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How would a dualist respond to the following argument made by a nondualist?

Brahman cannot be the knower of anything. To know and to understand involve time. There is a before and an after. The former case involves ignorance because something is not known while the latter case involves knowledge. Brahman is beyond blemishes and so it cannot be in a state of ignorance. Since there is no knower and no thing to be known, the Brahman of the Upanishads must be non-dual.

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Question: Since an Omniscient God needs to know everything, and knowing would imply learning which would mean there was a period when God didn't know a particular thing and was ignorant, this also implies there is change happening in God. As ignorance and changes are blemishes in God, God cannot be Omniscient.

Response: The above argument is wrong because it assumes there was a period in the past when God did not know something and then he had to learn. This is not the Hindu conception in my opinion. This is just projecting human attributes which are flawed and limited onto the God who is prefect and infinite.

God has always been omniscient, he has been omniscient from eternity, he didn't have to learn anything because he has always known everything.

There is nothing else but thou, O lord; nothing else has been or will be. Thou art both discrete and indiscrete, universal and individual, omniscient, all-seeing, omnipotent, possessed of all wisdom and strength and power.
Vishnu Purana - 5.1.47

Nārāyaṇa is the only one that is stainless, sinless, changeless, and unnameable, and that is pure and divine. There is no second. Whoever knows Him thus, becomes Vishṇu Himself. The Yajurveḍa teaches this. NĀRĀYAṆA-UPANISHAD OF KṚSHṆA-YAJURVEḌA

Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be. Bhagavat Gita - 2.12

So if God is always present, eternal and changeless and omniscient it means he was always omniscient.

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    So is your main argument that attributing flaws present in human nature to God is itself a logical fallacy?
    – Debbie
    Commented Apr 29 at 21:45
  • @Debbie yes, and the premise that if God knows something then he had to have learned in the past, itself is fallacious
    – Hari Kumar
    Commented Apr 30 at 4:21
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not ONE dualist understands Advaita. Advaita is not a set of words about the nature of humans,Gods, Moksha etc. - it is a directly experienced wordless state.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa expressed it best

https://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/parables/1_files/1-56.html

EGOISM: VANITY SANKARACHARYA AND HIS FOOLISH DISCIPLE THE great Sankaracharya had a foolish disciple who used to imitate his Master in all matters. Sankara uttered 'Sivoham' (I am Siva); the disciple also repeated 'Sivoham'. To correct his disciple's folly, Sankara one day, while passing by a smithy, took a potful of molten iron and swallowed it; and he asked that disciple also to do the same. Of course, the disciple could not imitate this act of his Master, and thence forward he left saying 'Sivoham'. (52)

There are numerous word-level counters to Advaita from Theistic schools that mean nothing. Mandanaamisra is said to have refuted Buddhism by joining a Buddhist monastery and learning all their teachings before refuting them.- I haven't heard of ONE dualist who actually experienced Advaitic truth and claimed it was false AFTER that.

Ramana Maharishi explains the stages of achieving the highest Advaitic truth:

https://www.messagefrommasters.com/Enlightenment/Ramana_Samadhi.htm

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    I added more material. That Advaita is the highest truth is confirmed by Buddhism (nirvana) and Muslim and Christian Mystic traditions @debbie
    – S K
    Commented Aug 4, 2023 at 16:50
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    @S K Thank you.
    – Debbie
    Commented Aug 4, 2023 at 18:09
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    Hello, how can Advaita be a "directly experienced wordless state?" In non-duality, there is no experiencer and no thing to be experienced and so there is no experience. Also, how is this state different from dreamless sleep? Finally, how does the "experience" of this wordless state negate the existence of a higher state?
    – Debbie
    Commented Apr 29 at 21:51
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    For instance the answer given here (hinduism.stackexchange.com/questions/56646/…) gives verses that seem to point to a higher reality.
    – Debbie
    Commented Apr 29 at 21:58
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    There would be no reason for Sage Dattatreya to say that verse if non-duality is the ultimate reality nor would Lord Shiva say those verses if non-duality is the highest truth.
    – Debbie
    Commented Apr 29 at 22:04

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