The Radiance of Being: Dimensions of Cosmic Christianity by Stratford Caldecott

Author:Stratford Caldecott
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781621380306
Publisher: Angelico Press
Published: 2013-11-02T23:00:00+00:00

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19. According to the Preface by Alvin Moore, Jr., the author’s actual name was Alphonse Levée. Having studied Vedanta under the influence of René Guénon, he became a monk of La Trappe in 1951.

161

The Radiance of Being

of John Paul II, “[Man] must, so to speak, enter into Christ with all his being, he must ‘appropriate’ to himself and assimilate all the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself ”

(117).20 More precisely, he proposes that while Christ’s realization of the Supreme Identity depends simply on the hypostatic union of his human and divine natures in the Person of the Son, our own realization of the Supreme Identity is dependent upon our incorpora-

tion in Christ. This proposal is probably equally offensive to both sides in the dialogue. Orthodox Christians will most likely protest against the claim that “to find himself ” must ultimately mean for man to dissolve himself into the supreme (non-dual) identity.

Christianity is surely the religion of creation ex nihilo and of the human person loved forever by a God who is different from himself. Advaitins or perennialist non-dualists, for their part, will find it hard to comprehend how the attainment of supreme realization

might be made to depend on the incarnation of God at one particu-

lar point in history. As the author himself points out, the Supreme Identity is “not an event or a fact, but the permanent and immutable Truth (and so uncreated), of all that exists” (116). If it is true that

“I am that,” it will be true at any time and under any historical conditions whatsoever.

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