Copleston’s Gifford Lectures explore the religious significance of metaphysical ideas of ‘the One’ and ‘the many’. The idea of an ‘ultimate reality’ is one found throughout religiously oriented philosophical systems, and finds expression in many contrasting ways. He examines the metaphysical systems found in traditions such as Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, the Advaita Vedanta, Christianity and Western philosophy in general. He assesses the various philosophical presumptions and methods that have led thinkers in different traditions to insist on the ineffability and immanence of the One through mysticism, and others, informed by rational methods, on its transcendence. He outlines the relationship that ought to exist between the sort of metaphysics he is concerned with here and science, as well as ethics, worldviews and, ultimately, truth.

KEY WORDS: Absolute, Advaita Vedanta, Being, Bradley, Brahman, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, Metaphysics, Monism, Mysticism, Neoplatonism, Nirvana, Samkara, Science, Taoism