ABSTRACT
What is the relationship between God and embodiment in Hinduism and Christianity? Hinduism and Christianity provide different answers to this question, both between themselves and within themselves. This essay will explore that range of answers. By placing the traditions into theological conversation with one another, we will elicit finely grained details that may have been overlooked otherwise. We will also pose new questions to each tradition, thereby allowing them to provide new answers—to produce new theology for a new age. The essay addresses three major themes of embodiment. First, the essay addresses the possibility of divine personal embodiment, the proposition that God actually possesses a body. Second, the essay explores the relationship between the body of the Goddess and the human female. Many religions subscribe to the embodied divine feminine: what influence does this subscription have on the embodied human female? Finally, the essay will compare and contrast earthly divine embodiment as avatar and incarnation, utilizing the difference between these two concepts to better understand both.
