{"id":3258,"date":"2012-01-25T20:23:39","date_gmt":"2012-01-26T01:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=3258"},"modified":"2013-11-24T23:26:03","modified_gmt":"2013-11-25T04:26:03","slug":"reformed-christian-philosopher-converts-to-hinduism-dale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/reformed-christian-philosopher-converts-to-hinduism-dale\/","title":{"rendered":"Reformed Christian Philosopher Converts to Hinduism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" Given my scholarly interests in Hinduism, I had to post a link to this story about the conversion of a Reformed Christian<\/a>\u00a0philosopher to a form of Hinduism<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Pictured here are Krishna<\/strong> and his lover Radha. I take it that in Sudduth’s form of Hinduism<\/a>\u00a0Krishna is\u00a0an avatar of Vishnu. Other Hindus consider Krishna to be the high god himself.<\/p>\n

There is much art celebrating the love of these two.<\/p>\n

The story for me was a bit spoiled<\/strong> when I watched a documentary in which a Hindu, Indian man explained that (at least on some versions) Radha is married to another, and is Krishna’s aunt. Perhaps some would object that I’m not looking at it metaphysically enough. (Update – to be fair, some Hindu sources assert them to be unrelated and married – see comment #11 below.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

In another famous episode, Krishna\u00a0charms a bunch of cow-herding ladies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’m curious to read more about Sudduth’s conversion. How does one get from Calvin’s all-determining triune deity to Vishnu? I wonder if it is by way of fairly mainstream trinitarian modalism…<\/p>\n

Myself, as I read Sudduth’s interesting narrative of his conversion I’m not sure where, i.e. with what sort of Christianity, he was starting from. I too have taught the Gita<\/em> in an academic setting, but I have not had experiences like this:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Around 4:20am (Friday morning) September 16th, I woke suddenly from a deep sleep to the sound of the name of \u201cKrishna\u201d being uttered in some way, as if someone was present in my room and had spoken his name out loud. Upon waking I immediately had a most profound sense of Krishna’s actual presence in my bedroom, a presence no less real than the presence of another living person in the room, though I was alone at the time. I responded to this felt presence, first through my thoughts that repeated Krishna\u2019s name (and inquired of his presence), and then verbally out loud by uttering Krishna\u2019s name twice: Krishna, Krishna. I was seized at this moment with a most sweet feeling of completeness and joy. I felt as if Krishna was there with me in my room and actually heard my voice, and that my response had completed a process that began with his name within my mind. I pondered this experience for several minutes, while at the same time continuing to experience a most blissful serenity and feeling of oneness with God, not unlike I had experienced on many occasions in the past in my relationship with the Lord Jesus. It was a most profound sense of both awe and intimacy with God in the form of Lord Krishna.<\/p>\n

I should add, and I think this is very important, that I felt I was experiencing the same God that I had experienced on many occasions throughout my Christian life. However, I felt like this being was showing me a different face, side, or aspect to Himself, or \u2013 better yet \u2013 a different mode of my relationship to Him. I felt a certain validation of my spiritual journey, both past and present. I had gone so far in my Christian faith, but it was now necessary for me to relate to God as Lord Krishna.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If I understand him, he’s saying that he conceived of Jesus as a mode of God<\/strong> – not uncommon among catholic Christians – and now he views Krishna as another<\/em> mode of God<\/strong>, another way God is and appears. Well, presumably God can be and appear in uncountably many ways. As for me, since I hold that Jesus is a different self than<\/em> God, I must reject that he’s a mode of God himself; Jesus isn’t a mode at all, but rather a self\/person. But back to Sudduth:<\/p>\n

After my journey to [the California ashram] Audarya… I can only describe my experience as one of being irresistibly drawn to Sri Krishna, overwhelmed with His power and beauty, convinced of his Godhead \u2013 in short overflowing with love for Him as the Supreme Personality of the Godhead, and through him love for all beings, as He resides in the hearts of all beings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One thing I’m curious about<\/strong> is: does his present faith involve, as most forms of Hinduism do, worship of images? If so, how or why did he change his mind about that? I assume that as a Protestant he viewed idolatry as being forbidden by God.<\/p>\n

Sudduth’s account is mostly positive, about his experiences and the charms of his newfound theology. But I guess his conversion must have a negative side<\/strong> as well. I take it he rejects the idea of Jesus as being the best, most complete revelation of the character of the one God, and as being a needed mediator between God and humankind. But if I understand him, Sudduth still believes in one God, albeit one who is related to the cosmos somewhat as a human soul is related to its body. This entails rejecting the idea of God as creator, at least in an ex nihilo<\/em> sense.<\/p>\n

Also, I’m guessing there is a sort of acceptance of mythical lore –<\/strong>\u00a0something traditional Christianity has always eschewed. However, I do know that a good number of Hindus hold Krishna to be a historical person, as well as an avatar of Vishnu.<\/p>\n

Update: more thoughts and a link<\/a> from the Maverick Philosopher<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Given my scholarly interests in Hinduism, I had to post a link to this story about the conversion of a Reformed Christian\u00a0philosopher to a form of Hinduism. Pictured here are Krishna and his lover Radha. I take it that in Sudduth’s form of Hinduism\u00a0Krishna is\u00a0an avatar of Vishnu. Other Hindus consider Krishna to be the… Read More »Reformed Christian Philosopher Converts to Hinduism<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,45,33,8,5,38,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christology","category-hinduism","category-incarnation","category-linkage","category-modalism","category-monotheism","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5445,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3258\/revisions\/5445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}