God or the Divine?: Religious Transcendence beyond Monism and Theism, between Personality and Impersonality 9783110698343, 9783110698169

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God or the Divine?

God or the Divine? Religious Transcendence beyond Monism and Theism, between Personality and Impersonality Edited by Bernhard Nitsche and Marcus Schmücker

ISBN 978-3-11-069816-9 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-069834-3 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-069841-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2022946451 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Table of Contents Preface

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Bernhard Nitsche Introduction 1 Bernhard Nitsche Dimensions of Human Existence as Dimensions of the Hermeneutics of Transcendence 5 Bernhard Nitsche God or the Divine?

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Florian Baab Transcendence in Difference to Creation: A Christian Essential as a Problem of Modern Philosophical Theorizing 41

I Buddhism Robert M. Gimello The “Entangled” Presence of the Unconditioned: A Buddhist Vision of 51 “Transimmanence” Noel Sheth, S.J. (†) Effort and Grace in Relationship with the Transcendent in Buddhism

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Perry Schmidt-Leukel Nirvāṇa as “Unconditioned” (asaṃskṛta) and “Transcendent” (lokottara) Reality 87 Hermann-Josef Röllicke Considerations on the Inappropriateness of the “Transcendence” Paradigm to the Hermeneutics of Buddhist Scriptures 103 Anne MacDonald The World Transcendent. A Madhyamaka Interpretation

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Jörg Plassen Is All-Unity a Possibility in Mahāyāna Thought? Some Musings Centering on 133 Huayan Expositions of the Net of Indra Michael von Brück Unity of Consciousness in Buddhism

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Klaus-Dieter Mathes Dependent Arising (pratītyasamutpāda) and the Problem of Continuity: Does the Concept Lead to an Idea of All-Unity? 163 Dennis Hirota Jinen as Transcendent Reality in Shinran

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James L. Fredericks The Status of Amida Buddha as a Person: Henri de Lubac’s Encounter with 199 Pure Land Buddhism Joseph S. O’Leary The Tetralemma, the Two Truths, Skilful Means, and Divine 217 Personality

II Hinduism Brad Bannon Potters, Human and Divine: Manifesting Śaṅkara’s Īśvara through Pedagogy, Playdough, and Personhood 239 Godabarisha Mishra Ontological Interpretation of Śaṅkara and the Question of Non-Dualism 263 Francis X. Clooney, S.J. The World and the (Non)Transcendent: A Reflection on Some Abundant and Elusive Possibilities from the Brahminical Traditions 281 Gérard Colas The Supreme Being: A Person?

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Anantanand Rambachan Gnoseological Interpretation of Śaṅkara: A Proposal for the Relationality of 319 Saguṇa and Nirguṇa Brahman John Nemec Śiva’s Claim to Identity: Can Personalism in a Theistic Tradition of a Strict Identity Survive? 331 Noel Sheth, S.J. (†) The Bhedâbheda (Difference and Non-difference) of Nimbārka Robert Zydenbos Madhva’s Concept of Divine Personality and Personalism

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Fabian Völker “The Deepest Insoluble Embarrassment of Abstract Monism”: Śaṅkara and 363 Schelling on the Origin of the Finite World of Appearance Steven P. Hopkins Theology in Poetry: Divinity, Humanity, and the Natural World in 383 Veṅkaṭanātha’s Haṃsasandeśa Timothy Cahill Aesthetic Experience as a Mediator Between Personal and Impersonal Transcendence 411 Christine Büchner How Can Christian Theology and Hinduist Theology have Resonance? Michelle Voss Roberts Blurry Vision as Transcendence: Lessons from Non-dual Śaivism Marcus Schmücker The Divine Gift according to Rāmānuja, Sudarśanasūri and Veṅkaṭanātha 469 Contributors Index

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Preface There were many people who contributed to the realization of the Twin-Conference, which was held at the Katholische Akademie Schwerte (Catholic Academy of Schwerte) from 26 to 28 June and 30 June to 2 July 2016. Special thanks must go to the staff members Paulina Pieper, Benita Bockholt, Inga Markert, Martin Bornemeier and Jakob Ohm, who took care of the conference’s organization on site. The commitment of Daniel Rumel must be mentioned in particular. Not only did he take part in the preliminary conceptual planning, he was the main point of contact for the speakers and managed all aspects of their participation. Moreover, he was able to raise funding from the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung. We would also like to offer our sincere thanks to Gerhild Benölken for her careful administrative and financial handling of the conference and for undertaking some of the associated correspondence. Special thanks are due to the Katholische Akademie Schwerte for supporting an event that was much more involved than the usual conference. This was due to speakers and staff changing throughout the conference, a frame program taking place between the two parts of the conference and, at its conclusion, participants travelling to the Sri-Kamadchi-Ampal temple festival in Hamm, planning of alternative events, meals being served by an external caterer, and attention being given to accommodate the completely different meals and mealtimes of Ramadan. The organizers of the Twin-Conference would like to give their warmest thanks to the academy staff for their patience and commitment, above all to Dr. Ulrich Dickmann. Thanks are also due to the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) for its generous funding of the research project “God or the Devine?” The Twin-Conference was closely related to this project. We would also like to offer our sincere gratitude to all of the institutions that supported us financially, above all the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung, which provided funding for the participants’ travel expenses and is now generously supporting the publication of this volume of collected papers. Supplementary funds were also received from the Bishop of Münster, the International Office of the University of Münster, and the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung. Without the substantial financial support of these institutions it would have been impossible to realize the TwinConference. We would also like to thank Patrick Suchy, who carefully supported us to prepare the manuscript of this volume for the printer’s copy and helped to create the index. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-001

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We dedicate this volume “God or the Divine? Religious Transcendence beyond Monism and Theism, Between Personality and Impersonality” to the memory of Raimon Panikkar (1918 – 2010) and the memory of Noel Sheth, S.J. (1943 – 2017). Noel Sheth was an active participant at the conference, both as speaker and discussant. He passed away before he was able to make final revisions to his contribution to this volume. We printed therefore without any change his two lectures which were distributed for the auditory as a kind of handout. Raimon Panikkar and Noel Sheth were experienced scholars and dedicated believers. They both maintained a decade-long dialogue between Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism. As an expression of their devotion and commitment to this dialogue, the editors hope that the views concerning God and the Divine in this volume not only inspire scholars and specialists in the discipline, but are also a fruitful impetus for engaging with representatives of these respective religious traditions.

Bernhard Nitsche

Introduction Setting out on a journey of comparative research in the field of the theology of religions, in our case examining a point of encounter between the religious galaxies of Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism, is like diving into an adventure. Clearly it is an adventure that involves meeting the other, the unfamiliar. But the adventure is also fascinating and disconcerting. The endeavor of comparative theology becomes still more adventurous when it enters the heart of any religious mindscape, the dimension of the transcendent. It is here that the variances between religions are most vividly apparent, and where true differences are particularly emphasized. This is valid not only for the dialogue between Buddhism and Hinduism, but also for that between Buddhism and Christianity. It is no coincidence that a trialogue between Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism is rarely attempted. And even if it is attempted, it rarely succeeds. Today, while Buddhist and Hinduist concepts have been popularly received in societies that are post-traditional and non-religious but have broadly Christian values, the dialogue between these traditions proves to be an undertaking that is still highly challenging. For many, from the modern Western perspective, Buddhism seems to be a religion free of dogmas, a religion that, dissimilar to both Christianity and Hinduism, manages without presenting metaphysical hypotheses or conceptions about a transcendence of the universe we as human beings inhabit. Accordingly, only the spiritual side of cosmic life is a subject of discussion in Buddhism. Its aims are merely a shift of mind and a change of lifestyle. Buddhism knows neither the concept of an eternal soul nor of a personal God, and interprets the paradise-like descriptions of nirvāṇa as mythological representations of a subjective experience of liberation. The quasi-divine buddha families (so called dhyānibuddhas) of cosmo-geographic lands are clever spiritual instruments. They are skilful means for triggering in human beings the buddha-nature that is active or valid in the entire cosmos. A life free of suffering is achieved through concentrated effort (self-power, Jap. 自力, jiriki) or/and trusting devotion (other power, Jap. 他力, tariki). Under these conditions, is a dialogue with Christianity and Hinduism, which are both based on metaphysical assumptions of transcendence, futile from the start? It is clear that anyone who enters the adventurous path of comparative theology will discover, as their inquiries become deeper, that these different religious galaxies involve different solar systems. Nonetheless, in their internal plurality and wealth, they also offer phenomena that can be used for comparison. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-002

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These comparable concerns have been described as “functional equivalents” or “third-degree analogies” (Raimon Panikkar). While this does not deny that there are conceptual differences, if one considers the logical system of each religion and its individual world of understanding, it is possible to find significant elements that are comparable. Furthermore, there is generally a difference between how religious traditions have been adopted in modern Western societies and their original intentions and original forms. An exploration of this internal wealth, with its comparable phenomena or third-degree analogies, was undertaken at the conference “God or the Divine? Religious Transcendence beyond Monism and Theism, between Personality and Impersonality.” As the subtitle indicates, the contributions and discussion focussed on two topics. The first involved whether, or to what degree, it is possible to speak of great transcendence and a Divine. On one hand, this topic is especially important in a dialogue with Buddhism, since it concerns the character of Buddhist transcendence of the given reality. Here, the option of epistemic or ontological transcendence is significant, as is the question of a salvific-soteriological alternative to an existing limited reality defined by suffering and death. On the other hand, the topic is part of current religious philosophical discussions examining the mediation of immanence and transcendence within the alternatives of monism, theism, pantheism and historically-Triune monotheism in the Christian context. Terms developed in Western traditions have proven inadequate for describing the various cultural traditions of Asia and their images of transcendence. The second topic under discussion involved the widely established distinction between personal and impersonal concepts of transcendence. A careful view of religious traditions reveals that these two alternatives are inadequate, because they omit the difference between the semantic definition of transcendence and the specific religious-pragmatic logical reference. In popular expressions of modern piety, people speak at times of being supported, prima facie, in a quasipersonal way by an unspecified personal cosmic energy. In the Buddhist context as well, it can hardly be denied that the average believer, devoutly reciting “Namu Amida Butsu” at a temple, has not only chosen a resourceful means for his path to nirvāṇa, but is also invocating his faith in Buddha Amida as a powerful and helping counterpart. Nirvāṇa signifies an ultimate reality that is beyond name and appearance, figure or form. Hence, it is to be understood as emptiness (śūnya). Masao Abo defines the abundance of the Buddha as immeasurable light and life that lead to nirvāṇa, and the ultimate reality of nirvāṇa as a dialectic of negation and a logic of unlimited and non-discriminating abeyance: “śūnyatā is non-śūnyatā (aśūnyatā); therefore it is ultimate śūnyatā (atyantaśūnyatā).” According to Raimon Panikkar, śūnyatā does not exclude pléroma,

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but includes it. For example, in traditions of Chinese Buddhism the concept of pléroma can be referred to the fullness of the buddha nature. Such a meta-categorical reality defies all classifications of personal or impersonal by being neither this nor that (neti – neti). At best, it can be seen as “ahead” or “beyond” personality or impersonality, as a final unassailability that is characterized by both infinity and unavailability. The Hindu definition of brahman as nirguṇa brahman is comparable. Paul Deussen emphasized that brahman must be understood as over-personal, or should be thought of as un-personal only in terms of being “far above all personification.” This meta-categorical reality can only be visualized or conceptualized through a categorical differentiation between abstract, personal and impersonal perceptions of transcendence or of the divine. According to Deussen, in some way brahman can be seen as a theism of īśvara. In a strict sense, the ultimate realities of brahman and nirvāṇa are meta-categorical and thus are examples of a third-degree analogy. If it is assumed that a relationship with transcendence is a basic condition in the relationship of human beings to the world, as the research project “God or the Divine?” has done from an anthropological standpoint, this suggests the meaning of transcendent to be natural or cosmic. When interpreting religious transcendence, however, the social reference of human beings suggests a meaning that is relational or theistic. In contrast, human self-reference is related to an abstract meaning. Other philosophical concepts are needed to form a religiousphilosophical basis for conscious self-reference, or to unify self-reference, social reference, and the relationship of human beings to the world. This leads to other speculations. When searching for fundamental principles in practical philosophy, which understands human beings as freely acting subjects, the idea of a perfect, divine freedom can be used as the basis for defining consciousness as “egological” or personal. However, if these fundamental principles emphasize the different moments in the human consciousness, which is the unifying basis, then this basis can initially be understood as a differentiating all-unity that is non-“egological” or impersonal. If these two directions of philosophical speculation do not provoke a dualism at a higher level, the question arises of whether it is possible to have a unifying and unassailable view (apophatic and logical) of both. An exceeding view thus would be understood meta-categorically and appear to be a unifying condition for both alternative final thoughts of a total freedom and only differentiated all-unity. This meta-categorical condition can only be discussed as a logical preceding “condition of possibility” of a total personal freedom and differentiated impersonal all-unity. At the conference “God or the Divine,” the matter of different ultimate religious concepts was taken into account, as was their possible equivalent gestalt

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or systemic functionality within individual religious traditions. We are much obliged to all of the contributors to this volume of collected papers, who offered their expertise with regard to the guiding question of the conference from the viewpoint of their individual research disciplines.

Bernhard Nitsche

Dimensions of Human Existence as Dimensions of the Hermeneutics of Transcendence Being aware of the cultural as well as religious diversity of transcendental concepts, I would like to start with human self-understanding. I propose analytically differentiating three dimensions of being human. The differentiation into human self-relation, social relation and world-relation opens up three characteristic means of personal self-understanding. (Additionally, we can differentiate in each case between inner and outer relations). All human beings, as holistic persons, have these three aspects at their command (analogous to the grammatical speaking roles): 1. a subjective one (I), 2. an interpersonal one (Thou) and 3. a bodily one (He/She/It). The meaning of each aspect, however, can vary in different cultural contexts. I am currently being led by the intuition that the different basic dimensions of human existence are even valid in connection with the human interpretation of the ultimate horizon of existence; they enable motives to be outlined and support the process of lending importance to different interpretations. Human beings are mundane, i. e. they are corporeal and bodily. They are part of their cosmic “environment.” That is why ultimate reality can appear diaphanically as the subtle or majestic experience of nature. Ultimate reality, as the cosmic reason for natural processes, is often described as an ultimate It, an ultimate principle or a divine energy. Furthermore, human beings are social beings; they interact and communicate. In this respect, human beings are part of a world full of relationships with others; it is a reality that is pervasive. It is therefore not surprising that human beings express ultimate reality in the sense of a personal other, as an ultimate You/Thou an ultimate He/She. Human beings, however, are not entirely absorbed by the material environment and social world surrounding them. Because of their free mind they are also conscious of the reality of their own lives; by subjectivizing they are able to decide how to react to their given environment. Human beings are able to do this because their conscious lives are also selfreferential. When ultimate reality is conceived as relating to the possibility of human consciousness, the logical position of reason is before the conscious “I”. All this gives rise to the following questions: Is there evidence of these dimensions within the tradition you are dealing with? Are these dimensions emhttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-003

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ployed when interpreting transcendence? Is there a dimension that is more prominent or occurs before the others? What are the reasons for this? Are these dimensions of human existence helpful for classifying the tradition you are dealing with, or are there any arguments against using them?

Understanding Transcendence Within my anthropological approach, I ascribe eccentric movement to human beings: In their rational faculties, human beings are able to transcend concrete objects and the conditions of their lives. This can be called the dynamic of transcending in the sense of a formal interminability that goes beyond all classes of objects. This transcending dynamic is characterized by a certain unconditionality, an unconditionality that is, however, inaccessible. Philosophically seen, this dynamic of the mind, in its relation to the inaccessible but nonetheless demanding horizon of the unconditional, might be considered formal unconditionality (Rahner/Pröpper). It is for this reason that Paul Tillich described religions as a “state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.” In itself, the unconditionality of this intellectual dynamic pursues the objective of qualitative fulfillment. Following this line of European thinking, the concept of the unconditional is connected to the idea of a positive infinite, of a perfect being (absolute completeness) that can force open every finite idea. In the Christian context this is connected to the perception of the human heart desiring peace and fulfillment. Augustine says “our heart is unquiet until it rests in you, o Lord.” This is related to the question of an ultimate unconditioned cause (as the foundation and objective) of the unconditioned dynamic of human striving. Whether the idea of the unconditioned must be considered a “greater” or “radical” alterity differs in the various teachings of religious wisdom. Comparing the different traditions, the question arises of whether these three relationship dimensions might also be suitable for characterizing ultimate reality in other religious traditions (e. g. Buddhism and/or Hinduism). How is the ultimate horizon and deepest meaning of the human spirit defined in the tradition you are examining? What is thought to give the human spirit peace and fulfillment? The human qualitative transcending leaves behind thinking about reality on two different levels. In Western traditions this is closely linked to the issue of unity and plurality: How does the worldly reality of plurality (including human beings) relate to the one ultimate reality? The problems linked to a concept that objectifies being (the absolute or God) were prominently shown by Martin Heidegger. When opposed to the plurality of being, being itself becomes a limited entity. The concept of being as ground regresses on the problem of thinking being as ultimate Being/essence.

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It is for this reason that Heidegger emphasizes the ontological difference between being and Being. For Heidegger, in the ungraspable actualization of being-event, an inaccessible “abyss” opens up. Theologically speaking, the ultimate reality has already been described by Nicholas of Cusa as “all in all” and yet as “nothing of all.” Thus, in a Christian context the immanence of the transcendent may become the ground for striving as well as the foundation of the most intimate relationship. Is the issue of the relationship between human finite reality and ultimate reality similarly applicable to Hinduism and Buddhism? How would the principle of Nicholas of Cusa be assessed from a Hindu or Buddhist perspective? Might it be helpful and applicable in an inter-religious context? Which significance does redemption as liberation have in this difference between “all in all” and “nothing of all”? Which additional or contradicting aspects can be detected in Buddhist traditions in the difference between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, or in Hindu traditions in the difference between the neuter brahman on one hand and the individual living being (jīvātman) on the other? Is the release from “egotism” (ahaṃkāra) accompanied by some kind of support from an other-power? If so, is this other-power a power that transcends the act of understanding to which human beings themselves are capable? Which aspects of the concept of transcendence, understood in terms of an event of a certain trans-immanence, would you accept, add, reject or regard as inadequate?

Personhood My anthropological approach tries to define personhood integratively and holistically. Personhood comprises world-bound existence, free intentionality, and living in and through relationships. The three anthropological dimensions related to ultimate reality are based on the concepts of being inaccessible or unavailable (Unverfügbares) and of being unconditioned (Unbedingtes), which are mediated through the possibility of human consciousness being naturalcosmomorphic, being personality-oriented sociomorphic, and being consciousness-oriented noomorphic. In order to apply this classification to God or the divine, a differentiation must be made between two perspectives: kataphatic accessibility and apophatic hiddenness. If personhood is favoured or identified within the kataphatic approach, the possibility and legitimacy of referring to a person according to the grammatical roles of the speaker (I: protopersonal; Thou: hyperpersonal; He/She/It: transpersonal) can be put to the test. If, however, the impersonal side is preferred, the question emerges of whether a further differentiation needs to be made. Under the term “impersonal,” motifs of nature (e. g. source, light, breath) and abstract concepts (e. g. energy field, abyss) can frequently be

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differentiated. The apophatic hiddenness extends beyond determinations such as being and non-being (Plato: epekeina tēs ousias). It describes a trans-categorical “beyond” and a pre-categorical “before,” which itself cannot be called personal or impersonal. In its strict beyondness, it is a complete emptiness of finite entities or concepts and a perfect and unfathomable completeness. It can thus, in a strict sense, not be called personal or impersonal, since logically it precedes any definition. This apóphasis thus explains the legitimacy of egological and non-egological interpretations of religious world views. It allows transcategorical and unconditioned origin to be imagined as an ultimate (and possibly divine) all-encompassing unity that has non-egologically (without activity on the part of the self) always been present in the world and in every human being. Another possibility is for the unconditioned to be imagined as a free activity, which is how it is unconditioned. And it is possible that these two perspectives are not separable in a strict sense, but should be seen as mutually complementary, because the absolutely unconditioned and the absolute are always found in the context of religious traditions. If this is the case, the pre-categorical origin, from which the world and free subjectivity emerge, is the origin of everything as complete emptiness and perfect completeness. Is the idea of the unconditioned and inaccessible helpful in interpreting the unfathomable origin or ultimate horizon in your tradition? Would you agree that there is a correlation between the ultimate dimension and human self-understanding in self-relation, social relations and world relations? Are aspects of the three basic dimensions mentioned above recognizable in the tradition you are dealing with? What supplementary statements or critical comments can you make?

Bernhard Nitsche

God or the Divine? Religious Transcendence beyond Monism and Theism, and between Personality and Impersonality The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty that are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms – it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude.¹

With these words Albert Einstein expresses his religious approach to reality, what he calls “the apprehension of the marvelous structure of reality,” “the mystery of the eternity of life.” Consciousness he saw as the condition for striving to grasp “a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.”² If we follow Einstein, the human being appears as attuned to the immensity of a cosmos that is structured with divine regularity. This regularity, for Einstein, excluded arbitrariness and chance: God does not play dice, nor can he be thought of as rewarding and punishing human beings in their history. As in Spinoza, the fascinating logic of the cosmos excludes freedom. The individual feels the nothingness of human desires and aims, and the sublimity and marvelous order that reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. He looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison and wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear in earlier stages of development, e. g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learnt from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer especially, contains a much stronger element of it. The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling that knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image.³

 Einstein 1964: 69.  Einstein 2005: 10 f.  Einstein 2005: 18 f. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698343-004

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Awed at the beauty of nature, the luminous Milky Way, the living diversity of species or the singing of a nightingale, and struck as well by human masterpieces of art and technology, by joyful encounters and relationships, the human being begins to question his identity and his place in the vast cosmos. These questions deepen when one is faced with the finiteness of individual life, its limited time, fruitless toil, burdens of personal inadequacy and guilt. The questions weigh fearfully in face of people whose thin veneer of cultural domestication cracks and who then, wilder than the wildest animals, harass or destroy other lives, in perfidious malice or unbridled sadism. The human being is like a dancer between wonder at the immeasurable immensity of the universe and anguish about the radical contingency of his own existence as a living and intelligent grain of dust grain in a tiny niche of his galaxy. Human existence between appalled shivering and marveling elevation is a perilous and insecure path. One looks back in remembrance or thanking, and forward in anxiety and hope, always facing new questions and tasks, in a permanent travail of possible well-being or misery, success or failure, weal or woe. Life is an open-ended exploration in which each step is shaped by the one before, and shapes the one that follows, until the last step brings us face to face with death, which is either an exhausted fading or a devastating termination. What lies beyond is inconceivable, and what stretches around is infinite, and frustrates our grasp. Starting from this contrast between the finitude and contingency of existence and the vast enveloping horizon of unfathomable mystery, I should like to map different paths for thinking religious transcendence, and then attempt to bring the questions arising in interreligious dialogue into focus in light of this basic structure.

Human Existence and the Enfolding Infinite: Querying Transcendence According to David Bohm, relativity theory and quantum theory join in agreeing that it makes sense to understand the world as an undivided whole including each observer of the world so that these fuse into a totality. It is impossible to survey this totality, because each observer is part of this world, caught up in its process, and none can enjoy a “God’s eye view.” The last source of this processual, flowing reality is immeasurable and incomprehensible to us. Yet we face the structurally inescapable question of what this encompassing reality is and means. The answer is not necessarily given in a conscious and reflective manner; it may be given implicitly, indirectly in the everyday life tasks and questions that engage us. Death gives our existence a definite profile, and in running ahead to

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death we anticipate this definitiveness. On the basis of the cosmic non-necessity of individual being – its limits, confirmed by the hard facticity of death, over against of the immensity of the whole of reality – each human being takes a stand in each act of his life in the immeasurable whole of reality and also takes a stance on the immeasurable whole of reality. A religious interpretation of life will understand the encompassing as an instance that is greater, and more comprehensive, and of a different quality than human existence in its current ‘Gestalt.’ If the last source of processual reality eludes knowledge, we live our existence nonetheless in the awareness that it is dependent on and “owed” to this ultimate source. We may seek to descry the ultimate boundless horizon in our conscious thought, but more fundamentally we discover ourselves in our lived reality as born from and obliged to this unsearchable horizon. Thomas Luckmann distinguishes between experiences of self-reference and self-transcendence, and between conscious experience and the concurrent horizon of the non-experienced. In all experience, humans have a subtle consciousness of the existence of things that are in fact or in principle beyond their experience of consciousness. The relation of our given experience to the vast horizon that exceeds it can be measured in terms of what Luckmann calls “small”, “medium”, and “great” transcendences.⁴ Small transcendence is experienced by each one in everyday praxis, insofar as the horizon of knowledge of a possible absence has a determining influence on an experience of presence “here and now.” So, I can travel far from my habitat and usual living conditions but then return to this habitat and come back to these familiar living conditions. Medium transcendences emerge with an interruption that exceeds what can be mastered in everyday life. For example, the encounter with other people never yields direct insight into their inwardness but only what is symbolically mediated by bodily-expressive linguistic acts. It is necessary to distinguish the great transcendences that are related to a structural absence and hiddenness from those small and medium ones. The turn away from everyday conscious life in sleep and dream leads to the boundary beyond which lies another reality than daily life. By this example, which recalls the Hindu distinction between waking, dreaming and deep sleep, Luckmann points to a plunge into another structurally elusive reality as a boundary of experience, a change of consciousness that may be typical for religious experience. Where this happens and the reemergence

 Cf. Luckmann 1991: 167– 182.

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from the other dimension is marked by compassion and solidarity, can we speak of a qualitatively new development of transcendence? Can such a qualitative change in consciousness and the epistemically altered view of reality linked with it be connected, for example, with the Buddhist change from blinded unseeingness to the seeing of suchness? Images of a cosmographic different place – a Pure Land or Heaven – yield to the phenomenon of a qualitatively different reality, which enables an epistemic change of consciousness. In Buddhist terms: Can such a change of consciousness presupposes a qualitative difference between saṃsaric and nirvāṇic existence, and thus a “soteriological difference” between saṃsara and nirvāṇa? The helpful distinction of Luckmann is nevertheless in need of supplementation. The question remains: Why is there a world at all, why are there spatially and temporally dimensioned events, process-like developments or conscious living? Why is there the gift of concrete existence and free thinking? All these questions can be bundled with Leibniz and Heidegger in the ontological question: “Why is something happening at all and not rather nothing?” Wittgenstein concludes: “Not how the world is, but that the world is – that is the mystical.”⁵ Even if all processes in the world could be reconstructed empirically, which appears problematic in view of the fact that subatomic processes cannot be predicted, the whole of reality shows itself to be a quantity that is always ahead of human thought and action as an “encompassing” factor. Heidegger’s talk of the event (Ereignis) in which the enigmas of the gift of existence and thought opens up can help us to reflect on “great transcendences” with the requisite refinement. The question of the meaning of being in “is”-statements overcomes the ontic level of categorically comprehensible being and every ontotheology which grasps being as logical foundation of existing entities. In this account of the eventuation of becoming no ground can any longer be discerned. Rather, the world of becoming is an unmasterable event and an unfathomable gift. Neither can one distinguish, in this happening of givenness, between the gift and its “whence,” a possible giver. Gift and horizon of the event of becoming fuse in one disclosure of meaning and discernment of meaning, which is given and given up to humans. What is meant by “Being” and “is” cannot be detached from concrete happening and the horizons of interpretation in which it is embedded. Heidegger’s interrogation of the “Es gibt” (“there is,” or literally “it gives”) leads him to that “Es” (“it”) that “gives” Being and thinking in the “event.” Thus the “it” that gives Being and thinking in the “event” is the discreet

 Wittgenstein 2004: 6. 44.

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pointer to a whence of the event, which is transcendent to humans and eludes their control. Its presence can never be detached from the network of becoming but is disclosed only therein: Since Heidegger is attentive to the temporality of the happening of truth, the togetherness of concealment and unconcealment, he succeeds in reaching a determination of the meaning of Being, or in other words the truth of Being, in which the factor of time, which in the received understanding of Being remained concealed in what was more essential, is brought to speech in its own identity: Being as Event. […This] identity of Being […] brings beings into their essence in such a way that this essence remains a property of the event. The essence […] is not a constantly present, ever identical idea, holding true above and beyond time, but the unmasterably destined historical essence.⁶

How is the whole of reality, which encompasses human existence, to be determined? As in a journey across the wide sea, this immeasurable horizon recedes in the same degree as one supposes oneself to be reaching or penetrating it. Human questions are endless in their very structure, and the horizon is even more so. As Karl Rahner says: The mystery in its incomprehensibility is the self-evident. If transcendence […] is the simplest, most self-evident, most necessary condition of the possibility of all spiritual understanding and comprehension, then actually the […] mystery is the only self-evident thing. […] What is more familiar and self-evident to the mind that has come to itself, thematically or unthematically, than the silent questioning beyond everything already conquered and controlled? What makes us wise if not the humble and loving acceptance of being exceeded by this questioning? Man knows nothing in the last depth more precisely than that his knowledge, i. e. what is called that in everyday life, is only a small island in an infinite ocean of the unexplored, a floating island, which may be more familiar to us than this ocean, but is ultimate borne by it and only so can be a bearer, so that the existential question to the knower is whether he loves more the small island of his so-called knowledge or the sea of the infinite mystery.⁷

In any case, the horizon does not denote a thing-like, ontic backdrop. The horizon of the whole of existence is rather marked as a mystery. The truth that reveals itself in this horizon is not a truth of judgement, as it applies to the manageable and perspicuous sequences of finite reality that are investigated in empirical sciences. The horizon as that which encompasses everything can no longer be encompassed. That is why the truth of the whole of reality is no longer categorically grasped and judged, but testified to in existential statements. With Karl Rahner we can speak of the horizon as a mystery:  Pöggeler 1959: 625.  Rahner 1999: 27 f.

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The whither of transcendence cannot be disposed of, but is the infinite, mute disposal of us in the very moment when we begin to dispose of something.⁸ The concept ‘God’ is not a laying-hold of God, through which man takes charge of the mystery, but a letting oneself be seized by a mystery that is present but is always withdrawing.⁹

Can this being grasped by mystery be associated with the concern of shinjin (信 心) in Pure Land Buddhism? In this Buddhist school, “Buddha” is literally translated as the one who sees. Man is the one who does not see. This not seeing, however, inevitably appears to man as a seeing. It is on this basis that all the consequent forms of not seeing arise. Man considers non-being to be being, the transitory to be eternal, the non-self to be self. If a person recognizes himself as a mind trapped in saṃsāra, he becomes aware that he is trapped in absolute forlornness. Shinjin refers to the trusting mind, which expects to be transformed through being touched by the Buddha.¹⁰ But is the human sense of the term shinjin (信心) an active grasping or a passive being grasped? If the act of trust means actively letting oneself go and surrendering oneself into the buddha–nature, it realizes the non-duality between one’s own mind and the one mind (一心) that underlies everything.¹¹ In this coherent unity the spirit of trust is realized. At the same time, the question remains whether there can still be a distinction in this unity between the trusting spirit of man and the trust-enabling spirit of Buddha.

Religiosity as “Taste for the Infinite” A life-determining symbolic system can only be called religious if its connection with ultimate reality opens onto the unconditioned, a dimension that cannot be mastered by inner-worldly categories. René Descartes argued that the human mind cannot develop the idea of an infinite out of itself. The notion of the infinite is granted to the mind, as a gift that cannot be a delusion. Emmanuel Levinas points out that the idea of infinity is not a concept.¹² Rather, it directs thinking beyond all factual contents that can be conceptualized, beyond all totality, beyond all imaginable fulness and perfection.

 Rahner 2005: 193 ff.  Rahner 1999: 63.  See Hirota 2010: 207– 231.  Cf. Rumel 2018: 241– 261.  Levinas 1992: 28.

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In this respect the idea of the infinite– in face of the network of questions indicated by Heidegger – presents an unmasterable breaking-in of transcendence, which is anarchic as there is no identifiable origin of being in the sense of a comprehensible cause. On the one hand, the idea of the unconditioned and infinite is a necessary guiding star of reason. On the other hand, the idea asks too much of any conception of it. So, Saskia Wendel emphasizes, “not only does the capacity to transcend ourselves and to refer to ‘great’ transcendences lie at the center of religiosity and religion but also the ‘capacity of the unconditioned’ (Kant) and faith in the existence of an absolutely unconditioned, an ‘all-determining reality’ (Bultmann). This unconditioned can be defined in different ways, either theistically or nontheistically. This ‘idea of the unconditioned’ corresponds to the Cartesian ‘idea of the infinite’. The term ‘unconditioned’, however, has the advantage of not being easily confused with Hegel’s false infinite (‘das Schlecht-Unendliche’).”¹³ Schleiermacher already understood religiosity as a subjective attitude within a sense of total dependence and of indebted existence. He thus connected human existence to a positive expression of metaphysical infinity. In his Speeches on Religion he proclaims that “Religion is a sense and a taste for the infinite.”¹⁴ Encounters with the worldly and finite imply a reference to the infinite. “To embrace each particular as part of the whole, everything limited as representation of the infinite, that is religion.”¹⁵ And Hegel concludes with an equally positive concept of the infinite as metaphysical presumption of existence: “To love God is to feel oneself in the whole of life limitless in the infinite.”¹⁶ However we judge these philosophical approaches, in each case the demand of human reason is linked with the idea of infinity, marked as unconditioned and unmasterable. For Thomas Rentsch, “insight into the unmasterable conditions of the meaning of our existence” opens a perspective on the vast horizon of the whole of reality and a non-objectifiable infinite. But at the same time “life in practical recognition of the transcendence of the world of others and myself is the presupposition of all rational common praxis.”¹⁷ Thus the great ideas – of freedom, infinity and ultimate reality – are existential assumptions in a practical conduct of life. Further reflection on the infinite produces three viewpoints. The first two bring up the whole of reality as a perfect maximum under the idea of subjectivity     

Wendel 2018: 89 – 90; cf. Wendel 2010: 49 – 57. Schleiermacher 2001: 212. Schleiermacher 2001: 214. Hegel 1970: 251. Rentsch 2010: 12.

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or under the idea of being. The third disrupts all attempts to image the maximum by radicalizing the idea of the infinite. First, the idea of freedom shows itself to be indispensable if human beings are to be understood as autonomous and self-responsible beings. Only the idea of freedom, lodged in the conscious human mind, can explain why human beings, although they are restricted by physical and bio-chemical, social and psychological dispositions, are not entirely subject to them. The formally unconditional spontaneity enables man to start something new, to multiply or vary the possibilities of life, or to develop systems of meaning that render the whole of reality meaningful. Freedom, in the sense of a formally unconditioned ability, allows us to develop the idea of an unconditioned subjectivity. Inasmuch as in the process of practical life the content that fills out freedom can only be freedom itself, freedom finds its fulfillment in willing the freedom of others and in releasing and letting be the freedom of others. This primary content of freedom is itself in need of orientation in one’s concrete living, that is, in face of the contingencies and ambivalences of human life. The guiding star of such orientation is the idea of a freedom that is not merely formally unconditioned, but is also materially filling every content and is thus fully achieved. In the event of the human realization of freedom, the idea of such a perfect freedom may occur to the human mind. It is the idea of pure unconditionedness and pure setting-free of the freedom of others. In affirmative willing of the other as a free other it is not merely unconditional spontaneity, but also an emblem of loving and compassionate acceptance. In this tradition the Divine can be thought under the leading idea of utmost subjectivity, which cannot be understood as being, but as “Lord of Being”¹⁸ and ground or spontaneous origin of being. Second, there is a tradition which understands the question of being as bearing on a primary oneness before a separation and judgement. This all-oneness is conceived as the ground of conscious life. This unifying ground of consciousness is sufficient condition of unity which enables the unity of the different aspects of human consciousness. This trans-numerical all-oneness is differentiated in itself and characterized by the fact that it differentiates everything else in and from

 Schelling, 1966: Das Letzte nun aber, was existiren kann, ist die Potenz, die […] reiner Actus ist, […] die seyende Potenz […]; wenn sie existirt, so kann sie nur a priori seyn, das Seyn zum prius haben; wir könnten sie deshalb auch das umgekehrte Seynkönnende nennen” (1, 155 f.). “Wenn Gott sein Prius im actus hat, so wird er seine Gottheit in der Potenz haben, darin daß er die potentia universalis, als diese das Ueberseyende, der Herr des Seyns ist” (1, 160).

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itself, so that factual plurality and grounding unity cannot be separated from one another but play in one another. Third: Anselm of Canterbury first pointed in his Proslogion to the connection of the idea of the Divine with the idea of utmost perfection (Proslogion 2: credimus te esse aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit). Here the ideas of perfect subjectivity and comprehensive transnumeric all-oneness can be understood as conclusions of utmost perfection. However, Anselm later concluded from the idea of Deus semper maior that the Divine is not only greater than anything that can be thought but is so great that it cannot be thought at all (Proslogion 15: Domine non solum es quo maius cogitari nequit sed est quiddam maius quam cogitari possit).¹⁹ This ambition of a radicalization of transcendence and unknowability shattering from within all concepts of the idea of the infinite can draw on Plato’s insight that thinking of the Divine is a remembrance of what is beyond Being, epekeina tēs ousias, and also beyond thinking, as Plotinus makes explicit.²⁰ This permits one to speak of an ultra-transcendence that withdraws from thought, and that can no longer be intimated except through a negation of non-being and nonnon-being, as something utterly beyond nothingness and beyond being, as we see expressed for example in mystical speech as a darkness that is brighter than light. This incomprehensible and inconceivable can be displayed only in the sense of ultra-transcendent super-fulness, super-being, and pre-originality in its perfection, because it is greater and more perfect than all (necessarily finite and perspectival) imagination of perfect subjectivity, perfect being, or perfect fulness.

Approaching Transcendence via the Human Reference to Self, Society, and World The array of possibilities of religious interpretation of great transcendence can become accessible starting with basic structures of human nature and their interpretation in conscious life. My pivotal hypothesis is that the array of perspectives of human existence prefigures the ways we can relate to transcendence. Human existence is phenomenologically characterized by three dimensions, each of which generates a specific realm of experience for religious relations to transcendence – relatedness to the world, social reference, self-reference. Religious transcendence can be defined in terms of each of the three. We may iden-

 www.http://12koerbe.de/pan/proslog.htm#2; Abruf 2016.  Cf. Halfwassen 2006: 125 – 180, esp. 155 – 157.

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tify different forms of temporal presence of the divine: It may be natural-cosmographic, sociomorphic, and noomorphic. These three basic dimensions correspond in a certain respect to the personal pronounces I, You, and (He, She, or) It, and accordingly with the modalities of diaphanous, dialogical, und epiphanic connection. (a) World-reference: Human beings are embodied in the world. As corporeal or material beings, they are part of their cosmic and natural “environment.” As homo mundanus man knows himself inserted in a material world and nature that is given to him in an ontic manner and superordinate in an evolutionary way.²¹ Thus, experiences of nature play a major role in the modern world view, influenced by the sciences. This tendency is reinforced by a neo-ecological consciousness. The appearance and pervasion of a potential divine presence in impressive natural experiences and natural atmospheres is widely attested, and was a central theme of the Romantic movement. Wolfhart Pannenberg tells of a long walk of several hours through a snow-covered landscape, on his return from school in the winter of 1945: An extraordinary event occurred in which I found myself absorbed into the light of the setting sun and for one eternal moment dissolved in the light surrounding me. When I became aware again of my finite existence, I did not know what had happened but certainly knew that it was the most important event of my life; I spent many years afterwards to find out what it meant to me.²²

It is not only interpersonal experience or the call of conscience that make many people ask for the unconditioned. Often it is the “starry heavens” above them that raise the major questions of the whence and whither, the wherein and wherefore of life. When such diaphanous experiences of nature are understood in the horizon of the divine which is effective in nature, and superordinate to it, then the divine may be understood as ground or principle of cosmic reality. Then, each ray of light, each leaf in the wind and each intense experience of nature can become a sign (nutum) of the inconceivable (numen). That is why ultimate reality can appear diaphanously as a subtle or majestic experience of nature. As a cosmic reason for natural processes, ultimate reality is often figured as supreme It, as when Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas defines the di-

 Cf. Welsch: 2012.  Pannenberg 1988: 11– 18, here: 12.

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vine ground as unmoved mover, first cause, or necessary being.²³ In other traditions and religious contexts the world is seen as the body of God.²⁴ Vedic hymns praise that deity which forms the ultimate origin “beyond heaven and beyond earth, beyond the gods, […] in which all gods are included,” a reality which creatures are unable to find (Ṛg Veda 10,82,5 ff.). It can only be described as the one origin of everything (Ṛg Veda 10,129,1 ff.): “Who knows for certain, who can proclaim it here, where it came from, where creation came from? The gods (came) only afterwards through the creation of this (world). Who then knows from what it has developed?”²⁵ This question about the origin was unfolded henotheistically, monotheistically or monistically.²⁶ (b) Social reference: Human beings are social beings. Thus, they are involved in interaction and communication, part of a world full of relationships with others. But they not entirely taken up in the material environment nor in the social world that surrounds them. It is through the body that they become mutually accessible as You and I, as Jacobi, Rosenzweig and Buber emphasized. They live from the beginning in and through relationships. This relationality of the human inevitably becomes more important in the religious realm. One has to distinguish the realm of personal encounter, and the functional order of social roles and tasks, and to conceive of the social dimension in a way that does justice to both. In many religious traditions the thought of a divine reality in an ethical and soteriological transcendence combines with the image of God as a supreme Thou. Such motives can be found in both biblical and Hindu traditions. The distinction between personal relationships and functional roles emerges in the divine realm, when the divine, on one hand, is seen as a potter or creator, or as a king and warlord, and, on the other hand, is addressed as savior and Redeemer. As soon as a human being imagines the whole of reality and refers to it, he imagines a counterpart over against him, the addressee of prayer and adoration in a dialogical manner. This happens even when the encompassing horizon is understood as Mother Nature. A dualism, making the horizon itself a final object that one can deal with and thus considering the horizon no longer as a horizon but as an entity in the horizon, must be overcome. In many religions calling on the supreme Thou is connected to the hope for salvation or release. As an example, we may cite the Vedic prayer: “Supreme Lord, ruling the spheres, hear, O wise God,

   

Cf. Bromand/Kreis 1998. Markschies 2016. Mehlig 1967: 68 f. Schmidt-Leukel 2014: 143 – 177.

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as you pass on your way. Free us from fetters of every sort. Loosen our bonds that we may live!”.²⁷ (c) Self-reference: Man experiences himself as agent in this task of self-determination and self-identification and he is conscious of this activity of his.²⁸ Thomas Nagel stresses that the first person perspective is indispensable: The statement ‘I am TN’ is true if and only if uttered by TN. […] They can’t be replaced by third-person analyses.²⁹

The historical and social varieties this self-awareness takes, in the “modes of subjectivization” studied by Michel Foucault,³⁰ are also relevant to a religious self-understanding. They are activated religiously, for example, when God is introduced as an auto-poietic and sovereign power of action. Then the “Thou” address or “He” predication implies a first-person perspective, as expressed in biblical “I am” statements, such as the epiphanic self-presentation of JHWH at Horeb (Ex 3,14) or the divine self-commitment to liberating exodus of Israel (Dtn 5,6). Another example in the context of Indian tradition is Bhagavadgītā: For those who see me everywhere and see all things in me, I am never lost, nor are they ever lost to me (Bhagavadgītā 6.30 – 31). Although I am unborn, the Lord of all living entities, and have an imperishable nature, yet I appear in this world by virtue of Yogamaya (māyā), my divine power. Whenever there is a decline in righteousness and an increase in unrighteousness, O Arjuna, at that time I manifest myself on earth. To protect the righteous, to annihilate the wicked, and to reestablish the principles of dharma I appear on this earth, age after age (Bhagavadgītā 6.6 – 8).

In concrete religions and their reflective traditions, we find mixed types of networking and more complex networked relations between human starting points and divine referents. That provides a wider context for the usual personal-impersonal alternative. Thus, our thought of transcendence may begin with a God conceived as supreme subject, and then as Creator addressed as supreme Thou, and move to the idea of a ground of nature that is experienced as operative in its release of beings

 Quoted according to Panikkar 1977: 150.  Cf. Rudder Baker 2007: 203 – 226: “We may hope for a naturalistic theory of the mechanisms that underwrite a first-person perspective. (Metzinger 2003b: 395) But on my view, the ‘I’ who is the genuine subject of experience is a person: an object in the world whose first-person perspective is irreducible and ineliminable.”  Nagel 1986: 58.  Foucault 1986: 40.

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into their effective existence. Conversely, we might begin with an all-unity that differentiates everything in itself and on its own terms, and then discern that it functions as what grounds and opens up the dimensions of self-reference, social reference and world-reference. However, there is a debate in the theory of the subject on how to found the self-acquaintance of the self in its original unconditioned spontaneity and in its unity with all possible conscious ideas it has of itself, or all possible conscious volitions. But this field transcends the phenomenon of self-acts and calls for a grounding that logically antecedes conscious thinking. One has to distinguish from these three phenomenologically describable fundamental dimensions of being human the question of the unifying principle that explains why man is able to refer to the world as environing world, to other living beings and human beings as co-world, and to himself. On this level of grounding we may explore egological and non-egological approaches.³¹ What holds the three dimensions together may be either the idea of perfect freedom (cf. Krings 1964; 1973: 633 ff.) or the idea of a self-differentiating all-unity (Henrich). The conditions of unity are founded egologically in the free subjectivity of man himself.³² God emerges in this perspective as unhindered freedom and pure intelligence, an everlasting activity, eternally self-fulfilled as a subject of paramount love and joy, compassion and peace. In an alternative approach, the unity of the subject and the self-acquaintance of the “I” can be explained non-egologically by a metaphysical reduction. Dieter Henrich and others connect different aspects of human consciousness with a prior ground of consciousness, which is “present and operative”³³ in the activities of consciousness. It is defined a “trans-personal principle” and even as a neuter “it.”³⁴ From this perspective one may envisage an absolute mental consciousness, for example ātman, which does not appear. It is consciousness reality per se and blissful Being (sat, cit and ānanda). It is the ground of the mental consciousness and necessary ground of Being behind all appearances. In the dialogue with Hindu approaches it is still to be clarified whether the supreme and irreducible nirguṇa brahman is better imaged according to the idea of the all-unity which differentiates everything out of itself, or in terms of a transcategorical ‘beyond’ and a pre-categorical ‘before.’    

Nitsche 2018a: 7– 30, esp.: 15 – 19; Nitsche 2018b: 31– 88; Nitsche 2018c: 384– 405. Cf. Nitsche 2003: 209 – 239; Tetens 2016: 35; 37; 41, Anm.13. Henrich 1989: 106 – 170, here: 168. Henrich 1992: 637.

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When the ultimate condition of unity can be thought of both non-egologically as comprehensive all-Being, and egologically as the idea of perfect freedom and supreme subjectivity, then theistic and non-theistic apprehensions of the ultimate appear legitimate. We may say that they can be understood as not only mutually complementary, but mutually constitutive. Both, egological and non-egological lines of thought lead to an inconceivable ultimate Whence and Whither. This can be displayed only in the paradoxical complementarity of a complete emptiness of names and forms (śūnyatā) which may refer in a non-discriminating openness to an inexhaustible plenitude.³⁵ The idea of the unfathomable infinite and the ultra-transcendent Whence shatters imaging approaches. Thus, if śūnyatā is an indication for the ineffable, for an inaccessible emptiness and infinite interminability, one can say with Masao Abe: “śūnyatā is non-śūnyatā (aśūnyatā); therefore, it is ultimate śūnyatā (atyanta-śūnyatā).”³⁶

Further Questions Buddhist: How is the Unconditioned of Nirvāṇa to be Understood? According to Edward Conze, any concept of nirvāṇa as a transcendent reality standing over against the world is to be excluded from the tradition of the Middle Way. Such a concept is considered an illusion. All the more interesting is Anne MacDonald’s suggestion, in her outline of Madhyamaka, that Nāgārjuna relates the logic of negation of the catuṣkoṭi to all finite reality, but explicitly does not apply it to ultimate reality itself. The following question arises: Can there be a soteriologically pertinent difference between the reality of saṃsāra and the reality of nirvāṇa? Or does saṃsara rather merge into the sea of nirvāṇa like a drop of water?³⁷ According to Edward Conze and Helmuth Glasenapp, this corresponds to an inner-Buddhist controversy.³⁸

 Panikkar 1989; Panikkar 1993: 78; 155 f.  Masao Abe 1990: 5 – 25, here: 20 – 22. Stylistic adaption by B.N.  MacDonald 1998: 180 – 189, here: 189.  Glasenapp 1966: 141– 170, describes this difference in the following way: “For the small vehicle saṃsāra is entirely different from nirvāṇa. The only connection between the two is that human beings in slowly maturing to salvation (going through different modes of existence) gradually go from darkness through daybreak until daylight dawns in them. […] In Mahayana the dualism is sought to be annihilated. […] Even in the smallest being, the seed of Buddhahood lies hidden, the future beam of perfection is slumbering” (168). See Conze 1995: 180.

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Related to this we can ask if the aspects, subsumed under the key concept of the unconditioned (asaṃskṛta), display functional equivalencies with the concept of unconditioned reality. The European tradition unites the unconditioned with the idea of the infinite or the absolute. Helmut von Glasenapp denotes the asaṃskṛtas as adharma, that is, in contrast to the conditioned dharma. Th