The Divine Matrix: Creativity as Link Between East and West

Dialogue among religions has always been challenging. Today the questions are becoming more fundamental: are the various traditions-Buddhist Christian Hindu Tao-even talking about the same thing when they speak of Nature of God Emptiness or Brahma? The Divine Matrix represents a bold scholarly attempt to provide a framework for discussing these and other questions that will keep the interreligious dialogue project from grinding to a halt. In The Divine Matrix philosopher and theologian Joseph Bracken first names the idea that the Infinite is the transcendent source and goal of human activity to be the notion common to virtually all the major world religions. He suggests that the Infinite is prototypically experienced not as an entity but as an ongoing activity-the principle of activity for all beings (God included). This idea is consistent with the notion of eternal and continuous motion in Aristotle with the act of being (actus essendi) in the theology of Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckert and with the ground of being of Schelling and Heidegger as well as with Whiteheads definition of creativity. Bracken goes on to show that this idea is implicit in descriptions of Brahman in the Hindu Upanishads in the experience of pratitya-samutpada (dependent co-arising) in classical Buddhism and in descriptions of the Tao in Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu. The Divine Matrix proposes that the Infinite thus identified be understood as a nondual reality: an activity that does not exist in itself but only in the entities which it thereby empowers to exist. This Bracken argues becomes the key to understanding ultimate reality within the different world religions. Original insightful a major contribution. --John B. Cobb Jr author Sustainability A masterful work . . . opening pathways for conversation between philosophical and religious traditions of east and west as well as enriching Christian understanding of ultimate reality as trinitarian. --Ruben L.F. Habito author Healing Breath Bracken is one of the major contributors to comparative theology from a process perspective. --James L. Fredericks Loyola Marymount University Joseph A. Bracken SJ is a retired professor of theology and director emeritus of the Edward B. Brueggeman Center for Dialogue at Xavier University in Cincinnati Ohio and is the author of seven books and editor or coeditor of two other works in the area of philosophical theology. His focus in recent years has been on the God-world relationship as it figures both in the religion and science debate and in interreligious dialogue.