Monism Versus Dualism: A Futile Dsipute

As I understand it, dualism is a belief that reality is bifurcated between the physical and the mental, or the physical and the spiritual, or at least, the physical and the non-physical.  Monism is the belief that all of reality, both mind and matter, is the manifestation of a single essence.  Thus, dualists and monists (play on words here) duel.

It is a misbegotten contest.  There is one reality, and from it, emanates both the physical world as it is perceived by the mind, and the mental (or spiritual) world which does the perceiving.  The monist is correct in that these two emanations are not independent, but the dualist is correct in that the single reality has more than one expression.

Indeed, the dualist does not go far enough, because there are more than two distinct forms in which reality is manifested.  There is a hierarchy which begins with the unknowable essence, a Creator, and a Creation.  We are living spiritual beings, consciously inhabiting a physical body.  Intertwined with all this are our thoughts and deeds, which are brought about by the agency of our free will.

Granted, this is theology, and as such requires a belief in the unknowable, but that belief is far from unreasonable, and indeed, is empowering.

The attempt to reduce God to some sort of field of consciousness is to attempt to compress the infinity of His reality into the tiny finiteness of our minds.  It seeks to define the undefinable, and to comprehend the incomprehensible.

What is to the man wisdom, is to God foolishness.