We shall revisit a debate which has been going on at least since pioneering British Indologists like William Jones first encountered the ‘Brahmanic theology’ we now know as Vedānta, namely, the nature of the relationship—if any—between certain forms of ‘western’ and ‘Indian’ idealisms, and how these metaphysical systems have influenced Christian theology. Specifically, we look at the question of possible thematic and conceptual convergences between Neoplatonism and Advaita Vedānta, and argue that significant parallels can be found in their common conception of the Absolute as Being. Rather than attempt a comprehensive overview of the two systems, we take the divine ‘I AM’ revealed to Moses in Exodus 3.14 as the locus classicus of Christian philosophical interpretations of God as Being itself, and explore how four seminal figures read this passage in light of Neoplatonic and Vedāntic influences. We shall see that similarities and divergences in the readings of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart and Henri Le Saux can be understood in terms of how they negotiate the relation between the One and the many, or between ‘being’ and ‘knowing’. The more these figures allow themselves to be influenced by Neoplatonism and Advaita Vedānta, the more we see any clear ontological distinction between creature and Creator start to break down. This verse, therefore, proves to be an unusually fruitful test case for exploring the relation between the underlying Neoplatonic and Vedāntic metaphysics which structure varying Christian interpretations of it.

我们将重新审视一场辩论，至少自从像威廉·琼斯这样的英国先驱者首次遇到我们现在称为吠檀多的“婆罗门神学”以来一直在进行的辩论，即某些形式的“西方”之间的关系的性质（如果有的话）和“印度”理想主义，以及这些形而上学系统如何影响基督教神学。具体来说，我们着眼于新柏拉图主义和 Advaita Vedānta 之间可能的主题和概念趋同的问题，并认为在他们将绝对作为存在的共同概念中可以找到重要的相似之处。我们没有尝试对这两个系统进行全面概述，而是将出埃及记 3.14 中向摩西启示的神圣“我是”作为经典轨迹上帝作为存在本身的基督教哲学解释，并探讨四个开创性人物如何根据新柏拉图和吠檀多的影响阅读这段话。我们将看到奥古斯丁、托马斯·阿奎那、梅斯特·埃克哈特和亨利·勒索在解读“一”与“多”之间，或“存在”与“知道”之间的关系时，可以理解他们的异同。这些人物越是让自己受到新柏拉图主义和 Advaita Vedānta 的影响，我们就越能看到受造物和造物主之间的任何明显的本体论区别开始瓦解。因此，这节经文被证明是一个异常卓有成效的测试案例，用于探索潜在的新柏拉图和吠檀多形而上学之间的关系，这些形而上学构成了基督教对它的不同解释。