Both One and Many: Spiritual Philosophy Beyond Theism, Materialism, and Relativism(Perspectives in Process Studies)

Meister Eckhart might have liked it. Indeed, many-one thinking is the idea that there is the one ultimate origin, coherence, spirit of it all . . . but not without a multitude and diversity emerging within, which is the evolving universe with planets like Earth, with its biosphere and humankind, with you and me living in it. The Many-One is thought of as the whole of the cosmos complementing and entangled with all its parts, as beings inside Being and Being inside beings, as the Creator and "his" co-creating creatures. The both-one-and-many idea takes a strong stance against any ultimate either-or-reduction, against isms of all sorts. Being unity and plurality and duality all at once, the Many-One is neither monistic nor pluralistic nor dualistic in any way. Inside this broad frame, it is open for many specific approaches, not least those represented in this volume, which are cosmic holism, cultural-spiritual-evolution thought, Higher-We, integral thinking, the Metaphysics of Adjacency, panentheism, process theology, and transpersonal-participatory thinking. However, the many-one idea also chimes in with approaches not sampled here, like Roy Bhaskar's Critical Realism, Edgar Morin's Complex Thought, or metamodernism.

About the Author :
Oliver Griebel, born in 1964 in Munich, is a teacher, philosopher and translator who has brought together in this anthology a number of American, Austrian, Canadian, English, German, and Spanish coauthors. These philosophers and psychologists, theologians and spiritual writers are united by their efforts to offer an alternative to old-style theistic and pantheistic views of God, to warn against the ecological self-undermining of modern civilisation, and to help post-modern thought to become post-postmodern, to evolve beyond its anti-Western demonizations and glorifications.

Review :
"In Both One and Many, contributing editor Oliver Griebel has assembled a fascinating anthology of essays. These explorations focus on how spiritual and religious systems tend to concentrate on either a One, be it God or some other Ultimate, or on a plurality or multiplicity as the fundamental reality--and show why both One and Many are necessary to do justice to the full complexity of our universe." --John H. Buchanan, author of Processing Reality: Finding Meaning in Death, Psychedelics, and Sobriety "This book offers many qualities in one: a reflective expression of the diversity and plurality of One-Many thinking so much needed for an integration of our evolving worlds. All contributions show the values of the One-Many-nexus, radiating as if refracted by a crystal, colorful en-lightening in various directions. May the nuanced and wise unfoldings of the branches in the tree of cosmic-cultural evolution that this book offers inspire further growth earthly and cosmically." --Wendelin Küpers, professor of leadership and organizational studies, Karlshochschule International University "From secularists gone spiritual to traditionalists gone secular, this anthology is at the very crossroads where the future of religion is dreamed, intuited, and reasoned into being. It's a dynamic process: where many voices are part of one larger whole, and where oneness is expressed by the many. Together, the authors outline a theological position the world has missed--and needs to discover." --Hanzi Freinacht, author of The Listening Society