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Śakti and Logos Material Manifestations of the Divine Lauren Bausch Abstract: The author, a Catholic who studies South Asian languages and culture, describes Hindu and Christian mythologies based on their respective scriptures.

She makes the case that, abstractly, both śakti and logos symbolize a transcendent God’s Word in creation and, in relation to their personal forms, the means to liberation and salvation. As a relational mode of the divine manifest in the world, the two principles are creation’s self-same agent of transformation.

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akti in Hinduism and logos in Christianity represent the manifestation of the divine in creation. In Hinduism, śakti, Vāc and Kālī are nuanced names for the feminine divine. In Christianity, logos, Jesus, and Christ refer to the Son of God. Both śakti and logos initially expressed abstract principles denoting speech and a relational mode of being. While each relates differently to the unmanifest God, both have a similar theological significance in that they are omnipresent in creation and reveal a soteriological path for their adherents. Taking into account the different mythologies described in Hindu and Christian scriptures, this paper argues that śakti and logos symbolize both a transcendent God’s Word in creation and the wisdom to see beyond multiplicity.

As the feminine divine, Kālī embodies ancient Vedic and non-Vedic principles that have been developing for thousands of years. In the Vedas and the Saṃhitās, the goddess Vāc (word) is the faculty of speech and the goddess of creative powers.1 The Vedas represent Vāc as both transcendent and immanent, both materiality and power.2 As such, the goddess creates and sustains all creation through her yoni (womb). In Ṛg Veda 10.125, she says of herself: “The gods divided me up into various parts, for I dwell in many places and enter into many forms. . . . I have pervaded the sky and earth . . . embracing all creatures.”3 Though a minor deity in the Vedas, Vāc has a powerful and creative character.

The Brāhmaṇas feature Vāc as the ability to create, personified as the female consort of a male divinity. In the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, the ISSUE

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god Prajāpati produced the waters out of Vāc, who is identified with the world (6.1.1.9).4 In the Pañcaviṃśa Brāhmaṇa, creation resulted from Prajāpati issuing his creative power, speech: Prajāpati alone was here. Vāc alone was his own; Vāc was second to him. He thought, “Let me send forth this very Vāc. She spread forth, pervading all this.” (20.14.2)5 Together, the mind-speech duo created the world. They correspond to an early male-female creator pair in which the female represents materiality and the male symbolizes consciousness.

The idea of the feminine divine as a creative agent continued in the Upaniṣads and the Purāṇas. In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, Prajāpati copulated with Vāc in his mind, which effectively started a chain of creative acts that engendered the whole world (1.2.4–5).6 The Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad also mentions an unborn male who lies with a female, here called prakṛti (materiality).7 Like the Upaniṣads, the Purāṇas represent the feminine divine as an abstract cosmogonic agent called śakti, prakṛti and māyā. As śakti, the goddess is the creative energy of nirguṇa brahman (God without attributes) that creates and sustains the As śakti, the goddess universe. The word śakti is derived from the Sanskrit root śak, which means “to have energy or power.” As prakṛti, she is the principle of materiality and “the ground of all is the energy that things.”8 As māyā (illusion), she is the material principle related to transmigration. In the Devī-Māhātmya of creates and sustains the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa (c. 300–600 C.E.), the concept of Mahādevī (supreme goddess) emerges as both the the universe. highest, transcendent reality and as an immanent force that abides in all beings. While this text mentions both the prakṛti and śakti epithets, it also theologizes the abstract principles into a personal female deity identified with nirguṇa brahman.

Similarly, the impersonal principle is made personal when Śiva (or Viṣṇu) is associated with brahman in the Śākta Purāṇas and in Tantric texts. For example, the Vāyavīya Saṃhitā of the Śiva Purāṇa accounts for creation through Śiva and śakti: “Śakti, Supreme Divine Power, non-different from Śiva, issued from Him, and created the universe.”9 Tantra identifies śakti with Vāc and relates the process of creation to the development of language. According to the Prapañchasāra Tantra, when in contact with Śiva (pure consciousness), śakti as prakṛti becomes conscious, and in a desire to create, becomes causal bindu (unmanifest precursor to sound).10 This causal bindu divides itself and produces śabdabrahma (inarticulate sound), which in turn produces ahaṃkāra

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(cosmic egoism). This chain of events leads to the production of śabda tanmātra (sound essence), then the elements, sound organs and internal organs. From here, the individual self is created, turning the wheel of birth and death. In the Markandeya Purāṇa and in Tantric philosophy, the goddess is at once personal and elevated to an ontological absolute and the ground of the universe.

When brahman is personified as Śiva, śakti tends to be anthropomorphized as Kālī. The Purāṇic goddess Kālī is most likely an appropriation of fierce indigenous goddesses, such as Tamil Nadu’s Kottavai, synthesized with the Vedic feminine principles and goddesses.11 Hindu-goddess scholar David Kingsley affirms that an epithet for Kālī was Caṇḍī, who was worshiped by the Śavaras, a tribe of hunters.12 That the name Kālī means black suggests that she was the goddess of dark-skinned tribes who may have been at variance with the fairer Aryans. According to the Purāṇas, the goddess issued from the eyebrow of Durgā, who was often associated with tribes such as the Śavaras, Varvaras and Pulindas.13 In addition, śakti plays a central role in Tantra, which developed outside of the mainstream Brāhmaṇical tradition.14 Therefore, Kālī was appropriated from tribal religions, even though many of the principles that came to be associated with her originated in the Vedic tradition.

Kālī was not introduced in Sanskrit literature until the DevīMāhātmya (c. 600 C.E.).15 Another Sanskrit text, the Mahābhāgavata Purāṇa, portrays Śiva as the eternal, unchanging puruṣa (supreme being) and Kālī as prakṛti.16 Tantric texts similarly portray Śiva as spirit and Kālī as manifested energy. Without śakti, Śiva is a corpse “lifeless, powerless, [and] incapable of action.”17 When śakti materializes out of Śiva, creation ensues. As Vāc and prakṛti, the goddess embodies an organic whole: all material beings in creation are intercommunicating and at the same time interconnected in their source and destiny. When taken as a pair, śakti and Śiva tell the story of the unending cosmic creation and dissolution.

Not only texts, but also art and idols expound the interplay between the Śiva-śakti principles. In the Dakṣiṇākālī mūrti (image), the Hindu goddess Kālī stands anchored on the chest of her supine husband, Śiva. In this position, Ajit Mookerjee considers Kālī “limitless, primordial power, acting in the great drama, awakening the unmanifest Śiva beneath her feet.”18 Kālī’s neck is adorned by a garland of severed human heads, which represents the disordered passions she has overcome. In one of her many hands, the goddess carries the sword of wisdom with which she destroys her passions.19 The heads are in a circle in order to stand for completion: the goddess has succeeded in annihilating all possible hindrances of the ego that may exist in the universe. By surrendering her ISSUE 8, OCTOBER 2008

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ego-driven desires, Kālī realizes the pure consciousness of Śiva within and attains liberation. She is not only the agent of creation but also the one who bestows liberation to all. In the Mahābhāgavata Purāṇa, the goddess explains to Himālaya, her father: Know that I am the supreme śakti, whose seat is made of the great lord [Śiva]; my form is eternal sovereignty and wisdom. I am the impeller of all, the genatrix of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Śiva and so on. I am she who bestows liberation to all, who orchestrates creation, preservation and destruction, the matriarch of all the world. I am that which abides in all, I am she who enables [beings] to cross the ocean of saṃsāra. I consist of eternal bliss, and I myself am the eternal one whose form is brahman.

(15.16-18)20 For this reason, the feminine divine is worshipped as infinite wisdom in the Śakta Upaniṣads and is approached by devotees who seek liberation.21 In scriptures, Kālī as śakti is described as both saguṇa brahman (God with attributes) and nirguṇa brahman (God without attributes). According to Pushpendra Kumar, śakti “is not an altogether separate principle but belongs to him [brahman] as his own.”22 As saguṇa brahman, śakti brings forth the world of name and form and generates creation and dissolution.23 Ultimately, however, Śiva and śakti are two aspects of the same reality. According to Jadunath Sinha, “They are not two Deities but one Divine Being, impersonal-personal, static-dynamic, transcendentimmanent.”24 Similarly, the nineteenth-century Bengali saint, Sri Ramakrishna, experienced śakti and brahman as inseparably related: Thus one cannot think of Brahman without Śakti, or of Śakti without Brahman. One cannot think of the absolute without the relative, or of the Relative without the Absolute. . . . It is one and the same Reality.

When we think of it as inactive, that is to say not engaged in the acts of creation, preservation and destruction, then we call it Brahman. But when it engages in these activities, then we call it Kālī or Śakti. The Reality is one and the same; the difference is name and form.25 Even though Ramakrishna and Hindu texts distinguish śakti and brāhman, they ultimately assert the two principles are identical.

Kālī is thus an anthropomorphized form of śakti. Originally a tribal deity, the goddess now incorporates both Vedic and non-Vedic principles.

As Vāc (speech), she represents the manifestation of the divine in the universe, both as the creative agent and as the embodiment of all transitory beings. Kālī forms the material aspect of reality and relates to the

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unmanifest as a wife to a husband. In addition, the goddess symbolizes intuitive wisdom and the surrender of the ego to the Ultimate Reality, with whom she is identified.

Like śakti, the logos principle, introduced first in Greek philosophy, developed over the course of hundreds of years. In Greek, logos means “speech, word, language, argument and reason.” The first to use the term philosophically, Heraclitus (544–480 B.C.E.) taught that logos was rational order and the universal principle that animates and rules the world.26 Since Heraclitus’s philosophy was theistic, he described rational order as logos or God.27 His ideas, for example that processes of change happen regularly, influenced later Christian fathers such as Clement, Hippolytus and Eusebius. Similar to Heraclitus, the Stoics (end of the fourth century B.C.E.) also viewed the world as a process of perpetual change. In addition, they regarded logos as reason, a rational, ordering principle always embodied in matter.28 In early Greek philosophy, logos was seen as a divine immanence diffused throughout the universe.

Hellenistic ideas influenced Jewish and early Christian theology through the middle of the second century.29 The Hebrew Bible explicitly equates God’s creative power with speech or the Word in at least five passages.30 For example, speech is described as God’s agent of creation in Psalm 33:9: “For he spoke, and it came to be,”31 and also in Wisdom at 42:15: “At God’s word were his works brought into being.” In addition, in Psalm 107:1–20, the Word is spoken of as savior: “He sent forth the word to heal them, snatched them from the grave.” These examples show the incorporation of the logos principle in the Jewish scriptures.

In the port city of Alexandria, different worldviews were interwoven through a number of religious scholars who combined theology and philosophy. For example, Philo of Alexandria (c. 30 B.C.E.–45 C.E.), a distinguished Jewish intellectual who studied Greek philosophy, strove to show that religion and philosophy were mutually verifiable, and he taught that God is transcendent, pure being without quality.32 To explain how a transcendent God relates to the material world, Philo explained that God has an intermediary agent present everywhere in creation, called logos.33 In addition, he identified logos with Wisdom theology, which says that God used the Wisdom principle to create the world. J. N. D. Kelly explains Philo’s idea well: God, by projecting thoughts (logos) onto a formless, unreal matter, made it a real, rational universe.34 Greek philosophy, Hellenism and Judaism influenced early Christology.35 The New Testament reveals Jesus Christ as the Word, power and wisdom of God.36 For example, the Gospel of John begins with logos: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and ISSUE 8, OCTOBER 2008

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the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him.”37 Christ is also said to be God’s creative agent and the principle of unity in creation: “For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth . . . all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together.”38 These passages associate logos with the immanence and communication of God in creation.

The early Church Fathers further contributed to logos Christology.

Christian Platonists from Justin to Eusebius were especially interested in the relationship between God and logos.39 For them, logos was both the Father’s immanent reason and “his outgoing, active and creative Word.”40 Other followers of Jesus, such as Clement and Origen, believed that the Word is eternal like God, though subordinate to him. St. Irenaeus and Pope Dionysius believed in the identity of nature of God the Father and logos the Son.41 Centuries after Jesus’ death (and after much debate), the Council of Nicea (325 C.E.) declared the Son fully divine and coequal with God the Father. In addition to logos Christology, Church Fathers, using the Gospel of John, substantiated the Son’s pre-cosmic existence with the Father and, using the letters of St. Paul,42 substantiated the Son as the Father’s eternal wisdom.

As a wisdom principle, logos represents the human potential for soteriological transformation. Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection symbolize total self-giving, death of the ego and new life characterized by perfect love. Faith in the resurrected Jesus leads to salvation because it is transformative, meaning it leads to active change in the believer.

As recounted in John 20:11–8, when Mary Magdalene meets Jesus at the tomb, he tells her to look to the community to find him. Subsequently, she turns. Theologian Sandra Schneiders has suggested that Mary’s turning is a metaphor for conversion; Mary has understood Christ’s new mode of presence, which is not limited to his historical body.43 Similarly, Christians are called to turn their faith toward the omnipresence of logos throughout creation so that they may be transformed by the indwelling of the divine.44 In this way, genuine conversion has serious implications for a Christian’s behavior toward other people and creation.45 In Trinitarian theology, the Son is one with and yet distinct from the Father.46 Though the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are united as one Godhead, each is not perfectly identified. Instead, the three relate interpersonally. Thus, for the Christian, the person of the Son shares in the divinity of the Godhead through his relationship with the Father (and Holy Spirit) without being perfectly identified as the Father.47 As previously mentioned, the second person, logos, manifests as God’s

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Word in creation. In addition, the Son is the savior of humankind, the wisdom through which people know God’s presence and relate to others accordingly.48 Although ultimately beyond the limits of the rational and discursive mind, the doctrine of the Trinity has been expounded by many theologians.

For example, the Flemish mystic John Ruusbroec (1293–1381) described the cycle of life as an “ebbing and flowing” of the divine persons, which include creation.49 According to Ruusbroec, the life of the Trinity is a simultaneous threefold dialectic of going out (Son), turning back within (Spirit), and resting in a state of enjoyment of the different persons (Father) in the same whole.50 In Ruusbroec’s theology, creation results from the Son (logos) issuing from the pure Being of God. All beings are thus the words of the Word of God which intercommunicate in the world.

In Ruusbroec’s words: The Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, while all creatures are in them both. This is beyond the distinction of persons . . . [and it] is the origin and beginning of an eternal going forth and an eternal activity which is without beginning, for it is a beginning without beginning.

Since the almighty Father has perfectly comprehended himself in the ground of his fruitfulness, the Son, who is the Fatherís eternal Word, goes forth as another Person within the Godhead. Through this eternal birth all creatures have gone forth eternally before their creation in time. God has thus seen and known them in himself—as distinct in his living ideas and as different from himself, though not different in every respect, for all that is in God is God. This eternal going forth and this eternal life which we eternally have and are in God apart from ourselves is a cause of our created being in time. Our created being depends upon this eternal being and is one with it in its essential substance. This eternal being and life which we have and are in God’s eternal wisdom is like God, for it both abides eternally and without distinction in the divine essence and, through the birth of the Son, flows forth eternally and as a distinct entity. . . . In this act God expresses both himself and all things.51 The words are all united in the Word, the body of Christ. On account of this unity, Ruusbroec repeatedly emphasizes the cultivation of virtue in human activity. The Flemish theologian’s idea that the Son is God’s creative agent is consistent with the logos philosophy of the Greeks, Hellenists, Jews and early followers of Jesus.

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Christ, who is seen theologically as the second person of the Trinity. The Son relates filially to the Father, which is to say relationally, not perfectly.

In Christianity, the logos principle is understood as reason and the indwelling of Jesus, which is also the wisdom that leads to salvation. Śakti and logos relate differently to the unmanifest God. Śakti as Vāc and Kālī is the wife of Prajāpati and Śiva. Logos as the Son relates as a child to God the Father. The principles are further distinguished by the degree to which they are identified with the unmanifest God. Because marriage is a powerful symbol of union, the spousal relationship reflects the total identification of śakti with nirguṇa brahman. In contrast, logos as the Son of the Father relates interpersonally in the Trinitarian Godhead, but never perfectly. In addition, the mythologies of the anthropomorphized figures differ. Kālī as the fierce warrior goddess battles the demon Raktabīja; she was the only one who could defeat him. Christ too came to save the world, only his approach, in contrast to Kālī’s, was to preach love and forgiveness with respect to the oppressive Roman Empire. Clearly, the principles of śakti and logos are distinguished in a number of ways.52 The two principles of the divine are also considerably alike. First, Vāc and logos both mean speech. Second, both embody the entire multiplicity of material being. In Christianity, this is expressed by St. Paul as the mystical body of Christ: “As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ.”53 The Devī [Goddess] Upaniṣad similarly reveals the goddess’s true form as the whole world: The Sun and the Moon are Her eyes . . . the Vedas are Her words . . . the universe is Her heart and the earth Her loins . . . the mountains are Her bones, the rivers are Her veins and the trees are the hairs of Her body. . . .

Thus the whole universe forms the cosmic form of Devi.54 These passages illustrate that śakti and logos are present everywhere, dwelling in everything in the universe. Third, both Kālī and logos were appropriated—from tribal traditions and Greek philosophy, respectively—and further theologized. In addition to these similarities, the two principles are also the manifestation of the transcendent God and a benevolent transformative element. Śakti and logos tell a similar story about how the unmanifest God manifests as a material multiplicity. In the Vedas and in the Hebrew Bible, śakti and logos are God’s creative agents in the world. God spoke and the Word became flesh. In these early myths, creatures are born through the transcendent God’s communication: Vāc and logos. That is to say, the material issuing forth from the ground of Being is metaphorically

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explained as language. In a transcendent form, such as nirguṇa brahman or the Father, God is formless, pure consciousness and uncreated. In contrast, the early scriptures describe śakti and logos as the transient, relational materialization of the divine in the world. When the unmanifest God manifests in the world, the divine is differentiated, though still one with the unmanifest God. The totality of God’s communication is known as both wisdom and materiality. In other words, the Word is the power and reason through which the myriad beings can consciously know each other individually and relate to the transcendent God. Speech, then, materializes as living beings, as Godís words or way of communicating in the transitory world.

When śakti and logos were later anthropomorphized—as Kālī in Śāktism and Tantra and as Jesus in the New Testament and Trinitarian theology—notions of salvation and life after death were further developed.

Kālī not only materializes out of Śiva or nirguṇa brahman as the sum of all transient manifestations, she also symbolizes cosmic destruction and is associated with death both of the physical body and ignorance. As such, Kālī is a vehicle for transforming the consciousness of the individual to the reality of his or her true identity. According to Kinsley, Kālī is what “allows the individual to see him or herself as merely one being in an endless series of permutations arising from the ever-recurring cycles of life and death that constitute the inner rhythms of the divine mother.”55 If Kālī liberates a person from his or her ignorance of being a separate jīvātman (individual soul), then after death the consciousness of that person returns to its origin, nirguṇa brahman.56 If she does not liberate a person, then he or she is reborn into a new material form of śakti and the process of transmigration continues until liberation. Kālī is destructive because, as materiality, her forms are limited by time and space, and thus impermanent. As a principle, however, she is eternal, which indicates that creation out of nirguṇa brahman, material being, and liberation is an infinite, ongoing process.

In the New Testament and Trinitarian theology, Jesus similarly represents the course of salvation and new life. According to Ruusbroec, the Son ebbs out of the unmanifest Father into the world and then flows back to the source. When God’s Word issues forth, the speech is by nature a multiplicity of created beings which consciously separate themselves from outside phenomena through reason. For these individual manifestations, Christ functions as the bridge, the wisdom to turn their understanding toward the unmanifest God. The resurrection narratives in the Gospel of John encourage his followers to turn their attention from his historical body to his mystical body,57 a mode of presence in ISSUE 8, OCTOBER 2008

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which the divine indwells all creation. Christians are thus saved when their love for Jesus extends to their neighbor and their relationships with others are radically transformed. Christ exemplifies how to see beyond the difference of manifold expression to the core of God’s presence in all creatures, which is a unity of all words in the Word. When Christians experience this active conversion and are saved, they have new life on Earth, meaning their relationships with others change here and now.

After they die, the individual soul goes to Heaven.58 Śakti and logos, then, are agents of creation and transformation.

From the transcendent God issues forth the Word, which manifests itself as multiplicity. The Word consists of the power or reason in all creatures, who are impermanently embodied in time and space and ignorant of their true identity or relationship with the divine. This same principle, which instills rationality and an individual sense of self, liberates people when properly understood. Both Hinduism and Christianity suggest that adherents of their traditions attain life with the transcendent God after being liberated. However, Hindus believe in the ultimate identity of the jīva (individual soul) and brahman, whereas Christians consider the soul permanently relational to God. Nevertheless, the basic śakti-logos mythology is similar: from the transcendent God manifests the Word as created beings, who—through these same principles understood as wisdom—are benevolently liberated from their ignorance and enter into everlasting life with the transcendent God.  Notes 1. Vāc manifests in all speech (ṚV 8.89.11); vāc has four parts—speech is one and the other three are hidden (ṚV 1.164.45); and vāc abides in heaven, indicating she has both a transcendent and an immanent dimension (AV 9.10.13 and ṚV 10.125).

See Tracy Pintchman, The Rise of the Goddess in the Hindu Tradition. (Albany, New York: The State University of New York, 1994), 37.

2. Pintchman, 114.

3. The Rig Veda: An Anthology, trans. Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty (London: Penguin Books, 1981), 63, verse 10.125.3, 6, 8.

4. Pintchman, The Rise of the Goddess, 44.

5. Ibid., 51.

6. Upaniṣads: A New Translation by Patrick Olivelle, trans. Patrick Olivelle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 8.

7. Pintchman, The Rise of the Goddess, 69. The Sāṃkhya-Kārikā (4th century C.E.) describes prakṛti as the principle of materiality, which in classical Sāṃkhya is paired with puruṣa (pure consciousness). This idea is analogous to the Śiva-śakti creation pair.

8. Pintchman, The Rise of the Goddess, 186.

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10. Ibid., 1–9.

11. Earnest Payne, The Saktas: An Introduction and Comparative Study (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1979), 67. For a more detailed study on the tribal origins of the Goddess, see 61–74.

12. David R. Kingsley, “Kālī,” in Encountering Kālī: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West. Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal, eds., (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 24.

13. Payne, The Saktas, 68.

14. Pintchman, The Rise of the Goddess, 97–8.

15. Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal, Encountering Kālī: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 4.

16. Śiva calls her Ādya Prakṛti when he places himself beneath her (MbhP 23.8 and 10). See Patricia Dold, “Kālī the Terrific and Her Tests,” in Encountering Kālī Kālī, 53.

As aforementioned, Śiva also represents pure consciousness.

17. Dold, “Kālī the Terrific,” 53.

18. Ajit Mookerjee, Kali: The Feminine Force (Rochester, Vermont: Destiny Books, 1988), 62.

19. Ibid.

20. Dold, “Kālī the Terrific,” 40.

21. Usha Dev, The Concept of Śakti in the Puranas (Delhi: Nag Publishers, 1987), 14, 48.

22. Pushpendra Kumar, The Principle of Sakti (Delhi: Eastern Book Linkers, 1986), 16.

23. Ibid., 137, 65.

24. Sinha, Sakta Monism, 2.

25. Mookerjee, Kali, 88.

26. Kathleen Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Complete Translation of the Fragments in Diels (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 27–9, 32.

See also Christopher Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 8. Heraclitus taught that the world is a unity composed of opposing forces. He observed perpetual change in nature between night and day, which he understood as dependent on each other, and of water in the continuing flow of a river.

27. Heraclitus described logos as God, but not in a monotheistic sense. He also described rational order as fire, which was later adopted by the Stoics and used

by Philo to explain God’s form when visiting Moses in the burning bush. See Stead, 150–1. In Hinduism, agni (fire) is also thought to be the vehicle to bring offerings to gods from men in Vedic times.

28. Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity, 46–8.

29. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1978), 6.

30. Genesis 1:3, Psalms 33:9, Psalms 107:20, Psalms 147:15, Sirach 42:15.

31. The Catholic Study Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). All subsequent biblical references are from this source.

32. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 6. Philo was especially interested in the Platonic distinction between the ideal and the material worlds.

33. Ibid., 9–10. Philo wrote that logos was “extended and drawn out and present everywhere completely” (see 106).

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35. Just to note, during his life, Jesus was seen as a man; after his death, however, his historical presence developed theologically. In the New Testament, Jesus never refers to himself as God; instead, he calls himself the “Son of Man,” a title equivalent to “man.” In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter describes how the first disciples conceived Jesus. He said, “Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God . . . you crucified, but God raised him up” (Acts 2:22, 24). In the Gospel of Mark, when someone addressed Jesus as “good master,” he objected, saying, “Why do you call me good? There is no one good but God alone” (Mark 10:17–8). See Bede Griffiths, A New Vision of Reality: Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and Christian Faith (Springfield, IL: Templegate Publishers, 1989), 115.

36. John 1:1–3, 1 Corinthians 1:24, Colossians 1:15–7.

37. John 1:1–3. The Gospel of John was written around 90 C.E.—the latest gospel to be included in the canon.

38. Colossians 16–9, 27.

39. Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity, 155.

40. Ibid., 156.

41. J. Lebreton, “The Logos,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX, (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910).

42. “Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began” (John 17:5).

43. Sandra Schneiders, Written That You May Believe: Encountering Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, revised and expanded edition (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 2003), 204, 211–9.

44. When Christians are transformed, their knowledge of the indwelling of Christ is reflected in their right relationships with everyone around them. According to Matthew 25:34–40, service to anyone is really service to Christ because he dwells within all beings: “Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you have my Father’s blessing! Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’”

45. Matthew 25: 34–40.

46. “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30). Also, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1–2).

47. According to Bede Griffiths, “[I]n the Christian view the logos, the Word of God, is the principle of differentiation in the Godhead. The Father is the source, the one, the origin, from which everything comes, and the Father knows himself in the Son. So there is interpersonal relationship there in the ultimate, in eternity” (A New Vision of Reality, 170).

48. The idea of Jesus as savior is developed further in the comparative section of this paper.

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Śakti and Logos 49. John Ruusbroec, The Spiritual Espousals and Other Works, trans. James A. Wiseman, OSB. The Classics of Western Spirituality. (Mahweh, NJ: Paulist Press, 1985), xiv.

According to Ruusbroec, the ebbing and flowing of the Godhead contains creation because finitude is different from God but not separate.

50. Ibid., 29. In Ruusbroec’s dialectic, unity (or rest) and activity are forever entwined in the Godhead.

51. Ibid., 148–9.

52. I deliberately did not discuss the gender of the two principles or their anthropomorphized forms here. The difference is obvious and contributes very little to the greater theological debate I wish to explore. In addition, omitting any reference to the gender contrast is an attempt to steer the focus away from structures of gender bias, which I will be the first to admit dominate institutionalized religion. Engendering theological principles is a tool humans use to understand God, by relating God to what is human. This is not useful to our debate, however, because it limits the human understanding of God to the discursive level. As theological principles, śakti and logos ultimately have no gender.

53. 1 Corinthians 12:12.

54. Dev, The Concept of Śakti in the Puranas, 45–6.

55. David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 130.

56. Sinha, Sakta Monism, 1–2.

57. 1 Corinthians 12:12–27 58. Though Ruusbroec’s ebb and flow model seems to suggest a recycling of individual souls back to the transcendent ground of Being, this idea is not orthodox in Christianity.

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