glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

integral personality and that of the human collectivity; this sense of sin is a counterpart of
the sense of the sacred, the instinct for that which surpasses us and which, for that very
reason, must not be touched by ignorant and iconoclastic hands. [LT, The Contradiction
of Relativism]
Reforming Man: Reforming man means binding him again to Heaven, reestablishing the
broken link; it means tearing him away from the reign of the passions, from the cult of
matter, quantity and cunning, and reintegrating him into the world of the spirit and
serenity, we would even say: into the world of sufficient reason. [UI, Islam]
Relatively Absolute: We have alluded more than once to the seemingly contradictory,
but metaphysically useful and even indispensable, idea of the “relatively absolute,” which
is absolute in relation to what it rules, while pertaining to relativity in relation to the
“Pure Absolute.” [IFA, Islam and Consciousness of the Absolute]
There could never be any symmetry between the relative and the Absolute; as a result, if
there is clearly no such thing as the absolutely relative, there is nonetheless a “relatively
absolute”, and this is Being as creator, revealer, and savior, who is absolute for the world,
but not for the Essence: “Beyond-Being” or “Non-Being”. If God were the Absolute in
every respect and without any hypostatic restriction, there could be no contact between
Him and the world, and the world would not even exist; for in order to be able to create,
speak, and act, it is necessary that God Himself make Himself “world” in some fashion,
and He does so through the ontological self-limitation that gives rise to the “personal
God”, the world itself being the most extreme and hence the most relative of selflimitations.
[FSR, The Two Paradises]
. . . in the sense – paradoxical but real – of the ‘relatively absolute’; hypostases are
relative in respect of the Essence, but they are principial – hence in practice absolute – in
respect of cosmic Manifestation. [FDH, Transcendence Is Not Contrary to Sense]
The Vedanta distinguishes between the ‘non-supreme’ Principle (Apara-Brahma) and the
‘supreme’ Principle (Para-Brahma); the first is not, as is the second, the Absolute in
itself, but it is ‘practically’ the Absolute in relation to the world; it is thus ‘relatively
absolute’. The personal God is ‘absolute’ without being intrinsically ‘the Absolute’.
[SME, The Mystery of the Hypostatic Face]
Relativism: Relativism sets out to reduce every element of absoluteness to a relativity,
while making a quite illogical exception in favor of this reduction itself. In effect,
relativism consists in declaring it to be true that there is no such thing as truth, or in
declaring it to be absolutely true that nothing but the relatively true exists; one might just
as well say that language does not exist, or write that there is no such thing as writing. In
short, every idea is reduced to a relativity of some sort, whether psychological, historical,
or social; but the assertion nullifies itself by the fact that it too presents itself as a
psychological, historical, or social relativity. The assertion nullifies itself if it is true, and
by nullifying itself logically proves thereby that it is false; its initial absurdity lies in the
implicit claim to be unique in escaping, as if by enchantment, from a relativity that is
declared alone to be possible. [LT, The Contradiction of Relativism]
Relativism, even when it makes a show of admitting the interventions of an absolute in
the relative, gives them such a quantitative air as to take away precisely their
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