SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
SUMMARY
The purpose of this study was to trace and compare monistic and dualistic theologies through the centuries, beginning with Old Testament times, and observe their control of the Christology and ethics of the people who hold these mutually exclusive conceptions of God. The focus has been upon monistic theology and its effect upon the thinking and behavior of its adherents. For comparative purposes, the parallel movement of biblical theology that transcends monistic theology has been observed. It provides the perspective of a standard of comparison.
Covering such a long period of time, and such a broad spectrum of theological movements, this study was only a very brief and sketchy overview of the movements. Its success or failure depends largely upon whether it has identified the existence of the two basic and mutually exclusive conceptions of God, and whether these two systems have been correctly identified as they wend their way through history. Then the paper must also be judged by measuring its accuracy in identifying the cause and effect relationship between these theologies and the development of their respective Christology and ethics.
The definition of dualistic (or transcendent) can best be grasped and appreciated as it is distinguished from the concept of monistic theology. Monism assumes a basic unity of God's nature with the nature of the universe. For instance, a natural theology that teaches that nature reveals God must be classed as monistic, as the term is used in this study. The term is not limited to monisms that are thoroughgoing pantheistic systems or thoroughgoing atheistic systems; it includes systems where God's nature and man's nature are identified in practical usage as being the same (e.g., in mysticism), so that this limited monism is clearly assumed (and would, therefore, necessarily submit itself to a universal monism if carried to its logical conclusion).
In the influence of modern scientific theory that reduces the phenomenal universe to a monistic entity composed of atoms (or energy, or whatever is basic to both matter and energy), it becomes more obvious that if God is of the same nature as any part of the universe, He must ultimately be reducible to whatever one element composes all the universe.
Against this monism, then, can be seen the significance of a God who is ontologically transcendent to the universe. This dualism does not require that God and the universe are opposed to each other (as in Gnosticism); it only means they are not composed of the same basic substance, and they may be said to be wholly other to each other. God dualistically transcends the monism of the universe. (The origin of the universe has not been studied in this paper;¹ the focus has been limited to the question of whether God and the universe are ultimately the same.) Using these definitions of monism and dualism, it is possible to identify the two theological systems.
Theology: Dualism vs. Monism
Dualism. The Old Testament established the duality of God's existence being separate from that of the universe. This was accomplished through the revelation of Him as the Creator who existed before the world existed, and through the revelation that His holy nature is separated from the world and unknowable by the world. The prohibition against images to represent God made the people aware that they could not even think of God in terms of these images. Their only lawful conception of God was in terms of the revelation of the law (Scripture). This revelation was illustrated in the typology of the ark of the covenant, where God localized His presence to the imageless location in deep darkness between the images of the cherubim above the mercy seat. This concept of God's otherness carried through the New Testament writers into the early church.
Eventually, it was forgotten when, in 787 A.D., at the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the church established the usage of images to represent God in the practice of the church. But the dualism was re-established by many of the Protestant reformers, most notably Calvin and the reformers associated with him.
Monism. The monism of the Greeks centered in their search for the one basic nature of the universe. Apparently, it scarcely entered their minds that God's nature might be other than some projection (or essence) of this monism. Their systems of bringing together everything in heaven and earth into one system did later come into the church in various forms. The Gnostics, especially during the first several centuries of the church, identified God with their systems of emanations of the Bythus (ocean) of spirit. This provided a monism of all spiritual substance (or nature) in the universe. The danger of this monism was obscured by their erroneous dualism between spirit and matter. Salvation came to involve a gnosis of one's spiritual nature; thus, to perceive the spiritual nature brought one into their monism of spirit. For some Gnostics it may have been an all-inclusive monism where they would deny the existence or reality of the material world; for others, it was evidently a limited monism from which the perverted dualism of the material world did really exist, at least for the present time.
Irenaeus opposed their monism of the spirit world by breaking up its monism; he kept showing that the God of the Bible could not possibly be part of such a monism.
Monism came into the Catholic Church through the images and mysticism of Platonism and its successors. Monism also came into the Catholic Church through Aristotelian logic and natural theology. Both Platonism and Aristotelianism sought to unite heaven and earth.
Monism came into the Protestant Church through the liberalism that is usually traced to men like Schleiermacher and Hegel. It profoundly influenced most Protestant denominations. Its mood was generally anti-supernaturalistic, and it tried to reconcile the Christian faith with the naturalistic scientific view of the universe. In this milieu arose a number of pseudo-Christian sects such as Mormonism, Christian Science, and the like, all of which assume some kind of monistic likeness between God and man.
Christology: Dualism vs. Monism
Dualism. The New Testament retains the dualism of its concept of God and man by identifying Christ with both natures. He is the “Son of Man” and He is also the “Son of God” (the “only begotten Son of God”). The church recognized these dual natures in the one person of Christ during the first few centuries. It was an important enough issue that all of the Seven Ecumenical Councils centered around this dualism; these councils would not have been convened if there had not been critical need to explicate and defend some aspect of these issues.
The Seventh Ecumenical Council obscured this dualism by monistically declaring that images of God are possible to be made, therefore, must be made and used. But this council would never have been called if there were not a vital controversy in the church that showed that the church was aware of the possibility of such a dualism up until that time. The Protestant reformers, in their opposition to images to represent Christ, showed their awareness of the two natures of Christ. They thus rescued for the church the awareness of the ontological transcendence of Christ’s divinity.
Monism. The Gnostics’ concept of the monism of the spiritual Bythus and its emanations caused them to interpret Christ according to this schema of divinity, rather than the biblical concept of divinity. The Gnostics saw Christ as being an unusually pure emanation from the Bythus. Their dualism between matter and spirit caused them to see His physical body as evil. With this dualistic language they were confused, and they confused other people, about the biblical dualism distinguishing God from all His creation (which creation includes both material and spiritual beings). In their monism of spiritual reality, they saw no substantial difference between Christ and any other spirit. Any differences were merely relative differences.
The Platonic and Aristotelian monism that came into the Catholic Church influenced its Christology in subtle ways. Retaining the orthodox doctrine of the two natures in the one person, the church modified its concept of the divine nature into something monistic enough that it could be represented by images and could be known through the natural theology explicated by the Aristotelianism of Aquinas. Christ’s divine transcendence was no longer (at least, to practical purposes) an ontological transcendence; now it was a more relative kind of transcendence where Christ was only higher, stronger, etc.
The monism in liberalism resulted in a heavy attack on the doctrine of the deity of Christ. This movement in the Protestant Church clearly showed its rejection of a transcendent God by teaching that Christ had only one nature.
Ethics: Dualism vs. Monism
Dualism. The ethics taught in the Bible were obviously based on the dualistic idea of a transcendent God ruling the lives of His people. These dualistic ethics carried over into the church. It was an ethic of love, but the love was defined by the law of God. The venerable position the church has given the Scriptures which contain this ethic is a strong testimony to the effect that the dualistic theology of the church has been carried over into its ethics.
Monism. On the other hand, ethics in monistic societies have been determined by their adherents’ concept of the nature of the world in which their theology told them they lived. The Gnostics’ ethic evidently was twofold: to find rituals or other means by which to experience gnosis of the spiritual world; and, on the other hand, to express this gnosis in overcoming the evil world of the body and all other materialism.
Wesley’s holiness ethic has tended to change over the years due to the monistic influence of a relative definition of sin (so sin comes to be determined by one’s own standard rather than the transcendent standard of God’s Word), and by the influence of a trend toward mystical experiencing of God. What Wesley envisioned as a holiness ethic, or an ethic of love that fulfills the law, has tended to be changed to a unity ethic: unity with God through mystical experience and unity with people who are of like mind.
The ethics of liberalism have stressed their independence from the transcendent authority of Scripture. The frank admission of Albert Schweitzer that a monistic view of the universe provides no clear ethic is indicative of the uncertainty of ethics in a liberal society. It follows the crash of liberal ethical optimism which ended with the advent of the 20th century’s world wars where man’s atrocity toward man was revealed. Joseph Fletcher’s situational ethics tries to regain some of this optimism by recommending that an undefined but inclusive love (“love monism,” according to one critic) guide all decisions and behavior. He cuts away any clear standard of love by cutting away the transcendental authority of Scripture.²
CONCLUSION
People who hold a monistic view of God's relationship to the universe consistently limit their view of Christ to seeing in Him only one basic nature. Likewise, in their ethics, monists consistently avoid recognizing the ethical authority of a transcendent God.
People who hold a conception of God that is transcendentally dualistic to the world are also consistent in their Christology and ethics. They recognize both a human and a divine nature in Christ, and they recognize that their ethical approach to life will be judged by the transcendent God.
PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
Since believing in God (in an orthodox Christian sense of the word) means to believe in a transcendent God, and since the concept of the transcendence of God is so deeply rooted in the teachings of the Old Testament, it behooves the church to develop its knowledge of the Old Testament. Especially does the Old Testament concept of God need to be known in order to avoid slipping off into a Christology that is rooted in natural theology. G. Ernest Wright’s words are instructive and appropriate at this point:
*Thus again we must affirm that the Old Testament in itself is incomplete. The problems of promise and fulfillment, of righteousness and grace, of sin and forgiveness, and of faith and works are unresolved when it ends. Yet the achievement of Israel in the midst of a sea of polytheism was so dynamic and revolutionary that it is and will remain the theological basis upon which the Christian faith is established. Without it the Church has no means for interpreting the real significance of the Incarnation as the early Christians saw it; it can experience only severe difficulty in arriving at a doctrine of history and revelation; it will have little protection against the subtle perversion of the Gospel by naturalism. The New Testament, no more than the Old, can stand alone. If it is not a completion and fulfillment of the faith of Israel, then it will be a fulfillment of that which we ourselves provide—the idealism of a natural religion. Only as by adoption we become children of Abraham can we become heirs of the grace of life in Jesus Christ.*³
This points up the impossibility of believing in God's ontological transcendence on the basis of philosophical speculation. It must be deeply rooted in a knowledge of all the Scriptures. It must see the relevance of the Scriptures as the only safe place to look for our concept of God.
This has great implications for preaching and teaching in the church. People need to be taught that natural theology leads only to a monistic conception of God. It does not yield any knowledge of the transcendent God of the Bible. The church should have a vital place in people’s lives, and it will be recognized as being important when the church itself recognizes the transcendent nature of its God and identifies the preaching of the Word as means of knowing who God is, and what is His will for the people.
The transcendence of God needs to be taught in the regular educational program of the church. The present curriculum needs to be evaluated. Is it identifying God with that holy and imageless Being who located His presence to the empty space between the cherubim? Or is the curriculum teaching the church to identify God monistically with images in books and nature in the world? To confront a world that knows no option to thinking of deity in monistic terms, the church needs to be schooled in the biblical revelation of who God is.
Awareness of the significance of the Incarnation needs to be heightened. Here is where the human meets the divine. Only as we are in Christ do we have any union with the divine. Otherwise, we are forever separated from the transcendent God.
¹ The ex nihilo creation of the universe seems the only plausible explanation for this writer. The eternality of the universe is excluded by Genesis 1:1, so the dualism of God and the universe is not eternal.
² Although not developed in this study, it should be noted that some monistic systems overcome temporarily this lack of a transcendent authority by arbitrarily positing some relative authority in something, such as a law-making and law-enforcing person or office. For example, Russia (with its monistic philosophy) allows rulers to make and enforce stringent rules. But these rules are not transcendent absolutes; they could be reversed tomorrow by those authorities.
³ G. Ernest Wright, The Old Testament Against Its Environment (London: SCM Press, 1950), pp. 111–112.
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