention to count six schools in the Hindu tradition. This division is rather artificial, especially since it involves putting the schools together in three pairs: Sānkhya–Yoga; Vedānta–Mīmāmsā; Nyāya-Vaiśesika. In fact, by the fourteenth century we find sixteen philosophical schools discussed in Mādhava’s Sarvadarśanasamgraha (Survey of the Major Philosophical Systems). Among these are schools opposed to the Hindu ones, such as Buddhism, Jainism and materialism. Mādhava places the materialists at the beginning of his treatise and culminates it with the Vedānta school to which he himself belongs. Including the different schools of Vedānta, we can count about a dozen Hindu schools.

 

Vedānta still survives and is the most influential school of modern times, having great intellectual and political figures among its adherents. ‘Vedānta’ describes several schools and numerous thinkers, and means ‘the appendage to the Vedas’, referring in this way to the body of texts known as the Upanisads. The Upanisads have been a source of inspiration and dogma since their beginnings around 700 BC. Embedded in them are ideas that came to dominate Indian thought, namely karma, rebirth, and liberation from the ever-revolving cycle of rebirth. The means of liberation is to experience the identity of the individual self (ātman) with a larger cosmic entity (Brahman). Individual thinkers each had a different interpretation of these tenets, but all essentially agreed on the means of liberation. Curiously, the development of Vedānta did not take place until more than a millennium after the earlier Upanisads. The most influential thinker of whom we know today was Śankara.

 

Śankara, like other Vedāntins, built on an earlier tradition. The work to which they all responded was Badarāyana’s Brahmasūtra (or Vedāntasūtra) of around AD 50. It stimulated many interpretive commentaries, which gave occasion for new schools to arise. The most prominent interpretation of the Brahmasūtra is known as Advaita Vedānta. It focuses on Brahman, which is understood as identical with ātman. Out of ignorance, the material world is superimposed on the ultimately empty Brahman; this superimposition is sometimes described as an illusory projection (māyā). The first prominent name in this tradition is Gaudapāda, who taught Śankara’s teacher.

 

Śankara was prolific in his philosophical output. He commented on all the major Upanisads and the Bhagavad Gītā ([Upanisad, or Secret Teaching] Recited by the Lord Krishna), and a number of other works are ascribed to him. His Advaitism can be characterized as a strict nondualism: there is nothing other than Brahman, either real or unreal, and the goal is to know this through a trance-like experience which grants liberation (moksa) from rebirth. Were it not for this experience of truth, which is the vision of identity between ātman and Brahman, we would always superimpose this colourful world on transparent Brahman. This superimposition is an act of mistaking an unreal object for a real one, just as we superimpose silver on a piece of a glittering shell or a snake on a rope (see §2). If we could lift the superimposed object away from the real one, underneath we would find something altogether different.

This doctrine is austere and diminishes the importance of a personal God. It failed to stimulate the imagination of many people, and with time there was a strong reaction to such an abstract portrayal of reality. The form of Vedānta that flourished subsequently tended to have a more theistic cast. The earliest work of theistic Vedānta was Bhāskara’s interpretation of the Brahmasūtra, whereby the individual self is both different and not different from God (Brahman). This doctrine was called ‘the teaching of difference with no difference’ (Bhedābhedavāda).

 

The Brahmasūtra was often seen in the light of theology devoted to the god Visnu. The eleventh-century philosopher Rāmānuja, commenting on the Brahmasūtra in his Śrībhāsya, claims that everything is Brahman, yet acknowledges the reality of individual selves and the material world. This teaching is called ‘qualified monism’ (Viśistādvaitavāda) because Brahman is described as Knowledge and as being merciful, all-powerful and all-pervading. Everything that exists is contained in Brahman, understood as a personal God who should be approached with constant devotion. Other interpreters of the Brahmasūtra postulated devotion to God; to many of them, he was some form of Visnu, which indicates that they too had a problem with absolute monism. Therefore they introduced a modified monism: Nimbārka, for instance, combined both dualism and nondualism (Dvaitādvaitavāda).

 

The extreme position of disavowing monism was taken in the thirteenth century by Madhva (not to be confused with Mādhava), who claimed that there is an absolute difference between Brahman and individual selves (Dvaitavāda). Another extreme position was expressed by Vallabhacārya in his teaching of pure nondualism (Śudhādvaitavāda). Still other thinkers with other interpretations, such as Caitanya (1486–1534) of the Bengal Vaisnavism, did not leave a corpus of literature behind them (see Gaudīya Vaisnavism; Brahman; Monism, Indian).

 

Copyright © 2000 Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis group. All rights reserved.

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Monism, One Wiccan Perspective

Durwydd MacTara

"HENOTHEISM n. Belief in one god without denying the existence of others." (American Heritage Second College Dictionary)

"MONISM n. philos. A metaphysical system in which reality is conceived as a unified whole." (American Heritage Second College Dictionary)

"MONOTHEISM n. The belief or doctrine that there is only one God." (American Heritage Second College Dictionary)

"PANTHEISM n. 1. The doctrine identifying the Deity with the various forces and workings of nature. 2. Belief in and worship of all gods." (American Heritage Second College Dictionary)

"POLYTHEISM n. The worship of or belief in more than one god." (American Heritage Second College Dictionary)

"To witches, deities manifest in different ways and can be worshipped and contacted through any form suitable to local conditions and personal needs. Wicca does not believe, as do the patriarchal monotheisms, that there is only one correct version of God and that all other God forms are false: the Gods of Wicca are not jealous Gods. We therefore worship the personification of the male and female principles, the God and the Goddess, recognizing that Gods are aspects of the One God and all Goddesses are different aspects of the one Goddess, and that ultimately these two are reconciled in the one divine essence."

(Vivianne Crowley, WICCA: The Old Religion in The New Age, pp. 11-12)

 

http://www.paganlibrary.com/editorials/monism.php       2/10/03