Van Huyssteen J.W. (editor) Encyclopedia of Science and Religion

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MONOTHEISM

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held the second while countenancing a plurality of

substances.

Monism must be distinguished from pluralism,

which asserts that there are various things or kinds

of things. Monism must also be distinguished from

dualism, which claims that there are only two basic

kinds of things. Often, however, the term monism

is used imprecisely to refer to any fundamental di-

chotomy in a philosophical or religious system

(e.g., good and evil, soul and body, male and fe-

male). Of particular interest in the science-theology

conversation are the apparent dualisms of mind

and body, and God and universe.

A primary motivation for monism is ontological

simplicity—a world in which there is one basic

thing or kind of thing makes fewer ontological

claims than one asserting the existence of many

things or kinds. Explanation for the monist is ho-

mogeneous and coherent; it makes no appeal to

entities of a different ontological type when framing

its causal stories. Moreover, the assumption of

monism (particularly of physicalist variety) has been

enormously fruitful. On the other hand, pluralism is

motivated by the apparent multiplicity of things and

kinds, and the desire to avoid purchasing simplicity

at the expense of real complexity. A further advan-

tage of monism is that, unlike pluralism, it does not

need to offer an account of a relation that suppos-

edly conjoins fundamentally disparate kinds.

In addition to materialist (physicalist) and ide-

alist monisms, there is also neutral monism and

anomalous monism. The first claims that both men-

tal and physical phenomena are manifestations of

an underlying neutral stuff. Spinoza and Bertrand

Russell (1872–1970) are associated with this posi-

tion. The second, advanced by twentieth century

philosopher Donald Davidson, holds that while

every mental event is token identical to some phys-

ical event, mental properties can nonetheless not

be reductively identified with physical properties.

Because mental properties are individuated holisti-

cally according to criteria of coherence, rationality,

and consistency which, as Davidson notes, “have

no echo in physical theory” (p. 231). Although all

particulars are physical (physicalist monism), the

incommensurability between mental and physical

properties requires a property dualism.

Both substance and property dualism are of in-

terest in the science-theology discussion. For ex-

ample, most would claim that substantival and at-

tributive monism are both incompatible with the

substance dualism of divine and worldly stuff

(or creator and created stuff) that theism presup-

poses. Others have suggested that since God can

be understood immanently, a dualism of divine and

worldly properties is compatible with a monistic

ontological physicalism. The question for the

science-theology conversation is whether God-

universe or mind-body property dualism coupled

with physicalist monism has the resources to avoid

reductive explanation, and thus successfully to

ground an ontology of the mental and the divine.

See also DUALISM; MATERIALISM; NATURALISM;

HYSICALISM, REDUCTIVE AND NONREDUCTIVE;

LURALISM

Bibliography

Davidson, Donald. “Mental Events.” In Essays on Actions &

Events. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.

Drees, Willem B. Religion, Science, and Naturalism. Cam-

bridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Spinoza, Baruch. The Collected Works of Spinoza. ed. and

trans. Edwin M, Curley. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

University Press, 1984.

Van Inwagen, Peter. “Individuality.” In Metaphysics. Boul-

der, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993.

DENNIS BIELFELDT

MONOTHEISM

Monotheism is the belief in a single personal God

who is the creator of the cosmos and continues to

exercise some influence on it. Monotheism is the

core tenet of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as

well as a basic belief about reality for many outside

these traditions. God is often, but not always, held

to be of unlimited power (omnipotence), unlimited

knowledge (omniscience), unlimited extension

(omnipresence), and unlimited goodness (om-

nibenevolence). Further beliefs—God is three per-

sons in one, is self-revealing, is salvifically involved

with human beings—are advanced by specific reli-

gious traditions; their beliefs about God share

important commonalities and exhibit important

contrasts.

See also

BEHAVIORAL GENETICS; DESIGN; DNA;

VOLUTION; GENETIC DEFECT; GENETIC TESTING;

ENETICS

Bibliography

Hefner, Philip. “Determinism, Freedom, and Moral Fail-

ure.” In Genetics: Issues of Social Justice, ed. Ted Pe-

ters. Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim Press, 1998.

Kitcher, Philip. The Lives to Come. New York: Simon and

Schuster, 1996.

Monod, Jacques. Chance and Necessity. London: Collins,

1972.

Peacocke, Arthur R. “Biological Evolution: A Positive The-

ological Appraisal.” In Evolutionary and Molecular

Biology, eds. Robert John Russell, William R. Stoeger,

and Francisco J. Ayala. The Vatican and Notre Dame,

Ind.: Vatican Observatory and Notre Dame University

Press, 1998.

Peters, Ted. “Genes, Theology, and Social Ethics.” In Ge-

netics: Issues of Social Justice, ed. Ted Peters. Cleve-

land, Ohio: Pilgrim Press, 1998.

R. DAVID COLE

MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE

Defined in contradistinction to so-called ordinary or

mundane experience, mystical experience conjures

images of ecstatic rapture, overwhelming emotion,

or profound quietude. An apparently universal as-

pect of human experience cross-culturally and in-

terreligiously, subjective experiences of a mystical

persuasion likely reflect universal but nonetheless

unusual predispositions and propensities of the

human mind. Continuing advances in cognitive sci-

ence in general, and in the neurosciences in partic-

ular, promise to illuminate aspects of mystical ex-

perience previously hidden behind the mask of the

phenomenological. At the same time, a historically

more refined form of comparative phenomenology

promises to coordinate the enormous variety of de-

scriptions of mystical experiences. Research from

both the sciences and the humanities will con-

tribute to the development of a comprehensive,

compelling interpretation of these experiences.

See also EXPERIENCE, RELIGIOUS: PHILOSOPHICAL

ASPECTS; MYSTICISM

JENSINE ANDRESEN

MYSTICISM

Permeating each of the world’s major religious tra-

ditions, mysticism may be described as the level of

deep, experiential encounter with the divine, or

ultimate, however that may be understood, that

links religious and spiritual pursuits across cultures

and across the centuries. Mysticism differs from

more defined forms of religious experience, inas-

much as it frequently transports the individual be-

yond the confines of the religious tradition itself to

a realm often described as lacking in any sense of

differentiation, whether it be between aspirant and

God, or between self and non-self.

The task of defining mysticism bears reevalua-

tion, however. As Frits Staal has written, “If mysti-

cism is to be studied seriously, it should not merely

be studied indirectly and from without, but also di-

rectly and from within. Mysticism can at least in

part be regarded as something affecting the

human mind, and it is therefore quite unreason-

able to expect that it could be fruitfully explored

by confining oneself to literature about or con-

tributed by mystics, or to the behavior and physio-

logical characteristics of mystics and their bodies.”

(p. 123). That being said, according to a loose,

phenomenological typology, one may consider

mysticism to be that genre of subjectivity and

behavior manifesting in an “altered,” or non-

conventional mode, framed in a religious or spiri-

tual narrative, and experienced by those who are

refered to, at least in English, as “mystics.”

Mysticism in various religious traditions

The Christian tradition manifests varied branches

of mysticism, including the Discalced Carmelites, a

movement within the Carmelite order that es-

pouses a form of mystical development still fol-

lowed today in the Catholic Church. Founded by

St. Teresa of Avila (1515–1582) and St. John of the

Cross (1542–1591) in sixteenth-century Spain, the

movement defended the practice of inner prayer

against its persecution by King Philip II of Spain.

Educated by Jesuits, John of the Cross began theo-

logical studies at the University of Salamanca in

1567 but left to help Teresa of Avila in her efforts

to found the Discalced Carmelites. Imprisoned by

the non-reformed Carmelites from 1575 to 1578, he

used his imprisonment to his advantage, com-

posed poetry, and, finally, escaped to face further

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suspicion regarding supposed connections to so-

called illuministic books roundly condemned dur-

ing the Inquisition. Only after the Apostolic See

had examined his orthodoxy in the early seven-

teenth century were his books published openly.

St. John primarily articulates a systematic ap-

proach to mystical development appropriate to

cloister spirituality, though he wrote his last book,

The Living Flame of Love, for a laywoman, and

used it as a vehicle of instructing both lay and

monastic Christians in the methods for attaining

mystical union. St. John may primarily be remem-

bered for explicating a so-called via negativa mode

of spiritual engagement in which one prays with-

out focusing on imagery and without actively pur-

suing any specific intellectual content (Mallory, pp.

1–7). Some generations earlier, Dominican mystic

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) similarly utilized a

kind of “negative theology” to point towards the

inadequacy of human language and perception in

capturing the fullness of mystical experience:

“There is no knowing what God is” (Steere, pp.

143–144). And in the Indian Advaita tradition, as

Mahadevan wrote in the preface to The Wisdom of

Unity, one experiences transcendent unity as “the

distinctions and differences that teem this world”

fade away in the recognition of “the eternal non-

duality of the Self.”

The Sufi tradition exhibits the depth of Islamic

spirituality and exemplifies the paradoxical quality

of mysticism in general. According to Rumi

(1207–1273), a Persian mystic and poet, “What is

Sufism? He said: To find joy in the heart when grief

comes.” R1bi ia (717–801), a Sufi mystic and an Is-

lamic saint, “introduced the element of selfless love

into the austere teachings of the early ascetics and

gave Sufism the hue of true mysticism.” Never mar-

rying and not favoring the prophet Mohammad in

any particular way, she loved God absolutely, and

completely, losing herself in contemplation of him.

Sufism also provides a good example of the nature

of the path that carries mystics of all stripes, a se-

ries of steps towards a deep experience of God, to-

ward the realization of emptiness, or towards

whatever the goal may be. In Islam, Sufis follow

the (ar3qa (path), in which the mystic practices

3th1r (preferring others over oneself), a practice

that later dissolves as the difference between one-

self and the other is “subsumed in the divine unity”

(Schimmel, p. 99).

The theme of total, devotional love also infuses

Christian mysticism, as evidenced by the Franciscan

movement of the alumbrados, those mystics “illu-

minated” by the Holy Spirit, some of whom prac-

ticed dejamiento (abandonment) of oneself to the

love of God, with the result that the formal sacra-

ments of the Church were seen to be superfluous

(Hamilton, pp. 1–2). And according to the visions

of the German mystic, Hildegard of Bingen

(1098–1180), love appears as a beautiful apparition,

such that “the fire of God’s love runs through the

world and its beauties, constantly re-enlivening the

cosmos as a miracle of perfection” (Schipperges,

pp. 68–69, citing Hildegard’s Book of Divine Works).

The status of duality, or non-duality, occupies

branches of mysticism otherwise separated by

virtue of culture, time, or doctrine. This is unsur-

prising, particularly given the nature of mysticism

itself in transcending boundaries, which are often

perceived as limitation; for example, the dualisms

of sense versus spirit, and attachment to creation

versus attachment to God, pervade St. John’s writ-

ings, as Marilyn Mallory posits in her 1977 book,

Christian Mysticism. Interestingly, in attempting to

express non-duality and paradox, mystics often

choose poetry as a modality capable of pointing

beyond the mundane levels of a world with de-

fined, black and white borders, at the same time

that it promises great aesthetic enjoyment to its lis-

teners. And as Herbert Guenther indicates in The

Royal Song of Saraha

(1969), beginning with Mar

pa (1012–1097), Tibetan teacher and translator, the

Doha tradition in Tibet utilized melodious verses

composed and sung by mystics to both express

and indicate non-conventional modes of aware-

ness and states of deep appreciation and joy.

Sometimes referred to as “states of infused con-

templation” (Pike, p. ix), union exists as a central

preoccupation of many mystics. In Christianity, for

example, union covers experiences from prayers of

silence, to prayers of union, to more intense expe-

riences of rapture, so-called ecstasy states similar

along certain dimensions to shamanic flights of the

soul. As Nelson Pike puts it, “the paradigm union

experience … unfolds through a dualistic stage into

a state in which the distinction between subject and

object is lost” (p. 59). Language fails at this impor-

tant juncture, causing many mystics to resort to

metaphor and poetry in describing their experi-

ences. St. John of Ruysbroeck (1293–1381), for

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MYSTICISM

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example, describes his experience of being perme-

ated, stating, “the iron is within the fire and the fire

is within the iron; and so also the air is in the sun-

shine and the sunshine in the air” (pp. 236–237).

Sociologically, mystical traditions in many reli-

gions rely upon a period of tutelage by a respected

member of the community, and a period of disci-

pleship on the part of the aspirant. As Frits Staal

comments, “The need for a qualified teacher is

stressed in almost all the traditions of mysticism .…

In Islam it is the foundation of the silsila or ‘spiri-

tual lineage’” whereas in Indian religions, one

refers to “the guruparampara, ‘the direct lineage of

teachers’” (p. 144). Tibet, for example, historically

organized a good part of its country’s social struc-

ture around this kind of hierarchical, lama-disci-

pline relationship, and this tradition of devotion to

idealized teachers in some cases stimulates the

minds of Western academics who study Buddhism.

One also may find the master-discipline lineage tra-

dition in other religions, such as the Sufism of West

Africa. iUmar al-Shaykh (864–960) brought the

Q1diriyyah order of Sufism to the western Sudan in

West Africa, having been initiated into the order of

the Q1diriyyah masters and hajj, as Ibrahim Doi

posits in “Sufism in Africa” (1991).

In communities, and in some cases, entire so-

cieties, in which mystical achievement translates

into positions of power and prestige, authenticity

exerts itself as a powerful mediator of who will or

will not be accepted by the group, which teachings

will be honored, and whose interpretations will be

valued. In the Islamic world, for example, Jami

(1414–1492), a Persian poet and mystic, describes

two types of mystics, those who are concerned

with their own salvation and who practice in com-

plete reclusion, “and those who return from their

mystical experience in a higher, sanctified state of

mind and are able to lead other people on the

right path” (Schimmel, p. 7). Grace Jantzen also

discusses the manner in a “gendered struggle for

power and authority” permeates mysticism in early

and medieval Christendom, though the same may

easily be claimed for mystical traditions more gen-

erally (p. xv).

Members of mystical communities also distin-

guish between “the true Sufi, the mutasawwif who

aspires at reaching a higher spiritual level, and the

mustawif, the man who pretends to be a mystic

but is a useless, even dangerous, intruder” (Schim-

mel, p. 20). In some cases, too, the mystic’s life is

seen to contradict that of the householder, and se-

vere sanctions may ensue. For example, the father

of Dnyaneshwar, a well-known fifteenth-century

Indian saint, abandoned the world for the mystical

path after leading a householder’s life for many

years. He later returned to family life, however, fa-

thering Dnyaneshwar, who was condemned as an

outcaste on the basis of his father’s violation of the

orthodox injunction that a sanyasi (renounced per-

son) should never return to the life of the house-

holder, according to Ian Ezekiel.

Throughout this brief account, the existential

dimensions of mysticism should not be ignored.

Mystics from all traditions often point towards as-

pects of reality beyond the conventional world of

thoughts and forms. Yesh, a Hebrew term used by

rabbis to indicate the treasure awaiting saints in the

future life, roughly translates as there is, thereby

signaling deeper existential dimensions than those

normally encountered. As Abraham Isaac Kook

(1865–1935), a Jewish mystic, writes, “So long as

the world moves along accustomed paths, so long

as there are no wild catastrophes, man can find

sufficient substance for his life by contemplating

surface events, theories, and movements of soci-

ety.” But “when life encounters fiery forces of evil

and chaos,” he continues, “the man who tries to

sustain himself only from the surface aspects of

existence will suffer terrible impoverishment, begin

to stagger … then he will feel welling up within

himself a burning thirst for that inner substance

and vision which transcends the obvious surfaces

of existence and remains unaffected by the world’s

catastrophes” (Weiner, pp. 3–4). In the Jewish mys-

tical tradition of Kabbala, one searches for yesh in

a kind of “subsurface reality,” a dimension of exis-

tence in which “good and evil [lose] the distinction

so apparent to surface vision” (Weiner, pp. 6–7).

Interpreting mysticism

Interpretative approaches to mysticism vary, from

those influenced by traditional disciplines such as

philology and the history of religions, to those that

take their inspiration from contemporary Western

sciences of the mind. Frits Staal, for example,

canvasses dogmatic approaches, philological and

historical approaches, phenomenological and soci-

ological viewpoints, and physiological and psycho-

logical frameworks. In this last category, one moves

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from Freud’s dislike for “dark” phenomena such as

mysticism and Yoga, to Jung’s archetypal meta-

physics according to which a variety of mystical

phenomena may be classified. Nevertheless, Staal

himself claimed that he “would not be surprised if

the study of mysticism would one day be regarded

as a branch of psychology,” by which he meant

“that psychology would be deepened and widened

so as to be in a position to take account of these

particular aspects of the mind” (p. 116).

Psychology and cognitive science. Approach-

ing mysticism from the interpretive lens of cogni-

tive science, visions and locutions offer themselves

as interesting candidates for investigation. Neurolo-

gist and author Oliver Sacks, for example, frames

Hildegard of Bingen in terms of medical literature

on migraine. He writes, “The religious literature of

all ages is replete with descriptions of ‘visions,’ in

which sublime and ineffable feelings have been ac-

companied by the experience of radiant luminos-

ity.” He continues, “It is impossible to ascertain, in

the vast majority of cases, whether the experience

represents a hysterical or psychotic ecstasy, the ef-

fects of intoxication, or an epileptic or migrainous

manifestation” (p. 112). Somewhat similarly, mental

health professionals also have investigated patterns

of commonality between the reported mystical ex-

periences of religious practitioners and psychotic

inpatients, concluding, “Contemplatives and psy-

chotics taken together could be separated from

Normals, but not from each other, with the Hood

Mysticism Scale. The Normals and Contemplatives

taken together could be separated from the

Pyschotics, but not from each other, with the EGO

Scale (Knoblauch’s Ego Grasping Orientation In-

ventory) and the NPI (Raskin and Hall’s Narcissistic

Personality Inventory)” (Stifler, p. 366).

Hindu and particularly Buddhist mysticism as-

sumes “the perfectibility of man,” as Herbert Guen-

ther puts it (p. 42). This fact opens the way for

some incredible claims concerning human capaci-

ties, such as the claims that enlightened humans

may attain ja ilus, or “rainbow body,” at the time of

death, such that their bodies dissolve into rainbow

light and all manner of spectacular visions appear

to the disciples left behind (Lhalungpa, pp. 82–97).

Obviously, traditions postulating no ceiling on

human accomplishments open the way for psy-

chological grandiosity to manifest in the character

structures of certain practitioners. Invoking a con-

temporary, psychiatric frame of interpretation, one

can recognize a pathological “mechanism of de-

fense” in the “primitive fantasy” of omnipotence

(Kernberg, pp. 2–21) and the signs of “narcissistic

personality disorder” in fantasies of unlimited suc-

cess (Beck, p. 234). Along somewhat similar lines,

Schumaker argues that we should “understand re-

ligion and psychopathology (and, indirectly, hyp-

nosis) as systems of artificial order that are de-

pendent upon an active dissociation process” (p.

34). The fine line between insightful interpretation

of one system of thought and practice in terms of

the reality framework of another, and critical, al-

most condescending judgment, on the other hand,

however, highlights the difficulties one encounters

when employing one specific cultural lens to in-

terpret behaviors arising in different segments of

the same culture, or in different cultures altogether.

The status, experience, and understanding of

consciousness, awareness, the mind, and the self,

occupy tomes of mystical rumination. Indian philo-

sophical systems of thought, and later Tibetan

Buddhist writers, excel in this arena. For example,

Prabhakara Mimamsaka philosophers occupy them-

selves with the question of whether or not the self

is “self-luminous,” concluding, “the self is not con-

sciousness, and while consciousness (samvit) is

self-luminous, the self is not” (Mahadevan, p. 11).

Interestingly, this emphasis on consciousness and

awareness makes mysticism a possible ally to con-

temporary brain science in the West. Mystical ac-

counts from all of the world’s major religious tradi-

tions, such as the rnam thar (“sacred biography”)

genre expressive of Tibetan Buddhist mysticism,

frequently rely upon autobiography and sacred bi-

ography (hagiography) as narrative forms, further

pointing to the centrality of the “self” and its trans-

formations in the mystical journey. To oversimplify

the situation, regular and frequently dramatic per-

sonal transformations wrought by the mystical path

threaten to destabilize the self, a potentially dan-

gerous, psychological situation mitigated by the

creation of a “narrated self” (Wortham, p. 140),

which can function as the hero or heroine in tales

of miraculous accomplishment, thereby compen-

sating for possible psychological fragmentation by

means of a chronological narrative unfolding in

which the mystic’s own identity remains constant

over the course of his or her lifespan.

The role of the body in providing a support for

mystical experience constitutes another area in

which mysticism and modern science, in this case,

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medicine, may complement one another. In the

medieval Siddha traditions of Hindu alchemy and

hatha yoga, for example, the body serves as the

locus for complex worldly to transcendent transfor-

mations, as in when the practitioner utilizes

pranayama (breath control) to transform mundane

semen into the “divine nectar of immortality” and

to transform mundane mind into “a state beyond

mind” (White, p. 45). Because of its intricate in-

volvement with body, speech, and mind, ritual

plays an important role in catalyzing mystical states

of awareness, as demonstrated, for example, by the

tremendous emphasis placed on ritualized mantra

repetition in both Hindu and Buddhist mystical tra-

ditions (Abe, pp. 138–149). Repetitive, ritualized

mandala visualization provides a similar, corporeal

engagement of the aesthetic sensitivities cultivated

by mystical practitioners (Andresen 2000). Perver-

sions of the relationship between self and body, as

seen from the perspective of Western medicine’s di-

agnostic recognition of eating disorders such as

anorexia nervosa, also has plagued mystics of

many traditions. Whitney Miller develops a

methodology of “psychomysticism,” a kind of “con-

templative counseling” in which the counselor em-

phasizes awareness and sensitivity, “a willingness

to pay attention,” following Bernard Lonergan’s

transcendental precept “to ‘be attentive’” (p. 1).

The importance of context. Scholars of mysti-

cism continue to debate whether or not mystical

experience itself is mediated by context. Construc-

tivists have held the view that, “linguistic, social,

historical, and conceptual contextuality” shape the

mystic’s experience. On the other side, essentialists

articulate a position whereby a common, pure core

to mystical experiences supposedly exists, not

merely within a single tradition such as Christianity

or Buddhism, but across cultures and traditions,

too. It is possible, as argued by Jensine Andresen,

that constructivist and essentialist (“perennialist”)

positions may be seen to be complementary, inas-

much as species-wide perceptual systems and con-

sciousness, which mediate between the qualia, or

felt experience of the subjective, and the hard and

fast reality of what is conventionally perceived to

be an external world, are shared between all mem-

bers of the human family, mystics included.

See also EXPERIENCE, RELIGIOUS: COGNITIVE AND

PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS; EXPERIENCE, RELIGIOUS:

HILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS; MEDITATION; MONISM;

YSTICAL EXPERIENCE; MYSTICS; NEUROSCIENCES;

ANTHEISM; PSYCHOLOGY; SPIRITUALITY;

RANSCENDENCE

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JENSINE ANDRESEN

MYSTICS

Mystics are individuals who follow a path towards

a final goal or sustained state that is understood as

somehow transcending, moving beyond, or more

deeply perceiving or intuiting the conventional

world of names and forms experienced by

ordinary human beings. Prominent mystics, repre-

senting various religious traditions, include: eighth

century Tibetan mystic Yeshe Tsogyal; Abhinav-

agupta (tenth century); Muhammed Ibn hAli Ibn

hArabi (1165-1240); Julian of Norwich (1342-1416);

St. Birgitta of Sweden (1471-1528); Rabbi Nachman

of Brazlav (1772-1816); Ramakrishna (1836-1886);

and Thomas Merton (1915-1968). Mystical experi-

ence resists easy generalization because of the

great variety in personal practices of individual

mystics and the marked differences in the broader

contextual narratives of individual mystical experi-

ences. Nevertheless, mystics commonly experience

unusual states of awareness, utilize poetry and

song as vehicles of self-expression, and remind

members of societies in which they find them-

selves, through the attitude of eschewing limits, of

the boundaries sometimes imposed by conven-

tional living. At the same time, many mystics rec-

ognize their deepest experiences of transcendence

within the conventional world, thereby pointing to

paradoxes embedded within the mystical life itself.