Renunciation vs. Dutiful Action in Hinduism

Hegel looked at human history as developing through dialectics resolved at a more advanced point in a trajectory of expanding human freedom. It may be in the history of religion that less superstition evinces an evolution of a different sort. The monotheism of the Abrahamic religions came out of a polytheistic context, but it is a more difficult matter to claim that monotheism represents a development of human religion historically because polytheism has continued. Even though some contemporary interpreters of Hinduism’s main text, the Bhagavad-Gita, claim erroneously that the god Krishna being the supreme deity in that text means that it is monotheist even though in that text, Krishna himself acknowledges that people pray to other gods and goddesses that exist. Rather than maintain that monotheism is an advancement on polytheism, I submit that conceptual contradictions between contending religious claims in any religion can be surmounted, as transcended, though with the caveat that in polytheism, contradictions have a firmer grounding even though they too are to be transcended if religion itself is permitted to evolve.

The full essay is at "Renunciation vs. Dutiful Action in Hinduism."

Arjuna’s Vision of Krishna: On the Edge of Transcendence

In reading the Bhagavad-Gita from chapter four on, it may be tempting to collapse all of Hinduism into a monotheism in which Lord Krishna is God. Even in the context of bhukti being directed exclusively to Krishna, other deities are alluded to in the text. To claim that those other deities came out of Krishna, and even that Krishna surpasses even Brahman, which is infinite being that is imperishable awareness, thought (but not mind), power, and bliss, in terms of ultimacy does not mean that the Gita is a monotheist scriptural faith-narrative. Not even Krishna’s unmanifest form by which the deity’s creative energy gives rise to the cosmos transcends form itself, and thus reaches the unmanifest and formless Brahman. To be sure, that Krishna, as the Supreme Person metaphysically and ontologically, is ultimately Self renders the deity identical to brahman, but this does not mean that Krishna transcends brahman. Regardless of where the Krishna-Brahman debate lands, and there are admittedly shlokas in the Gita that support the ultimacy of Krishna and shlokas that favor the ultimacy of Brahman, Krishna need not be more ultimate than Brahman for a devotee of the deity to be able to experience a lot of transcendence from ordinary experience. In fact, because either referent that is the Absolute lies beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility (emotion), according to the Christian theologian Pseudo-Dionysius, the human experience of distinctly religious transcendence is where our attention can fruitfully be directed. This is not to say that a referent (i.e., a divine, transcendent object) is thereby relegated or even discarded in favor of the quality of experience as its own referent. Rather, it is to say that we can know a lot more than we do about distinctly religious, and thus transcending, experience, and that such knowledge is part of the human condition—part of being human as homo religios as distinct from being a political, economic, and social species. First I investigate the question of whether the Gita is monotheist, after which I argue that Arjuna’s vision of Krishna in chapter 11 of the Gita is can be viewed as the “event horizon” of sorts in terms of how much we can transcend as we approach the limits of our faculties.

The full essay is at "Arjuna's Vision of Krishna."

The Hindu Festival of Holi: Polytheism in Practice

On March 14, 2025, “(m)illions of people in South Asia celebrated Holi, the Hindu festival of colors . . . by smearing each other with brightly colored powder, dancing to festive music and feasting on traditional sweets prepared for the occasion.”[1] Lest the various eats and drinks be dismissed for analytical purposes as trivial, a particular kind of drink or food that is traditional can have religious significance by reflecting Hinduism as a polytheistic rather than a monotheist religion. Whereas monotheism allows for only one deity, etymologically mono theos, a polytheist religion has more than one deity, even if one is deemed to be superior over the others.

The full essay is at "The Hindu Festival of Holi."

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1. “Millions of  People Celebrate Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colors,” The Associated Press, March 14, 2025.

Lord Krishna in the Bhagavadgita

The Hindu myth, the Bhagavadgita, is typically regarded as placing the god Krishna above not only the other Hindu gods—here rendered merely as Krishna’s various functionalities—but also Brahman, which is being and consciousness writ large. Because Krishna is incarnated in human form, placing him at the peak of the Hindu pantheon—in fact, even reducing the latter to the point that Hinduism is regarded by some scholars as monotheist—compromises the wholly-other quality of the divine that is based on it extending beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotion, and thus beyond things we encounter in our world. In other word, the highlighting of Krishna’s role in the Gita comes at a cost. Depicting Krishna as the “Supreme Person” connotes less transcendence than does depicting Brahman as being and consciousness (of the whole). In going against the grain by making Brahman the unmanifested basis or foundation even of Krishna as well as Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, Shankara, a Hindu theologian, philosopher, and ascetic of the eighth century, CE, can be interpreted as highlighting  transcendence in Hinduism, an element that establishes religion itself as a distinctive domain.

The full essay is at "Lord Krishna in the Bhagavadgita."

Christianity and Hinduism: On Manifestations of Divinity

Hinduism is a polytheist religion whereas Christianity is monotheist. Many gods versus one seems like a clear distinction, and I submit that it basically holds. Yet nuances exist that make the distinction murky both in Hinduism and Christianity. The key to clearing up the ambiguity lies in deciding whether being a manifestation of something else is enough to count as existing as an entity. In simpler terms, is a manifestation real, or is it merely an appearance?

The full essay is at "Christianity and Hinduism."

Religious Sources of Business Ethics: How Far Along Are We?

If Business Ethics for Dummies is any indication, the topic of religious sources for business ethics must have gained steam through the first decade of the twenty-first century. Increasing interest in such a topic in the midst of modernity is ironic, or counter-intuitive. For philosophers without any degrees in religion, the temptation might be to dilettante over to this topic in order to proffer an opinion. The result for the rest of us could well be a false sense of the extent of knowledge on the topic.

The entire essay is at "Religious Sources of Business Ethics"

For more on this topic, see God's Gold, Christianized Ethical Leadership, and Spiritual Leadership in Business, all available at Amazon.

Religion as Metaphysics: A Category Mistake

The claim that God is real, or even that God's existence is reality, is problematic chiefly because it incurs the category mistake of treating religion as through it were metaphysics. Rather than being an atheistic argument, obviating the mistake privileges God's radical transcendence.

The full essay is at "Religion as Metaphysics."

Related: Spiritual Leadership in Business: Transcending the Ethical, a short book that is available at Amazon in print and as an ebook.