Contradiction and the Absolute

Every one of the four major theistic world religions, i.e., Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, holds the existence of a transcendental being. This transcendental being, called by different names, such as God, Allah, Brahma, etc., has some specific characteristics that, in many cases, appear to imply some contradictions. In contrast to the aforementioned theistic religions, Buddhism is a non-theistic religion. But this, too, court inconsistency. In Buddhism, theories about emptiness or, in some cases, nothingness, have often been seen as contradictory. Let us call the contradictory being in our five religions the absolute. In all of them, the absolute is, in some sense, the ground of reality. Over the centuries, some theologians and philosophers, in order to give an account of this absolute ground, have argued that its nature is indeed contradictory. This volume, which has an historical approach, is about such views. It involves the theories of some philosophers and theologians throughout history concerning the contradictions of the absolute.

Graham Priest, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, USA; Behnam Zolghadr, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany.