Raimon Panikkar’s Christophany: Living in the Pilgrimage of Incarnation

Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010) was a Catholic Priest with family roots in Spain and India. He was an accomplished scholar in a variety of fields who was comfortable with a range of languages from the East and West, as well as with languages from the biblical past. He is often portrayed as a guide for inter-religious dialogue, a reputation that was initiated with his 1964 book, The Unknown Christ of Hinduism. However, in reading one his last books, Christophany, it seems he was most interested in helping Christians mystically re-discover what Eric Voegelin would call the primary experience of incarnation at the root of the Christian tradition.

One concern Voegelin raises about Christianity is that “secondary” symbols intended to represent the “primary” incarnational event of Jesus, symbols intended to draw people into this divine movement, have become ossified in the form of doctrine that one is forced to either accept or reject as true. [1] This problem is at the root of Panikkar’s work, in particular his effort to open up the Trinity in order to make it a living symbol people can identify with through a mystical awareness of the Holy Spirit. He wants to draw Christians out of a “belief,” so they may move toward a mystical “experience” of the divine that is genuinely Trinitarian, which is to say, in Panikkar’s understanding, an experience that allows us to recognize our “filiation” with divine presence. [2]

Panikkar is aware that Christology has been wrapped up in doctrine to the point that the study of theology, instead of being contemplative and receptive to the presence of the Spirit, has rather become aggressive and inquiring. [3] The personal, mystical experience of the Christian person has not been emphasized in traditional theology in part because a meditation on Jesus’ own mystical experience has been avoided within the structure of Christological study. The lack of emphasis on mystical experience in the Christian tradition has stifled a soulful openness to symbols of religious experience of any type, including symbols found in other faith traditions. Panikkar understands an experience of spirituality is in jeopardy for the Christian who is guided first by a rigid doctrine with its concretized symbols. [4] Mindful of remaining true to the Christian tradition, and supported by numerous references to biblical passages and the ideas of popes and doctors of the Catholic Church, Panikkar sets out to reawaken the original symbols representing the incarnational experience of Jesus, first by understanding the figure of Jesus “in a context wider than the Semetic and historical.” [5] This seeking of who Jesus the messenger is will focus in particular on the mystical experience of Jesus the man.

In drawing Christians into a deeper experience of the divine, Panikkar recognizes that he will also be inviting people to enter into a richer life generally. In the contemporary Western world, Panikkar argues, too many people are “stuck in immanence.” [6] In this condition, people are deeply influenced by various “myths” of history, what Voegelin might refer to as historiogenetic speculation. This speculation includes an “evolutionalist mentality that (suggests) all of humanity is journeying toward one point in history.” [7] A myth of history that promotes evolutionary progress allows one to unfairly judge cultures that are further away, or “less developed,” from the projected end point of history. Conversely, typically Christianized cultures that today are often dominated by science and technology are seen as superior for their technological advancements. Panikkar’s appreciation of the many unique cultures in the world, the various understandings of time found in those cultures, and their unique religious symbolizations, seems to compare well with Voegelin’s reflection that a philosophy of history had to avoid arranging things neatly on a time-line when there was in fact a “web of meaning.” [8]

Panikkar is also concerned with the scientific method as a means to approach reality. Fruits of the scientific mentality include individualism and consumerism, which are built on a commodified view of the earth. When individualism and consumerism are the dominant principles in society, then that society is not sustainable, argues Panikkar, because soulful friendship, along with community oriented movement, are too difficult to sustain. Individualism isolates people, and consumerism leads to a “war of all against all” that can offer no satisfaction. [9] Most importantly, the scientific mentality obscures for a person “one of the most central of all human experiences: being a unique divine icon of reality,” a “microcosm that mirrors the entire macrocosm.” [10]

Panikkar’s concern with immanence includes a recognition of the dangers of a gnostic derailment within Christian culture, particularly within a Christian Church that is identified first as an institution instead of a community. His analysis recognizes the “great temptation” of the Christian who wishes to build the kingdom of heaven from a position of power, contrary to how Jesus approached people and the political and cultural problems of his day. This temptation to rely on power, by Panikkar’s reasoning, is gnostic, and a reason why Christianity could benefit from a reorientation away from institutional identity. Panikkar recognizes that “Christophany” cannot avoid political problems, but nevertheless must strive to be “more cautious and mature,” [11] suggesting Christians follow a more contemplative, Jesus-centered approach to the problems of our day.

That said, Panikkar champions liberation theology, a movement many Christian leaders have sought to tamp down for its distorting effects on the life of the Spirit. Panikkar recognizes two important aspects to liberation theology. First, the movement is a sign that theology is still alive and well despite what he calls “conceptual saturation” with Christological and Theological issues in our day. [12] Second, liberation theology reminds us that the Spirit can be reincarnated in many ways, including in those people furthest from the centres of power and wealth. In light of Jesus’ life and teaching, the world’s poorest cannot be ignored in good conscience. The Messiah may indeed dwell among them. One question that can be raised, however, is whether liberation theology is a requirement for these realizations. Christian culture has more than a few stories of welcoming the poor pilgrim. The recurring problem till the end of time will be, how many Christians allow their politics and actions to be guided by remembering the poor?

In Christophany, there is a subtle attempt made to lessen the influence of the formal structures of the Church. This is in part because of the gnostic concerns related above, and also because of how Christian institutions have at times supported divisive or destructive practices such as colonial expansion and slavery. A not so subtle suggestion is that the Western calendar, which is a Christian creation and a global point of reference, be abolished. However bizarre this may sound, Panikkar is recognizing that whether intended or not, the Christian Church grew very close to political power, and further away from the Spirit of Jesus. This led, at times, to a terrible abuse of power in the name of a man who invited his followers to live with love. When the resurrected Jesus returned to his disciples in the gospel of John, Panikkar reminds us that Jesus asked, “do you love me?” He did not ask, did you remember my teachings? Citing Pope Pius Xll, Panikkar argues that it is misleading to see the Christian “Church” identified with an institution. Wherever the Holy Spirit is, there is the Church. [13]

There are times Panikkar’s mental gymnastics around Trinitarian language and concepts is dizzying, and seemingly counter-productive to what he is trying to accomplish. His Trinitarian ideas are best rooted when he turns to human consciousness, and reveals how the Holy Spirit is alive and well in that centre of experience. Total self-consciousness is impossible, argues Panikkar, and so too is it impossible to fully understand the “you” or “thou” across from us. Amidst and between these mysterious and changing poles of reference is the Spirit. The same principle applies to the Trinity, in the relationship between Jesus and God the Father. The Holy Spirit, in all its mystery, dwells in the spaces between. [14]

With the Trinity as a symbolic expression of the human experience of reality, Panikkar is clear that in our escaping from the grip of immanence, the place for us to have our being is between immanence and transcendence. For readers of Voegelin, Panikkar is identifying the metaxy. For Panikkar, this is the place where the Spirit dwells. It is here we can experience life in its fullness, in open relation to being. [15] As we “awaken to reality,” we “desire to know all things,” even while recognizing that “things” are veils covering a deeper reality. We realize we are contingent beings, not self-made, and we participate between immanence and transcendence as neither pure matter nor spirit. [16] We “cannot believe in something that is not credible” writes Panikkar, but we can live with the experience of “liberation,” aware of the “third dimension of reality,” which is “mystical consciousness.” [17]

Panikkar’s space between immanence and transcendence is a richly textured place. Panikkar is not a particularly evocative writer, but he has his moments. One such moment is when he lays stress on the idea that at Pentecost Jesus left for a reason. He left so that the Spirit could continue its work. This is the place in which we live, and in the Spirit we are invited to follow the teacher, Jesus, in order to see where he lives. The idea is to never cease the pilgrimage in pursuit of Jesus’ abode. It is a place of openness and movement, imbued with the life of the Spirit.

The stress on a mystical engagement within the Trinity is what separates Christophany from Christology. Panikkar is hoping he can free people sufficiently so they will live a more contemplative form of Christianity. It is also clear from his reliance on the New Testament, various Popes, and doctors and mystics within the Church, that many others have lived in the so-called third dimension before him. For example, reading Meister Eckhart, a favourite for Panikkar, and meditating on Eckhart’s “God beyond God” can be fruitful activity that brings people to a place experientially that Panikkar would hope for them. Many talented writers in the West have had similar evocative powers. Orthodox Christians like Vladimir Lossky have described a spiritual life centered on the Holy Spirit that seems to parallel the ideas found in Christophany. Is Panikkar breaking new ground with his writing, or is he drawing much needed attention to what has always been on the periphery of Christian culture for 2,000 years? His realistic hope is that more Christians, devotees to Jesus, will adopt a prayer practice open to experiencing the Holy Spirit and the freedom of mind and soul that is born in this mystical dimension.

Notes

1. Cooper, Barry. Consciousness and Politics. St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, Indiana. 2018. Page 373.

2. Panikkar, Raimon. Christophany. Translated by Alfred DiLascia. Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York. 2009. Page 96.

3. Ibid., page 11

4. Ibid., page 8

5. Ibid., page 51

6. Ibid., page 34

7. Ibid., page 171

8. Cooper, page 299

9. Pannikar, page 60

10. Ibid., page 119

11. Ibid., page 174

12. Ibid., pages 45, 175

13. Ibid., page 177

14. Ibid., page 72-73

15. Ibid., page 74

16. Ibid., page 79

17. Ibid., page 88

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