Synthesis & Conclusion

The encounter between Catholic theology and Perennialist metaphysics ultimately reduces to a single, decisive question: Is the Absolute eminently relational, or is it an impersonal unity beyond all distinction? This is not a minor disagreement about terminology or emphasis. It represents two fundamentally incompatible visions of ultimate reality, each of which generates an entire theological and metaphysical system.

The Perennialist answer, rooted in Advaitic Vedanta, insists that the Absolute must be utterly simple, beyond all relation and distinction. As Frithjof Schuon writes in "The Primacy of Intellection":

"The Absolute is beyond all determination, beyond all duality, beyond all relation. It is the Supreme Identity in which all distinctions are resolved."

For the Advaitin, any "otherness" or relationality implies limitation. If the Father is "other" than the Son, then each must be limited by not being the other. Therefore, the Trinity—with its three distinct Persons—cannot be the ultimate reality. It must be subordinate to an impersonal Godhead that transcends all personal distinctions.

The Catholic answer, grounded in the revelation of the Trinity, insists that the Absolute is supremely relational. The divine essence subsists in three Persons who are constituted by their mutual relations. As Thomas Aquinas teaches in the Summa Theologiae (I, q. 29, a. 4):

"Now distinction in God is only by relation of origin, as stated above, while relation in God is not as an accident in a subject, but is the divine essence itself; and so it is subsistent, for the divine essence subsists. Therefore, as the Godhead is God so the divine paternity is God the Father, Who is a divine person. Therefore a divine person signifies a relation as subsisting."

This is the heart of the matter. In creatures, relations are accidents added to substance. But in God, relations ARE the divine essence itself. The Father is not "God + paternity"; rather, the Father IS the divine essence subsisting as paternity. The "otherness" of Father and Son is not a limitation but the very mode of subsistence of the infinite divine essence.

Why do the Advaitins see relationality as limitation? Because they reason from created relations to divine relations. In creatures, relations are indeed accidents. A man's fatherhood is added to his substance; he first exists as a man, then becomes a father through an external act. This relation is a limitation—it determines him in a particular way, distinguishing him from non-fathers.

But this reasoning commits what we might call the error of "finite parallax" (see Core Tenets: Trinitarian Metaphysics)—projecting the structure of created being onto the Creator. As Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange explains in "The One God":

"In creatures, relation is an accident, the weakest of all accidents, having no other being than to be toward another. But in God, relation is subsistent, is the divine essence itself."

The Advaitins see that in creatures, otherness implies limitation. They correctly observe that if two beings are distinct, each lacks what the other has. But they fail to recognize that in God, the mode of distinction is utterly different. The divine Persons are not distinct by having different essences or different perfections. They are distinct solely by their mutual relations, and these relations ARE the one divine essence.

Yet there is a profound irony in the Advaitic position. While the Advaitins claim that the Absolute must be beyond all relation, the very existence of manifestation testifies to relationality. Consider:

If we survey the entire domain of manifestation—from the highest angel to the lowest material being—we find that relationality is universal and fundamental. Nothing exists in isolation. Everything is constituted by its relations to God and to other creatures.

Life itself—the perfection of being—is "a particular mode of unity," which is to say, a mode of relationality. The higher the being, the more complex and perfect its relational structure. All of this prepares natural reason to accept the revelation that the Absolute itself is eminently relational.

The Catholic answer is more coherent: Manifestation is relational because it images the Creator, who is supremely relational. Émile Mersch's entire theology of the Mystical Body is built on this principle of unity-in-relationality. The mystery of the Whole Christ is, before all else, a prodigy of unity—not the undifferentiated unity of Advaita, but the relational unity of Head and members, Christ and His Church, bound together in supernatural charity.

The Catholic doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Mystical Body form a coherent whole, each revealing the primacy of relationality in different ways.

A. The Trinity: Relations as Supreme Perfection

The Trinity reveals that in God, relations are not limitations but supreme perfections. The Father's paternity is not a restriction of His divinity but the very mode in which He possesses the divine essence. The highest act of the divine intellect and will is relational. The Father knows Himself perfectly, and this knowledge generates the Son. The Father and Son love each other perfectly, and this love spirates the Holy Spirit.

B. The Incarnation: God Enters into Relation with Creation

The Incarnation reveals that God not only possesses internal relationality (the Trinity) but freely enters into relation with creation. The Second Person of the Trinity assumes a human nature, becoming truly man while remaining truly God. This would be impossible if the Absolute were utterly transcendent to all manifestation or if matter were merely maya. For extensive patristic sources on the hypostatic union and the reality of God becoming matter, see the dedicated Incarnation page.

C. The Mystical Body: Salvation as Relational Incorporation

The Mystical Body of Christ reveals that salvation itself is fundamentally relational. We are not saved by dissolving our individuality into an undifferentiated Absolute. We are saved by being incorporated into Christ, becoming members of His Body. As Mersch emphasizes:

"The theologically social aspect of dogma is the sublime mystery that, through these realities, God unites Himself with us and makes us partakers of his divine nature. To expound dogma with an eye toward this divine-human society means to display how the divine light, beyond any shadow of turning, catches us up into a divinizing sonship."

Salvation is divinization—becoming "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). But this divinization does not abolish our personhood or our relations. Rather, it perfects them.

Some might object that Catholic mysticism itself contains elements that support the Perennialist position. Meister Eckhart, in particular, speaks of the "ground" (Grund) of the soul and the "Godhead beyond God" in ways that can sound Advaitic. His language of the "divine spark" (Seelenfünklein) as uncreated, wherein "God dwells alone," carries pantheistic overtones that could be read as teaching that the soul's deepest essence IS divine.

Tauler's Crucial Distinction

However, Eckhart's disciples, particularly Johannes Tauler, carefully moderated his language to safeguard orthodox doctrine. While Tauler uses the word "grunt" (ground) even more often than Eckhart (more than four hundred times), he fundamentally redefines it. As the EWTN Catholic Encyclopedia explains:

"Whereas Meister Eckhart speaks of the uncreated 'divine spark of the soul' (Seelenfünklein) wherein dwells God alone (carrying pantheistic overtones), Tauler speaks of the 'ground of the soul' (Seelengrund), which is the center of the soul. The 'ground of the soul' is somewhat like an inner, hidden 'room' wherein one turns to God in prayer. Tauler, like Eckhart, speaks often of the 'birth of God' within the soul, but he is careful to state that nonetheless there is a distinction between God the Creator and the soul, a mere creature. Hence, it might be said that 'God grants the soul by grace that which He is by nature'; in this union, Tauler stresses, we 'become God' by grace not by nature."

The distinction is crucial. Eckhart's "divine spark" is uncreated—it IS God dwelling in the soul. This can be misread as teaching that the soul's deepest essence is identical with God, and that mystical union is the discovery of this pre-existing identity. This would be Advaitic. But Tauler's "ground of the soul" is the created center where God is received by grace. The ground is the place of union, not identity.

Direct Quotations from Tauler's Sermons

Tauler's sermons consistently emphasize that mystical union is a gift of grace, not a natural identity. In his Third Sermon for Corpus Christi (Sermon XXXII), he writes:

"If we would truly know the unutterable and incomprehensible splendor of the Blessed Sacrament, we must live a life cut off (abgeschieden) from the world and from ourselves, in us, at unity with Him, living a life in God."

Note the careful phrasing: "in us, at unity with Him, living a life in God." The union is real and intimate, but it is "in us"—God dwelling in the soul by grace—not the soul discovering that it IS God. The preposition "in" preserves the Creator-creature distinction even at the height of mystical union.

In his Second Sermon of Pentecost (Sermon XXVI), Tauler speaks of the "pure simplicity of God" and the "unfathomable abyss" experienced in the Seelengrund:

"To this the Holy Spirit leads all those who prepare a dwelling for Him so that He may fulfill those who allow Him to be their host and follow Him."

Again, the language is carefully chosen. The Holy Spirit "leads" us to the ground; we "prepare a dwelling" for Him; He is our "host" whom we "follow." This is the language of grace, gift, and receptivity—not of discovering a pre-existing identity. The soul does not find that it IS the Holy Spirit; rather, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in the soul as a guest in a prepared dwelling.

The Primacy of Grace

Tauler's Christmas Sermon (Sermon I) contains the famous line: "The greater the void, the greater the divine influx." This could be misread in an Advaitic sense—as if the soul must empty itself of all content to discover its identity with the divine void. But Tauler's context makes clear that the "void" is the emptying of self-will and attachment, creating space for God's grace to enter. The "divine influx" is not the soul's own essence revealed, but God's gift received.

In his Fifth Sunday after Trinity (Sermon 40), Tauler warns against mechanical devotions that lack interior receptivity:

"Never believe that true prayer consists in mere babbling, reciting so many psalms and vigils, saying your beads while you allow your thoughts to roam. If you notice that such practices of devotion, however great and good they seem, get in the way of the prayer in spirit, give them up without hesitation."

This is not a rejection of external practices in favor of pure interiority (which could lead to Quietism or Advaitism). Rather, Tauler is teaching that external practices must serve interior receptivity to grace. The goal is not to empty the soul of all content to discover its divine essence, but to dispose the soul to receive God's gift of Himself.

Conclusion: Union by Grace, Not by Nature

Tauler's moderation of Eckhart is not a timid retreat from mystical boldness. It is a precise theological clarification that preserves the Catholic doctrine of grace. The soul is not God by nature. It becomes united to God by grace, by participation in the divine life. This union is real and transformative—Tauler does not hesitate to say that we "become God"—but it is "by grace, not by nature."

This prevents the Advaitic collapse of distinction. The Creator-creature distinction is not abolished in mystical union; rather, it is perfected. The soul becomes most truly itself—most fully realizes its created nature—precisely when it is united to God by grace. This is the paradox of Christian mysticism: the soul is most distinct from God when it is most united to Him, because the union is a gift that presupposes and perfects the distinction.

We can now understand why Frithjof Schuon, despite his profound metaphysical insights, ultimately subordinated the Trinity to an impersonal Absolute. Schuon achieved what Thomism would recognize as natural contemplation—the highest attainment of natural reason aided by ascetical discipline.

But Schuon lacked supernatural charity. Charity is not merely a human virtue or a natural love of truth. It is God's own love, infused into the soul by grace, enabling the soul to love God as God loves Himself.

Here lies the crucial asymmetry between faith and charity in this life. Faith gives us knowledge of the Trinity, but this knowledge remains obscure, "through a glass darkly" (1 Corinthians 13:12). We know THAT God is Trinity, but we cannot comprehend HOW the three Persons are one essence. This is because our intellect, in its present state, is limited by its dependence on sense knowledge.

But charity is already the fullness of God's love. When we love God with supernatural charity, we love Him with His own love. We participate in the mutual love of Father and Son, which is the Holy Spirit. This love is not obscure or incomplete; it is the very love by which God loves Himself.

Therefore, charity gives us an experimental knowledge of God's relationality that faith cannot provide. Through charity, we know by experience that God is love (1 John 4:8), and that this love is relational—the mutual gift of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Schuon, lacking supernatural charity, could not know this experimentally. He knew God through natural contemplation, which grasps God's transcendence and simplicity but cannot penetrate the mystery of His internal relationality. Therefore, it seemed natural to Schuon to subordinate the Trinity to an impersonal Absolute.

This is precisely what Thomism would predict for a pagan sage who views Christian revelation from the outside. Such a sage can attain natural wisdom but cannot grasp the specifically revealed mysteries that surpass reason. And lacking supernatural charity, he faces a powerful temptation toward Advaitic conclusions, though natural reason can remain agnostic. The intellectual intuition of unrestricted being creates a pull toward negating all delimitation, including relation. Without supernatural charity anchoring the soul in God's own relational love, this temptation is difficult to resist, and the sage cannot know experimentally the relationality of the Absolute.

Wolfgang Smith, in his book "Vedanta in Light of Christian Wisdom," acknowledges what we might call the "nirvanic option"—the genuine spiritual path represented by Vedantic mysticism. Smith does not dismiss the spiritual achievements of the Vedantic sadhus. He recognizes that they attain a real transcendence, a real cessation of mental activity.

But Smith insists that this path is fundamentally different from Christian salvation. As one reviewer summarizes:

"Profoundly, Smith points to the great gap between Vedantic notions of nirvana or being 'snuffed out,' and the Christian goal of salvation, reaching immortality through Christ."

The nirvanic option is the path of natural mysticism taken to its ultimate conclusion. It is the soul's attempt to transcend all multiplicity, all distinction, all relation, and to merge with an undifferentiated Absolute.

But it is not Christian salvation. Christian salvation is not the extinction of the self but its perfection. It is not the cessation of relations but their elevation. It is not merger with an impersonal Absolute but communion with the Triune God and incorporation into the Mystical Body of Christ.

Smith's position is more nuanced than the Perennialists'. He acknowledges that Vedanta and Christianity have different goals, different metaphysics, and different soteriologies. As Smith concludes:

"Vedanta and Christianity are in truth as different as day and night."

We can now state our conclusion with precision. Natural reason, reflecting on the universal relationality of manifestation, can recognize that relationality is not a defect but a perfection. It can see that the higher the being, the more complex and perfect its relational structure. It can even surmise that the Absolute itself may be relational.

But natural reason cannot determine whether the Absolute is relational (as Christianity teaches) or impersonal (as Advaita teaches). This question exceeds the capacity of natural reason because it concerns the inner life of God, which is not accessible to philosophical demonstration. For extensive quotations from Aquinas and Śaṅkara demonstrating their incompatible positions, see the dedicated comparison page.

The Advaitins claim to know by natural contemplation that the Absolute is impersonal. But this claim is unwarranted. What they actually know is that the Absolute transcends all created distinctions and relations. From this, they infer that it must transcend all distinction and relation whatsoever. But this inference is not necessary.

Natural reason must remain agnostic on this question. It can prepare the mind to receive either answer, but it cannot determine which answer is true.

Only revelation can settle the matter. And revelation declares that the Absolute is supremely relational: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three Persons in one essence, united by subsistent relations of origin.

We can now render our final judgment on the Perennialist project of reconciling all religions under the banner of a "transcendent unity." This project fails not at the level of secondary doctrines or practical disciplines, but at the level of first principles.

The Perennialists claim to have discovered a metaphysical truth that transcends all particular revelations: that the Absolute is an impersonal unity beyond all distinction. But this claim is not a discovery; it is an assumption. It is the Advaitic answer to the central question, imposed as a universal framework onto all religions.

When the Perennialists encounter the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, they must either (1) deny its truth, (2) reinterpret it as a lower, exoteric teaching, or (3) subordinate it to the Godhead "beyond" the Trinity.

All three strategies fail. The Perennialist project, therefore, cannot reconcile Catholicism with Advaita because these two systems give opposite answers to the fundamental question: Is the Absolute relational or impersonal? One or the other must be false. There is no higher synthesis that can harmonize them.