The Manifold of the Absolute: Religious Perennialism as Generative Inference

TL;DR

The paper addresses how to reconcile multiplicity of religious forms with a claim to transcendent unity by modeling religious epistemology with a variational-autoencoder–style generative framework. It compares four configurations—Exclusivism, Universalism, Syncretism, and Perennialism—using an encoder $q_ abla(z|x)$ and decoder $p_ heta(x|z)$ to represent contemplation and revelation, with a shared latent space $\mathcal{Z}$ and tradition-specific decoders as the core of Perennialism. Through an abductive analysis, it argues that syncretism fails geometrically, exclusivism cannot account for cross-traditional contemplative convergence, and universalism collapses information about the latent source, leading to posterior-collapse–like impairment. Perennialism thus preserves encoder–decoder matching, allowing convergence to a single latent source while maintaining tradition-specific depth, and it formalizes orthodox practice as structurally necessary rather than merely conservative. The work provides a precise vocabulary for discussing religious diversity, explains why deep, tradition-bound practice is essential for accessing transcendent unity, and suggests productive directions for interfaith dialogue grounded in shared inferential structure rather than superficial synthesis.

Abstract

This paper formalizes religious epistemology through the mathematics of Variational Autoencoders. We model religious traditions as distinct generative mappings from a shared, low-dimensional latent space to the high-dimensional space of observable cultural forms, and define three competing generative configurations corresponding to exclusivism, universalism, and perennialism, alongside syncretism as direct mixing in observable space. Through abductive comparison, we argue that exclusivism cannot parsimoniously account for cross-traditional contemplative convergence, that syncretism fails because combining the outputs of distinct generative processes produces incoherent artifacts, and that universalism suffers from posterior collapse: stripping traditions to a common core discards the structural information necessary for inference. The perennialist configuration provides the best explanatory fit. Within this framework, strict orthodoxy emerges not as a cultural constraint but as a structural necessity: the contemplative practices that recover the latent source must be matched to the specific tradition whose forms they take as input. The unity of religions, if it exists, is real but inaccessible by shortcut: one must go deep rather than wide.

Figures (5)

• Figure 1: Four configurations of the generative ontology. (a) Exclusivism: each tradition possesses an independent latent space and decoder, with no shared structure (Definition \ref{['def:config-e']}). (b) Universalism: a single decoder maps one latent source to undifferentiated observables, erasing tradition-specific content (Definition \ref{['def:config-u']}). (c) Syncretism: distinct generative processes whose outputs are combined in the observable space (Section \ref{['sec:syncretism']}). (d) Perennialism: a shared latent space decoded through tradition-specific parameters, yielding distinct but structurally related observables (Definition \ref{['def:config-p']}).
• Figure 2: The failure of syncretism as manifold interpolation. Points $x_A$ and $x_B$ lie on their respective tradition manifolds, but their linear interpolation $x_{\text{sync}}$ lies in the ambient space, off both manifolds. Such points are "out-of-distribution" and cannot be mapped back to the latent Absolute. (For visual clarity, the figure depicts low-dimensional manifolds in a low-dimensional ambient space. The disjointness argument relies on the high-codimension regime where $\dim(\mathcal{X})$ greatly exceeds $\dim(\mathcal{Z})$.)
• Figure 3: Posterior collapse under universalism. (a) Tradition-specific encoding: each tradition's full observable structure yields a tightly concentrated posterior (colored ellipses) that converges on the true latent value $z^*$, successfully recovering the Absolute through distinct paths. (b) Universalist encoding: after reducing tradition-specific content to a common core $\tilde{x}$, the resulting posterior (gray) is too diffuse to locate $z^*$. The Data Processing Inequality guarantees this degradation: the universalist projection discards tradition-specific structure that carries information about $z$, producing a posterior that spreads across the latent space rather than concentrating on the Absolute.
• Figure 4: The VAE-theology mapping (Definitions \ref{['def:latent-absolute']}--\ref{['def:encoder']}). Successful inference requires that the encoder $\phi$ be matched to the decoder $\theta$ whose outputs it receives.
• Figure 5: The ELBO optimization landscape for spiritual practice. The Perennialist optimum (upper right) balances reconstruction (commitment to tradition-specific forms) and regularization (self-transcendence). Dilettantism (lower left) represents underfitting: shallow engagement with neither traditional forms nor contemplative self-emptying. Universalism fails by abandoning specificity (left region). Spiritual rigidity fails by abandoning self-emptying (bottom region). (Note: the two axes are not independently controllable; both are functions of the shared parameters $(\theta, \phi)$. The landscape depicts the space of achievable ELBO decompositions, not independent degrees of freedom.)

Theorems & Definitions (11)

• Definition 3.1: The Latent Absolute, $z$
• Definition 3.2: The Exoteric Observable, $x$
• Definition 3.3: Revelation as Decoder, $p_\theta(x|z)$
• Definition 3.4: Contemplation as Encoder, $q_\phi(z|x)$
• Definition 3.5: Configuration E: Exclusivism
• Definition 3.6: Configuration U: Universalism
• Definition 3.7: Configuration P: Perennialism
• Claim 5.2: Manifold Disjointness
• Definition 6.1: Shallow Universalism as Posterior Collapse
• Claim 7.1: Encoder-Decoder Matching