Special Issue on INDIAN RELIGIONS AND THE CONCEPT OF GOD: Last Call for Papers

[FRANCISCO MARIANO]

  ----------------------- Last Call for Papers -----------------------

*INDIAN RELIGIONS AND THE CONCEPT OF GOD*
Special Issue of SOPHIA: International Journal of Philosophy and Traditions
Guest editors: Ricardo Silvestre, Alan Herbert and Purushottama Bilimoria

*Deadline for Submission:* November 30, 2022

https://www.logicandreligion.com/vaishnava-concept-of-god

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Although Western philosophy of religion has developed many useful
exegetical and philosophical tools for evaluating Abrahamitic conceptions
of God as they apply to respective philosophical traditions, there is a
growing awareness that such monotheistic Western approaches might conceal
and prohibit a culturally sensitive and philosophically adequate
appreciation of the numerous concepts of God found in religious traditions
outside of the Western hemisphere. This awareness, which is part of the
motivation beyond what is known as cross-cultural philosophy of religion,
encompasses both the need for and the encouragement of new dialogues
between Western philosophy of religion and non-Western traditions as a
means to foster a deeper mutual understanding of the variety of concepts of
God or the divine developed in the history of humankind.

Divinity in some Indian religions, such as *Vaiṣṇavism*, *Śaivism* and
*Śaktism*, is often conceived monotheistically, as a supreme OmniGod (much
like Western accounts of God.) Despite the evidence supporting this, these
Indian concepts of God exhibit certain peculiarities that threaten the idea
of their being monotheistic (or even theistic, one might say.) For
instance, they manifest a plurality of divine forms, referred to as devatās
and avatāras (divinely incarnations), they subsequently assimilate or
incorporate other divinities in the Hindu pantheon and continue to exist in
ambiguous relationships with them (an example being those between Viṣṇu,
Śiva, Brahmā, and the Goddess), they are united with ordinary living beings
in various ways, and they sometimes possess (exude?) ultimately impersonal
or abstract nature. Moreover, in the Indian subcontinent, theistic
traditions have resided alongside those that are decidedly non-theistic
(for instance, Jain, Buddhist, and naturalist traditions), or
non-theistically inclined (such as Nyāya and perhaps Yoga within Hinduism),
and possibly a[mono]theistic (as in the Cārvāka and Mīmāṁsā schools) –
although concepts of divinity in all these traditions are up for debate.
Given all of this, we might ask: are Indian theistic traditions really
monotheistic? Or, to put it in conceptual terms, is their concept of God a
monotheistic one? Or, is their concept of divinity theistic at all?

Accepting that there are different conceptions of divinity among the Indian
religious and philosophical traditions, we are then behoved to pose this
question: *how can these concepts of God be philosophically
characterized?* What
divine properties does any given tradition ascribe to its divinity? Can
this divinity be described in a consistent way? Or is it a contradictory
concept? If the concept is contradictory, how would this affect its
intelligibility? Does any of those concepts of God have some advantage over
traditional philosophical accounts of God? How do they relate to well-known
accounts of God, such as those of classical theism, pantheism, panentheism,
process theism, open theism, etc.? And what are the difficulties peculiar
to these Indian concepts of God?

This special issue of Sophia: International Journal of Philosophy and
Traditions (https://www.springer.com/journal/11841) will address these
questions and approach the concept of God in Indian religions from a
contemporary philosophical perspective. We invite submissions of papers on
general philosophical topics related to Indian religions and the concept of
God, including but not restricted to the following themes:

- God in Indian religious traditions.
- Divine attributes and Indian concepts of divinity.
- Indian concepts of divinity vs. western concepts of God.
- Atheistic or agnostic arguments against the coherence of Indian concepts
of God.
- Vaiṣṇavism/Śaivism/Śaktism: monotheistic, panentheistic or what?
- Language and God in Indian traditions.
- Divinity and Hindu deities.
- Relation of the divine with the world: creation and
difference/non-difference.
- Consciousness and Indian concepts of divinity: cosmopsyshism,
panenpsychism or what?

Papers should be submitted through Sophia’s Editorial Manager (
https://www.springer.com/journal/11841/submission-guidelines) specifying
that they are being submitted to the special issue on Indian Religions and
the Concept of God, and obey Sophia's submission guidelines. Submitted
papers will go through a double-blind peer-review process. The deadline for
submission is November 30, 2022.

The special issue will be guest-edited by Ricardo Silvestre, Alan Herbert
and Purushottama Bilimoria. It is scheduled to be launched in the beginning
of 2024. There will be an online conference on March 2023 related to the
special issue. Authors who want to make sure their papers fit into the
special issue might send an extended abstract (no more than 900 words) to
ricardoss at ufcg.edu.br or alan at ochs.org.uk.

The special issue is one of the outcomes of the project “Philosophical
Approaches to the Vaiṣṇava Concept of God”, funded by the John Templeton
Foundation via the Global Philosophy of Religion Project (
https://www.logicandreligion.com/vaishnava-concept-of-god).
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