Religion and Revelation: A Theology of Revelation in the World's Religions 9780191588440, 019158844X

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Introduction (page 1)
Part I: Towards a Comparative Theology (page 3)
A. Theological Knowledge (page 3)
B. Revelation and Reason (page 15)
C. Theology as a Comparative Discipline (page 36)
Part II: Primal Disclosures (page 50)
A. Primal Revelations (page 50)
B. The Role of Imagination (page 69)
C. From Primal to Canonical Traditions (page 87)
Part III: Four Scriptural Traditions (page 111)
A. Judaism (page 111)
B. Vedanta (page 134)
C. Buddhism (page 156)
D. Islam (page 173)
Part IV: Christian Reflections: Revelation as Historical Self-Manifestation (page 193)
A. Incarnation and History (page 193)
B. Inspiration and Revelation (page 209)
C. Taking History on Faith (page 232)
D. Incarnation as Revelation (page 258)
Part V: Religion after Enlightenment (page 283)
A. The Scientific World-View (page 283)
B. Authority and Autonomy (page 302)
C. Religious Diversity (page 310)
D. The Structure of Revelation (page 324)
Index of Authors (page 345)
Index of Subjects (page 348)

Citation preview

RELIGION AND REVELATION

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Religion and Revelation A Theology of Revelation in the World’s Religions

KEITH WARD

CLARENDON PRESS - OXFORD

UNIVERSITY PRESS

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.

It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw with associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries

Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Keith Ward 1994

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Religion and revelation: a theology of revelation in the world’s religions / Keith Ward. ‘Consists of the Gifford lectures, given in the University of Glasgow in 1993-4, and of the Selwyn lectures, given at St. John’s College, Auckland, in 1993’—Acknowledgements. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Revelation—Comparative studies. I. Title. II. Title: Gifford lectures. III. Title: Selwyn lectures.

BL475.5.W37 1994 291.2'11—dc20 93-46985 ISBN 0-19-826466-6 ISBN 0-19-826375-9 (Pbk)

9 79 10 8 6 Typeset by Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong

Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., Guildford and King’s Lynn

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book consists of the Gifford Lectures, given in the University

of Glasgow in 1993-4, and of the Selwyn Lectures, given at St John’s College, Auckland, in 1993. I owe a great debt to all who heard and commented on them in their spoken form. Relevant parts of the text have been read by specialist colleagues at Oxford, and I would particularly like to thank Ron Nettler, Julian Johansen, Peter Clarke, and Peggy Morgan for their advice. They have been unable to cause me to give up some of my ideas, but have at least saved me from making reprehensible errors and inaccurate generalizations, especially in dealing with non-Christian traditions.

Most of all, my wife Marian, by her continual support and criticism, has made this a much more readable and ordered text, and I dedicate it to her with love and gratitude. K.W.

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CONTENTS

Introduction I Part I: Towards a Comparative Theology 3

A. Theological Knowledge 3 B. Revelation and Reason 15 C. Theology as a Comparative Discipline 36 Part II: Primal Disclosures 50

A. Primal Revelations 50 B. The Role of Imagination 69 C. From Primal to Canonical Traditions 87

A. Judaism III B. Vedanta 134

Part III: Four Scriptural Traditions III

C. Buddhism 156 D. Islam 173

Part IV: Christian Reflections: Revelation as Historical

Self-Manifestation 193 A. Incarnation and History 193

B. Inspiration and Revelation 209 C. Taking History on Faith 232 D. Incarnation as Revelation 258 Part V: Religion after Enlightenment 283 A. The Scientific World-View 283 B. Authority and Autonomy 302 C. Religious Diversity 310 D. The Structure of Revelation 324

Index of Authors 345 Index of Subjects 348

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INTRODUCTION

There is no one proper starting-point in theology, since every question leads on to every other. I have chosen to begin with an attempt to say what sort of discipline theology is, and what the proper methods of theological investigation are. Only when the study is complete will one be able to check back to see if such a preliminary analysis was correct. Theology is in fact a well-established intellectual discipline, which

the most ancient universities in Europe, including my own, were founded to teach. So rather than beginning completely anew, it seems appropriate to start by examining the definition of one of the greatest of classical theologians, Thomas Aquinas. Accepting a modified version of Thomas’s account of theology as the rational elucidation of revealed truth, it is natural to proceed to a study of what revelation is. The main body of this volume 1s concerned with an investigation into the nature, sources, and limits of revelation.

The most distinctive feature of the book is that it espouses a comparative method, examining the idea of revelation as it is found

both in primal religious traditions and in the great canonical traditions of the world. In the light of this diachronic and synchronic survey, a distinctive Christian idea of revelation is propounded. I then investigate how far this idea must be revised or adapted in the light of developments in scientific and historical knowledge, which provide a new and extended context for religious traditions originating in a pre-scientific age. My general conclusion is that there is an intelligible, natural, and defensible notion of revelation, the main elements of which can be

found in a number of diverse religious traditions. I suggest that each tradition, including the Christian, with which I am particularly

concerned, may hope to preserve the main elements of its own distinctive witness, while engaging in an open, and in some important ways convergent, interaction with others. My intention is to articulate a concept of revelation which will be

true to the main orthodox Christian tradition, yet which will be open to a fruitful interaction with other traditions, and with the developing corpus of scientific knowledge. This will make possible

2 Introduction a committed, open, and developing understanding of faith in the

contemporary world. It might be seen as a defence of a sort of ‘open orthodoxy’. As an essay in comparative theology, this work is intended to lay

the foundation for the holistic and eirenic study of religious belief and practice, which is an important, even essential, task for believers and non-believers alike as the world moves into the third millennium.

PART I

Towards a Comparative Theology A. THEOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE 1. Aguinas: Theology as Science

‘Christian theology should be pronounced to be a science.’ So declares Thomas Aquinas in article 2 of question I of the Summa Theologiae.! The pronouncement seems alien to an age which recognizes physics, chemistry, and biology as sciences, but which is apt to regard theology as a rationalization of personal opinions. Scientific knowledge, since the seventeenth century, has been seen primarily as knowledge of the physical world obtained by obser-

vation and experiment. It may issue in universal and mathematically formulable laws, as in Newtonian mechanics, or it may be

more a matter of classification based on careful and, where possible, repeated observations, as in some parts of botany. In either sense, there is an emphasis on observation which is repeatable in principle by any competent observer, and on the formulation of general principles of classification and regularity which clarify or explain very complex data.

In this sense, it is clear that theology is not a science. It does not begin from careful and dispassionate observation of physical —

phenomena; it does not attempt to classify such phenomena or to bring them under laws of regular succession. Further, it 1s not concerned to predict or manipulate physical occurrences, so as to become an ‘applied science’. Where then does theology begin? What does it attempt to do? And what is its practical application? For Aquinas, theology begins from Divine revelation, which is to be found in the Holy Scriptures; and, in a secondary sense, from the dogmatic definitions of the councils of the Church, which seek to unfold the sense of the Scriptures. Here is to be found a body of propositions which have the authority of God himself. Adopting a generally Aristotelian notion of ‘science’, Aquinas * Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1 (London: Blackfriars, 1964): ‘Sacra Doctrina ist Scientia’: Ia. I. 2.

4 Towards a Comparative Theology holds that the premisses of any science are either evident or belong to a higher science.* The propositions of a science are demonstrated by valid arguments from evident premisses. They give knowledge

which is certain about objective reality, revealing the natures of things by the method of demonstration. In the ideal case, they give

conclusive knowledge by deduction from necessary premisses; though one may speak more widely of probabilistic judgements based on contingent premisses, as scientific. This is the case, for example, in moral or political science.

Theology is the highest science of all, since it takes its first principles from God. It is ‘maxime sapientia inter omnes sapientias humanas’,’ the highest wisdom of all human wisdoms, since it is based on Divine knowledge, which cannot err, and it deals with the most important of all topics, God. Human authorities are prone to error, but God’s knowledge of himself is the most certain form of knowledge.* Aquinas does concede that, even though theological knowledge is certain, some human beings are unsure of it or believe

it to be false; but this, he holds, is due to the weakness of the human intellect. Divine revelation is in itself absolutely certain.

For Aquinas, then, it seems that theology is a deductive or demonstrative science, drawing conclusions about objective reality from an organized body of certain knowledge, which is itself ac-

cepted on faith. This body is the canon of Scripture—‘Our faith rests on the revelation made to the prophets and apostles who wrote the canonical books.’ The first principles of theology are the articles of faith which are contained either explicitly or implicitly in the canon. Aquinas’ acceptance of Scripture is unequivocal. ‘It is heretical to say that any falsehood whatsoever is contained either in the gospels or in any canonical scripture,’ he writes.° Moreover, what Scripture says 1s true 1n a literal and not just in a metaphorical

sense. Of course there are many metaphors in Scripture, and he accepts the general medieval distinction of four senses of biblical language: the literal or historical sense and three which can collectively be called the spiritual sense—the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical or eschatalogical. He holds that ‘nothing necess* Ibid. > Ibid. 1a. 1. 6. * Ibid. 1a. 1. 2: ‘divinae scientiae, quae est una et simplex omnium’. > Ibid. ra. 1. 8. © In Fob, 13, lect. 1.

Towards a Comparative Theology 5 ary for faith is contained under the spiritual sense that is not openly conveyed through the literal sense elsewhere’.’ In the case of the

spiritual sense, words literally signify things which are false— as when we say, ‘God has a mighty arm’; but then these things themselves signify something else which can be literally said— namely, that God has great power of doing and making. The literal

sense is thus primary, and ‘from this alone can arguments be drawn’.® It must further be said that this literal sense is so certain that ‘whatever is encountered in the other sciences which is incompatible with its truth should be completely condemned as false’.”

It may seem from all this that Aquinas holds a merely propositional view of revelation, and sees theology as a matter of deducing doctrines from the propositions of Scripture and setting them out clearly and systematically. This would be a wholly inadequate view, however. Aquinas clearly states that the reason for revelation is the ‘salus hominibus’, the salvation of human beings and their orientation to an end beyond the grasp of reason, namely, eternal beatitude.!° Further, the object of revelation is God himself: ‘Deus est subjectum hujus scientiae.’!! So theology should be

seen as an intellectual activity which brings one to share in the wisdom of God; that is, in the life of Christ, the Divine Word, to whom Scripture attests. In this eternal joy consists, when reason is directed towards its proper supernatural end, in contemplating the

mystery of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. That end can be attained simply by grace, without any intellectual activity. But for those who are able, the intellectual activity of theology could well be called a form of prayer, since it is an articulation of the selfrevelation of God in personal form, as appreciated by that human reason which is part of the created image of the Divine in human lives.

Christian theology, for Aquinas, is a way of contemplating God which leads to eternal bliss, in response to Divine self-revelation. It is important that it is a disciplined intellectual exercise which gives knowledge of objective reality. It is not some sort of imaginative fantasizing on personal experiences, in which logic gives way to rhetoric. Nor is it the expression of some socially relative form of thought which lives alongside many others without disputing their 7 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1a. 1. 10. $ Ibid.

? Tbid. ra. 1. 6. 10 Tbid. Ia. 1. I. 1! [bid. 1a. 1. 7.

6 Towards a Comparative Theology claims to truth. The discipline of theology claims rigorous intellectual thought and it claims truth about God. Such claims should not lightly be surrendered just because theology does not fit the pattern of an empirical science. So Aquinas sees theology as a body

of disciplined reasoning about Divine things based on revealed truths; and in that sense it can be called a science. In this he 1s, I think, importantly right. 2. The Diversity of Revelations

Yet it is hardly surprising that an account of the sources and methods of theology coming from the thirteenth century should seem hard to accept in its entirety in the twentieth century. What has become much more questionable is the sort of certainty which is claimed for the conclusions of theology, the kind of reliance placed upon the canon of Scripture and the notion that propositions can be demonstrated from Scripture in a rigorous way by the use of reason alone. It seems much too cavalier to dismiss the rejection of Christian faith by some of the most eminent philosophers as due to a disability of reason, as Aquinas suggested. It is impossible to ignore the results of scholarly research into the biblical documents, which cast doubt on that literal inerrancy which was so important to Aquinas. And it is difficult to regard the existence of so many divergent interpretations of Christianity in the modern world as due to arrogant heresy, as a thirteenth-century Catholic might have done. Any twentieth-century account of theology must take these factors seriously. And if one does that, a rather different account

will emerge. Such an account will need to ask in what sense theological assertions can be certain; what the revelatory content

of Scripture is, after critical enquiry has been taken into consideration; and to what extent and with what hope of success one can derive a systematic doctrine from Scripture. Aquinas’ view would be that theological assertions are certain because they derive from biblical propositions which are given by

God. There is no better reason for making claims about God than that God reveals such truths in person. God reveals truth to whomsoever God will; there need be no expectation that there will

be universal agreement; and one is justified in placing complete confidence in what God reveals. This sounds a fairly convincing argument, until one reflects that it could be, and is, used with equal force by Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormons, Hindus,

Towards a Comparative Theology 7 and Jehovah’s Witnesses. The position depends upon the basic belief that God has revealed the Divine nature to particular human beings—whether to Jesus, Muhammad, Krishna, or Joseph Smith. But can one be certain that is true, especially in view of the fact that so many diverse and conflicting claims to have received direct Divine revelation exist? The question becomes: how can we be certain that particular persons have received a revelation from God,

or know what God truly is? It is not that, knowing a revelation comes from God, we are then presuming to question it; which would indeed be absurd. It is that we cannot be certain a particular revelation really does come from God. As Thomas Hobbes put it with characteristic force: (for a man) “to say God hath spoken to him in a dream, is no more than to say he dreamed that God spake to him’.!?

It turns out that we have to begin the enquiry into the status of theology at a stage further back than article 1 of the Summa Theologiae. That article takes the inerrancy of the Christian canon of Scripture for granted. But once one clearly sees that this canon is

just one of quite a number of alleged Divine revelations, one 1s forced to enquire into the criteria for accepting something as a Divine revelation. It is useless to say that God makes his revelation self-authenticating; for Muslims and Jews say that as well as Christians, and they cannot all be right, since their alleged revelations disagree.

This does not mean that there is no place for knowledge and certainty in religion. It does mean that such certainty cannot be a matter of simple self-evidence (available when the denial of a proposition is self-contradictory); or of immediate intuition (possible only for immediately experienced non-inferential truths); or of universally agreed and testable observation. Thus a gap begins to open

between the natural sciences and theology. The sciences accept that their one agreed source of truth is experimental observation and testable hypothesis. They agree on the optimal conditions for making truth-claims of a scientific sort, even if they often disagree on specific claims. But Muslim and Christian theologians disagree

on their basic source of truth, on what they accept as Divine revelation; and there seems to be no way of resolving such fundamental disagreements, at least in this life. 12 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), part 3, ch. 32.

8 Towards a Comparative Theology 3. On Certainty in Religion It is not only in religion that such fundamental disagreements exist. They exist most obviously in philosophy, where materialists, idealists, and dualists may each be certain of their views, while accept-

ing that the others exist and are not irrational. They exist in morality, where Utilitarians, Deontologists, and Axiologists exhibit a similar range of disagreements. And they exist in the arts, where

there are different notions of what counts as a great work of art. Does the acceptance that such disagreements seem to be irresolvable and that equally rational people stand on either side of them mean that the notion of certainty is inoperative in these areas?

It does mean that one cannot argue for certainty in the sense of indubitable truth which any rational person must accept. But a more basic sense of certainty remains, as unhesitating commitment to a practice or way of life which is held to be of great value, even

when others disagree with it. Such commitment may be termed ‘practical certainty’; and it is plausible to think that it is a good thing for humans to commit themselves to such practical certainty on at least some matters. It is difficult to lay out the conditions under which one may be justifiably certain in such cases. One’s whole outlook in philosophy,

morality, art, and religion tends to be governed by some basic principles, from which more particular judgements are derived, in

conjunction with particular experiential beliefs. When one gets back to such basic principles it is hard to see what they, in turn, could be derived from. Philosophers tend to argue for them in terms of such criteria as the richness, adequacy, and fruitfulness of

the conceptual schemes which they generate. Such criteria are themselves disputable, however, and so it often turns out that one

will accept a scheme if it is a workable framework which one has learned from an early age and if its foundational principles seem simple and persuasive, and do not raise great problems when applied to the data of experience. Such principles will be certain, in that they form the basis of a whole scheme; they are the framework

within which one thinks and acts in these areas. They are not unquestionable, but if one questions them one is questioning a whole system of particular judgements, not merely some isolated particular judgement. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, in some remarks in On

Towards a Comparative Theology 9 Certainty, written towards the end of his life, writes, ‘It may be...

that all enquiry on our part is set so as to exempt certain propositions from doubt.’!* Thus, within the practice of counting hens in a farmyard it is senseless to ask whether such physical objects as

hens exist. That is taken for granted in this context; ‘My life shows that I know or am certain that there is a chair over there.’!* What I take for granted, as the background of my practices, may be said to form a ‘picture of the world’ (Weltbild) which 1s ‘the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false’.!° Wittgenstein is, I think, trying to move away from thinking of certainty as a peculiar sort of mental state towards thinking of it as a basic form of activity. Within such a form of life, ‘my convictions do form a system’.!® They cannot be treated as isolated

beliefs; they must be seen as part of the framework for action which I learn, which is rooted in my nature as a rational agent. ‘The end 1s not an ungrounded presupposition: it 1s an ungrounded way of acting.’?’

Such ways of acting are not fixed and unalterable. Wittgenstein uses the picture of a river-bed, in which some things are relatively

fixed and others move along. “The same propositions may get treated at one time as something to test by experience, at another as

a rule of testing.’!® The river-bed can shift; but ‘bit by bit there forms a system of what is believed, and in that system some things stand unshakeably fast’;'” they are ‘held fast by what lies around it’. We have a picture of the world, and ‘the whole picture which

forms the starting point of belief... gives our way of looking at things...their form... perhaps, for unthinkable ages it has belonged to the scaffolding of our thoughts’.*°

This may sound as if one might simply have alternative pictures of the world, rooted in diverse ways of acting. Certainly, ‘A language-game does change with time’,*’ and there is no absolute

bedrock which every rational being must accept. There is the possibility of fundamental disagreement in pictures and in ways of acting, which one would just have to put up with. ‘It might be that

he was contradicting my fundamental attitudes, and if that were how it was, I should have to put up with it.’** At the same time, it 13 Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969), 88.

14 Tbid. 7. > Tbid. 94. '6 Ibid. 102.

\7 Tbid. 110. 18 Tbid. 98. 19 Tbid. 144. 20 Ibid. 209-11. 21 Thid. 256. 22 Thid. 238.

10 Towards a Comparative Theology is not an arbitrary matter, even though it is not a matter amenable to disinterested rational analysis. Wittgenstein speaks of ‘something that lies beyond being justified or unjustified; as it were, as something animal’;”* and he locates the most significant question to ask about such practices as the question: ‘What difference does this make in their lives?’** Ways of life are not, after all, decided at random; they are rooted in human nature, as social, developing, and temporal. ‘I want to regard man here as an animal; as a primi-

tive being to which one grants instinct but not ratiocination... language did not emerge from some kind of ratiocination.’ One should not, Wittgenstein suggests, regard humans as intellectual beings who can decide between rational systems of belief on some purely neutral criteria, as if choosing the most elegant pattern from a set of possibilities. They are, after all, animals, and language evolved out of their social behaviour, their natural ways of acting in the world. They did not choose a language or a system of beliefs. The language emerged out of primitive forms of life, as a set of tools

which helped to express and further those natural ways of behaving. “Why should the language-game rest on some kind of knowledge?’° It is not based on any intellectual intuition or inner experience. “The language-game...is not based on grounds. It is not reasonable (or unreasonable). It is there... like our life.’*° This is not a form of conventionalism, as if language rested on some set of decisions or matters of taste. It runs deeper than that. ‘Doesn’t it seem obvious that the possibility of a language-game is conditioned by certain facts?’*’ Our ways of acting are lived out in the real world, as reactions to that world; they are not fantasies. On this view, one might speak of certain framework beliefs as

the scaffolding upon which a whole system of concepts is built, which articulates a practical way of life, and finds its primary use in

forwarding that way—‘This game proves its worth.’“? There is a

strong emphasis in these remarks on the holistic nature of our language and on its primarily practical use, as rooted in deep human needs, dispositions, and attitudes. The practice of religion could be seen as a form of life, grounded in practical interests and needs, which is sustained by a whole web of concepts, within which alone talk of God makes sense.”” The idea of God is given only by *? Ludwig Wittgenstein, 359. 24 Tbid. 338. 2° Ibid. 477. 2© Thid. 559. 27 Tbid. 617. 28 Ibid. 474. *? Fergus Kerr rightly warns, however, against thinking that Wittgenstein would have been happy to see religions as ‘language-games’, where this is itself used as the

Towards a Comparative Theology II the whole system of concepts which has its proper use in framing a

distinctive way of acting. Worship and prayer, for example, are natural practices by which humans relate to the world of their experience in specific ways. They do not, as such, stand in need of

justification, for they are rooted in basic attitudes of awe and reverence, gratitude and dependence, which show themselves in

human behaviour. They form the basis for developing sets of concepts which aim to provide illuminating descriptions of how the world is and of how humans ought to live. At that stage they become subject to rational enquiry and assessment. They then generate particular beliefs of which one may be more or less certain.*°

But the general conceptual frameworks themselves are neither certain nor uncertain; they simply express our ways of acting, in so far as these ways embody attitudes towards the world, pictures of the world in which our action takes place. As Peter Winch puts it, ‘Within science or religion actions can be logical or illogical . . . But we cannot sensibly say that either the practice of science itself or that of religion is either illogical or logical.’?! It is a fact of life that

there are different pictures, different forms of practical commitment, and this may have a great importance for theology. It means that certainty pertains to fairly central beliefs within a framework, where one wants to speak of what is unalterable or fundamental in this view of things—even though the whole view may collapse, if the worst unpredictably happens. The exact beliefs which are held to be certain, and their precise formulation, will not be decided a priori and once for all time. It is a matter of discerning the nature of the framework and the way concepts hold together or fail to hold

together in mutually supportive ways within it. It is a matter of the way in which specific concepts undergird and make possible specific ways of life and the adoption and expression of very general reactive attitudes to the manifold objects of experience. The use of reason with regard to such a framework 1s not to trace propositions

back to one set of basic propositions which are themselves either

self-evident or arbitrarily chosen. It is rather to elucidate and clarify the structure of the framework itself, in a manner which basis for a metaphysical programme, perhaps of a behaviouristic sort. Cf. F. Kerr, Theology after Wittgenstein (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986).

30 An exploration of the idea of God along these lines is given in: K. Ward, The Concept of God (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974). 1 Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science (London: Routledge, 1958), 100.

12 Towards a Comparative Theology John Wisdom characterized as the ‘connecting technique’.*? It is a matter of drawing analogies, picking out patterns, focusing attention on key perspectives, and connecting disparate phenomena in ways believed to be fruitful for human understanding and action. 4. The Natural Diversity of Framework Beliefs

In the humanities, it is the nature of human enquiry that there are disagreements about framework beliefs. This should not be seen as some sort of aberration, but as inherent in the sort of activity in question. Many human activities assume universal agreement in the basic judgements that are made. But in morality, art, politics, and religion we know and accept that apparently fundamental disagreements will exist, for humans commit themselves to diverse ranges

of values. In religion, for example, some groups see the world as continually sustained by a personal God. Other groups see it as a realm of impersonal law, though with the possibility of unlimited bliss and wisdom open to those who live in accordance with cosmic law. Yet others see it as having no such possibility. This may seem rather odd. Yet there is a plausible and natural explanation for it.

First, such views are extremely wide-ranging beliefs about the nature of things in general; they aim at unrestricted generality and comprehensiveness. One might expect that such very general and basic beliefs would be difficult to formulate, since they lie well below the surface of more particular and everyday beliefs. They will therefore be difficult to pick out and isolate accurately. Furthermore, they usually involve the integration of large and varied sets

of data, which may prove impossible to sort into any obvious pattern. Thus there is much scope for trial and error and for emphasis on specific aspects of phenomena which cannot be easily reconciled with others in one harmonious system. Since different

societies will probably attempt different integrating hypotheses, stress different features of their experience, and evaluate such features differently, there is a great deal of scope for conflict and dispute. Second, although humans share the same cognitive and emotional

capacities in general, they certainly do not express and develop them in the same ways. So one would expect differences to arise 32 John Wisdom, ‘Gods’, in A. G. N. Flew (ed.), Logic and Language (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963).

Towards a Comparative Theology 13 in the concepts and interests which characterize diverse cultures. Some people are speculative by nature, and delight in inventing systems and theoretical explanations. Others are more impressed by the fragmentary nature of experience, by its paradoxes and contra-

dictions. Some people have an artistic approach, while others are more interested in practical projects which will change their environment. Some are aggressive and competitive, whereas others are complaisant and conciliatory. It would be very surprising if these very different types of character and interest did not issue in different approaches to religious questions, varying from militaristic religions of conquest to contemplative faiths of renunciation. Third, it seems rather unlikely that two human beings from very

different histories and cultures could ever really be in the same cognitive situation with regard to the formation and progressive shaping of their framework beliefs. Their interpretations of experi-

ence will be shaped from the first by the language they learn in their society.2*> The way they approach religious issues will be governed by the social conventions and linguistic forms of activity in which they have been trained. Beginning from a different cul-

tural heritage, people will develop their beliefs in very different ways, which may well diverge to form apparently contradictory systems of belief.

As a conceptual scheme builds up over successive generations,

small divergences of initial interpretation can broaden out into major conceptual polarities. So, for example, one can see how a concern with local spirit-powers can develop into monotheism. Given a strong sense of moral obligation and a belief that social history and personal experience show the flourishing of the righteous and the destruction of the wicked, one god comes to take on the attributes of supreme moral authority and control of the course

of history. From there it is a natural development to the idea of one righteous controller of all the world. But a tradition can also develop in quite a different way from a very similar initial stage into a non-theistic monism. This may happen if the rule of law is felt to be better than a rule by personal spirits, and if the unity of human and non-human existence is stressed more than their dis°> The way in which experience is always subject to interpretation by existing concepts is stressed by Steven Katz: ‘Language, Epistemology and Mysticism’, in S. Katz (ed.), Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis (London: Sheldon Press, 1978),

22-74.

14 Towards a Comparative Theology tinctiveness. In other words, moral, temperamental, environmental, and historical factors will all enter into the building-up of a conceptual scheme in which framework beliefs will be embedded as a usually tacit dimension underlying more particular beliefs.

If one views the growth of religious beliefs, in this way, as a historical phenomenon taking place over many generations and rooted in very primitive reactions to the world, then the diversity of religions is not very surprising at all. Cultures have very different

sets of ideals, very different histories, and very different sets of values and priorities. Religion enters into culture in complex ways,

but does not remain unaffected by it. So one would naturally expect there to be different forms of religious belief and practice, roughly corresponding to different cultures. One can explain how the world can appear differently to different people by showing that the cultural perspectives from which they see the world are dif-

ferent, and that such differences are natural and their existence is probable. It 1s perhaps only if one has a very intellectual view of religion, as consisting in the listing of propositions which correspond to objectively knowable facts, that religious differences will appear odd. When religion is rooted as a complex cultural phenomenon in human society and history the fact of religious diversity is hardly surprising.

Framework beliefs provide the most general principles of interpretation for human experience. Kant’s list of categories are

examples of framework beliefs, though it may seem that they artificially seek to apply logical terms to perceptual judgements, and they are by definition restricted to beliefs about physical objects.** It would be widely agreed that Kant was too ambitious in his claim that only the twelve categories he specified were used in

every perceptual judgement about objects. But his attempt shows how difficult it is to specify the principles of judgement even about ordinary beliefs, to come to consciousness of what our framework beliefs are. Such beliefs are usually tacit. Some philosophers, like Collingwood, have even held that they are presuppositions which almost inevitably remain unknown to their holder;*° but perhaps it is enough to stress the difficulty of coming to recognize them. They ** Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Transcendental Analytic, Book 1, Analytic of Concepts.

_ R. G. Collingwood, An Essay on Metaphysics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), ch. 5.

Towards a Comparative Theology 15 are expressed in our judgements and practices, our cognitive relations with our environment. They are hard to make explicit; and may be misconstrued when the attempt is made. They form part of what Polanyi calls the subsidiary awareness of the normally functioning agent; and to bring them into focal awareness is a hard and fallible task.*°

Theology can be seen as the articulation of tacit framework beliefs. Since there are many justifiable religious forms of life, each

will have an appropriate theology. The word ‘theology’ is often restricted in practice to the Christian faith. It is a more modern version of Aquinas’ ‘Sacra Doctrina’, and it came to be used in its modern sense only in the period between Aquinas and Duns Scotus.*’ There is no intrinsic reason, however, why a ‘science of God’ should be confined to one religious tradition. Other religions

have cognate modes of enquiry. Thus one may reasonably see theology not as a purely Christian discipline, but as one shared by many religions and consisting in the rational articulation of their own forms of life. B. REVELATION AND REASON

5. Barth and Brunner: Revelation without Reasons This account, however, may suggest that religion is purely a matter

of human development and discovery. What has happened to the idea of revelation, which Aquinas saw primarily as the communication of information by God in Scripture and Church teaching? Perhaps this account suggests that revelation cannot be seen as the communication of theoretically certain, clearly guaranteed truths. It can, however, still be usefully defined as a communication of knowledge by God or by a suprahuman spiritual source. In most religious traditions, the basic attitudes and practices which express faith are not seen as merely natural human dispositions, though they are natural. They are also, and essentially, seen as orientations towards and responses to a suprahuman reality or realities. The idea of a ‘revelation’ or communication from such a reality is an important part of the religious form of life, which normally helps to © Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 9 oF the useful historical discussion in: E. Schillebeeckx, Revelation and Theology (London: Sheed and Ward, 1967), i. 100.

16 Towards a Comparative Theology define its practices of worship and prayer. ‘Revealed knowledge’ contrasts with ‘discovered knowledge’, so that it cannot be thought

of as naturally available to human beings. Its content must be beyond normal human cognitive capacity, and it must be intentionally communicated. That is, it must be directly intended and brought about by God or a spiritual being. To say it is ‘directly intended’ means that it is not brought about by means of any other

intentional act. Thus revelation in the full theistic sense occurs when God directly intends someone to know something beyond normal human cognitive capacity, and brings it about that they do know it, and they know that God has so intentionally caused it. In this basic understanding of revelation, Aquinas seems to be right. What has to be modified, in the light of a broader understanding

of the nature of religious belief in general, is the view that God communicates clear and theoretically certain truths. If religious claims arise out of diverse culturally and historically developing sets of framework beliefs, the content of revelation might be expected to be affected by the characteristics of diversity, development, and

cultural rootedness. Just what this means needs to be explored in more detail. It may seem to imply some form of relativization of Christian claims, so that they stand on an equal footing with many

other claims. Yet is it not the case that many of these views, whatever their history, must simply be mistaken? It 1s tempting for the Christian theologian simply to assert that God has spoken in the Bible, and nowhere else, and that is that. A

standard exposition of such a view can be found in H. Kraemer, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World,*® and also in the work of Emil Brunner and Karl Barth. Barth’s view, in the Church Dogmatics, is particularly blunt. ‘Religion’, he says, ‘is unbelief’.°? ‘Man’s attempts to know God from his own standpoint are wholly and entirely futile . . . in religion, man bolts and bars himself against revelation by providing a substitute.’ Barth sees religion as a human enterprise which is really an attempt at human self-justification in

the face of a God who is pictured in a capricious and arbitrary way. ‘Religion is idolatry and self-righteousness . . . thoroughly selfcentred.’ It is idolatry because it creates a God in man’s own image; 38 Hendrick Kraemer, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World (London: Edinburgh House Press, 1938).

>? Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. i, part 2: 17. 2 (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1975), 299.

Towards a Comparative Theology 17 human reason is not capable of attaining a true idea of God. And it is self-righteousness because it 1s an attempt at self-justification, at achieving a sense of righteousness by human effort. Such statements are not based on exhaustive research into forms

of religion; they are rather an a priori consequence of Barth’s general view that ‘man’s I-ness. . . is in contradiction to the divine

nature’.*? Thus any religion, as a human construct, including Christianity itself, in its institutional forms and speculative explorations, can be no more than a barrier against God; and the more

it thinks it attains to God, the less it is capable of doing so. The difficulty for this view is that once one has characterized all religions, including one’s own, as products of pride and stupidity, how is one ever to attain to truth about God? Barth’s answer 1s hardly satisfactory. He simply asserts that ‘Scripture is the only valid testimony to revelation’.*! But how can anyone know this, if every human judgement is sinful, including this one? Indeed, one can very easily turn the tables on Barth and insist (as 1t seems very plausible to do) that the belief that everyone else’s revelation 1s incorrect and only one’s own Is true, 1s a particularly clear example

of human pride and self-interest. Of course one has an interest in thinking one’s own religion is the only true one; it enables one to dismiss the others as of no account and so bask in the superiority of one’s own possession of truth. One may claim that this possession is by the grace of God alone—but this only makes the element of human pride more pronounced, since one is now asserting that grace is only truly possessed by oneself. One can hardly get more proud, more self-righteous, and more short-sighted than that.

Emil Brunner falls into exactly the same trap. ‘How do you

know...the Word...is really God’s Word?’ he asks. For a moment one is perhaps hopeful of a serious attempt to answer the question; but it is not forthcoming. All Brunner says is, ‘From God himself’.*” Naturally, all Muslims would say that of the Koran, all Mormons of the Book of Mormon, and all Sikhs of the Guru Granth

Sahib. Brunner makes things even worse when he says, “That which can be based on rational grounds is. . . not revelation.’*? He 40 Tbid. 13. 1.

4! Ibid. 17. 1. 42 Emil Brunner, Revelation and Reason, trans. Olive Wyon (London: SCM Press, 1947), 207. 43 Ibid. 207.

18 Towards a Comparative Theology is not here simply objecting to attempts to prove doctrines like the

Incarnation and the Trinity by reason. He is objecting to the process of giving any reasons for accepting something as revelation.

‘Doubt is a form of sin,’ he says; it ‘springs from intellectual arrogance’.** ‘A theology that allows itself to be drawn into producing proofs for its claim to revelation has already thrown up the sponge.’ The position he is maintaining is that no reasons can or should be given for accepting Christian revelation. Using the same reasoning, no reasons can be given for accepting Muslim revelation. So what is one to do when faced with a choice between them, a choice which many people in our world actually do face?

What may be confusing the issue is the thought that a good reason would have to persuade everyone. Now in religion there are

few good reasons in this very strong sense. Reasons are personrelative. What seems an overwhelming reason to one person may not weigh very strongly with another, because there exists some other factor which weighs more strongly with that person. A reason

is a factor rationally inclining choice. One need not be able to articulate all one’s reasons for belief; it would be very rare to have

that ability. But there must be reasons, factors which make it reasonable to believe as one does. That is what the theologian needs to spell out—the factors which make it seem reasonable to accept something as a Divine revelation. Barth and Brunner may be right

in holding that there are no neutral reasons, which all rational persons can agree upon, for assenting to Christian (or any other) revelation. But they are wrong to draw the further conclusion that there are no factors which make it reasonable to accept something as a revelation at all. They may think that thereby they are freeing God’s word from the tyranny of human pride; but in fact they are making it impossible to discover where God’s word is to be found, amongst the many claimants to that status. Not only 1s it intellectually unsatisfactory to accept X as a revelation for no reason; the view demonstrably leads to moral insensitivity. Brunner’s discussion of other religions, which is not only misleading from a scholarly viewpoint but lacking in both charity and objectivity, is a clear example of this. He asserts that ‘all nonBiblical religion is essentially eudaemonistic and anthropocentric’.*® That 1s, 1t seeks human happiness above all things and is concerned

44 Emil Brunner, 208. 4 Ibid. 212. 4© Tbid. 266.

Towards a Comparative Theology 19 with human well-being, not with the nature of God. ‘They are all religions of self-redemption,’ he says.*’ It is impossible to see how this could be responsibly said of Islam, which enjoins complete submission to the will of God, total acceptance of the Koranic revelation, and forbids all anthropocentric representations of God to a much greater degree than Christianity has done. Nor could the Indian religions of Divine grace reasonably be described as religions of self-redemption, since in them everything depends on the grace of God alone. When Brunner comes to discuss Islam, he dismisses it in a few pages, throwing doubt on the Prophet’s character,*® writing off its

content as superficial and derivative, accusing it of legalism and moralism, and seeing it, amazingly enough, as ‘a religion of the Enlightenment’, when one could hardly find a religious view more opposed to the beliefs of the European Enlightenment than Islam. Naturally, he does not admit the fact that doubt can be thrown on Jesus’ character by unsympathetic observers; and, apart from the clear injustice of his remarks, it seems obvious that he is using criteria of rationality to dismiss the alleged revelation of Islam. Among the criteria he is using are those of the moral character of the Prophet, the originality and wisdom of the content of revelation, the presence of belief in human corruption and the reality of Divine grace, and belief in an encounter with a personal and loving God. To apply these criteria one needs knowledge of history _ (to see if the Prophet’s character is good), study of the scriptural text (to see if it is derivative), an assessment of human nature (to

see if it is corrupt), and a preliminary evaluation of what the supreme moral values are (whether love or justice). Of course a Muslim and a Christian might come to differing conclusions when

they use such criteria of historical, critical, anthropological, and moral study. The use of rational criteria does not dictate a particular or agreed answer. But at least if such criteria are being used, there is hope of drawing attention to the sort of prejudices and lack of knowledge Brunner exhibits, and thus hope of arriving at a more just appreciation of the character of revelation. Barth’s discussion of other faiths, though short, is rather more - nuanced. But, having said that all religions are forms of unbelief,

in true dialectical fashion he goes on to assert: ‘There is a true 47 Tbid. 271. 8 Ibid. 230ff.

20 Towards a Comparative Theology religion .. . we need have no hesitation in saying that the Christian

religion is the true religion.’ This is apparently because it is a religion of the pure grace of God ‘which differentiates our religion, the Christian, from all others as the true religion’.*” At once Barth

faces the objection that there are other religions of Divine grace, especially the Bhakti cults of India and Yodo-Shin-Shu in Japanese

Buddhism. First he points out, with justice, that there remain important differences in the understanding of grace between these

faiths and Christianity. They lack a doctrine of original sin, of representative satisfaction, of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and of a unique person who is truly human and truly Divine. But he takes the objection more deeply, and asks what would happen if there were another religion with elements very closely analogous to these;

would it also be true? His answer is that adherents of such a religion would still be ‘heathen, poor and utterly lost’ because they would still lack the name of Jesus Christ. It is in the end the historical particularity of Jesus Christ, as the one and only incarnation of the true God, which gives Christianity ‘alone the commission and the authority to be a missionary religion i.e. to confront the world of religions as the one true religion’. But now what is Barth doing but simply asserting that Jesus is the one and only revelation of God? What is in question, however, is how one can know or reasonably assert that it is true. And it 1s not only that rather minimal statement which 1s asserted to be true. In fact when one realizes just what it is that Barth takes to comprise the ‘true religion’, many may hesitate to follow him. When speaking

of the ‘catastrophe’ of liberal theology, he says that one of its failings was that ‘it ceased to regard the cardinal statements of the Lutheran and Heidelberg catechisms as definite axioms’.°° In a similar way, Brunner takes it for granted that true Christianity is opposed to Roman Catholicism; so one begins to realize that what is taken—for no reason!—to be true is not just Christianity, but

the doctrines of a particular, and minority, sect of Christianity, a particular form of Evangelical Protestantism (which 1s itself regarded as too liberal by many Evangelicals and as too conservative by many Protestants). Is grace and truth, the grace and truth of an unlimitedly loving God, to be found only in such a sect? It is 4 Barth, Church Dogmatics, 17. 3. °° Ibid. 17. 1.

Towards a Comparative Theology 21 well known that in later works Barth adopted a much wider view of the grace of God; but in the early volumes of the Church Dogmatics, which has become a classical text of twentieth-century theology,

one has a supremely restrictive understanding of true religion, which jars considerably with Barth’s own insistence on the unrestrictedly gracious love of God.

It is not the understanding of religion I am concerned with, but the question of how one can understand revelation. On this question, Barth and Brunner are not merely of no help; they are a positive hindrance. They insist that reason cannot judge revelation, though they themselves judge all revelations and decide that the Christian is alone true. They claim that religion is a work of human arrogance, though they themselves display what seems very like arrogance in claiming to know the only truth, without even studying other claims thoroughly. They claim that the revelation of God

in Jesus must be accepted without rational criticism or doubt, though they refuse to give any reasons for this and reject the revelation of God through Muhammad. They reject many other revelations too, though their arguments would lead just as well to their acceptance. It seems clear that their claim that Divine revelation stands in judgement over all human reason is wholly unacceptable and expresses a notion of revelation which 1s indefensible. 6. The Ambiguity of Revelation What theologians like Barth and Brunner wished to oppose was any

view that revelation is confined to what can be established just as well, or even better, by human reason.?! Such a view would make revelation unnecessary, except as a short-cut to truth accessible in

other ways; and it would mean that nothing could be revealed which came as a surprise to human understanding. That 1s quite different, however, from saying that reason has no part to play in assessing claims to revelation. Reason must play such a part, even if

it is a primarily negative one of ruling out unacceptable claims and laying down minimal conditions for accepting something as a plausible candidate for revelation. It is that role which one must explore, before one can come to an adequate view of the sources °! The sort of view associated with the radical Enlightenment, and found in John Toland, Christianity not Mysterious (1696).

22 Towards a Comparative Theology and limits of the revelation on which a sound theology can be based.

It is possible that there might have been a God who gave one, and only one, clear and unequivocal revelation, which humans may either accept or reject. God could have prevented any confusion in their minds as to what Divine revelation is or as to where it is to be found. God could have provided signs, clear for all to see, to attest

one and only one source of Divine revelation; and could have provided a clear interpreter of that revelation to continue for all time. John Locke, the English philosopher, thought that God had done so. ‘Such care has God taken that no pretended revelation should stand in competition with what is truly divine, that we need

but open our eyes to see and be sure which came from him.’°? Unfortunately those days of innocence are gone. Islam, Bah’ai, Ramakrishna, Moon, and Joseph Smith all contend for the title of the true revelation. We might ignore them; but we cannot say that they are all quite obviously not from God. God could have given a clear and uncontested revelation, but almost the only obvious fact about revelation is that it is not what God has actually done. God does not prevent the most fundamental arguments about what the source of revelation is—is it Moses, Jesus, or Muhammad, to name only three figures in the Semitic tradition? The only signs God provides are as highly disputed as anything in human life is;

they are not clear and unequivocal. Further, there are so many alleged authoritative interpreters of revelation springing forward at every opportunity that we have to accept that God apparently does

not will to prevent confusion and argument even in this most profoundly important matter.

I am not denying that God has revealed the Divine nature and purpose. I am simply saying that God has not, in the working-out of Divine providence, seen fit to do so in as clear and unequivocal way as could have been done. Therefore for any theologian to assert

or pretend that God has done what God has not is to utter a dangerous misunderstanding of what God actually is and wants of us. So we must immediately ask the question: if Divine revelation, as God has actually given it, is not a clear and unequivocal matter,

what is its function? It cannot be to act as a remedy for human on Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity (London: A. and C. Black, 1958), 53.

Towards a Comparative Theology 23 weakness and slowness of wit, giving us clear information where we might otherwise only have had arguments and perplexity. For that

is exactly what we have got, argument and perplexity, when we come to ask where Divine revelation is and what it says! My argument has been that we cannot exempt one alleged reve-

lation, be it Christian or any other, from the general process of human history and development, so as to leave it unquestioned, indubitable, and simply given as a whole. What must be done 1s to locate claims to revelation in human history, so that one may see in what way one might actually discern Divine revelation taking form amidst all the ambiguities and conflicts of human belief and practice. Why, then, should there be a revelation, if it is of this sort? Here

Aquinas seems to me right when he asserts that the purpose of revelation is to establish human beings in a way of life which will lead to the contemplation of that which is supremely real and to eternal bliss.°? All the great world religions would be able to agree

on this; and Aquinas’ insight provides a helpful formulation of what is probably the central concern of revealed religion. From a Christian perspective, God desires human salvation, which consists

in knowledge and love of the Divine, and provides revelation at least to begin to lead us towards it. That is the ultimate goal; but how is it to be achieved? For theologians like Aquinas and Barth (very different from each other though they are in other respects) it

is enough to start with the claim of Scripture to be the definitive revelation of God, and say that God teaches us the goal and the way

to it through Holy Scripture (and, for Aquinas, though not for Barth, the Roman Catholic Church as its interpreter). But honesty compels us to be cognizant of the claims of many competing Scriptures, so we need to address the prior question of deciding whether

a Scripture or an alleged revelation is genuine. And that means starting with as honest a view of the religious traditions of the world as we can obtain, so that we may try to assess how Divine

revelation enters into the multifarious activities of religion. , I have noted that the diversity of religious practices and beliefs is

rationally explicable on natural grounds of a diversity of ideals, interests, histories, and priorities among human communities. An economically precarious nomadic group of warriors, surviving by °3 Cf. n. 10, above.

24 Towards a Comparative Theology guile and force of arms, will probably have ideals of courage and

endurance, an interest in skills of combat and strength, and a history of victories and defeats; priority will be assigned to strength in battle and whatever conduces to it. It would hardly be surprising

if such a society developed a cult of worship of a warrior god of battles, a god of ruthless vengeance but also of that graciousness to

the weak which is characteristic of desert people. On the other hand, a rich and cultured civilization is more likely to have ideals of

artistic skill and sensibility, an interest in skills of creativity and oratory, and a history of cultural invention and discovery; priority will be assigned to artistic excellence and what conduces to it. In such a society, Beauty may well be worshipped, a beauty which is expressed in nature but which also acts as an ideal attracting human

contemplation and imitation of the eternal ideal in the transient forms of time.

Against such natural diversity one must try to see what a reve-

lation which aims at human salvation seems to be. Instead of thinking of God (assuming for the moment that there is one) as breaking into a human framework, ignoring it completely, and giving direct Divine knowledge, it seems more plausible, and more in keeping with the actual history of religions, to think of God as

communicating within the framework that societies have themselves developed. To the English, one might say, using a rather crude analogy, God speaks English; to the Arab God speaks Arabic; and to the Hebrew God speaks Hebrew. Not only does God use the

natural language of a people; God uses their thought-forms, their characteristic modes of expression, and their penumbra of tacit connotations and resonances. If one thinks of revelation as a communication from God to humans, then this communication might be expected to take shape in forms the humans can comprehend. One might therefore expect God to set about revealing the ultimate Divine purpose in terms of the interests and goals of particular societies.

Revelation, then, we might say in a preliminary way, is a Divine communication shaped to the interests and values of a particular society at a particular time. Its ultimate content 1s the existence and nature of a suprasensory good, a final goal of supreme worth. This content is expressed within a culture and history which facilitate a specific form of development. This suggests two important features of Divine revelation, in general. First, not all human interests and

Towards a Comparative Theology 25 values will be equally receptive to the sort of thing God wishes to communicate. Some sets of interests might be peculiarly obstruc-

tive to any Divine communication. For instance, an interest in military conquest and world domination, becoming paramount in a whole society, would make it very difficult for a God of self-giving

love to reveal his nature. Such a revelation would go so much against the whole moral grain of that society that it would be subversive of the culture and could probably flourish only as the culture collapsed. It is arguable that this is precisely what happened as the decaying Roman Empire gave way to Christendom—but to

a Christendom which became flawed by the very imperialism it replaced.

The second feature is closely related to the first, and lies in the fact that Divine communications might not be perfectly received and understood. If they are not simply dictated to purely passive human subjects, they will have to be relayed through human minds which are fallible and often mistaken. In ordinary human communications, one person can often wholly misunderstand what another says. So a natural analogy would be that a Divine communication could be given and received and yet misunderstood,

either by the original recipient or by others who transmit and interpret it later. Bearing these two features in mind, one might think that God will communicate different things to different peoples, and will in all probability be able to communicate more of the ultimate Divine purpose to some people than to others. In all such alleged communications, however, one will always be wary of human misinterpretations of the Divine communication, which may be corrected elsewhere in the tradition or perhaps outside it. 7. The Quest for Certainty What does this do to the alleged certainty of theological knowledge?

It entails that no theological doctrine will be certain in the sense that it commands the universal assent of all informed and intelligent agents. It is not certain in the sense that it is beyond reason-

able doubt. But this is not a sense of certainty that religious believers are really concerned with. They all know that religious doctrines are doubted by extremely rational people. The religiously

important sense of certainty is the sense in which one can unreservedly commit oneself to a way of life which presupposes the

26 Towards a Comparative Theology truth of some religious doctrine, however inadequately that truth may be articulated at a particular time. One can be certain in the sense that, if this goes, one’s whole way of life is undermined. This may be termed a subjective certainty, though it does not follow that it is based on some merely personal whim. On the contrary, it is a commitment which necessarily entails some beliefs about the facts,

on the best arguments and evidence available. But it involves an

epistemic risk, since it is possible one may be mistaken. The certainty which theology has is a certainty of commitment, undertaken in response to what is perceived as a Divine disclosure. It is, to echo a Kierkegaardian phrase,>* a passionate commitment made in objective uncertainty to what is perceived as of supreme value. Aquinas was quite right to give to theology a certainty which is based on Divine revelation. But his Aristotelian rationalism misleads him when he speaks as if this certainty is an objective matter of rational indubitability. As St Paul says, ‘I am sure that neither death nor life. . . will be able to separate us from the love of God in

Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul did not mean that he could prove this to any intelligent person. It is rather that his experience of the love of God in Christ was so strong that he was filled with certainty that nothing could overcome it. It is clearly a statement of faith;

this certainty has the character of a total trust, an unshakeable commitment, a loyalty to a transforming vision of God which he had been granted. Here is an unconditional commitment to an overwhelming experience and the beliefs which are taken to flow from it; one might call it an unconditional responsive commitment to a discernment of absolute value. This is not a matter of dispassionate theoretical certainty, or of purely intellectual assent to the

authority of another. It is a matter of loyalty to a liberating disclosure, aimed at a great good. William James famously attempted to define the conditions under

which one could be justified in commitment to a belief in the absence of sufficient theoretical evidence.°° He suggested that if an 4 §. Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. David F. Swenson and Walter Lowrie (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), 182: ‘An objective uncertainty held fast in an appropriation-process of the most passionate inwardness is the truth.’ >> Rom. 8: 38,39. °© William James, ‘The Will to Believe’ (1896) in T. H. Burkhardt, F. Bowers, and I. Skrupskelis (eds.), Essays in Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978).

Towards a Comparative Theology 27 option for belief is forced, vital, and living, then one is justified in committing oneself to believe. There must be no avoiding a decision; it must make a vital difference to one’s life; and it must present itself as a plausible or realistic option. With some qualification, this is reflected in the account given here. Thus one could say that a ‘living option’ must be not just one that seems, psychologically, to be attractive. It must be a commanding, challenging disclosure of value which actually presents one with a morally significant decision of whether to respond to it positively or not. If such a challenge puts one’s whole way of life in question, asking one to give up ambition for the sake of a greater good, for example,

then it is certainly a ‘vital option’. And if one cannot avoid the choice to respond or not—if pretending to agnosticism is, in such a

case, a form of refusal to respond—then it would be a ‘forced option’. What I think is needed to tighten James’s account, at least in the case of religious belief, is a stress on the moral or evaluative

nature of the demand which is encountered. This removes any suggestion of arbitrariness about the choice or about the alternatives between which the choice is made. It also mitigates any feeling that such beliefs are purely personal options for living well, which some might think is an implication of James’s general prag-

matist view. For the moral challenge comes, as it were, from outside oneself. In one sense it leaves no choice. The element of evaluative constraint is an important one in most traditions, and certainly in Christian tradition. Encountering a supreme demand which questions one’s whole way of life and calls for a commitment to values of whose realization there is no theoretical certainty is a possibility which the Christian tradition carries within itself, at its very heart. The idea of faith as a commitment made in objective uncertainty is also enshrined in Blaise Pascal’s comparison of religious faith to a

wager.°’ One is invited to bet on the possibility of eternal life by going to church, taking holy water, and so on; or to bet that there is no eternal life and so opt for enjoying oneself in this earthly life by not going to church. He claims that going to church 1s not really so bad, and even offers certain earthly rewards (in terms of moral encouragement and companionship), while a hedonistic life is not °7 Blaise Pascal, Pensées, trans. and ed. M. Jarrett-Kerr (London: SCM Press, 1959), 62-7.

28 Towards a Comparative Theology really very satisfying. Eternal life, however, is of infinite value; while the alternatives are either of no value at all Gif there is no afterlife) or of infinite disvalue (if there is a hell). In this situation,

he argues, any reasonable person will be religious on the merest chance of eternal life; so faith is supremely rational, even though objectively uncertain. There are a number of uncomfortable features of this fascinating argument, as Pascal presents it. Perhaps ‘going to church in order

to win the lottery of eternal life’ is not a good qualification for eternal life, after all. It could be seen as hypocritical long-term egoism; and it is surely better to be an honest agnostic than a fearful and egotistical believer. Moreover, if one thinks of all the alternative religious hypotheses there are, one may have to join church, synagogue, mosque, and temple all at the same time, in order to maximize one’s chances!?® So Pascal’s wager will not do. Yet there is something important in it. One ought to take seriously

claims that there is an infinitely worthwhile goal of human existence, especially if there are those who claim to have achieved it or have at least moved a good way towards it. And it is rational to devote one’s life to aiming at such a goal in the absence of overwhelming evidence that it exists. The greatness of the goal and the morally good consequences of devoting oneself to it are sufficient to undermine any demand for theoretical certainty or even very high probability of its existence.

Pascal’s wager may seem too prudential, when formulated as betting on a way of life which might lead to infinite happiness. Yet it is transformed when one thinks, not only of infinite happiness for

oneself, but of the realization of a supreme good for many. It 1s worth hazarding all that this life can offer—little enough, if truth be told—on the chance of the realization of supreme goodness, not for oneself but for many. Naturally, one must have some rational hope that the realization of such goodness is possible. However, even a small chance of such a great good 1s worth a risk that, even if it fails, brings some measure of fulfilment to many. The religious

believer founds such a hope on a disclosure of goodness which has already to some extent transformed lives for good. That disclosure is enshrined in a set of practices which support a disciplined °8 Cf. the discussion by R. G. Swinburne: ‘The Christian Wager’, in Religious Studies, 4 (1969), 217-28.

Towards a Comparative Theology 29 process of self-transformation leading towards the realization of goodness.

This is not a matter of having theoretically evident premisses, which might be known in quite a dispassionate way. It is rather a matter of making fundamental commitments to a practical way of life. This way of life expresses certain basic interests or values; and in the case of a religion like Christianity it primarily expresses, as

Aquinas saw, a desire for the knowledge and realization of an ultimate good. This form of life is aimed at salvation, at the realization of a supreme value for human life. It is the practice which is primary; it involves a resolution to seek release or liberation

from the constraints of everyday human existence; a trusting response to discernments of a way to realize value which are enshrined in a particular communal tradition and its characteristic language; and a commitment, through discipline and obedience, to hope for a self-transforming fulfilment of human life in relation to the discerned value. The fundamental premisses are not theoretical, concerned with factual information and dispassionate. They are practical, axiological—being concerned with the search for and realization of fundamental values—and essentially involve com-

mitment and trust. They are thus essentially tied to particular communities, with their own norms, practices, and focal objects of trust. One does not have an intellectual acceptance of universal and rationally compelling premisses. One has communal commitments to disclosures of supreme value.

When theoretical conclusions are drawn from such practical commitments, they are drawn by a difficult process of making explicit what is normally presupposed to a practice. This is a matter

of imaginative insight and articulation rather than of linear deduction. While propositional beliefs are essentially implied in religious practice, they usually have a provisional character, a diffuseness of content and an openness of texture, which allows and

invites new possibilities of interpretation and of unpredictable interaction with other concepts. Theology cannot easily be regarded as the deduction of precise and definitive conclusions from a set of

certain and literal propositions. Religious certainty is a practical commitment evoked by particular disclosures of value, aimed at salvation, the supreme human good. The propositions of theology are concerned to articulate and express, always provisionally and indirectly, such disclosures and forms of commitment, rather than

30 Towards a Comparative Theology to define a set of truths which are directly and precisely descriptive of suprasensory reality. If theology is based on disclosure rather than on doctrine, that may give it a more imaginative and exploratory nature than the Thomist account suggests. But it will not relinquish its claim to express important truths about the nature of reality and the ultimate goal of human endeavour. One can rationally take propositions as certain which underlie a

whole framework of beliefs about the world, even though one knows others do not accept them. They express or flow from fundamental commitments, and one can rationally make such a commitment to a Divine revelation. But a revelation which can call

forth such a passionate commitment must be more than a set of theoretical truths proposed for our assent. It must enshrine a disclosure of a value which can override all selfish desires and all competing values. If so, the content of revelation will primarily be the disclosure of a supreme objective value—that is, a state which is worth while for its own sake, whose worthwhile-ness does not depend solely upon some human judgement about it, and which, taken as a whole, is of more value than any other conceivable state. Revelation will set before humans a spiritual goal which is perceived

in close relation to this supreme value, and it will claim to show thereby the way to true human fulfilment. The proper content of revelation is the nature of an object of supreme value, of a final goal for human life, and of the way to achieve this goal.

This account will hold of any religious tradition, though such terms as “Divine disclosure’ and ‘demand’ will be replaced by cognate terms in, for example, Buddhism. There, too, however, one can properly speak of a disclosure of supreme value (the value of compassion and wisdom); of a notion of salvation (nirvana); and of the authoritative call of a teacher, the Enlightened One in whom the believer takes refuge. Thus, in a well-known parable from the Lotus Sutra,’? the world is compared to a burning house. All must be delivered from affection, hatred, and delusion. The Buddha can deliver all from danger, and will use the most appropriate teaching to do so. In the end, however, the supreme value is ‘inconceivable bliss’. That is what the Buddha teaches; but it 1s primarily a matter of liberation from critical danger, not of theoretical analysis. °? Lotus Sutra, 3, trans. L. Hurvitz, as Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976).

Towards a Comparative Theology 31 8. Theological Reasoning

If this is the fundamental nature of revelation, then though there will be truths about what is of supreme value and how one can attain it, they may not be simply equatable with a set of infallibly true propositions enshrined in a canonical Scripture. Theology will not be a science which draws deductive conclusions from the rationally evident propositions of such a Scripture. Yet it may be a science, in the sense of being a systematic articulation of beliefs whose ultimate foundation lies in disclosures of a supreme value,

goal, and way of life within a specific cultural/conceptual community, disclosures which have occurred at a specific point in history. The discipline of theology can be properly exercised in a number of religious traditions, not only the Christian. In no case will it be a primarily deductive enterprise. It will be explicative, imaginative, and dialectical—it will constantly stand in need of new

formulations which can explicate its basic commitments, and of internal critical enquiry which can penetrate more deeply into the values which are expressed in its basic practices. It will attempt, in many differing ways suggested by differing situations, to spell out what is involved in the primal disclosure, seen in an ever-expanding

world-historical context. It will provide reasons for faith, in becoming aware of and responding to alternatives and criticisms; in articulating basic beliefs and recontextualizing them in relation to developing knowledge. Without wishing to impose any neat formula on what 1s to count

as theological method, one might pick out three important intellectual processes which are involved in the theological task. One is the practice of dialectic; or, more simply, of conversation. Such a conversation is both synchronic, being conducted with many diverse

viewpoints existing at the present time; and diachronic, being conducted with the many voices and perspectives from one’s own past history. Since the theologian is concerned to discern the meaning and value of all experienced reality, it is important to be aware of the many facets which reality seems to present to diverse

experients. Religion can sometimes act as a blinker, restricting one’s vision of truth by confining attention to a very selective structuring of experience. It is important to remember that religion

is concerned with the truth of the whole, and that no form of experience is beyond its purview, even though obviously some

32 Towards a Comparative Theology interpretations of experience will have to be regarded as grossly inadequate. The conversation in which the theologian must engage is a conversation with the many differing perspectives and forms of

thought which characterize human life. Since this conversation continues as the participants adjust their own views by reaction to the other, theological views will always stand in need of restatement.

The thought-forms of the fifth or thirteenth centuries cannot be adequate to twentieth-century thought. Thus again it becomes clear

that all theological thought is provisional. It is nevertheless also important to be clear that it aims at truth and greater understanding. It is not a form of relativistic change which merely goes on changing without increasing in understanding.

The implication of such a view is that the earliest theological statements, in patristic authors for example, cannot remain conceptually definitive for the future even of Christian theology. For some people this seems worrying, for it suggests that theology may change out of all recognition; and in that case, what happens to the one unchanging truth committed to the apostles by Christ? However, as Gadamer has pointed out, our conversation with the past is not simply a repetition of it. Such repetition 1s extremely difficult,

because our concepts and viewpoints have probably changed so much over time. In a different context, to repeat the same words can give them a wholly different meaning from the one they originally had. Gadamer felt that even the most traditionalist conversation with the past is in fact a continuing search for a fusion of diverse perspectives, our own and that which comes to us from what is, if truth be told, a largely unknown culture.©’ Our knowledge of the world is vastly different from that of the apostles, and this must make a difference to how one sees religious faith. To take the Christian faith as an example, there are certain truths which are not going to be changed by a dialogue of perspectives.

That Jesus lived in Judaea, that he proclaimed the Kingdom, forgave and healed, was crucified and appeared in glory to the apostles—these things are unchangeably true, if they are ever true. They belong to a past which is fixed and unchangeable. It is also

unrevisably true that the Christian Church arose as a group of communities which found themselves empowered by the Spirit of one creator God, enlivened by the risen Lord, bound together in 6° Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Seabury Press, 1975).

Towards a Comparative Theology 33 the worship of Jesus as the Christ and filled with the hope of eternal life through Christ. An emphasis on dialectic does not render all truths relative. What it does is continually to extend the

process of reflection by which one comes to appropriate these truths as determining one’s present total perspective on reality. How exactly is one to think of God and creation? What is the relation of Christ and the Spirit to God? How its one to think of the

reconciliation with God which is brought about by Christ? How may one think of eternal life? These questions are not resolved by the New Testament witness to Christ, which is in fact remarkable precisely for its lack of doctrinal specificity. The process of reflective

exploration is a task committed to the Church to work out in dialogue with the whole range of human reflections on the mystery of existence. Without such a dialogue, the basis for reflection on the mystery of Christ is more limited and restricted than it should

be; for believers regard Christ as the clue to the mystery of all human existence. And if that is so, is 1t not possible that Christians

shall only truly understand Christ when they can see him in the context of that totality? A similar process will take place in other traditions, as they articulate their own primary beliefs. The theological task cannot, of course, consist only in interaction with diverging or opposing views. A second element in theological thinking is the element of patterning of the data of faith themselves. If one has a model of theological truth as a deductive explication from a specific set of basic doctrines, such patterning will not be necessary. But if one thinks instead of a living tradition carrying a web of symbols, images, and contrasting perspectives rooted in one

Or more primal disclosures, there remains much room for a redrawing of connections and an adjustment of hierarchies of importance within the system. Thus for one age it may seem that a stress on sin and the importance of redemption is of primary importance;

while for another a stress on hope for the future and progressive

sanctification may assume a dominant role. In the history of Christianity there have been many paradigm shifts of this sort. Hans Kung briefly traces changes from an early apocalyptic paradigm to a Hellenistic paradigm, and thence to medieval Catholicism, Reformation scholasticism, and the liberal Christianity of Harnack and Ritschl.°! This is only a schematic presentation of a much more °! Hans Kung, Global Responsibility (London: SCM Press, 1991), 123.

34 Towards a Comparative Theology complex and diverse picture. But it makes the point that the system of Christian doctrine (and it is the same in other religious traditions) is not linear but rather contains many oblique ways of approach to

what remains essentially a mystery to be contemplated and participated in. Thus there will always be scope for a re-presentation of faith which expresses the characteristic concerns and interests of one’s own culture. Thirdly, there is an essential element of contextualization, as new

knowledge from other areas—in the sciences, in philosophy, or in social and political relationships—changes the relationship of religion to those areas. After the rise of the natural sciences, of historical method, and of the new stress on human responsibility and autonomy which characterized the European Enlightenment, one must think of the place of Christ in a universe vastly expanded in size and vastly different in character from that envisaged by the biblical writers. Since the European Enlightenment itself becomes subject to criticism on grounds of unfounded optimism about human rationality and progress, this process of contextualization also needs

to be continually renewed. .

9. Theology as Reflection on Mystery

In all these ways theology is an intensely imaginative discipline, requiring a continual reappropriation of the past which is most true to tradition precisely when it is most prepared to rethink its own basis. This patterning, contextualizing, and dialectical mode of procedure is more akin to that familiar in historical and literary studies than that in the natural or experimental sciences. In this sense, as Andrew Louth remarks, “Theology has more in common with the humanities than it has with the sciences.’ It is more like the contemplation of a mystery initially given to the religious community at a particular point of space and time but still a living and developing reality, than it is like the exposition of a settled and completed set of ‘correct’ beliefs.

With regard to Christianity, it might be said that the central temptation of Christian faith is the reduction of the mystery of Christ to a set of propositional beliefs; so that faith becomes more a matter of the defence of ancient formulas than a matter of growth into the mystery of the Divine Being. Louth effectively argues that, ©? Andrew Louth, Discerning the Mystery (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 65.

Towards a Comparative Theology 35 for the patristic tradition itself, ‘All knowledge of God in Christ is

either the tacit knowledge of tradition or rooted in such tacit knowledge.’°? In the thought of the Fathers, he says, ‘The tacit is interpreted as silence, the silence of presence.’ One needs to turn from an over-intellectual view of faith as assent to clear and precise propositions to a view of faith as participation in the Divine mystery,

made available and present in Christ and through the Spirit. Of course there are propositional truths which present and preserve the mystery; but it is important that they define the aporeia of faith rather than attempt to encapsulate it in clear and precise definitions. The tradition with which Christian theology is concerned is ‘not belief, intellectual assent, but fellowship’.°* That does not mean that there are no beliefs in Christian faith at all—that would be an

absurd idea. It does mean, however, that to interpret what the Church offers so narrowly as only to be teaching would be to miss the vital element of ‘culture’. This is a culture ‘in which the soul

prepares itself for knowledge of, union with God’.® So one is thinking not of a message, but of a practice. As Louth puts it, ‘Christianity 1s not a body of doctrine... but a way of life... the tacit dimension of the life of the Christian . . . part of the church’s reflection on the mystery of her life with God.’°° When the theologian

attempts to articulate conceptually some elements of this mystery, it should be done tentatively, provisionally, and only as a probing of the Divine hidden-ness with the bluntest and crudest of intelligences. Similar, but of course not identical, things can be said of other religious traditions. If, holding such a view of theology as this, one speaks of providing reasons for the acceptance of a particular revelation, there can be no question of attempting a neutral grading of all religions against absolute agreed criteria. But there can be a rational articulation of one developing tradition of disclosure and spiritual endeavour which is able to place it in an overall historical context. Such an articulation will seek to bring out the ways in which the tradition offers particular disclosures of value and purpose which

are seen aS important to a comprehensive perception of human existence. It will always seek to be careful to preserve the core of mystery and the dimension of the tacit which is essential to

Ibid. 45. © Ibid. 75. © Ibid. 82. 6° Ibid. 86.

36 Towards a Comparative Theology concepts of ultimate values and goals. Theology will be, not the derivation of propositional conclusions from inerrant statements of Scripture; but an exploratory reflection upon the practices of a historical community of worship, in its widest possible historical context. These practices are directed to articulating the disclosures of a supreme value for and goal of human life which have arisen

in this tradition. On such a view, there may not be infallible truths directly dictated by God. But one may still speak, however

guardedly, of a revelation of the supreme reality and goal of human existence to a particular, historically developing, human community.

One may thus see theology as the rational articulation of the beliefs which are either contained in or implied by a Divine revelation. In this respect Aquinas and Barth are right. Yet the ground that has been traversed has not left things as they were. Fundamental

queries have emerged about the nature and source of revelation. Reasons have appeared, for example, to think that there may be different forms of revelation in differing societies; and to think that human misinterpretations may be involved in revelatory claims. It is not enough to accept the canon of Scripture just as it stands as the starting-point of theology. For we will not know just what 1s authoritatively contained in Divine revelation until we have first decided what the character and authority of that revelation is. The

theologian must therefore go behind Scripture to its sources in history and culture, and must attempt to see these sources in the wider context of a more general history of religious traditions. Only

then can one say what sort of authority properly belongs to the assertions of theology and what its sources and limits are.

C. THEOLOGY AS A COMPARATIVE DISCIPLINE 10. Confessional and Comparative Theology

The proposal that the theologian should begin by studying the religious phenomena of the world before moving on to say what the characteristics of revelation are and what sort of certainty 1s obtainable in religion may seem to be both impossible and undesirable. It

seems impossible, for it takes a lifetime to understand even one religious tradition properly. How can one begin by trying to study the huge number of religious traditions that exist throughout the

Towards a Comparative Theology 37 world? Would one ever finish this preamble to faith? And if one did, would it not be bound to remain superficial? I understand this objection, and have no wish to turn the systematic theologian into an amateur collector of religious curiosities.

Nevertheless, I think the time has come when it is positively misleading to consider religious traditions in isolation. Theologians

have in fact always taken their interpretative clues from philosophical or cultural factors not confined to Christianity. Aquinas,

for example, took Aristotelian philosophy, well seasoned with Platonism, and used it to rethink Christian doctrine in the thirteenth

century. For a short time, his works were even banned from the University of Paris as dangerously subversive; but it was not long before they became definitive for the Roman Catholic Church. Does it make sense to treat the content of a religion as a selfcontained corpus, as though it at least was immune from external influence, and as though light could not be thrown upon it by a consideration of claims made by other faiths?

One cannot understand the person of Jesus unless one knows something about the Judaism of his time. That in turn requires some knowledge of earlier Judaism; and then one needs to know about Canaanite religion and other Middle Eastern cults. So one is already involved in the study of religious traditions in general. Such a study is essential if one is to set the development of Judaism and Christianity in its historical context. It is reasonable to think that a wider study of other traditions will also throw light on the way in which Christian faith has developed as a vehicle of Divine revelation.

I am inclined to say that one cannot properly understand the mode of Divine revelation within Christianity unless one can set it in the context of human religious activity in general, for only in its widest context can one discern the true meaning of such revelation. It may be that this 1s too difficult a task to be performed properly by one person. Yet we now have much greater access to a mass of scholarly work on various religions, and it would be myopic simply

to ignore it. One must, therefore, use such scholarly results in trying to obtain a general view of the nature of religion, within which one can set one’s own understanding. Scholars must continue to work on painstaking details. But the systematic theologian must make some attempt to understand the broad sweep of religious life,

before being ready to make an informed judgement about the sources and methods of Christian theology. Christian revelation is

38 Towards a Comparative Theology not a self-contained whole, uninfluenced by other contexts and perspectives. Further, the wider one’s perspective, the more reliable one’s religious judgements might be.

Even if starting from as general a view as possible of claims to religious revelation is possible, is 1t desirable? It may be seen as an attempt to study religion neutrally, as if from some superior stand-

point; whereas, it may be said, theology must be rooted in a particular faith. The view I have so far outlined moves away from seeing theology as an exclusively Christian discipline, founded on

an inerrant and exclusive scriptural revelation. But it still sees theology as a confessional discipline, existing in diverse traditions

and seeking to articulate their tacit culture of faith from within those traditions. I have noted that this already requires attention to and conversation with other traditions. Perhaps a bolder move can be made, to disconnect the practice of theology, at least in part,

from a necessary internal relation to a particular tradition. This view 1s strongly opposed by Aidan Nichols. “Theology,’ he says, ‘presupposes the truth of the Christian faith.’°’ ‘To be a theologian, one must share the common fides quae, the faith of the people of God.’® Its source is Divinely given faith in the revelation of God,

and supposes, at least for him, that the Catholic revelation is authentic. For such a view, theology is essentially a confessional discipline, a working-out of the faith of a particular community, of which the theologian is the servant. Of course, the Roman Catholic Church

has the right to appoint a certain class of people to do this. The implication is, however, that other Christian Churches should have their own theologians, all exploring the faiths of their own com-

munities. Even Louth, with whose account I am generally in sympathy, concludes by saying that ‘theology is the apprehension

of the believing mind combined with a right state of the heart’. Theology becomes very much an activity from within the believing

community. One cannot be a theologian who happens to be a Roman Catholic, or a Presbyterian, or nothing at all; one must be a Catholic theologian or a Presbyterian theologian, appointed by the Church to explore its own understanding of revelation. One finds ®” Aidan Nichols, The Shape of Catholic Theology (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1991), 32. 68 Ibid. 16. ©? Louth, Discerning the Mystery, 147.

Towards a Comparative Theology 39 what almost amounts to a reductio ad absurdum of this view in Schleiermacher, who holds that ‘Dogmatic theology 1s the science which systematizes the doctrine prevalent in a Christian Church at a given time.’’’ Not only are theologians confined to one Christian

sect; they are confined to a particular time and cultural group. It seems that on such a view there would be as many theology faculties as there are religious buildings and societies. This seems to me an unduly restrictive understanding of theology. There is a proper intellectual study which tries to explore religious

beliefs and practices, enquiring as to their truth and rationality, which is not as such committed to the views of one faith-community.

Nichols offers a working definition of theology as ‘the disciplined exploration of what is contained in revelation’.’’ But revelation is here taken as a given, as something settled, definitive, and complete. Moreover, as a Roman Catholic, he takes revelation to be authoritatively interpreted by the magister1um of that Church, so

that certain questions can be closed to critical enquiry by the magisterium. A Roman Catholic cannot query the Chalcedonian

definition of the incarnation or the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, though a theologian might explore their meaning further. Nichols does not, however, accept the view that the theologian only comments on the pronouncements of bishops and popes. New

questions can be raised and explored, so that the theologian can even make it possible for the magisterium to see what the sources of revelation contain,’* on many matters which have not been defined or which may not interest the present group of bishops. But if, as he says, theology is something wider than a commentary on what popes and bishops have said, may one not suspect that it is something wider than a commentary on what some settled revelation contains? What is this wider thing? It is the whole range of Divine manifestations in the world, the whole phenomenon of religion in human

life, in its many varied forms, the whole array of human speculations about and alleged experiences of the Divine. If theology is indeed an intellectual enquiry into God, it cannot be confined to 7° F. E. D. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1989), para. 19. ” Nichols, Catholic Theology, 32.

” Tbid. 30.

40 Towards a Comparative Theology reflection on just one tradition of revelation, regarded from the first as being complete and final. For that understanding of revelation 1s itself one of the matters set before one for critical reflection. When the theologian considers the question of what revelation is, this is

not a mere preamble to faith, setting out a defence of what has already been decided in advance (that this revelation, and this understanding of it, is the best and truest there can ever be). It 1s a

part of religious enquiry itself, which must affect in the most fundamental way everything that follows.

One can therefore distinguish two types of theology. One 1s confessional theology; the exploration of a given revelation by one who wholly accepts that revelation and lives by it. The other may

be termed ‘comparative theology’—theology not as a form of apologetics for a particular faith but as an intellectual discipline which enquires into ideas of the ultimate value and goal of human

life, as they have been perceived and expressed in a variety of religious traditions. It is therefore naturally, though not exclusively, concerned with the concept of ‘God’ as it arises within many such traditions. Comparative theology differs from what is often called ‘religious studies’, in being primarily concerned with the meaning,

truth, and rationality of religious beliefs, rather than with the psychological, sociological, or historical elements of religious life and institutions. There are those who hold that the only true theology is confessional. Aidan Nichols says that any study of religion which is not rooted in Catholic faith is bound to be ‘epistemologically defec-

tive’.’? John Macquarrie, an Anglican, begins his principles of Christian Theology by saying, ‘Theology may be defined as the study

which, through participation in and reflection upon a religious faith, seeks to express the content of this faith.’’* This entails that

theologians must be participants in a religious community and should aim to express the faith of their own community. But at this point one may begin to perceive a danger that the theologian will become merely a propagandist on behalf of one religious organ-

ization, bound to defend its views in public whatever his or her own personal opinions may be, bound to submit to the authority of

that community even if critical enquiry begins to question its assertions. > Nichols, 15. ”* John Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology (London: SCM Press, 1966),

I.

Towards a Comparative Theology AI Many great theologians have taken exactly this view. Calvin certainly thought that Protestant Christians should submit unreservedly to Scripture, and Karl Barth has held that any attempt to subject the Word of God to human judgement is a form of sinful pride. One immediate problem is that Roman Catholic theologians would have to submit to a different authority—for Scripture must be interpreted by a magistertum which disagrees with Calvin at many points. Each theologian will have a set of protected propositions— different in detail in different confessions—which are exempt from questioning. So how does one decide which set of propositions is to be so exempt? Presumably by seeing that this is the set authoritatively defined by a specific community. But that pushes the question

a stage farther back: why should one accept this community’s authority? And to what extent should one accept it? If this is not merely to be decided by something like an accident of birth, it seems that there must be a proper reflective discipline which inves-

tigates precisely the doctrine of proper religious authority, its sources and limits. The traditional discipline of natural theology belongs here, as the

attempt to show that there is a God and that God has been truly revealed in a specific tradition. The project of traditional natural theology is to demonstrate by appeal to reason alone that God exists

and then to show that the evidence of miracles and fulfilled prophecies demonstrates that the Church has been founded by Christ as God’s authorized teacher of dogmatic truths. Once the Church has been shown to be the properly authorized teacher, in this way, it only remains for the theologian to articulate the truths authorita-

tively taught by that institution. Even on this model, if natural theology is a proper subject, then the definition of theology per se as the disciplined exploration of what 1s contained in revelation is too restricted. Theology must also explore what revelation is and what the criteria are for accepting one revelation. Theology cannot simply presuppose the truth of a particular faith, for it must investigate the grounds for supposing that faith is true. But for traditional natural theology, this could be accomplished successfully by reason alone.

There are very few competent theologians who would now be able to accept this model. Philosophers and historians are now much more critical and sceptical than they used to be. Philosophers would have to agree that purely rational arguments will leave many people far from convinced of the existence of God. Historians would accept that the evidence for the sort of miracles recorded in

42 Towards a Comparative Theology the Bible is too poor to be acceptable for establishing any particular

belief beyond reasonable doubt. And theologians would doubt whether the New Testament documents license one 1n supposing that Jesus actually founded anything like any present Church at all. The point is not that these traditional beliefs are false; on the contrary, they may all be true. The point is that none of them can be accepted on purely rational grounds of argument and evidence. So the traditional model of natural theology can no longer serve as the foundation for the acceptance of a particular ecclesiastical authority. One now seems to be impaled on the horns of a dilemma. On the

one hand, one cannot presuppose the truth of a specific alleged revelation, since its claims must be investigated; and where competing claims are made, some judgement must be made between them. On the other hand, there is no neutral vantage-point, without any beliefs at all, from which a dispassionate judgement might be

made on this subject. So it might be more honest, after all, to accept that one just stands within a given tradition and admit that all one’s judgements will be made from that standpoint; a rational investigation of such basic claims is impossible. If the confessional theologian can be seen as a prejudiced propagandist for one view among many, the comparative theologian can be seen as a selfdeceiving claimant to perfectly neutral rationality, who is bound to be divorced from any specific religious commitment. Neither position is acceptable; but is there any alternative? 11. Criticism and Commitment

It is clear that we do not start with a tabula rasa and choose all our beliefs with impartial rationality. We learn our basic interpretative concepts from others and as we begin to reflect we do so from a specific cultural and historical position. It would be quite false, however, to say that because of this one can find no universal and certain truths at all. That chairs and tables exist, that the world has existed for many years before we were born, that we were born and will die—these things are unequivocally true. Many truths of this sort are very hard to discover or be sure about; and that includes

truths about the existence, acts, and words of Jesus or Buddha. There are many truths of which we will remain in various degrees

uncertain. Other truths are such that they involve large-scale matters of interpretation which are unlikely to be resolved by any process of empirical investigation. These would include matters

Towards a Comparative Theology 43 like the existence of God, or life after death, or of the law of karma.

It is likely that we will have initial beliefs about these matters, which we receive in the first place from our culture. Whether it can be said that this makes us members of ‘a tradition’

is not clear. Beliefs may be picked up in many ways from many different sources; and the set of beliefs we have may neither be coherent nor match with any one set of beliefs which is identifiable with a specific social institution. People speak rather loosely about a

‘spirit of the age’, or about our ‘cultural inheritance’; but such things are very difficult to specify and probably consist of a large collection of beliefs from different sources which we have formed as

a result of many different social interactions. Only a few people consciously align themselves with political, religious, or social interest groups, whose aims may be explicitly stated or whose attitudes are pretty clear in practice. Thus if I am a Jew living in Britain in the twentieth century, I may (or may not) feel some need to support the state of Israel; I may (or may not) attend synagogue; and my ‘Jewishness’ may be defined more by what other people ascribe to me than by what I am myself inclined to believe. In fact, it is not uncommon for a tradition to be defined by those who wish to identify something they are opposed to rather than by those who

wish to belong to an identifiable group. To be Jewish may be to conform to an image other people have of me rather than being anything like an explicit choice. Much the same sort of thing could be said of large numbers of Catholic and Protestant Christians, and of members of most religious traditions. It is not at all clear, then, that the beliefs of a given person will conform to a set of beliefs taken to characterize a particular institution, even if—by birth or by some ceremony undergone in youth—

one is taken to be a member of that institution. Typically, some people will find security in identifying with a social institution and being loyal to its declared aims and beliefs. Others, however, may

well find many of the declared beliefs to be badly evidenced or results of intellectual lethargy, even though membership of the institution offers sufficient benefits to make it attractive. So it is a distortion to think that everyone belongs to some tradition, if this is thought to involve sincere and complete adherence to some declared

set of beliefs in a particular institution. Especially in the case of religious institutions, the reality of social membership is so complex

and the reasons for membership so diverse that it would be quite

44 Towards a Comparative Theology false to think it was a matter of intellectual assent to all the declarations of the institution. Seen against this background, the confessional theologian might be seen as a sort of systematizer who tries to establish or defend an

official set of beliefs which includes elements which are widely disregarded by many members of the institution. Such a person will conscientiously have come to accept that the institution has a formal teaching authority which can be rationally defended. But many other options are possible. If a given institution cannot be established as authoritative by some universally convincing rational

argument, then those who reflect on the nature of revelation may conscientiously dispute its authority; or they may feel able to be members of the institution, while disputing many elements of its self-interpretation. One may feel, for example, that a Christian Church truly mediates the mystery of Christ and sustains faith and

hope in God, while it is yet mistaken in some of the claims it makes, including some of the claims it makes authoritatively about

itself. I take it that all non-Roman Catholics, as well as many Roman Catholics, believe this to be true of the Roman Church. There is, after all, no entailment between a Church being a true mediator of the Divine Life and its being correct in all its official beliefs. To get to that position one needs a strong argument that one cannot be a true mediator without being correct in all one’s official beliefs; and it is hard to see any such argument succeeding, since the Gospels themselves contain errors, however unimportant, while mediating the Divine Life pre-eminently.

If Churches can err, it may be important for theologians to be free to challenge the official statements of those Churches, while yet remaining members of those Churches as long as conscience allows.

On the other hand, the most piercing criticisms of a Church may come from those who are not its members; and such people may even articulate the logically basic beliefs of such a Church more clearly than members of it who are unable to discern their own hidden presuppositions.’ I therefore see no reason why theologians should necessarily be participants in a religious community; and | see good reason why theologians who are such participants should ” Alisdair MacIntyre has argued that some cultures may be better understood, in a certain sense, by others than by themselves: ‘Rationality and the Explanation of Action’, in Against the Self-Images of the Age (London: Duckworth, 1971), 244-59.

Towards a Comparative Theology 45 not be taken to be official spokespersons for that community. Their office may often be that of critic rather than of advocate, and it is in that function that they may best serve a Church in the long run. One may properly be described as concerned with questions of the meaning and justification of the concepts of God and revelation, even though one concludes, whether gladly or regretfully, that no justification can be found. Scholars of any religious persuasion or none may engage in questions of comparative theology, the analysis of the concepts of God and of revelation. I doubt, despite what Fr. Nicholls says, if their adherence to a particular faith or their devo-

tion to prayer will give them greater epistemological adequacy; though naturally believers will tend to follow theologians of their own persuasion wherever possible. 12. Pluralism in Theology

I am not suggesting that theologians should have no personal beliefs; that is scarcely possible. I am suggesting that theology 1s a pluralistic discipline. In it, people of differing beliefs can co-operate, discuss, argue, and converse. Even within one Church, discussion and argument is an obvious feature of a lively religious practice. Understanding grows by debate, by hearing others and by hearing

how others hear one’s own views; by opposition as well as by consensus. Different religious groups will have different ways of seeing their own authority in such matters. But one cannot fail to note how in the last 150 years those theologians who have said things quite unpalatable to Church authorities have made lasting advances in theological understanding. One can think of Strauss, of

Schweitzer, of Kung; and there are many others. There 1s a real intellectual danger in seeking to prevent radical theological thinking and enforce assent to received opinion. While religious groups are entitled to employ their own apologists, truth is best served by the advocacy of free intellectual enquiry. So it is important even for such

groups that they should be in active conversation with apologists of other groups. Unless one characterizes others as irredeemably sinful, ignorant or stupid, there may always be something to learn from them. Unless one is sure that one’s own view 1s irrevisably correct, there is always a possibility of error or at least of restricted vision. There is a danger in unrestrictedly free thinking; but it is a lesser and preferable danger to that of compulsory intellectual conformity.

46 Towards a Comparative Theology To try to avoid misunderstanding here, I am not saying it 1s a bad thing for believers to do theology; on the contrary, all theologians

believe something. Nor am I saying that it is not intellectually respectable to advocate the beliefs of one’s own group; on the contrary, it is better to do that openly than to pretend that one 1s wholly neutral in matters of belief. I am suggesting that it is wrong to limit theology proper to one’s own group and make it simply an exploration of what is officially believed by that group or even of

what is contained in the Scripture and tradition of that group. I would go further and suggest that to advocate a “Catholic theology’ or an ‘Anglican theology’ or even a ‘Christian theology’ is unduly

restrictive. For it suggests that there is a specific intellectual discipline which can only be undertaken by Catholics or Anglicans or Christians. It seems preferable to say that theology is the discipline of reflection upon ideas of the ultimate reality and goal of human life, of God, and of revelation. It can be undertaken by people of many diverse beliefs. It is better undertaken in knowledge of and in conversation with those of beliefs other than one’s own. In it one may well find oneself defending a particular view of God and of revelation, which may involve one in obedience to the authority of some religious group, but one can pursue the discipline without advocating the views of such a group. One may even wish to ally oneself with a group while actively disputing some of its beliefs, even those which some members of the group hold to be essential. I am not arguing that everyone should be like that; only that people who do this are full and proper theologians. And in fact most of the creative theologians in Europe since the seventeenth century have been in such a partly revisionist position within their own faiths. There is revisionist theology as well as confessional theology, and if the strength of the latter lies in its loyalty to a body of doctrine believed to give true insight into the nature of God, the

strength of the former is its refusal to bow to the pressures of conformity and authority as an answer to real intellectual problems.

To put a view at the opposite pole from that which I have called confessional theology, we can turn to none better than Schleiermacher, who says, Belief... usually so called, which is to accept what another has said or done, or to wish to think and feel as another has thought and felt, is a hard and base service... it must be rejected by all who would force their way

Towards a Comparative Theology A7 into the sanctuary of religion. To wish to have and hold a faith that is an echo, proves that a man is incapable of religion.’°

Schleiermacher’s protest is against accepting a belief simply because another believes it; and in that protest one can hear the voice of the Enlightenment crying out for autonomy, for personal

choice and freedom of individual belief against the authorities, religious and political, which had restricted free scientific and historical enquiry. Such a protest will hardly be effective against a considered and free submission to some authority that is taken to be in the best position to know certain things. But deep underlying questions are raised here about the proper extent of authority and

autonomy in belief, and about the nature of belief itself. Is it primarily a matter of assent to a set of doctrines, or commitment to a range of images and symbols or to a way of life? These themes precisely belong to comparative theology. The picture I am presenting is not one of some tradition-neutral

investigator, free from all prejudice, able to judge with supreme rationality between an array of differing beliefs, a rationalist theo-

logian of straw indeed. If I have any picture in mind, it 1s of someone whose mind has been formed by overlapping traditions of thought which are themselves in a state of rather confusing change. That person is aware of other traditions which the modern world has made present and living options for belief, and of the way in which changes in scientific and moral understanding have placed all

traditions in a rather different light. To be a theologian at such a time is not to pretend to some ahistorical rationality, but to accept one’s place in a continuum of historical change and to accept one’s role as a vehicle of continuing change, as all traditions interweave

in complex and novel ways. One is not trying to sit loose to all traditions; but one cannot be satisfied with seeing a tradition as an unchanging, fixed set of irreformable beliefs. Rather, one seeks to

extend one’s tradition as it encounters new understandings and situations, both continually going back to its resources and looking

forward to its applications in very different contexts. Pluralism (in the sense of a conversation of differing viewpoints) and revision (in the sense of imaginative rethinking in new contexts) become part of the intellectual framework of such a theologian; and this must be 76 Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 90.

48 Towards a Comparative Theology in tension with acceptance of one final truth, contained in one religious group. One may come to the conclusion that there is such

a final truth, maintained in its wholeness by just one group; one may have that view both as one’s starting-point and as one’s final conclusion. But one must accept that theology, as the disciplined enquiry into God, contains other possibilities and has a place for serious enquirers with rather different starting-points. And if the intellectual enquiry 1s to be extensive in its range and thorough in its discipline, it will need to meet in conversation with them and not be closed to any increase in understanding which may result. In seeking to characterize what theology 1s, 1t is much too restrictive to limit it to the exposition and defence of one settled body of truths about God. The world of theology is, for many, a world in which everything is put in question, not one in which doubts can be comfortably resolved. It should offer resources for coming to informed decisions about religious belief; but it should also expose the difficulty and profundity of ultimate questions, and therefore

perhaps cause one to be more uncertain about some previously unconsidered matters. I have no wish to expel the confessional theologian from the academic community; but such a person must accept that a more pluralist and revisionist form of theology also exists; and should, I think, accept that it is a positively good thing to engage in this wider theological enterprise, even for those whose own commitment is settled. Seen from this perspective, comparative theology must be a selfcritical discipline, aware of the historical roots of its own beliefs; a pluralistic discipline, prepared to engage in conversation with a number of living traditions; and an open-ended discipline, being prepared to revise beliefs if and when it comes to seem necessary. There is nothing to prevent a comparative theologian from being committed to one religious tradition, even a very authoritarian one,

unless that authority prohibits such a study. Then the area of revisability may be restricted to some extent, though even then new forms of understanding ancient formulations may be possible and

desirable. For some, it will be possible to assert that commitment to the unrevisable authority itself 1s 1n principle revisable, even if one cannot foresee any real possibility of revising it without loss of faith. One must—as one does, anyway—live alongside others who see revision as a continual necessity in a changing world. But one is not at all constrained to be always looking for revisions; a compara-

Towards a Comparative Theology 49 tive theologian may properly feel that a self-critical, pluralistic, and

open-ended discipline is likely to corroborate the beliefs of one group. Thus apologists and revisionists can converse together in the wider community of theological discourse. I have noted that the project of traditional natural theology seems

unacceptable. So the basic problem remains of how one can construct a rational account of revelation, in a context of many diverse authoritative traditions which stress diverse primal disclosures of reality and value. One natural place for such construction to begin is With a study of the phenomena of religion in history and with the

places in human experience where religious beliefs arise. In this way theologians can test the adequacy of their own initial view of religion against a wider range of human experiences and perhaps come to form new views in the light of perspectives they had not previously considered. Comparative theology can thereby help to form a view of the sources, nature, and limits of authoritative claims to revelation, a view which will naturally determine subsequent theological reflection on particular religious traditions. I am writing from within one (Anglican) strand of the Christian

tradition. What I say is an attempt to articulate that tradition in a global context; so it is in a sense a confessional theology. But it is also a contribution to a comparative theology of revelation from a

particular perspective. It tries to take many traditions, and the history of human religious thought, seriously; and explore what can

be said of them in the light of central Christian beliefs, and what light they in turn shed on those beliefs. Confessional and comparative theology need not, in all their forms, exclude each other. If no one person can hope to provide an adequate account of

such matters, one can at least begin the attempt to enter into discussion with others and invite them to respond. One may then together begin to attain a wider perspective in which initial views and commitments may be better understood. As one of the great

pioneers in this field, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, has put it: “To perceive oneself as in principle heir to the whole religious history of the race thus far, and the community of which one is a member as in principle the human community . . . is not to dissolve the question of religious truth but for our day to bring it into focus.’”” ”” W.C. Smith, Towards a World Theology (New York: Orbis Books, 1981), 188.

PART II

Primal Disclosures A. PRIMAL REVELATIONS 1. The Defimtion of Religion

Comparative theology is an enquiry into ideas of God and revelation, of ultimate reality and its disclosures to human minds, as such ideas arise across the full spectrum of human history and experience. It is not, as the comparative study of religions might be, primarily a sociological or psychological enquiry, asking what various people actually believe or practise. Nor is it an attempt to correlate beliefs with social and temperamental circumstances. It is primarily an enquiry into truth and rationality, fundamentally concerned with what it means to say that there is a God and an authentic revelation and with whether there is one. Such a study is sometimes called ‘philosophy of religion’, and there is no need to invent an artificial distinction between the two disciplines. The term philosophy of religion 1s quite recent. It was used by Hegel in the development of his own view that the philosopher can express in conceptual thought what religions express less clearly in picture or symbolic form. Partly for that reason, it 1s sometimes regarded as a discipline which assumes the superiority of secular reason to religion. There is no necessity for this, however. Of course rational

thought, both critical and creative, is important. But it could well be that religion has sources and forms of knowledge which reflective thought needs to take account of and which do not derive from reflection on the general nature of the world alone. A philosopher of religion may well belong to a particular religious tradition, and accept revealed truths from that tradition, which are then critically analysed and articulated as systematically as possible. In

that case, the line between the philosopher of religion and the systematic theologian is vanishingly small.

In practice the study of theology involves the close study of scriptural texts, the history of doctrinal formulations and of religious communities, and some attempt to work out practical implications

Primal Disclosures 5I of a religious way of life—topics in which philosophers may not be

expected to take a lively interest. Theologians are likely to take a much greater interest in the authoritative declarations of specific religious bodies, often attempting to reformulate them in new conditions while affirming their authoritative status within a specific community. But in so far as theology is not purely confessional, there should be no division in principle between the disciplines. It is too restrictive to regard theology proper as the study of Christian

doctrines; and it is too restrictive to regard the philosophy of religion as some sort of neutral enquiry into arguments for the existence and nature of God and the soul (topics which themselves belong rather obviously to certain monotheistic religions). If one is to enquire into the truth of religious claims, one has to

know first of all what they are; and if one is to appreciate their meaning, one has to see the contexts in which they arise and continue to be used. Thus, if the enquiry is to be adequately based, a great deal of information about religious practices and beliefs is

required. An important task is to examine the vast amount of information about religions that has been collected by anthropologists and sociologists, particularly in the twentieth century. In this way the enquiry will be given its broadest base, and will be protected against the accusation of short-sighted prejudice in favour of just one tradition. But even to begin such a study involves some decision about what sort of thing one is going to consider—that is,

what ‘religion’ is, or at least what sorts of phenomena one is going to study under the heading of religion. It has proved almost impossible to construct a definition of ‘religion’ which will cover every case and be acceptable to all scholars. Yet anthropologists have little difficulty in deciding what sorts of beliefs and practices they will regard as religious. The fact that every class has borderline cases does not count against the existence of a class. So one can begin with at least a working definition which is widely accepted,

and proceed to refine it as and when necessary. 7

A common working definition of ‘religion’ is that it consists of beliefs and practices concerning non-human spirits, beings with consciousness and will, which can affect humans for good or ill. This 1s a slight expansion of E. B. Tylor’s ‘minimum definition’ of religion as ‘the belief in spiritual beings’.! The trouble with this ' E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture (London: John Murray, 1873), part I, p. 424.

52 Primal Disclosures definition is that it almost inevitably makes religion sound like a form of primitive science, wherein people postulate disembodied spirits to account for events that occur in the world, and devise primitive—and ineffective—mechanisms to make these spirits do what human beings want. Many early anthropologists would have been very happy with this implication, as that is precisely what they thought religion was. Sir James Frazer, in his classic work, The Golden Bough, defined religion as ‘a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life’.? Whereas magic is a form

of primitive science, and as such deserves a certain respect, it is nevertheless the universal creed of the ignorant, and ‘a standing menace to civilisation’.* Religion begins when one acts from the love and fear of God; and this, while intellectually superior, is morally inferior, since in it ‘Man’s old free bearing is exchanged for

an attitude of lowliest prostration’, 1n which one cringes before unpredictable spirit beings and tries to pacify them by human sacrifice or other moral absurdities.

Spirits are here thought of as quasi-scientific entities, to be manipulated in magic or propitiated in prayer, providing a sort of primitive technology to improve the human lot. Many anthropologists feel that to be an unduly technocratic approach to religious belief, and there have been many attempts to achieve a more sympathetic definition. It has, however, proved remarkably difficult to do so. Leuba has listed a large number of definitions of religion, all of which differ in detail.* The basic problem is that either a proposed definition will be too narrow to include all things we normally call religions—thus Tylor’s definition would exclude religions like Buddhism—or it will be so broad that it is virtually

vacuous.” For example, Max Muller’s assertion that ‘religion consists in the perception of the infinite under such manifestations as are able to influence the moral character of man’ is an example which might include anything from football to symphony concerts.° 2 Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough, abridged edn. (London: Macmillan, 1922).

3 Ibid. 56. 7 J.I.H. Leuba, A Psychological Study of Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1912), cn. > The point is well made in: Peter Byrne, Natural Religion and the Nature of Religion (London: Routledge, 1989), ch. 8. © M. Muller, Natural Religion (London: Longman, 1889), 188.

Primal Disclosures 53 Those who prefer a narrower definition must be prepared to pay the price of exclusion. Thus M. E. Spiro’ defines religion as ‘an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated superhuman beings’, because this matches key features of religion in our own culture. He is quite ready to allow that not all societies possess religion, in this sense. If one does wish to include phenomena such as Buddhism, one could seek to adapt such a definition slightly, following Eric Sharpe. He has suggested a view of religion as belief in ‘the actual existence of a supernatural, suprasensory order of being, and of the actual or potential interplay,

through a network of sacred symbols, of that order of being with the world’.® The idea of a suprasensory order of being does not commit one to the existence of individual spirits, but more broadly to the existence of a supersensory dimension which underlies the perceived world and gives it meaning, purpose, and value. Further, the idea of symbols and rituals as effecting an interaction with that reality (or realities) does not commit one to any sort of causal,

means-ends relationship with spirits, but more broadly to the possibility of forms of relationship which may mediate the power and value of that reality to the sensory realm. Naturally, any definition is going to create problems, and one might object that Sharpe’s definition seems to limit the interplay of supernatural and natural to a purely symbolic one, as opposed to a

causal one. But one can meet this point by suggesting that the interplay between suprasensory and sensory orders of being, what-

ever form it takes, is expressed through a network of symbols, which would leave it open whether it was purely symbolic or not. At least Buddhism, which does not count as a religion if reference

to worship of spirits is insisted upon as part of the definition, can be included in this conception. The supersensory realm in Buddhism is nirvana, which is certainly beyond the reach of the senses; and nirvana has an ‘interplay’ with the sensory realm, as that to which sensory beings can attain, or unity with which they can realize. In the end one may well feel sympathy with the Wittgensteinian

point that it may be better not to seek one ‘essence’ of religion ” M. E. Spiro, ‘Religion: Problems of Definition and Explanation’, in M. Banton , (ed.), Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion (London: Tavistock Publications, 1966), 85-126. 8 Eric J. Sharpe, Understanding Religion (London: Duckworth, 1983), 48.

54 Primal Disclosures which all things called religions share, but to set out many examples of religions, trace family resemblances between them, and say that

anything which possesses a large enough set of properties from such a set of resemblances can well be called a religion.” Above all, one needs to say what one’s interest 1s in forming such a definition. Different definitions may well reflect different interests; and in this

respect the interest of the comparative theologian is primarily in investigating the nature of claims to revealed knowledge which have been made in human history. One is therefore looking at types of human activity in which claims to such revealed or authoritative knowledge have been made. Reference to the believed existence of a suprasensory realm and of a special knowledge of it which relates to human good and ill, are the key characteristics for investigation.

For this reason, a preliminary characterization of religion as concerned with authoritative knowledge of a suprasensory realm in its relation to human good and harm is one which best suits the nature of the undertaking. However, I am not wanting to claim any final superiority for this definition as a philosophical or anthropological tool. It will simply serve as a delimitation of the class of phenomena

with which the comparative theologian, in my sense, will be concerned. 2. The Religious Dimension

From the theologian’s viewpoint it may well seem that the definitions of the early anthropologists of religion managed to miss the religious dimension altogether. This illustrates very well the difficulty of obtaining a value-free understanding of religious phenomena. If one sees the religious practices of one’s own culture as

superstitious and absurd this will be reflected in one’s characterization of religion. Frazer saw the history of religion as ‘a long attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason, to find a sound

theory for an absurd practice’.!° So it is not surprising that he presented his account of early religion as a set of absurd practices. Nevertheless, both Frazer and Sharpe would agree in general on the range of phenomena which are to be accounted religious. They

are concerned with practices, and their accompanying beliefs, which seek to relate human life to a suprasensory realm of being. ? Ten such characteristic features are listed by M. Southwold, in: ‘Buddhism and the Definition of Religion’, in Man, NS 13 (1978), 362-79. 10 Frazer, The Golden Bough, 477.

Primal Disclosures 55 Rituals which seek to do this in order to enhance the quality of human life, and myths which specify, whether in symbolic or literal

terms, the nature of the ultimate powers for human good and ill which rituals mediate, would be recognized as religious by both. Frazer would see the myths as false hypotheses about the causal bases of nature, and rituals as either magical or infantile ways of attempting to influence these causes. Sharpe, however, is prepared to see myths as having a symbolic character for presenting higher levels of reality in sensory form, and rituals as symbolical mediations

of the power and value that such levels of reality can bring to human life.

Whatever the exact definition or theoretical account, one can thus see that the realm of religion is primarily a realm of myth and ritual. No doubt in early societies different forms of human mental

activity were not sharply distinguished, so that religion is not seen by members of such societies as separate from other human activities. But it is reasonable to separate it out if that is useful for purposes of clarity or understanding. Where religion exists in human society, it usually postulates that there is a suprasensory dimension of being and that one can be related to it for the increase

of good or the avoidance of harm. The sociologist P. Worsley writes that ‘[primitive man] conceives of a single order of reality,

in which man... through ritual, has some contact with and influence...over powers of a more far-reaching and compulsive kind... the spirits are at work in our world’.'’ One may, he says, speak of superhuman beings, but ‘It would be better to speak of a superhuman “realm” or of “powers”’.'* Such powers may be conceived in many different ways, and one may be content to speak

of the relations of tribal members to local spirits or ancestors in ways which arise from a host of particular circumstances, which are not systematized within any larger scheme of understanding. However, when religion begins to develop intellectually, it usually seeks to move beyond such relatively unreflective conceptions to

present a view of the ultimate nature of reality and the place of human life within it. Ninian Smart has distinguished six main dimensions of religion,

which he terms the dimensions of myth and doctrine, of ethics 'l P. Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound (New York: McGibbon and Kee, 1968), 206.

2 Ibid. 33.

56 Primal Disclosures and social organization, of ritual and experience.'* The myths of religion present a sacred cosmology or world-view, placing human life in relation to suprasensory power or value. They can operate in an almost wholly symbolic and unsystematized manner. Worsley instances Nadel’s study of the Nupe’* as showing ‘the relative unimportance of religion as an exhaustive, overarching cosmological system’ in primal societies.'” Sooner or later more systematic schemes inevitably develop and one can then speak of the doctrines

of a religious scheme. The myths are most often said by their adherents to be founded in ecstatic experiences, visions, dreams, auditions, or inspired utterances which establish the symbolic form of the myth.

The genesis of such myths is not a purely theoretical matter, however. At the heart of religious practice are rituals for obtaining good or avoiding harm, and myths specify the powers which can be

invoked by the ritual. Ritual practices usually broaden out from specific cultic acts into the formulation of general sacred laws governing the life of the community, which specify a moral goal or

way of life for social organization and for the ethical conduct of the individual, intended to maintain a right relationship to the suprasensory powers. If, in comparative theology, one 1s concerned to place particular religions in the widest historical and cultural context, one must try to achieve some view of the way in which these and related factors enter into the lives of societies throughout the world. It 1s plainly

impossible to attempt a detailed history of religions, or even a detailed study of particular religions, as an introduction to a comparative theology. Fortunately there is abundant scholarly work

available in the history of religions, providing data much more reliable than those used by early anthropologists of religion such as Tylor and Frazer. The comparative theologian can use such data in

two main ways. One can attempt detailed, small-scale studies of particular doctrines, providing specific comparisons and contrasts.

Since such doctrines are embedded in much wider patterns of thought, however, one must also attempt the more speculative and holistic task of describing and evaluating the nature of religions in 13 Ninian Smart, The Religious Experience of Mankind (Glasgow: Collins, 1971),

Sig F. Nadel, Nupe Religion (London: Routledge, 1954). > Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound, 24.

Primal Disclosures 57 general. In this work, I am attempting to locate Christian claims to revelation within a wider context of the history of religions. This requires both some overall view of that history and some attention

to detailed particular beliefs which will support and amplify it. What I have chosen to do 1s to sketch an overall view by picking out some main religious traditions which exist at the present time and giving some idea of their general history and interrelationships. This sketch is based on the most widely accepted scholarly published work now available. Then in each case I have concentrated on one

specific topic which I take to be of special theological interest and to contribute a significant theme to the overall study. The aim 1s to produce generalizations which succeed in picking out important structural features, and to select topics which succeed in clarifying central problems within the religious traditions. The starting-point is the acceptance that there is more than one alleged source of revelation, and one needs therefore to form some notion of what a revelation is and what sort of authority it might properly claim. One is looking at the main phenomena of religious life in order to cast some light on the nature of revelation and come to some assessment of its proper authority. It can at once be seen that the general notion of revelation is involved in all the main families of religion. There are few believers in any religion who would be

content to say that their religious truths have been invented as simple imaginative constructs, or that they have been discovered by

rational investigation, without the need of some special insight which relates a few humans to a suprasensory realm in a specially privileged way.

The whole idea of a suprasensory realm has two important features. First, it is of a realm which is inaccessible to normal sense-observation or to processes of rational reflection which depend solely on sense-observation. Second, it is of a realm which is greater

in value or power than the sensory realm; it is precisely supra sensory. Thus arises the idea of persons who develop special powers of non-sensory apprehension, who can be vehicles of relationship with this realm and discern its character. This is not yet enough for ‘revelation’, since such persons could be conceived as explorers of an inactive suprasensory landscape. For the idea of ‘revelation’ one requires the communication of information which 1s received, not so much by investigation as by obedient reception. Something must actively reveal or communicate its existence to

58 Primal Disclosures those who are prepared in the right way to receive the communication. The most general idea of revelation is the idea of an active communication of information from a suprasensory realm to or through a person who has a special mode of access to that realm. '°

This idea takes various forms, but is found in all main streams

of religious life. Buddhism is, in one sense, a religion without revelation; there is no active communication from a God in most forms of Buddhism. However, there is certainly an authoritative teaching in Buddhism, derived from the enlightened insight of Gautama. He had a special mode of access to the suprasensory realm, nirvana, and he revealed it to his disciples by turning the wheel of dharma. In so far as the Buddha is himself seen as having

passed beyond the sensory realm into nirvana, one can properly speak of a communication of information from that realm.'” It is in that sense that it is not wholly improper to speak of Buddhism as a

revealed religion, whose teachings are received on authority by virtually all believers, as long as one is careful to note that there is no personal supernatural god who reveals the holy truths that most disciples learn from the Buddha. 3. Primal Religions If one is seeking to place religions in historical context, it is natural

to consider first the religions of primal societies. These may be defined as societies which are tribal or local in character, and which typically do not have a written tradition or feel the need to achieve

any form of coherence with an autonomous realm of scientific thought. Present-day tribal religions may differ in many ways from the early faiths of humanity. They have, after all, existed for longer than most world religions and may have undergone many changes in that time. Evans-Pritchard 1s particularly scathing about attempts to establish the origins of religion by looking at primal traditions: ‘It 1s extraordinary that anyone could have thought it worth while to speculate about what might have been the origin of some custom

or belief, when there is absolutely no means of discovering, in '© Cf. above, Part I, Sect. 5.

'’ Tt is not often [a man] hears the doctrine of Truth: and a rare event is the arising of a Buddha’: Dhammapada, 14. 182, trans. Juan Mascaro (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973).

Primal Disclosures 59 the absence of historical evidence, what was its origin... little or nothing can be done with such theories.’'® The particular objects of

his animus are Spencer and Tylor, with their theory that religion originates in a belief in ghosts or spirits, perceived in dreams, and Durkheim with his belief in a primitive totemism. What 1s really wrong with such theories is that they assume that ‘religion is a form of illusion and therefore requires a sufficient explanation in external causes’.!? It is true that Durkheim maintains that religion is not an illusion, but a ‘social fact’.?° But he also says, ‘The god is only the figurative expression of society.’”) Believers are therefore under an

illusion in thinking that their gods are objectively existent. It is likely, too, that by tracing religious beliefs to alleged roots in a primitive mentality that has now been superseded, many early anthropologists meant to relegate such beliefs, at least in any recognizably traditional form, to the realm of the primitive and superstitious. Evans-Pritchard has more harsh words to say about those who reconstruct primeval religious history on a sort of ‘if I were a horse this is how I would see the world’ basis.”

In fact, however, more sympathetic recent studies of primal traditions, like Evans-Pritchard’s own study of Nuer religion, may reveal the existence of important insights and distinctive approaches

to the problems of human existence. If they do not show how religion originated, one can nevertheless see in them forms of thought and practice which illuminate some of the most ancient strands of thought which have left their traces in the scriptural traditions. The primal faiths are like pre-scriptural faiths in being non-literate, relatively untouched by scientific thought in the modern sense, and very localized. Robin Horton has argued that many African primal religions show processes of thought which are in many ways similar to modern scientific thought in being attempts to bring order and explanatory power to the experienced

world. Nevertheless, he stresses that they lack the character of 18 E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Theories of Primitive Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 101 ff. '? P. Byrne and P. Clarke, Religion Explained and Defined (New York: St Martin’s

Press, 1993), 204.

20 ‘The unanimous sentiment of the believers cannot be purely illusory’: E. Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans. J. N. Swain (London: Allen and Unwin, 1967), 417. “1 Durkheim, The Elementary Forms, 227. *2 Evans-Pritchard, Theories of Primitive Religion, 43.

60 Primal Disclosures ‘openness’, or critical reflection, which marks modern science.” They perpetuate practices such as divination, spirit-possession, animal sacrifice, and witchcraft, which the written canonical traditions have gradually overlaid with more rationalized and moralized conceptual systems. They may therefore help to give insight into the earlier forms of religions from which more developed traditions sprang.

This may not tell us the true meaning of religion, as anthropologists like Durkheim supposed; but an understanding of how religions have developed, of their historical roots and their changing forms, may help to explain many of the features present religions have. So, with a proper caution not to read too much too certainly

from present tribal societies into prehistoric societies, one may nevertheless examine tribal religions as a help to reconstructing some of the earlier stages of religion, and thereby understanding how some of its present features are remnants from previous ages or developments which are best understood when their startingpoints have been discerned. At one time the primal religions could be dismissed rather quickly as primitive and savage; founded, as David Hume supposed, upon

fear of the powers of the natural world.** But in recent years a much greater appreciation has developed of such things as native American traditions, of Aboriginal stories of the ‘Dream-Times’, and of African tribal cultures. They have been studied sympathetically by a number of anthropologists and by members of the communities themselves, who have adopted scientific techniques of observation.”°

A central figure in many such cultures 1s the practitioner who receives revelations in dreams, visions or trance-states. In Siberia and the Arctic, such a practitioner is termed a shaman,*° though

other primal cultures usually also have members who receive messages from spirits or ancestors, concerned with ways to bring about good hunting or healing of disease.*’ Such people are normally inducted into a social institution in which new members are trained 23 Robin Horton, ‘African Traditional Thought and Western Science’, in Bryan Wilson (ed.), Rationality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970), 131-71. 24 David Hume, The Natural History of Religion (1757). 2° A good introductory account is given in: John Hinnells (ed.), A Handbook of Living Religions (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1985), 392-455. 26 Cf. M. Eliade, Shamanism (New York: Pantheon, 1965). 27 I. M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1971).

Primal Disclosures 61 in techniques of asceticism, of divination, and of healing. They learn to expect the visitation of spirit-powers, which invade their consciousness in visions and trance-states. Such forms of revelation

precede any natural theology; and the practice of divination precedes and prepares the ground for the occurrence of specific revelations.

That practice is itself rooted in perfectly natural concerns of the tribe—concerns for food, for victory over enemies, for the healing of disease, and for well-being. It is often believed that there are powers which help in obtaining such things; and they may variously be conceived as spirits, good and bad, gods, or ancestors. Sacred power may be conceived as ‘mana’, as in Melanesia, which does not take individual personal form, but which 1s non-physical in

character.2* Some anthropologists have spoken of a primitive animism of primal societies, in which trees, storms, and diseases are all seen as animate beings.*? And it seems that in many such societies the world is not generally conceived as an inanimate realm of universal laws, but rather as an organic totality of powers which

may manifest in various forms, and of which sensory objects, animals, or unusual events can be expressions.

This is not worked out in a systematic way, but it is often thought that the well-being and prosperity of the tribe depend upon the right relationships being maintained with suprasensory powers for good and ill; and they are maintained by the practice of rituals and by encounters with that suprasensory realm by trancemediums.*? Religion is seen as primarily a social phenomenon. It is not chiefly concerned with the way in which a supreme god might

be related to the whole world; but with the relations of particular spirits, gods, or ancestors to a specific tribe. It is often accepted that other tribes will have other gods; they will certainly have other

ancestors. It is the continued good of the tribe that is the main concern of religious cults, and human beings are seen as parts of an interconnected spiritual realm which can assure such good.

The anthropologist Mary Douglas expresses this idea of an 28 Cf. R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1891). 29 Edward Tylor coined the word ‘animism’, and sets out his theory in Primitive Culture (London: Murray, 1873). 30 The idea of religion as maintaining an ideal equilibrium of nature is found in

many Amerindian traditions. Cf. C. Kluckholhn and D. Leighton, The Navajo (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974).

62 Primal Disclosures ‘interconnected spiritual realm’ very succinctly: ‘A primitive world view looks out on a universe which is personal in several different

senses. Physical forces are thought of as interwoven with the lives of persons. Things are not completely distinguished from persons... the universe responds to speech and mime. It discerns the social order and intervenes to uphold it.’*! It is not so much that there are distinct spiritual individuals who are gods or spirits. Rather, the totality of the world is spiritual as well as material; and spirit is expressed in many different ways, depending on the history of the tribal group and its crucial experiences. Certain factors of importance for theology already become apparent at this early stage. There is not, it seems, one clear primeval

revelation from an omnipotent creator. If there is, it has been totally overlaid and forgotten by later cults; and Fr. Schmidt’s attempt to argue for a primitive monotheism has not generally found favour with anthropologists.*” In some tribal cultures there are rather remote ‘high gods’ who shaped the world order; but in others they do not appear at all. What is much more characteristic is ariotous plurality of presences—spirits, demons, and ancestors, of good and evil intent—whom the shamans or designated mediators can partly control or influence. If a suprasensory reality reveals

itself to humans, it does so through enhanced or altered conscious states, and in a myriad forms which are not systematically rationalized. 4. Religion and Imagination

As palaeontologists and evolutionary biologists have discovered more about the long, slow development of human societies from pre-human species, so it has come to seem obvious that human thoughts develop from primitive beginnings and preconceptual forms of consciousness. The world in which these gods are living presences 1s a world not fully conceptualized, where subjective and

objective, fact and value, dream and reality are not so sharply distinguished. One moves in a world of presences, which is not yet divided into the verifiably factual and the subjectively valued. The primitive reaction 1s not to see persons as emerging from inanimate objects, but to see the whole world as expressing the sort of being 31 Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (London: Routledge, 1966), 88. 32, W. Schmidt, The Origin and Growth of Religion [1931], trans. H. J. Rose (New York: Cooper Square, 1972).

Primal Disclosures 63 humans know themselves to have—conscious, responsive being. And it is not to see persons as unique, distinct individuals, subjects isolated from their environment by the yawning gulf that separates mind from matter, but to see persons as parts of one interconnected realm of reactive powers, working for good and ill. Today many people have the sense that such a preconceptual awareness of the

unity and value of the natural order preserves something that analytical thought and a radical distinction of mind and matter have

lost. It 1s not that it is a higher wisdom from which we have declined; but that 1t expresses a form of awareness of the unity, interconnectedness, and inwardness of reality which can easily be lost in a technological world.

In primal religions, the world is full of gods or spirits. The natural, indeed inevitable, question for the critical theologian to ask

is: do these spirits exist? The unspoken implication is that either there exist clearly identifiable spirit individuals or there are no spirits at all. Yet perhaps the sense of individuality is not so clear in

primal societies, which are more concerned with group life and totalities than with discrete individuals. Thus the Bear cult of the Ainu of the northern Japanese islands,

to which parallels can be found in many sub-Arctic regions, appears not to regard bears as distinct individuals, but as bearers of species-powers which can be reincarnated in successive individual

bears.*? After being kept for some years, a bear cub is ritually killed in a great feast, so that its soul may return to its parents and tell of the kindness of the tribe in which it has lived. It is asked to return to the tribe again so that there may be good hunting, and it 18 offered sacrifices of sake and bowls of stew made from its

own body. Then the head is placed on a pole and the animal 1s considered to have been ‘sent away’ with proper dignity. It is obvious to the Ainu that the bear is really dead and that the food offered to it is not literally eaten. The important parts of the ritual are the killing, the offering, and the sharing of the sacrifice. The bear is killed only after it has been enraged by teasing, so that its full strength is expressed. One might say that the power of its

life is concentrated in this way. It is both victim and the one to whom life is offered, so that it is in a sense a self-sacrifice, an 33 This account is quoted from Kyosuki Kindaiti, ‘Ainu Life and Legends’, in Joseph Campbell, Primitive Mythology (New York: Viking Press, 1959), 334 ff.

64 Primal Disclosures offering of strength to the source of all strength. The way to the world of spirits is a way of discipline and renunciation. When the bear is ritually eaten, the people participate in that strength, binding themselves to the one they must kill in the hunt, yet on whose life they depend. The importance of what happens 1s not on the sensory, observable level of reality. What is important is the bringing to expression of the power which is vital to the survival of the tribe, the reverencing of that power by the offering of life, and the participation in that power by the tribe. One might even say that the individual bear is sacramental of a spiritual reality in which the people can participate by obedience and self-discipline. It is not appropriate to ask of such a spiritual reality whether it is an individual entity or not. In a different primal tradition a very similar pattern of thought

can be found. Among the Algonquins of the eastern sub-Arctic, manitu is the power which inheres in the animal; which, one might say, the animal expresses.** Perhaps one might say that the creative

and destructive powers of the natural world are focused in particular ways in species of animal; and once they have been so focused, those powers can be gained by humans through the performance of proper rituals. The power might be manifested in particular bears, or in visionary bears which come to shamans in ecstatic trances, and which take on a sort of life there. But what is important is not the individuality; it is the power itself, manifested and therefore nameable in a particular form. Is that power an individual? It is rather something that manifests in individuals; and as such it is part of a wider realm of all such

powers, the Kitchi Manitou. Is this totality an individual or a collection of individuals? It seems that this question simply does not arise for the Algonquin. We might say that there are many powers forming one totality, a diversity in unity. It would be wrong to say that there is a consciously formed notion of one supreme being. But it is equally misleading to think that there is a host of distinct, individual, non-embodied beings, having some external causal relation to physical objects and activities. In a similar way, Mary Douglas remarks of the Azande, “To ask an Azande whether the poison oracle is a person or a thing 1s to ask a kind of nonsensical question which he would never pause to ask himself.’°° *4 W. J. Hoffman, ‘The Midewiwin or Grand Medicine Society of the Ojibwa’, Annual Reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 7 (1891), 143-300. 3° Douglas, Purity and Danger, 89.

Primal D1sclosures 65 Questions about the individual personhood of spirits do not arise and are felt to be puzzlingly inappropriate. It is rather the case that objects and activities are imbued with and to some extent express facets of power which can be imaginatively represented in dance, painting, or in poetic narratives. Such representation gives the tribe

contact with that power and enables them to embody it in themselves or to relate to it in a way productive of good. A third example can be found in the recorded traditions of the Arctic Inuit (or Eskimo). When they speak of Takanaluk (Sedna), the half-human, half-fish goddess who controls sea mammals and rules the unholy dead, do they think there really is such a person beneath the sea?*© Perhaps there may be those who take literally

the story of the girl who began to eat her giant parents and who was cast by them beneath the sea—the fundamentalists of Inuit religion. But just as it is clear that spirits do not really eat the food offered to them, so it is quite clear that there is no such person beneath the waves who controls the movements of whales and seals.

Those who see Sedna are the shamans who, by the help of their guardian spirits, are able to propitiate the unpredictable goddess. Sedna has a particular form, in which she appears in visions. But that form has clear symbolic significance. From her dismembered body (her fingers) the edible sea-creatures are formed; her temper is shown in arctic storms; her one eye gives her penetrating vision of all human behaviour; her home at the bottom of the sea is the realm of disobedient human souls, who drown in darkness and desolation. The form is an eidetic representation of the harsh, often arbitrary-

seeming and yet life-supporting conditions of the Arctic world. What is here represented in an image is the character of the sea itself, as a power for good and harm. What the shaman meets in the dream-quest is this internalized image of the powers which bound

Inuit life. The image is a mind-produced representation of the character of the ultimate powers for good and ill which surround the Inuit. It may not be consciously invented; it may arise from the natural imaginative activity of the mind, as it probes, in a visionquest, to penetrate to the mystery of the limits of human existence. This mystery is represented, not by analytical laws or explanations; but by imaginative stories which seek to express what sort of reality © K. Rasmussen, Jntellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos (Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1929).

66 Primal Disclosures it is that sustains and yet always threatens human existence. Religious images are products of the imaginative attempt to express the character of being, as it is experienced in human consciousness.

Yet these images come to shamans in visions and trances; they come as responses to the quest for acquaintance with reality as it 1s. In that sense they are revelations, communications from the suprasensory realm. What they reveal is the character of being as it is encountered in a particular set of conditions and through the history of a particular people. One might say that being comes to consciousness of itself as 1t comes to eidetic expression in the forms of visionary experience.

This reading of the meaning and significance of symbols in primal religion is supported by Evans-Pritchard’s study and interpretation of Nuer religion. He writes: ‘Nuer regard Spirit (Kwoth) as being in some way in, or behind, the creature in which in a sense it is beholden.’*’ Writers like Lévy-Bruhl postulated a primitive

mentality which was unable to think logically and thus tended naively to identify twins with birds, cucumbers with oxen, and crocodiles with particular tribal lineages.*®* But Evans-Pritchard points out that such identifications need not be naive or illogical at all. They depend upon taking certain unusual events as signs of Divine activity, and are as intellectually complex in their own way

as is the doctrine of transubstantiation (this point would only reinforce their absurdity, for Frazer, of course). Thus he shows how twins can be regarded as, like birds, children of the air—that is, of Kwoth; because of their unusual and propitious birth. There

is a subtle interplay of symbols at work which fundamentally depends upon and seeks to express belief in the real relationship of particular human circumstances to the suprasensory realm of Spirit. So it is with the Arctic goddess, Sedna. The image of Sedna may

give rise to many conceptual formulations, but it is itself not conceptually formulated in any precise way. It is precisely a symbol,

a preconceptual expression of a power which can only be participated in by rare individuals after long and difficult training. The shaman can experience this power; but most people will accept the symbol on authority as an expression of the character of the sea, seen as an ultimate limit on their lives. °7 E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Nuer Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956), 134. °8-L. Lévy-Bruhl, Primitive Mentality (London: Beacon Press, 1966). Originally published as La Mentalité primitive (Paris, 1922).

Primal Disclosures 67 It is noteworthy that there is a moral aspect to this image. Sedna rules only the disobedient, and keeping the sacred laws will induce

her to send food to the Inuit. Being is seen as laying moral requirements on humans, even though it 1s itself destructive and terrifying in many ways. The preconceptual, symbolic thought of such cultures expresses a unity of the natural and the human in one

dynamic interplay of powers, in which the outer form of beings expresses their inner spiritual reality. Religious forms of observance

are concerned to give participation in the ultimate powers for good and to control the ultimate powers for evil within this wider spiritual reality.

5. Revelation in Primal Religion | The way in which these powers are represented depends upon the

character of the environment, which provides the resources for symbolization; on the tribal history, which records significant events for good and ill, which show decisively the character of being; and on the growth of an imaginative, narrative tradition among the shamans, diviners, or prophets, by which expectations of certain sorts of spiritual experience are matched by appropriate visionary occurrences. The way of the shaman is a way to purify

consciousness through fasting and discipline (though there are many cases in which drugs are used to hasten the process) so that the inner character of the bounding reality, the reality which circumscribes human life, is penetrated. A god or spirit is a particular form in which power is manifested, a power expressed in natural

phenomena like the sea or the sun, which can be imaginatively represented by a symbolic figure. The construction of this figure is a combination of visionary insight and literary composition, and it

gives rise to a tradition which shapes the spiritual experience of successive generations of shamans. Then, through the ritual re-

petition of the founding myth, the tribe can participate in the power which the god represents and use it for good.” Thus the fundamental tacit belief of much primal religion is that

sensory reality is an appearance of an underlying suprasensory world whose character can be discerned by processes of mental purification and whose powers can be used for human well-being— 39 Such a view is set out in detail in M. Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, trans. Rosemary Sheed (London: Sheed and Ward, 1958).

68 Primal Disclosures fertility, good hunting, and health. It does not much matter whether these powers for good are conceived as gods, spirits, or ancestors. The conception of them as ancestors strengthens the unity of the tribe, its sense of continuity over time and the sense of

participation in the sacred powers. It is important, however, that these powers are not seen as value-free, as the powers considered by modern science are. They are inherently aimed at the realization or destruction of value, and their representation expresses an ideal to be attained or a danger to be avoided.

From these examples, taken from a vast source of materials which are now available, one might draw some general conclusions.

If one is not going to regard all these phenomena as based on illusion, it is possible to discern a certain structure which seems to be expressed in them. For primal religions, the world of sensory

experience manifests a deeper reality of very varied character, which can be apprehended at a preconceptual level by minds which

have been prepared for it. Such character can be expressed by images (combinations of free imagination and visionary reception) which are worshipped or at the very least respected, usually by the

offering of sacrifice, by renunciation and obedience, so that its value may be acknowledged. It can be participated in, so that its power can release one from egoistic concerns. And it can then be mediated in action to provide well-being for the society.

Religion is not a primitive technology for producing independently known goods. On the contrary, its perceptions help to define what is truly good, by showing what the right relationship to nature is (what the spirits require). Spirits are not just causal explanations;

they represent the values and powers which are thought to be manifested in the natural world, before any split between natural explanation and evaluation has come into question.

The question of the individuation of powers and values is not really an issue; and gods will multiply for many reasons—because of a merger of tribal traditions; because different values and powers seem to require different representations; or because the world just does seem very ambiguous and complicated. But the statement of the Rig-Veda that ‘Truth is one, the sages call it by many names’,*° is probably a fair expression of primal religious thought, as long as that ‘one’ is not too specifically defined. Certainly the existence of 4° Rig-Veda, 10. 164. 46.

Primal D1sclosures 69 other gods and traditions of worship does not worry the primal traditions; and gods can change their functions and names without too much trouble. One might say, from the theologian’s viewpoint, that whatever the ultimate reality is, if it reveals itself in primal

religions it does so in a myriad names and forms which are accommodated to the histories, beliefs, environments, and practices of different tribal societies. Such societies are not bereft of access

to the spiritual realm, and may even have much to teach more economically advanced societies about the interior character and value of natural powers.

Yet it 1s undeniable that once analytical reason begins its explanatory task of categorizing and systematizing the world in one integrated conceptual scheme, the primal world of spirits ineluctably begins to fade and lose its power. Already in Homer and Hesiod that process has begun, and the gods of classical Greece are robbed of their primal power and reduced to the role of characters in a cosmic soap-opera. By newly emerging standards of rational explanation and of rational morality they were measured and found

wanting. New forms of religion were already developing which would supplant the old in the Mediterranean world. B. THE ROLE OF IMAGINATION 6. Images in Primal Religions

A consideration of primal religions suggests that it is natural for human beings to see themselves as parts of a fundamentally spiritual

reality, a world of spirits, of acting and responsive powers and values. A ‘power’ is a cause of change; that which is capable of bringing states or things into existence. A ‘value’ is a state or object which is admired, approved of, or desired, an existent in so far as it

is conceived of as good or intrinsically worth while. In primal societies what is important 1s the tribal group and the maintenance of harmonious relations with the environment which sustains but sometimes threatens it.*! Religion provides images and stories, with associated rituals, which relate the tribe to the higher powers and values by which they feel themselves to be surrounded—whether *" For a comprehensive account of the primarily ‘stabilising and harmonising’ view of primal religions, cf. M. Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas, i (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1976).

70 Primal Disclosures these are conceived as ancestors, spirits, or gods—and so provides the requisite sense of harmony and cohesion. Possibly the nearest modern analogy to such a conception Is to

be found in societies in which the cult of saints is strong. A saint is an ancestor—a past member of the community—who has become patron of a certain sort of activity, as Cecilia is of music or Christopher is of travelling. Before performing, a musician may dedicate the performance to Cecilia or ask for her help and blessing.

The figure is a channel of creative power and the symbol of a certain sort of value. The Catholic knows that it is God from whom all power comes and in whom all values are rooted; but St Cecilia 1s one who is believed to have realized a certain Divine gift or power

and to be still filled with that power, through God’s help; her closeness to God gives her wishes efficacy. For the primal believer, similarly, there is a hidden suprasensory source of all creative and

destructive powers and values. But they are embodied in and channelled through human or animal forms, which are the spirits or gods who appear to shamans or spirit-diviners in their vision-

quests. One should never make the mistake of thinking that ‘primitive thought’ is much more literal than modern thought. Perhaps the reverse is the case, and moderns read their quasiscientific literalism on to others. As the anthropologist Lienhardt says of the Dinka, ‘It is never, among the Dinka, simply material things in themselves which are of central religious importance, but something formless, immaterial, invisible, associated with them.’*” Literalization, whether material or spiritual, is not typical of primal traditions. In view of the vast array of gods and goddesses who have been

worshipped in history, it seems that anything can become a theophany, if it manifests a valued or unusual power. Thus for the Inuit the sea can be a theophany both of the beneficence of nature in providing food and of the dangerous destructiveness of nature in storm and flood. It becomes a god when a particular form is taken

to represent that which underlies the manifestation. Sedna, in its one-eyed fish/human form, becomes the image of that power, or of whatever hidden reality 1s expressed in it. The goddess 1s worshipped by offerings which are expressions of gratitude for her life-sustaining properties and also petitions for the courage, 42 G. Lienhardt, Divinity and Experience (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), 67.

Primal Disclosures 7I patience, and self-restraint which are necessary virtues in her presence. And through the mediation of the shamans, the tribe can participate in her power, realizing their unity within a wider spiritual whole and reverencing their world as the revelation of her hidden nature. If this is a fair characterization of what is happening, it is misleading to ask if Sedna exists as a distinct individual. As Feuerbach wrote, ‘A god. ..is merely the hypostatised and objectified essence of the human imagination.”** As so often, it is the word ‘merely’

which betrays the reductionism of the theorist who regards all religious beliefs as forms of illusion. If it is removed, one can accept this assertion. The human imagination may well give insight

into objective reality, and its individual forms do not so much correspond to as express the character of that reality. What is important 1s whether the image of Sedna is a fruitful and adequate symbol of the spiritual reality which the Inuit experience through

her. The critic might wish to ask if the primal theophanies give adequate insights into the suprasensory realm; if the representation has powerful affective force; if the forms of worship are revelatory

of important values; and if the spiritual participation which is offered leads to true human fulfilment. These are not primarily questions about the existence of some non-embodied individual. They are about insights, feelings, values, participation, and fulfil-

ment. Of course there is an existential—one might say a metaphysical—question at issue, too. But it is irritatingly difficult even to formulate; for it is a question about the inner character of the reality of which human beings are part, and which they apprehend largely in preconceptual and affective ways.

To have an insight into primal religion, and perhaps into any living religion, is to have some grasp of how one can have a form of awareness which is preconceptual, mediated largely through feeling and essentially imbued with value. The primal symbols of religion are hardly amenable at all to conceptual analysis; but they manifest

and express powers and values appropriated through feeling, by which a tribe understands its own existence as meaningful and significant.

43 L,. Feuerbach, Lectures on the Essence of Religion, trans. M. Vogel (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), 136.

72 Primal Disclosures 7. Distortions in Religious Imagination

Theologians who belong to a tradition like the Christian tradition are faced with a problem in interpreting the phenomena of primal religion. There seem to be four main views one can take. First, one might see it all as a matter of human projection. Second, one might see all gods but one as projections; or perhaps see most gods as

demonic powers, in competition with the true god. Third, one might see all gods and spirits as possible channels of the Divine, which enable people to participate in 1ts power. However, none of these gods might give a wholly adequate view of Divine reality; and one may see them as all complementary or as more or less adequate

approximations of a truth not yet wholly known. Or fourth, one might see all gods as actually existent, just as they seem to be. For any religious believer, the first and fourth views seem to be ruled out, since at least one tradition must be accepted as veridical, and there can be no doubt that not all the gods can exist, since many beliefs about them contradict one another.

In the days of Christian missionary expansion throughout the globe, primal religions were often seen either as ignorant superstitions or as forms of demon-worship. Certainly when Augustine spoke of the gods of Rome, he regarded them as demons who were

diverting people from recognition of the one and only true God, and which fled before the name of Christ.** Also the ancient Hebrew

attitude to Canaanite religions was not one of inter-faith dialogue, but of hacking down their sacred poles and destroying their sacred groves!* In early Hebrew and Christian religion, the existence of many sorts of spiritual powers was not denied. It was rather that such

spirits were inferior to God and were usually thought to be evil demons. Idolatry resulted if they were taken to be the one supreme God. But if one takes the general view that such gods are what may be called mediators of the Divine, channels and representations of Divine power and value, the position is rather complex. For God may speak through a channel, as God often spoke through angels in the Hebrew Bible, so that gods may mediate God, even if they are “4 Augustine, The City of God, bk. 2, ch. 29. 4° ‘You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire; you shall hew down the graven images of their gods and destroy their name’ (Deut. 12: 3).

Primal Disclosures 73 not to be identified with God, the ultimate spiritual power and value.

Is that not, in fact, the position one might expect a Christian to take? For Christians believe that God will go, and has gone, to any lengths to bring human beings to know and love God.*° How, then, could God ignore millions of human beings in primal societies, and fail to reveal anything of the Divine to them? When one considers

the many thousands of years for which humanoid beings have existed on this planet, it 1s incredible to suppose that God had no concern to relate them to the Divine in knowledge and love at all.

The early Christian theologians usually accepted that there had only been a relatively short period of human existence on earth, and that Adam had a close knowledge of God. So all humans had a primitive knowledge of God, which they covered over as sin spread

through the world. Turning to other gods than the one God who walked with Abram as a friend was therefore construed quite intelligibly as a turning to demons, a turning away from the true God whom their ancestors had known.

If it is true that human beings have evolved slowly and over millions of years from states of preconceptual ignorance and blundering attempts to understand the world around them, the position is very different. There 1s no original clear knowledge of one God from whom they have turned away. At the very beginnings of any form of existence one might call human, the drives of lust and aggression were already deeply rooted in animal life.*” Homo sapiens only became the dominant life-form on this planet because these drives were strong enough to eliminate all opposition. One can no longer think of humans as having fallen from a primeval state of innocence and perfect knowledge of God, into a state in

which their passions were too strong for reason to control. The traditional doctrine of a ‘fall’ from innocence cannot be interpreted in a historical way, as referring to events that actually occurred in the past.

Nevertheless, it must be the case that there was a moment at which some sentient being felt the first stirrings, however vague, of a sense of distinctively moral obligation, a sense that passions ought 46 ‘In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him’: 1 John 4: 9. 47 Cf. Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression (London: Methuen, 1966).

74 Primal Disclosures to be constrained by altruism. If conscience is a feature of human life at all, there must have been a first moment at which its call was

heard. In that sense, there must have been a first truly human being, responsive in some way to a Divine command or calling. Furthermore, if it is true that ‘ought entails can’,** that nothing can

truly be an obligation unless it 1s possible to obey it, then it was possible, even in that crude and savage state, to do what was right. It was also possible, of course, to fail to do what was right; and so there must have been a ‘first sin’; that is, a first refusal to do what was truly apprehended as morally obligatory, a first failure of the will. That failure is not to be equated with the prevalence of the amoral destructiveness or competition for resources which characterized the unreflective animal world. But such repeated failures, as

they multiplied through example and influence in early huntergatherer societies, would certainly increase the destructive and egoistic tendencies already inherent in human nature. In fact one might say that ‘egoism’ only becomes such when the primitive amoral drive of self-preservation becomes established as a rationally adopted principle to which there was a real alternative in particular cases.

It is possible, therefore, without undue strain to reinterpret the doctrine of ‘the Fall’ to take account of modern historical and biological knowledge. There was no literal garden of Eden, with a naked, unashamed, and morally perfect Adam and Eve walking with a physically present God. Indeed, such a literal interpretation should always have been ruled out on the theological ground that it gives God a physical form and representation, which is forbidden throughout the Hebrew Bible. There was, and must have been, a

first occasion of moral evil in the history of humanity; and evil became established as a rational principle of action, institutionalized

in social frameworks, very early in human history. A Christian theologian may want to say, on grounds of faith, that a clear knowledge of God and the power such an awareness would bring could have enabled humans never to fall into responsible moral evil; that the possibility of always doing what is good could have 48 The famous phrase, not as such to be found in Immanuel Kant, but usually attributed to him. But he does say: ‘It is now still his [man’s] duty to better himself. To do so must be within his power.’ Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone [1791]

(New York: Harper, 1960), 36.

Primal Disclosures 75 been realized (and can be again) by a total commitment to Divine power. So it was as a result of rejecting Divine love, which caused an obscuring of the presence and power of God, that evil really gained its power over humanity, becoming a virtually inescapable weakness of each human will. In this sense, there is a primeval fall away from the empowering love of God, which leaves the human will too weak to resist egoistic and destructive impulses, and which leads human beings into bondage to irrational passion. ‘Original sin’ can intelligibly be construed as the fact that each human will 1s broken both by its own inherent weakness and by the pressures of a society and a history which makes evil seem overwhelmingly attractive. The consequence of primeval sin is not physical death, which has always been a biological necessity. But it is spiritual death; the loss of the sense of God, the fear of death which springs

from tacit knowledge of one’s own corruption, and the selfdestructiveness which deprives life of meaning and joy.

This primeval history, it seems plausible to suppose, occurred before any clear, explicit concept of God had formed. So, as soon as humans began to form images of the suprasensory reality by

which their lives were bounded, passion had already clouded human vision. Spiritual reality took on the attributes of wrath and judgement that are associated with a righteous God who condemns evil.

As humans began to frame concepts of the divine, one may postulate that their understanding was flawed by sin, by lack of acquaintance with God as well as by actual wrongs, virtually from the beginning. Their understanding of the Divine, like their understanding of the physical world, had to grow through experience and reflection. But now their experience was distorted by passion, their reflection was corrupted through prejudice, and their encounters

with the spiritual realm were characterized by guilt, fear, and hypocrisy. Seen by such minds, the realm of the spirit tends to be interpreted as a realm of tyrannical and angry gods who might be swayed by sacrificial bribes, whose main interest is to defeat tribal enemies and give success to their own favourites, and who stand in need of continual propitiation in case they wreak destruction by plague, famine, or flood. If there is a God who speaks in such a world, who acts to disclose or communicate the Divine nature and

purpose, such action will be discerned amidst the ambiguity of human projections of passion and prejudice.

76 Primal Disclosures 8. The Structure of Primal Religion

The birth of the gods lies in the imaginative transformation of being which attempts to reveal the manifold forms of its inner spirit—but that transformation is always attempted by an imagination which is itself corrupted by passion and prejudice. Hans Georg

Gadamer brings out very well what part of this process 1s like. Speaking of the creation of works of art, he holds that the work of art 1S in a sense ‘more than the being of the material represented; the Homeric Achilles more than the original’.*”? Art makes a thing more like itself (ezgentlicher); the essence of the spirit of a thing is brought forth and disclosed in the sensory realm. ‘Reality’, he says, ‘is to be defined as what is untransformed and art as the raising up of this reality into its truth.’°°

This imaginative transformation is aesthetic; it is a matter of presenting the spirit of a thing for contemplation. The religious interest adds to this a concern for a dynamic change of the self by relation to the disclosed reality. Gadamer seems to think that art itself calls for such a change. Unfortunately, the lives of artists and

art critics hardly make such a view plausible. Kierkegaard was right in distinguishing the aesthetic from the religious by stressing that the latter, but not the former, is concerned with a passionate inwardness whose primary orientation is with the transformation of oneself by relation to a discerned value which one seeks to realize

in oneself, not with transforming the vision of some object for contemplation.”!

In primal religions, the concern with self-transformation is embodied in ritual actions. The anthropologists Spencer and Frazer, speaking from a position of methodological atheism, tended to see rituals as primitive and clearly ineffective mechanisms for fulfilling

human needs and desires. Durkheim showed the inadequacy of their approaches, proposing instead that ritual expresses and reinforces the essential sentiments which bind a society together. However, he appeared to argue that, because the relations of believers to their gods are like the relation of individuals to their society, society itself zs the real object of religious veneration: “The 49 Hans Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Seabury Press, 1975),

3 Ibid. 102. >! Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846].

Primal Disclosures 77 idea of society is the soul of religion.”* This movement from similarity to identity is highly questionable. A more cautious view would say that the attitudes of respect which believers have for sacred objects are very similar to social and interpersonal attitudes, and are often modelled on prevalent forms of social relationship. Just as individuals may respect and seek to imitate social rolemodels, so, as R. N. Bellah puts it, commenting on more recent studies of the sorts of Australian Aboriginal rites on which Durkheim had based his findings: ‘In the ritual the participants become

identified with the mythical beings they represent...they are transformed into new identities.°*? The members of the tribe are taken out of their ordinary selves and embody a new mythic identity which makes them participants in the cosmic archetypal drama of the ‘Dream-Times’, uniting them to the fundamental powers which bound and constitute their lives.~* Seen thus, the gods are imaginative transformations of the powers

and values of being, as discerned in a theophanic experience by

some specially gifted or ‘inspired’ person, and are capable of channelling those powers and values to those who participate in their proper rituals. They are not merely projections of psychic desires, as Feuerbach might have argued, since they express attempts to capture the inwardness of some objective reality, discerned in and through sensory experience. They are not straight-

forward appearances of demonic beings, whom the seer simply portrays in their objective reality. And they are not purely artistic creations, since they are discerned as channels of spiritual power and as matrices of values upon which the discerning self is to pattern itself. The primal gods (or powers, at a less individualized level) are revelatory of a depth and inwardness to experienced reality, of the limiting powers which bound human life (powers of fate, disease,

fortune, and death). Such experiences of spirit in and through temporal events are given a personal form by imaginative transformation, perhaps in dreams or states of possession. These imaginative °2 Durkheim, The Elementary Forms, 56. °3- R.N. Bellah, ‘Religious Evolution’, American Sociological Review, 29 (1964),

°F; Cf. W. E. H. Stanner, “The Dreaming’, in W. A. Lessa and E. Vogt (eds.), Reader 1n Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach (New York: Harper and Row, 1979).

78 Primal Disclosures forms, the figures of the gods or spirits, can provide exemplary patterns for human life, in which devotees can participate. They are charismatic channels of Divine power which bring integration and well-being to human life, transforming selves by the mediation

of sacred power. The figures of the gods reveal what the inner nature of being is, its spiritual basis and purpose. They set out a pattern of what human life must be in relation to the spiritual source. They show how the goal of a true human life may be achieved.

In all this, however, it must be acknowledged that, from the viewpoint of a scientific culture, primal religion contains much that

is morally crude, scientifically false, and spiritually restricting. Its imaginative work is performed by people whose ignorance of modern physics and cosmology is almost total, and whose moral views are unsystematically mingled with practices of magic and witchcraft which hardly bear scientific scrutiny. Primal believers have not yet felt the need to amend their basic religious views by being confronted with independent and critical thought, which the meeting of diverse cultures and the growth of technology has forced most of the developed world to do. If one speaks of revelation in such a context, one is speaking of theophanies which take place within a specific cultural tradition. The free play of poetic imagination has a large role, both in the primitive personalization of spiritual powers and in its subsequent elaboration in myth and ritual, which give it more definite shape and fit it into a larger narrative cosmology of the realm of the gods.

But there are occasions of spiritual discernment, in the lives of specially sensitive people, on the basis of which a relationship to spiritual powers, and a participation in the spiritual world, becomes available to those ready to respond to it.

What is the reality behind this imaginative transformation of perceived reality and the ritual transformations of self which it enables? One can see the growth of religious thought in somewhat the same way as one sees the growth of scientific thought. There have been many false and useless theories in science. Alchemists pursued a vain quest to turn stones into gold for many years; the

hypothetical substance, phlogiston, supposed to exist in inflammable bodies, proved to be imaginary; Newton’s laws were not as all-embracing as he supposed. Theories have been invented and

Primal Disclosures 79 discarded, so that what one sees is something like the free invention of theories and their testing by experiment. So in religion one might expect that there would be many false

and useless theories. Ritual sacrifices among the Aztecs were not necessary to make the sun rise every morning; mental disorders are not caused by demon-possession; spirits do not cause death by casting malign spells. Again one sees a free invention of theories

about the relation of spiritual powers to human life and their testing by experience. But there is this major difference, that religion is a matter of relationship to ultimate powers and values; it is not a matter of discovering laws of regular succession. Nature is a passive

object for human experimentation; but religion is concerned with the relationship with spirit, and the powers with which it attempts to deal are active and commanding. What people are trying to do is to conceive most adequately the pattern of their relationships with an underlying spiritual realm which finds expression both in the external world and within the self. As G. E. Swanson puts it, when ‘primitives’ distinguish the

supernatural from the natural, they are supposing that ‘behind natural events lies the supernatural—a realm of potentialities and purposes of which natural events are but concretions or expressions’.°> Swanson gives a Durkheimian account of the genesis of such a belief. Suppose, however, that there is such an underlying

realm; it will still be the case that it must be apprehended and conceived by human minds which have a very restricted understanding of the nature of the physical world, and which rarely press abstract questions to precisely specified and coherent conclusions. They are clouded, like all human minds, by passion and prejudice, and make no clear distinctions between the religious, the ethical, the aesthetic, the political, and the scientific forms of intellectual activity. It will scarcely be surprising if the gods are construed as powers which directly cause physical happenings. Such powers are

manifold and related to one another in poetically stylized rather than conceptually ordered ways. They are often either tribal war gods or malignant demons, which are often used to bolster the power or prestige of specific tribes or tribal organizations. °> G. E. Swanson, The Birth of the Gods (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1969), 7.

80 Primal Disclosures All these things result from the fact that it is human minds and imaginations which are seeking to interpret the confusing and

dangerous world in which they find themselves. That does not mean that there are no active spiritual powers, that all religion is a matter of human free creation. It means that spiritual powers will be encountered and interpreted by means of available conceptual resources, which may be very inadequate to their objects. Of course, what the theologian would like to do is to get beyond the myths

to the underlying reality, so as to say just what is adequate or inadequate about these interpretations. But the inescapable fact is that one cannot achieve an interpretation-free interpretation! It does not follow that there is no reality apart from the inter-

pretations imposed by language—an absurd supposition, since language is a recent acquisition of human animals. Nor does it mean that language cannot be compared with reality at all, to assess its adequacy. If the belief is proposed that deaths are always due to witchcraft, as the Azande hold or have traditionally held,*° this can and should be tested by experiment and observation. But it is not a simple matter to achieve an adequate conceptual understanding of very complex realities. It 1s virtually certain that we do not yet have

the fully adequate understanding from which standpoint all less adequate interpretations could be judged. Nevertheless it 1s possible to speak of more and less adequate interpretations. More adequate views are those which are aware of and can include a greater range of facts, which avoid conflict with well-established knowledge and which survive the rational tests of consistency and generalization to similar cases.>’ By these simple criteria, the beliefs of most primal religions are

clearly inadequate in many ways. They involve false theoretical beliefs (about the causes of illness and natural phenomena); they do not seriously attempt to construct a general or systematic account of the full range of human religious concepts or experiences (being mostly limited to local tribal experience); and they are rarely con-

cerned to attempt a rational defence of their fundamental beliefs (appealing simply to the authority of tradition). This does not mean that they have no spiritual insight and power, and the fact that in °° E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1937). °” These are spelled out in more detail in Part V, Sect. 9.

Primal Disclosures 81 some societies there is a revival of tribal practices—especially in Africa and in Amerindian societies—shows that this power is not extinct.

The strengths of primal religion lie in its sense of the intimate unity of humans and nature, its feel for the natural rhythms of

the world and for the importance of cultural particularity and continuity of social tradition. Harold Turner has estimated that between 12 and 20 million people are involved in new religious developments in primal societies, which usually arise out of a mixture of interaction with world faiths like Christianity and a reaction against them in favour of tribal traditions.°® In this context,

revivals of primal traditions rebel against what are perceived to be patriarchal, colonial, and anthropomorphic images imposed by missionaries, with the associated destruction of natural habitats and tribal ways of life. In fact there can be no return to the old culture,

and what happens is the birth of new forms of counter-culture, giving the religious traditions quite a new significance. They come to be forms of protest or opposition, rather than legitimations of an immemorial tradition. In this way a new merger of old and new Is possible, which may give a rich insight into the spiritual realm. In Western countries there is today a revival of what is termed ‘paganism’. But this is no longer truly a primal religion, since it is consciously reconstructed in opposition to what are felt to be dead or patriarchal traditions, and reconstitutes the old nature-gods in the image of new ecological concerns.°? Human sacrifice and fertility

rituals are de-emphasized, and new, if non-standard, scientific hypotheses (like the ‘Gaia’ hypothesis) are utilized to frame a general world-view. Such movements are genuinely new religions, syncretistically picking up elements from many existing sources in the attempt to construct a new synthesis. An interesting question for Western culture is whether one or more of the older traditions can contain such reconstructions, in any form, or whether they will

come to constitute genuinely new traditions. In any case, one 1s dealing here with distinctively twentieth-century, conscious constructions which seek to take account of modern science, albeit in strange and sometimes perverse ways; the genuine primal traditions >> -H. W. Turner, Bibliography of New Religious Movements in Primal Societies

(Boston: G. K. Hall, 1977-). >? Cf. J. G. Melton, Paganism, Magic and Witchcraft (New York: Garland, 1981).

82 Primal Disclosures are no longer living options for metropolitan and technologically based life.

When one seeks to say what is true in such traditions, one is inevitably interpreting them from one’s own standpoint. This is not merely a matter of subjective prejudice, even though one can hardly claim to have the ultimate undisputable truth oneself. But it is clear that we have much more genuine knowledge about how the

world works, particularly about the existence of rational laws of nature. The development and success of the natural sciences has made fundamental differences to our understanding of the physical

environment of human life. We have access to a great deal of information about the beliefs and experiences of many societies. The growth of historical knowledge and of techniques of historical criticism has greatly modified the way we regard the past and its authority for us. We have a long tradition of sophisticated critical

thought which has tried and discarded many philosophical formulations, learning much in the process about the tendencies of the human mind, its limits and its imperfections. A much greater stress has consequently been placed upon adopting questioning attitudes to traditional sources of authority and insisting on more than appeal to custom in moral and religious beliefs. And within the JudaeoChristian tradition one has a long history of theological reflection

and development, which claims to be a refinement of the primal ideas of Middle Eastern tribal faiths of the second millennium BCE.

There is a general acceptance that religious beliefs need to be continually modified in new contexts, which leads to an expectation of change rather than of immutability in many aspects of religious life.

From such a standpoint, one is bound to see primal traditions as early and relatively unreflective attempts at interpreting human interaction with the spiritual realm. Such traditions have lasted a very long time; but they have not usually elaborated any sort of systematic world-view which is capable of integration with modern scientific understanding. One implication of this, of some significance for theology, is that God (assuming there 1s a God) has not

revealed the Divine nature and purpose clearly at all ages and times. Nor does God constantly, universally, and unvaryingly impel an improving perception of the Divine Being. For primal religion remains a realm of ambiguous polymorphous gods and spirits, approached through traditional rites and narratives whose

Primal Disclosures 83 greatest virtue is their antiquity and immutability. God does not destroy or override or challenge these interpretations, but presumably relates to primal peoples through their own symbols and rites, which are natural to the culture, temperament, and history of those peoples. One might expect that there will be a certain discontinuity and particularity about Divine revelation, as those who accept new ideas and beliefs conflict with those who cherish the ancient traditions. One cannot say that God is always on the side of the new, since new deviations from truth are always possible. At the same time it 1s to be expected that as knowledge of the world grows, many revisions of old beliefs will become necessary. Thus it

is that one may expect Divine revelation to retain its ambiguity and lack of universal acceptance. It cannot be expected to come smoothly and evenly throughout the world, like one great progressive stream of new insight. It may rather be seen in sudden startling reconceptions of old ideas, sometimes in renewals of old traditions and sometimes in their rejection. It will be likely to be piecemeal, discontinuous, and ambiguous, even though taken in general it can be seen as developing from a context of primal interpretations towards a more rationally developed insight into the Divine nature. 9. Dimensions of Religion in Primal Traditions

It is also important to stress that change in religion is not merely, or even mainly, an intellectual matter. Theologians are naturally interested in the intellectual element of religion, but they cannot neglect the context of the forms of life within which beliefs are

formulated. Ninian Smart’s formulation of six dimensions of religion®’—the doctrinal, mythological, ethical, ritual, experiential,

and social—is very helpful in bringing out this wider context of belief. If one looks at primal traditions using these categories, then

it is clear that they are weakest doctrinally. That is, their worldview is largely false, being based on antiquated views about the heavenly spheres, about natural causality, and about human history.

Their belief content is almost wholly mythological; that 1s, it 1s found in stories of the gods and spirits. But a study of these myths reveals their symbolic character, with the gods as personifications

of powers expressed in natural forms, which recur throughout 60 Ninian Smart, The Phenomenon of Religion (London: Macmillan, 1973), 42 ff.

84 Primal Disclosures many primal societies. Thus the moon is often associated with the

theme of death and resurrection, as it dies and is renewed; it is often associated with the feminine, through its relation to the menstrual cycle, and with the sea in its destructive and life-giving aspects. The sun, rising from earth and descending to it again 1n its daily cycle, devourer of the moon and bringer of light, symbolizes powers of distance and brightness too great to look upon. In similar ways the natural world becomes the carrier of spiritual resonances; and the whole complex can be seen as conveying an underlying

theme of death to human egoism and rebirth to a participation in a wider, all-embracing Divine Life—a theme found from the Aboriginal rites of central Australia to the Orphic mysteries of Hellenistic Greece.*! It is at this level that one can see how primal

myths can carry a spiritual content not wholly dissimilar to that of the canonical traditions, enabling individuals to share in the spiritual power which is expressed in the symbolic representation of

natural powers, so that spiritual death and rebirth, worship and participation, quest and integration, find a place in these traditions

as elsewhere. One must, however, accept the general criticism made by Plato and Greek humanists of the irrational and immoral

behaviour of the gods. While these myths can and do carry a spiritual content, they lack the rational coherence and moral dis-

crimination which might protect such symbolic systems from destructive misuse. With regard to the ethical dimension of religion, primal religions usually have a markedly ‘other-directed’ ethic, stressing the impor-

tance of conformity to social custom and of adhering strictly to ritual practices like avoiding contact with blood, lighting fires in the right way or at the right time, and avoiding certain foods. Many

such rules are to be found in the Jewish Torah, where they have been incorporated into a set of rules for remembering the presence

of God at all times. The rules against mixing different kinds of cloth, mixing meat and milk, and the rules of ritual uncleanness are primitive taboos, probably based on the danger of confusing distinct categories of beings or of becoming involved in bodily 6! Cf. the classic accounts by B. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (London: Macmillan, 1899). Greek material is to be found in Jane Harrison, Themis: A Study of the Social Onrgins of Greek Religion (London: Cambridge University Press, 1927).

Primal Disclosures 85 disintegration,’ which illustrate the lack of clear distinction between morality and ritual or sacred law in primal traditions. Some of these laws, if put into practice today, would be immoral—the stoning of witches and homosexuals, the extermination of whole tribes, including women and children, and the death penalty for idolatry are good examples. What has happened with the Torah is that it has been seen as a living tradition of interpretation, in which particular rules must be seen in the context of governing principles

enshrined in the Torah itself. No one today in the tradition of orthodox Judaism would advocate stoning to death, and even the most severe would see such a punishment as a harsh measure for dealing with a local situation in which the faith was endangered. In new situations, new applications must be found, guided by the primary rule of loving God and one’s neighbour as onself.®

In fact the prophetic tradition was responsible for making morality an important and integral aspect of religious practice, rather than something subsidiary to ritual practice. There are traces

in the Torah of earlier attitudes of a magical nature, avoiding contact with the dead or with skin-diseases and prohibiting the eating of borderline species of animal (with cloven hooves but not chewing the cud, such as pigs). But they have been subordinated to commands of justice and mercy, and have been reinterpreted as reminders of the distinctiveness of the Jewish calling to love and obey God and of religion’s concern with integration and wholeness of body and soul.

With regard to the fourth, ritual dimension, primal traditions often adhere to magical views, according to which the ritual has a

causal efficacy in bringing about fertility, rain, or sunrise. The gods, it was said in Sumer, created humans to save them the work

of tilling the fields, and so that humans could feed them with sacrifices.°* Again, there are traces of this in the Bible, with God

saying that he enjoys the smell of a good sacrifice. But the sacrificial ritual of Leviticus does not see sacrifice as feeding God or as propitiating the anger of God. Rather, sacrifice becomes a means

of thanksgiving and praise and fellowship. The only propitiatory rituals restore the relationship between God and his people, and do 62 Cf. Douglas, Purity and Danger. 63 Deut. 6: 5. 64 S_N. Kramer, History Begins at Sumer (London: Thames and Hudson, 1958).

6 Cf. Lev. I: 9.

86 Primal Disclosures not automatically remove sin (though the Yom Kippur scapegoat rite is probably a relic of a magical substitution ritual®). When it escapes its magical connotations completely, sacrifice becomes an expression of a death to self and a birth of God within the self, the transition from destruction to wholeness and integration. In the experiential dimension, primal traditions often emphasize the aspect of dread and terror before the powers of nature, so that only carefully prepared shamans can penetrate to the ‘great loneliness’ where the spirits live. Again, this aspect is present in the Bible, where the unfortunate Uzzah is killed because he touched the Ark of the Covenant.®’ In the Jewish tradition, God always remains a proper object of dread. But one can trace a development from early notions of automatic destruction coming on those who approach God’s presence to a much more moralized conception of God as showing anger only to those who devote themselves to injustice, and offering mercy ‘to thousands of generations of those who love me’.®%? Thus the arbitrary outbursts of Divine power which characterize much primal religion, and in the face of which taboos must be rigorously observed, is transmuted into the judgement of God upon human evil. Further, the Divine power which at first is obtained by magical incantations comes to be seen as that drawing towards goodness which is the true nature of the Divine. Finally, the social function of primal religions is usually to sustain the tribe and subordinate the individual to tribal custom, in Opposition to those who are are outside the tradition. While the biblical tradition is concerned with the survival of a group of tribes, it also moves on to a universal concern that one God of heaven and earth should be worshipped by all, and that the whole earth should

be blessed through the children of Abraham.°’ It is in Leviticus, that most austere of law books, that the great command to love the resident alien, not only the fellow Jew, is heard.”° If some of the

later prophets fell short of this command, at least it had been implanted firmly into the tradition, to come to the fore at a later time.

It is clear that one cannot view the primal religions uncritically. 6 Lev 16: 20-2. ©” 2 Sam. 6: 6-8. °§ Exod. 20: 4. ©? Gen. 12: 3.

7 Lev. 19: 34.

Primal Disclosures 87 They are subject, as all religions must be, to rational and moral criticism as well as to a form of internal religious criticism which penetrates beneath the forms and rituals to the heart of religion in a supremely integrating personal experience. Yet they need not be

seen as wholly false, demonic, or merely superstitious. In them, under their very various forms, one can find the possibility of a

positive relating of human life to the spiritual realm which is expressed in the world as a whole. Their concern for well-being through ritual practice, for knowledge of the spiritual through ascetic preparation, and for attention to the utterances of mediums of the spiritual realm as vehicles of revelation provides the foundation for later religious development. C. FROM PRIMAL TO CANONICAL TRADITIONS 10. Revelation as Divine Persuasion

Revelation comes to human beings who are believed to be in a privileged position in relation to spiritual value and power. It becomes manifest through an impact on one or more of the main areas of human experience—reflective and imaginative thought, immediate affective or quasi-perceptual experience, or cognitive and volitional capacity. In the primal religions, revelation can take form in oracular utterances or spirit-possessions, directing natural thought-processes in extraordinary ways. It can come in the form of dreams and visions, experiences which are available only to those prepared by special training, discipline, and prayer. Or it can come through extraordinary manifestations of spiritual power, whether as a power of divination of the future through quasi-magical practices or as the manifestation of a spirit through a providential event in tribal history. Oracle, vision, and empowerment are the three main channels of revelation, by which the suprasensory realm discloses its nature or purposes to human communities. These three channels can be found in the earliest strands of the

biblical tradition, which show the change from a primal to a canonical form of religion. In that tradition, the oracular element is particularly dominant, and provides a useful case-study for ideas of revelation which are amongst the earliest recorded. In the biblical records one finds references to bands of ‘prophets’ who seem very similar to the shamanic figures of tribal religions. They sang and danced in ecstatic frenzy and spoke in inspired utterances when the

88 Primal Disclosures spirit of God descended upon them.’! Many prophets claimed to speak the ‘words of the Lord’, and often they contradicted one another. It seems that they were soothsayers, men and women who sought a word from Yahveh, divining what was to come. Jeremiah 28 tells how the prophets Hananiah and Jeremiah disputed publicly about what the ‘word of the Lord’ was. Thus one should not see the prophets as solitary individuals who always speak infallibly and

clearly. Rather, there are many prophets throughout Israel, all seeking visions and words from God, in dream, trance, or prayer, and differing in their interpretations and sayings. The tests suggested for a true prophet are rather crude—one must see if what

they predict comes true. However, since any wise prophet will make predictions which are rather imprecise, the test is difficult to apply. Further, there is an ineliminable element of personal judge-

ment in deciding whether someone has indeed an insight into human affairs and Divine intentions that suggests a supernatural ordering of his or her thoughts.

It is impossible for all these conflicting prophets to be truly inspired by God, and the biblical editors had to deal with this problem. They suggested that only one line of prophets is truly inspired; the rest are deceived either by Satan or by God himself. Prophets, unless they are mere frauds, feel that visions are words which come to them, which they passively receive; they are not rationally thought out. But of course these visions and words come as a result of and in the context of the thoughts and experiences of the prophets. Like the inspirations of poets, they use the materials provided by the mind to convey information. The trouble is that the mind 1s a delicate instrument, and much of this alleged information is quite spurious. That, however, is not really surprising, as most literary works are bad, too. How does one recognize a great work of literature? There is no infallible test; but one speaks in terms of sensitivity, exposure to a wide range of literature, skill in discernment, and

so on. Disputes are ineliminable. Yet some (though very little) literature carries profound insights into human life. So with prophecy, most of it is inferior, even deceitful or demented. Yet some of it, perhaps, conveys great insights into the nature and purpose of God. “7 1 Sam. Io: 5, 6.

Primal Disclosures 89 But is one speaking here just of insight, creative genius in human minds, superior gifts of discernment? Are gods not really speaking?

The model of ‘gods speaking’, even though this is how shamans and prophets typically describe what happens, 1s much too literal and anthropomorphic. It fails to describe adequately the ambiguous nature of prophetic experience, the fact that most of it 1s erroneous and that there is no assured way of telling true from false, except with hindsight. What we have are, precisely, human insights, or alleged insights, which have come in dreams or visions, and which are felt as visions or auditions from the gods. The mind 1s raised to new powers of vision, judgement, and insight by powers from beyond itself. We might think of a god shaping images and concepts found in human minds; yet always hampered by passion and prejudice, by cultural and conceptual context. As God acts in the

world, so God acts on human minds to inspire their visionary capacities. But rarely, one might think, does God find a mind which is attuned to the Divine reality in such a way as to communicate Divine purposes adequately.

Prophets chaim to be channels of Divine communication, by providing concepts and images which can express God’s nature and purposes, which can be used by God as such expressions. God does

not put thoughts into a vacant mind. God shapes the thoughts which are there, in so far as the mind is receptive to Divine influence, to express something of the Divine nature. In this situation, the prophet needs (1) a cultural context which provides appropriate concepts; (2) a historical context which makes possible the discontinuous jump to a new and yet emergent level of understanding; (3)

a temperament which has the quasi-aesthetic capacity, the moral wisdom, and practical insight to frame these concepts in new and creative ways; (4) a deep obedience to the Divine will. Divine communication 1s always indirect, in this sense of embodying itself

in human forms of thought at a particular historical time and in a particular culture. God can be thought of as using the conceptual and imaginative mental contents that exist at a particular time to

deepen insight into the Divine Being and purpose. That active guidance will always respect the freedom which humans can exercise

either to hinder or ease this Divine interaction.

So if one asks what God does, in primal religions, one might suggest that God shapes the visions and thoughts of prophet-figures

to give insight into the spiritual nature of reality and a sense of

90 Primal Disclosures participation in the spiritual realm. But that shaping is limited by the magical world-view characteristic of such traditions and by the fantasy-images which are used as forms of social control in such societies. God is at work, but in an obscured and ambiguous way. The study of primal traditions is of great theological interest because it leads one to concentrate on basic questions of the nature of revelation and of religious truth in a context broader than that of one’s own tradition. It suggests that the perceived inadequacies of

such traditions are likely to occur in various degrees in more developed traditions, too. It is implausible to suppose that God speaks only to the classical biblical prophets, and that he does so in an utterly distinctive and inerrant way, since prophetic experiences

and utterances as they are recorded in the Hebrew Bible are so similar to those found in shamanistic and early prophetic traditions. Suppose one thinks of God as seeking to shape human images and

thoughts so as to be a more adequate channel for conveying the Divine nature and purpose. Then it 1s quite plausible to think that only some cultures will provide the necessary materials for the discontinuous leap to new levels of insight which are required. I am

not seeking here to invent some a priori model of revelation. It is rather a matter of looking at the phenomena of alleged revelation and asking what the best model of Divine revealing action seems to

be, in the light of them. In the Hebrew Bible there is a marked similarity with shamanistic claims to possession by spirits or gods in visions and dreams, which suggests that any model of revelation

should be broad enough to include the primal traditions, even though there 1s no written revelation in them. On the other hand, there is a revision and editing of these elements within a new prophetic belief in the existence of one holy, transcendent, personal agent-god which suggests an important discontinuity in the form of

Divine revelation. ,

One might suggest that the prophets came to form a belief in the presence of such a God under the influence of Divine inspiration. That inspiration is not the placing of words in their minds, though false and true prophets alike often felt such words coming to them as if from an ‘outside’ source. It is the shaping of human thoughts to new insights, in ways always ambiguous and distorted by passion and prejudice, yet responsive to Divine leading. One is compelled to speak of such ambiguity within the Bible itself precisely because of the primitive elements which remain only partly digested within

Primal Disclosures gI it, and because even some of the later, developed elements show a form of moral regression to racist and exclusive beliefs. The picture is not one of a clear moral truth shining unambiguously to dispel the dark clouds of paganism; but of a painful assent to new forms of insight, which are continually dragged back to become the slaves of nationalistic and exclusive passion.’” The model of revelation which best seems to account for this picture 1s the model of God as drawing human minds towards the Divine by persuasive influence, but not eliminating passion and prejudice from those minds and their apprehension of the Divine.’”?

There is a tendency to think that either God directly causes specific thoughts to occur in human minds, or it 1s all a matter of human imagination and projection. But if one thinks of revelation as a form of Divine action which is intended to bring about fuller knowledge of the Divine nature and purpose, it does not have to be the case that God simply inserts propositions into human minds.

One may even say that God can often will what does not come about—namely, when God wills that free creatures obey the Divine

will, and they refuse to do so, through their disobedience. In that sense one can speak of God intending to bring about a mental state of assent to an item of knowledge yet failing to do so; since what God intends is frustrated by human failure. Naturally, this can only happen if God primarily wills that humans should have such freedom; but if such a primary intention of God exists, it follows that instances of secondary Divine willing may be frustrated, and then what is taken to be revealed may not truly or in its totality be intended by God. Moreover, God may intend that humans come to certain imaginative insights with Divine co-operation, but by their own free reflection; and in that case God could be a contributory cause of new knowledge, though the exact content of that knowledge would be dependent on correct human response. Divine in-

spiration may be found in a heightening of natural ability or a guiding of attention in a certain direction, the genesis of a new idea

or a deepening of concentration. But such influence is always 72 This point will be developed a little in the following Part. 73 In Part I, Sect. 6, analysis of the nature of religious knowledge suggested a view of revelation as a Divine shaping of human thoughts in particular cultural and

historical contexts. Now, from a study of primal traditions, the view can be developed as a model of Divine revelation in terms of a persuasive, co-operative causality.

92 Primal Disclosures resistible by inattention, passion, or prejudice; and even normal matters of background cultural belief and personal temperament

will introduce factors which must be taken account of in any attempt to assess the authority of a ‘revealed text’ for subsequent ages.

If one thinks of Divine revelatory action in this complex way as a co-operative causality, dependent for its success on human faithful-

ness, but then contributing a real and positive factor to human efforts, one has a coherent model of revelation which is not a direct dictation model. My suggestion is that as one looks at the phenomena of primal religion, at the beginnings of prophecy and inspired utterances in many different societies, one is bound to reject any

view that God directly dictates all of these revelations. One is logically bound to do so, because they contradict each other, and God does not utter contradictions. Furthermore, there is no convincing reason for supposing that only one of them is directly dictated, since they all put forward precisely the same sorts of evidential grounds for their claims to being revealed truth. There seems to be no one prophetic tradition that 1s free of moral restrictiveness and factual error, of elements of fantasy and authori-

tarlanism mixed with the most elevated moral discernment and humility. So it seems to me that the most plausible view to take, if all these phenomena are not to be rejected as illusory, is that there is a Divine Spirit who interacts with human minds in appropriate contexts to inspire, guide, and shape their thinking towards a fuller insight into truth. If that is so, the most pressing problem for such an account is the problem of how one can tell which beliefs are products of Divine inspiration and which of human recalcitrance or myopia, and why fuller insights should come to some people and societies and apparently not to others. Those are problems which

need to be faced. The discussion so far has tried to prepare the ground for an adequate response by locating the genesis of claims to revelation in the religious experience and practices of pre-literate societies, sketching some of the rational and moral criteria which can be properly applied to religious claims, and noting some of the factors which may make some traditions more amenable to Divine inspiration (if 1t exists) than others. 11. The Transition from Primal Faith The picture of religion which a historical and anthropological study

brings to light is one which places religion as a natural human

Primal Disclosures 93 activity developing over many centuries as homo sapiens became the

dominant species on the planet. Worship of a suprasensory reality which is expressed in animals, rocks, trees, and awe-inspiring places seems to be a natural tendency of the human mind. Talcott Parsons writes: “This view that belief in the supernatural is universal has been completely confirmed by modern anthropology.’”* Primal religions seek to relate to this enveloping reality in ways which bring about good, in the form of health, victory, fertility, and successful hunting or planting. Through myths this reality is depicted in its particular historical and experiential relations to particular tribes. Through rituals the power of the spiritual realm is conveyed to the world. And through the inspired utterances of holy men and women relationship with the spirits is established and sustained. Revelation can be seen in primal traditions as the appearance to holy people in visions, possessions, and divination of powers and values mediated through natural phenomena in which people can share to help them to obtain good. Given this general picture it is plausible for a theist to suggest

that the Divine is actively disclosing its nature and purpose in many different primal religions, even though the beliefs of those religions conflict in many respects. At first 1t sounds impossible that God could be inspiring contradictory sets of beliefs; and it 1s impossible, if God is conceived as inserting correct beliefs into human minds. But if religious beliefs, like scientific, aesthetic, and moral beliefs, develop gradually in very different historical and cultural contexts, it is not at all surprising that they should differ. In the study of the natural world, there are many possible hypotheses for explaining why things happen and many different aspects

of nature one could be interested in. In art, patterns of skill in creating sounds or colours can vary enormously, and yet be genuine expressions of aesthetic taste. In morality, patterns of social life and

human relationships can be very varied and will naturally differ considerably between tropical rain forests and Arctic tundras. Diversity is the natural condition of human enquiry. Why should religion be very different? The gods will be imaginatively patterned

on the differing histories of various tribes, and be modified by underlying beliefs about nature, canons of aesthetic taste, and social forms of life. ’* Talcott Parsons, in the ‘introduction’, p. xxviii, to: Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion, trans. E. Fischoff (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963).

94 Primal Disclosures The existence of such important differences does not entail that

all truths are relative to social conditions. There is, after all, a correct account of laws of physics, difficult though it 1s to achieve. There are canons of beauty which enable the discriminating critic to distinguish between good and bad art, even though there may be

diverse standards of beauty which are being followed. There are basic moral truths about justice, honesty, and benevolence. So in religion it is reasonable to think that there must be some correct statements to be made about suprasensory reality, a source of the ultimate powers and values of being, even if it can be expressed in varied finite forms and can interact with human lives in various ways to bring them to fulfilment. The correct statement may be that no suprasensory reality exists, that it is a projection of the human psyche or social structure. An alternative hypothesis, which does not take all religious believers to be suffering from illusion, is to suggest that there is a suprasensory reality, conceived in many different ways, which co-operates to draw human imagination towards a fuller apprehension of its value and towards a conscious participation in its power. If so, it will do so in the context of what

humans take to be values and of the sorts of power they seek, with all the ambiguities of human knowledge and motivation that entails.

In primal traditions, value is discerned through local and diverse

valued objects and events; power is experienced in forms which

sustain the flourishing of tribal groups. The trend to a more universal form of religion is inevitable, as concern grows for a comprehensive view of reality within which religious beliefs can take a coherent place. As different parts of the world increasingly come into contact with one another, the primal traditions naturally evolve into other forms. In world history this has happened in two main ways. The Semites developed a central controlling idea of the Divine as a moral and purposing Will, especially evidenced in the teachings of Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. This tradition was strongly influenced by the Greek development of a rational theology in Plato and Aristotle especially, and by its rediscovery in thirteenth-century Europe. A very different development occurred in India. The basic human response to suprasensory reality was seen, not as a relation to a personal Will, but as conformity to an inherent order of the natural world, the dharma. Divine law was

not seen in terms of Divine commands, but in terms of an im-

Primal Disclosures 95 manent order of being, expressing the inner truth of the finite world. By the sixth century BCE the moral structure of reality which

is sO important for religion to discern was seen in the workingout of the law of karma and the theory of transmigration. These theories provided the basis upon which Aryan polytheism developed

into a Spirituality stressing the renunciation of desire as the key to enlightenment. This tradition passed into Asia. There it was strongly influenced by a religious interest which was centred on the ideas of an ordered harmony in nature and in society. Such a view

encouraged a world-affirming and immanent spirituality of conformity with the flow of Being, in its natural and social expressions.

It could be pointed out that the Asian group, from which Taoism and Confucianism sprang, is distinct enough to deserve separate treatment. But those faiths have in practice been so intermingled with the various forms of Indian thought that in my view they do not constitute a clearly diverse strand. While one should be aware of these ‘religions of harmony’, as of many other faiths outside the broad dichotomy just suggested, it is nevertheless helpful, I think, to adopt the broad classification into ‘mystical’ (Indian) and ‘prophetic’ (Semitic) religions which Friedrich Heiler proposed.” In these traditions one can see a focusing of religious interest on central focal concepts of moral requirement, reflective reason, renunciation of desire, and wholistic harmony, respectively. The Semitic Judge of the World, the Greek Logos, the Indian desireless Self, and the Chinese cosmic harmony, represent four different images of the Supreme Power and Value of Being; each one unifies the diverse spiritual powers and values of the primal religions in a more or less coherent manner. The Greek and Chinese images have virtually been absorbed into the Semitic and Indian, though 1n the

process they have changed the character of their host traditions. Thus Eastern Orthodox Christianity unites a Platonic philosophical idealism paradoxically with a tradition of Messianic Judaism. In

the Eastern world, Zen Buddhism unites an Indian ascetic tradition paradoxically with a basically world-affirming monism. This capacity of apparently opposed strands to form new unities may

suggest the thought of a further unification, triggered by the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, which has changed the context 73 F. Heiler, Erscheinungsformen und Wesen der Religion (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1961).

96 Primal Disclosures of all religious beliefs irreversibly. I shall be considering this possibility of a convergent spirituality later. But, whether or not it is found an acceptable or fruitful idea, it does not entail the view that all religions will become one super-religion. On the contrary, differences, both in belief and in practice, are likely to increase as individuals and communities become freer to develop their own forms of spirituality. It is rather that possibilities of interaction and co-operation may become apparent where previously one could only see destructive conflict and intolerance. The imperative of universalization, if fully accepted in religion, may change the way in which our very divergent religious beliefs are held and defended. The idea of revelation has a different character for each of these four basic images. In the Semitic tradition, it naturally takes on the form of a personal communication, or ‘speaking’, in which a personal reality conveys information to humans. In the Greek tradition, the idea of revelation either disappears to be replaced by the notion of a wholly autonomous reason, or, in Orthodox Christianity,

it is construed as a self-manifestation of the Supreme Good or intelligible Exemplar in a finite form. It was in this way that the Christian doctrine of incarnation developed certain tendencies of the Semitic tradition in a new direction, moving from seeing God’s

Word as not only an external sign but as a fully intentional selfexpression of the Divine in finite form. The Indian tradition suggests a model of revelation as an experience, authoritatively taught by those who have attained it, of the non-duality of all things. For this view, the idea of a distinct Divine Person, though not wholly lacking, is seen as an appearance of a deeper underlying unity beyond all distinctions. The avatara of Vishnu are primarily teachers

who come to impart the truth of a deeper non-duality. And the Asian tradition is most conductive to seeing revelation as a coming

to fully conscious expression of the laws of being, whether conceived as laws of the natural order, as in Taoism, or of the social order (the ‘way of heaven’) in Confucianism. It may be held that the idea of revelation belongs only to the first

tradition, since it analytically means the active communication of information from a supernatural and personal agent. This 1s, however, an unduly restrictive use of the concept. The root idea of revelation is the manifesting or disclosing of something which is normally hidden. One can think of a person with privileged access

to information revealing it to someone else. One can think of

Primal Disclosures 97 a person revealing something about themselves that no one else knows. One can also think of a human agent revealing truths about the world which are known by a special mode of access, and one

can think, in a less personalist but still active way, of the hidden nature of true being revealing itself in human awareness in a special sort of experience. There are many possible models of revelation,

and what one needs to do is to examine not only the idea of ‘revelation’ but also its cognates in the main religious traditions, so as to gain a broader impression of its possible meanings. From a global perspective, revelation is often less a matter of the inerrant giving of propositions, and more a matter of the disclosure of facets of the Supreme Reality which mediate its power and value in ways appropriate to particular social and cultural contexts. Such

a revelation need not be in and of itself propositional. That is, it need not consist in the entertaining of and assent to true propositions, which are simply given by an authoritative source. Of course, propositional beliefs will be entailed by revelation, but the content of such propositions will often be very unclear. It is in fact precisely

the revealed traditions in many of the great religious traditions of the world which insist on covering the nature of the ultimately real with an agnostic or apophatic cloud. “The way that can be spoken of is not the constant way; the name that can be named is not the constant name.’’° ‘The goal of our search is beyond all knowledge; it is surrounded on all sides by a wall of incomprehensibility.’”’ If, in this paradoxical way, revelation is of that which essentially remains mystery, beyond full conceptual clarification, it will be very difficult to insist upon very precise conceptual truths as central to revelation. Even those concepts which are taken to be revealed will often be cryptic, carrying hidden meanings which can only be

touched upon but never finally unravelled by contemplation and prayer. This means that reason will never have the last word in religion; but it does not mean that reason will have no part to play. The proper function of reason is precisely to clarify its own limits,

to warn where those limits are overstepped and to point to the rationality of an ultimate mystery where it cannot reach. Rational reflection on religion not only warns empirical disciplines when ’° Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching (New York: Penguin, 1963), 57.

”” Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, ii. 152-69, trans. M. Wiles and M. Santer, in: Documents in Early Christian Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 15.

98 Primal Disclosures they seek to eliminate or articulate too precisely the realm of mystery. It also warns the religious when they seem to turn the mystery into pseudo-science, to confuse unfathomable goodness with primitive science or primitive morality. In the world of ancient Greece such rational reflection began with criticism of the immoral antics of the Hellenic pantheon and with the development of rational schemes of understanding the natural world. Greek religion, like most primal religion, had its oracles and divinations; its visions and dreams; its miracles and healings. But

the many gods remained essentially divinities of place or of a particular form of activity. They never integrated into the developing view of nature as a rational system; and they never came into essential relation with the concerns for personal virtue and social justice which became important for the Greek city-states. Religion remained in the area of personal experience, with the gods as freely chosen spirits who might help in the attainment of various projects.

Or it remained in the area of state ceremonial, with the gods as guardians of the polis and symbols of local cultures and ways of life that were not amenable to rational enquiry. In such a religious form of life, there was little or no rational criticism or moral challenge. When Plato constructs his vision of the Good, in the Republic, as the source of all beings and the ultimate value, to be known only in direct contemplative intuition, there is no religious framework into

which that vision fits. Religious rituals remain options for the Platonist, not essentially connected with the pursuit of goodness and truth and beauty. In Aristotle it 1s even more the case that myths and rituals are for the artisans, while the true philosopher will pursue the life of virtue and the contemplation of the most excellent of beings, the Prime Mover, in isolation from any social form of religious life. Thus in ancient Greece the practice of religion and the visions of the philosophers fell apart. The gods of Greece died because the best intellectual thought of the day was not able to give any rational account of the practices associated with the Greek pantheon. In the primal traditions the spirits were living and powerful forces; but they belong to an age to which, after the development of the life of critical reason, there can be no return. The spirit of that lost age is captured well in Rudolf Otto’s description of a ‘primal numinous awe, which has been undoubtedly sufficient in itself in many cases to mark out “holy” or “‘sacred’’ places, and make of them spots of

Primal Disclosures 99 aweful veneration’.’® As Otto remarks, such a sense is schematized in the history of religion by rational and moral reflection. There is

no turning back from such reflection, since it marks a decisive advance in human understanding of the world in general. Yet it threatens to destroy the primitive religious sense, or at least to marginalize it to some vaguely romantic fringe of life for those who luxuriate in such feelings. —

Despite this, the sense of the worship of the natural powers of things, places, and events is a very natural one; it carries with it a sense of reverence for the world and of the unity and interconnectedness of all things, which is indispensable to the religious consciousness. As one observes the cyclical movements of the stars and planets one may have a sense of the order and grandeur of the cosmos. As one observes the cycles of the seasons, of the death and rebirth of vegetation, of the way in which all life seems to sacrifice

itself as food for new life, of the passage of human life from childhood to maturity to old age and inevitable death, one can come to have a feeling for the self-sacrificial, constantly renewing powers of life, and personify that feeling in the figure of the Great Mother, from whose body all living things come and to which they all return. And one can find, in rituals of the renewal of life, a sense of oneness with this Great Mother which conquers the fear of death and enables one to participate in the unending life which is beyond individuality and difference, yet which is expressed in the innumerable names and forms of the finite world.”?

In the rites and myths of many primal religions, one can find these things expressed, as well as in the mysteries of Eleusis and of the Sumerian gods. In the modern world, there is a certain nostalgia for paganism, in the attempted recovery of a sense of reverence for nature and in the tendency to see all gods as partial expressions of

an underlying cosmic diversity-in-unity, a rich pattern of which humans are only part. Yet the primal religions have historically had little power to resist the great traditions of the Semitic and Indian

Streams, and attempts to renew them are rather self-conscious inventions which rarely convey the power of their ancient archetypes. In addition, there are powerful criticisms to be made of such ”® Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, trans. J. Harvey (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1959), 143.

” Cf. Jane Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (London: Cambridge University Press, 1922).

100 Primal Disclosures traditions which make them hard to defend in any culture which cares to find in its religious beliefs a certain degree of consistency, - Integrating power, coherence with well-established scientific knowl-

edge, adequacy to the most profound depths of spiritual experience and reflection, and rationally defensible morality. 12. The Prophetic Critique

The Hebrew prophets were particularly scathing of polytheism,

as was Muhammad after them. ‘The house of Israel shall be shamed ... who say to a tree, ““You are my father’’, and to a stone, “You gave me birth.”’®° Any respectable Canaanite priest would presumably point out that stones and trees and temple images were not themselves taken to be Divine, but to be local expressions of

the natural powers to which humans are kin. As symbols, our devotion can be given to them just as it can be given, in the Orthodox Christian traditions, to icons, which are thought to convey

sacred power without being Divine. However, if one presses the question of just what these natural powers are, the answer is not so clear. If they are literally finite and perhaps impersonal powers, then in revering them one may indeed be revering natural power and beauty. That is better than despising or ignoring them. But are they the ultimate determining powers of human life and destiny? Once we accept our unity with nature, we have yet to ask whether there is any power beyond that of nature itself which determines the character of existence. Nature itself, after all, is neither moral, personal, purposive, nor perfect in being. Polytheism is incapable of giving any foundation for the ration-

ality or intelligibility of the natural order. The many gods and spirits act unpredictably and for motives impossible to systematize. Magical mechanisms of control of such spirits, relying on principles

of imitation (as when one sprinkles water to bring rain) or of contagion (as when one tries to influence another by keeping a piece of their clothing) are notoriously inefficient. Such attempts to discover underlying causal principles have been wholly replaced

by the discovery of the supremely elegant laws of nature which modern science has made. Indeed, modern science only began when the fear of the sacred in nature, of spirits in trees and caves, was overcome, and nature could become objectively investigated by 80 Jer. 2: 26-7.

Primal Disclosures IOI experimental interference. Nature had to be desacralized for science to begin; and few can seriously doubt that science has told us much

more about the physical world than all the myths of all the aeons before science.®!

However, the danger that springs from the experimental imperative is that we shall begin to treat nature as a mere mechanism and

thus forget our own place in nature and destroy its beauty and particularity, forgetting reverence for the sake of mere utility. This danger is not bred by monotheism, but by the rejection of theism,

which does indeed leave the machine of nature as a blind and purposeless mechanism, to be manipulated as we wish, without any inherent ends of its own. Such a rejection coincided with the rise of

science; but what is needed to correct it is not a return to the paganism which divinizes nature but a return to the theism which honours it as God’s creation. The belief that nature is the creation of one transcendent spirit implies that nature exists because it is willed and desired by that

spirit. Nature exists for a purpose; it is to be honoured because God honours it as the expression of Divine desires; to fail to revere

its beauty and elegance would be to fail to honour the Creator’s purpose. Moreover, this purpose is expressed in one intelligible order, not in a riot of competing powers. It honours nature more to see it as a supremely rational and beautiful order than to see it as a

realm of competing spirit-powers, without ultimate goal. Even more important, the order of a God-created nature is a moral order;

it subordinates the merely natural to moral ends, to intrinsically worthwhile goals and ideals.

The sense of unity with nature which the primal traditions can give is in danger of achieving a sub-personal identity, 1n which the distinctively moral, rational, and individual capacities of persons are devalued or lost. There is rarely the thought of an ascent to a more fulfilled form of personal life. Rather, the individual and personal is dissolved into the general interconnectedness of all things, where there is neither subject nor object, but suffusion into the cosmic pattern. The Hebrew prophets, in protesting against the idolatry of their Canaanite neighbours, were protesting against such

a loss of individual responsibility, particularity, and temporality. 81 Cf. Francis Bacon, ‘The Advancement of Learning’ (1605), in The Works of Francis Bacon, eds. J. Spedding, R. L. Ellis, and D. D. Heath (Boston: Taggard and Thompson, 1863), vol. vi.

102 Primal Disclosures Yahveh, the god who stands above nature as its creator, sets a moral goal for it, and commands rational persons to become cocreators in achieving that goal. If nature is, as Tennyson wrote, ‘red in tooth and claw’, it is for humans to oppose nature in the name of goodness and love. If nature is a long cycle of death and rebirth, within which all things have a function but no special dignity, it is for humans to assert their own transcendence of nature, precisely by claiming and giving infinite respect to personhood, in themselves and others. If nature suggests the necessity of human sacrifice to appease the spirits of famine and earthquake and

produce fertility, it is for humans to drive such spirits from their imagined habitations and insist that human life can never be used as a means to an end. In a word, prophetic religion stands for the transcendence of personal, ethical, and individual life, over against

the reduction of human personhood to the rhythms of time and nature, and the ritual control of fate and fertility which the nature religions seemed to stress.

Primal traditions may protest at the intolerant moralism of the prophets, at the personalization and moral idealization of transcendent reality and at the division of being into dualities of good and evil, spiritual and physical, God and nature, human and animal, subject and object. Yet what the prophets see in the religious cults around them, and what they are attempting to cleanse from their own tradition, is the scandal of human sacrifice to appease angry

and capricious gods, the degradation of ritual prostitution and sexual promiscuity in order to assure fertility, the irrational use of magic charms and spells to tell the future, avert evil, or bring it on others, the spuriousness of claims to ancient and secret knowledge which gives initiates a spiritual superiority, and the dissociation of

religious cult from moral demand, which gives to it at best a utilitarian and self-serving function and at worst a bestial and destructive function in pursuit of wealth and power over others. One can thus see the eighth-century BCE prophetic movement in Israel and Judah as an attempt to raise the nature cults of the time to the level of faith in a personal and moral creator, who requires exclusive worship simply because there is, in the end, only one creator of all things. 13. Semitic Monotheism

The prophetic perception of a personal and moral God marks a decisive change in the religious consciousness. Yet that change

Primal Disclosures 103 still bears the marks of its beginnings in the primal traditions of nomadic desert religion. When attempting to understand the Hebrew Bible, a Scripture of fundamental importance to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, it is illuminating to place it in the context of the primal religions of the Middle East, from which it arose. It contains many instances of primal practices, which have been taken over and incorporated into a new conceptual scheme which begins to speak of one transcendent almighty god with a moral purpose for

the world. A good example is the serpent-god, Nehushtan. In Numbers 21: 5—9, Moses makes a bronze serpent set on a pole, which is a magical device for curing snake-bite. This came to be worshipped until the trme of King Hezekiah, who destroyed it as an idol.®* The snake is an object of worship in many primal cults.

It is the bringer of death, since its bite can be fatal. But it is also the symbol of renewed life, since it sloughs its skin and is reborn in

a new body. The snake thus becomes the symbol of death and rebirth to a higher life, and it seems obvious that one has in this passage the construction of a magical cult-object representing the serpent-god or power of death and renewal.

In the edited account, it is God who sends snakes to kill the people for grumbling, and who tells Moses to make the serpent; but why God should choose such a very peculiar piece of mimetic magic to bring healing, especially when it gave rise to idolatry for generations, is wholly unexplained. Most anthropologists would probably immediately conclude that this is an ancient devotion to the snake-god as the god of healing (a similar association between snakes and healing is found in Asclepius, Greek god of healing, and his double-serpent staff), which the editor has tried to incorporate into the narrative of Mosaic monotheism. The story that God sent snakes to bite people is likely to be a rather implausible explanation of why a serpent was worshipped in this revised religious context. A number of amulets dating from the first century BCE,*° picturing Yahveh as a god with legs made of serpents, suggest that the snakecult was closely intermingled with the Yahveh cult for hundreds of

years. |

There are many other ancient religious practices which have been similarly reinterpreted in a monotheistic framework by later editing. One is the use of Urim and Thummim, which were perhaps stones

82 Kgs. 18: 4. 33 Erwin R. Goodenough, Fewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, iii (New York: Pantheon, 1954).

104 Primal Disclosures engraved with symbolic markings and used as lots to be cast to provide oracles of victory or defeat in war.** Such a discernment of

good or bad luck by an oracular practice, whether of cutting up entrails of sheep or throwing dice to be interpreted by a prophet or

priest, 1s widespread in primal religions. Again, in Genesis 12, when Abraham visited Egypt, the Pharaoh’s household was afflicted with plagues because the Pharaoh slept with Abraham’s wife, even though he did not know who she was because Abraham had lied to him. This is an example of disease being caused by the breaking of

a ritual taboo, even when one is unaware of it, and expresses an early view of sin as a sort of contagious impurity. It is quite clear that according to 2 Kings 23, the kings of Judah

had hired priests to burn incense to Baal, god of fertility, to the sun, moon, and constellations; and that altars to the sun-god and to other gods were to be found in the Jerusalem Temple. The prophet Ezekiel found women at the north gate of the Temple weeping for Tammuz, the Sumerian vegetation-god.®° Of course the biblical record is that these were deviations in Israel, to be brutally exterminated; but it seems that the distinction of early Hebrew religion

from its surrounding cults was not always very clear, and was perhaps only definitively established by the later prophets.

The prophets did, however, introduce a new note into Middle Eastern religious practices. They opposed all fertility cults, which they held to be associated with human sacrifice, cultic prostitution, and devotion to the Great Goddess, devourer of her children as well as mother of all living things, brutal and cruel as well as beneficent

to her devotees. The message they brought was of one holy and transcendent God—a sky warrior-father instead of the earth mother—who demanded justice and mercy and remained essentially distinct from his people. At the same time that nature was desacralized, Divinity was moralized. In fact these two go together,

since nature is essentially amoral, and to give nature itself sacred power is to sacralize forces of fertility and survival at the expense of

all those rational and humanizing values which oppose the more ruthless and destructive natural processes. As the biologist T. H. Huxley perceived, the processes of nature must often be opposed for the sake of justice or altruism.®° If there is a fundamentally 84 Cf. Num. 27: 21. 8° Ezek. 8: 14. 86 T. H. Huxley, Evolution and Ethics (London: Pilot Press, 1947).

Primal Disclosures 105 moralizing power in objective reality, it cannot be identified with nature. In this way one can understand how the Hebrew prophets, impelled by an intense demand for justice, strongly rejected the worship of the Great Goddess, who was taken to represent nature and the natural cycles of life. In her place they proposed a wholly transcendent deity, not to be identified with nature, but demanding uncompromising obedience to the moral requirements of justice

and truth. In the imagery of the day, such a god, distant yet demanding, was naturally thought of as father, judge, and king, and the notion of the female consorts of God, which might have compromised his moral authority, was sharply rejected. We are now more deeply aware of the ambiguity of such moralizing demands; of the way in which appeals to an objective moral

requirement can in practice exert an oppressive and intolerant influence on society. Moreover, in the twentieth century we are surely free of serious temptation to identify the feminine with nature, arationality, and amorality, and the masculine with reason and morality. One can, however, in historical perspective, see how

the male and female images of deity could come to be sharply separated as they were in Hebrew thought. At the same time, one must be quite clear that the Hebrew tradition, precisely in insisting upon the total transcendence of God, also negated any true mas-

culinity or sexuality in the Divine being itself.*” Contemporary theologians would be inclined to argue that an adequate image of God must include both transcendence and immanence; both those elements traditionally (or prejudicially) associated with masculinity and those with femininity. Yet one can see how the image of God as Father arose in reaction to amoral religious cults and preserved an

important and distinctive perception of the moral demandingness

and ontological transcendence of the Divine. Thereby human personality was raised to a transcendent dignity and history was given a moral and social goal. This remarkable transformation marks a discontinuity in religious history of major proportions. If today we might wish to move the tradition on a little further, perhaps it is still important to be clear that nature itself should never be worshipped and one should revere nature only in so far as one sees it as willed by God to express the Divine glory and realize the Divine purpose. 8” “To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?’ Isa. 40: 18.

106 Primal Disclosures 14. The Unity of Being The birth of the prophetic tradition in Persia and in Palestine is one

form of reaction against the primal faiths of the old gods and goddesses, as personifications of spirit-powers inherent in nature. Another main stream of response is found in India, where a different perception of the non-duality of all things and the unsatisfactoriness of all attachments led to the development of a different

spiritual path of inward integration and enlightenment. In the sacred Scriptures of India, the Vedas and Upanishads, elements of primal religion remain, to an even greater extent than in the Bible. The Atharva-Veda consists in large part of spells for avoiding evil fortune and obtaining health, wealth, or longevity. There is a great concern in the Yajur-Veda for the correct carrying-out, in meticulous detail, of the proper ritual sacrifices, which will renew the universe. Even in the better-known Rig-Veda there is a fascination with sacred cosmogonies and numerology which shows forms of thought captivated by worlds of imaginative fantasy. All this is incorporated, especially in the Upanishads, into a central strand of very sophisticated reflection on the ultimate nature of reality. The Indian tradition does not develop the moral passion of the

Hebrew prophets. Accordingly, it does not discern any need to distinguish the natural and amoral universe from a morally demanding Supreme Spirit. “The vast majority of the Vedic hymns are not concerned in the remotest degree with questions of morals.’®®

The gods are good powers, who appear in visions, who give support and aid to humans and who can release humans from misfortune. In the Vedic view, anything can be taken as a god and given the highest attributes. The gods merge and overlap, stressing different aspects of some power. Thus: ‘At evening he is Varuna, Agni; Mitra he becomes, arising in the morning.”*’ Gods naturally come to be seen as aspects of one ultimate power, which in the Upanishads is characterized as Brahman, the Ultimately Real. The drive to find some ultimate unity in the objects of religious belief

exists in the Indian as in the Semitic tradition. Whereas the Hebrews found that unity beyond the universe, excluding all finite diversity, the Indian seers found it in the universe itself, as the one power of being within all things. 88 A. Keith, The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1925), 249. 89 Atharva-Veda, 13. 3. 13.

Primal Disclosures 107 If Brahman ‘consists of all things’,”? then each person is part of Brahman, and one can discern Brahman by discerning the innermost self. “In this space that is within the heart dwells the “‘person’”’

made of mind.’”’ So begins the yogic quest for knowledge of the

absolute reality within the heart which is distinctive of Indian streams of spirituality. Lacking the dimension of ‘external’ moral obligation, it provides instead a way to bliss and spiritual knowledge through meditation. As the tradition builds up, a characteristic stress 18 placed on the unity of all things and on the importance of inner peace and freedom from attachment as opposed to the active external struggle for social justice. The primal gods are not opposed.

They are simply absorbed into a more inclusive cosmology and allocated a level said to be appropriate for various stages of spiritual development. At an early stage in human history the development of religious

thought towards a greater sense of the unity of the suprasensory split into two distinct streams, a way of inner enlightenment through meditation and a way of loving obedience through prayer. Ideas of revelation develop in different ways within those streams, though

the concept of an active disclosure of the nature of one ultimate reality to human minds remains common. It is that concept which,

in this part, I have attempted to trace in some of the primal religions of the modern world. Drawing on the large amount of anthropological research and analysis which is now available, I have

presented a non-reductionist account of primal religious beliefs. That is, I have tried to see them as a genuine form of relationship to a suprasensory realm, providing a genuine, if partial, revelation of its character and an effective, if incomplete, salvific role—a way of mediating and enabling individuals to participate in its powers and values. John Hick has expressed one version of such a view superbly, proposing ‘a religious but not confessional interpretation of religion’,’’ an interpretation which is committed to the reality of the

suprasensory realm, but not to the distinctive claims of any one religious tradition. I am sceptical, however, about the precise way in which he sets out his programme. I agree with Byrne and Clarke °° Brihadaranyaka Unpanishad, 4. 4. 5, in R. C. Zaehner, Hindu Scriptures (London: J. M. Dent, 1966). 7! Taittiriya Upanishad, 1. 6. In Zaehner, Hindu Scriptures. *2 John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion (London: Macmillan, 1989), I.

108 Primal Disclosures that ‘combining some kind of commitment to the reality of the sacred while avoiding all first-order theological claims may in the end be an impossible task’.”* In distinguishing confessional and comparative theology, in Part I, I envisaged three main ways in which comparative theology could be undertaken. It could be an attempt to interpret all human faiths comprehensively and justly, though inevitably and avowedly from one’s own confessional (or perhaps non-religious) standpoint. It could be a joint enterprise, involving contributors from different faiths, without attempting any finally agreed view in detail. Or it could be a methodologically agnostic enterprise (which Byrne and Clarke favour), seeking a just statement of various views without any assertion of a viewpoint of one’s own as to the reality of the objects of belief.

The present work is an attempt to undertake the first of these programmes, and a possible contribution to the second. It is thus certainly a ‘religious’ interpretation. My point of disagreement with

Hick 1s that I do not think one can hold a religious view without

holding a confessional view of some sort, however attenuated and revised it may be. Any such view presupposes the truth of some basic religious beliefs—such as that there is a suprasensory realm, having a certain character, which actively discloses itself to humans.”* In that respect, however, the account is no more objectionable methodologically than that of theorists like Durkheim,

who work from an equally strong presupposition that no such realm exists. One aim has been precisely to test the religious presupposition against the phenomena which anthropologists report. One thing to be said in favour of this presupposition is that at least it does not relegate the whole of religion to illusion, but respects the testimony of believers that they are in contact with suprasensory powers. At the same time, however, a comparative study makes it fairly clear that those powers cannot be exactly as they are reported to be; they conflict with each other too much for that. A plausible hypothesis which suggests itself is that, since primal revelations are very diverse, fallible, and developing, their diversity correlates with the natural diversities of culture, history, and temperament which characterize human societies. This suggests that the ‘gods’ which appear to seers in visions, dreams, and trance°3 Byrne and Clarke, Religion Defined, 96. °4 This point will be developed in more detail in Part V, Sects. 7, 8.

Primal Disclosures 109 states are symbolic forms, woven out of the imaginations of their devotees, as they seek to express and respond to the powers which limit human modes of being.”? Revelation does not come as a package of infallible information. It is the result of a Divine cooperative influencing of human thoughts and feelings, always congruent with the character of the culture in which the influence is felt. This ‘Divine influence’ is, as Smart’s six-dimensional analysis of

religion helps to make clear, a complex process with a number of overlapping strands. As it has proceeded over thousands of years,

it has been built up through many imperceptible stages by the imaginative narratives of poets (myth); the reflective speculations of

theologians (doctrine); the visions and auditions of seers (experience); the ceremonial cults of priests (ritual); the prescriptions of moralists (ethics); and the decisions of institutional legislators (social organization). All these factors blend together to build up a religious tradition, whose manifold and gradualist origins tend to be unified and compressed so as to be attributed to the fabled deeds or experiences of tribal ancestors. What was originally the product of a long, complex process is seen as given instantaneously to an archetypal ancestor/spirit. Within such a tradition, individuals find resources for relating to the powers which form the ultimate conditions of their existence.

‘Religious symbolization is concerned with imaging the ultimate conditions of existence.”° The point of such symbolizations is connected with the avoidance of harm and the pursuit of human well-being. Members of the religious community can participate in the values and powers which are symbolized in their tradition, and

thus be transformed, even reborn, into conscious sharing in a deeper spiritual reality. It is in this sense that the primal traditions offer ways of ‘salvation’, of liberation from the constrictions of egoism and alienation into a more harmonious or integrated way of life.

I have given a positive account of primal traditions, which stress

aspects of human awareness often lost to a more technological culture—harmony with nature, the unity of existence, and the > Hick, An Interpretation of Religion, 266. Note, however, that the problem of what sort of truth is to be attributed to these symbolic forms remains to be teased out. 7° Bellah, ‘Religious Evolution’, 364.

IIO Primal Disclosures cognitive function of imagination. Such traditions are revelatory of fundamental powers and values of being; they provide exemplary

patterns for living a truly human life, and they are channels of charismatic power for attaining that goal. This threefold structure of religious practice remains of fundamental importance in subsequent religious thought. Yet I have argued that, from the viewpoint of a scientific culture, the primal traditions stand in need of rational and moral development. As believers begin to seek a more

unitary concept of suprasensory reality and of the human goal which lies in knowledge of it, new forms of religious life come into being. This suggests that an internal part of the revelatory process is reflection on received forms of symbolism and spiritual practice. There is not a sharp divide between reason and revelation; for revelation, the active disclosure of spiritual reality, develops precisely as

reason, the reflective response to spiritual reality, opens up new possibilities for disclosive action.

The great scriptural traditions contain remnants of their primal past. The Indian traditions tend to absorb that past, subordinating it to higher levels of religious life. The Semitic traditions tend to exclude it or place it in a radically changed moralized context. In either case, a clarifying light is shed on the nature of revelation if one sees it as a long, developing process from diverse primal forms of religious life which are now irrecoverable in detail. The great Scriptures themselves are relatively late products of an immensely long process of development. They can be better understood as springing from earlier historically and culturally diverse traditions than as directly given by God without reference to culture or history. Indeed it is essential to have such a historical understanding if the scope and authority of revelation is to be reasonably assessed. It is this perspective that I have tried to convey in these reflections on primal traditions.

PART III

Four Scriptural Traditions A. JUDAISM 1. Towards a General Theory of Revelation

I have suggested that the primal religions which exist in the world today contain and are in large part dependent upon ideas of revelation. They provide living examples of traditions which contain many simular features to those from which the major world faiths sprang. Thus they provide insights into the development of notions of revelation which antedate those formulated by the world faiths.

Such notions depend very much on unwritten tribal traditions, which are accepted as purely local, even when given a cosmic significance. It is characteristic of what are often called the ‘world faiths’ that they claim to possess a universal and definitive reve-

lation, usually enshrined in a written canonical Scripture. I have followed Heiler’s general division of such faiths into prophetic and

mystical, or Semitic and Indian. In the Semitic stream, Judaism represents a seminal and intermediate case. It is seminal, because the Hebrew Scriptures form the basis, or at least the inspiration, for subsequent prophetic faiths, like Christianity and Islam. It is intermediate, because it remains in a sense a local or tribal tradition, for the people of Israel only. Its revelation is nevertheless universal

and definitive, for it reveals the will of the one creator of heaven and earth and it looks for a time when all nations will come to Jerusalem to worship and find the Jews to be the chosen priests of one God.’ The Hebrew Bible shows the uniting of all spiritual powers under the concept of one supreme power, a God for whom nothing is impossible. It shows the uniting of all spiritual values under the concept of one supreme value, a God in knowledge of whom humanity finds its proper fulfilment. The many symbolic forms of primal faith and the many valued states that religious

practice brings are unified under the idea of one God who 1s ' Isa. 60: 1-3.

112 Four Scriptural Traditions perfect, who wills to transform the world to express his glory. In the Indian stream, the orthodox Hinduism which consists in acceptance of the Vedas and Upanishads is also a seminal and intermediate case. It is seminal, because it propounds the core ideas of karma, rebirth, and release which characterize subsequent Indian and Asian faiths. It is intermediate, because in its detailed social and ritual rules it remains a religion for the people of India only. Its revelation is nevertheless universal and definitive, for it reveals the ultimate non-duality of Being and the ultimate goal of release for all sentient beings. All spiritual powers and values are

united in the idea of Brahman, the only self-existent reality of perfect knowledge and bliss. This teaching is enshrined in a definitive set of canonical Scriptures.

In seeking to understand the idea of revelation in its widest human context, it is therefore essential to consider the two scriptural faiths of Judaism and Hinduism. They seem to develop in quite different directions; and part of a comparative study will be to ask how far they are in fact quite different, and how far they can be seen as complementary streams of revelation, embodying rather different ideas of what revelation 1s.

Since there are a great many religious traditions, any further study which is not to be wholly unwieldy needs to be very selective.

Although this work is meant to be a contribution to a wider interreligious comparative theology, it is undertaken from an avowedly Christian viewpoint. That fact, together with considerations of competence and space, suggested to me that the other most immediately relevant traditions are those of Buddhism and Islam. Buddhism universalizes Hinduism by rejecting its ethnic basis. It poses a specific and severe problem for Christian theologians by its apparent lack of any revelation from or awareness of

God. As it moved into China and Asia, it tended to absorb the Asian ‘harmony’ traditions of Taoism and Confucianism, to become

the dominant religious faith of the South-East Asian world. Thus anyone who, like Christian theologians, professes a universal and definitive revelation needs to account for the apparent total lack of the need of any such revelation in the Buddhist traditions. Islam in a similar way universalizes Judaism by rejecting its ethnic basis. It poses an equally severe problem for Christian theologians by professing a revelation which seems to contradict some

of the central tenets of Christian revelation. At an early stage,

Four Scriptural Traditions II3 it claamed much of the Greek emphasis on the intelligibility of the world for itself, and passed on its philosophical tradition to medieval Judaism and Christianity. It supplanted Christianity almost completely in the Byzantine Empire and is today one of the fastest growing religions in the world, with something approaching 600 million adherents. Thus Christian theologians need to account

for this apparently conflicting revelation which has generated a wealth of spiritual teaching and moral idealism throughout the world.

In this Part, therefore, I will consider the four scriptural traditions of Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, as part of an enquiry into the general notion of revelation, considered in its widest human aspect. I will try to show how different views of the nature of revelation develop; how an account can be given, from a Christian viewpoint, of these differences; and how the global perspective in turn leads to a recontextualization of Christian theology.

In each case I will consider one central topic which suggests a fruitful clarification of the general theory of revelation I am seeking. I will concentrate on major written texts which are central to each tradition, even if they may sometimes seem to have little effect on

actual religious practice. Close attention to texts will provide the study with a degree of rigour, though a comprehensive comparative

account would need to observe the immense varieties of practice and interpretation which exist in each tradition. That, however, is far beyond the scope of this study, which 1s primarily concerned with ‘theology as science’—that is, as a rational and systematic articulation of beliefs about the ultimate character of reality and the final human goal. 2. The Religion of Moral Law The distinctive contribution of Hebrew thought to religion was the

establishing of a central connection between moral conduct and religious practice. Even though the performance of religious rituals

is usually connected with the obtaining of human good or protection against harm, there 1s rarely an essential connection made

between the participation in such rituals and moral conduct. Of course one gives the gods their due, and this may mean maintaining

the social order that the gods support. But there is a tendency in much religious thought either to regard ethics as quite separate from religion or to see religion as beyond good and evil and all the

II4 Four Scriptural Traditions compromises and conflicts that social and political life necessitate.

The point can be made very clearly by comparing the Ch’an Buddhist statement of Seng-Ts’an, ‘Abide not with dualism, care-

fully avoid pursuing it; as soon as you have right and wrong, confusion ensues and Mind is lost,’* with the words of the prophet Micah, ‘What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?’? One must be

careful not to overstress this contrast, since Buddhism usually requires a very strict adherence to moral principles, such as the Five Precepts binding on all monks and laymen, and Judaism usually insists upon correct ritual observance, such as Sabbath observance, in addition to the practice of justice and mercy. Nevertheless there is an important difference of emphasis. In Buddhism generally, adherence to moral precepts is a means to non-attachment and liberation from desire. The point of the verse by Seng-Ts’an is that when liberation is attained all dualities are overcome, including that between right and wrong, so that enlightenment lies in a state beyond the polarity of good and evil. In Judaism, however, even

the ritual observances are intended to remind the Israelites that they have been set apart to be devoted to a God whose commands rigorously enjoin good and condemn evil. There is no conception of

a liberated state beyond good and evil, and a moral dualism is written into the very structure of the universe. Salvation lies in a society of perfect justice and mercy, when all rituals will be unnecessary, when evil will finally have been eliminated for ever, and when God’s good purpose for creation will be fulfilled.

In one sense prophetic Judaism radically simplifies religion. There is only one God; God requires simply total commitment to justice, in the widest sense; and promises, in return, a society of peace. In another sense, however, Judaism is extremely complex, for it builds up a system of law which inspires centuries of juridical

wrangling about the interpretation of the Divine injunctions. Judaism is above all the religion of Torah, of the Teaching of God.

In traditional orthodoxy, the written Torah was given, either by hearing or by dictation, to Moses, and comprises the biblical books from Genesis to Deuteronomy; a further unwritten Torah was also given to Moses and passed on by oral tradition. The main teachings * Seng-Ts’an, ‘Sin Sin Ming’ (‘Believing in Mind’), trans. A. Waley, in Buddhist Texts, ed. E. Conze (London: Cassirer, 1954), no. 211, p. IO. 3 Mic. 6: 8.

Four Scriptural Traditions 115 of the oral Torah are formulated in the Babylonian Talmud, edited in the fifth to sixth centuries CE. This is a major resource for Jewish

thinking on matters of human conduct and relationship to God.

It does not, however, restrict human thought by laying down clear and immutable laws. On the contrary, Rabbinic practice encourages creative interpretations of that tradition in new circumstances. Contemporary orthodox Judaism thus embraces many

diverse outlooks and ways of life, too rich and complex to be considered in a treatment of this sort. Orthodoxy is, however, clearly committed to a respect for tradition and an acceptance that the Bible and Talmud do contain a particular revelation from God to the people of Israel. It 1s thus important to determine what form that revelation takes. When one reads the biblical accounts of revelation, one finds records of long, almost everyday, conversations between God and Moses. It is as though God 1s Moses’ companion, telling him in particular situations what he needs to do. We are told that the Lord stood at the tent entrance in a pillar of cloud and said to Aaron and

Miriam, ‘If he [Moses] were your prophet and nothing more I would make myself known to him in a vision, I would speak with him in a dream. But my servant Moses is not such a prophet; he alone is faithful of all my household. With him I speak face to face, openly and not in riddles. He shall see the very form of the Lord.”* God appears to Moses and speaks with him face to face. Perhaps God appears in the form of an angel, as he had done to Abraham,”

eating, walking, and conducting a conversation, or even an argument. Perhaps God appears in majestic form, as he did to Ezekiel.© Or perhaps God appears in the mystery of the Shekinah,

the cloud of the Divine glory,’ so that although Moses sees the form of the Lord and hears his words openly declared, he cannot see the face of God, the innermost being of the Creator itself.® However one thinks of it, there is a claim that God does truly appear to Moses and speaks words which Moses is to record for future generations. This is certainly a propositional form of revelation; that is, a revelation given in overt propositions, certified as true by God. * Num. 12: 5-8. > Gen. 18: 1 ff. © Ezek. 1: 26 ff. ” Exod. 34: 5. § Exod. 33: 18-23.

116 Four Scriptural Traditions It is clear that propositions do play a large part in biblical revelation. When God appears to Abraham, he promises the gift of a homeland and makes a covenant with his descendants for ever.”

When God appears to Moses, he lays down precise laws and requirements—613 of them, according to one orthodox tradition. When the prophets speak, they proclaim the words of God, who judges evil, requires repentance, and promises forgiveness. The

heart of the biblical revelation seems to be that God calls the descendants of Abraham into a covenant relationship, that he gives them a special vocation to worship in a specific way, and that he promises them good if they keep his covenant. God manifests to Abraham as one who calls, commands, and promises. Can this be done non-propositionally ?

I will return to this question. But it is first worth noting that the propositions that God reveals are not just items of theoretical information which might save people the trouble of scientific inves-

tigation. Nor are they for the most part straightforward moral truths that are meant to be binding on all human beings without exception. The ‘statutes and ordinances’ of Torah, far from being universal moral truths, are meant specifically to ‘set apart’ (to make

holy, gadosh, or devoted to God) the people of Israel. Thus the rules concerning clean (kosher) and unclean foods are for Jews only; Gentiles are not expected to observe them. If one looks for reasons for all the food laws, one will be hard put to it to discover any satisfactory general principles. Indeed, some rabbis have said that the reason for keeping them is precisely because we cannot establish them by reason; so that our obedience shows that we obey them simply because God has given them. The greatest of classical Jewish philosophers, Maimonides, said, “Those who trouble themselves to find a cause of any of these detailed rules are in my eyes devoid of sense.’!°

In any case, it seems that such laws are neither universal moral

laws, nor establishable by rational reflection. And if they are basically laws to set apart a people as distinctive, 1t might not matter what precisely they are. In fact, the odder they seem, the more chance they might have of achieving their object of being ? Gen. 12: I-3. 10 Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, trans. M. Friedlander (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1904), 311.

Four Scriptural Traditions 117 quite distinctive. Nevertheless, since they are given by God, it is a

fair assumption that some principles of wisdom underlie them, even if they are unclear to us. One can detect some themes running through many of the laws. The prohibition on blood and fat seems

to depend on the belief that blood 1s, or symbolizes, the life of animals, which belongs only to God;'! and that the fat, as the best of the meat, also belongs to God.!* In keeping these laws, one is remembering that all life belongs to God and is only given to us in trust. Prohibitions on eating carrion or birds of prey’? may express a general prohibition on contact with corpses or tombs.’* This in turn is associated with rules about the treatment of skin-diseases!° and bodily discharges, during birth or menstruation for example,’® which suggest an association of holiness (contact with God) with bodily and therefore personal integrity and wholeness. Anything which endangers the integrity of the body or which corrupts the body is rendered impure, and ritual purification is required before relationship with God can be fully re-established. Thus priests, as the primary mediators between Divinity and humanity, must be ritually clean, not deformed in any way, and must have no contact with death.’’ Such laws as these can be interpreted as expressions of the link between God and human wholeness or fulfilment, and

as statements of the principle that the health of the body is as important to God as some alleged spiritual pre-eminence. Salvation is human and social integrity; and all that threatens it must be seen as a threat to the purposes of God for creation. Some prohibitions—on eating animals with cloven hooves but

which are not ruminant, such as pigs; on eating water creatures that have no fins and scales;'* on ploughing with an ox yoked to an ass, breeding two kinds of animals, sowing with two kinds of seed or wearing linen and wool’’—express a related uneasiness about breaking down species boundaries and thus undermining or con-

fusing the true natures of created kinds of thing. Perhaps the underlying thought is that each kind of thing has its proper nature and function, as intended by the Creator; so it is forbidden to eat

animals which seem to be ambiguous or to break the natural

1! Lev. 17. ‘2 Lev. 7. 'S Lev. 17. 4 Num. 19. 'S Lev. 13. '© Lev. 12. \7 Lev. 21. 'S Deut. 14. 9 Lev. 19.

118 Four Scriptural Traditions bounds God has set to natural things. The anthropologist Mary Douglas suggests that: ‘Holiness is exemplified by completeness.

Holiness requires that individuals shall conform to the class to which they belong. And holiness requires that different classes of

things shall not be confused.’*® One might find here an early form of ‘natural law’ thinking, which forbids acts frustrating or impeding the purposes of nature, as set by God. Thus one class of Divine laws is concerned with the integrity, wholeness, and proper functioning of creation; and one might see the Mosaic commands as particular applications of more general underlying principles that later Rabbinic tradition could draw out

and codify. Those principles are used to define a set of social practices which would make for true health, seen as the fulfilling of God’s intentions for the created order. Of course all human societies should be concerned with the fulfilment of their created potential, and it may be possible for human reason to see in general what sort of conduct this requires. But the specific ordinances of Torah are

given to Israel by God; the reason for keeping them is not that they are conducive to human flourishing in general, but that God commands obedience to them as an acknowledgement and acceptance of the covenant between God and Israel. Central to Torah

is the notion of ‘calling’ or vocation. God calls individuals and peoples to special vocations, and they respond in an obedience which expresses gratitude for God’s saving acts and love for God’s infinite goodness. 3. Laws of the Cult and of Social Fustice

Torah is not an abstract, universal set of laws. It arises out of a continuing relationship between God and Israel, in which God set apart Abraham and his descendants, liberated them from Egypt,

and promised them the land of Israel. The later prophets often refer to Israel as the virgin bride of God,*! the people with whom

God makes a covenant of trust and faithfulness, and the laws express Israel’s trusting and obedient assent to the Divine initiative.

For that reason, it is not acceptable to take the laws out of their context in the patriarchal narratives and treat them as though they 20 Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (London: Routledge, 1966), 53.

21 ‘Fallen no more to rise is the virgin Israel’: Amos 5: 1; ‘Return, O virgin Israel, return to these your cities’: Jer. 31: 21; ‘As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you’: Isa. 62: §.

Four Scriptural Traditions 119 were isolated commands of God for human conduct in general. One

who lives in Torah lives in an assenting relationship to the call of God; and that is essentially a historically developing process. It would be hopelessly wrong within Judaism to contrast law and love, as though one could have either a set of commands or a loving relationship but not both. What is central to the Jewish perspective is that the form of loving relation 1s established by God in the way

of life he decrees for his people, in following which lies their greatest joy and fulfilment.”

Within that way, every act should be related to God; and the second main group of laws, the cultic laws, specify practices which act as constant reminders of the proper form of responsive relation

to God. On the eighth day after birth, every male child 1s circumcised,** an act of complex yet obscure symbolism connected

with sexual purity, fertility, and dedication to God. Indeed, the first male child should be offered in sacrifice to God,”* though he is always redeemed by a suitable sacrifice. In general, all first-fruits and a tenth of all produce belong to God; this constitutes a strong assertion that humans owe everything to God and are trustees, not owners, of the earth. This principle is affirmed even more strongly

by laws concerning the Sabbatical and Jubilee years.”” In every seventh year, the land 1s to lie uncultivated (though its produce may be freely eaten by all), debts are to be cancelled and slaves freed; and in every forty-ninth (seven times seven) year all Israelites

are to return to the property which had been originally given to their clan by Joshua. These laws would prevent the accumulation of vast wealth or property by individuals, and remind the Israelites that they only lease their wealth from God and are responsible to

him for its proper use. Unfortunately there is no evidence that these laws were ever put into practice; but as ideals they express commitment to seeing Jews as trustees of the earth, whose fruits belong primarily to God. Specific days, selected on patterns of seven, are set apart for the worship of God—primarily the weekly Sabbath day, on which no

work must be done, no fires lit, and no journeys made.”° But 2 ! Julius Lipner, The Face of Truth (London: Macmillan, 1986), ch. 1.

138 Four Scriptural Traditions basic framework of Indian religious thought, is very different from

that of the Semitic tradition. Thus, if the Supreme Reality does disclose itself under the forms of conceptual and cultural thought,

it will do so in different ways in these traditions. There is little reason to say that such diverse disclosures will all be equally adequate. Before one can decide that, one will have to examine the basic conceptual schemes much more closely. It certainly seems to

be impossible to accept both as true accounts of reality as they stand. It cannot be true both that the universe has a moral goal envisaged by a creator, and that the physical existence of the universe has no goal, but is just a natural manifestation of desire, like foam on a wave, which will in time return to its source in a non-dual reality. Yet it may be the case that something of the nature of the Supreme Reality is disclosed in each tradition which is needed for the unfolding of what is implicit in the other. It may be that at a deeper level these traditions are complementary rather than wholly disparate. The predisposition of Indian culture after the end of the Vedic period, that is, after the ninth century BCE, was to find action as basically unsatisfactory, to see the world as a vale of suffering and

to see the restlessness of desire and attachment as the cause of suffering. There was little sense that the world could be changed to become better, or that there was a moral demand to make it better. Rather, the world is a wheel of endless ills, and the fundamental

religious quest is to achieve moksa, liberation or release from suffering. The goal is eternal bliss, and this can only be achieved by finding a state of non-attachment which leads one to a deeper vision of the underlying reality beyond change and suffering— unconditioned intelligence, purity, and bliss. To escape from samsara, the wheel of suffering, and achieve unity with the eternal realm—that became the basic orientation of Indian religion, which

remained fundamental even through the subsequent growth of Bhakti cults (the cults of theistic devotion which are the most obvious parts of popular Indian religious life) and their much more positive affirmation of the world. Thus Indian tradition has been greatly influenced by a sense of the transitoriness of all things and of the emptiness of desire. In the search for a life beyond change and desire, it has pursued the ascetic way of union with the changeless, and has found there an experience of bliss and wholeness.

Four Scriptural Traditions 139 8. Revelation in Indian Traditions

It can look as though God is not present in this tradition; not at least as a morally judging and liberating power. The form revelation takes is certainly rather different from that in the prophetic faiths. The Veda are said to be ‘heard’ (sruti); that is, to be communicated

from the eternal realm to great seers of the past. They comprise collections of hymns, spells, and ritual rules and, in the Upanishads, a set of reflective discourses which have been gathered to express a

characteristic general outlook on religion. They are most like the wisdom writings of the Hebrew tradition; so they are much more like human discernments attained by meditative skill than like spirit-possessions. Brahman, the Ultimately Real, is much more passive in this process, as the Real which is to be found by meditation and ‘read’ by the disciplined mind, rather than as an active inspirer and empowerer. A personal God (Bhagavan) is prominent in much Indian religion.

In the Bhagavadgita, the most popular of all Indian Scriptures,

even though it is not part of the srut material, devotion to a personalized deity, Krishna, takes first place over the way of meditative knowledge ( jnana marga) and the way of ritual works

(Rarma marga). In this work, as in many other texts, a theistic element is unmistakable.°* Even so, there is no real concern with a

historical revelation. Krishna is a legendary character, or if he existed, it is the legends about him which are important and not the

minute amount of historical data. He symbolizes the Ultimately Real as a personal Lord of love. God, one might say, is present to be known in this tradition, as a reality of supreme value and power.

But it does not actively disclose itself in events of history. When such a disclosive tradition appears, as in the theory of the avatara of Vishnu, they are almost wholly legendary claimants to Divine

power. The avatara, or manifestations, of Vishnu, are said to include a fish, a boar, and a man-lion as well as Krishna and Rama. One is clearly in the realm of mythology here, not of history. In the Indian traditions, through meditation, moral practice, and

self-discipline, the Supremely Real can be known; and in a way >? Bhagavadgita, 18. 62: ‘Fly unto Him for refuge with all thy being, O Bharata; by His grace shalt thou obtain supreme peace (and) the eternal resting place’; trans. A. M. Sastry (Madras: Samata Books, 1977), 497.

140 Four Scriptural Traditions which transforms human lives by union with it. Yet there is no historical, particular revelation of a morally judging and redeeming God, a judge and saviour of the world. In that sense, the Semitic revelation remains unique in what it shows of the Supreme, even if it is not the only way to know the Supreme. The Indian traditions develop the idea of the Supremely Real in a rather different though equally unique way. The central strand of Upanishadic teaching— though there are other more theistic or pluralist elements, too’*>—is that reality is One, being the manifestation of a Supreme Self which is identical with all things and which is supreme reality, consciousness, and bliss, sat-cit-ananda.

Indian traditions are so diverse that even this concept can be developed in innumerable ways, from the Advaita (non-dualism) of the South Indian eighth-century teacher Sankara, wherein Nirguna Brahman, an Ultimate without any qualities, is the only true reality, to the dualism of the thirteenth-century teacher Madhva, for which

Isvara, the supreme Lord, relates in love to his eternally distinct devotees. Of course not all these developments can possess equal truth, so the believer must in practice select from a vast range of religious alternatives. Different sects criticize each other quite freely; but they live together by a loose acceptance of the fact that, since there are many rebirths, everyone can come to know the truth (that of one’s own sect) sooner or later.

It is thus quite possible to be a Hindu and choose a form of personal and devotional theism which is very like some pietistic forms of Christianity, Krishna replacing Christ as the personal Lord. However, this will still usually be placed within a general context of belief in rebirth and karma, and it will sometimes pay little attention to issues of social justice or historical events, as

religious ideas. There is dharma, which could be translated as cosmic law; but it consists largely of caste and ritual duties. The way of works is not a commitment to social justice, but a way of obeying ritual regulations. There is rarely an idea of a morally demanding Lord with a historical purpose whose inner being is quite distinct from that of all created things. Such ideas could arise

within Hinduism, since almost any idea could. But they would not be rooted in a particular historical disclosure of demand and prophecy. They would more likely be the speculations or allegedly °3 Cf. Hardy, The Religions of Asia, 51-6.

Four Scriptural Traditions I4I inspired thoughts of a particular guru (perhaps the Brahmo Samaj,

founded in 1828, comes quite near to such a set of ideas;>* not surprisingly, it was influenced greatly by Christianity, against which it was an Indian reaction). There is no doubt that a personal and moral theism can and does exist within Indian religion. But such a theism 1s only one option within the Hindu complex, and it takes on specific forms as shaped

by its own cultural background of karma and samsara. Theism certainly has not become the exclusive creed that it is in Judaism,

for example. Indian theism tends to grow by the blending and adaptation of many forms of faith, whereas Semitic theism excludes

all gods except the totally demanding God of the Covenant. The Semitic revelation has a character of absolute bindingness rarely present in India. To worship Yahveh is to forsake all other gods and be loyal only to him; that is, to follow the moral law and seek the realization of a community of love as an urgent and exclusive goal. In Indian religion, the idea of an itshtadeva, a chosen god, is widely accepted. One is not chosen by God; one chooses a god. One is not faced by an inescapable moral challenge; one seeks to eliminate desire which brings suffering. One does not hope for a community of love; one seeks release from the wheel of rebirth, and obeys the dharma of one’s caste. Nevertheless, the Supreme appears in the faces of many gods; it is truly known by the self which is liberated from desire; and it can be the proper object of intense devotional love. It might be said that the Indian metaphysical framework of an endless repetition of universes, the cycle of samsara and the ultimate futility of action and desire, gives rise to the idea of the Supreme as an unchanging reality which realizes no new values in creation, which is inactive and without passion and which offers no ultimate consummation for the finite order. In such a framework, the dynamic creative God of Hebrew faith is unlikely to become a focal concept. Yet whole sects emerge which regard Brahman as a glorious Lord who creates out of love and offers endless bliss to its devotees. Though Semitic faiths tend to stress the moralism of the Supreme, and Indian faiths tend to stress the non-dualism of Being, both express a sense of the world as dependent on the Supreme; a sense of alienation requiring 4D. Kopf, The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978). :

142 Four Scriptural Traditions moral or epistemic reconciliation; and a sense of final realization of

goodness, whether in the Supreme alone or in a community of relational beings.

The Indian tradition centres on the claim that there is an experience, attained by few, which discloses a value incomparably superior to desire, unitive knowledge of which liberates from sorrow. But this experience might be interpreted either as showing that Brahman, the inclusive Absolute, is being known in enlightened perception (as in Vedanta); or that the soul, free of all desire, exists in pure consciousness and bliss but also in a state of eternal isolated individuality (as in Sankhya); or that nirvana has been attained, a state of freedom from all conditions, from suffering and desire (as in Buddhism). Clearly it is not enough to accept one such account

simply on the basis that it has been revealed to a perfected soul. One must have some criterion for accepting one account, and some explanation for why the others exist and how they can be mistaken.

In fact, as has been noted, the orthodox Hindu tradition has a very strong doctrine of verbal revelation, and it is a rather revisionist view of Hinduism that it is based solely on personal experiences of enlightenment.°? Sankara, who is often regarded as the most influential of Indian philosophers, and who is the originator of Advaita Vedanta, the most widely known classical school of Indian religious thought, wrote: “The fact of everything having its Self in Brahman cannot be grasped without the aid of the scriptural passage, ““That art thou’’.”°° Again he says, ‘Brahman as

being devoid of form...is to be known solely on the ground of holy tradition . . . not even by divine beings of extraordinary power and wisdom’;°’ and, ‘Brahman rests exclusively on the holy texts.’>°: Still further, “The soul which, different from the agent that is the object of self-consciousness, merely witnesses it. ..is known from the Upanishads only.”°? It is not the case that the Vedantic doctrine of the identity of atman and Brahman is based solely on enlightened experience, for Sankara. There is an experience of non-duality; but °° A helpful account of Vedantic views of verbal revelation is given in the first two chapters of Julius Lipner, The Face of Truth (London: Macmillan, 1986). °© Sankara, The Vedanta Sutras, trans. George Thibaut (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1962), in Sacred Books of the East, ed. Max Muller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900), vols. XXXIV, XXXVII1; 23.

>” Tbid., xxxiv. 307. °§ Ibid. 350. 59 Ibid. 37.

Four Scriptural Traditions 143 it can be correctly interpreted as such only by acceptance of the

Vedas as inspired Scripture. The arguments of the Vedantins of various schools, as they comment on the Brahma Sutras of Badarayana (the fourth- or fifth-century CE attempt to systematize the teaching of the Upanishads, which is an authoritative text for the school of Vedanta) are not about sorts of human experience, but about the correct interpretation of the Vedas, which are taken

as unquestionable texts. It must be said that the Brahma Sutras themselves are extremely cryptic, consisting of two or three words

each and often omitting the main referential nouns. Sankara, Ramanuja, and Madhva, the three major Vedantic teachers, all give

quite different interpretations of the same sutras; so it may be doubted whether one correct interpretation can in fact be found. Nevertheless, it 1s important to remember that Vedantins do appeal

to an ultimate scriptural authority, and to note how much the interpretation of experience is governed by that Scripture. The Vedas are given an eternal existence, which even the gods must hear and obey: “The Vedic words became manifest in the mind of

Prajapati the creator...and he created things corresponding to those words.’© Clearly, if one does not give the Vedas absolute authority, alternative constructions of meditational experience become possible—as happened in Buddhism, but as may happen in other ways too. It is clear that the Indian intellectual tradition has developed in quite different directions from the Semitic. What one may call folk Hinduism remains to a large extent in the realm of primal religion. Local gods and goddesses are objects of sacrifice and devotion; and the whole system of religious law—as set out in such works as the

Dharma-Shastras—ensures that orthodoxy is an ethnic matter, which virtually identifies being Hindu with being Indian. The intellectual development of the tradition, however, has taken place

in six main philosophical traditions, of which the best known are Vedanta and Yoga. These are often combined so that yogic techniques can be incorporated into Vedantic systems of thought. From the immensely rich array of Indian religious materials, I can

select only one for comment. As my concern is with theology, the systematic articulation of ideas and doctrines in religion, it is natural to choose Vedanta as a major Indian theological system. © Ibid. 204.

144 Four Scriptural Traditions The atheistic systems can be regarded as analagous to Buddhism, which is to be treated separately. The theistic systems, though the most popular, are less theologically developed. If one is looking at

the contrast between Semitic and Indian traditions, Vedanta is probably the most interesting case. Within Vedanta, the system of Sankara, Advaita Vedanta, is both the mostly widely known and the most highly regarded. It is also of interest because it seems to pose a sharp contrast with a personal moral theism, and yet offers

many fascinating points of overlap. Many commentators have characterized Advaita Vedanta as a system of ‘impersonal monism’, in strong contrast to Semitic views of God as a personal being who is quite other than anything in creation.®°! So there appears to be a

doctrine of a supreme reality which 1s yet quite different from

theism. It is the nature and extent of this difference which I shall seek to explore. The text I shall use is Sankara’s classic commentary on the Brahma Sutras, in the translation by George Thibaut. While there are many particular points at which this translation might be thought inadequate, it is substantially accurate,

and I have tried to avoid reliance on contested passages which might affect the interpretation of doctrine. 9. Brahman and Theism Sankara holds that Brahman is the supreme reality, complete com-

prehension of which ‘is the highest end of man, since it destroys the roots of all evil’.°? The quest to know Brahman is thus at the same time the quest to overcome suffering and the ignorance which

is its cause, in an experiential knowledge of ultimate truth. But what is Brahman? Is it impersonal and pantheistically identical with the universe? ‘Brahman’, he says, ‘is all-knowing and endowed with all powers, whose essential nature is eternal purity, intelligence and freedom.”©? It would be odd to hold that a being which possessed knowledge and intelligence was wholly impersonal, since these are

characteristics belonging only to conscious beings. And indeed Brahman is consistently referred to as ‘the Self’, as an omniscient, omnipotent cause.®* As that ‘from which the origin, subsistence 61 Even F. Hardy says, ‘Sankara cannot accept the existence of a Bhagavan [supreme God]’; Hardy, The Religions of Asia, 111. But Sankara wrote hymns to Siva and practised as a Vaishnavite. 62 Sankara, Vedanta Sutras, xxxiv. 14.

®3 Tbid. 64 Ibid. 19.

Four Scriptural Traditions 145 and dissolution of this world proceed’,®? Brahman is described in

very similar ways to the God of the Semitic tradition. | What complicates matters is Sankara’s doctrine of double truth and of the double nature of Brahman, as saguna (with qualities) and nirguna (without qualities). This doctrine is not generally shared

with other schools of Vedanta, and it is what leads to talk of impersonal monism. According to the doctrine of double truth, all common-sense statements are in order at their own level, the level of practical dealings with the world. Yet there is a deeper level at which they fail to characterize reality. The lower Brahman, saguna Brahman, is a proper object of devotion, and Sankara has many devotional hymns addressed to it. But the higher Brahman, nirguna Brahman, is an object of a special sort of knowledge. This Brahman is devoid of qualities and of distinctions: ‘The changeless Brahman cannot be the substratum of varying attributes.’©° Thus has arisen the idea that true Brahman is wholly non-dual, without any distinctions at all; and that it only appears as qualified to unenlightened minds: ‘His omniscience, omnipotence and so

forth all depend on...avidya (lack of knowledge)... in reality none of these qualities belong to the Self.’°” So, by the doctrine of double truth, one can say that, ‘In reality the relation of ruler and ruled does not exist. . . on the other hand, all those distinctions are valid, as far as the phenomenal world is concerned... the view of

Brahman as undergoing modifications will be of use in devout meditations.’°®

The major problem of interpretation here 1s of what is meant by avidya. Sankara says, “By the fiction of avidya, characterised by name and form, evolved as well as non-evolved, not to be defined as the existing or the non-existing, Brahman becomes the basis of this entire apparent world . . . while in its true and real nature. . . it remains unchanged.’”©? Further, ‘the fiction of avidya originates entirely from speech only’.’° This sounds as though avidya is the result of a conceptual mistake; that it is a pure fiction, and does not exist at all. But such an interpretation is impossible for Sankara,

and would contradict his clear statements that ‘those things of which we are conscious in our waking state. . . are never negated in

© Ibid. 15. 6° Ibid. 327.

67 Ibid. 329. 68 Ibid. 330. ©? Ibid. 352. ” Tbid. 352.

146 Four Scriptural Traditions any state’’! and that ‘although intelligence only constitutes the true

nature of the Self... lordly power... with a view to the world of appearances, is not rejected’. So in what sense is avidya a fiction, and in what sense does it arise from speech only? The sense is, I think, rather like that used by Plato when holding that the world of sensory reality is unreal, compared to the intelligible world. ‘Reality’ consists of that which is self-subsistent; which does not change or cease to be; which 1s not corruptible or dependent on other things. It is to be contrasted with the apparent; that which appears, but the real nature of which is hidden behind the appearances. Of course the appearances exist;

for how otherwise could they be known? But they are not selfsubsistent; they depend on another reality hidden behind them. Moreover, they exist only as appearances—that 1s, in relation to minds to which they appear. Taken out of relation to any such minds, they would not exist at all.

When Sankara mentions ‘speech’, he is not thinking of mere words in some natural language. He is referring to the very forms

of thought which condition all human apprehension. Without concepts there could be no human knowledge; and of course our concepts divide and split up the world in various ways which are practically useful. The world of appearances is one which is known by means of human concepts. Take away the concepts and there 1s

no knowledge of that world. It is in that sense that the known world of human experience arises from speech alone. Take away the relational appearances, and one has reality itself, beyond both speech and human apprehension; of it nothing can be said. So it is wholly consistent of Sankara to hold that only by revelation could one know anything of such a real-in-itself. The world of appearances is real though not self-subsistent. It is partly a construct of human minds. And it is a fiction, in the sense

that if and in so far as it is taken to be the true reality, we are misled by it. It is as though we take a rope to be a snake;’* or as if

elephants seen in a dream were taken to be real’* or as though colours seen through a crystal were taken to be properties of the crystal itself.’> In other words, the world of appearances is real on “7! Sankara, 415. ” Tbid. 410. ® Tbid. 190. 4 Tbid. 123. ™ Tbid. 187.

Four Scriptural Traditions 147 its own level; it is the world in which we live and move and have

our being. It is only when we take this play of relational, conceptually interpreted reality to be real in itself that we are under illusion. For then we do not see the only true Real, which is Brahman, beyond all qualities, though manifesting to us as a glorious Lord of endless perfection. | To see that this view is not really an impersonal monism which stands in total contrast to Western theism one only has to remember the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, the major theologian of Western

Catholic Christianity. He argues that God is utterly simple and without parts; 1s tumeless and changeless; stands in no real relation to the finite universe; and is wholly ineffable, except by the use of

terms which, though appropriate, do not signify what we think they do.’° Wherein does this differ from Sankara’s allegedly pantheistic and impersonal philosophy? For both, the Divine in itself is beyond conceptual reach. For both, the Divine manifests to us for the sake of our eternal bliss in the forms of time and space. For

both, the apparent can truly express or signify the Real, even though it is illusion to take it for the Real in itself. The deep unity of these views should be clear. 10. Appearance and Reality

There seems to be an ultimate divergence between Advaita and classical Western theism when the relation of the individual soul to the Supreme Self is considered. In the Semitic tradition, the soul is created freely and never becomes literally one with God. An infinite

gulf separates the soul and God; the gulf of worshipper and worshipped; and it can never be bridged. In Vedanta, the central doctrine 1s that atman, the true self, and Brahman, the Supreme Being, are one. ‘Brahman, without undergoing any modification, passes, by entering into its effects, into the condition of the individual soul.’’’ Further, the ultimate destiny of the human person is to realize this unity with Brahman: ‘He who knows Brahman neither moves nor departs .. . has become the omnipresent Self.’”® This seems to be a glaring distinction between Semitic and Indian views, a distinction between a view for which God and the soul are 7° Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1a. 3, 8—10 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1964). ’’ Sankara, Vedanta Sutras, xxxviii. 30. 78 Ibid. 375.

148 Four Scriptural Traditions identical and a view for which they are always distinct existences. Again, however, on close inspection the differences turn out to be not quite as clear and distinct as one may think at first sight. Sankara states, ‘It is a matter not requiring any proof that the object and the subject... cannot be identified’;’” ‘They are absolutely distinct’,®° as distinct as the Real and the Unreal. So there is certainly distinction in Sankara’s philosophy. He is not saying that

no distinctions of any sort exist; at the very least, he is not propounding some sort of monism in which all distinctions fade into

an unrelieved sameness. Indeed, there can hardly be a greater distinction than that between the Real and the Unreal—where the Unreal is the realm of appearance. When Sankara gives some account of ignorance, of avidya, he says: “The Self, which in its own nature is free from all contact, becomes a knowing agent.’®! The cause of all evil is the appearing of individual souls as agents and enjoyers, as transmigrating souls; and to attain release is to realize ‘the absolute unity of the Self’.®? What is this Self which becomes an agent and enjoyer? It is in itself

not the finite subject which acts in the world and which likes or dislikes various temporal experiences. It is not a temporally developing, desiring, and corruptible entity. It is free from all contact and from all wants; it is ‘the witness of everything’,®* the knower which is not changed by its knowledge and which is not bound to the passions of the individually appearing soul. A Christian theologian might be reminded by these words of the classical doctrine of incarnation, as developed by Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria. According to that doctrine, the Word of God is impassible and changeless.** Yet, in the person of Jesus, it unites a human soul and body to itself, so that the Word can be spoken of as suffering and dying, even though in its own proper nature it is

incapable of suffering. It suffers in the human nature which is united with it, in a unique and ineffable manner. In a way not wholly dissimilar, the Self, for Sankara, is not an individual sub” Sankara, XXXiv. 3. 80 Ibid. 4. 8! Tbid. 7. 82 Ibid. 9. 83 Ibid. 9. 84 “Tt was in relation to the flesh that the suffering occurred, while the Word was

impassible’: Cyril of Alexandria, ‘Second Letter to Succensus, 2’ in E. Schwartz (ed.), Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum (Strasbourg, 1914-40), I. 1. 6, 157-62.

Four Scriptural Traditions 149 stance among many others of the same kind. There is only one Self, and it is Brahman. ‘That into which all intelligent souls are resolved is an intelligent cause of the world.’® It is that Self, the Universal Self, ‘One without a Second’, which ‘without undergoing any modification, passes, by entering into its effects, into the condition of the individual soul’.*°

As in the Christian doctrine of incarnation, there is here a becoming without change, an appearing which leaves the reality as

it was and always will be. This doctrine is quite coherent, if one sees the whole of the spatio-temporal universe as an expression or appearance of a timeless reality which 1s simple, immutable, and impassible. Then one can say that the Self becomes individual souls, in the sense that it is expressed in that form, without losing or changing its own inner eternity. It is this central idea of the Eternal being manifested in finite names and forms without modifying its own essential nature that in my view gives the clue to interpreting Advaita.

But at this point a Christian will say that here is a clear difference; Jesus is unique among creatures; but on Sankara’s view all creatures must equally be manifestations of Brahman, the Supreme Self. Again this is not quite such a clear and unbridgeable divide as

it may at first seem. Sankara does not hold that all appearances manifest Brahman equally well. There are at least five ways in which Brahman must be spoken of, five modes of its existence. First, in a doctrine which is distinctive to Sankara and rejected by Ramanuja and other Vedantins, there is nirguna Brahman, ‘devoid of form... those passages which refer to Brahman qualified . . . do not aim at setting forth the nature of Brahman, but... at enjoining the worship of Brahman’.*’ Second is saguna Brahman, ‘all-knowing

and endowed with all powers, whose essential nature is eternal purity, intelligence and freedom’.®® Third there is a finite manifestation of Brahman as Isvara: “The highest Lord may. . . assume a bodily shape formed of Maya...to gratify his worshippers.’®” Fourth is the appearance of Brahman in the form of the individual soul: ‘Brahman, insofar as it differentiates itself, 1s called individual soul, agent, enjoyer.’”’ And fifth is the material world of objects as 8° Sankara, Vedanta Sutras, xxxiv. 60.

86 Tbid., xxxViii. 30. 87 Tbid. 155.

88 Ibid., xxxiv. 14. 8? Ibid. 80.

°° Thid. 104.

150 Four Scriptural Traditions a whole: ‘Everything constitutes one Self only’?! and ‘the creator is non-different from the created effects’.”” Clearly, it would be much too crude to say simply that the world is the appearance of Brahman, so that everything is Divine, just as it stands. The Supreme Lord in his bodily manifestation is worthy

of worship, because he is an image of the perfect possessor of all good properties which is saguna Brahman, in a way that the vast majority of souls, enmeshed in ignorance and desire, are not. There is a place here for something rather like (though not identical to) the classical Christian view of incarnation; since avatara of Vishnu,

who appear only once in every world-period of hundreds of thousands of years, are proper objects of worship, as pure manifestations of saguna Brahman. What is meant, then, by saying that the creator and the created are non-different? The main point to bear in mind is that it is common to much Hindu thought to hold that ‘the effect is in reality not different from the cause’.”* Western

thought has traditionally held that effects are different from their causes, though they must in some way be like their causes. In a sense the effect is contained in the cause, if only in that the cause has the power to produce a faint image of itself in the finite world. Thus all finite properties are, Aquinas says, more fully actual in God, their ultimate cause, who possesses all properties in a higher manner. So for Aquinas each effect is a reflection of some property

which exists in God ‘eminentiorem modem’; and each effect depends solely for its existence upon God. Effects may have some form of independently subsistent reality, but in fact they all depend at each moment wholly upon God, who is the only truly independent reality. Nothing can exist without total dependence on God; and nothing can have any real property which does not exist more

fully in God.”

Is this so very different from a view which says that the Supreme Self is the material cause of every finite effect, although such effects

are in fact purely appearances, not the true reality of the cause? Sankara even writes sentences which could come straight from Aquinas, like ‘the cause virtually [that is, properly] contains all the ?! Sankara, 108. 2 Thid. 265. 3 Ibid. 94. This is the doctrine of satkaryavada, on which cf. Lipner, The Face of Truth, 83 ff. *4 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1a. 4. 2.

Four Scriptural Traditions ISI states belonging to its effects’.”° It is true that ‘there is only one highest Lord ever unchanging, whose substance is cognition, and

who, by means of avidya, manifests himself...as a magician appears in different shapes by means of his magical power’.”° But what, then, are individual beings? ‘Name and form cannot abide in

the soul... but abide in the limiting adjunct and are ascribed to the world itself in a figurative sense.””’ This mysterious ‘limiting adjunct’ of Brahman is neither being nor non-being, neither different nor non-different from Brahman; it is the seminal potentiality of names and forms. “The soul, as long as involved in samsara, has for its essence the qualities of its limiting adjuncts.’”® These qualities

are to be shed when the released soul finds itself as, in fact, that pure non-differentiated intelligence which is Brahman, beyond change and division.

What is clear is that the limiting adjuncts, with all their distinctions and changes, do exist as appearances; but the reality which they manifest does not in itself possess those diverse changing

properties which the appearances themselves possess. What is the

status of the individual mind, the agent and enjoyer, which we

regard as the human soul? Sankara says, “The Self does not exist ...as an agent and enjoyer...the qualities of mind...are wrongly superimposed upon the Self.””? But it then follows that the

individual soul is in a very important respect not identical with Brahman. Diversity belongs to the realm of appearances, as do all human souls. Yet all appearances are also manifestations of Brahman, arising again and again with seeming inevitability. Thus

for Sankara it is not the case that I, in my individual personality and with all my mental qualities, memories, inclinations, and desires, am identical with Brahman, who is pure unrestricted Intelligence. And yet, “Those who insist on the distinction of the individual and the highest Self oppose themselves to the true sense __ of the Vedanta texts.’'° One way of rendering these texts consistent is to say that individuals are not distinct from Brahman, in the sense that they » Sankara, Vedanta Sutras, xxxiv. 145. © Ibid. 190. °” Ibid. 279. °8 Ibid., xxxviii. 45. »? Ibid. 3. 29. 10° Tbid., xxxiv. 283.

152 Four Scriptural Traditions have quite independent being. As Sankara puts it, “The effect is non-different from its cause 1.e. has no existence apart from the cause.’!°! On the other hand, individuals are distinct from Brahman, in the sense that Brahman does not in itself possess the properties of individual beings; only its limiting adjuncts possess such properties. One cannot for example say of Brahman that it is ignorant, idle, and wicked, though one can say that of individual persons. One might say, appearances are not substantially distinct from reality, since they cannot exist without it. Yet appearances are qualitatively distinct from reality, since they have properties that it, as Real, does not. 11. Vedanta and Christianity I am not attempting to suggest that Christian and Vedantic doctrines

are identical. Vedantins disagree widely among themselves, as do Christians, so it would be improbable in the highest degree that one

could find identical doctrines spread throughout such different traditions. But it does seem that the differences are very complex and result in large part from the use of differing general conceptual

schemes, and differing uses of key concepts such as ‘identity’, ‘cause’, and ‘reality’. It may seem that Vedanta is totally opposed to

Judaeo-Christianity in asserting the identity of the Supreme Self and the spatio-temporal universe. R. C. Zaehner suggests that there

is ‘an unbridgeable gulf between all those who see God as incomparably greater than oneself ...and those who maintain that soul and God are one’.!°” Yet in an important sense the world, as appearance, having innumerable properties, is distinct from unqualified Brahman, which has no properties. And Sankara quotes with approval the Upanishadic statement, ‘He wished, “‘May I be many”’’.!°? ‘The highest Lord’, he comments, ‘sends forth, after reflection, certain effects.’'°* That is, the universe is the effect of

reflection and desire—which is not too far from a doctrine of creation. Within Vedanta, it is correct, from one point to view, to see the universe as a distinct creation of a Supreme Lord. The Christian doctrine of a distinct and independent creation 1s 101 Sankara, 320.

102 R. C. Zaehner, Mysticism, Sacred and Profane (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 3B Fechiniyaka Upanishad, 2. 6, in Sacred Books of the East, ed. Muller, xv. 58. 10¢ Sankara, Vedanta Sutras, xxxviii. 24.

Four Scriptural Traditions 153 also modified so as to mitigate the sharpness of this divide. Paul is reported as having said that ‘zn God we live and move and have our being’;!°> and the aim of Christian life is that Christ should live in the disciple and the whole universe should be united 1m Christ. The interpretation of the sense of ‘in’ in these phrases is far from easy.

It is obviously not spatial; and it suggests a unity of Divine and human which does not sound much like a total opposition of kind. Athanasius said that the Word ‘assumed humanity that we might become God’.!° And it is also standard Christian doctrine that God is omnipresent, so that God is not distant from any time or place.

So within orthodox Christianity it is correct to see the whole universe as united in God as it grows into conformity with the being of glory through whom it came to be, and finds its own proper being, not in independence, but in becoming an instrument of the God on whom it 1s wholly dependent. It is all too easy to take formulations of religious doctrine in very

literal and clear ways, so that they fall into absolute opposition to one another. Impersonal monism is contrasted with personal dualism, and then if one view is true, the other must be entirely false. It may be more appropriate, however, to regard such formulations as faltering attempts to express things that cannot be adequately described in available human concepts at all. Then what one may find are extrapolations from differing emphases and attempts to generalize basic models which work well in one area,

to cover the whole of reality. It could be helpful to distinguish between ultimate and proximate religious views of ultimate reality

and of the ultimate destiny of human beings. The more one attempts to speak of the ultimate, the more one’s basic models are

stretched towards incomprehensibility, towards a metaphorical extrapolation into the presently inconceivable. So in Advaita one has the ultimate model of reality as one non-dual Self, appearing in many names and forms; and the ultimate model of human destiny

as the sublation of the individual soul into the ‘one simple nondifferentiated intelligence’,!°’ free from all difference,'°® which is full acquaintance with the ultimately Real. At a proximate level,

however, in Advaita, reality is known to the worshipper as ‘the 105 Acts 17: 28. 106 Athanasius, On the Incarnation (London: Centenary Press, 1944), p. 45. 107 Sankara, Vedanta Sutras, xxxvili. 157. 108 Thid. 153.

154 Four Scriptural Traditions eternally perfect highest Lord’.!°? The proximate destiny of each soul is to come to know the presence of the Supreme Self in all

things and, by non-attachment, realize the bliss which freedom from desire brings.

On the other hand, for Christians there is a simple personal relationship between God the Father and the believer which enables the believer to see God in and within all things and experience the

forgiveness of sin. In the great saints and mystics of the Church other elements resonate through this relationship, bringing the believer within the very life of God, as indwelt by the Spirit and incorporate in Christ. When the individual soul is wholly indwelt by God, wholly enraptured in the vision of God and wholly embraced in the life of God, must one not say that the soul as we now know it will be sublated in a wider unitary communion in which every trace of an allegedly self-subsistent egoism is overcome? What is being expressed in each tradition is that all things form a unity and manifest and depend upon one underlying reality which is beyond description. Ignorance of this reality is caused by desire and by the chains of self-will. The cultivation of non-attachment

can lead to the realization of the sole reality of this being of unlimited intelligence and bliss which is present everywhere and therefore also within us, a realization which brings us to know our own unity with and dependence upon this reality, and thus releases us from desire and brings supreme happiness. The yawning chasm which separates ‘impersonal monism’ from ‘personal dualism’ dis-

appears as one realizes how inadequate all these terms are to characterize the Supreme Reality which brings full human release.

This does not mean that one can regard everything in these traditions as an equally adequate expression of the relation of the suprasensory realm to the physical universe. It does mean that the Vedantic tradition can be seen as a development of human understanding of the Divine which is a vehicle of Divine self-disclosure and a means of human fulfilment. The Hebrew tradition developed in competition with the fertility gods of the hostile powers of Egypt and Canaan and thus by exclusion of the many gods of the natural powers. It developed an ethical monotheism in which liberation was to be found in history, guided by a morally demanding and providentially acting god who spoke through a succession of pro10° Sankara, xxxiv. 80.

Four Scriptural Traditions 155 phets. The Indian tradition also developed out of a myriad local primal cults; but it did not compete and exclude. It absorbed the countless local gods and spirits into an all-inclusive unity, so that the key concept became, not that of a subject God, distinct from the world, but of Brahman, including and expressed in all the world. The Supreme did not then appear as a commanding subject, judging the world; but as the inner ruler of the world, expressing itself in it. Non-dualism has no conceptual place for a moral judge

and law-giver. Rather, the law (dharma) expresses the true selfmanifestive principles of Brahman, which lead to a realization of the inner unity of all things. For the Hebrew view the world is created good, since it expresses the goodness of God. But it lies under judgement, because human

self-will has destroyed the Divine plan. For the Indian view the world results from a fall into desire and ignorance. But it also manifests Brahman, since there is nothing else but Brahman. In place of judgement, one has the inescapable law of karma, which brings evil inevitably upon those who do evil. And in place of creation one has the wheel of samsara, which binds creatures to suffering—and yet which also manifests Brahman in ‘sport’ or

the play of the Supreme Lord. In the Hebrew tradition, one seeks liberation from oppression and the realization of one’s true, originally created, nature. In the Indian tradition, one seeks liberation from samsara and desire and the realization of supreme bliss and wisdom, which is, of course, one’s true and original nature.

If there are many oppositions arising from the basic polarity of Semitic moralism and Indian non-dualism, there are also many convergences arising from the shared spiritual quest for liberation from self-will by unity with a supreme reality of wisdom and bliss. The idea of revelation as a Divinely given law of human and social

fulfilment can be complemented by the idea of revelation as a teaching of the realization of personal unity with the one selfexistent reality. It seems to me that both ideas are necessary for a fully comprehensive view, and that any adequate theology for the next millennium must take both seriously.

One may thus see the classical Indian religious traditions as developing out of earlier primal cults a deeper morality of nonattachment, a search for spiritual integration, and a rational worldview which can include all the gods as forms of the one supreme, self-manifesting intelligence. Yet that classical tradition of Brah-

156 Four Scriptural Traditions minism also retained a very ethnic, hierarchical, and exclusive social system with a strongly ritualistic view of religion and a strict adherence to the letter of the Vedas as inerrant truth. It was to give

rise to, and in turn be modified by, traditions which rejected the authority of the Vedas and appealed directly to personal experience. Among these the chief is undoubtedly Buddhism. It may be seen as

an attempt to universalize Indian insights in a form which breaks away from the classical dharma or social law and emphasizes in a more rigorous way the theme of release and interior enlightenment. In that respect it stands to Brahminic orthodoxy much as Christianity stands to what was to become Rabbinic Judaism. C. BUDDHISM 12. The Buddhist Way

Buddhism poses a particular problem for any theistic faith. The problem is that within Buddhism there are various techniques of profound meditative practice and a commitment to overcoming selfishness, lust, greed, and hatred in all their forms. There are thousands of monastic communities; there are rituals and holy texts; there is usually a profound reverence for the Buddha and there are teachings about the ultimate nature of reality and the final destiny of human beings. And yet there 1s hardly any mention of God. There is even a hostility to any idea of a personal creator who might act in history. This is a problem for theists, because if there

exists such a creator, who wills that human life 1s fulfilled by knowledge of and obedience to his will, 1t seems that Buddhism 1s profoundly ignorant of the truth and is a way which cannot lead to

fulfilment or salvation. That would be no problem if Buddhists were anti-religious; and some commentators have proposed that Buddhism should be regarded as an atheistic philosophy, rather than a religion.'!° Yet Buddhism, with its temples, monasteries, and ritual practices, looks like a religion. More deeply, its committed adherents seek a goal of self-conquest and enlightenment through practices which seem far removed from philosophical analysis. Indeed, the European philosophy which looks closest to that of many sorts of Buddhism (that of David Hume) 1s precisely 110 W. D. Hudson, among others, does this, treating non-theistic Buddhism as a sort of metaphysics: A Philosophical Approach to Religion (London: Macmillan, 1974), 16.

Four Scriptural Traditions 157 that which is at the farthest remove from the monastic practices of Buddhism. What Buddhism has which Hume lacks is a concern for liberation; an apprehension of the world as involving sorrow and a belief that such sorrow can be overcome, that ‘there

is a further shore’, that liberation 1s possible. The Buddha 1s reported to have said: ‘I will teach you, brethren, the truth and the

path that goes thereto...the further shore... the unfading... the undecaying...the deathless...the blissful...the state of freedom from ill... Nirvana... release...the island... the cave of shelter... the stronghold... the refuge... the goal.’!!! The irony 1s that, from Hume’s viewpoint, the belief that there is

such liberation, and that it shows the ultimate nature of reality, is precisely one of the ‘disputed questions’ which the Buddha wanted

to put on one side. Hume was a more robustly common-sense philosopher, who confined his views to this life, in which some pleasures, however tainted with grief and anxiety, could be had for a short while. He had no belief in karma, in samsara, or in nirvana,

the state in which sorrow is finally overcome. He would have regarded such beliefs as entirely speculative; or perhaps, in the latter case, as the hypostatization of a psychological state of selfhypnosis. One cannot deny that Buddhism does have such speculative metaphysical beliefs; but it is nevertheless true that its heart is the practice of a spiritual discipline which is meant to lead

to enlightenment, to a true view of how things are, and to a conquest of selfishness and hatred.

It is hard for theists to regard Buddhism as simply an error, as philosophical atheism would have to be regarded. One strategy for explaining atheism is to say that it is an intellectual error which arises from a lack of concern with, or an antipathy to, ultimate questions about human destiny and a lack of openness to moral and spiritual paths of self-transformation. Buddhists, however, do not lack these concerns; so the theist must grapple with the question of how such a non-theistic yet profound religious practice could come into being and flourish in a god-created world. What does such a

phenomenon have to say about the nature of revelation and of theological belief ?

The origins of Buddhism lie unequivocally in the teachings of 111 ¢, A. F. Rhys Davids and F. L. Woodward (trans.) The Book of the Kindred Sayings (Samyutta-Nikaya) (London: Oxford University Press for Pali Text Society, 1927), 261 ff.

158 Four Scnptural Traditions one man, Siddhartha, who probably lived during the fifth and sixth centuries BCE in north-east India, and who is held to have attained nirvana through a long process of meditational and ascetic practice. He then taught the dharma, the teaching of the way to liberation, to his disciples, and according to most traditions his words were remembered and repeated by transmission until they were eventually written down in a number of Sutras—though disputes exist

as to which are original or received authentically from his lips. There are many variants of Buddhism, often united more by a common practice than by common doctrine. But there are a number of common features which derive from the Indian religious back-

ground. These include, most importantly, the doctrines of karma and samsara—that all actions or intentions to act for good and evil inevitably result in consequences in the way of merit or suffering; and that human beings are involved in a number of rebirths, which will continue as long as desire for and attachment to the world remain.

The Four Noble Truths record in a particularly lucid way the fundamental beliefs that all finite sentient existence involves unease,

suffering, or ill; that this is caused by desire or attachment, or by aversion and fear; that the way to end suffering is to attain complete non-attachment or freedom from self; and that the way to

do this is to follow the eightfold path of moral and meditational practice.'!* What was rejected from the Indian tradition was belief in the revealed authority of the Vedas, with their prescribed rituals and sacrifices and rules of caste. Worship of the gods was demoted

to a position of relative insignificance, since even the gods seek release from their exalted but still finite form of being. Most importantly, a new monastic community, or set of communities, came

into being within which monks and nuns renounce the world to follow the Enlightened One in the quest for total non-attachment and the attainment of nirvana, in which lies perfect bliss and ease.

Upon this basic framework the immensely varied forms of practice we term Buddhism—following the way of the Enlightened

One—came to exist over thousands of years. Differences over what the Buddha taught; how authoritative his words are; what enlightenment consists in; and what philosophical doctrines all this 12 Samyutta Nikaya, 5. 437-8. Cf. W. Rahula, What the Buddha Taught (New York: Grove Press, 1962).

Four Scriptural Traditions 159 implies are manifold, so that it is quite impossible to give a complete exposition of Buddhism in any work like this. What can be done, however, is to seek to face the fundamental problem of what

account of such a set of religious practices can be given by a Christian theologian who seeks, not merely to dismiss them as erroneous and misguided, but to find a positive role they may have to play in the general development of religious thought and practice. A first consideration is that there is no sense of revelation here, if

that is taken to be the disclosure by a supreme God or indeed by any god of truths not otherwise available to human beings. It 1s sometimes said that Buddhism is a radically non-revealed religion, and that its truth must simply be discovered within the experience of each individual. Such a view is hardly compatible, however, with the fundamental Triple Vow by which lay people define themselves as Buddhist. This vow declares that one takes refuge in the Buddha,

the dharma and the Sangha: the Enlightened One, the teaching, and the monastic community. This entails acceptance of a teaching

one has not simply discovered for oneself. It is quite clearly Siddhartha’s own experience which remains the norm for knowledge of dharma. His experience is authoritative for all who follow him.!!? It is not only that he taught the truth, but that he attained the truth in a uniquely full overcoming of the chains of karma and ignorance. There is revelation, then, in the sense that the Buddha reveals the nature of suffering and the way to end suffering. He is to be revered, not as a god, but as a uniquely enlightened human being who has achieved liberation and is able to show others the way towards doing so. If one thinks of Kierkegaard’s distinction between Jesus and Socrates!!* (that Socrates’ teaching is important, whereas Jesus’ person is important), the Buddha presents a third possibility—his attainment of nirvana is what is fundamentally important, and it is to that attainment, as a possibility for others, that his teaching points. Siddhartha’s revelation is from the view113 6g. from Buddhaghosa, Visuddhimagga, trans. Bikhu Nanamali as The Path of Purification (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1979): ‘The Blessed One’s possession of clear vision consists in the fulfilment of Omniscience (214)... in the special quality of knowledge and vision of deliverance he is... without counterpart 221).’

iM S. Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, trans. H. V. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967).

160 | Four Scriptural Traditions point of enlightenment, and that is not a normal means of human knowing. If one asks what the viewpoint of enlightenment can be, one may

say that it is an experience of supreme transcendence of all selfish

attachment, of supreme compassion for all beings, of supreme tranquillity and bliss, and of supreme insight into human motivation and duplicity. The theist, however, will not be able to say that it is an experience of supreme insight into the true conditions of human being—-since precisely the most important theistic assumption, the existence of a personal being on whom all things depend, is entirely

lacking. But the theist has to face a difficult question: how could the most important thing be lacking, after such a determined quest for truth and liberation was taken to be successful? It seems to me that the exploration of this question is extremely fruitful for a deeper understanding of the concept of God, and that

the Buddhist practice has something vital to teach the Semitic tradition. As has been noted, the Hebrew faith 1s basically moralistic

and dualistic. That is, it thinks of God as a spiritual being of supreme power and wisdom, apart from the universe (thus the dualism, not of good and evil, but of God and what is other than God). God places moral demands upon that universe, which can be realized only by dependence upon Divine mercy (by obedience to Torah). This, however, has led to an objectivization of God as

a supreme person who is judge and saviour. Such an idea can lead, and sometimes has led, to a belittling of human life and responsibility, to an ethic of blind obedience to authoritative commands and to a spirituality of guilt and flattery. One magnifies God

by belittling oneself and placing responsibility in the hands of this all-powerful Other who determines things by an ultimately arbitrary set of decisions, saving some and condemning others apparently at will. These are precisely the moral and spiritual attitudes which the European Age of Enlightenment rejected; but it rejected them in a form which rendered religious practice in any traditional form impossible. For post-eighteenth-century Europe, the rejection of God was the rejection of religion. It was not so in Buddhism. The strength of Buddhism is that it emphasizes human respon-

sibility and preserves a practice leading to personal fulfilment, while shedding all the myths of authoritative obedience which existed in the Brahminical tradition. Yet it would be a terrible

Four Scriptural Traditions 161 misunderstanding to take Buddhism simply as a humanist protest against religious authoritarianism, against a moralism which subjugates human freedom in the name of God, and against a dualism which reduces human lives to mere adjuncts of an all-determining Divine will. The sort of fulfilment at which the eightfold path aims is not that of human autonomy, understood as the realization of one’s present character and potential. It is a fulfilment in a radically

different state, and it will require in most cases many lives of ascetic and meditational practice even to understand what it is. The

ultimate goal of Buddhist practice is so hard to understand that most Buddhists defer its serious pursuit to some future life, and aim simply at a better birth next time. Yet that ultimate goal is definitive of Buddhism. It is instructive for the theist to seek to understand it in comparison with the final theistic goal of the vision

of God. Such an understanding may at least qualify any assertion that Buddhism is an atheistic religion, or not even a religion at all. 13. Nirvana All Buddhists agree that nirvana is the ultimate goal of spiritual practice. Of nirvana, however, little can be truly said in the con-

cepts available to us; it is beyond our conceptual grasp. In the Questions of King Milinda, the sage Nagasena says, “The cessation

of craving leads successively to that of grasping, of becoming, of birth, of old age and death, of grief, lamentation, pain, sadness and despair—that is to say to the cessation of all this mass of ill. It is thus that cessation is Nirvana.’!!° This sounds very negative, and since the word ‘nirvana’ literally means ‘blowing out’, it may seem that ‘cessation’ is a way of saying ‘extinction’. However, this is far from being the case. One of the three main parts of the Buddhist canon of Scripture is the Abhidharma, which claims to give an analysis, derived from the Buddha himself, of the constituent elements of reality. According to that analysis, the world of apparently solid, enduring objects is in fact made up of eighty-two elements,

or ‘dharmas’. Eighty-one of them are fleeting, conditioned, ele-

ments; but one—nirvana—is both real and unconditioned in reality. Nirvana therefore exists, though in a way quite different from that of conditioned beings, with their properties of transience, > Milindapanha, 268-71; trans. in E. Conze, Buddhist Scriptures (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959), 156.

162 Four Scriptural Traditions insubstantiality, and unsatisfactoriness (anitya, anatman, and dukkha).

This is unequivocally affirmed by Buddhaghosa, the fifth-century CE monk who is the touchstone of orthodoxy in Theravada Budd-

hism (the ‘tradition of the elders’, which is found mostly in Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand). He writes: It is because it 1s uncreated that it is free from ageing and death. . . it is permanent... because it can be arrived at by distinction of knowledge that succeeds through untiring perseverance, and because it 1s the world of the Omniscient One, Nibbana is not non-existent as regards individual essence in the ultimate sense.!!°

Nihilism—the opinion that beyond this world of desire and plu-

rality, transience, and pain, there is nothing—is a false view. Delight in the senses must cease, for it brings suffering and unease. Yet one can say of nirvana that it grants all one can desire, brings joy, and sheds light. ‘Nirvana is something which 1s.’ ‘It is apprehendable [by some, namely, the Noble Ones] by the [right] means,

in other words, by the way that is appropriate to it... therefore it should not be said that it is non-existent because unapprehendable,

for it should not be said that what the foolish ordinary man does not apprehend is unapprehendable.’'!’ Nirvana is not merely a state of the cessation of ill; one must think of it as positive tranquillity and bliss. In the Dhammapada, a very popular Scripture, it is described as ‘the peace supreme and infinite joy’.!!® Nirvana is not to be considered as simply a state of mind, for everything in the human mind has a beginning, is in a state of constant change, and has an end. Nirvana is a form of reality which is permanent, free from sorrow, and attainable by mental striving. It is a cessation of conditioned existence, but it has its own greater form of reality. In one Scripture, the Buddha says: ‘Monks, there is a not-born, a not-

become, a not-made, a not-compounded. Monks, if that unborn, not-become, not-made, not-compounded were not, there would be apparent no escape from this here that is born, become, made, compounded.’!!? The unconditioned reality of infinite joy is the 'l6 Buddhaghosa, Visuddhimagga, 580 ff. 17 Thid. 578. 118 Dhammapada, 2. 23 trans. Juan Mascaro (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973),

ate Udana, 80. 3; in F. L. Woodward, The Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon (London: Oxford University Press, 1948), 97.

Four Scriptural Traditions 163 goal of meditation practice; but other than that, little can be said of it.

The idea of nirvana as a distinct, unique sort of reality was developed in a number of ways in the various schools of Mahayana Buddhism (the self-styled “greater vehicle’ which was influential

in China, Tibet, and Japan). Nagarjuna, the second-century CE founder of the Madhyamaka school, developed the influential view that nirvana is the result of calming the categorizing, conceptualizing mind. It is ‘the calming of all representations, the calming of all verbal differentiations, peace’.'*° Though nirvana cannot be ‘pointed to’ (since it is beyond all conceptual representation) much can be said of the stages on the path to nirvana, and it is here that one begins to catch the flavour of Buddhist meditation, its aims and achievements. Madhyamaka practice requires first of all the practice of vipasyana, insight meditation. This enjoins the rigorous analysis of all the contents of consciousness, dissolving them into their ultimate dharmas or parts. The analysis 1s meant to bring one to the recognition that all things are ‘empty’ (sunya); that is, devoid of inherent or truly substantial existence. One might put this by saying that there is nothing one can experience (and nothing finite that exists) which 1s permanent or uncaused. All things are contingent, transient, and caused; and the doctrine of dependent origination (pratityasamutpada) is basic to this philosophy. In insight meditation, one becomes aware that there is only a flow of dharmas.

There is nothing to cling to, to become attached to, and no en-

during self to cling or to become attached. There is only the ceaseless causal flow in consciousness. One might call this an intellectual appreciation of non-duality, of the non-existence of self and its independently existing objects.

But this is not just a philosophical theory. Meditation is both a moral discipline and a practised calming of the mind. The aim is to come to a state in which one sees that all conceptual representations are fictitious or imposed; they are ‘empty’ in not corresponding to substantial, independently existing realities. So one may rest in the pure radiant flow itself, without grasping, freed from illusion, and also compassionate to all beings who are enmeshed in illusion. This

is a liberation from Self, from egoistic grasping, and it is the beginning of the path to enlightenment. On this account, nirvana 120 Nagarjuna, Madhyamakakarika, 25. 24, in Mulamadhyamakakarikah, ed. J. W. de Jong (Madras: Adyar Library and Research Centre, 1977).

164 Four Scriptural Traditions and samsara are not substantially distinct, as they seem to be in Theravada. They are different aspects of the same reality, one aspect perceived under the illusion of the discriminating mind and the other apprehended as what truly is, beyond conceptualization and therefore beyond attachment. As Nagarjuna put it, “The limit of nirvana is the limit of samsara. Between the two there 1s not the slightest bit of difference.’!7!

What is to be noted here, from the theistic viewpoint, is that there is a definite metaphysical theory at the basis of the spiritual practice. The theory does claim to be rooted in spiritual insight. Certain individuals have not just theorized, they have seen directly and intuitively the true nature of things as dependent origination and non-substantiality (sunyata, emptiness). One’s assessment of such claims must depend upon the weight that one gives in general

to claims to correct cognition through direct experience. If one holds that all experience carries an element of conceptual interpretation; or at least that in so far as one has beliefs about it at all those beliefs must be made in a specific conceptual framework, then direct experience will not be self-validating. A truly nonconceptual apprehension may be possible. But either it will not be expressible conceptually at all, or one will have to claim that some concepts point more adequately towards its nature than others. In speaking of nirvana, Madhyamaka theorists are speaking of

the one and only reality, as apprehended by one who has tran_ scended the illusions bred by desire. Apprehended as such, it is an experience of bliss, tranquillity, and compassion, even though transcending the ordinary meanings of these terms. The testimony of Buddhist sages 1s that such experience is possible and does occur. But what does it show about the character of ultimate reality? What it shows is that the pursuit of rigorous techniques of emptying the mind of conceptual content, of visualizing all beings as objects of compassion and of dissolving consciousness into a flow of transient elements can lead to a non-conceptual awareness of experience as a flow of elements allied with a profound feeling of compassion. But is that really surprising? One achieves what the practices one uses

are precisely devised to achieve. One does not apprehend what those practices are precisely devised to eliminate as secondary or illusory. It 1s only if one antecedently believes that the result of 121 Nagarjuna, Madhyamakakarika, 25. 19-29.

Four Scriptural Traditions 165 these practices will result in an apprehension of reality in its true character that one will take them to do so. In saying this, I am not meaning in any way to devalue Buddhist

spirituality. The same point will apply to theists and indeed to forms of Pure Land Buddhism which visualize and subsequently experience visions of Buddhas in their pure Buddha-fields. The point is an epistemological one: that one’s initial conceptual analysis and one’s method of spiritual practice will largely govern the ‘objects’ of subsequent spiritual apprehension. As Steven Katz has argued forcefully, ‘Experiences themselves are inescapably shaped by prior linguistic influences such that the lived experience conforms to a pre-existent pattern that has been learned, then intended, and then actualized in the experiential reality.’!*7

The Buddhist might say that he knows his account is correct, because the omniscient (at least omniscient with regard to the path

of enlightenment) Buddhas teach it from their own knowledge.

But, since there are no Buddhas physically living now in this impure world, this is simply a belief on authority. That is, one believes it to be true, on faith, that the Buddha had correct knowledge of how things are. However, Christians believe it to be true, on faith, that Christ had correct knowledge of how things are. And the two views conflict dramatically. What one must proceed to do is to investigate the grounds upon which these individuals are believed to have correct knowledge. Among these grounds will certainly be the basic metaphysical scheme of non-dualism, karma and rebirth in the Buddhist case. One must also try to assess such empirical claims to the possession of supernatural powers, such as that Bodhisattvas at the third stage of meditation can fly, remember their previous births, know the thoughts of others, see Buddhas in other Buddha-fields, live for a hundred aeons and emanate the bodies of Bodhisattvas or appear in different forms and bodies at will.!*? To the extent that such claims are thought to represent mythological embellishments, one might be relatively more sceptical about the total accuracy of claims to discern the nature of reality correctly. It

may not lead one to doubt the occurrence of intense spiritual experience; but it will lessen the authority of cognitive claims based '22 Steven Katz (ed.), Mysticism and Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992),

23 J. Hopkins, Meditation on Emptiness (London: Wisdom, 1983), 100.

166 Four Scriptural Traditions on such experience, if one takes them to be made in a context of fantastic embellishment. From a theistic viewpoint, it will seem to be false that there is no

enduring Self and that there is no permanent and non-contingent reality—for God is precisely such a reality. But one can begin to

see how it is that Buddhists, engaging in profound moral and spiritual self-discipline, fail to encounter God and are not the recipients of revelation from an objective God. Neither the Self nor

God are evident objects of direct experience, and if one is not prepared to interpret one’s experience in terms of encounter with a substantial personal being, such an encounter 1s extremely unlikely to occur or to be recognized for what it is. If one aims 1n meditation to cut off all desires and attachments, then the idea of the world as

a good creation will not occur, and its arising must be put down to a fall into desire and ignorance, not a willed and good act. If one insists that the non-dual experience is an experience of the Ultimately Real, then one will discount any experiences of a divine being as expressing a lower level of development, as parts of the illusion of samsara, to be transcended rather than embraced. For Buddhists, the whole idea of a person as a substantial entity 1s a conceptual construct, and the idea of action, being bound up with

the notion of desire, is seen as an imperfection. If there is an unconditioned reality, as the Theravadin tradition asserts, 1t must be without desire and without the sort of action which springs from desire. It cannot be restricted to the ultimately falsifying structure of our mental constructs. Given these conceptual presuppositions, it could at best be an imperfect stage of development to encounter a personal and active God. So the whole Buddhist world-view and discipline leads away

from theism. Nevertheless, even in its Madhyamaka form, for which any Absolute is denied, reality is taken to be very different from the way it appears to the senses and the conceptualizing mind.

It has the character of wisdom, compassion, and bliss, though these are not properties of any finite mind or state of human consciousness. They are characteristics of reality itself, when rightly

apprehended. At an admittedly rather abstract level, this is not as different as might at first seem to be the case from the theistic, beatific vision of a God who possesses supreme wisdom, compassion, and bliss, and who is immediately present to all finite entities.

Four Scriptural Traditions 167 14. The Dharmakaya There are interpretations of nirvana in Mahayana thought, especially in some Chinese and Japanese schools, which are even more analogous to theism. The Mahayana Mahaparninirvana Sutra contains a doctrine of the tathagatagarbha or Buddha-essence. According to this doctrine, all sentient beings contain the Buddha-essence, which is destined to come to full realization at some time. It 1s not that some people might one day, through great exertion, attain to

enlightenment. On the contrary, everyone is already a Buddha, though the vast majority do not realize the fact. Enlightenment is a matter of coming to realize one’s eternal Buddha-essence, to free it from the defilements of greed, hatred, and ignorance. There are many interpretations of what is meant by the Buddhaessence. Paul Williams points out, however, that the Sutra clearly teaches a ‘really existing, permanent element in sentient beings’ .!2* As a Tibetan Buddhist himself, he writes that the fo nang pa school

of Tibetan Buddhism takes this teaching literally, asserting that ‘there is an ultimate reality, an Absolute, something which really inherently exists. It is eternal, unchanging, an element which exists in all sentient beings.’!2° This Absolute is identified with the Dhar-

makaya, or Cosmic Body of the Buddha. As such, it is one uncreated, unchanging, simple, and ineffable reality, the Absolute of which all things are manifestations, even if somehow trapped in the defilements of egoism. It is the fundamental nature of the universe itself; and it is not surprising that some commentators regard it as one possible notion of what theists might term God. Although this view is only found in some schools of Buddhism, it has been very

influential in China and Japan. Williams says: ‘It is impossible to underestimate, in my opinion, the importance of the Buddhaessence theory... for East Asian Buddhism.’!”° It finds a very influential expression in the Lotus Sutra which, Williams remarks, ‘for many East Asian Buddhists since early times. . .1s the nearest Buddhist equivalent to a bible’.!?’

Some scholars date most of the text to the end of the second century CE. For its adherents, this Sutra was the final teaching of 124 Paul Williams, Mahayana Buddhism (London: Routledge, 1989), 99. 125 Tbid. 107.

126 Ibid. 112. 127 Tbid. 141.

168 Four Scriptural Traditions the Buddha, representing the highest insights of Buddhism. It introduces the Bodhisattva ideal of compassionate action for all sentient beings until they attain release, and the idea that all pure and wise beings will become Buddhas.!° It stresses the authoritative

nature of the Buddha’s teaching, which is incomprehensible to normal human persons, beyond reason, and unreachable even by the highest of other beings.!*? Moreover, this revealed doctrine does not originate with Siddhartha, who is shown to be only one of myriad Buddhas, existing throughout countless aeons and in countless universes. By all of them the Lotus Sutra is preached. Thus, like many other Scriptures of the world, it comes to have the

status, not of the teaching of one wise man, but of an eternal teaching, mediated through or ‘seen by’ a holy teacher rather than simply promulgated by him. Its authority is the authority of eternal

truth; and so it is rightly worshipped, honoured with incense, flowers, and by chants. Even one stanza kept in the memory suffices to lead to enlightenment, and more immediately to give one rebirth in a Pure Land, a land without women or sex.!*° Moreover, its doctrine of the Buddha, though exceptionally complex, undoubtedly constitutes an apotheosis of Siddhartha. Stanza 3

speaks of him as the ‘father of the world’, mighty in power, compassionate to all. He is the great physician'*’ and the light of the world, the saviour of all mortals.!** ‘In the whole universe there

is not a single spot... where the Buddha has not surrendered his body for the sake of creatures.’!?? Even more astonishingly, it is said that the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have the power of creating their own Buddha-fields, and in the remarkable stanza 15 the Lord Buddha says: I arrived at perfect enlightenment numberless aeons ago...I preached in innumerable worlds... I created all this to preach the law. The Tathagata {a title of the Buddha] sees the world as unborn, undying... he is unlimited in the duration of his life, he is everlasting... I announce final extinction, though myself I do not become finally extinct. ..I shall live innumerable aeons to come. 128 Saddharmapundarika (Lotus) Sutra, trans. in L. Hurvitz, Scripture of the Lotus

a A the Fine Dharma (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), stanza 2. 130 Thid., st. 24.

'3! Tbid., st. 5. 132 Tbid., st. 7.

133 Tbid., st. II.

Four Scriptural Traditions 169 This stanza in particular has been the subject, not surprisingly, of intense debate. Some schools find in it a clear statement of the

Dharmakaya or Cosmic Body of the Buddha as an everlasting Absolute Reality. This everlasting, uncreated ‘body’ can manifest in a second form, the Sambhogikakaya, or body of complete enjoy-

ment. It is a physical body, but not the sort of gross matter found on the earthly plane. It is the glorified body of the Buddha,

appearing on a lotus throne in a Pure Land and preaching the dharma. It is from such a glorified body that the Lotus Sutra is said

to derive, as it is heard from those who attain, by their own meditations, to the presence of such a Buddha in one of many Buddha-fields. In this scheme of thought, the earthly person of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha for this world-period on this earthly plane, is a nairmanikakaya,'** a transformation body. The earthly Buddha is seen as an appearance for the sake of those on this plane who seek enlightenment. In the fully fledged cosmology of these Buddhist schools, there are innumerable ‘earthly Buddhas’, on innumerable planes of being, of which this is one of the lowest. They are manifestations of the glorified bodies which live in, and

even create by thought, their own Pure Lands of enjoyment and purity. And they in turn are manifestations of the one primal

Buddha-nature, which is the Absolute Reality of unborn, unchanging, bliss. Commentators like Paul Williams think that this cosmology is a conflation of the Lotus teaching with the thinking of Tendai, a sixth-century CE Chinese school. In his view, the Sutra

itself still teaches a Buddha with a very long existence but not literally eternal existence (which would begin to sound very like the doctrine of an eternal Self).1*°

I doubt whether the Sutra is susceptible of one unambiguous interpretation. The Buddha is certainly said to have arrived at enlightenment many aeons ago, and so was a man who through ascetic practice became a Buddha. Yet can one truly become a Buddha, since there is, in reality, no one to become anything and nirvana, being changeless, cannot be changed by the entry of anyone into it? The Buddha, in so far as he is a Buddha, did not begin to be; and in so far as he was involved in samsara, was not truly existent—‘all things have been declared to be non-existing, 134 These are Paul Williams’s transliterations. Simpler, and more often found, are sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya. 135 Williams, Mahayana Buddhism, 155 ff.

170 Four Scriptural Traditions not appearing, not produced, void, immovable, everlasting’.!*° Are

not all the Buddhas then bound to be identical, since there is no form of duality to divide them one from another? And are not the earthly Buddhas just appearances of the Unchanging, without subsistent reality?

This seems to be the implication of the mysterious doctrine of the ‘finally extinct’ Buddhas who nevertheless still appear. In stanza

II a previously unknown Buddha, Prabhutaratna, appears in a huge stupa (a burial mound, in which relics are kept). He is said to be finally extinct; yet he speaks and says that he has come to hear

the Lotus Sutra recited: ‘the seer, though completely extinct, is awake’. In other stanzas, the Buddha says, ‘I stay under different

names in other worlds’,’*’ and sends phantasms to help the preachers of this Sutra.'*® Here the paradox of nirvana which is extinction and yet is also omniscience and supreme bliss (at least according to the Lotus Sutra) is given concrete expression in a Buddha who is both finally extinct and yet omniscient. It is hard not to see in this the doctrine that there is a primal cosmic Buddhanature, from which in some sense all worlds emanate and to which they return when the veil of samsara is drawn aside. For, after all, ‘when creatures behold this world and imagine that it is burning, even then my Buddha-field is teeming with gods and men’.!*? What

is finally extinct at the level of samsara is eternally awake at the level of nirvana. Thus the cosmic Buddha and the infinite worlds of samsara are identical. In them, the Buddhas appear as mani-

festations of the Real among the forms of dreams, mirages, or echoes,/*° whether in glorious bodies in Pure Buddha Lands or in earthly bodies, very rarely, in the impure realms of desire.

Although in a sense the Dharmakaya can be said to ‘create’ worlds (stanza II, where innumerable Buddhas and their fields are creations of Siddhartha); and though in the Karandavyuha Sutra the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara is said to have created this world and all its gods,!*! nevertheless the Lotus Sutra denies a doctrine of 136 Lotus Sutra, st. 13. 137 Tbid., st. 7. 138 Tbid., st. I0. 139 Thid., st. 15. 140 Tbid., st. 5.

141 Trans. in E. J. Thomas, The Perfection of Wisdom (London: John Murray, 1952), 76 ff.

Four Scriptural Traditions I7I creation. Stanza § asserts that laws are not derived from an intelligent cause; they have no purpose, but are like bubbles, evanescent and transient in being, without inherent existence. The origin of this world with its mass of ills is a mystery for Buddhist thought,

but it certainly cannot be seen as planned by an intelligent mind. Here is a sharp perception of the horror of suffering—though again the paradox 1s that this world is also the pure bliss of nirvana, and in it innumerable beings can be brought to endless bliss. Schools of Mahayana thus vary enormously. On the one hand, there are relatively ‘thin’ doctrines of an awareness of the falsifying nature of our conceptual structures with the aim of resting calmly and without attachment in the pure flow of fundamental experienced

elements. On the other, there is the ‘rich’ doctrine of a Cosmic Body of bliss, omniscience, and compassion, from which emanate

endless worlds of suffering, with the aim of bringing all finite beings to Release by realizing the germ of the Buddha-nature (the tathagatagarbha) within themselves. In most of the richer versions, there are Bodhisattvas in paradisaical worlds who actively help on the way to Release. So stanza 24 of the Lotus Sutra is one of the most popular of all, teaching that Avalokitesvara will save one from

danger if one simply calls upon his name. In this strand, the Mahayana traditions contain clear evidence of an experience of grace (of the active help of the heavenly Bodhisattvas), of personal

faith (most clearly, but not only, in devotion to Amitabha in the Yodo-Shin-Shu school), and of something very like a Cosmic Mind which seeks to bring all beings into union with itself (most clearly

in the traditions influenced by The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana'*’). The ultimate goal of nirvana can be conceived in various ways. It

may be thought of as a permanent state of bliss, other than all conditioned elements of the world. It may be seen as this world, when apprehended by a mind free of the illusion produced by desire. It may be perceived as the realization of ultimate unity with a Cosmic Absolute, omniscient and all-compassionate. Underlying these differences, there is the common belief that it is possible to be

liberated from this realm of desire and suffering, to apprehend 142 The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, trans. Yoshito S. Hakeda (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967). This is traditionally attributed to the second-century Indian thinker, Asvaghosha, but is completely available only in a sixth-century Chinese text.

172 Four Scriptural Traditions supreme bliss and wisdom. It is not implausible to suggest that theism, in its classical Western forms, offers yet another interpretation of that ultimate goal, characterizing the Supreme Reality of bliss and wisdom by the use of the concept of God.

Buddhism did not take the theistic path. One can understand why this is, when the Buddhist philosophy is seen against the religious context from which it sprang. It began from a rejection of what was perceived as the authoritarian moralism of Brahmin social codes and of what was seen as an overly anthropomorphic represen-

tation of the gods. It located the heart of religion in a personal quest for liberation from selfish attachment, not in ritual performances or the casting of magical spells and the use of oracular fortune-telling. In rejecting the doctrine of inherent substance it pursued the course of the relativization of the gods which had already begun in sophisticated strands of Hinduism. The gods (the most real of finite beings) became, not subsistent beings, but

aspects of an inclusive reality beyond them all. When the last personalization of the gods is transcended, one finds the confluence

of Being and Emptiness which is the true nature of things. In rejecting the final importance of action as a characteristic of the ultimately real, Buddhism pursued the recognition of life as bondage to suffering which had arisen in the Indian tradition. When the © last physical representation of finite life in heaven is transcended, one finds the confluence of Bliss and Extinction which 1s nirvana. An understanding of the paths by which Buddhism developed its manifold forms helps the theist to see how such a non-theistic faith is nevertheless a genuine exploration of a deep spirituality, a quest for self-transcendence in the pursuit of what is of supreme value. Its value as a complement to theism lies in its firm grasp of the fact that liberation from selfish desire is the heart of religion. Religions

must be assessed at least in part in terms of their effectiveness towards that end. One importance of Buddhism lies in its criticism of authoritarian and anthropomorphic practices and images, and in

its recognition of the inadequacy of the human mind to grasp ultimate realities in their own being.

Manifold differences between theistic and Buddhist interpretations remain, but often the internal differences between schools of Buddhism and of theism are as important as those between Buddhism and theism as such. No one should claim that all these schools are really saying the same thing. But it is significant that

Four Scriptural Traditions 173 they can intelligibly be seen to be pursuing a common quest, not to be walking in wholly different directions. They also have an idea of their goal which shares a notion of supreme value, however agnostically qualified. One can hardly say that Buddhists worship the same God as Jews, since they disclaim any particular interest in a god. However, one can say that they seek release from selfish desire, and a state of tranquillity and bliss which cannot be described in terms of conditioned reality. Might not Jews rightly say that they also seek liberation from selfish desire in all its forms,

through knowledge of a God of whom no image can rightly be made, whether materially or conceptually? The forms of religious life are very different, but some of its central elements are very similar. From a theistic point of view, the Buddhist way affirms the primacy of the practical, in religious life. The goal of liberation from attachment and a personal realization of wisdom, compassion, and bliss takes precedence over any requirement of assent to ‘correct’ beliefs. The source of religious revelation is located in the attainment of such a goal, and its primary function is to offer the most skilful means to lead others towards it. That seems to me an emphasis from which the Semitic tradition can profit, and of which it greatly stands in need. D. ISLAM 15. The Transcendence of God

Buddhism universalizes Hinduism, with its teaching of an ultimate

goal of supreme value, to be attained by the discipline of nonattachment. Islam universalizes Judaism, with its law of wholeness and justice, and the promise of relationship to a God of supreme value, to be attained by obedience. The problem Buddhism poses for Christian theologians is its apparent lack of any Divine revel-

ation. I have tried to ease this problem by suggesting that the historical and conceptual background of Buddhism militates against

the idea of a personal, active God. Though theists must see this as an incomplete apprehension of reality, nonetheless, Buddhism offers a positive complement to Christianity in its rigorous development of a non-authoritarian path of renunciation, leading to awareness of an unconditioned reality of wisdom, compassion, and joy. The problem Islam poses for Christian theologians is different. Islam has a very clear notion of Divine revelation; but it conflicts

174 Four Scriptural Traditions with Christian revelation at a number of crucial points. This conflict is especially apparent in the case of three central Christian doctrines—the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus; atonement for human sin by the death of Jesus; and the concept of God

as Trinity. How is it possible for such basic conflicts to exist, if God does indeed desire one revelation to be accepted by all? Apparently, God has not given an unambiguous revelation and preserved it unequivocally from error. God has permitted many alleged competing revelations to have currency in the modern world. How does this fact modify one’s account of the nature of revelation? In this section on Islam, I will concentrate on two of these main areas of doctrinal conflict, the ideas of incarnation and atonement, since I think such reflection suggests further insights

into the nature and scope of Divine revelation. Treatment of the doctrines themselves, from within a Christian context, will be

undertaken in Part IV. It will then take into account in a more complete way some of the points raised here. For the present, it will be presupposed that the doctrines are central to and even definitive of Christianity in anything like its traditional form. Islam is a clear case of a propositional revelation. In Arabic there exists a distinction between i/ham or inspiration, tanzil, or sendingdown, and wahy or prophetic rapture. [/ham can come to any holy person, and is thought of as a raising of natural human insights and creative gifts to a higher level. In this way great theologians may be inspired by God; but what they declare is still a matter of human judgement and derives from a specially gifted human nature. Wahy is found in visions or in words that come to prophets. It is sometimes said to occur in three modes.!*° The first is the inspiring of an idea; it is wahy Rhafi, or inner revelation. It does not come in

distinct words, but as an inspiration which puts an idea into the mind. The second is ‘revelation from behind a veil’; that 1s, in dreams, visions, or trances. Both these kinds of revelation can come to anyone. The third kind comes to prophets alone, and that is wahy matluww, or revelation recited in words. Such revelation comes, according to the Koran, to every prophet of every nation. The greatest form of revelation is tanzil, which 1s applied only to

the Koran, and which is a sending-down of Divine truth into a 143 Cf. Koran, 42. 51. I have quoted throughout from the translation by A. Yusuf Ali, published by the Islamic Foundation (Leicester, 1975).

Four Scriptural Traditions 175 human mind. According to Muslim tradition, the Koran (literally, ‘Recitation’) descended in one night—the Night of Destiny— into the soul of Muhammad, to be called forth thereafter bit by bit by the circumstances of his life. As he meditated in the cave at Jabal Nur, his soul was ordered by God to express the uncreated Koran. When he was under the burden of inspiration thereafter, he either

heard words dictated by the angel Gabriel or ‘a bell ringing and penetrating me’; an experience which was apparently painful and which produced observable phenomena like a vast increase in weight, which made camels buckle under the prophet. The Holy Koran was thus a teaching from God given verbally

to the Prophet Muhammad.!** It was memorized by him and recited to his followers, who, according to tradition, wrote down the verses just as they heard them. They were arranged and edited later, the standard edition being promulgated about twenty years

after the death of the Prophet by the third caliph (successor as leader of the household of faith) "Uthman. The prophet’s claim was that he had not invented them, but heard them during his visionary

experiences. The passivity of the Prophet before the speaking of God, through an angelic intermediary, is clearly attested. Of course, Muhammad 1s believed to have been an appropriate person to be

a prophet, and his life is taken as exemplary by Muslims, to be a

pattern of human perfection. Yet the message is not seen as a product of the Prophet’s wisdom, insight, or sanctity; Muhammad is referred to as the ‘unlettered prophet’,'*? to emphasize that the Koran is not written by the Prophet: ‘This Koran is not such as can

be produced by other than God.’'*° God may have chosen him partly because of his wisdom, insight, and sanctity; but it is God who speaks and the Prophet who hears and recites what he hears. There is consequently little interest in God’s self-revelation in history in Islam, since God gives a perfect revelation in the Koran. The Koran is not a record of Divine providence in the history of a particular people, even though the Prophet and his followers were believed to be providentially guided. Of course the success of Islam 144 Koran, 53. 5-11: ‘He was taught by one mighty in power [Gabriel] .. . he appeared while he was in the highest part of the horizon; then he approached . . . so did God convey the inspiration . . . the Prophet’s heart in no way falsified that which he saw.’ 149 Ibid. 7. 158. 146 Ibid. 10. 37.

176 Four Scriptural Traditions is seen as a sign of Divine blessing, but the sort of providential interpretation of history which is found in the Hebrew Bible 1s not of primary importance in the Koran. There is a stress on the whole

of history being the product of the Divine will; and there is an important doctrine of nature giving ayat, or signs of God. But whereas within Judaism, in the notion of the election of a covenant people, there was always the possibility of the Divine manifesting itself in a holy community or in a person who would represent that

community, in Islam the Prophet does not express God; he is a channel through whom God speaks. Thus the gulf between the world and God remains absolute and no finite thing can be associ-

ated with God in any way—the grievous sin of shirk is that of associating any other thing with God. One of the most frequently mentioned sins is that of associating ‘partners’ with God. “To set up partners with God is to devise a sin most heinous indeed.’!*’

It is difficult to say exactly in what this sin consists, or what is meant by a ‘partner’. It seems clear enough that if one is an outand-out polytheist, worshipping many gods; or if one worships the stars, moon, or sun themselves,’*® then one is associating partners with God. The moral dimension of such condemnation finds an

echo'*? when it is said that, ‘Their partners made alluring the slaughter of their children’. Again, it seems that what is condemned

is a concern with the good things of this world, a lack of concern for others or for eternal truths: ‘You have taken idols besides God, out of mutual love and regard between yourselves in this life.’!°°

The total worship of the one and only creator God would be compromised by the practice mentioned in Sura 6: “They falsely .. .

attribute to Him sons and daughters. ..how can He have a son when He has no consort?’!*! However, the mention of that passage at once raises the difficult question of whether Christians are to be thought of as associating a

partner with God, when they worship Jesus. The attitude of the Koran seems to vary between condemnation and approbation of Christianity, though Muslim commentators have tended to stress 147 Koran, 4. 48. 148 Cf. Koran, 6. 74-9, where Abraham explicitly distances his worship of God from such practices. 149 Ibid. 6. 137. 150 Thid. 29. 25. ‘5! Thid. 6. 100.

Four Scriptural Traditions 177 the condemnation most. The condemnation 1s clear enough: “Jews

call Ezra a son of God... Christians call Christ the son of God... God’s curse be on them.’!°? This passage continues: ‘They take their priests and anchorites to be their lords in derogation of God... far is He from having the partners they associate with him.’ However, there are no orthodox Jews who call Ezra a son of God in any

sense of giving him worship; and no orthodox Christians who would worship an anchorite, however saintly. So it may seem that only those who are so ignorant as to confuse human beings and God are here being condemned. But could one not accuse Christians of precisely that confusion?

‘In blasphemy indeed are those that say that God is Christ the son of Mary.’!°? This too, however, is not straightforward. Any Christian who said that God, tout court, was Jesus, would certainly

be mistaken and heretical. The important Koranic truth 1s that there is only one creator God, and that only God should be worshipped. With this all orthodox Christians would heartily agree, of course. They do not think that Jesus was the creator of heaven and earth, any more than they think the Son is the Father. However, if Christians should not say that God is Jesus (meaning, nothing but Jesus), they do say that Jesus is God; more precisely, the Word of

God, who is one with God the Creator. The Koran is to say the least uneasy about this identification. One reason for thinking that

this is not to be regarded as the obvious blasphemy of shirk, however, is that the Koran repeatedly teaches that the People of the Book will have nothing to fear from God and will have a portion in the Hereafter. Muhammad seemed to regard Christians as confused rather than actually blasphemous. Muslim apologists such as the fourteenth-century Ibn Taymiyya

of Damascus interpret the Koran as accepting Christians who - lived before hearing of Islam, but condemning those who remain Christians after hearing of it.’°* This, however, is a matter of interpretation which would be contested by other Muslim scholars; and it is hard to square with some Koranic teaching. Sura 42, for example, says, “For us our deeds and for you your deeds. There is no contention between us and you. God will bring us together, and 152 Tbid. 9. 30.

3 Ibid. 5. 19. 194 Ibn Taymiyya, A Muslim Theologian’s Response to Christianity, trans. T. F. Michel (New York: Caravan Books, 1984), 240 ff.

178 Four Scriptural Traditions to him is our final goal.’!°? There is a tone of tolerance and conciliation here which is absent in Ibn Taymiyya’s insistence on the righteousness of destroying or closing Christian churches as

places of idolatrous worship. It must be said that, within both Islam and Christianity, mutual condemnations, deriving from a sense that the true revelation is being arrogantly rejected by infidels,

have been more common than a search for tolerance and understanding. One of the points I am seeking to make 1s that there are other possibilities within each tradition, which might be, and which are being, profitably explored. Nevertheless, the belief that Jesus is the son of God is repeatedly condemned. “They say, “God most gracious has begotten a son!”’

Indeed ye have put forth a thing most monstrous! At it the skies are ready to burst, the earth to split asunder and the mountains to fall down in utter ruin, that they should invoke a son for [God] most gracious.’!°° This is condemnation in the strongest terms; and yet the Koran itself does not draw back from referring to Jesus as a (but certainly not the) Word of God. A Key passage 1s: ‘Christ Jesus

the son of Mary was an apostle of God and His Word which he bestowed on Mary and a Spirit proceeding from him... say not “Trinity’’, desist .. . for God is one God; (far exalted is he) above having a son.”!>’ This is a very interesting passage, since Jesus is referred to as a Word from God and a Spirit from God. The idea of God issuing a Word can be readily assimilated to Koranic modes of thought; for at the creation God says ‘Be’ and it 1s; so at the birth of Jesus he said to him ‘Be’ and he was.!°® So God’s will could be expressed in a Word from him—though it 1s not too clear how a human being could be identical with such a Word. The idea of God having a son, however, was deeply inimical to Muhammad, perhaps because he was fighting against the sort of Arabic polytheism which

gives God sons and daughters, who were additional and distinct

deities. This thought comes to the fore in the fifth chapter: ‘Didst thou say unto men, worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of God?’!°? What is condemned is worshipping Jesus as

another god, a son distinct from the creator God—the Jesus who '° Koran, 42. 15. 15° Ibid. 19. 90. 157 Tbid. 4. 171. 158 Ibid. 3. $9. 159 Ibid. 5. 119.

Four Scriptural Traditions 179 figured in Arianism, who was the first-born of all creation and yet

still another than God, since ‘there was when he was not’. It is possible, then, that what is being condemned is Arian Christology, according to which one can worship a creature who 1s other than

God but who is honorifically called his Son. This seems to be confirmed by the statement: ‘It is not possible that a man. . . should say to the people, “Be ye my worshippers rather than God’s.” ’!©°

For Christians do not hold that they should worship Jesus rather than God. In worshipping him as the Son, they worship him as the manifestation or expression of God himself, in his aspect as the Word.

The Koran, however, regards having a son as dishonouring to God: “They say, ““God hath begotten a son’’: glory be to Him! He is

self-sufficient! His are all things in the heavens and on earth.’!®! God is so self-sufficient that he stands in no need of a son; and, since God possesses all things, he cannot stand in a special relation of possession to just one person, Jesus. But it must be quite clear that Christians agree that there is only one Creator to whom belong all things in heaven and earth, who is supremely self-sufficient and

to whom alone worship is due. It is also clear, however, that Christians do worship Jesus Christ; from which it follows that Jesus

must be in some sense identical with the one supreme God. In worshipping Jesus one does not worship another than God; one simply worships God. It is not surprising that Muslims find this puzzling and in the end unacceptable. What is needed is some way

of showing how Jesus can be a human person and yet also be Divine; and many have found this a hopeless task. Nevertheless, it must be clear that Christians do not worship a creature rather than God. It is not a question of putting self or the worship of money or

the worship of demons in place of the worship of God. Further, Christians do not reduce God to the human Jesus; during the life of Jesus God still rules as the one and only creator and sustainer of all things. Rather, they identify the human Jesus with God the Son, or God the Word (for Christians these expressions are interchangeable and, both being metaphorical, do not have fundamentally different meanings) and worship him only because he has, uniquely among human beings, that identity. 160 Thid. 3. 79. 16l Thid. 10. 68.

180 Four Scriptural Traditions It is repeatedly stated in the Koran that Jesus is no more than an

apostle, so there can be no question that Islam repudiates the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ. However, the statement that Jesus is a Word from God is suggestive of a subtler and less condemnatory view of the relation between Divine and human. For Christians there is no physical paternity on the part of God, and the virginal conception (which Muslims accept) does not entail any such thing. Christians would reject as vehemently as Muslims any thought that God begets a son by procreating with a consort. Jesus

is truly human. But is it possible that there might be a closer relation between God and humanity than that of Creator with creatures? If the Word that God speaks is both the act and intention of God, by which things are called into being, there is room for the belief that God’s Word, as the Divine intention, is not distinct from God in the same way that created things are. It is precisely a

manifestation and expression of the Divine Being, as a thought might be the expression of a mind. Words are distinguished from objects by having a meaning. One might say that, as parts of the finite world, as sounds or marks on

paper, words are created objects. Yet precisely in so far as they carry meaning, they express something of the one who speaks. The Koran itself is the Word of God; and as such, has often been seen by Muslims as a physical image of the eternal Koran in the mind

of God. Thus there is in Islam the idea of a finite image of an eternal and Divine reality. This is found primarily in the Koran itself; but there are hadith (traditions of the Prophet) which speak of the Prophet himself as a living Koran. It is held by some Muslim

scholars that at one point in the Koran itself the Prophet and the Koran are in some sense identified.'°* This never, of course,

becomes a doctrine of the Prophet’s Divinity, and neither the Koran nor the Prophet could be regarded as objects of worship. Nonetheless, one can see how an image of the eternal would be more than an object wholly dependent upon God; more, even than

signs (ayat) sent by God to show the Divine power or glory. It would be a manifestation of the Divine will. If the Christian doctrine of the status of Jesus begins with such analogies as these— '62 “We have made a Light, wherewith we guide such of our servants as we will;

and verily thou does guide to the straight way’: 42. 52. Yusuf Ali, in his commentary (Islamic Foundation, 1975), comments that ‘The Qur-an and the inspired Prophet who proclaimed it, are here identified’: p. 1322.

Four Scriptural Traditions 181 that Jesus is the finite image of the eternal Father—then it would come reasonably close to the Koranic statement that Jesus is a ‘Word from God’. However, the Christian view clearly goes a great

deal farther in taking the image to be worthy of worship, as identical with God and not only truly descriptive of God.

A deep difference exists between Islam and Christianity as to whether it 1s proper to worship Jesus Christ. The Muslim view stresses the utter transcendence of God, and denies that there can be any form of union between Creator and creature. Christians, however, claim that Jesus imaged and expressed the Divine Being and Will. He was united to God in such an intimate manner as to be the complete expression in human terms of what God 1s. It is

therefore proper to worship him, as the express image of the invisible God—not as a distinct being other than God, but precisely as God manifest in a human life. The difference is, most fundamen-

tally, about the possible forms of relationship of God to creation.

The question to be asked is: is God totally transcendent, other than the created order? Or can God unite parts of the created order

to the Divine Being, making them expressions of the Divine? Once the difference is located in differing answers to this question, it can at least become clear, and perhaps mutually accepted, that Christians are not intending to worship another than God. They are not denying the unity and proper sovereignty of God. They are not putting another in God’s place, or seeking to blaspheme, mock, or

insult God. There 1s a case for saying that the Koranic condemnation is of a view which would make God like the polytheistic fathers of divine dynasties, like Zeus or Jupiter. This would dis-

honour God, as the one and only Creator, in need of nothing, having no equals, the only omnipotent ruler of the world. A careful

statement of the Christian case, however, escapes this condemnation. It will not produce agreement with Islam. However, it may succeed in rebutting the charge of idolatry, and thus lay the foundation for greater respect between these two great religious traditions. 16. Atonement

The doctrine of incarnation is rejected by Islam because it seems to

compromise the utter transcendence and sovereignty of God. A second main Christian doctrine, that the death of Jesus atones for the sins of the world, is rejected because it seems to compromise

182 Four Scriptural Traditions the absolute justice of God. Among the beliefs rejected are that all

humans are in a state of ‘original sin’, from which they need redemption; that one man can atone for another’s sins; and that God requires more than sincere repentance in order to forgive sinners. Partly because of the rejection of these beliefs, it 1s regarded

as quite unacceptable that a true prophet, as Jesus was, should die a criminal’s death. Thus it is almost universally held by Muslims that Jesus did not die on the cross, but was immediately raised to the presence of God, where he lives, awaiting his return to defeat the Antichrist and to confirm the true faith of Islam. When one comes to examine the puzzling and much discussed Koranic phrase, “They killed him not nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them (shubbiha la-hum) ...God raised him up unto himself’,!©? one could interpret this as saying that Jesus

did not pass into non-existence on the cross. He continued in conscious existence and ascended to God—a fact which Muslims confess. So, whereas the Jews thought they had consigned Jesus to the world of the dead at least until the final day of resurrection,

they were mistaken in this belief, since Jesus was raised to the presence of God. Geoffrey Parrinder favours this interpretation.’ Moreover, Neal Robinson mentions the argument of Catholicos Timothy that what the Koran denies is the Jews’ claim that they killed Jesus; whereas his death was, unknown to them, by the foreordained will of God.'®© Nevertheless, the general Muslim interpretation of this text is straightforwardly that Jesus was not actually crucified at all. Ancient traditions, one traced back to a Companion

of the Prophet, Ibn-Abbas, state that Jesus’ semblance was projected on to a volunteer while Jesus himself escaped. This tradition that another was crucified in Jesus’ place may owe something to the gnostic belief that Simon of Cyrene was crucified in Jesus’ place; but its actual provenance has not been established. The theological

point is that, from a Muslim point of view, it is unthinkable that a true prophet should suffer an ignominious death; so what is important is the ascension of Jesus, his death being only an ‘appearance’. 163 Koran, 4. 157-9. 164 Geoffrey Parrinder, fesus in the Qur’an (London: Faber and Faber, 1965), I2I. 65 Neal Robinson, Christ in Islam and Christianity (London: Macmillan, 1991), 109.

Four Scriptural Traditions 183 The death of Jesus does not have the importance for Islam that it does for Christianity; it has no atoning significance, and this is a

major difference of interpretation. For Christians, Jesus was not overcome by death; he died and was raised from death, and in that sense his experience of death was unlike that of anyone else. There is a difference between the New Testament and the Koran and it

cannot be glossed over. But it is not just a rank contradiction. It expresses in each case a struggle to comprehend the passing-away

of a great prophet, whom both religions call Messiah, and to comprehend his status before God. The Koranic view does not express any understanding of Jesus as an incarnation of God and cannot accept the idea of the death of God; but it celebrates the

prophethood of Jesus and the fact that his story did not end in death. Acceptance of the inalienable and all-determining power of

God makes it very difficult for Muslims to accept the idea of a vindication of Divine love in a freely accepted death at the hands of human beings. Thus the central Christian idea of atonement is alien to Muslim thought. The Koran teaches that ‘every soul draws the meed of its

acts on none but itself: no bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another’.'°° At the Judgement, each soul will be punished or rewarded for what it has done: “Then shall every soul be paid what it earned.’’°’ This sounds a very severe doctrine, and it contrasts

with the Christian claim that no one can stand justified in the presence of God. For Islam, it is possible for persons not only to do all that they ought, but to do more than they strictly ought, so that they can merit the reward of Paradise. The idea of original sin is absent in Islam. Indeed, it is seen as a

main defect in Christian ethics that Christians morally require people to do what is impossible. One twentieth-century polemical writer speaks of a ‘hideous schizophrenia’ which Christianity introduces into the world by confining true religion to monks and nuns, while the everyday world is lost to flagrant debauchery.!©? The

argument is that the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ of Matthew 5-7 is a perversion of Jesus’ teaching. It propounds grossly unrealistic ‘66 Koran, 6. 164. ‘67 Tbid. 2. 281. 168 Extract from Sayyid Qutb, ‘Islam: The Religion of the Future’, in an interesting collection made by Paul Griffiths: Christianity through Non-Christian Eyes (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990), 79.

184 Four Scriptural Traditions ethics, requiring complete retreat from the world, pacificism, and inaction. In trying to follow such an inhuman way, the monastic orders were invented. But their heroic and absurd exertions only make the rest of the human race feel even greater failures. They lead most people to think that, since one is damned anyway, one may as well indulge in complete sensuality. Thus the accusation is

made that Christianity undermines morality, both by making it much too difficult to obey, and by accusing people of sin, however hard they try to be good. Islam, it is said, by contrast, propounds a moral code which it is possible to obey, and thus it does not breed

the sort of guilt which leads to a breakdown of moral order by reaction. The Christian view of this would be that it is simply a statement of observed fact that human wills are so weak that they cannot live

as God requires. There is a defect in human nature which makes it impossible for humans to reach their Divinely intended fulfilment by their own efforts. A perception that this is so, however, should not undermine moral striving. It should be a spur to greater moral effort, since God requires it, but also a reminder that such effort is not sufficient to realize the perfection that God wills. In this sense, Christianity is a religion of Divine grace, for which God supplies what human effort cannot—a form of loving relationship which

renews and perfects human nature. Islam does not deny Divine compassion and forgiveness—far from it. But it nevertheless insists

that all individuals are responsible for their own good and bad deeds. At the Day of Judgement, they will receive their reward in accordance with the strict dictates of Divine justice. Those who do wrong must pay, and no soul can bear the burden of another. However, this strict doctrine is mitigated elsewhere. “Those who believe and work righteous deeds—from them shall we blot out all

evil in them, and we shall reward them according to the best of their deeds.’!©? God will not exact the strict punishment for evil; rather, ‘God forgives all sins’'”° and gives a reward due to the best of what a person has done. God 1s above all merciful; and though each person is responsible for their own conduct, God forgives the penitent and rewards with greater generosity than could ever be demanded. Not only will God forgive sins; but ‘the angels celebrate 169 Koran, 29. 7. 170 Ibid. 39. 53.

Four Scriptural Traditions 185 the praises of their Lord and pray for forgiveness for beings on earth’.!”! The apostle of God also promises to pray for the forgiveness of others.!’7 Since the Prophet’s prayers cannot be for what is impossible or ineffective, 1t seems that the prayers of others—of

angels and of the Prophet at least—can be effective in obtaining Divine forgiveness.

The natural way to take this is to think that prayer can aid other people to be penitent, to turn to God and so enable God to blot out

their sins. It could be argued that humans all need help from others, and especially from those, like the angels and the Prophet, who are near to God. This thought may be developed in a direction which comes nearer to a Christian understanding of redemption. If one believes that the truest form of prayer is the offering of a life in obedience to God, then a Christian may see the life of Jesus as a pure and sinless self-offering to God, offered as a prayer for the

forgiveness of human sin. As High Priest, Jesus offers his own perfect obedience as the most effective of all prayers for the forgiveness of human sin. In the New Testament words, he gives his

blood (his life) as a prayer that sin may be blotted out. On this interpretation, the atonement is the reconciliation of humans to God by the blotting-out of evil and the renewing of human life by its fulfilment in God. Jesus’ self-offering, his sacrifice, is the prayer that this may be accomplished. Since, on the Christian view, the

life of Jesus mediates the acts of God to humanity, the prayer effects what it requests. Through the self-giving life of Jesus, as it is represented in the community of the Church, God’s forgiveness and renewal take effect. Of course Muslims do not interpret Jesus’ life in this atoning way. My point is that there is an important place in Islam both for Divine forgiveness and for the efficacy of prayer in helping others to be united to God. On at least one interpretation, the Christian view of atonement can therefore be seen as a natural extension of these beliefs to see a perfectly obedient human life as an efficacious prayer for human forgiveness, in a way which does not undermine human responsibility or freedom. Some expressions of the doctrine of atonement would be much more difficult for a Muslim to accept. There have been views which speak of the necessity of a transaction 7) Tbid. 42. 5. 172 Thid. 63. 5.

186 Four Scriptural Traditions between God and the Devil, whereby God pays a ransom to the Devil, only to deceive Satan by revealing that the ransom is his Son, whom the Devil cannot control. Islam is a protest against such strange views of Divine justice. It is a reminder to Christians that

all forgiveness is freely given by God, that humans bear a moral responsibility for their conduct, and that one must not make views of atonement too legalistic or mechanical. At the same time, a Christian will feel that the form of Divine love shown in the life of Jesus is a decisive expression of the true mercy of God and that it accepts the reality of human evil and the extent of the Divine love in a way which a simple view of judgement as being rewarded or punished for one’s own deeds does not. There is much room for a constructive discussion on these issues between Muslims and Christians. Christians affirm that Jesus is the Saviour of the world; he is the

one who leads humans out of evil to unity with God, precisely because God 1s active in him in a unique way to accomplish such liberation. It follows from the Muslim denial of the incarnation that Jesus could not be seen as a Saviour in this way. Only God can save from sin, and God does so by freely forgiving the penitent. Again it seems to be the Muslim stress on the utter sovereignty and power of God which leads to a difference in perception of the nature of human responsibility and the possibility of humans meeting the requirements of Divine justice. If one locates this difference in a

common concern to honour God without reserve, to insist on human obedience to moral law, and to assert the possibility of Divine forgiveness for all, then it is plausible to see these two religious traditions as different ways of response to authentic Divine revelation. 17. Islam and Christianity

The idea that there can be different forms of response to Divine revelation is not strange to Islam. It is a central part of the Koranic view that God sends prophets to every nation: ‘Allah raised prophets bearing good news and warning and he revealed with them

the Book with truth.’’”? Muhammad did not really bring a new revelation. He repeated, corrected, and confirmed revelations which had been given to every people in some way. “To each among you 173 Koran, 2. 213.

Four Scriptural Traditions 187 have we prescribed a Law and an open way. If God had so willed, he would have made you a single people; but [his plan is] to test you in what he hath given you: so strive as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you all is to God; it is he that will show you the truth of the matters in which ye dispute.’!”* Professor Fazlur Rahman comments on this verse that ‘the positive value of different religions and communities, then, is that they may compete with each other in goodness.’!”° Every nation has had its prophet, and to them God has revealed the Book. Yet it is clear that Jewish, Christian, and Muslim books differ in a large number of details, explicitly contradicting one another quite often. A common Muslim resolution of this difficulty is to say that the earlier Books were corrupted, which is precisely why Muhammad gave the final and perfect revelation, without flaw. Jews and Christians both corrupted their received revelations, Jews by inventing all sorts of petty legalistic details and Christians by importing false philosophical notions from the Greeks. Islam preserves a pure, uncorrupted revelation. Yet there are other revelations, and while they are in themselves authentic, human responses to them have introduced deviations, disputes, and corruptions. By this stage in a study of scriptural traditions, one rather expects each tradition to claim a pure, uncorrupted, primal revelation. One also learns to expect that such claims multiply within each tradition, so that one has many competing views as to what the uncorrupted revelation 1s within each tradition. This does not entail that there is

no tradition which is pure and uncorrupted. It does, however, undermine claims to know with certainty that a particular tradition is pure. Moreover, if hundreds of traditions which claim to be pure are seen in fact to be affected by culturally derived forms of human response and acceptance, the probability becomes very high that one’s own tradition, whatever it may be, will be similarly affected. Thus an alternative interpretation to the traditional Muslim one

suggests itself. All revelatory traditions, without exception, are subject to reception by human minds in particular historical and cultural settings. None are pure, or without any defect introduced by human understanding. There can be revelations in various cul14 Thid. 5. 51. 7° Fazlur Rahman, ‘The People of the Book’, in Griffiths, Christianity through Non-Christian E'yes, 107.

188 Four Scriptural Traditions tures, and their interpretations are governed by a basic set of theological suppositions—in the case of Islam, about Divine tran-

scendence, omnipotence, unity, and uniqueness. If God acts to influence but not to determine or overrule human minds, such background suppositions are unlikely to be overcome, though they

may be modified and refined in various ways. For reasons to do with the historical circumstances of the prophetic calling of Muhammad, the Koran emphasizes the transcendence, unity, sovereignty, and power of God. In reaction to tribal polytheism in the Arabian peninsula, all talk of sons and daughters of God, who might divide Divine power between them and be worshipped as competitors with the Divine Father, is forbidden.'”° This largely accounts for Muslim antipathy to the doctrine of God as Trinity. Thus when the Koran says, “They do blaspheme who say: God ts one of three in a Trinity; for there is no God except one God’,!”” it is polytheism which is forbidden. The Christian God is not in a Trinity; rather, God is a Divine Triad in himself. Moreover, this Triad certainly does not consist of God, Jesus, and Mary, as one passage has suggested to some.’’® One might even say that the Koranic phrase, ‘He begetteth not, nor is he begotten’,!”? could, strictly interpreted, be accepted by Christians, since God does not beget. It is the Father who begets the Son within God. The Divine Being itself begets no distinct Son, as some of the Arians apparently thought. There can be no doubt that the Koran rejects Trinitarian views.

There is a difference between Islam and Christianity about the nature of the God who is revealed in their respective Scriptures. Muslims see the doctrine of the Trinity as a later philosophically inspired corruption of strict biblical monotheism. Christians see Muslim rejection of the Trinity as based on a misunderstanding of the insight which Jesus gave into the nature of God as essentially love. This is bound up with the fact that Muslims see Jesus as a great prophet, worthy of great honour, whereas Christians see Jesus as a manifestation of the Divine Word, uniting human nature to

Divine nature and so reconciling humans to God. That in turn 176 Koran, 6. 100.

77 Ibid. 5. 76. 178 ‘Didst thou say unto men, worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of God’: §. 119. 179 Koran, I12. 3.

Four Scriptural Traditions 189 relates to a differing perception of the relation of God to the world—whether God remains the transcendent Will, ordering all things by sovereign power; or whether God shares in created being and raises it to participate in the Divine Life by the persuasive power of love.

It may seem odd to suggest that God guides prophets to conflicting conclusions about such very basic truths. It is odd, if one thinks of God as inserting truths into human minds. If one thinks rather of a human mind, already stocked with concepts and with a tradition of prayer, being guided by God to fuller understanding, then such fuller understanding—say, of Divine unity, omnipotence, and transcendence—1is quite compatible with a relative failure to understand other aspects of the Divine: participation of the world in God and Divine self-giving love, for example. One can even see how a strong sense of Divine unity and transcendence could inhibit

the mind from any notion of incarnation. If such a notion was inadequately or misleadingly presented, it might well be rejected.

I have dealt with a fairly traditionalist interpretation of Islam, precisely because that is the most difficult for a Christian to appreciate. It would be misleading to leave unmentioned the tremendously influential movements of Sufism, which have arguably made a form of theistic mysticism more accessible to human com-

munities than any other faith. Such movements espouse a life of devotion to God, with stages of spiritual ascent, leading from repentance and renunciation to a final stage of ‘annihilation’ (fana), in which the individual self seems to fade away and nothing remains

but the face of God. This doctrine is based upon the Koranic assertion that ‘Everything [that exists] will perish except His own face’.'®° In the highest state of spiritual exaltation, one’s own self and all other things seem to become annihilated in the only real being, God. They have no independent existence, existing only by the power of God. Thus when they are most truly themselves, they become transparent to the only basis of their reality, which is God. In a paradoxical way, the religion which most stresses the absolute

transcendence and power of God has given rise to doctrines of an

identity of God and creatures, when human minds are raised to such a contemplation of God that they come to embody the Divine

reality in themselves. One of the best-known cases in Islam is

180 Thid. 28. 88. |

190 Four Scriptural Traditions the tenth-century al-Hallaj, who declared ‘Ana’l-Hagq’ (‘I am the Real’).!®! Although al-Hallaj was put to death for this claim, it is a recurrent theme in some forms of Sufism that great saints or imams can achieve a sort of identity with Allah. The eleventh-century sage al-Ghazzali, who achieved a synthesis of Sufism and orthodoxy and

is generally accepted as the greatest philosopher of Islam, is at pains to state that there is never an actual identity of the soul and God. “That [the experience of fana] had not been actual identity, but only something resembling identity,’ he says.'®* Orthodox Islam naturally draws back from a doctrine of hulul, of Divine indwelling

Or incarnation. Yet such a notion is a constantly recurring feature of Muslim spirituality. There are certainly strands of Islam which are sympathetic to the idea of some form of union between human and Divine. There are

also strands (mostly in Shi’a schools) which stress the efficacy of martyrdom, or self-sacrifice, as a help to release others from evil and bring them to God. Christians can find in these strands analogies to some interpretations of incarnation and atonement. Thus it may be misleading simply to oppose Christianity and Islam as conflicting belief-systems. While they each have distinct cores of

fundamental belief, there are many points of convergence and overlap which suggest not so much a set of blunt contradictions as a

series of conceptual contrasts which arise from different origins, perspectives, and core interpretative concepts. Christians can thus celebrate the Divine inspiration of the Koran as witnessing to Divine unity, power, and transcendence; and affirm

that these truly are attributes of God which have been communicated through an active influence of God upon a particular human mind, raising it to heights of insight and aesthetic perfection. As such, the Koran can be taken by Christians as the Word of God somewhat as the Old Testament is. It could hardly be taken as a prophetic foreshadowing of Christ, of course, since Christians will probably see it as exhibiting a misunderstanding of important elements of the Christian gospel. Nevertheless, it can be regarded

by Christians as more than a human construct. It 1s a profound spiritual response to Divine inspiration and a genuine medium of 181 Cf. Louis Massignon, The Passion of Al-Hallaj (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 1. 126. 182 Al-Ghazzali, The Niche for Lights, trans. W. H. T. Gairdner (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1952), I. 6.

Four Scriptural Traditions I9I the Divine presence and power. Naturally, this account will not measure up to the assessment which a believing Muslim will have of the Koran. That, however, is just to accept that Christians and Muslims do have genuine disagreements in matters of belief.

Such disagreements will not, in the foreseeable future, be eliminated. An understanding of revelation as a Divine luring of the mind, however, will lead one to expect such a luring to be universal, so that no great tradition is without some insight into the Divine Being and purpose. It will lead one to expect that no one culture will produce a finally perfect expression of Divine truth, and to look for development within each tradition towards a more

adequate view. Thus one will be encouraged to look at other traditions with empathetic understanding, to look at one’s own tradition with critical awareness, and to develop a sense of the historical and cultural influences which shape all human beliefs. One will see each religious tradition, including one’s own, as one among many continually changing, fallible, culturally influenced forms of life. Many of these forms have a common function, which is to overcome egoism and ignorance, and attain a supreme goal of intrinsic value. A particular religious community tends to be defined by its acceptance of a scriptural canon, which articulates a core concept of the supreme goal, as defined by the authoritative experience of a seminal teacher. Although there is a seemingly universal tendency to accept such a canon as a discrete, complete, and final revelation from a particular uncorrupted source, the reality seems to be that the canon represents a crucial self-defining stage in a complex, gradual, and developing process of experience, practice, and reflection.

Although one can simply regard different religions in terms of incompatible sets of beliefs, this is unjust to their complexity and internal diversity. They are grouped around core concepts of a final human goal which express different emphases and evaluations. Such differences can often be accounted for by noting their originative experiences and differing histories. The Semitic goal of a society of justice and peace, whether on this planet or in a resurrection-life, 1s complemented by the Indian goal of release

from suffering by attainment of a state of bliss and pure intelligence. The fact that Buddhists seem to lack any sense of an objective God is balanced by their stress on the limitations of all human concepts and on the primary importance of obtaining

192 Four Scriptural Traditions liberation from self and the attainment of compassion and wisdom. Muslim rejection of the incarnation and atonement can be seen as

arising from a positive emphasis on Divine transcendence and power. When the Christian faith is placed in its world historical context, these contrasts provide valuable insights into the distinctiveness of Christianity. In uncovering what Christians might pro-

perly regard as forms of Divine revelatory activity in different cultures, resources can be found to develop Christian theological thinking in more expansive ways. In seeking to discover the sources

and limits of Christian revelation, the attempt to see revelation in its widest historical context provides a valuable indication of the sort of thing a Christian may justifiably wish to claim. In the next Part, I shall try to develop a Christian theology of revelation which takes into account and builds upon the analyses and arguments which have been presented so far.

PART IV

Christian Reflections: Revelation as Historical Self-Manifestation

A. INCARNATION AND HISTORY

1. [he Idea of Incarnation A quite distinctive view of revelation is necessitated by the basic

Christian belief that the Supreme is incarnate in the life of one particular man. This is not the belief that God tells humans what God 1s like or what the Divine purposes or laws are. It is not even that God shows what the Divine nature is like, as if there were one

thing which somehow modelled another. It is rather that God makes the Divine reality itself present in a particular historical form. The life of Jesus, for a fully incarnational form of Christian faith, is the self-expression of the Eternal in time. Here the form of Supreme Goodness is fully realized in the particular; revelation is primarily a making-present of Supreme Being and Goodness in a person. This is not, as in Islam, the revelation of a set of propositions, as though God were dictating laws or doctrines to be carefully written down. It is not, as in Hinduism, an inner experience of a supreme Self, as though someone had a particularly vivid or intense sense of the Supremely Real. It is not, as in Buddhism, an experience of release from sorrow, desire, and attachment. It is not, as in Judaism, Divine disclosure through the control of historical events, as though God were causing water, wind, or earth to act in extraordinary or miraculous ways. It is the unlimited Divine Life taking form in a particular human life. It is the realization of the Eternal in a particular historical individual. How can this one man come to be seen as such a manifestation? It may seem that an infinite Divine Life cannot possibly be contained in one finite individual life, that there must be many forms and many realizations on the way to the final consummation of all things. And that is perfectly true. The life of Jesus cannot contain in itself even a fair number of the range of human possibilities, let

194 Christian Reflections alone all the possibilities of the Divine Life. But the incarnational claim is not that Jesus expresses all there is to be expressed of God; otherwise the rest of creation would be superfluous. It is that at a particular, limited point of time and space, the Divine Life transforms a particular human life by uniting it to itself. The particular is taken into God, as a foreshadowing of the destiny that awaits all finite things. As Athanasius puts it, ‘He, indeed, assumed humanity that we might become God. He manifested Himself by means of a

body in order that we might perceive the Mind of the unseen Father.’! Such a manifestation shows the ultimate goal of human life and begins the process of realizing that goal in others by uniting them to the life of the Eternal Word, who fully assumed humanity in Jesus. Yet why is the human life of Jesus believed to be the one

and only place where such a unique assumption of humanity by God occurs?

An understanding of the historical and cultural development of religions helps one to see how it can be claimed that only this man Jesus is truly God incarnate. For incarnation is not just a matter of God picking out some human being, any human being, and uniting that being to the Divine Word in a unique way. Human persons are to be understood in terms of their historical and cultural context, as parts of larger processes in the light of which we can interpret the meaning of their lives. It is essential to understand Jesus in his place in Jewish history.

He was born among the people who found in obedience to Torah

their way of relating to God as Father of Israel. The prophetic flame seemed to have burned itself out and the history of Israel was coming to a catastrophic turning-point. Both Greek and Indian ideas had touched the Galilean province which stood near to Alexander’s route of conquest and communication between East and West. The Roman Empire had established a European and West Asian com-

munity of nations within which a form of Judaism that escaped

from its ethnic boundaries might spread. Many groups, some mystical, some militant, some exclusivist, and some universalist, were looking for some sign of God’s ancient promises to Israel,

which seemed as far from fulfilment as ever. At that very particular and unrepeatable point of human history Jesus lived out his ministry, proclaiming the immuinence of God’s Kingdom, though ' Athanasius, De Incarnatione 54 (New York: Macmillan, 1946), 93.

Christian Reflections 195 apparently not in the socio-political form that most were expecting.? If one understands incarnation not so much as a disruptive descent

of God into just one isolated human life but as a particular act of

God in and through a person who is essentially part of a long historical process, then one can see much more easily how one can

speak of a totally unique act of God in just one human person. Indeed, in one sense all acts of God will be historically unique, though of course they will not all be decisive in the way that the life of Jesus was.

To see Jesus as the Word of God—though at this stage this is only a provisional statement—is to see the Word of God as manifesting in a unique way through his historically unique life. It is virtually impossible for God to act in that way in any other life, and thus for any other human being to be, in the sense that Jesus was,

the ‘Son of God’. God can certainly act in other lives; but the vocation of Jesus, his inauguration of the Kingdom and the particular pattern of his life which historical circumstances made possible, is unrepeatable. The case is different from that, for example, of Buddhas or avatars, who are enlightened beings or teachers of eternal truth. In their case, enlightenment and the teaching of eternal truth is in principle repeatable. However, if it is the precise historical pattern of Jesus’ life which manifests God, then that is unrepeatable. It can sound unacceptably exclusive for Christians to say that the

name of Jesus is greater than any other name, that their Lord is greater than any other.* How could such absolute supremacy be guaranteed or even stated without arrogance? Yet again one must note the historical nature of the claim that is being made. It is not that Jesus, considered in the abstract as a person of such-and-such

intelligence, moral character, and temperament, is intrinsically superior on some common qualitative scale to any other human being who ever has lived or who ever will live. It is rather that God is manifesting the Divine Being decisively in this one historical life; so that this life becomes for ever the image of God, as a historically purposing and redemptive power and value. In the history of Israel, one particular people had felt themselves called to a unique priestly vocation to all humanity. They believed * John 18: 36. 3 Phil. 2: 10.

196 Christian Reflections their ritual and social laws related human life to the life of God in a Divinely authorized and thus appropriate way. They looked for the fulfilment of the Divine promise in a fulfilment of all their gifts and naturally created inclinations, in a community ruled by the Spirit of

God. Israel was to be the priesthood, the holy people, and the Kingdom of God, through whom all nations of the earth would be blessed.* There is a sense in which both Jews and Christians still

believe this to be the true vocation of Israel. But it is a broken vocation, for the Temple of God does not exist, the sacrifices are not offered, and Jerusalem is only too obviously not the promised city of peace. Jesus lived just before the time of the final breaking

of that vocation with the destruction of Jerusalem in CE 7o. The interpretation of his life upon which the early Church was founded saw all these characteristics—of priesthood, holiness, and

kingship—both fulfilled and yet wholly transformed in him. On the early Church’s interpretation, by the offering of his life Jesus became the high priest of a new sacrifice, the self-offering of God for the redemption of humanity. By his complete obedience to the will of God he established the fully mediating relation to God which God had willed in creation. And by his proclamation of the Kingdom he himself became the Lord of the community of the Spirit by which all are to be related to God. For the Christian Church, Jesus internalizes the sacrificial cult and universalizes the Torah to unite a people of a new covenant to God through their participation in the new form of life which he inaugurates.

For disciples of Christ, the Temple is no longer a building of stone in Jerusalem, but the human body within which the Spirit dwells; the sacrifices are not the bloody offerings of animals, but the self-offering of a life indwelt by the crucified Lord; Jerusalem is

not a geographical place but the spiritual city wherein the risen Christ is glorified. Christ does not narrow the Jewish vocation to just one person; he expands it until it spreads throughout the world, by internalizing and universalizing its teaching. Thus, to concentrate devotion on Christ is not to limit it to one half-forgotten apocalyptic prophet of the Near East. It is rather to take this life as

an icon of Divine self-disclosure for the whole world and as the foundational event of the community of the Spirit of love. It has a historical point of origin, a real temporality and creativity. The 4 Exod. 19: 6.

Christian Reflections 197 Christ of worship goes far beyond remembrance of a particular historical figure, though its originative point of temporal disclosure was in and through the life of Jesus of Nazareth. 2. The Importance of History

The Christian faith does unequivocally centre its doctrine on one historical figure. The gospels provide the testimony of the early Church that in Jesus God was acting uniquely and historically to forgive sin and inaugurate a new human community, the Kingdom of God. By contrast, in the Indian tradition, even though some

humans are said to be avatara, manifestations of Vishnu, they manifest to re-establish the sanatana dharma, the eternal law, in a dark time; their historicity is not important, and it does not matter if they are wholly legendary, as most of the ten classical avatara of Vishnu surely are. Jesus is not an avatar in this sense. He does not re-establish an eternal law; he inaugurates in his own person a new form of life, a historical Divine rule. This is new, particular, social,

and historical. It is understood as a unique Divine act which addresses humanity as an invitation and challenge. Thus a critical difference between Christian and Indian views of religion is that one is a testimony to historical acts of God and the other consists of teachings based on yogic experience. Aldous Huxley said, in The Perennial Philosophy, that Christianity suffers from an ‘idolatrous preoccupation with events and things in time’.” It is too concerned with happenings in ancient history, with

what he rather strangely calls the ‘divinity of the church’ and with the idea of future perfection; whereas, he suggests, Vedanta offers a present experience of enlightenment and is not dependent on any

particular historical events. Of course he is right to make this assessment if supreme enlightenment is present realization of one’s identity with the Eternal, and if all things are so identical in fact. But what if history and time, particularity, creativity, and novelty, are fundamental features of the real world, and not just illusions of the limited ego? What if human selves are created with a potential

which 1s corrupted by evil, but which is destined to be realized fully in a communal relation to their Creator? What if human history 1s the arena wherein is played out the drama of the seeking of an active personal God for persons who have become alienated > Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (London: Collins, 1958), 64 ff.

198 Christian Reflections from God but who can return to God through their inclusion in a renewed humanity? Then events in time could hardly be overevaluated, since the temporal would be the place of a real and developing set of relationships between the Supreme and its creations. If this is so, how could a whole tradition overlook the reality of

the historical? It is not hard at all; indeed, the Christian tradition, despite its rootedness in historical testimony rather than in claims to authoritative experience, might well be said to have overlooked it for centuries! Human speculation seems to be naturally attracted to

the timeless and changeless in its quest for ultimate explanation. Much in contemplative spiritual experience, too, seems to lead beyond the conditions of time and space to an ineffable Reality that cannot be limited by them. Does the doctrine of creation itself not suggest that the creator of time must be beyond time? In fact human spirituality almost inevitably moves to the idea of the Timeless, as

it explores the limits of human experience and speculation. It is only the obstinate insistence that God has acted decisively for human salvation in Jesus that places an obstacle in the way of this natural theological propensity. No doubt what Huxley had in mind was that Christianity can be made to seem absurdly parochial if it 1s seen as concerned to give

infinite importance for the whole universe to the short life of one Palestinian freelance rabbi. It can be made to seem overconcerned

with ancient historical facts that can never be established with certainty, instead of with the realities of present spiritual experience. It can be thought to have a ridiculously anthropomorphic and limited idea of God as the father of a human being, instead of as the limitless Self of all things. If Christianity 1s seen in these ways, then

the Indian traditions offer a much richer spectrum of spiritual paths, suited to every sort of temperament. They appeal to present experience and to an intuition of the Unconditioned as the changeless basis of all beings. That is the perspective from which Huxley speaks, from which Vedanta can seem to be the perennial philosophy towards which all faiths lead. This is the attractive vision presented by Swami Vivekananda at the first World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, which first staked a serious claim for one strand of Hindu thought to be a universal faith for the world.° © The Life of Swami Vivekananda, by his disciples (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1965), ch. 21.

Christian Reflections 199 Attractive though this vision is, one must ask if it 1s true that, beneath the many faces of the gods, there 1s one supreme changeless reality, expressed in the physical world but ultimately beyond all name and form, which can be realised by ascetic discipline and meditation, bringing a realization of cosmic bliss. A first thoughtful

Christian response should be to say that it zs true; that there is a way of self-renunciation which leads to experience of the Unconditioned in being and value, and which enables human lives to become the channels of the Divine Life in the world. This vision can be affirmed without reservation; it testifies to the awareness of the Supreme which resonates throughout the Indian traditions and gives them authenticity as paths to Supreme Reality. Yet, a Christian might go on to say, this is only part of the story,

and it can be misleading if it is taken to be the whole. Time, creativity, and the particularity of goodness are features which are lacking from this general picture. From a Christian viewpoint, the

cosmos is not an endlessly repeating cycle of ills, from which release is to be sought and which permits of no attachment. The cosmos is the positive, freely willed creation of the Supreme. It has

a temporal direction and a goal. That goal is the unfolding and realization of the potential inherent in the constitution of the universe itself. The universe exists in order to realize values of a quite particular and distinctive kind, which are new, unrepeatable expressions of free creativity. It is in the discernment of the temporality of being that the critical Christian insight lies. Finite being exists in order to unfold a set of creative values which are potential in its first constitution. In the temporal process, there is possible a

creative and free activity in human history. For the theist, such activity is guided by standards of objective value which are rooted in the Supreme. The particular form the realization of these values takes is truly originative and progressive. It brings genuinely new forms of being and value into existence. Moreover, centres of the creation of value are multiple. Existing in a society, they are not dissolved into one non-dual unity, but find individual fufilment in

co-operation and community. Thus the fundamental elements of being are creativity, individuality, and community. The universe brings into existence many individuals who are creatively free and who live in a community which is able to maximize that freedom.

The fulfilment of finite being is thus found in a community of creatively free spirits. Any view which tries to transcend these

200 Christian Reflections features of being by subsuming them ultimately into a non-dual reality beyond action and desire is, from the Christian viewpoint, reducing essential elements of being to peripheral illusions. 3. The Idea of God as Trinity

~ It is because these elements are taken to be fundamental both in being and in value that the Christian notion of God, quite distinctively, becomes that of a Trinity, a triadic community.’ This notion suggests that God is not one absolutely undifferentiated unity, the One beyond all distinctions. Though all analogies are imperfect, the Divine as the highest possible reality and value has more the

nature of a communion of individuals, related in a love which is both creative and unitive. In the first place, God is supremely intelligible, being properly expressed in the Logos upon which all things are patterned and which is manifested in the life of Jesus. Secondly, God is dynamically creative, being properly expressed in

the Spirit of life which moves over the waters of creation and inspires created minds to new works of imagination and beauty. And thirdly, God is the source and goal of all things, holding order and creativity together in a communion whose most basic character is love, or a sharing of delight in the mutual refraction of individual beings in communion. A temporal creation 1s a natural expression

of such a being. In such a creation many finite persons can find their fulfilment in relation to the God in whom their existence is founded and in whose reality they are destined to share.

The Christian discernment of the Divine, the core content of Christian revelation, shows that humans are not merely creative individuals in community who have to form their own goals and pursue them as best they can in a cosmic environment which is hostile or indifferent to them. That is the post-Christian malaise of the West which has eliminated the transcendent but left persons as

inexplicably sacred objects in a desacralized universe. For the Christian tradition, the human community is a reflection of the Divine community, the Trinitarian reality of God in which love is the supreme value. The creative goals of humanity are not simply

invented by autonomous human reason. They are pursued in response to the discernment of absolute ideals, setting an objective 7 This case is well argued in John Zizioulas, Being as Communion (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985).

Christian Reflections 201 aim which humans are invited to realize in their own creative way. Furthermore, the realization of that aim is assured by the fact that

the ideals are grounded in a being whose supreme power 1s the basis of all beings whatsoever. It is not so much that God is so powerful that he can force finite things to bend to his will. The truth is rather that God is the sole basis of the reality of all finite

beings. Thus, in so far as they have any reality, it is solely in dependence upon God. In so far as they are able to manifest their full reality, they can do so only as this dependence finds its proper expression in their actions. Since the reality of God is a reality of supreme goodness, finite things attain their own proper good when they attain the fullest realization of their created potential. God, who created the potential, can and will empower its realization. But in the first place God appears, not as overwhelming power, but as the source of goodness and of the ideal archetypes which underlie the basic structures of created being.

In historical experience, these moral archetypes are perceived

as demands or challenges, as discernments of the Ideal in the ambiguities of particular situations. In such discernments arise the Hebrew prophetic insights, the distinctively Hebrew revelations of

Divine reality, showing human history to be a realm of moral challenge, calling, and judgement. As humans respond to these challenges and, at least in part, realize something of the values which are grounded in the being of God, the Divine reality is also perceived as grace or as ‘gift’, as that which makes possible the realization of the Ideal. In Hebrew faith the gift of fulfilment was discerned as already present in the demand for creative response.

The judgement of God upon oppression and injustice was not merely a negative condemnation; it was essentially also seen as a promise of fulfilment, of a society free from war and oppression, symbolized by a ‘holy city’ wherein God could be truly worshipped in peace. Seen in the aspect of the consummation of value, God is seen as the final goal of all things, including all realized finite values in itself.

The path towards this goal is to be pursued by finite created action, responding to the challenge of the Ideal. Yet even this creativity is not a wholly independent and self-sufficient property of

the human will. Creativity itself, in so far as it is oriented to the good, is empowered by the self-realizing Divine energy which human freedom permits to operate in and through human lives.

202 Christian Reflections This is the dynamic power of the Spirit of God which the biblical writers saw as prompting the realization of great works of beauty and poetry, as in the designs of Bezalel® and the Psalms of David. God is the power of creativity which drives the temporal process

onwards to fuller realization. God is thus seen from a Christian perspective in a threefold aspect: as the challenge to realize value,

as the power which enables the realization of value, and as the sustainer of realized value both in its temporal form and in its eternal consummation. God is the foundation of values, the dynamic creator of values, and the apotheosis of all finite values into its own infinite life. These three aspects of the Divine Being are systematically developed in Christian thought from their Hebraic basis to provide the basically ‘revealed’ idea of God as Trinity, by which the

Divine Being is symbolically presented in the image of God as Father of the universe, as creative Spirit empowering finite realities

to achieve their potential, and as redeeming Son, in whom the temporal is assumed into the eternal.

This Trinitarian notion of God is not foreign to the Jewish biblical tradition from which it sprang. The idea of God as Father of Israel, and in particular of the kings of Israel, is clearly present in the Hebrew Bible. God is Father, inasmuch as God enters into a

specific covenant relation with Israel, a covenant renewed in a specific way with David and Solomon, who are described as the ‘sons of God’.” In this use of the idea of sonship, there is of course

no thought of Divine birth. Rather, to be a son of God 1s to be specifically called and designated for a special role in God’s saving

purpose. It is to be called into a special relationship to God, not just of obedience (like a slave or servant) but of a deeper relationship for which the analogy of ‘sonship’ is felt to be appropriate. In the Hebrew Bible God 1s Father both in the general sense of being

creator of all things and in the special sense of calling Israel, especially through its designated kings, into a special personal relationship of filial love. The idea of God as Spirit is also clear in the Hebrew Bible. God’s

Spirit moves over the waters of creation; is breathed into dust to form humankind; inspires the prophets and artists and warriors of Israel; and is to be poured out upon young and old alike in that day 8 Exod. 36: 2. ? ‘He said to me, ‘You are my son, today I have begotten you”’’: Ps. 2: 7.

Christian Reflections 203 when God becomes present among his people in a new and inward covenant, written on the heart.!° It was precisely this experience which caused the disciples to believe that the ‘last days’ had come, when God was present in a dynamic and inward way in the com-

munity of the early Church. They saw Jesus as having baptized them with the Spirit, and thus as being the vehicle by which the Spirit had been released in a new way.

The idea of God as Son is dramatically new with the early Church, and is an idea against which both the later development of

Rabbinic Judaism and also the rigorous unitarianism of Islam reacted strongly. Yet the idea of God entering into creation to reconcile it to Divinity through a passionate identification with the

oppressed also has its roots in the Hebrew Bible. Moses and the Judges of Israel were saviours who led the people out of slavery; and they were empowered by the Spirit of God to perform their tasks. The suffering servant of Isaiah, perhaps the people of Israel itself, gives its suffering as an offering to be used by God in the salvation of the world.!! Thus the idea of a suffering saviour king who expresses in his life the purpose of God and who liberates his people from slavery is a natural development of Hebrew biblical themes. It is certainly not out of the question that Jesus should have thought of himself in such a way, and thus could have seen the surrender of his life as a ‘ransom’, that is, an offering to God which might be used to bring in the Kingdom. According to the Torah, first-born sons and the first-fruits of the land which were due to God could be ‘redeemed’ by a sum of money.!” So the idea of a vicarious self-offering to God was present in Hebraic tradition, and great Rabbis were often seen as being able to offer effective

prayers for helping others in their distress.’ The offering of a perfect life as a perfect prayer for liberation from evil 1s an understandable development of the notion of sacrifice, which could be applied to Jesus by those who took him to be Messiah. His life was

certainly interpreted in that way by the time the gospels were written. That such a one should be called Son of God and should, after sharing in the most extreme suffering, be vindicated by God

10 Joel 2: 28; Jer. 31: 31-4. | 'l Tsa. 53: 12. 12 Lev. 27.

'3 Cf. the examples cited in: Jacob Neusner, The Oral Torah (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986), ch. 7.

204 Christian Reflections in his role as saviour of God’s people and mediator of God’s Spirit to his people is not wholly surprising. It is a relatively small though dramatic step to see in the life of such a Messiah the manifestation

of the reality of God himself. The well-established idea that all salvation comes from God alone, and that Divine grace always precedes human response might suggest, even from the first, the

thought that the life of the Messiah would be originated and empowered by God in a unique way, so that a perfected human response would also show forth the Divine nature and calling with supreme clarity.

Even more suggestive is the whole mystical notion of Torah, which is the Wisdom of God, as an eternal Word of God which is given to Israel through Moses, yet remains in itself without beginning or end.'* The prophet on this understanding becomes

the mediator of an eternal Word. Not his life, but his words become identified with the Word of God. Again it 1s a relatively small but dramatic step to conceive of one in whom the prophetic role is enhanced so that his life, too, becomes identified with the Wisdom of God. This happened, at least in part, with Jeremiah, when the Lord called him to live in such a way that his life would

be a sign of Divine judgement on the people.'° This idea of a human life as a sign of God developed in Rabbinic Judaism, as the thought took shape that a whole life could embody Torah in such a perfected way that one could speak of it as Torah incarnate, in the flesh.'© This train of thought, too, was surely in the minds of the early disciples of Jesus as they reflected upon a life they had known which seemed to them both beyond the touch of selfish passion and to be a pure vehicle of Divine wisdom.

One can thus see how the ideas of incarnation and of God as Trinity developed in and from the Hebrew tradition, in the light of the apostles’ belief in the resurrection of Jesus and of their empowerment by the Holy Spirit, filling them with new energy and

joy. A new notion of revelation as the self-embodiment of the 14 Cf. Solomon Schechter, Aspects of Rabbinic Theology (New York: Schocken Books, 1961), ch. 9. 15 Jer. 16. 16 ‘In the Talmud of the Land of Israel or Yerushalmi, c. A.D. 400, the Torah came to be represented in the person of the sage, who was, in himself, the Torah incarnate’: Jacob Neusner, ‘Is the God of Judaism Incarnate?’, Religious Studies, 24/2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 214.

Christian Reflections 205 Divine in a human life was a natural consequence of this development. As it took form, some central ideas of the Greek philosophical tradition, which had failed to achieve any positive relation to Greek religious ideas, found a new and creative context. The resources of Platonic philosophy were applied to, and were transformed by, the early Church’s meditations on Jesus as the temporal ezkon of the eternal God. 4. Greek and Hebrew Thought

The formulation of the doctrine of the incarnation which became definitive of Christian orthodoxy was a slow, gradual development from reflection on the changes Jesus had brought about, or at least

had been the primary cause of, in human understanding of the Divine nature. In Alexandrian Christianity, Hebrew strands of thought contributed to seeing Jesus as the anointed Messiah who had suffered for his people, who had mediated the Spirit to them, who had incarnated Torah in his own life and who had been vindicated in his prophetic mission by being raised to the very throne of God (at God’s right hand). These ideas combined with strands of Platonic thought to produce the idea of incarnation in its classical form. Plato is sometimes presented as one who sees the world only as a half-real and intrinsically imperfect shadow of

the world of pure Forms, and from which it is better to escape. The Platonic view of the body is thus often seen as purely negative, that we would be better off without bodies. In the Republic and in

the Phaedrus he does speak in rather this way.!’ But dialectic is essential to Plato’s method, and in the 7imaeus he sees the temporal world much more positively as ‘the moving image of eternity’.'® Finite forms become sacramental of eternal realities; and here is the

material for seeing a perfected personal life as a paradigm sacrament of eternal Goodness. In the mutually transformative encounter

of Platonic vision and Hebrew prophetic expectation was forged the dramatic new idea that the morally commanding and utterly transcendent God of the desert mountain could also enter into a form of union with finite realities which was able to assume them intrinsically to its own being. Moral dualism and contemplative 17 “Pure was the light and pure were we from the pollution of the walking sepulchre which we call a body, to which we are bound like an oyster to its shell’: Plato, Phaedrus 250; trans. W. Hamilton (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), §7.

206 Chnistian Reflections holism were united in a brilliant reconceptualization of the Hebrew religious tradition.

In this reconceptualization, there is a fusion of spatial and temporal models of the Divine, the implications of which remained largely unarticulated until the nineteenth century. When

the Platonic tradition speaks of Theos, it speaks of a depth to experience, of an invisible reality underlying the appearances perceived by human senses. It is as though true reality lies just behind or underneath the appearances. At moments of theophany it almost breaks through; it certainly is able to manifest itself in finite forms

which participate in and ‘image’ the eternal Forms in a more adequate manner. This spatial model encourages a view of God as timelessly eternal, changelessly present at every moment as the perfect Form which is always being more or less imperfectly imaged in the temporal. Christ is naturally conceived as a temporal moment in which the eternal reality is sacramentally present 1n its fullness, as the ‘visible image of the invisible God’.’” The Hebrew tradition, however, tends to view the Divine reality

in a much more dynamic and temporal way. The very text which Christian Platonists used to support their eternalist views—‘I am that I am’?°— is actually rendered better from the Hebrew as ‘I will be what I will be’. The emphasis is on God’s creative freedom and

the future liberation and fulfilment God promises. The biblical perspective sees God, or the disclosure of the full reality of God, as

lying just ahead, in the future. But it is not some far future; it is the imminent future, the immediately future moment, carrying the presence and promise of God. Instead of the spatial model of God as just ‘behind’ the appearances, a temporal model is used to depict God as just ‘ahead of’ the present moment. The logical structure of

thought is the same. God is not fully captured by any present moment. God is the true reality which can be manifested or foreshadowed in any present moment, but which always lies beyond, whether this is conceived spatially or temporally. Recognition of this point can illuminate what the early Christians meant by their expectation of the parousia, the being-at-hand of the Christ. Christ in glory is just ahead of every time, as either a judgement upon it or as its fulfilment and consummation. 18 Plato, Timaeus 7; trans. D. Lee (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965), off. "? Col. I: 15. 20 Exod. 3: 14.

Christian Reflections 207 In its fusion of Hebrew and Greek categories, Christian thought

has continued to use both spatial and temporal models for its conception of the relation of finite and infinite. The moment of incarnation is both the moment of the manifestation of the Eternal in time and the moment of the foreshadowing of the consummation

of all things in the incompleteness of the present. The Divine is both the fullness of actuality which is imaged imperfectly by creatures, and the call to the fulfilment of the creaturely through responsive and creative action, a fulfilment which will be a sharing in the being of God itself. Consequently, God must be conceived both as perfectly actual and as dynamically self-expressive. What is added to God by the creation and redemption of the world does not add to God’s intrinsic perfection, which is unlimited and different in kind from all finite realities. Yet the creation of a finite world does actualize new forms of goodness which would not otherwise have existed; and thus it constitutes a form of Divine self-expression which is genuinely creative and free. The Orthodox tradition distinguishes the ousia and the energeia of God;*! and perhaps with the aid of that distinction one can begin to grasp the idea of a God who is changeless in the intrinsic perfection of being and who, precisely in consequence of that changeless perfection, is unlimitedly, dynamically, and creatively free to bring about the radically new.

Thus in the Christian tradition one may properly speak of the dynamic self-expression of the Supreme, sometimes in opposition to and sometimes in co-operation with the free, creative responses of finite beings, as the conceptual paradigm which sets the Christian

world-view. The paradigm arises from reflection on the life of Jesus, interpreted both from the internal resources of Messianic Hebrew thought and from a quasi-Platonic vision of the cosmos as the manifestation of a hidden but omnipresent intelligible reality. It

sees human history as a free, co-operative self-realization in response to the ideal archetypes which realize themselves spectfically through finite centres of creativity. Finite agents are the vehicles of the self-expression of the Supreme, though they may by their very particularity impede as well as expedite the realization of creative harmony in the cosmos. Thus history becomes not only the expres-

sion but also a resistance to the self-expressive purpose of the 21 The distinction begins with Gregory Nazienzen (Orat. 38: 7); it is expounded in V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976).

208 Christian Reflections Supreme, but a resistance which cannot be the final word in the creative process. This means that the Supreme itself has a dynamic, historical, interactive mode of being. History itself, in its particular expressions

and its temporal dynamism, must be seen as the self-expression of

the Supreme, as it comes to be in relation to the responses of creatures. In this respect the perspective of Platonism is decisively transformed to include temporality and individuality as essential

features. The world is not seen as the realm of impersonal law, wherein all acts issue in their inevitable consequences until they burn themselves out through a vast cosmic ennut. It is the realm of judgement and grace, wherein God permits selfish passion to lead to destruction, but is always present as the possibility of renewal and future fulfilment. For the Christian faith, what actually happens in history, in all its particularity, is of vital importance; for it shows the nature of the Divine relationship to the world. It is, as always in Semitic thought, a morally oriented and purposive relation. But the perspective of Hebraic thought is also decisively transformed by

the idea of the cosmos as the self-manifestation of God, which moves towards a full sacramental embodiment of the Divine in free response to the Divine inclusion of the finite within its own infinite life.*7

At this point Christians do not turn to a general philosophy of history, as though God could be clearly seen at work as one records

the history of the rise and fall of nations and dynasties.*’ Rather, they turn to a particular history as the key to the hidden nature of

all human history. They turn to the history of the life of Jesus as the self-expression of the cosmic Creator. This life has been recorded in the gospels, and its significance interpreted in the letters of the New Testament. Since the New Testament is the only access to the life of Jesus one now has, it 1s clearly vital to assess the status and reliability of this Scripture as a foundation document for

the Christian faith. In the account which follows, the general *2 The basic idea of God sketched briefly here is set out more systematically in:

te) Rational Theology and the Creativity of God (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2 Hegel, who claimed to be the first Christian philosopher, did effect the recovery of the sense of temporality in Western thought, but relied on a speculative philosophy of history which has usually been viewed with some scepticism. Cf. G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (London: Willey Book Company, 1944).

Christian Reflections 209 arguments about Scripture canvassed in Part [JI will form an important background. The primary focus, however, will be on Christian accounts of the nature of biblical revelation. B. INSPIRATION AND REVELATION 5. Scripture and Inspiration

In the last two hundred years the sense 1n which the Bible can be

said to be ‘inspired’ has been the subject of much debate, and traditional views have changed under the pressure of criticism. This change has been a response to the major intellectual revolution

brought about by the European Enlightenment. That revolution has produced a revision of religious ideas in three main areas. It has

produced a more critical attitude to Scripture, a very different scientifically based world-view, and an anti-authoritarian stress on liberty of thought and conscience. In this Part, I will deal with the way in which the rise of historical and literary criticism of the Bible has modified views of its authority as a source of revealed truth. I

will go on to argue that a doctrine of incarnation can reasonably take account of such a change. The other two main strands of Enlightenment thought, in their implications for beliefs about Divine revelation, will be discussed in Part V.

The Roman Catholic Church, at the First Vatican Council in 1870, said of the Scriptures that, ‘having been written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God for their author’.** A crude interpretation of this belief is that God personally wrote the

words of Scripture. Indeed, as has been noted, some forms of orthodox Judaism maintain that the written Torah was created by God even before the world existed. It was handed over to Moses by God, either by God directly writing it miraculously on stone tablets or by dictating it to Moses. This is a widely held belief about other sacred Scriptures, too. The Koran ts often said in medieval Islamic

thought to be uncreated and entire 1n the spiritual realm; and the Vedas exist eternally, so that even the gods must order the world in accordance with their principles. Even in Buddhism, Sutras of the Mahayana, such as the Lotus Sutra, are said to be virtually eternal, 24 Vatican Council 1, Dei Filius 2, in J. Neurer and J. Dupois (eds.), The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church (London: Collins, 1983), 75.

210 Christian Reflections and to be heard by innumerable Buddhas in innumerable worlds. It seems to be characteristic of a certain sort of religious thought to

ascribe the content of its revelation to a timeless and changeless realm, and to hold that it has been dictated to human beings by a god or by means of an angelic messenger. Although a dictation account has been widely held in Christianity,

it may be doubted whether it is a very plausible account of the Bible. Christian attempts to explain how Scripture is inspired include the view of Athenagoras”? that the writers were used as instruments by God, hardly being conscious while they wrote; the view that God dictated words into the ears of the writers; the view that God put thoughts into the minds of the writers, leaving them to choose the exact words; and that God illumined the mind of the writers so as make their thoughts conform to his will. Presumably if God is the author of the Bible in a direct sense it will express omniscient knowledge; it will be without error and it will be in a style beyond human capacity to achieve. If the Bible is regarded as the result of dictation, one can easily account for the passages about what happened when no survivors of an event existed, when no one else saw what was happening, or before any person existed at all. God can provide correct information about historical occurrences that were perceived by no one. The real problem is, not that such

an account of revelation is impossible, but that it hardly seems consonant with the sort of revelation Jews and Christians have. It has already been suggested that the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament, contains much primitive material, with moral and factual beliefs which need radical amendment to be acceptable. It also consists of a set of very different sorts of documents, from histories, proverbs, psalms, and laws to prophecies and visionary writings of marked obscurity. It even contains a set of love-songs (the Song of Solomon) and at least one novel (Jonah). It lacks the sort of unity of style and content which would naturally suggest one author, in any literal sense. When one turns to the New Testament,

the Greek text is not in a high literary style, such as one might

expect God to use, but is for the most part in a rather rough idiom. Moreover, the styles of different gospels and letters vary enormously—to such an extent that it can be estimated on grounds of style which documents had the same authors. For these reasons, > Athenagoras, Supplication for the Christians, 9.

Christian Reflections 211 it has been generally accepted by Christian theologians that God used the abilities and personalities of the human authors, rather than dictating in a distinctively Divine style which would be the same throughout. The dictation account has accordingly usually been discounted in favour of some form of ‘concurrent causality’

account, according to which God uses the human authors, or governs their activity so that they come to say what God wants to be said. This ‘illumination’ account is perhaps the most promising,

though it leaves rather vague just how and to what extent God guides human minds in this process. It would be hard to maintain that God causes human minds to write exactly what God wants them to write, if they recommend exterminating the Amalekites and God does not truly will genocide. Moreover it would leave human thought-processes suspiciously under some sort of hidden control if they always wrote precisely, down to the exact words,

what God wanted. It looks as though Divine guidance must be more indirect than ensuring that particular words get put into the text. It must leave room for human fallibility and short-sightedness.

The Church, however, has sometimes given the impression that every proposition in Scripture is inerrant. As the encyclical Providentissimus Deus puts it, ‘It would be wrong to concede... that a sacred author himself has erred.’”° This, however, seems an impossible view to defend, since there

are many clear contradictions on points of detail in the biblical texts. One case will suffice; it is not from some unimportant text, but from one of central significance for Christian belief. In the case of the New Testament, one only has to compare the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection in detail to see at once many conflicts of description on almost every point. The one example I will take is that in Matthew’s gospel the women come to the tomb and find the stone

still there; whereas in Luke’s gospel it has already been rolled away.’’ This is a report of a straightforward historical occurrence, and the contradiction is inescapable. In the case of any ordinary historical memory, such a discrepancy is entirely natural and suggests that what one has are the remembered accounts of diverse witnesses, many times recounted and now edited into a more formal narrative. It is very natural, but it is hardly inerrant. 26 Denzinger and Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, 3291.

27 Cf. Matt. 28: 2 and Luke 24: 2, Io.

212 Christian Reflections I would not wish to exaggerate the extent to which error exists in

Scripture. The admission that there are errors of detail, of an entirely natural sort, in Scripture, does not imply that the whole thing might be grossly in error. The Second Vatican Council’s document Dez Verbum expresses a moderate viewpoint when it says:

‘The books of Scripture teach firmly, faithfully and without error that truth which God willed to be put down in the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation.’”® It goes on to say in traditional vein that ‘everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers

must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit’. This I think is acceptable if one takes a rather indirect or illuminationist view of ‘assertion by the Holy Spirit’. The Christian need have little hesita-

tion in affirming that Scripture is inerrant, not in every minute factual detail, but in all those truths which God intends to to be present therein to lead us to salvation. The thought is that there are

some truths which God wishes Scripture to contain. They are truths which are helpful to salvation, by showing what salvation is

or how to attain it. In fact Scripture teaches that salvation lies in loving relation to God and that the way to it is by participation in the self-giving love of God. This entails quite a number of propositional truths which it would be very difficult for human reason to

work out or be sure about and in respect of which Christians are bound to say that the Bible is inerrant—that God is the creator of

all things; that God is love; that the goal of human life is to experience and share in the love of God; that Jesus manifests this love and mediates its atoning or reconciling power to humanity. The mistake is to think that God simply dictates these propositions, in some natural language, to passive human recipients; or to think that a grasp of saving truth consists simply in assent to a set of clearly formulable propositions. That would entirely misconstrue

the way in which the New Testament functions and in which it came into existence. It would misconstrue the way in which the truths that the New Testament contains have come to be embodied in the text, and the sense in which they are to be found there. 6. Inspiration as Divine Guidance

The whole of the New Testament is a witness to the words and actions of Jesus, or a spelling out of what his life, death, and 28 Dei Verbum 11, in W. M. Abbott, The Documents of Vatican II (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966).

Christian Reflections 213 resurrection mean for the new community of the Church. It is a remarkable fact that Jesus himself never wrote down or dictated his teachings, as Muhammad or even Gautama Buddha is said to have

done. According to the gospels, he taught, rather cryptically, that

the Kingdom was at hand;”’ rather clearly, that God requires repentance and total commitment and promises eternal life; and at least implicitly that he himself was God’s chosen king.°*° In a word, he did not provide knowledge by description about God. He judged,

warned, called, invited, promised, and forgave. In his own person he brought people into direct encounter with God as one whose

judgement is severe but whose love is unlimited. He provided knowledge by direct acquaintance with the majesty, the judgement, the power, and the redeeming love of God. It is important to see that such knowledge is largely tacit; that is, hard or even impossible to put into clear, precise concepts.

The way in which Scripture mediates such ‘knowledge by acquaintance’ to us 1s complex. It is certainly not a matter of a listing

of correct doctrines—as though God could simply have revealed

the doctrines of incarnation and Trinity without all the messy arguments that preceded their formulation. Biblical revelation does

seem to involve propositions, and yet it does not seem to be a matter of inserting clear propositions into human minds; the process 1s much more mysterious than that. When Abraham was told by God to leave his own country, when he was promised the land of Israel and commanded to sacrifice Isaac, these are represented as verbal communications with a definite content. It was not just a matter of Abraham encountering some indescribable Divine Being and drawing his own conclusions. The Lord ‘appeared’ to Abraham and ‘spoke’ to him in an active and communicative way. In general, the prophets preface their remarks by the phrase, “Thus says the Lord. ..’; they purport to relate messages from God, not their own cogitations. Such claims are not unusual in the context of human religions. In many religions, people sleep in sacred groves, hoping for a vision of

a particular god. They may hear words spoken to them—as the

children of Medjugorje hear the Virgin speak to them in the twentieth century. Or they may become possessed by a god and *? Certainly the disciples misunderstood him, right up to the end. Cf. Luke 24:

* 30 e.g. Matt. 21: 1-9.

214 Christian Reflections utter words of the god 1n a sacred trance. If one judges the recorded experience of Abraham in the light of these widespread phenomena,

then one may reconstruct his experience as that of a religious devotee of a particular god, feeling the need to leave the luxury and

corruption of Ur and venture over the desert to found a simpler religious community. The words of the god telling him to go out of Ur crystallize his own inner dissatisfactions with his culture and his ideals of a new community, a people set apart for God. Of course

this is a reconstruction; indeed, it is a reconstruction of what is itself in all probability a reconstruction of a postulated patriarchal

experience projected back from the experiences of the writer’s contemporaries; and it is only one of many possible accounts. It is an attempt to understand Abraham’s experience—or the account of it we have—by analogy with the experiences of many contemporary religious practitioners and also with our knowledge of the practice of ancient religions of the Middle East. ~ Some accounts of biblical revelation take the Bible as a totally unique set of documents, without parallel in human history, and suppose that God literally appeared and spoke to Abraham in a straightforward way—as if God were a person who could appear and speak as a human being does. It is a great advance in plausibility to recognize the Bible documents as recording religious phenomena of a very widespread type, however distinctive the tradition becomes.””

Abraham’s postulated experiences can be generally assimilated to

wider patterns of religious theophany, vision, possession, and guidance; and one may thereby gain a better understanding of their true character.

On this sort of account, it is not the case that God sends a message to Abraham out of the blue, making him completely certain of its truth. Rather, one must think of Abraham as going through normal human experiences of reflecting on his life and values, coming to terms with his personal failures and working out his own ideals; seeking to discern a significance and point in the life he lived within a particular historical culture. As a religious person, he worships a particular god, a being of value and power to help,

strengthen, or perhaps caution and warn. His relationship to this greater power enables him to interpret his own changing values and purposes in the light of a dialogue with the god. At times of crisis 31 Cf. above, Part III, Sects. 3, 4, on Judaism.

Christian Reflections 215 and change, especially, the believer turns to God for guidance. It

would naturally be at such a time that Abraham felt his god telling | him to seek a new life and leave Ur.

The ‘word of God’ is a perceived response to Abraham’s particular personal crisis and to the sort of guidance he is seeking. God did not reveal Newton’s laws to Abraham because Abraham had no

concept of such laws. More importantly, it may be a misunderstanding of revelation to see it as the abstract provision of information by God. It can rather be seen as arising out of specific human situations, out of a perceived bringing of one’s concerns,

purposes, and values before God in a context of worship and prayer, so that they clarify in a particular way. This clarification might then be seen as the ‘guidance of God’. There may be heard words or perceived visions; or there may simply be the growth of a conviction that God wants one to do a certain thing, or holds out a promise of good. It is important that this conviction is not seen as solely the result of one’s own pondering and reflection. Nor is it normally a sudden, clear message from God. It is a conviction arising out of a holding-up of one’s concerns in the presence of God, so that God, in hidden ways, may shape and guide them until they reach a new, settled form. God is conceived to be an active partner in this process; but God’s role is to shape, prompt, and respond rather than unilaterally to dictate. Revelation is, on this account, not the utterance of words by God, which would then naturally be infallible and unquestionably

authoritative. It is the shaping by God of human thoughts and feelings so as to challenge, guide, and motivate the lives of those who seek to worship God and relate their lives to God.** Two main

reasons have been given for this account of revelation. First, it meets the general problem that if revelation consists of infallibly given propositions, it seems implausibly obscure (given in cryptic stories and poems, not literal propositions), rare (occurring only to a few devout but often rather simple people), and disputed (issuing conflicting truths in different religious traditions). Second, it places revelation intelligibly within the general range of observable religious phenomena, rather than giving one particular revelation a 2 This account, re-expressing the accounts given above in Part I, Sect. 6, Part II, Sect. 10, and Part III, Sect. 4, thus finds additional support from a consideration of the nature of inspiration and of the production of the scriptural canon specifically in Christianity.

216 Christian Reflections totally unique status. In doing so, it helps to explain why disagreements exist between revelations. For very different human cultures, values, and crises may well give rise to diverse revelations which, if turned into absolute and infallible claims, will inevitably conflict. There is a third, even more powerful reason for accepting such an

account. That is, it enables one to understand how factual errors and moral limitations can occur in Scripture, if it is a collection of writings shaped and guided by God yet still bearing the imprint of its human writers. Such an account is quite compatible with the two main passages in the New Testament which speak of the inspiration of Scripture. 2 Timothy 3: 15 speaks of every ‘scripture’ (naturally, the reference is to every part of the Hebrew Bible, so far as the canon was then widely accepted) being ‘divinely inspired and useful for instruction’. The word used for inspired is theopneustos, breathed out by God. This has often been understood to mean that God literally created the words himself, and so implied a passive reception view. Perhaps

the best biblical parallel, however, is at Genesis 2: 7: “The Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into

his nostrils the breath of life. Thus the man became a living creature.” Here, what is breathed out by God is the breath of life, which gives life and animation to the formed body. One may think of the breathing-out of Scripture in a similar way as the giving of life and power to the formed words of human writers. The other main passage is 2 Peter I: 21, which speaks of men being propelled (pheromeno1) by the Holy Spirit and speaking under

the agency of God. The metaphor is that they are driven like ships by the wind of the Spirit; not that their agency is taken away, but

that what drives or motivates and empowers them is the Holy Spirit. Taking these two texts together one can think of God as motivating and empowering humans to create certain works, and as

giving Divine life and power to these works, so that they can be fruitful for evoking worship and prayer, for instruction and guidance.

On this view of inspiration, it may seem that almost any human utterances could be inspired; that there is little difference between Shakespeare and the Bible, since God might be heightening the

imaginative powers of playwrights and novelists as well as the poets who got into the Bible. There 1s surely little problem with saying that God does inspire many poets, dramatists, and artists,

Christian Reflections 217 and that they can convey a sense of the Divine presence and character through their works. However, one certainly could not

say that all art is a medium of Divine revelation. Since art is explicitly a product of human imagination, it is not necessarily aimed at communicating any sense of the suprasensory realm. It may be aimed at destroying any such sense; and it is unfortunately the case that very great imaginative skill may be used in rebellion against the very idea of God. God may work even through atheistic writings; but it is plausible to suppose that God will act to convey knowledge of the Divine primarily through those who themselves

are seeking such knowledge. In so far as inspiration is aiming towards a more adequate expression of truths about God, it will naturally be manifested in a special way in communities which devote their lives to seeking truths about God, through the practice of prayer. It might also properly be said that inspiration should be found in all sincere and rightly directed religious traditions. I see no reason

why this also should not be said, so that the Koran and the Gita could properly be spoken of as Divinely inspired, though as containing many limitations and errors. It is clear enough, however,

that not all religious traditions give rise to the idea of God as creator, judge, and redeemer; so to the extent that a tradition does so, from the Christian perspective, that community will embody the truth which God desires to reveal more adequately than one which has little room for such concepts. Moreover, if revelation is a developing and cumulative process which gradually builds up a fuller picture of the Divine nature and purpose—as the Hebrew Bible seems to be—then inspired utterances will properly stand in

a continuing prophetic tradition, wherein the whole process of revelation can be continued and deepened. Thus the idea of inspiration connects with that of a community within which such a tradition can grow and be sustained. While many such communities

can properly be spoken of as ‘inspired’, a reason to take one as uniquely privileged is that it contains a more adequate notion of the

supreme spiritual reality. Each tradition may, I think, coherently make such a claim. In this respect the Christian tradition is not being unduly arrogant or imperialistic when it claims a unique witness to the nature and purpose of God. It is simply formulating what each tradition must formulate in its own way, as long as it continues to exist.

218 Christian Reflections 7. The Development of the Canon of Scripture

Given such a developmental view of Divine inspiration, one might see the creation of the Old Testament Scripture as passing through four main formative stages, rather in this way: first of all there are the primary experiences of the prophets, men and women devoted to prayer and the worship of God, reflecting upon their own situa-

tion and that of their society and seeking some intimation of the purpose of God for that situation. This might be called the stage of primary experience. (I am not using the word ‘experience’ in the restricted sense of some inner mental state. I do mean to refer to the cognitive state of some person or persons; but that state may consist in the apprehension of a publicly observable event or the occurrence of some series of thoughts as well as in the occurrence of a private feeling.) The second step is that their visions, teachings, prayers, and proclamations pass into oral tradition and come to be written down or memorized, in forms which become stylized and systematized and develop rich patterns of symbolic association. In this way, dramatic events like the escape from Egypt come to be expressed in a ritualized way, using images of deliverance, journey,

crossing the sea, and wandering in the wilderness, which are referred to and enriched when employed to interpret subsequent experiences. This might be called the stage of primary witness. A third stage is that at which later generations profess loyalty to the tradition, the ‘God of our fathers’, adopting its basic images and developing them imaginatively in the light of new experiences. In the course of history, customs and rituals are codified, explanatory

myths are added, and hymns and prayers are created. There is a development of reflection upon and amendment of the earlier tradition, as the implications of central teachings like the loving-kindness

of God are drawn out and cruder elements of requiring revenge upon one’s enemies or punishment of whole groups for individual sins are reinterpreted in new contexts. Generally speaking, the interpreters and consolidators of tradition—the doctors and the priests—tend to take over from the radical, unsystematic creativity of the prophets, though prophetic explosions may still be liable to

recur. This might be called the stage of theological redaction. Fourthly, a canon of Scripture is defined by the communal authorities, marking a significant completion of a matrix of revelation for this community. The decision is made that the core truths of

Christian Reflections 219 the tradition have been established irrevocably, and the documents

included in the canon witness to these truths in an authoritative way—in the case of the Old Testament, that God 1s the creator of all who exercises a providential and moral control over history and has a special vocation for Israel. This might be called the stage of

canonical definition. There may be many other things to be said about God and much still to learn; but canonical scripture is the basic matrix—the mould and source—of the community’s subsequent reflections about its life with God. The same four stages can be traced in the formation of the New Testament as ‘Scripture’. The stage of primary experience is that of Jesus himself, whose unique authority is based on his unique form

of acquaintance with God. This stage must, of course, remain inaccessible to us, except by inference from later stages. Jesus’ knowledge of God by acquaintance can never be directly accessible to us; but it is the necessary presupposition of the New Testament documents as we have them. The stage of primary witness 1s his life

and teachings, as experienced by the apostles. This will include

their experience of the resurrection and the inspiration of the early Christian community by the Holy Spirit. This stage is only recoverable by us at second-hand, by accounts of their teaching which are found in the gospels and some letters to early Churches; but again the whole authenticity of the gospels depends upon there being such a genuine apostolic witness. The stage of theological redaction is expressed in the gospels as we have them—documents which carry the apostolic testimony in forms which have been

edited to bring out the meaning of Jesus’ life and teachings as disclosive of God and effective of human salvation, and set in four rather different theological perspectives. The gospels, one might say, create icons, stylized pictures of Christ intended to express and evoke encounter with God through the icon, the theological presen-

tation of the person whom the apostles had encountered in the flesh. The remembered life is seen through the prism of the resurrected life and interpreted in the light of Old Testament prophecies or subsequent prophetic experiences in the early Church, so as to

be used for the building-up of faith in the early communities of disciples. Finally, the stage of canonical definition is expressed in the selection of the set of gospels and letters which constitutes the

New Testament; a set which enshrines the definitive matrix of Christian reflection about God in the apostolic witness to the reve-

220 Christian Reflections latory power of Jesus’ life and teaching. The central truths in this set have been abstracted and summarized in the ‘rule of faith’, of which the Apostolic Fathers speak,** and the Catholic creeds. But the character of Christian revelation is misunderstood if it is taken to be primarily the promulgation of credal statements. It lies rather in a many-sided meditation on the mystery of God which is encountered in the person of Jesus, as mediated through the inspired and richly imaginative writing of the New Testament canon. In this process, God does not eliminate the natural differences of

memory and interpretation which are characteristic of human experience. In fact one can see how the preservation of such differences might help in the expression of a personal encounter which is essentially many-faced and responded to in many different ways

by different types of people. If key saving truths emerge in the Bible, they will do so as inferences, not exhaustively articulated but

often left at a tacit level, from encounter with God in Christ, presented in various ways and from various points of view. Once the idea of direct, inerrant Divine dictation or causality has been eliminated, it becomes clear that the process of Divine inspiration must cover quite a long and complex series of human activities. It must cover the selection of remembered material which passed into oral tradition, the way it developed in that tradition, its editing into gospels together with the editor’s interpretation of the events and teachings recorded, and finally the process of debate which led to the gospels’ inclusion in the canon of Scripture, quite a number of years later (a definitive canon did not exist until about the end of the fourth century and was not formally defined until the sixteenth century). Compared with the compilation of the Koran, which was orally given by Muhammad and written down within a few years, this is an extremely complex and extended process. It suggests a very different view of scriptural inspiration from that of Divine dictation. It will not be a matter of direct causation of all the details of such a complex process, but rather a providential guidance to ensure that key saving truths come to expression in a source which can be authoritative for the Christian community. God patiently guides the short-sighted and blundering thoughts of the followers of Jesus, not so as magically to eliminate all factual errors and 33 Cf. Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum 13 (Ante-Nicene Christian Library; Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark). Also J. Stevenson (ed.), A New Eusebius (London: SPCK, 1957), 176.

Christian Reflections 221 moral limitations from their thoughts, but so as to ensure that the basic saving truths of Christian faith are enshrined in the canonical documents in an appropriate way. 8. Revelation as Encounter

This is a relatively weak doctrine of inspiration, compared to a Divine dictation or an inerrancy model. It becomes impossible to regard sentences from Scripture, taken in isolation, as conveying inerrant Divine truth. It strengthens the suspicion, already suggested by reflection on the nature of revelation generally, that the

function of Scripture is not primarily to present a set of correct doctrines. Scripture, at least in Christian faith, consists of a set of human witnesses to Divine revelation, rather than constituting the content of revelation itself. This is what theologians like Karl Barth and Emil Brunner have tried to convey by saying that revelation is not propositional, but primarily lies in encounter with the living and active Word of God, a personal and dynamic reality. Scripture functions as a witness to the occurrence of such an encounter and as a means of seeking to evoke a similar encounter in the reader or hearer. What God wills is that the witness of Scripture should be

authentic; which primarily means not that it is literally true in every detail but that it is capable of bringing humans into a real encounter with the God who is manifest in Jesus Christ. Of course such an encounter will entail some true propositions, but it is not itself the relating of such propositions, and it will not by any means answer all the theoretical questions I may have. It may be extremely

difficult to put a personal experience of encounter into precise propositions at all. I think it is quite intelligible to suppose that I may become acquainted with something so overpowering and immense that I have no words to describe it. Only on later reflection will I come to work out what is involved in such an encounter, and develop theories such as those of incarnation or atonement which seek to articulate, and then always in a very inadequate fashion, the propositional truths which are implied by the encounter to which Scripture witnesses and which the Church seeks to renew.

Brunner speaks of the ‘fatal equation of revelation with the inspiration of the Scriptures’.** For Christians, he says, it is wrong ** Emil Brunner, Revelation and Reason, trans. Olive Wyon (London: SCM Press, 1947), 7.

222 Christian Reflections to equate Divine revelation with the text of the Bible, though the Bible is the record of revelation. As for revelation itself, however, ‘Divine revelation is not a book or a doctrine; the revelation is God Himself in his self-manifestation within history.’*? God manifests by dynamic activity in history, and does so for the salvation of the world. Thus the centre of revelation is the saving activity of God in history, not the provision of correct information in a written text. In this saving activity, the prophets encounter God in an experi-

ence by which they are claimed and transformed. God is not knowable as an object or by human speculation, for God is the Absolute Subject, who can be known only in self-revelaion. ‘Since God gives himself to be known, he gives communion with himself and ...a share in his own eternal life.’*° Here one has the elements of a self-revealing act of God on a particular historical occasion; the establishment of a relationship between the Absolute Subject and created subjects; and the redemptive transformation of human life by that Divine, self-giving activity.

On this view, revelation is a historical act which makes the Divine Being known, which establishes a personal relationship in the very fact of that self-expression, and which transforms the recipients of revelation by reorientating their whole life. The nearest, though very imperfect, analogy is with a person who does something which reveals what their innermost character is, as a result of which

we fall in love with them, making them the centre of our thoughts

and acts from that time on, changing our whole life. There is a particular occasion in history when we take some event to be the self-expressive act of the Supreme Being, putting us into a new relation with it and thereby reorienting our lives towards it. ‘Revelation actually consists in the meeting of two subjects.’?’ The moment of revelation is the moment of meeting or encounter,

and it is only later that we may try to put it into words. Brunner calls this the “biblical conception of faith’, and contrasts it with the ‘Catholic’ doctrine that faith is an assent to doctrines, rather than an act of personal encounter and trust. He stresses the discontinuity

of revelation with reason: “The God who is discovered through thought is always different from the God who reveals himself.’*® He also stresses the discontinuity between Christianity and other faiths,

3° Emil Brunner, 8. © Ibid. 28.

7 Ibid. 33. 38 Ibid. 43.

Christian Reflections 223 holding that ‘no other religion can assert revelation in the radical, unconditional sense in which the Christian faith does’.*? I have already criticized these views of Brunner, and one does not have to

accept such a total discontinuity between revelation of God as redeeming Subject and human reflection in order to preserve an emphasis on the fact that one important aspect of the Semitic notion of revelation is that it is a personal encounter and entrance into a saving relationship with the Absolute Subjectivity of God. It is true, however, that only in the Semitic tradition does such a

personal encounter with a morally demanding God become the central focus of revelation. In Hinduism there is a much greater stress on inner unity with the Self of all, a unitive rather than a relational sort of experience. And in Buddhism the emphasis is mainly upon the teaching of the Enlightened One. Only in Judaism does belief in God’s saving and judging actions in history play a

major role. Though this element is not entirely lacking in Islam, the focus there changes to a more general expectation of judgement and universal resurrection. Only in Christianity is God’s action seen

as fully self-expressive, so that not only does God order history according to the Divine purpose, but the very nature of God is manifested in a human, historical life. 9. Revelation as Historical Action

William Temple has also expounded a view of revelation as personal

encounter, but holds as an important part of his case that ‘in the entire course of cosmic history there is to be found the selfrevelation of God’.*° In a sense, the whole of the natural order reveals God, because it expresses the mind of God and the sort of being God is. Just as an aritist reveals himself in his works, so God is self-revealing in the beauty and order of the natural world. But as well as this general revelation, there is a special revelation of God in particular events which express the Divine nature in an especially significant or striking way. These will be events in history which forward the Divine purpose—such events as the exodus from Egypt or the return from exile in Babylon. But Temple sees that historical events are not self-interpreting. They need to be apprehended as providential acts of God, and that requires a certain sort of prophetic 3? Ibid. 236. © William Temple, Nature, Man and God (London: Macmillan, 1934), 304.

224 Christian Reflections insight to discern the transcendent dimension in what might other-

wise seem to be a purely political or social process. So, he says, special revelation ‘consisted primarily in historical events, and secondarily in the illumination of the minds of prophets to read those events’. Thus ‘the interaction of the process and the minds which are alike guided by [God] is the essence of revelation’.*! Temple sees God as acting in particular ways in history, under-

taking ‘a specially directed activity in face of the sufficient occasion’.** So God acts to deliver Israel from Egypt or from exile in Babylon, and in the events of Middle Eastern history surrounding

Israel. God also acts to illumine the minds of the prophets so that they can interpret Divine action in history correctly. Event and appreciation go together; so that for Temple there is a propositional element in revelation, even though he says that ‘there is no such thing as revealed truth’.** There must be such a thing as revealed

truth, if God acts to ensure that the prophets interpret history properly, that is, truly. The revealed truth is precisely the correct interpretation of particular parts of history as acts of Divine judgement or liberation. I suspect that what he means is that God does not reveal speculative truths, but acts through historical events, so that ‘the typical locus of revelation is not the mind of the seer but the historical event’.** The model of revelation that is being used here is not that of God speaking words directly, but of God disclosing the Divine purposes

by acting in historical events. This element of objective liberating empowerment by God complements, and does not compete with, the Brunnerian model of encounter. For, Temple says, ‘Faith is not the holding of correct doctrines, but personal fellowship.’*? Again, ‘Every revelation of God is a demand.’*° Here the model is of direct

personal relationship, a model expressed in the phrase that revelation is ‘a special form of religious experience’.*’ It is perhaps clearer to disentangle three rather different models of revelation

and say that Temple uses them all. Using a propositional or inspiration model, he sees God as illumining the minds of prophets to

interpret history correctly. Using an objective empowerment or liberation model, he sees God as acting in history to express or 4! William Temple, 312. 42 Ibid. 302.

43 Ibid. 318. 44 Tbid. Ibid. 322.

46 Ibid. 354. 47 Thid. 328.

Christian Reflections 225 realize his purposes. And using an experiential encounter model, he

sees God as establishing a personal fellowship in which God is experienced as demand and succour in the personal life of the believer. In the biblical tradition, God is seen as acting in inspired utterances, providential events, and in personal experiences of encounter; all these elements are properly revelatory of God. They reflect the three strands of revelation—oracle, empowerment, and vision—that have been seen to be present in religion in general.*° It seems true to say that since the nineteenth century there has been a major change in the understanding of Christian revelation,

which John Baillie has characterized as a change from seeing revelation as propositional to seeing it as personal.*? It would not be right to see this as a change from a ‘Catholic’ to a ‘Protestant’ understanding, since the propositional view is nowhere better set forth than in Calvin’s Institutes.°° Reasons have been given for thinking that a ‘depository of doctrines’ view of revelation is not very helpful in bringing out the distinctive character of the rev-

elation that 1s enshrined in Scripture. It would seem to be an overstatement, however, to hold that there are no revealed doctrines at all. This would neglect entirely the Old Testament emphasis on the Torah as a revealed way of life; and, as Temple himself noted,

it neglects the vital element of inspired prophetic discernment which is necessary in order to see signs of transcendent Divine presence in the events of Israel’s history. It cannot be denied that there is propositional revelation in the

Bible; but these propositions are not just items of information which God causes people to believe. First of all, they are historically

situated. They are not general items of information—things like mathematical theorems or laws of physics or even doctrines about

the Divine nature. They are concerned with the transcendent dimension of and future possibilities in a particular historical situation. For example, in Jeremiah 32: 27—35, the prophet receives a word from God in face of the imminent destruction of Jerusalem, 48 Cf. Part II, Sect. ro. 4? John Baillie, Ideas of Revelation in Recent Thought (London: Oxford University Press, 1956). °° Cf. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. H. Beveridge (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989): ‘How necessary it was to make such a depository of doctrine as would secure it from either perishing ... or being corrupted’; ch. 6, 66.

226 Christian Reflections telling him that the city will indeed be destroyed, and that this destruction is a Divine judgement. Secondly, they are personally involving. They do not give descriptions of states of affairs which are of no immediate concern to the hearer. They are of vital concern to the hearer, affecting the future of things of great personal concern. The warning of judgement involves Jeremiah also. Thirdly, they demand a wholehearted personal response. They do not say

what it is correct to believe, regardless of how one lives. They

require one to reorient one’s life, to do something new or to commit oneself to a particular course of action, most often to repent and trust that a particular course of action will result in good. Thus, in Jeremiah 32: 14, Jeremiah is ordered to purchase a

field at what seems to be a ridiculous time, to show his faith in God. Fourthly, they carry a promise of human fulfilment. They do not just predict the future in a quasi-scientific way. They proclaim a goal of human endeavour which will be an ultimate realization of human good, a vision of the realization of goodness. God promises Jeremiah that fields will again be bought in Israel, and (32: 40) that

God will make an eternal covenant with his people when they return from exile. Revealed propositions in the biblical tradition are typically historical (not timeless truths), existential (not neutral descriptions), morally demanding (not factually informative), and covenantal (not universal). They occur to prophets as they consider the situation in which they live, the good to be achieved and the evil to be avoided;

they make particular moral demands and particular promises of good. In the life of Jesus, this aspect of revelation is expressed in Jesus’ discernment of the Kingdom as the eschatalogical goal of all history and the inauguration in his own person of the Kingdom as

the new eschatalogical community which foreshadows that goal within history. The prophetic ability to discern Divine action in history and to foresee a renewed covenant community becomes the Messianic ability to discern the final goal, the innermost possibility,

of history and to inaugurate the new community of hope which relates all history to its intended goal. 10. Revelation as Inner Experience

In any adequate account of Christian revelation, the notions of Divine inspiration, objective Divine action, and personal encounter

must all have a place. In Avery Dulles’s illuminating account of

Christian Reflections 227 models of revelation,’! these three models are termed the doctrinal, historical, and dialectical presence models respectively. Dulles out-

lines two further models of revelation, which he calls the ‘inner experience’ model and the ‘new awareness’ model. The emphasis in

these models is on the personal experience of the recipient of revelation, in contrast to the occurrence of propositional beliefs or of some objectively discernible events. In practice, like the dialectical presence and historical models, these two models usually go together, stressing different poles of revelatory experience—the occurrence of a feeling as a mental state and the opening-up of new perspectives and commitments which springs from its transforming effect on human life. The ‘inner experience’ model is perhaps best seen as a complementary pole of the ‘personal encounter’ view. Both are concerned with personal experience, one with experience

interpreted as encounter with an ‘other’ reality, and one with experience interpreted as unity with true reality, of which one is part. A stress on inner experience comes about because many theologians, while accepting the shift in emphasis from doctrinal to experiential, are uneasy with encounter models. John Macquarrie formulates this unease when he complains that

God is not really another object whom I might encounter, with whom I can have a reciprocal personal relationship, and who might

speak to me in any literal sense.°* It may seem that encounter models make God too much like another person, another thing of the same sort as I am, even if much greater. Certainly, H. H. Farmer insists that ‘Religion must deal with a Personal Will’.>? For him, God must appear in an ‘I—Thou encounter’, making an absolute claim and guaranteeing final succour to those who respond.°>* What might be said about this is not so much that it is

false, as that it does not give full expression to a distinctively Christian viewpoint. The notion of ‘I—Thou encounter’ itself derives from the work of

Martin Buber, a Jewish theologian who has been an important influence on much twentieth-century Christian theology. So it is perhaps not surprising that it lacks any specifically Trinitarian >! Avery Dulles, Models of Revelation (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1992). >? ‘John Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology (London: SCM Press, 1966), 104.

33 H. H. Farmer, Revelation and Religion (London: Nisbet, 1954), 95. 54 Thid. 65.

228 Christian Reflections emphasis. In particular, it lacks the idea of an inward unity between human and Divine which the doctrines of incarnation and of theopoiesis, the inclusion of humanity in the Divine Life, express. It is

not that these ideas are altogether missing. Brunner speaks of a ‘sharing in the eternal life of God’, and Baillie speaks of the work of

the Holy Spirit within the believer. What this may suggest is that the model of personal encounter, which is basically dualistic, needs to be supplemented, but not supplanted, by a more unitive model. If one does not regard God as a person to whom one stands in a basically external relation, but perhaps as the infinite ground of all being, which, as Macquarrie puts it, ‘lets beings be and mediates itself through them’, then the model of revelation as a personal self-disclosure through some distinctive action will not be adequate. One will still think of revelation as an active self-disclosure, but as

a disclosure of the true nature of ‘being-itself’ or ‘holy being’ which is the root of one’s own being, not an ‘other person’. Thus Macquarrie says, “The content of revelation is “being” or “holy being”’’;°° it is given in ‘revelatory experiences where man becomes

aware of the presence and manifestation of holy being’.°’ Since such experiences are primarily interior, they are also transformative. That is, 1f holy being manifests itself in one’s own experience, to

that extent one actually becomes holy; true revelation is of itself salvific. There is an idea of Divine liberating empowerment, not this time in objective historical events, but in personal salvific experience itself. On such a view of revelation, the propositional element is again usually seen as a reflective expression of and witness to the original revelatory experience.

The historical roots of this view are to be found in the work of Schleiermacher, who writes, “What is revelation? Every original and new intuition of the universe is one.”°® What he has in mind is the intuition of the universe as absolutely dependent upon a wholly self-sufficient reality, something which has to come home to each individual in a personal way, through the generation of a feeling of absolute dependence. The feeling, only explicitly named as such in

his later work The Christian Faith, is sustained in the Church and derives from the uniquely permanent consciousness of such >> Macquarrie, Christian Theology, 104. 56 Ibid. 95. >” Tbid. go.

°8 F. Schleiermacher, On Religion, trans. R. Crouter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), Second Speech, 133.

Christian Reflections 229 dependence in Jesus. So he can say, “The idea of revelation signifies the originality of the fact which lies at the foundation of a religious communion.’>” In his later work, Schleiermacher was concerned to

distance himself from accusations of pantheism, and so to stress the absolute independence of the intuited Divine Being; and to root Christian revelation securely in the Church, which he did by tracing the distinctively Christian feeling of piety back to the unique experience of Jesus.

The weaknesses of this position are well known and severe. First, it is very difficult to feel justified in basing any beliefs about the nature of the universe on the occurrence of human feelings; it seems more common that one describes one’s feelings (as feelings of

‘absolute dependence’, for example) as a result of a prior belief which suggests that interpretation as the most appropriate. And second, it is hard to see how one can be sure that Jesus possessed a unique inner state, and that Christian feelings are quite distinctive,

when inner states are the hardest of all to discern. It looks as though factual beliefs about the nature of the universe and about more clearly discernible historical events will be required to justify the most adequate description of inner feelings or their ascription

- to the historical person of Jesus. Feelings cannot be so sharply divorced from facts and beliefs as Schleiermacher supposed. Yet he made the important point that Christian revelation is not simply the

promulgation of factual beliefs; it is an inward disclosure of the mystery of the Divine Being which constitutes a particular com-

munity of faith. It establishes a form of relationship with the Divine, and thus essentially transforms human consciousness. It 1s precisely when one sees an event as a disclosure of a reality which calls one into a new relationship that one sees it as revelation. One can witness to the revelation by proclaiming its salvific significance for oneself and by seeking to evoke it in others. But the existential reorientation cannot be either guaranteed or adequately described by any set of propositions. Paul Tillich is perhaps the best-known twentieth-century theologian who has adopted an ‘inner experience’ view of revelation. ‘There are no revealed doctrines, but there are revelatory events,’ °? F. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1989), para. I0. 3, p. §0. 6° Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1951), i. 130.

230 Christian Reflections he says. Such an event has three main characteristics, which he terms mystery, miracle, and ecstasy—terms to which he gives a special meaning. What is revealed is ‘essential mystery’, beyond subject—object relationships. It is a combination of the abyss in which all finite distinctions fall away and of the power of being, which gives the courage to be. This experience of ultimate mystery

is found in ecstasy, a state of mind which moves beyond the subject—object polarity to the ground of being and meaning. And it

is mediated through miraculous events—not gaps in the structure of the physical world, but sign-events which produce astonishment and are transparent to the ground of being and meaning.

For Tillich, a revelatory event is primarily a sort of human experience; it is an experience in which one participates by ultimate

concern. ‘The history of revelation and the history of salvation are the same history.”°! Discerning mystery requires self-transformation; and revelation is the answer of the power of being to our ultimate existential questions. It is a matter of infinite passion, not

of the addition of new propositions to our array of theoretical knowledge. Thus revelation comes only when, in infinite passion, we discern the power of being, and its mystery is unveiled, empowering and healing us.

Tillich’s account is very helpful in highlighting the ultimate point of Christian revelation—that it is meant to reorient human lives towards their goal in the Divine mystery. It must therefore involve a personal transformative experience. Yet it is in the end important that biblical revelation is not solely a means to or expression of some inner unitive experience. It is also the expression of an interactive relationship between God and a particular community, in which God acts in personal encounter, in providential

action, and in inspirational guidance. It is this interaction which enables the inner experience of the believer to be justifiably interpreted as experience of a self-revealing and redeeming God. Such interactive historicity is almost at the opposite pole from Tillich’s ‘ultimate mystery beyond the relationship of subject and object’. For it is essentially dual—a dialogue of God and humanity; particular—related to specific historical situations; and temporal— developing in new and creative ways. Tillich’s view seems so vague that it might apply to any experience of ultimate mystery, histori6! Paul Tillich, 160.

Christian Reflections 231 cally based or not. But for Hebrew thought, God reveals through

the prophets the proper form of communal relationship to the source of an objective moral leading towards the goal of history. The theologians of encounter and of inner experience are right in stressing the primacy of relationship to God; but they cannot ignore

the claims to specific guidance and calling which the prophets make.

Tillich is right that there are no revealed doctrines, in that God does not dictate correct beliefs to anyone. Yet revelation must be

seen as a long process in a communal tradition, in which both reflection and Divine influence play an important part, and in which complex propositional expressions of the nature of God and its interaction with human lives can be developed. Divine revelation cannot be separated out and contrasted with human reflection and experience. Such a contrast assumes that human speculation could only go so far (or might even lead in the wrong direction, according to Brunner), and that Divine revelation has to add quite a distinct element which would otherwise be inconceivable by human minds.

On the contrary, it is precisely through human reflection and experience that God ‘speaks’, shaping a communal life so that its authoritative documents express what God wants them to express. One need not think of these models of revelation as mutually exclusive. A theist will naturally believe that God 1s active in the world, and that some of those actions reveal important aspects of

the Divine nature. A Christian will find in the life of Jesus a particular temporal process which reveals with special clarity the Divine nature as redemptive love. Such a perception, however, is only possible when the objective events become channels of encounter with the spiritual reality which underlies and 1s expressed in them. That, in turn, occurs only as observers are caught up in a

response to the events which transforms their lives by a reorientation of vision and feeling. It is the stirring of the Spirit within which enables recognition of the Spirit without. Finally, this whole process is recorded, so that it can be evoked in others, through a process of reflection and imaginative reconstruction, which is not only a record of past events but a stimulus to present response to the spiritual reality which was discerned there. All these aspects— objective Divine action and personal liberation (the aspect of empowerment), human experience of encounter and of union (the aspect of experience), reflective and imaginative interpretation (the

232 Christian Reflections aspect of propositional belief)—are involved in the revelatory process.

Christian revelation, then, can be seen as God’s self-disclosure,

guiding the apostles to discern the Divine nature and purpose, as definitively manifested in Jesus, in a personally transforming encounter. This is made present in the sacramental life and authentic preaching of the Church, making possible a personal salvific experience of sharing in and mediating the Divine Life. Such revelation 1s witnessed in Scripture and summarily expressed

in the creeds. Seen in this light, the Bible does not present a document without error of any sort, and it is not exempt from the most thorough critical study. It nevertheless presents a document which the Church accepts as embodying faithfully that truth which God manifests in the person of Jesus and the present disclosure of

which in the Church unites human lives to the eternal life of God. Most religious traditions have their canonical Scriptures; but

no other Scripture plays the same role as that of the Bible in Christianity. For Christian faith, Scripture is the faithful witness; the content of its witness 1s the reality of God, whose final purpose for creation 1s disclosed in Jesus Christ. C. TAKING HISTORY ON FAITH 11. The Nature of Historical Criticism

For Christians, the Bible witnesses to the self-disclosure of the Divine nature and purpose in Jesus. In particular, the gospels present a set of icons of the risen Christ, apprehensions of God evoked by the apostolic witness to the life of one who had opened up a new and living way to God for them.® In this New Testament witness there is an ineliminable reference to historical facts about Jesus. But, whereas this reference to history once seemed a strength of Christian faith, giving it firm evidential support, it now often seems only to pose an additional and even intractable problem. For the rise of critical historical method and the growth of historical consciousness since the eighteenth century have completely transformed attitudes towards the written documents which constitute Scripture in the world’s religious traditions.

What happens when a critical historian examines religious © Heb. 10: 20.

Chnstian Reflections 233 documents and assesses them for their historical plausibility? The key features of a critical methodology of history were laid down by Troeltsch at the end of the nineteenth century.®? He suggested that historians must first assent to the principle of criticism. No document should be taken at face value; all should be viewed with initial suspicion for vested interests, propaganda, or political and religious bias. One must always partially discount texts which have a particular axe to grind and distrust any appeals to privileged authority which prevent free historical investigation. Taken to its extreme,

this becomes the hermeneutic of suspicion, in accordance with which one must always be on the look-out in any written document

for special pleading and falsification of the evidence to support some authoritarian or oppressive structure. But even in its less extreme forms, the principle of criticism compels one to ask how and why documents came to be written, what biases they evince and what evidence they are likely to have been based on. To adopt such an attitude is hardly consistent with unquestioning acceptance

of written truth on authority. |

Secondly, the historian should accept the principle of correlation, according to which all events must fall within the accepted web of

physical causality. Christianity cannot be accepted as being in a privileged position which enables it to formulate absolute truths valid for all time. Like all other historical phenomena, it must be viewed in its total historical context. All its claims must be relativized to the context in which they were made. In particular, special appeal to supernatural causes is ruled out, as beyond normal

patterns of causality. Thus all the biblical miracle stories must be rejected as inconsistent with a scientific approach. Thirdly, the historian should assess the sources on the basis of the principle of analogy, so that things in the past must be very much as they are today, and one cannot treat one text (the Bible) in a different way from any other, or the events it records as quite unlike the sorts of events that occur today. In general, since history

is a discipline which tries to assess probabilities, no historical judgement can ever be more than probable; so none can be the 63 Ernst Troeltsch, ‘Uber historische und dogmatische Methode in der Theologie’,

Gesammelte Schriften, 2 (Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr 1913), 729-53. This 1s not translated; but in English one can find The Absoluteness of Chnstianity (London: SCM Press, 1972) and the article on ‘Historiography’ in Hastings (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1914), vi. 716-23.

234 Christian Reflections basis of an absolute faith-commitment. In so far, then, as the gospels claim to be historical documents, or in so far as Christian faith claims to be based upon history, one can immediately say that

they can at best give a historical probability that certain events happened. In fact they give a low historical probability to the events they record, since they are written by believers, they speak of supernatural events which break normal causal laws, and they record events quite unlike those one experiences today in the world. It looks as though a critical historian cannot be a believer, or at least cannot claim any assurance for recorded events in the life of Jesus.

One can sympathize with Troeltsch’s rejection of authoritarian attempts to restrict critical study of the New Testament texts. Protecting such texts by appeal to a dogmatic principle of inerrancy will seem an unacceptable move if the documents have sufficient

internal problems of consistency to make one suspect such an appeal—and, as I have pointed out, they have! Critical study of the gospels is not merely permissible for believers; it is an intellectual

obligation, if belief is to be more than blind acceptance. The difficulty is, however, that if one adopts a wholly critical view of the gospels, soon nothing seems to be left. It is easy to suspect every text as a pious invention of apocalyptic fanatics, an invented fulfilment of Old Testament texts, or a product of religious de-

lusion.** Of all the hundreds of accounts of what ‘probably’ happened in the life of Jesus, how is one to choose a most probable

view? It can seem that the believer must continually, whether eagerly or anxiously, be waiting for the next book by a New Testament scholar, to find out what one is supposed to think about

Jesus. And even then, one knows it will be ‘refuted’ by another scholar whose work has yet to appear. This is not a wholly satisfactory situation for believers. But how is one to tread the narrow path

between indefensible dogmatism and continually vacillating uncertainty? John Macquarrie at one point suggests that ‘where there are two rival historical views... the systematic theologian should

follow the more sceptical point of view’.© But since the most sceptical view is that Jesus probably never existed at all, this °* An example of a treatment which does so is G. A. Wells, Did Fesus Exist? (London: Pemberton, 1975). 6° J. Macquarrie, Fesus Christ in Modern Thought (London: SCM Press, 1990), 36.

Christian Reflections 235 seems an unsatisfactory principle. Moreover, he does not follow it

himself, concluding later in the same work that Jesus Christ 1s ‘different from us in having brought the most central possibilities of humanity to a new level of realisation’.°° That is a historical claim of breathtaking proportions, which it would be hard to make about anyone alive at present, let alone a rather remote historical figure of whom one should be largely sceptical! I think it is clear

that no one can plausibly hold that Jesus ‘may indeed tower in incomparable moral and spiritual superiority over his fellows’,°’ on purely historical grounds. But if one is making such an attribution

on faith, how can that be compatible with a proper degree of historical caution?

12. The Historical Roots of Incarnational Belief | A way towards a resolution of this uncomfortable dilemma 1s to be found in the recollection that one is here dealing with religious belief, not with a simple ideologically uncommitted historical investigation (as if there were such a thing). That is, one is concerned with an alleged disclosure of the supreme value and goal of life in a particular historical context, which becomes the vehicle or medium

of that disclosure. The historian cannot remain untouched by this fact. Among the presuppositions which one brings to any study of human affairs, historical or contemporary, is a basic belief about the existence or non-existence of such a supreme value and goal.

If someone records that a certain event was the medium of a disclosure to them of ultimate meaning, the historian can only record that this was said. Whether it is believed to be truly such a disclosure or not will depend on whether one believes there is, or could be, such a meaning; on whether one believes that it could

have been mediated in such a context; and on whether the consequences make it likely that 1t was so mediated. There can be no serious doubt that the gospels record the belief that the life of Jesus mediated a disclosure of supreme value to the

apostles. In Mark’s gospel, generally now taken to be the earliest we have, Jesus is unequivocally regarded as the anointed one of God, the Christ or Messiah, who baptizes with the Holy Spirit, who is accepted by God as Son, who announced with uprecedented 6° Ibid. 373. ©” Ibid. 126.

236 Chnistian Reflections authority the coming of God’s Kingdom and taught its secrets to his disciples, who assumed the authority to forgive sins and to give to his disciples authority to drive out demons.™ He is also represented as assuming a position of supreme personal authority, saying that he would come in glory with the holy angels to judge the world and gather God’s chosen to his presence and that he would sit on the throne of the coming Kingdom. He 1s said to have foreseen his death and resurrection, to have been transfigured in the presence of Moses and Elijah, and to have accepted the role

of the coming Davidic king by the form of his entrance into Jerusalem.®”

Whatever the underlying historical realities may be, the writer of Mark sees Jesus as proclaiming with supreme authority the coming

of a Kingdom in which he himself would be enthroned as king. According to Mark, he even saw his own death as the sealing of a new covenant between God and humanity, and as a ransom to bring humans to God.”? The earliest text of the gospel we have ends with a record that Jesus’ tomb was empty and with a promise

that he would be seen by his disciples in Galilee. It is clear that Mark did not see Jesus as merely a prophet or as a proclaimer of coming judgement. Jesus is represented as the suffering king, chosen by God to announce and to inaugurate the Kingdom with Divine authority (shown by his complete power over disease, demons, and the natural order). Jesus is portrayed as teaching the secrets of God’s promised Kingdom, unknown even to the angels. He cast out the powers of evil and disease. He was raised from death to the presence of God. He promised to come with glory to establish the Kingdom under his personal supervision. The Kingdom of God, the complete rule of God, is to be mediated through the kingship of Jesus, in such a way that when Jesus is given authority as king, it is God who becomes the true ruler of one’s life. Thus the idea of Jesus as king is already incipiently the idea of God ruling in and through a human person, the idea of a man as the mediator of the Divine rule; the later developed notion of incarnation can intelligibly be seen as one development of this central idea. © References are to: Mark 1: 1, 8: 29; 1: 83 I: 113 I: 22, 4: II; 2: 103 3: 15. © Mark 8: 28, 10: 37-40, 13: 27, 14: 62; 8: 31; 9: 43 II: IO. 9 Mark 14: 24; 10: 45.

Christian Reflections 237 But what is the critical historian to make of such claims? If one does not think there is a God; or that God has revealed the Divine purpose to Israel; or that a human being could mediate the rule of God in his own person; then some account in terms of delusion and even deceit is needed. Such accounts are easy to construct. One might first note the difference in the recorded style of Jesus’ teaching in John and the synoptics. In Mark, Jesus teaches in short cryptic parables, meant to conceal the secrets of the Kingdom; and he counsels that his Messianic role should be kept secret. In John, however, he openly states his unity with God the Father in ways that shock his hearers. The most plausible account of this difference

is to say that John is constructing a theological meditation on remembrances of Jesus, putting into Jesus’ mouth statements which

actually reflect a later estimate of his unique relationship to God.

Only after the resurrection could such a meditation have been written. John presents the glorified Christ projected back on to the historical record with an openness almost entirely lacking in the synoptics. But, having said this about John, might one not also say

similar things about Mark? Perhaps, as Albert Schweitzer once held, Jesus preached a coming Son of Man who was not himself, and looked for a political revolution to be brought about by Divine

intervention. Later, when this did not happen, it came to be thought that the coming Son was Jesus himself, who as man had been raised to heaven to wait for the end of all things when he would return to usher in the Kingdom within a generation.” Still later, the Kingdom would be spiritualized and Jesus the apocalyptic prophet would be transformed into the self-conscious Son of God,

always aware of his unity with the Father and even capable of raising himself from the dead by his own Divine power.’” Legendary accounts of miracles and exorcisms would be exaggerated little by

little, until the wonder-working of a charismatic rural healer had become the signs of the Divine omnipotence of the Son of God.

In all this there may be no conscious deceit; only a gradual apotheosis of a human prophet into a Divine Being as the first 1 A. Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical fesus (London: SCM Press, 1981). The third-person references to a future Son of Man are largely in Mark; the firstperson references to Jesus are in Matthew; and one may see a development of interpretation here.

' i As in Athanasius, De Incarnatione 32, p. 63: ‘The saviour has raised his own ody.

238 Christian Reflections expectations of a political revolution changed under pressure of events (or the lack of them) into a perception of the Divine incarnation in the life of Jesus himself. With the inexorable logic of faith, which continually embroiders and exaggerates its claims with each successive retelling, the expectation of a Divine transformation

of the world moved from the hope expressed by Jesus for an imminent Day of the Lord to the hope of the disciples for the expected return of Jesus in glory. As this faded, more stress was placed upon the presence of God in Jesus. At first God was thought to assume Jesus’ humanity at his baptism, his commissioning as Son of God. Then it moved back to his birth, which now became a miraculous transformation in the womb. Finally it was pushed to the beginning of the world itself, when the Word pre-existed from eternity.’> The doctrine of incarnation, on this account, was the final resting-place of a series of increasingly improbable retellings of the Jesus story.

For the critical historian, such an account must be a possible and, if there is no God, even a probable account of the genesis of Christian belief. It is based on the premiss that, unless John’s gospel is literally true, it is no more than a fiction. There 1s another possibility, however: that John’s gospel is a theological presentation

of Christ as the incarnation of the eternal Word, built around remembered traditions but primarily concerned with teaching and making explicit present spiritual truths. Was John right in seeing Jesus as the incarnation of the Word, if Jesus did not say all that John puts into his mouth? He could be right, after all; for the truth of the incarnation does not depend on someone having remembered Jesus’ words exactly, especially when that was not what they were concerned to do. Any theologian who tries to present a picture of

Christ which moves people to commit themselves to him as a disclosure of God will do so from a personal perspective, selecting and explaining whatever basic materials there are in a distinctive way. So one might say that the picture of Jesus as incarnating the eternal Word is precisely such an attempt to evoke a disclosure of

God in a particular cultural situation. It is a way of saying that Jesus is the mediator of the Divine Being and the channel of 73 A particularly good exposition of these possibilities is in: John Bowden, Jesus: The Unanswered Questions (London: SCM Press, 1988); and in Macquarrie, Jesus Christ in Modern Thought.

Chnistian Reflections 239 redemptive Divine action in the world. As the Word 1s the creative and effective will of God bringing new things into being,’* so one

might see the life of Jesus as a creative and effective act of God bringing into being a new spiritual community, the Church. A good way of putting this is to say that ‘the Word becomes flesh’; that is, God’s creative intention is enacted in a human life. Those who believe in God and who have found the presence of

God made real to them through the preaching of the gospel and through their own experience in the community of believers will give authoritative status to the gospel of John. They will do so not viewing it as an accurate historical document, but as an illumuinat-

ing, imaginative, and authentic presentation of Jesus as the expression of God’s redemptive action and the exemplary matrix of God’s continuing action in the Church. The importance of the picture for us is the effectiveness with which it does convey God’s redemptive action, forming a model upon which our lives can be patterned and a channel through which that pattern can be formed

in us. That does not mean the history 1s unimportant. On the contrary, the Johannine icon of Christ, though generated by imaginative reflection in the early Church, 1s created by and patterned upon the historical Jesus with whom the apostles had lived. It was because Jesus had been the effective mediator of God to them that

they could construct upon his remembered life an icon of the Divine love for subsequent generations. One would indeed expect that Mark, too, would present an icon

of Christ, having as its basis a threefold foundation: the contemporaneous Spirit-guided experience of the Church, memories of their teacher Jesus, and visions of the risen Lord. Could the Jesus whom they so depicted have been merely a prophet of the end of

the world whose expectations were cruelly ended by the cross?

Well, he obviously could have been; but if he was, the early believers were mistaken in regarding him as God’s designated king who truly foreshadowed the consummation of all things in God (the

‘end’, or final purpose, of the world) and in thinking that God had vindicated his teaching by raising him from death. Albert Schweitzer’s theory that Jesus preached a Son of Man other than himself is, after all, pure speculation, requiring that Mark misunderstood Jesus’ ministry almost totally. One of the most basic 74 ‘God said, ‘Let there be light”, and there was light’: Gen. I: 3.

240 Christian Reflections features of Jesus’ remembered life is that he taught the imminence

of the Kingdom and he is represented as claiming by word and

deed that he was the designated king. If it 1s true, as I have suggested it is, that such an assumption of the rule of the Kingdom

of God by a man is a claim that God’s rule 1s being mediated in

and through a human person, then this is just another way of representing what John put by saying that in Jesus the Word of God was made flesh. 13. The Principle of Trust

One need not represent the incarnation in terms of Jesus being conscious, as a man, that he was omniscient and omnipotent and

had been eternally pre-existent. That is a view I criticized in a previous book,”° but it is not entailed by an orthodox account at all. Yet some beliefs about the self-consciousness of Jesus are implied by acceptance of him as the Messianic king. He must at least have felt a calling to speak with the authority of God’s anointed Son, to act as the king of the new Israel which God was calling into

being through him, perhaps to offer his life as a sacrifice which would bring about the Kingdom, even seeing his death as a selfsacrificial identification with the Divine love. If he had no such sense of vocation, then the basic beliefs of the apostles about him could not have been true. One may properly ask how Jesus could justifiably have come to believe in such a destiny to be God’s anointed king and the proclaimer of God’s new covenant. To have such an inner certainty of Divine authority, and to be justified in having it, Jesus’ awareness of God must have been intensely vivid and enduring. He would need to have a constant and vivid sense of the presence of God, a sense of utter and undeviating devotion and loyalty to God, and a sense that his words and acts were authentic expressions of the will and purpose of God. Only if such a fairly

constant union of awareness, feeling, and will existed might a human being justifiably come to believe that he or she had the authority to proclaim God’s purpose and enact God’s will in their own life, so as to become a visible focal point of Divine action in the world. ™ K. Ward, A Vision to Pursue (London: SCM Press, 1992). Any reader of that

book will note a much more pronounced incarnational emphasis in the present work. I have become convinced that such an emphasis is necessary and possible, given relatively small amendments of the previous analysis.

Christian Reflections 241 It is not enough to say that the apostles saw God in Jesus, although he was unaware of having any special role. Because of his

acceptance of their total commitment to him as Lord, whom they followed at the cost of everything else, and his teaching of the coming Kingdom, Jesus himself must have believed that he was the emissary of God in a virtually, and perhaps actually, unique way.

Though we do not have access to the consciousness of Jesus, the

apostolic testimony 1s that Jesus was without sin, that he had authority over the powers of evil and disease, and that he assumed

the authority to interpret God’s word and purpose in his own teachings about Torah and in his confident proclamation of the Kingdom. If this testimony is credible, it licenses an even higher evaluation of Jesus’ uniqueness, entailing a claim that there was in his person a unity of awareness, feeling, and will with God which was shared by none of his contemporaries, and, more daringly, by none of the great prophets of old.

One cannot reconstruct a historical life of Jesus behind the gospel records without making a prior decision about whether he was a mistaken prophet who looked vainly for God’s miraculous intervention in history or a genuine mediator of the Supreme Value

and Power, expressed in his context as his call to be King and Saviour (liberator) in the dawning rule of God. If one takes the former view, one is bound to see belief in resurrection as either pure invention or as based on a set of hallucinations, and belief in

the incarnation as a later divinization of a remarkable but very human figure. Suppose, however, that one has a fundamental trust in the witnesses of the apostolic age—because one believes in a God

whose will had been gradually revealed to Israel, and who 1s now known in a more directly personal way through the image of Jesus Christ and the renewing life of the Holy Spirit. Believing that the Divine power is given by the Spirit and that the Divine perfection of love is apprehended in the fourfold icon of Christ to be found in

the New Testament, one will naturally take these icons to be authentic channels of Divine revelation. They might indeed have been quite non-historical, pure imagin-

ative myths conveying general truths about the Divine. They do contain imaginative and mythical elements, as they strive to make memories of Jesus into evocations of the present and eternal Word. But it is in fact part of their content to claim to depict a historical individual in whom God was present and active, in whom humanity

242 Christian Reflections was seen to be united to Divinity throughout the time the apostles

had known him, a unity which was startlingly vindicated at the resurrection, and as a result of which the new community of the Church came into being. This historical claim is ineliminable, since the theological claim is precisely about the historical acts of God. Thus one who accepts these images as authentic disclosures of the Divine is logically bound to accept their rootedness in history and the genuineness of their testimony that ‘in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself’.’° The disciple who has found God in Christ cannot adopt a purely critical—in the sense of suspicious-—— attitude to the New Testament documents. There must rather be a

basic attitude of trust in the general reliability of the witnesses to that original historical person in whom one’s faith 1s grounded.

The adoption of such an attitude by no means destroys one’s credibility as a historian. It only means that one will be disposed to believe the testimony of the writers unless there 1s very good reason not to do so—and of course all historians must trust some testimony, if they are to come to any conclusions about the past at all. This is

not a blind and unquestioning trust; it is open to new understandings of the biblical contexts, genres, and meanings. It is open, in principle, to historical evidence showing that Jesus did not exist,

or was a political rabble-rouser. If such evidence came to light, Christianity would be falsified. It is no weakness of a belief that it might be false. It is, on the contrary, a great strength. If it could not be false, its truth is likely to be wholly vacuous. So Christian faith is historically falsifiable. The Christian 1s rational to assume, however, that it will not be falsified, since God is truly disclosed in the events which the Church proclaims as revelatory of God. Thus one can justifiably assume that the general depiction of Jesus as one who saw himself called to a uniquely authoritative mediating role in

the Divine purpose for Israel is correct. There is no need to speak of a later ecclesiastical divinization of Jesus. That developing doctrine was a spelling-out of the Divine—human unity which was already implicit in the apostles’ acceptance of Jesus’ assumption of

Divine authority. It does not at all imply the absurd belief that Jesus went around saying, ‘I am the second person of the Trinity’. But it does imply the belief that Jesus was conscious of a unity with 7° 2 Cor. 5: I9.

Christian Reflections 243 God and a vocation from God that was apparently quite unique to

him. , The principle of historical criticism cannot be the only her-

meneutic principle for a Christian theologian; for the theologian approaches the Scriptures primarily as mediations of the Divine Word, as witnesses to the self-disclosure of God. This witness contains, as an internal component of its meaning, the testimony that Jesus was in his own person the primary self-disclosive event. However one criticizes the Scriptures, using analogies from religious folklore, background cultural information, or literary analyses, this fundamental witness remains basic. The Christian theologian must

therefore use a principle of trust to balance critical study of the Scriptures. Such a principle cannot overthrow strongly established critical findings; but it can add a very weighty consideration to the assessment of historical probabilities which is an appropriate response to the nature of the documents themselves. For similar reasons the principle of correlation cannot be inter-

preted to mean that no supernatural actions or events can be accepted because of a supposed seamless web of natural causality. For the theist, there is no such seamless web and God is an everpresent spiritual power who may make a causal difference. It would in fact be odd if a claim that God had disclosed the Divine nature

in a human life was not accompanied by reports of supernatural causality. If, by the principle of analogy, the claim is made that God can never act except in ways that are familiar to us, then one must recall that it 1s precisely Jesus’ uniqueness as being absolutely

united to God that is in question. It is hardly to be expected that the subject of such a claim would conform to normal principles of human conduct. After all, what would it be like to be absolutely united to God? I do not suppose many of us have much idea. But it is no strange idea that holiness brings with it paranormal powers; and if any credence is given to that idea, one would expect that a person absolutely united to God in holiness of life would possess such powers, or would mediate Divine powers, in an unparalleled way. So, given the initial supposition that Jesus does mediate the Divine uniquely, one might expect his control of natural forces, his

power over evil, and his insight into the minds of others to be startling and dramatic. A true mediator of Divine power and value

would almost be expected to have paranormal capacities and

244 Christian Reflections humanly heroic virtue. Since the gospels witness to Jesus as the unique mediator of God, it 1s entirely consonant with that claim that they should record the use of paranormal powers. Legendary elements do enter into the gospel records and the tendency of the human mind gradually to amplify supernatural elements is well established by historical studies. Nevertheless, a basic theme of the gospels is that Jesus healed, exorcised, and showed extraordinary insight into the minds of others. Without such claims, any testimony to his unique mediation of Divinity would be lessened. They are

entirely natural implications of a uniquely powerful human mediation of the Divine. The principle of analogy cannot be used to eliminate such paranormal elements from the gospel accounts, when the belief in question—1in a unique supernatural mediation— must lead one to expect precisely such disanalogous behaviour. Even if one can establish the justifiability of a basic trust in the gospel witness, thinkers who follow Lessing and Troeltsch would

still say that the absolute commitment of faith cannot be made to depend upon the uncertainties of history.’’” The simple and sufficient reply is that humans do occasionally have to make absolute (irreversible and wholehearted) commitments (to a vocation, to other people, to a public policy). Such commitments can only be based on probabilities. Religion is not a matter of necessary truths of reason, but of commitment to what one perceives as of com-

manding value. One has to be true to such a perception, even where theoretical certainty is unavailable. In the end, all absolute human commitments are based upon uncertainties. It is clearer to

us than it was to Lessing that to turn from past history to the alleged deliverances of reason or of inner experience is only to turn from one uncertainty to another. What reason tells me is only what seems reasonable to my society or to me. What inner experience reveals depends upon what interpretation I put upon it. When we recall that what we have in the gospels is not a historical record,

but a witness to the Lordship of Jesus, then we may realize that one does not have to reconstruct for oneself by painstaking historical research what really happened thousands of years ago before ”” Lessing’s famous comment that ‘accidental truths of history can never become the proof of necessary truths of reason’; G. E. Lessing, On the Proof of the Spirit and of Power, in H. Chadwick (ed.), Lessing’s Theological Writings (London: A. and C. Black, 1956), 53.

Christian Reflections 245 one can have faith. One has to trust the apostolic witness, that God acted for human salvation in Jesus.

Richard Swinburne has defended what he calls a ‘principle of credulity’—I prefer ‘trust’ to ‘credulity—as a fundamental epistemic principle, without which knowledge would be impossible. ”®

His account in Revelation, however, takes a rather unexpected short cut.’? Having conceded that purely historical work on the New Testament would give only a ‘fairly slender and vague picture’

of Jesus, he concludes that reliable revelation ‘would be totally unobtainable without an independent guarantee of the reliability of interpretation’. One must have some reason for trusting the biblical

witness as genuine. It does not at all follow, however, that one must have an ‘independent guarantee’ of the reliability of particular

interpretations. It might well be enough to have a number of cumulatively strong considerations. Talk of a guarantee seems much too strong for what one typically gets in religion. In any case, what

could constitute such a guarantee for the Bible? Swinburne says that ‘the only remotely plausible such grounds are that it was authenticated by the Church’. Why, it must be asked, should one trust the Church? There are many Christian churches, which disagree among themselves; and to most observers all of them seem to make mistakes fairly often. Supposing, however, that one can correctly identify a genuine, or the genuine, Church, why should one trust what it says? Swinburne says, ‘If God authenticated Jesus’

teaching that the Church would be the vehicle of [his] teaching, he thereby guaranteed that its interpretation would be basically correct.’°°

There is a twofold appeal here; first, to the fact that Jesus founded a Church; second, to the fact that the resurrection occurred, as an authentication of Jesus’ teaching. The vicious circularity of the argument is only too apparent. We only know that we can trust the Church if we believe that Jesus (that is, God) founded the Church. We only know that this (highly contentious) belief is true if we accept that the Bible is trustworthy. Yet we are supposed

to know the Bible is trustworthy because it is guaranteed by a Church which we can trust. It turns out that the Church is not an 78 Richard Swinburne, Faith and Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981). 7? R. Swinburne, Revelation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 120. 8° Tbid. 113.

246 Christian Reflections independent guarantee at all, since its claims to authority and trustworthiness are based upon a particular interpretation of biblical texts, whose trustworthiness is precisely what is in question. Appeal

to the resurrection as evidence of Divine authentication of Jesus’ teaching obviously will not help. All the evidence for the resurrection is in the New Testament, which provides, according to Swinburne, only ‘slender and vague’ evidence on such matters. We

should only trust the resurrection accounts if we trust the Bible. We are supposed to trust the Bible because it is guaranteed by the Church. We can trust the Church because Jesus founded it. And we know that is true, because the resurrection accounts authenticate its truth. From this circle there is no escape.

In my view, Swinburne is not wrong to think the Church 1s important in establishing historical credibility, as are the resurrection and background belief in God. What is wrong 1s the attempt to find one independent guarantee of biblical credibility. There are in fact many reasons inclining one to accept the New Testament as basically reliable. There are present experiences of the Spirit and of the risen Christ, which bring one to a close fellowship with God, and which are patterned on those of the New Testament. There is a

general belief in God, and in the sort of God who guided the Prophets to expect a Messianic Kingdom. There is the insight and wisdom found in the New Testament, with regard to the nature of God’s Kingdom, the goal of human life, and the moral teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. There is the fact that trust in the gospel has produced lives of holiness and altruism through many generations. There is the fact that many early Christians were martyrs for faith, which counts against them being deceivers. There 1s the fact that the gospels are fairly early testimony, often corroborating one another from apparently independent sources. There is the fact that the gospel is proclaimed as a reliable way to liberation from sin and fellowship with God, so that an acceptance of its reliability in this respect entails acceptance of its reliability on the historical facts which are an essential part of its proclamation. All these factors can quite properly lead one to accept a principle of trust in the witness of the Bible to the apprehended acts of God in the life of Jesus. Of course, as we have it in the gospels this witness is imbued with theological reflection, scriptural interpretation, and spiritual exhortation. The New Testament Scriptures spring from a com-

munity of faith and are intended to be a training in spiritual

Christian Reflections 247 perception, not in historical acuteness. They provide a number of icons of Christ, expressing the way in which the Divine love is manifested in a human life. But those icons incorporate a basic testimony to the impact of Jesus’ life on the apostles. Today one cannot become acquainted with the historical Jesus. But one can gain an experience of the risen Christ by reflection upon the gospels and participation in the life of the Church. One can thereby commit

oneself to a trust in the scriptural witness to a past veridical disclosure of God in Jesus. In such circumstances, it 1s perfectly reasonable to affirm the occurrence of historical facts on faith. 14. Events and Interpretations

This, however is precisely what is denied by those like Van A. Harvey who always suspect ‘the falsifying influence of the demand for belief’®! and who insist on the autonomy of historical knowledge

in such a sense that no assessment of historical fact can ever be influenced by faith. It is surely indefensible to hold, however, that even if I trust someone as the source of my moral and spiritual life,

that should make no difference to my trust in their testimony. It seems clear that one who does not believe in God is bound to regard the apostolic testimony as fundamentally misguided, and so to suspect its witness in general. Whereas one who does believe in God and who finds new life in the Christ of John’s gospel, say, 1s bound to accept this Johannine depiction as an authentic spiritual

testimony. This in turn is bound to give a heightened weight to general trust in its reliability, to be put in the balance against any principle of sceptical doubt that a historian may feel. Faith will not always falsify; it may be the condition of a true perception of historical meaning and significance, if indeed God acts self-revealingly in historical situations.

Harvey accepts that faith is concerned with ‘a way of talking about the value or significance of the. . . secular realm of events’.*”

This naturally entails that there are events which have a specific significance; that is, such events actually occur and they really do have the significance ascribed to them by the believer. It is not at all clear, however, whether Harvey really thinks this or not. He 31 Van A. Harvey, The Historian and the Believer (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966), III. 82 Ibid. 234.

248 Christian Reflections says that it is ‘one kind of problem to ascertain how and why the

crucifixion occurred; quite another to see in it an event which discloses the love of God’.®* This is so only in the sense that a Jewish historian might accept that the crucifixion occurred because of Jesus’ alleged Messianic pretensions without seeing in it a Divine disclosure—historical assessment is not dependent on theological

belief. However, if an event is a Divine disclosure, it must be appropriate for such a disclosure—it must, in the Christian case, be the freely accepted death of an innocent man who took himself to

be, and who really was, obeying God’s will. If it is not, the Christian is mistaken in reading this significance into the event. The Christian perception is dependent upon the historical facts being of a certain sort—appropriate to bear revelatory significance. The truth of some historical claims is a necessary condition of the

truth of the theological claim. It is vital to distinguish this logical point, that the occurrence of some historical events is a necessary

condition of certain kinds of theological claim, from the quite different epistemic claim that the historical events must be independently establishable, and thus form good historical evidence for

the theological belief. All that the logical point involves is that history can in principle falsify faith; but since that is true of any factual belief at all, it is hardly worrying to the theologian. On Harvey’s account so far, then, the truth of Christian faith does entail the truth of some historical claims. Harvey often speaks as if this were not so, however. Following Richard Niebuhr, he sees a ‘paradigm event’ as one which gives a new perspective on all events.** ‘A pattern is abstracted from the event and becomes... formalised parable’;®° ‘a significant pattern has been worked loose from the event.’*° The parable works loose from the event and has the function of expressing liberating insight into the trustworthiness of being. But if the parable has its force and function in challenging one to an insight into the trustworthiness of being, does the historical origin really matter? Harvey’s answer to this is ambiguous. He distinguishes the actual

Jesus, who is of course not accessible to us, from the historical 83 Van A. Harvey, 237.

84 H. Richard Niebuhr, The Meaning of Revelation (New York: Macmillan, 1946), 93. 85 Harvey, The Historian and the Believer, 257. 86 Ibid. 258.

Christian Reflections 249 Jesus, or what can be recovered by historical study from the New Testament documents. Then there is the perspectival image which

is the selective memory-impression of Jesus around which the gospels were constructed, which maybe “does have some real correlation with the historical Jesus and the actual Jesus’.®’ Finally

there is the biblical Christ, the theological interpretation of this memory-impression, including doctrines of pre-existence, birth narratives, many miracle stories, the resurrection accounts, and so forth. Harvey does think a historical Jesus is recoverable from the documents— including the ministry in Galilee, the baptism by John,

eating with outcasts, the crucifixion, and the basic outlines of teaching. These accounts, he says, are ‘unintelligible unless we assume that they represent an authentic tradition’.** However, the healing miracles, the sinlessness and Messianic consciousness of

Jesus, and perhaps his apocalyptic teaching too, belong to the construct of the biblical Christ and are thus legendary. So he does think that a historical Jesus can be reconstructed with a good degree of agreement among critical historians. Jesus was a

prophet who called people to trust God wholly, who ate with outcasts, and who was crucified. One is reminded of the six things that Ed Sanders thinks we can know with ‘virtual certainty’ about Jesus.®? But what is the religious point of such a historical figure?

The blunt truth is that most of the things ascribed to him in the gospels as we have them are probably false—that he was sinless, that he promised to reign in glory in the Kingdom, that he was raised from death, that he performed miracles, and that he saw his own death as a ransom for sin. When we cut away this ‘biblical Christ’, what is left seems almost totally uninteresting religiously— a prophet who predicted an end of the world which did not come, whose mission ended in death, and who was totally misinterpreted by his followers within a generation of that death. Is that a figure of great religous importance? One could solve the problem by saying that Jesus is not of any particular importance. It is the biblical picture which is important. 8” Ibid. 267. 88 Ibid. 268. 89 E. P. Sanders, Fesus and Fudaism (London: SCM Press, 1985), 11. The six items are: Jesus was baptized by John; he preached and healed in Galilee; he called

disciples (probably twelve); he confined his ministry to Israel; he engaged in controversy about the Temple; and he was crucified by the Romans.

250 Christian Reflections Harvey says, ‘faith does not depend on getting behind the Biblical picture of Christ’,”’ and even that ‘the content of faith can as well be mediated through a historically false story’ as through a true one, since the important message is that God is gracious, can be

trusted, and that life has transcendent significance; and that is conveyed by the picture.

But now it transpires that the historical Jesus is simply the occasion, the catalyst, which happened to give rise to the Christimage. That image henceforth lives by its own power; it has indeed floated loose from its historical moorings. Frankly, it does not matter at all what the historical Jesus was like. It is the picture by which we live, and which must be judged by its present power to illuminate our lives and bring us liberation. There are, Harvey

says, ‘two kinds of certitude; that the actual Jesus was as the perspectival image,...and that the image does illumine our experience’.”! ‘Faith finds its certitude...in the viability of the image for relating one to present reality.’”* So, while the historian can discover the actual Jesus, that is irrelevant to faith and is not at all the basis of faith. ‘No remote historical event’, he says, ‘can, as such, be the basis for a religious confidence about the present.’”°

This is a fatally ambiguous statement. True, no event which excludes consideration of any supernatural element, any disclosure of

God, can be the basis for a belief that such a disclosure has occurred. But if the real significance of an event lies precisely in its

mediation of a Divine self-disclosure, then one only understands truly what that event is when one sees it as a religious disclosure. Then it can be the basis for a religious confidence. Events do have

an intrinsic connection with faith, if faith is a faith that God is really disclosed in events. For then faith must be an interpretation of events, presupposing that they really happened. It must be the

case that a plausible providential interpretation can be given of those events. This situation is not clearly expressed by saying that faith is presupposed to a religious interpretation of events,”* as if

the faith exists before the events. Faith 1s a particular (for the believer, correct) interpretation of certain events. So 1t presupposes

the events and consists in an interpretation of them which may °0 Harvey, The Historian and the Believer, 280.

7! Ibid. 282. ** Ibid. 283. 93 Thid. 282. 4 Thid.

Christian Reflections 251 modify considerably any preceding beliefs about God one may have

had. What secular history on its own does not provide is the general preparedness to interpret events providentially, which may

arise out of a present belief in a benevolent God. Prior religious belief will affect one’s interpretation of data; but reflection on that

data may in turn considerably modify one’s prior belief—as the crucifixion surely did. It is thus clear that considerations of historical plausibility are much more central to Christian belief in a historically acting God than Harvey seems to allow. 15. Faith and History

All this is in marked contrast to Harvey’s own stress that ‘the Christian faith...is the confidence that Jesus’ witness is a true one’.”> Why should Jesus’ witness, historically speaking, be of any

concern to Harvey? What matters is the witness of the picture; whatever Jesus may have thought or done 1s irrelevant. In any case, what does he mean by ‘Jesus’ witness’? Harvey’s language about God is exceedingly vague. He speaks of ‘a new possibility of selfunderstanding’, of ‘trust in that last power that is said to. . . sustain and limit men’.”° He says that ‘faith is confidence in the nature of

being’,’’ and speaks of trust in the graciousness of God, the ‘acceptance of life as gift and responsiblity’.”®

Even though it is vague, this characterization of faith does have some content. Being must have a certain character if it is sensible to

be confident in it; if it sustains and places responsibility upon humans. What must Being be like, if it is trustworthy? Do specific consequences not follow if, as the Christian picture suggests, Being is lovingly concerned with the weak and oppressed? If the whole picture is not to be wholly vacuous, then Being must be such that

suffering and evil are not the final word, such that love in some

sense triumphs, that trust will be confirmed by what actually happens to people. It is senseless to trust in Being if Being is utterly indifferent to the fate of human beings. Trust is appropriate only if moral effort is not in vain, if the tragic defeat of goodness by indifference is not the final word, if goodness is not defeated. But what is it for goodness not to be defeated? It is empty to talk of the nobility of self-sacrifice in a universe which is wholly indif-

°° Ibid. 274. °° Ibid. 271. 7 Thid. 282. °8 Ibid. 280.

252 Christian Reflections ferent to that nobility, which treats it as on a par with the most impetuous arrogance. If one trusts Being, this must minimally mean that, despite appearances, good will triumph. The witness of Jesus is that good will triumph so that Being is trustworthy, gracious, and deserving of our total commitment. How is this shown in his teachings and life, if his teaching that the Kingdom would come immediately was false and if his life ended in crucifixion? Harvey writes that the question ‘“Is God gracious?”’’ is raised and answered by the crucifixion’.”’ It is certainly raised by the unjust death of an innocent man; but if crucifixion is the end, the only answer it gives is that justice is mocked; that Being is not to be trusted; that, as A. Schweitzer said, Jesus turned the wheel of fate and was crushed by it.!°° The case is quite different if Jesus’ life

1s vindicated by the resurrection and his teaching of the Kingdom is vindicated by the outpouring of the Spirit in the new community of the Church. It is only if the resurrection 1s actual that the life of a crucified man can show, not just that self-sacrifice has a certain tragic, useless nobility, but that Being itself is to be trusted, since

death, however cruel, is not the end. As Harvey himself says, religion has a ‘concern for beatitude and fulfilment’.!°! There needs

to be an eschatalogical element to faith, an element which makes room for the vindication of the weak and suffering. So at least one element of the ‘biblical Christ’ (the resurrection) must be true of the historical Jesus if the witness of the picture itself is that Being is trustworthy. Otherwise the picture is false, mere wishful thinking and not rooted in any objective disclosure at all.

At this point the central, fatal, weakness of Harvey’s position becomes clear. The picture of the biblical Christ 1s essentially a picture in which identification with the outcast and a call to total trust in God does not find its termination in a criminal’s death. Rather, that complete identification with human alienation results in the glory of resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God.

The earliest Christian proclamation was not the tragedy of the cross, but the risen Lordship of Christ. In Harvey’s account, the most obvious and important feature of early Christian belief has disappeared; that is, that Jesus has been raised to the glory of °° Harvey, 273. 100 Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Ffesus (London: SCM Press, 1981), 369. 101 Harvey, The Historian and the Believer, 264.

Christian Reflections 253 the Divine throne, where all humanity can be united in him. Instead, one has left only a teaching that God 1s gracious, that ‘his sovereignty appears as weakness’,!©” that ‘we must trust him utterly’.

This teaching now has no foundation; for Jesus is a man just like others, with no special authority to know these things, no deliverance from the usual human condition of confusion and uncertainty. How could anyone as normal as that have any right to be taken as a supreme authority who puts before us an ultimate choice for or against God? In the Hebrew Bible, Moses did so; and it 1s made clear that his authority derives from his unique knowledge of God, from knowing God ‘face to face’. In Jesus, a greater prophet than Moses is said to be present. How could a man have such unique and direct knowledge of God’s nature, commands, and ultimate purposes, unless he had a uniquely direct acquaintance with God? If he had not, we need not listen to him. If he had, then we are committed to beliefs about his character and knowledge of God. Yet Harvey claims that Jesus’ person is quite unimportant for faith. The Christian message is complete ‘without any implicit or explicit

reference to Jesus’ person, sinlessness or existential selfhood’;’” ‘The psychological question is an irrelevant one, just as 1s the predication of sinlessness.’ That means that Jesus could have been a sinful, deceitful, arrogant, and obtuse fanatic, and it would not have made the slightest difference to the gospel. If that is so, then the biblical Christ has severed all connection with history, and one must ask why one should accept the biblical picture when so many other religious

pictures are available. The biblical picture not only looks like wishful thinking; it actually claims to depict the character and role

of the historical Jesus. If it does not in fact do so, it must stand convicted of falsehood from the first. That is hardly a recommen-

dation of a picture which is meant to illuminate all human life. Harvey keeps returning to an older picture, according to which the disciples saw in Jesus ‘the disclosure of God’s intention for human life’.1°° But if they truly saw that in him, he must at least have lived

in the way that God intended. He could not have been a thief, murderer, or deceiver. The question of the authenticity of their perception involves questions about Jesus’ personality and motives: 102 Ibid. 273. 103 Ibid. 274. 104 Tbid. 273. 105 Tbid.

254 Christian Reflections was he truly loving, hating none, without lust or greed? If not, he did not truly disclose God’s intention for human life. But if so, this

entails matters of historical fact, of the hardest kind of all to establish on historical grounds, matters about a person’s inner character and motives. If one retains the idea of revelation as interpretation of event, and if one accepts that some interpretations are appropriate and others are not, then beliefs about the character of Jesus are entailed by acceptance that he discloses God. In other words, some historical beliefs are not establishable by critical historical study, but are entailed by faith. To put it bluntly, the claim to sinlessness—or at the very least astounding goodness—is not _ establishable by historical research, but is nonetheless entailed by acceptance that Jesus is rightly interpreted as the disclosure of the Divine intention for human life.

The critical historian, according to Harvey, will assume that there is a natural tendency to exaggerate or invent the miraculous, as a proof of Jesus’ divinity—this is shown from the existence of

the apocryphal gospels and from the history of other religions. There will also be a tendency to invent fulfilments of Old Testament prophecy and to apply Hellenistic God-man themes to the primitive

Jesus-material. The authentic elements are thus those we get by eliminating all signs of such tendencies. But now it has been decided in advance that Jesus can only be seen as a preacher to the outcasts

who was killed; the principle of analogy has been applied to the full, and Jesus must now be seen as rather like the best preachers and social reformers whom we know in our contemporary world. The problem with this form of argument is that such preachers are not usually taken to be disclosures of the Divine intention for

human life; indeed, they usually point to another as such a disclosure. The whole meaning of Jesus’ life, as presented in the biblical picture, is that it is the fulfilment of prophecy and appeared

with a startlingly unique authority which led to belief in the Lordship of Jesus within a very short time. Of course this could have been a mistaken assessment; but if it was not—if the biblical picture itself 1s witness to an authentic Divine disclosure in and through Jesus—then biblical prophecies will be fulfilled in his life and the healing and forgiving power of God will be manifested in

his person. Thus a historian who accepts Jesus as an authentic disclosure of God will not discount accounts of miracles and prophetic fulfilments as would an atheist. The logic of the situation is

Christian Reflections 255 that fulfilments of prophecy and miracles will seem quite natural; and though critical faculties must still operate, the whole balance of historical probabilities will shift strongly in favour of reliable

witness—without discounting the presence of later theological reflection.

In sum, the following fundamental objections must be made to any account like Harvey’s: first, that the most important feature of the earliest Christian proclamation has disappeared, the Lordship of the person of Jesus. Second, any eschatalogical hope has disappeared, any real belief in a vindication for the poor of the earth. Third, the biblical picture of Christ is itself discredited by the fact that it includes so many wholly false assertions about miracles and about the self-understanding of Jesus. Fourth, Harvey regards the sinlessness or moral perfection of Jesus as irrelevant to his message, whereas such perfection is necessary if he is to be truly seen as the realization of God’s intention for human life. Fifth, Jesus loses any uniquely privileged teaching authority if he does not have a unique

and direct Knowledge of the Divine nature and will. Sixth, the claim that Jesus’ personality is irrelevant to faith fails to see that the Divine disclosure in him is false unless he had a certain character,

unless his life had a Divine source and a Divine validation which alone can make it truly ‘the disclosure of God’s intention for human life’ .1°°

16. The Presence of the Past

I am not simply opposing a more orthodox account of Jesus to Harvey’s liberal account. I am accusing Harvey’s view, and any like it, of internal incoherence, of a failure to see what is entailed by a commitment to the biblical picture of Christ as a theological reflection upon a real and authentic self-disclosure of God in history.

One could try to accept the story of Jesus as pure myth, for the sake of the truths about God it is supposed to show. The trouble is

that those truths include the claim that God acts in redemptive ways in history. The Christian myth has an internal relation to history. If one accepts the myth, one must accept the history, at least in a general sense. Of course the biblical picture 1s a reflection and the work of biblical scholars must be carefully digested. There is a danger that my argument may be taken to prove too much—the 106 Harvey, the Historian and the Believer.

256 Christian Reflections total inerrancy of Scripture in every detail. That is not what I am

suggesting. I am asking what is required by an assent to the fundamental authenticity of Christian revelation, and pointing out that this will include some assent to particular historical truths not establishable independently by critical historians. That being said, one needs to do what Harvey recommends, a detailed case-by-case study of the documents. It will be quite clear that the stories of the

three wise men, of the raising of Lazarus, of the dead walking around Jerusalem at the time of the resurrection, and of the crucifixion, are not all of a piece, as regards their historical credibility. The need for sensitive historical judgement does not disappear for

believers. It is only that the principle of trust will change the balance of probabilities, particularly with regard to the fundamental character of those testimonies upon which human salvation is said

to depend. One must note carefully and in detail the invaluable textual studies which have transformed our view of the biblical documents in the last two hundred years. But one must also take note of the points at which non-theistic presuppositions enter into historical criticism and begin to undermine the Christian witness to the Lordship of Christ. If Harvey in effect severs the historical Jesus from the biblical

Christ so completely, it may well be asked why he retains an interest in the historical Jesus at all. One finds the answer to this question in his suggestion that the story of a crucified rebel who was a human prophet may be a more powerful mediator of trust in God to the modern world than the myth of a pre-existent, atoning, risen Son of God. That, however, is where his approach seems to me wholly unconvincing. Why should anyone today be interested in the highly disputed events of the life of a failed Jewish prophet some thousands of years ago? I agree that they will not be interested, either, in an incredible story about a heavenly being who comes to earth, pays a terrible price to save everyone who

hears about it from hell, and then returns to sit on a heavenly throne until the world, quite soon, comes to an end. However what

may be of supreme interest is the claim that there is a Supreme Reality of wisdom, compassion, and bliss. It shares in the suffering

of creatures and wills to bring their earthly lives into union with itself. In that union, which 1s beyond earthly existence, their suffering will be used to shape a future of overwhelming worth. The Christian gospel is that the creative Word which is the eternal

Christian Reflections 257 wisdom of the Supremely Real has shown its nature as redemptive love, its sharing in human suffering and its ability to transcend evil

and death in the life, death, and resurrection of the man Jesus of Nazareth. That man 1s the one in whom the eternal Word manifests its nature in a comprehensible way and through whom it mediates

its power to unite humans to the Divine Life as they respond to this Divine self-manifestation.

This is not merely a remote past event; but neither is it a quite unhistorical picture of an unhistorical God. For the believer, the

Word which was present in Jesus is also made present in the preaching of the gospel and the sacrament of his flesh and blood. It would be absurd if this uniting of a finite humanity to the Divine happened at one time in history and then was forgotten, or became progressively less certain as time removed it further into the past.

There must be some way, if this account is to be believable, in which the Divine self-disclosure and the reconciliation of humanity

and Divinity (the atonement) is extended throughout the whole world for the future. The claim that incarnation happened at a particular time and place stands opposed to the idea that the Divine

must be available equally at every moment to every person. For Christianity, God acts in a particular historical way which introduces

into human history a new reality, embodying and then extending and carrying forward that particular act until it changes the process of history itself. That reality is the Church, the community of the Spirit which Jesus promised and gave, the temporal foreshadowing of the eternal Kingdom which Jesus himself proclaimed and in-

augurated. The Church has its true being in making present at many times and places that primal Divine act of self-manifestation and reconciliation. The central Christian claim is that there is in the world a form of communal life whose function is to create a new human community in which can be made present, through preaching and sacraments, the primal self-manifestive and redemptive act of God. One can see the life of Jesus, as the Church Fathers did, as the beginning of a process of the divinization of the finite world; whereby finite beings ascend to a self-conscious acceptance of the Divine presence and power in a new and living way.!°’ If it 1s asked whether Jesus introduced any new and distinctive 197 This notion of theopoiesis is found, e.g., in Athanasius, Vita Antonii, in J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, xxvi. 837 ff.

258 Christian Reflections feature of religion, one can point to the idea of the Church as the Body of Christ, to the birth of a community which sees itself as born of and guided by the Spirit, as making present the pattern of the life of Jesus, as that was understood by the apostolic community.

There is no parallel to this in other religious traditions. The selfgiving of the life of God does not come to all in the same way, by a sort of unchanging Divine offer. Since it is truly a gift, it is the result of a particular giving, in a specific way at specific times. And it grows in the world by a continuation of this giving, which is the mission of the Church: the making-present of the self-giving of God

through the interior activity of the Spirit, patterned on the icon of Jesus the Christ. This is a present possibility, not the proclamation of things that happened long ago and far away. Yet it must refer to a real, historical, particular originative act of Divine self-giving if there is to be real talk of gift at all. D. INCARNATION AS REVELATION

17. Divine Incarnation and Human Freedom

In this Part I am seeking to develop a Christian view of revelation

as a historical self-manifestation of the Divine. I first sought to show the importance of history in general to the Christian idea of God. Then I investigated the question of what sort of authority is to be ascribed to the Bible, especially the New Testament, the foundation document of Christian faith. I suggested that it should be seen primarily as a witness to Divine self-revealing activity. I also argued that one can be justified in accepting the general historical testimony of the Bible on grounds of faith, without doing violence to proper historical method. The way is now prepared for the final and most important task of this Part, the exposition of the incarnation of God in Jesus, as the central revelatory act of God. If Christian belief in incarnation is to be plausible, there must be a good reason why there should be just one mediation of the Divine

in this way, in and through a human person. In the preceding sections I suggested that this reason is to be found in the history of

Israel as a history of God’s developing self-disclosure within a prophetic tradition. Jesus is unique in his cultural and historical placing, so that he can at once fulfil and radically change Messianic expectations and act as a transformative point at which the Jewish tradition is universalized and internalized. He does not have to be

Christian Reflections 259 thought of as superior in intelligence or inherent human capacities

to every other human who has ever lived. Newton was a better mathematician and Mozart a better musician. Jesus’ uniqueness lies largely in the uniqueness of his historical situation. Yet his personal character cannot be irrelevant to his unique historical calling. His

Messianic kingship is not a role that anyone, of any character, could take on. In particular, his awareness of and devotion to God must have been particularly intense and his conformity to the will of God must have been complete if the apostolic witness to him as the mediator of God is to be justifiable. One can certainly conceive of this as a human possibility, though one unlikely to be realized in the highest degree, given human ignorance, uncertainty, selfish or merely irrational passion, and weakness of will.

It is not, however, a happy accident that this properly human possibility is realized in Jesus. Nor can one plausibly think of God

as hoping that someone would show the necessary devotion and obedience when the time was right. The history of Israel is the history of a series of Divine initiatives which aim to relate humans more closely to God. As the prophets spoke ‘the word of the Lord’,

they were touched and transformed by that word, at least in part and for a while. The prophets stood in a tradition which encouraged and trained them to be prayerfully related to God; to cultivate the

capacity for poetic utterance and the gift of discerning the times.

That tradition provided them with the cultural and conceptual resources which enabled a calling from God to be heard and acknowledged, and which provided generally accepted criteria for the

authentic hearing of such a call. As faithful Israelites tried to live by Torah and to become free of the distortions of self-interest and partiality, the living wisdom of God could be formed within them, making their lives, in outstanding cases, almost embodiments of Torah. It was in such a long tradition of preparation that the ideal could be framed of a person who would know God face to face, as Moses had for a while; who would love God without deviation, as Torah taught and to some degree helped to make possible; and who would embody perfectly the demands of God in his life, as the

saints came near to doing. | But if such an ideal was to be embodied in a human person, he

or she would need to be liberated by Divine power from ignorance, passion, and weakness, being given a knowledge of God undimmed

by sin and a moral power unweakened by selfish passion. Only

260 Christian Reflections from such a position of freedom from evil could the spiritual reality

of God be discerned without distortion. When a human mind is supremely attuned to the Supreme Good, and when the conceptual

tradition enables an adequate image of such attunement to be framed, then God 1s able to disclose his presence and power through

such a mind in an authoritative manner. In this way, a perfected human life in an appropriately formed cultural tradition might naturally be the vehicle of Divine self-revelation. For it would become, precisely in its freely creative acts, an expression of the Creative Mind which is the only fully substantial reality, seeking to

draw relatively autonomous creatures into dynamic relationship with itself. But how can the existence of such a perfect human life, perfectly attuned to the reality of Cosmic Mind, be made intelligible? When the idea of human perfection is deployed in Buddhism, appeal can be made to the principle of rebirth, and one can account for moral

perfection as an achievement over many past lives of moral and spiritual development. In that case, of course, it 1s possible that there may be many Buddhas, many enlightened beings. In fact .

there are, though their occurrence is so rare as only to occur perhaps once in every hundred thousand years.'°® Such an appeal to progress over many lives cannot be made 1n the Semitic tradition.

For that tradition, perfection is seen not so much as a human achievement as a gift of God. Yet it seems odd to think of God simply making someone perfect, as though they had no moral choice in the matter. That would appear to undermine the element

of human freedom and responsibility which is such a marked feature of the Hebrew tradition. A stress on human individual freedom seems to make a doctrine of incarnation much harder to accept, in its traditional form. For the classical view, developed by Athanasius and the Church Fathers, the Word assumed a human nature to itself. That nature was fully human. It had to be; for, as Gregory Nazienzen said, ‘That which he [Christ] has not assumed, he has not healed.’!°? If any part of 108 “Buddhas appear as rarely as a flower on the Udumbara tree, one only from age to age, with immense intervals between’: Nagarjuna, Mahaprajnaparamitashastra, 93b, in: E. Conze, Buddhist Scriptures (London: Penguin, 1959), 213. 109 Gregory Nazienzen, Epistle 101, trans. C. G. Browne and J. E. Swallow, in Edward Hardy (ed.) Christology of the Later Fathers (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954), 218.

Christian Reflections 261 human nature is not assumed by God, then it is not united to Divinity. Nevertheless there is only one subject which possesses all

the essential-kind properties of human nature, and that subject 1s the Word of God. There is no distinct human subject of consciousness and action. The human nature 1s, as Cyril of Alexandria put it, anhypostatos, not inhering in a human subject. Jesus 1s fully human simply by having all the essential-kind human properties possessed

by the Word. For much modern thought, however, an essential part of being human is the existence of a subject of experience and

action, a self, which is the heart of individuality. In that subject resides the power of reasoning and, even more important, moral choice. Each human soul has a basic moral choice for good and evil, for or against God; and at Judgement Day each soul will be called to give an account of itself.

The Church did conclude, after much deliberation, that Jesus had, or was, a human soul;'’° his capacity of deliberation and choice was not simply replaced by the Logos, as Athanasius arguably thought. But now the difficulty emerges with full force. If Jesus, as

fully human, must have possessed the capacity for free moral choice, it must have been possible for him to sin. It could not be guaranteed that he would be morally perfect. Moreover, since he could have chosen for or against God, he could not always have been identical with God—God cannot coherently be said to reject himself or even be able to reject himself! Therefore a strong view of moral freedom as an essential property of humanity seems to conflict

with a classical view of incarnation, as the assumption of human nature by a necessarily perfect and self-identical God. If this idea of incarnation is impossible, it will be difficult to speak of Jesus as the self-manifestation of God, and therefore of his life as a distinctive revelation of the nature and purpose of God. At precisely this point, however, Christian faith qualifies belief in a full moral freedom of every human individual. Jews and Muslims hold that each human being is born with a good impulse and an evil

impulse, and is able to follow either. So each person can be held wholly responsible for their own acts at the Last Day.**’ Christians, however, hold a doctrine of ‘original sin’, which entails that indi‘10 At the Council of Constantinople, CE 681.

ll Thus, for instance, Koran, 6: 164: ‘Every soul draws the meed of its acts on none but itself: no bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another.’

262 Christian Reflections viduals are not free to choose either good or evil, starting from a neutral position between the two. On the contrary, every human choice is inclined to evil; and Jesus’ uncompromising moral teaching

only reinforces the impossibility of obeying the requirements of God’s law. The human will inevitably inclines to evil and the human mind is estranged from knowledge and love of God. The picture of the world that the New Testament presents is more like some Buddhist views than like classical Judaism or Islam. The human world is inevitably bound to desire and suffering, and all are enmeshed in its toils. The difference from Buddhism is that individuals are not suffering the consequences of their own past karma; they are involved in a world dominated by the powers of ignorance and passion which past ages have bequeathed to them and from which they cannot escape.!? If that is so, however, what is the importance of human freedom, since it can never bring us to perfection or full knowledge of God?

In a corrupted world, repentance and the effort to strive after goodness are possible, even though they can never be completely realized. But that might still be thought futile if there was really no escape from the world of ignorance and desire. It is at this point that Christian belief asserts that there is an escape—not an escape made possible by human effort, but by the power of Divine love. For classical Christianity, Jesus expresses the power of Divine love entering a world of distorted vision and corrupted wills. He cannot

therefore be thought to have a will exactly like that of fallen humanity, inevitably inclined to weakness and passion. There 1s something human Jesus does not have—a will corrupted by evil. Verbally, this seems like a contradiction of Gregory’s principle. But it is obviously impossible for God to assume corruption and

evil, properties incompatible with Divinity. If God is to unite human nature to Divine nature, there must be a possible human nature which is uncorrupted by evil. And, of course, Christians are committed to the belief that there is such a human nature, since the redeemed in heaven are not corrupt, yet are properly human. One is logically committed, therefore, to the principle that God cannot

assume properties incompatible with being united to the Divine nature. But it is not easy to say what these are. For example, it may seem that ignorance and weakness are so incompatible; yet Jesus '* Rom. 7: 21-5.

Christian Reflections 263 was indisputably ignorant of some things!!? and weak in his humanity.'!* However, on reflection it can be seen that the possession of finite knowledge and power are essential to being human. So even humans united completely to God would not be omniscient

or omnipotent, though one might expect them to share to some degree in Divine knowledge and power—for example, to have gifts

of prophetic discernment and spiritual power not possessed by other human lives. It might be readily agreed that a corrupt will is not assumable by God. Before unity with God is effected, even a finite human will must be wholly and freely conformable to the Divine will. Similarly, a will that, though not previously corrupt, actually performs an evil act is not assumable by God. By a natural extension, a will which 1s

and remains, as it were, neutrally poised between good and evil cannot be assumed by God, since there is a fair chance that it will perform an evil act; yet this would be incompatible with such assumption. One cannot plausibly think of Jesus being God in-

carnate for thirty years and then ceasing to be so when, as 1s possible on such a view, he commits an evil act. It cannot be thought to be in Jesus’ moral power to cause the incarnation to be destroyed, after it had been going quite well for some time. Having been assumed, such a neutral will would no longer have the real possibility of performing an evil act. If a human will is assumed by God, it will no longer be able to commit evil, though it may be said

to have that capacity in isolation from God. Thus it 1s that the redeemed in heaven will never fall into evil, though they might have done in their earthly lives. Does this mean the will ceases to be fully human when assumed? I do not think so; for no one holds that a will unable to escape evil

is not fully human. Why then should a will unable to turn from God be conceived as not fully human? After all, a human will makes choices in the light of its knowledge, desires, and intentions. If such a will knows God with absolute clarity and desires to love God above all things, its choices, made in that light, will be impeccable. Such a will is unlike fallen human wills. It is also unlike any Adamically neutral will, unfallen but capable of falling, since the Adamic will has not been assumed by God. So Irenaeus 113° Mark 13: 32.

14 Mark 14: 33.

264 Christian Reflections states, ‘The Word... having become united with the ancient sub-

| stance of Adam’s formation, rendered man living and perfect, receptive of the perfect Father.’!!? One must think of the unfallen human will, symbolized by Adam, as not yet united to Divinity— the Genesis story puts this point symbolically by clearly stating that

the tree of eternal life, of a life united to God, had not yet been tasted.'!°© Adam, we might say, was in a probationary state, capable

of being assumed into God (of possessing eternal life) but also capable of falling from God into the way of death. The figure of Adam in this sense represents the natural capacities of human nature, considered in isolation from their sustaining ground in God. All of us are in a fallen state, a state of alienation from and Opposition to the Divine will. Jesus alone, by the grace of God, 1s

both uncorrupt and united to Divinity in such a way that he can and will naturally express the Divine love in his human choices. Does this mean that Jesus is not morally free? The difficulty here

is that ‘moral freedom’ can be construed in two quite different ways. If ‘to be morally free’ means ‘to be capable of sinning’, then

he was not morally free. But if it means, ‘able to decide in full knowledge of the facts and in accordance with his innermost desires,

without external constraint’, then he was morally free. Thomas Morris, in an admirable discussion of the point, argues that no more is essential to being a properly human will.'!” Unfortunately, Morris then complicates the issue by requiring that, since Jesus was tempted!!® he must have believed he could sin: ‘the full accessible belief-set of his earthly mind did not rule out the possibility of his sinning’.!!? This move is not logically required, since someone can tempt me (can ask me to do evil in order to gain a great good) when I have no inclination to do as he asks at all. If it 1s asked what the

point of such temptation could be, it seems plausible that the gospel temptation story simply outlines choices Jesus envisaged (proving his mission by miracles or by worldly success) but rejected.

There is no need to suppose that Jesus in some way agonized over 11> Trenaeus, Against Heresies v. 1 (Ante-Nicene Christian Library; Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark), 1867 ff. 116 Gen. 3: 22-3. 117 Thomas V. Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate (New York: Cornell University Press, 1986), 122 ff.

18 Luke 4: 2. 119 Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate, 148.

Christian Reflections 265 the choice; and early theological tradition accepted that Jesus was impeccable. !7°

Morris’s unnecessary move lands him in deep water, since on this view Jesus believed it was possible for him to sin, when it was not, since the ‘centre of causal and cognitive powers’ in Jesus must be the Word of God itself.'*? Thus Jesus was mistaken about his own nature, and necessarily did not know that he was the Word of God—since such knowledge would have convinced him that he was impeccable. For Morris, God directly acts in Jesus, but Jesus, qua

human mind, does not know this is so, and believes himself (wrongly) to be a moral agent capable of sin. This does not seem a wholly satisfactory notion of incarnation, involving necessary error on Jesus’ part (and therefore on God’s part, even though it is God

as incarnate in Jesus who errs). It 1s simpler to say that Jesus’ unique unity with God rendered him incapable of sinning, yet fully free to act in the light of his own knowledge and desires. One does

not need to ascribe ignorance of his own nature to Jesus. Nor does one need to see God as the centre of causal powers in Jesus, depriving Jesus of free human subjectivity. On this account, the incarnation of God in a free human person is fully intelligible, and allows for the possibility of a Divine self-manifesting revelation in a human life. 18. An Enhypostatic Christology

The model of incarnation outlined here is of an indissoluble unity between the human mind and will of Jesus and the being of God.

This unity will in the end be, as Cyril of Alexandria said, ‘an

ineffable and inconceivable’ union!?? of the Word and a human

body and soul; but it may be misleading to think of it as the possession of the essential properties of such a body and soul by the Word as sole subject.

The Word of God, though no doubt rightly construed as a hypostasis or individual of some sort, is not likely to be an individual

of the same sort as any human person. Considering that the Word 120 « Arius] had the audacity to preach in church what no one before him had ever

suggested, namely that the Son of God...as possessing free will was capable of virtue and vice’: H. E. Sozomen, i. 15. 3, in J. Stevenson (ed.), A New Eusebius (London: SPCK, 1957), 341. 21 Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate, 162. 122 Cyril of Alexandria, Ep. iv, in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, Ixxvii. 44-50.

266 Christian Reflections is truly God, and that God only possesses properties in a very stretched sense, being in its own nature infinite and beyond the powers of human comprehension, the sense in which the Word can possess bodily properties must be very different from the sense in which a human subject may possess them. If one is to avoid saying that Jesus is simply a passive instrument of the Word, like the lyre of a musician,'*? it may be preferable to posit a subject of action

and experience in Jesus (which the attribution of a soul to him seems to entail in any case). This subject cannot then be ‘possessed’

in the same way by some superior subject of a similar sort. But it may stand in a unique unity with the Word, in such a way that it expresses and mediates that eternal Word in the realm of history and time. One could speak of a trans-categoreal identity between Jesus and the Word, as an identity of two wholly diverse categories of being. The identity consists not in the fact that two things of similar sorts have exactly the same properties; but in the fact that

the human is a manifestation of the Divine and not some sort of duplicate copy of it—a possibility ruled out precisely by the immense categoreal difference between God and creature, infinite and finite being.

An analogous case of trans-categoreal identity is the identity which a physicist may assert between light of a certain wavelength and the colour red. One may say without undue strain, ‘Red 1s light

of this wavelenth.’” However, when more closely analysed, it is more accurate to say that ‘red’ is the phenomenal property which occurs in the visual field of some consciousness when the physical reality of a light-wave of length x causes specific neuro-physiological events in the brain.!**

One might say that the phenomenal property, red, is how the physical reality of a light-wave appears in conditions of human consciousness. This can be plausibly construed as a form of transcategoreal identity, since the properties of light-waves (spatial extension, public observability, oscillatory frequency) are of quite a

different kind, or category, from the properties of phenomenal colour-patches (hue, intensity, introspective privacy, and a certain aesthetic or feeling element). 123 Eusebius, Demonstration of the Gospel iv. 10. 15-14. I, in M. Wiles and M. Santer (eds.) Documents in Early Christian Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), §I. 124 Excellent philosophical discussions of this point can be found in: C. V. Borst (ed.), The Mind/Brain Identity Theory (London: Macmillan, 1970).

Chnistian Reflections 267 This idea is not, of course, uncontroversial, and I would not wish the account of incarnational identity I have given to depend upon its acceptability. But it may offer an analogous example which some

find helpful. For it suggests how one can call two things of very different kinds, with very different sorts of properties, ‘identical’, when one means to point out that one is the way the other appears or 1s expressed in particular conditions of observation. To put it crudely, the life and person of Jesus is how the infinite Divine Being appears under the historical forms of space and time. This should not be taken to mean that Jesus is merely a passive

expression of a transcendent reality, as though he were a sort of puppet in the hands of a manipulative God. It is precisely in the free creativity and sensitive responsiveness of Jesus’ human person that the infinite source of all being is able to express itself as it truly is. At this point in history, human freedom and Divine freedom co-

inhere. Their perfect union is the foreshadowing of the future fulfilment of all humanity in the Divine Life. In calling this a ‘trans-categoreal identity’, the intention is to stress both the infinite

difference in kind between finite and infinite, and also their coinherent unity in a human life whose unrestricted creativity and love makes manifest the essential nature of that unrestricted ocean of being which theists call God. The classical doctrine of incarnation, as found in such theologians

as Gregory Nazienzen, does not assert that God the Word is the

true agent of all Jesus’ acts and the true subject of all Jesus’ experiences, though at first sight it may seem to do so. Such a view is actually ruled out by the fundamental belief that God is essentially timeless, immutable, and impassible. Since God is timeless, God

cannot think and decide in time as Jesus does. Since God is immutable, God cannot learn and develop as Jesus does. And since God is impassible, God cannot experience human feelings as Jesus

does. For the orthodox patristic tradition, the essential Divine properties of timelessness, immutability, and impassibility are never denied of God, and God does not change in any way at the incarnation.'?? What is asserted is that there is an identity of the timeless, immutable, and impassible with the temporal, changing, '25 “One then has to ask how the Word was made flesh—whether it was transformed into flesh or whether it put on flesh. The answer is emphatically that it put on flesh; for one must certainly believe God to be immutable and not subject to change’: Tertullian, Against Praxeas 27, in Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (Turnhout and Paris: Brepols, 1953—) i. 1198.

268 Christian Reflections and suffering. ‘The Word is passible in his flesh, impassible in his Godhead; circumscribed 1n the body, uncircumscribed in the Spirit; at once earthly and heavenly, tangible and intangible, comprehensible and incomprehensible.’!7° Nevertheless, although there are two wholly different natures (physeis) involved, there is a true and indivisible unity. Cyril of Alexandria insists that ‘Scripture does not say that the Word united to himself the person (hypostasis) of man, but that he became flesh.’!?” That is, there was not a human being

whom the Word indwelt later or partly or from time to time. Rather, the man is from the first united to the Word, in such a unity that Mary can rightly be called Theotokos, bearer of God. No one supposes that Mary is mother of the Divine nature; but she is not the mother solely of a human being, subsequently united to the Word. She is mother of one who 1s from the first united in such a way that God can be counted as the hypostasis, the underlying

subject, of Jesus’ humanity. But this sense of hypostasis is very different from the sense in which the centre of experience and agency in Jesus might be called a human hypostasis. The Fathers got into notorious difficulties over their use of terms like hypostasis

and ousia, which were used in an identical sense for many years, and then came to be generally used in different senses sometime between Nicaea and Chalcedon. The basic problem is that both terms can mean either ‘nature’, as in ‘gold’ or ‘water’; or ‘individual’,

as in ‘this man’ or ‘Fred’. What theologians were attempting to do

was to find some way of saying that Jesus Christ was not two distinct individuals, Jesus and the eternal Christ, contingently joined

together; but that he was a unique union of Infinite and finite, forming one individual being. It is important to see that these terms represent attempts to develop a technical vocabulary for expressing matters at the bounds of sense. In the end, the term hypostasis was used almost entirely in a negative sense, to rule out

the opinion that Jesus was a man whose life happened to concur

with the will of God, though it might not have done, and to preserve the appropriateness of worshipping the Crucified as a true

manifestation of God. In short, the Word is not the subject of Jesus’ humanity in the same sense in which Jesus’ soul is the subject of his humanity. 126 Gregory Nazienzen, Epistle 101, in Hardy, Christology, 216. 127 Cyril, Ep. 4 (Migne, Patrologia Graeca, |xxvii. 44-50).

Christian Reflections 269 To grasp how the Word might be said to be the subject of Jesus’ humanity, it is necessary to grasp the essential nature of the Word in patristic thought as the limitless and changeless ocean of bliss. It would be absurd to think of such a Word perceiving, feeling, and

deciding like a man, and so as being the personal subject, the centre of causal and cognitive powers, in Jesus. This is Thomas Morris’s view, and the view of anhypostatic theologians, who hold

that there is no human subject of thought and action in Jesus, generally. One must accept the fact that if Jesus has a human soul, then he is a subject of causal and cognitive powers, an agent and experiencer, not a passive or even (in Morris’s account) a necessarily deceived instrument of a Divine agent and experient. But if Jesus is an agent and experient, and thus a free human agent, he is never-

theless, and uniquely among human beings, wholly grounded in the unlimited ocean of bliss in such a way that no distance, division, Or Opposition is even conceivable between them. It is because of

this indivisible unity, and because every finite being receives its reality solely from God, that the Word can be termed the subject, the existential ground which supports and is unimpededly and creatively expressed in the human subjectivity of Jesus. Jesus expresses the Divine saturation of a human life, taken into -an indissoluble unity with the Divine. Whereas any unity of human persons in general with God is acquired (and is often not attained) and mediated through the teaching of others, Jesus’ unity with God is represented as being original, indissoluble, and direct. He is not a distinct person who may choose against God, but a human mind and will which is so united to God from its first moment of being

that it is wholly suffused by the Divine Life. All his acts are properly human; but it is a humanity indivisibly orientated to and mediative of the eternal Love of God. For that reason, when one sees this man truly, one sees and may properly worship the Eternal Word which is openly and without resistance or distortion manifest in him. Such a Christology walks between two possibilities. One is the ‘Apollinarian’ possibility that Jesus is a purely passive in-

strument of the Divine Word.!7® But that is ruled out by the fact that Jesus’ knowledge, being passible, and his action, being 128 1 John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion (London: Macmillan, 1989), 369, 373.

Religion after Enlightenment 311 great world traditions constitute different conceptions and percep-

tions of, and responses to, the Real from within the different cultural ways of being human’.°* With that I am in strong agreement. But he goes on, much more controversially, to suggest that the Divine personae and metaphysical impersonae—that is, gods like Allah, Yahveh, and Vishnu, and the Tao, Nirguna Brahman, and Sunyata—are ‘real as authentic manifestations of the Real’.>> If one is to speak of authentic manifestations then, as a matter of logic,

inauthentic manifestations must be possible; there must be some difference between authentic and inauthentic manifestations. What makes a god or metaphysical principle an authentic manifestation of the Real? The obvious thought is that an authentic manifestation gives a more adequate expression of what the Real actually is, whereas an inauthentic manifestation gives an inadequate or even misleading idea of it. For example, the idea of the Real as a blind, purposeless source of energy is less authentic than an idea of it as a person, which is in turn less adequate than the idea of it as ‘a being of unlimited perfection’.

Unfortunately, Hick deprives himself of this possibility of discerning more or less adequate expressions of the Real, since he says,

‘The Real an sich. ..cannot be said to be one or many, person or thing, conscious or unconscious, purposive or non-purposive, substance or process, good or evil, loving or hating.’°* If nothing at all can be said of the Real, then one cannot say that some expressions

are more authentic manifestations of it than others. Indeed, we cannot say that anything is a manifestation of it at all since that would make it a causal substratum. If A manifests B, then A must

be caused by B. But that means that B must be described as ‘a cause’, and we are not allowed to say that either. Why not omit the concept of the Real altogether, especially since we should not really say that it is real or unreal, in any case? Hick’s attitude to the Real is ambivalent in the extreme. Since

everything that exists is real in some sense, the expression ‘the Real’ seems almost vacuous. One could be speaking of the real fog

or the real mathematical equation. It needs to be given some content. Hick does this by admitting that ‘we can make certain purely formal statements about the postulated Real in itself’.>° >2 Ibid. 376. 3 Ibid. 242. 4 Ibid. 350. >> Ibid. 246.

312 Religion after Enlightenment Such statements, he says, include Anselm’s formula, defining God as ‘that than which no greater can be conceived’. This does indeed

capture the element of unsurpassable value that is essential to a religious conception of the Real; but it is far from being purely formal. It clearly entails the possession of perfect goodness, since no being can be unsurpassably valuable without being good, together with whatever other properties belong to a supremely perfect being. These properties need to be worked out by reflection and there may be disagreement about them, especially in detail; but one has here

the basis for a much more specific concept of ‘the Real’ as an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being.

In practice Hick does work with such a concept; for he says that ‘most forms of religion have affirmed a salvific reality that transcends human beings and the world’.°° He thus assumes a unitary being that is of greater value than anything in the cosmos and that is ‘salvific’; that is, has the power to bring humans to a ‘limitlessly better state’. In one sense, he is not really a pluralist at all—that is, a person who really believes that all the great religious

traditions are equally authentic. For he restricts the traditions he counts as authentic to those which accept the existence of a salvific

transcendent reality. Many traditions do speak of such a reality; but not all. Paul Williams, himself a follower of Tibetan Buddhism,

writes that for his tradition ‘there 1s no Being, no Absolute, at all’.-’ There are religious traditions which deny any transcendent Real; others which assert more than one; and yet others which explicitly deny the unknowability of the Real. Thus it does not seem possible to find any non-vacuous concept of ‘the Real’ which all traditions could accept as the substratum of their beliefs.

To support his case, Hick quotes a number of authoritative sources from a range of religions to show that ineffability is a common characteristic of the ultimately Real. “The Tao that can

be expressed is not the eternal Tao’ (Tao Te Ching); God is ‘incapable of being grasped by any term’ (Gregory of Nyssa); ‘Nirguna Brahman 1s such that all words fall back from attaining it’

(Sankara). Inexpressibility by any human concepts 1s certainly a

feature of the ultimate object of devotion or striving in many °© John Hick, 6. °7 Paul Williams, ‘Some Dimensions of the Recent Work of Raimundo Panikkar’, Religious Studies, 27/4 (Dec. 1991).

Religion after Enlightenment 313 religious traditions. And it may seem a short move from saying that

two ideas are of an ineffable reality to saying that they are of the same reality; for what could distinguish two ineffables? Such an argument would be invalid, however. If X 1s indescribable by me, and Y is indescribable by me, it does not follow that X is identical with Y. On the contrary, there is no way in which X could be identified with Y, since there are no criteria of identity to apply. It is rather like saying, ‘I do not know what X 1s; and I do not know what Y is; therefore X must be the same as Y.’ If I do not know what either is, I naturally do not know whether they are

the same or different. To assert identity is thus to commit the quantifier-shift fallacy, of moving from ‘Many religions believe in

an ineffable Real’ to “There is an ineffable Real in which many religions believe’. Indeed, we have good reason to distinguish the ineffable God of Gregory of Nyssa, who is after all truly said to be the one perfect cause of all finite things, from the ineffable posited by Zen Buddhism, which is said to be beyond all duality of good and evil, creator and created.”®

Traditional doctrines of the ineffability of the religious object cannot plausibly be taken to support the idea that there is one wholly unknowable Real an sich, perceived in different and equally

adequate ways in the world religions. For the fact is that each tradition has its own ‘correct’ description of the Real, or of the nature of reality, to offer; and the thesis of ineffability serves not to

undermine such descriptions, but to affirm that the Real is more than, but decidedly neither less nor wholly other than, what is describable by their conceptual frameworks. 8. Fustification, Truth and Salvation

Why, then, should Hick wish to assert that the great religious traditions are all authentic appearances of one unknowable Real? He states that he postulates it because we cannot reasonably claim ‘that our own form of religious experience . . . is veridical whilst the others are not’.-? The argument, which derives from Kant’s treatment of the Antinomies of Reason in the Critique of Pure Reason, goes like this: 58 This argument is taken from: K. Ward, ‘Truth and the Diversity of Religions’, Religious Studies, 26 (Dec. 1990), I-18. 59 Hick, An Interpretation of Religion, 235.

314 Religion after Enlightenment I. A is justified in thinking that what seems to her to be the case probably is the case, in the absence of strong countervailing reasons. So if A seems to apprehend God’s presence, she 1s justified in thinking that God 1s in fact present. 2. B is similarly justified in believing that reality 1s non-dual, on the basis of her experiences of samadi. 3. Since ‘A is me’ is not a relevant reason for giving A’s views

greater force than B’s, A and B are equally justified in believing contradictory things. 4. There is no good reason for preferring one view to another equally justified view.

5. Contradictory beliefs can be true of appearances, though not of Reality.

6. Therefore all such beliefs are true of appearances but not of Reality-in-itself.

However much one tries to refine this argument, it will be invalid or self-defeating. In the first place, the situation in which two people are justified in believing contradictory things is not uncommon. For example, a thousand years ago someone might have been justified in believing the earth was flat; but most people today are justified in believing it is roughly round. There is no reason to suppose that all justified beliefs are true. In fact, if I am justified in believing X, I am equally justified in believing that notX is false. So A has a good reason for believing that B’s belief is false, and B has a similarly good reason for believing A’s belief is false. Proposition 4 does not in any way follow from 1, 2, or 3. To say that A and B are equally justified in believing X and not-X,

respectively, is not to say that one and the same person 1s so justified. The argument shows only that different people are justified

in believing contradictory things. Thus there is a good reason, for A, for preferring one view to its contradictory; namely, that she is

justified in doing so. The same is true of B. But there is no one person who is justified in believing both X and not-X. What does follow from this argument is that one believer, or possibly both, 1s not in a good position to know all the relevant facts. So it becomes important to try to broaden one’s experience to make sure that one can give the widest consideration to as many sorts of relevant data and argument as possible.

The argument is also self-defeating, as becomes clear if one considers the case of someone, A, who holds that X (e.g. that God

Religion after Enlightenment 315 is good) is true of reality in itself, while B denies this. Then A 1s

justified in believing that X is true of reality in itself. But the conclusion (6) asserts that X is not true of reality in itself. So, by the argument, A is justified in believing X only if X is false, which is absurd. Some of the steps of the argument must be modified; 4 has already gone; and now § and 6 must go too. One 1s left with the coherent, if slightly depressing, view that people are often justified

in believing conflicting things, though they cannot all be right. However, Hick himself accepts this situation when it comes to disputes about whether there is any future good to be looked for in

human life. He says, ‘the issue...1is ultimately a factual one in which the rival world-views are subject to eventual experiential confirmation’.©° I am simply pointing out that the same must be true of many religious disputes, when I must admit that someone 1s mistaken and I am not going to think it is me.

Of course this is not a matter of ‘all or nothing’. I need not say that all my truth-claims are valid and none of anyone else’s are. An obvious move is to see all religious experiences as subject to conceptual interpretation, which will qualify the character of the

experience. The validity of the experience will depend on the accuracy of the interpretation. It may well be true that no interpretation is adequate to the richness and complexity of the religious

object. One will have a range of more or less adequate interpretations, caused in part by an object which transcends any of them in some respects. The practical consequence is that I will be on the look-out for restrictive and unduly partial elements in my own belief-system, and for elements in other traditions which may complement my own. It is necessarily the case that not all propositions reporting experiences of the Real can be true. There must be some distinction between true and false, between authentic and inauthentic manifestations of the Real. That entails that we have some true information about the Real, and therefore that some beliefs in religion must be

false. Hick makes one last attempt to avoid this conclusion, by suggesting that statements about the Real may be ‘mythologically true’. A statement is said to be mythologically true if it ‘tends to

evoke an appropriate dispositional attitude to X’.°’ Exactly the 60 Hick, 13. 61 Ibid. 348.

316 Religion after Enlightenment same problem recurs here, for if some attitudes are appropriate (love and wisdom), then others must be inappropriate (hate and resentment). How can one tell which are appropriate without knowing something true about X? It seems that Hick wishes to eliminate factual considerations and make a preferential selection solely on the basis of the ‘soteriological efficacy’ of a religion. But a religion is soteriologically efficacious only if it succeeds in leading one to the true goal of human life. All the problems about what the true goal is will recur yet again.

The only way left to Hick is to interpret soteriological efficacy solely as moral heroism or the achievement of spectacular virtue. The problem is that many clearly false ideologies can lead to morally

heroic conduct on the part of believers, from Marxist-Leninism to

Existentialist Humanism. Moral efficacy may be one test of an acceptable belief; but it 1s not even a necessary condition of a belief’s being true, much less a sufficient one. As Harold Netland points out in his discussion of Hick’s thesis,°” since the Real an sich

is neither good nor evil, how can one have an ethical criterion for distinguishing appropriate from inappropriate responses to the Real?

Hick asserts that ‘it seems implausible that our final destiny should depend upon our professing beliefs... concerning which we have no definitive information’.°? But the very concept of what salvation is involves beliefs which are theoretically unsettlable. Even Hick’s own belief that there is a proper goal of human activity is unsettlable, but that does not stop him from holding it. If there is

such a goal, one may assume that it will not be attained without correct belief about what it actually is. In this sense the possession of some particular beliefs is necessary to salvation. People without

those beliefs will not attain salvation, for the simple reason that salvation consists in attaining a state which entails possessing such beliefs; that is, it entails that one knows what salvation is and that one has attained It. If, however, one is asking whether any beliefs are requisite now if one is to have a reasonable hope of attaining salvation later, Hick seems to me correct in thinking that if there is a God of universal ®* Harold Netland, Dissonant Voices (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991), 63 Hick, An Interpretation of Religion, 369.

Religion after Enlightenment 317 love, he will not make our loss of eternal life dependent merely upon making an honest mistake. So one might suppose that a positive response to whatever seems to be good and true, by a conscience as informed as one can reasonably make it, is sufficient to dispose one rightly towards salvation.®** As the Roman Catholic document Gaudium et Spes puts it, salvation is attainable by ‘all

men of goodwill in whose hearts grace is active invisibly’. In brief, being set on the way to salvation does not depend on holding Christian beliefs; but being ultimately saved will depend on acceptance of the basic truths about Christ as Divine self-revelation—at least, if they are indeed truths. Other religions will naturally make analogous claims. Thus a Buddhist may hold that it is not necessary to accept Buddhism in order to follow the course of life that is most appropriate now for a given individual. To achieve final liberation, however, one must have correct (Buddhist) beliefs about the way to

the ending of sorrow. Each religion must make the same logical move. Naturally, they cannot all be ultimately true. 9. Criteria of Rationality in Religion

It is possible to distinguish a hard and a soft version of pluralism. The hard pluralist will assert that all great traditions are equally authentic manifestations of ultimate truth; and that, I have argued, is incoherent. The soft pluralist will assert that the Real can manifest in many traditions and humans can respond to it appropriately

in them. One may hold that view, while also holding that such traditions may contain many false beliefs. Hick explicitly states this

in any case, holding that ‘the basic fact of innumerable broad oppositions of religious doctrines remains’.°° The Real at least begins the process of uniting human lives to itself in many religious systems. However, the presence of false beliefs is bound to affect the way the Real is conceived and represented. After all, the Real is mediated through human concepts and experiences, and it will be

characterized in terms of those concepts. To the extent that they are deficient or false, therefore, one would expect that there would 6 This is essentially the position argued for with force by Karl Rahner; cf. Foundations of the Christian Faith, trans. W. Dych (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1978), ch. 6, sect. Io. © Gaudium et Spes, in W. M. Abbott, The Documents of Vatican II (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966). 6° Hick, An Interpretation of Religion, 363.

318 Religion after Enlightenment be deficient or false views of the Real in such systems. As Karl Rahner says, man’s attempt to know God ‘is only partially successful, it always exists within a still unfinished history, it is intermixed with error, sinful delusions and their objectifications’.©’ If that is

so, not all views of the Real can be equally authentic, and ways must be found of distinguishing between them.

It is implausible to suppose that the Real inspires prophets in only one tradition, and that it does so in a wholly inerrant manner. The idea that God infallibly inspired some of Paul’s letters, some hymns and proverbs, some historical chronicles and law-codes, and nothing else in the same way, privileges one revelatory tradition in

a way that seems completely arbitrary, unless a very good reason can be given for such preference. As I have argued, exactly the same sorts of reasons can be, and are, given, albeit by different persons, for preferring incompatible revelations. Hick is right in suggesting that one must see Divine inspirational activity at work in many cultures, where people seek to meditate on the ultimate nature of things in relation to a suprasensory realm. In the late twentieth century believers are called, as Cantwell Smith has argued,

to a wider view of how God is working in the great religious traditions of the world, so that ‘henceforth the data for theology must be the data of the history of religion’.°® They are called to affirm that God is encountered through the symbols of many traditions and that none of them is complete, in the sense of needing to learn nothing from others. Yet one may and indeed one 1s logically compelled to find in those cultures and in their history reasons for

preferring some patterns of canonical revelation to others, and in

that sense to find a more adequate view of the Real in some traditions, and perhaps in one tradition, than in others, even though the others are not uninspired and the most adequate 1s not in every respect inerrant.

If one asks how one can decide between competing religious authorities, it is quite unrealistic to think of this as a decision made from a completely neutral position, as though one was a discarnate reason impartially assessing all religious positions and then opting for one. As soon as one begins to reflect, one will already have a set 67 Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 173. 6&8 W.C. Smith, Towards a World Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1981), 126.

Religion after Enlightenment 319 of learned beliefs, a set of characteristic interests and evaluations which will influence one’s thoughts and responses. One will have grown up in a culture and in a historical setting which provides a noetic framework into which all new information must fit, whether by easy integration or by a more radical restructuring of the framework. Some doctrines will seem more compatible with one’s factual

beliefs than others, to be able to integrate various sorts of knowledge into a coherent whole, and to give more adequate interpretations of human existence. It seems to me quite false to say, however, as Gavin D’Costa argues,°” that ‘there are no neutral criteria for adjudicating between

religions’; so one can only judge religions ‘by the criteria and standards of one’s own tradition’. There are some very basic rational

criteria which can be brought to bear upon all claims to truth, in religion as elsewhere. Rationality involves the use of intelligent capacities, including the capacity to register information correctly,

to compare similar pieces of information, to deduce and infer in accordance with rules of logic and relate means to ends effectively. A rational person can act on a consciously formulated principle in

order to attain an intended goal. In all human societies, however odd they may look, it is necessary to the pursuit of a social life that individuals agree on how to obtain basic perceptual information, on how to draw inductive conclusions from it and on how to use that information to obtain agreed ends (like obtaining food and warmth). Such simple forms of reasoning are necessary to any form of intelligently ordered social life. They are not, and cannot be, culturally relative. However many strange rules a society has, it must at least have those basic rules of co-operative action which are necessary to its

existence aS a community. There is therefore a minimal level of rationality present in all societies, which does not vary from one society to another. Minimally, to be rational in any society 1s to be capable of collecting and ordering information, deducing and inferring, and relating information to the attainment of formulated goals. If one is not capable of doing that, one is not even capable of receiving and conveying revealed information correctly; or at least one cannot be justifiably thought to be capable of doing so. 6° Gavin D’Costa, ‘Whose Objectivity? Which Neutrality?’, Religious Studies, 29 (March 1993).

320 Religion after Enlightenment If one asks to what ‘tradition’ these basic criteria of rationality— self-consistency, coherence with other knowledge, and adequacy to available data—belong, the answer must be that they belong to the

tradition of being human, as such. Not all humans may exhibit them; perhaps few exhibit them anywhere near fully. But they are principles of rationality which are built into the necessary structure of human social life, and thus function as desirable ideals for any community that wishes to survive for any length of time. All truth-claims must be consistent, since a self-contradiction

entails that one can prove anything at all, including the falsity of one’s own deepest beliefs—which is hardly satisfactory for a believer.’° All truth-claims must be compatible with what one takes to be well-established knowledge with regard to facts and morals. Truth-claims should be adequate to the various sorts of experience one takes to be non-delusory. And they should aim at as unified a perspective on the world as possible, though this is an ideal rather

than a requirement.’! Naturally, agreement in the use of such criteria does not necessitate agreement in conclusions. One can seek to eliminate an inconsistency by adjusting various other beliefs, or

by interpreting some of those beliefs in an analogical or metaphorical sense. One may dispute as to what knowledge is well established in matters of fact or morality. One may evaluate different sorts of experience differently. One may attempt to integrate different types of knowledge in a number of different ways. Personal judgement and disagreement is ineliminable. The use of these rational criteria does not serve to pick out one religion as the only true one. It serves to encourage a reassessment and revision of particular religious claims in the search for a truly comprehensive and integrated view of the world within which revelatory claims will make sense. So it is still immensely important to maintain that

rationality is present in religion as elsewhere, and that it is not different in kind from rationality in general. But what of the particular counter-examples D’Costa mentions?

Do they indeed show that even basic rational criteria are much more tradition-constituted than one might have thought? When ” The proof is simple and well known. If (P and not P), then, since P entails (P or Q), and [(P or Q) and (not P)] entails OQ, QO must be true, whatever QO may be. | These criteria are implicit in all rational activity; they agree with those set out, for example, in Netland, Dissonant Voices, 192.

Religion after Enlightenment 321 looked at in detail, they are hardly convincing. His first example is

Zen Buddhists, who are alleged to hold that ‘sator: transcends logical conceptuality’. He also mentions that many people hold that

the concept of the Trinity is contradictory; and of course one can find Christians who write as though it is. Emil Brunner, for example, writes: “The idea of God bursts through and destroys all the fundamental categories of thought: the absolutely antithetical character of the basic logical principles of contradiction and iden-

tity.’ However, in the same book he also writes, ‘That which seems to be a double truth, that is, the equal truth of contradictory

statements, always proves to be either the result of drawing an inadequate distinction between various aspects of a question or of exceeding on one side or the other the rightful limits of the subject in question.’’* Precisely so!

It may well be that concepts are suited only to deal with finite spatio-temporal objects in a straightforward way and that there are

realities that cannot be said. But if so, they cannot be said in contradictions either. The Buddhists to whom D’Costa refers may be saying that there are cognitive non-conceptual states. If so, they are literally indescribable, and all one can do is evoke them by the use of various techniques. With regard to the ideas of God’s mercy and justice, which Brunner suggests are contradictory, one needs

only to say that these terms are analogies which must both be applied to God, on grounds of revelation. They are not contradictions, but inadequate attempts to articulate the Divine nature, which we cannot grasp in itself. Like the wave-particle duality in physics, they may seem like contradictions to the uninformed, but they have a consistent application in fact. It is the analogous nature of the concepts that saves them from contradiction. It may seem that the principle of contradiction cannot function

as a criterion for the acceptance of revelation, or authoritative teaching, if revelation offers concepts which seem contradictory to us. However, the principle of contradiction in fact plays a vital role

in such cases. It shows that such concepts are used analogously; that the Divine nature is not straightforwardly describable; and therefore that many of the logical inferences we might otherwise “” Emil Brunner, Revelation and Reason, trans. Olive Wyon (London: SCM Press, 1947), 47. ® Tbid. 205.

322 Religion after Enlightenment draw from such concepts are precluded precisely by the analogous nature of these concepts. It shows the necessity for a very sophisticated theology of Divine ineffability and prevents us from saying that such concepts apply to God in the way we understand them in other contexts. It is vital that one should continue to maintain that

revelation cannot contradict other knowledge and that it cannot simply be expressed in contradictions. If this is correct (and I suspect that it 1s) the principle of contradiction helps to show that the Divine reality does transcend human conceptual abilities, but that acquaintance with it may be realized by training the mind both to use concepts in a certain way and finally to transcend them.

There remains a difference between the Zen and the Christian claims mentioned here. Zen speaks of acquaintance with a nondual reality in which all distinctions fall away; whereas apophatic theology speaks of an ineffable Godhead which is yet distinct from

the cosmos, though it may be imaged in the cosmos in certain ways. Logical criteria naturally cannot be used to ‘choose’ between these variant interpretations. That is done by a much more complex

process of critically assessing the case for non-dualism and for Divine ineffability respectively, trying to see what the consequences

are for one’s basic moral and factual beliefs and how they could integrate into one’s own convictional stance. It is no part of my case

that one can stand on neutral ground and choose with objective dispassion between all world-views. But it is an important part of rational believing that one should use rational criteria, which are universal in that every person uses them even while denying it, to articulate and render more coherent one’s own view of human existence. The other example D’Costa gives of a radical incommensurability of criteria is the dispute between free-will theodicists and those who

reject all theodicies as immoral. But in fact participants on both sides of this dispute (which is internal to the Christian tradition anyway, and thus is not an example of “different traditions’ having different criteria of rationality) accept the same rational criteria of assessment. Both see a prima-facie inconsistency between God’s power and goodness and the suffering of the innocent. Some think

that the charge of strict logical inconsistency can be rebutted by appeal to a possible greater good, while others argue that suffering can never be justified in terms of a greater good. Both agree that they cannot see this greater good with any clarity. What remains

Religion after Enlightenment 323 is a difference of value-judgement which is amenable to further assessment in terms of consistency, coherence, and adequacy within

a wider world-view, but which cannot be decided neutrally or in isolation. Logical considerations will lead one set of disputants to deny objective metaphysical reference to the concept of God and to

take the consequences for such beliefs as the resurrection. They will lead the other set of disputants to insist on life after death and on real causal agency in God. Rational considerations force various

consequences on the disputants; but of course they cannot decide what ultimate axioms or basic principles will be accepted. This illustrates the important point that agreement in rational criteria does not eliminate all differences in basic value-judgements. It may

in fact make such differences sharper, as one is forced to make a choice consistent with one’s own more general attitudes. I have been at pains to stress that religion 1s not just a matter of theoretical belief. When a religious tradition 1s contemplated, some

of its central myths will resonate more than others and seem to illuminate human experience more; some forms of religious experience will match one’s own feelings more closely and suggest fruitful ways of extending one’s own experiences; some ritual practices will

seem more natural and effective and less superstitious or manipulative of the suprasensory realm; and some ethical rules and ideals will seem more consonant with one’s own moral beliefs than others and to extend one’s own insights more deeply and widely. It

is not that a religious system has to fit one’s noetic framework before it 1s acceptable; that would make any notion of revelation hard to sustain. But in a world of conflicting claimants to revelation

some systems will seem better candidates than others to people with particular noetic frameworks.

It seems, then, that there are general rational criteria to be applied in matters of religion, and that they are much the same as

those to be applied in matters of human belief generally. One looks for consistency, coherence with other knowledge, integrating power, and adequacy to experience. One needs to bear in mind that religious beliefs operate in the context of cultural forms which have their own impact on human minds, and by which particular minds

will have been shaped. There is no question of a neutral adjudication between religions. It is unintelligible to think that one could decide between religious beliefs. One cannot decide to believe something, though one can decide to do things which may be likely to

324 Religion after Enlightenment bring one to hold specific beliefs. Belief, however, is basically assent to what seems to be true, and all human beings begin from a

set of beliefs which seem true to them, prior to any conscious process of decision.

Individuals respond to the impact of the supernatural as it has come to them in their own historical situation. The rational criteria operate as methodological principles for critical reflection, not as

rules for producing correct answers. The rational course is to commit oneself to a tradition of revelation, which delivers one from

the pretence that one can work out the truth entirely for oneself. Such commitment should, however, involve an acceptance that the

Supreme Reality has not been silent in the other religions of the world, which delivers one from a myopia which confines God to one small sector of human history. A comparative theology 1s the beginning of a true and serious conversation, which has the possibility of holding together critical thought and loyalty to revelation in a more positive way than that envisaged by the thinkers of the Enlightenment. D. THE STRUCTURE OF REVELATION 10. Models of Revelation

One traditional view of the nature of theology is that it 1s a science whose data are given in an inerrant textual source. The task of the systematic theologian is to trace the teachings of the Church back

to their implicit or explicit sources in the text or an unwritten tradition, and to suggest connections and implications of these data in diverse cultures and histories. Whatever changes occur, the basic text will remain unchanged and the basic teachings derived from it will also be a secure, certain deposit of doctrines, to be accepted on authority by the faithful. The strength of this view depends entirely upon the certainty and inerrancy of its textual source. Such certainty

and inerrancy can no longer be taken for granted or founded upon the two traditional evidential supports of miracle and fulfilled prophecy. For acceptance of the occurrence of these things depends

upon prior acceptance of the authenticity of the revealed text, which is precisely what is in question; and the existence of many competing revelations must put in doubt any claim that it is just obvious without argument to any enlightened person that one text is Divinely revealed. The growth of historical and textual critical

Religion after Enlightenment 325 study has made belief in inerrancy tremendously hard to affirm, and at best highly contestable. Moreover, as this study has made clear, the belief that a particular text is an inerrant copy of an eternal original is a belief that seems to occur naturally in most religious traditions (even the Buddhist) so that it looks more like a

natural propensity of the human religious imagination than an objectively ascertainable truth. That would be acceptable, if only the imagination arrived at a consistent set of truths; but alleged revelations only too clearly conflict, so that it looks merely arbitrary

to say that one is authentic whereas the others are not, unless a good reason for distinguishing them can be found.

The theologian is therefore bound to look for some sort of validation of revelation which is more than the unsubstantiated assertion that it is true. That suggests that a necessary prolegomenon to a contemporary theology must be a study of the various claims to revelation which have been made in human history, in an attempt

to clarify the sources of theological knowledge, the limits of its authority, and the nature of the content of revelation. No such study can be undertaken from a wholly neutral standpoint, though it 1s reasonable to aim to describe views in ways which would not immediately be disavowed by their proponents. This study has been undertaken from a specific Christian standpoint, so that the immediate aim is to clarify the nature of Christian revelation and to locate it in relation to other religious views as justly as possible. It

is for non-Christian theologians or practitioners to develop their

own views, which will then have to be taken account of in a continuing discussion. It is possible, and I think likely, that such discussion will enable the Christian faith to come to a clearer and more adequate view of itself, as knowledge of the wider context in which it exists becomes better known and thus deepens Christian self-understanding.”* I have argued that most major religious traditions have a revela-

tory structure, though what revelation is understood to be varies

from one tradition to another. Beginning from a preliminary characterization of religion as a set of practices concerned with special knowledge of a suprasensory realm, a consideration of the ’* This is the programme for ecumenical theology outlined in Smith’s Towards a World Theology, esp. ch. 8. An excellent illustration is: Hans Kung, Christianity and the World Religions (New York: Doubleday, 1986).

326 Religion after Enlightenment sorts of primal traditions which can be found in many parts of the world today, and which have analogies to extinct tribal traditions

which have left their marks on the early stages of more global faiths, suggests a basic threefold structure of primal revelation. This structure reflects the elements of special knowledge, experience, and practical expertise which, it was suggested in Section

5 of this Part, provide the basis for justified religious authority. Thus it provides a systematic set of categories for understanding possible forms of revelation. In inspired oracular utterances (reflecting the element of special knowledge), holy men and women convey messages from the spiritrealm to those who seek advice or consolation. In visions (reflecting

the element of experience), the spirits appear, perhaps in druginduced trances or in dreams, to shamans, men or women skilled in

ascetic practice and magical lore. And by the use of divination (reflecting the element of practical expertise), by the casting of lots and the consultation of signs interpretable only by them, the shamans foretell the future or reveal the significance of occurrences

of vital interest to the tribe. These basic strands of oracle, vision, and divination remain important to more developed forms of religious life, though with differing degrees of emphasis in different cultural and historical traditions; and they seem to form the basis for developing conceptions of revelation.

The oracular element is transmuted into doctrines of inspired

utterance, though such utterances can provide many forms of ‘speech’, from straightforward factual information and prophecy to highly symbolic and cryptic oracles interpretable only by spiritual teachers, or to prescriptions for social and ritual conduct. One can discern here a polarity of passivity and activity on the part of the recipients of revelation. A stress on passivity might lead to notions

of possession by a spirit which dictates words to the hearer,” whereas a stress on active participation is more likely to lead to some idea of the attainment of paranormal wisdom. In the Semitic tradition, the passive element dominates, so that prophecy is seen as the ‘words’ of a personal creator. However, the wisdom tradition

is also an important ingredient of the Scriptures. In the Indian tradition, the idea predominates of seers practised in meditation > ‘Your Companion is neither astray nor being misled, nor does he say anything

of desire. It is no less than inspiration sent down to him’: Koran §3. 2-4.

Religion after Enlightenment 327 and thus able to achieve heightened mental perception, giving insight into the nature of the Self or of nirvana. The passive element is also present, however, since the primal sages ‘hear’ the words of Scripture,’° which are copies of eternal spiritual records of mystical truths. The passive pole gives rise to what might be called a ‘propositional model’ of revelation, with its stress on the passive reception of words in a particular language.’’ The active pole might be called an ‘insight model’, stressing the attainment of the sage through rigorous self-discipline.’® In both cases there is an appeal to a person of authority, prophet or seer, who by personal charisma or by Divine grace 1s in a privileged position to obtain supranormal knowledge concerning the final goal of human existence in relation to a reality of supreme value. The visionary element is transmuted into the occurrence of significant experiences, which become the foundation for claims about the nature of that which seems to be experienced by persons accredited with some religious authority. Such experiences can vary from the ecstatic frenzies of the spirit-empowered prophets which are attested in the Old Testament’’ to the mystical attainment of a non-dual consciousness which becomes normative for some forms of Indian religion.®° This polarity again seems to express a difference

between seeing such ecstatic experience as a relatively passive encounter with a personal spiritual reality, and seeing it as the result

of long spiritual practice which is felt to culminate in a direct union with supreme reality. In either case, it provides a sense of experienced unity with a reality of great, even unsurpassable worth, a disclosure of a transcendent spiritual reality in some way under’© ‘Veda is eternal; Prajapati causes Rishis to see them, perfect in all their sounds and accents’, Sankara, The Vedanta Sutras, xxxiv. 333. ”” This is an important part of Dulles’s model of ‘revelation as doctrine’: Avery Dulles, Models of Revelation (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1992), ch. 3. *8 The clearest case is the Buddha, who attained to nirvana through following the eightfold path to its end: “Because it can be arrived at by distinction of knowledge

that succeeds through untiring perseverance... nibbana is not non-existent’; Buddhaghosa, Visuddhimagga, trans. Bikku Nanamoli as The Path of Purification (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1979).

” ‘The spirit of the Lord will take control of you and you will join in their religious dancing and shouting and will become a different person’: 1 Sam. Io: 6. 80 “When Bodhisattvas become free from activating mind, they will be free from the perceiving of duality . . . the Dharmakaya knows no such thing as distinguishing this from that’: Asvaghosa (attrib.), The Awakening of Faith, trans. Y. S. Hakeda (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 71.

328 Religion after Enlightenment lying the realm of sense-experience. The former would roughly correlate with what in Jewish and Christian thought has sometimes been called an ‘encounter model’ of revelation, wherein a personal

Spirit is encountered in an experience of peculiar urgency and intensity.°! The latter is more reminiscent of what Avery Dulles calls an ‘inner experience’ model.®* Dulles considers only the Christian use of this model; but one can perhaps see how such basic approaches are spread over the whole complex of religions with, of course, a huge variety of specific differing emphases in each.

The divination element is transmuted into a way of achieving liberation from suffering. In the case of this element, the polarity of activity and passivity 1s expressed in the contrasting ideas of the providential actions of a personal God,®* who liberates from oppression and evil, in one set of traditions, and the impersonal workings of the law of karma, from which one can be freed by the practice of non-attachment and meditation, in the other.** In both traditions, there is an ambivalent attitude to the natural world. On

the one hand, it is created good and beautiful. In the Hebrew Bible, ‘the heavens declare the glory of God’.® In the Indian tradition, the whole world is the expression of Brahman: ‘He is the life that shimmers through all contingent beings.’®° On the other

hand, God’s liberating action is needed to free his people from oppression and slavery. And the true Self of All is only realized when one achieves liberation from the ‘law of one’s own deeds’, the

cycle of samsara. Thus the notion of liberation is central to both traditions, and the primal divination of signs develops into the discernment of a way to liberation from evil, either in social history or in personal life. Both traditions thus have a central concern with liberation, the discernment and realization of a truly fulfilling goal hidden beneath the veils of desire and injustice. Miracles are signs of the spiritual presence which has liberating 81 The classic and most influential exposition is in Martin Buber, J and Thou (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1958). 82 Dulles, Models of Revelation, ch. 5.

83>He S. §2.led his people out like a shepherd and guided them through the desert’:

ial ike light and shade there are two selves: one here on earth imbibes the law of his own deeds; the other, though hidden in the secret places of the heart, dwells in es permost beyond ; So say the seers who Brahman know’: Katha Upanishad, 3. 1. 86 Mundaka Upamnishad, 3. 1. 4.

Religion after Enlightenment 329 power. In the Semitic stream of thought, miracles are seen as mighty acts of an objective God, accomplishing an objective liberation from evil. In the Indian traditions, miracles will be expressions of the psychic powers of advanced spiritual teachers. The former

generates a model of revelation as historical event.’ The latter might be called a ‘cosmic law model’, to point to the fact that in it revelation is concerned with discerning the ultimate nature of objective reality and with expressing the power of Spirit to accomplish liberation either from or within the material world. 11. The Semitic and Indian Traditions

If one uses this as a plotting device, though always being wary of

the ways in which it might distort the data one is considering, one can examine the forms of revelation which are emphasized in various traditions in relation to one another, and thus come to some view of how Christian claims to revelation stand in relation to at least a fair range of others, and how Christian revelation takes its place within the development of revelatory traditions in general. In the Semitic tradition, the early rapture of trance-states gives way to the eighth-century BCE prophets who proclaim the ‘word of God’ in

moral judgement and the offer of social liberation on condition of obedience to God’s law. There emerges the idea of one supreme

Spirit who is ‘other’ than the created world, since he stands in judgement over it and is able to promise deliverance from the oppressive powers within it. Such a view often threatens to turn into a dualism of good and evil powers, and in Zoroastrianism, which left as its legacy the idea of Satan as a fallen angel, it in part did so. Yet the Hebrew prophets retained a belief that God is the

only creator of a fundamentally good creation, so that evil is a perversion which can be removed by God in the end, by decisive Divine action. When Satan, first seen in the Hebrew Bible as a servant of God, turns into an angel opposed to God, in the intertestamental period, he is also seen as destined for destruction in the Lake of Fire, when God brings creation to its final intended purpose. °°

The fundamental idea of revelation at work here is that of en87 Dulles, Models of Revelation, ch. 4, outlines what he terms a model of ‘revelation as history’. 88 Rev. 20: I0.

330 Religion after Enlightenment counter with a supreme, morally demanding Will. That Will expresses itself in historical actions of judgement and deliverance and in the disclosure of what it demands (the Torah) and what it promises (the Messianic Kingdom). There is an experiential element, in the prophetic encounters with God which disclose the Divine as a terrible and awe-inspiring power. There is a propositional element, in the ‘words’ of judgement and promise which come to the prophets and in the commandments which Moses hears

on the Holy Mountain. And there 1s a salvific element, as God delivers Israel from Egypt and Babylon and directs the people’s history in accordance with their obedience or lack of it. Faith is primarily obedience to the Torah, which establishes and sustains the covenant relationship of this people to God. But Torah is not just an abstract, timeless set of commands. It 1s given in specific historical circumstances to one particular people, and it is to be interpreted by that community as a living form of relationship between God and a community with a specific, morally ordered history, vocation, and destiny. Revelation is thus the discernment of the moral purpose and vocation of a particular people by prophets who are called into special relationship with one supreme, morally purposing, providentially acting God.

In the Indian tradition a rather different development occurs. There is a movement towards belief in one supreme Spirit; but this

is seen as ‘identical’ with the names and forms under which it appears in time.®” It is sages who, by ascetic discipline and practice

in meditation, pass beyond attachment and desire to achieve salvation or liberation and become able to unveil the true nature of the one reality. Their experience is construed in terms of a non-dual experience which passes beyond all the limitations and conceptual constructions of the everyday world of appearances. They discern time, not as expressing the purposive acts of a providential God, but as an unfolding of the cosmic law of ignorance, desire, and suffering and as an expression of potentialities somehow inherent in the nature of the one unchanging Real, Brahman. The propositional

element of their discernments is found partly in dharma—social laws which reflect the cosmic law of moral order—and partly in the teaching of the true nature of reality and its concealment by desire

or ignorance. The fundamental idea of revelation 1s that of the 8° “The Real became everything’: Taittiriya Upanishad, 2. 6.

Religion after Enlightenment 331 enlightened apprehension of the nature of reality, as the true and unchanging substratum of manifold appearances.

It seems that in almost every respect the Semitic and Indian traditions are complementary, emphasizing the active and unchanging poles respectively of the Supreme Spiritual Reality to which they both seek to relate. Such complementarities can be, and

often are, hardened into contradictions. Thus one can contrast a personal God with a non-dual Absolute; a temporal moral purpose with a timeless and all-including Real; the exclusive worship of one God with an acceptance of many gods and forms of devotion; and prayer as personal relation with meditation as individual enlightenment.” It is clear, however, that such contrasts are only contradictory if the meaning of the terms used 1s clear and precise enough to

enable one to see just what they exclude. If I say, “This book is red’, and you say, ‘It is green’, that is a contradiction, since no book can be both red and green. However, if I say, “This book looks red to me, or in this light’, and you say, ‘It looks green to

me, or in this different light’, there is no contradiction, since objects can look differently to different people or in different lights.

In a similar way, if I say, ‘God is a person’, and you say, ‘God is not a person’, that is a contradiction, since nothing can both be a person and not be one at the same time. But if I am really saying, ‘God relates to me as a person would’, and you are saying, ‘God is a limitless ocean of being’, the contradiction is no longer apparent.

One will have to enquire whether a limitless ocean of being can relate in personal ways to creatures. If I am prepared to concede that God is much more than a person, as I understand the term, and you are ready to say that unlimited being can take a limited form for the sake of creatures, then a straight contradiction has disappeared. The point is not that everyone really agrees, though they do not

realize it. It is rather that some people, who are prepared to concede the inadequacy of human concepts to describe a supreme being, may be able to allow that different concepts may apply in different respects or from different points of view. There is still room for disagreement and discussion. In what sense can something be ‘more than personal’, or can an unlimited being come to possess 7° Such a stark statement of doctrinal opposition is expressed in H. Kraemer, Religion and the Christian Faith (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956), 340 ff.

332 Religion after Enlightenment limits? Such questions are not finally settlable; further enquiry and reflection is not only possible, but positively mandated. In the end, disagreements will remain (or these issues would have been settled

long ago, one would think); but they might not be where one thought they were, and they might not always remain in the same place.

12. The Buddha and the Chnist

Hinduism in its traditional forms retains a strong element of particularism, being committed to a complex set of social and religious

rules which ties the religion to conditions of birth and race. Buddhism can be seen as a rejection of this aspect of dharma and

also of the idea of an all-inclusive Self of which the gods are manifestations. Founded on the enlightenment of Siddhartha Gautama, it teaches a way to liberation which issues in the experience of nirvana, or the Unconditioned. The three major revelatory elements are clearly present in Buddhism. It normally includes a teaching on the cosmic law of karma and the moral and spiritual ordering of sentient life towards release from that law. It

has an authoritative revelation from the Buddha into the true nature of reality as dependent co-origination. It centres on the paradigm experience of Enlightenment, as the goal of the religious life. The fundamental idea of revelation, however, is the experience of nirvana itself, to which, in many streams of Buddhism, any form of conceptual teaching is relativized, such teaching being a vessel which one can discard when one has reached ‘the further shore’.”!

In a manner not wholly dissimilar, Christianity emerged from being a sect of Messianic Judaism to be a distinct religion when it rejected Torah and thus radically modified its understanding of the

Divine covenant between God and humanity. Christianity, too, is founded on the life and teaching of one individual, Jesus of Nazareth, who comes to be seen as a self-manifestation of God, sacrificially offering his life to bring forgiveness and a non-political form of liberation to a new covenant community.”* The paradigm ?! The Chinese Buddhist master of the Madhyamika school, Chi-tsang, expounds

the position that one should be attached to no views at all. Some of his work is translated in: Sing-tsit Chan, A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963); cf. esp. pp. 365 ff. 2° ‘Jesus said: ‘This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many’: Mark 14: 24.

Religion after Enlightenment 333 revelatory experience is primarily that of Jesus himself, bound in

a uniquely close union with the Divine; but his followers can participate in this unitive experience to some degree (being ‘sons and daughters by adoption’) as the Spirit makes his life present within and among them. Jesus authoritatively teaches the goal of human life as the coming of God’s Kingdom, though this is neither a teaching on the true nature of ultimate reality (as in Hinduism) nor a teaching of the true law which humans must follow to be rightly related to God (as in Judaism). It has a peculiarly elliptical character, but it does set out the pattern of true human relationship to God which is also expressed in his life, death, and ascension, and which is the exemplary model for the lives of his followers. Finally,

Jesus embodies in himself what is seen as the decisive act of God for human salvation—healing, forgiving, empowering, and triumphing even over death itself, in a manifestation of the final goal of the whole created order. This act is not merely seen as a great wonder brought about by God; it is seen as a self-manifestation

of the Divine Being itself, in its energizing impulse towards the consummation of all things. So the fundamental idea of revelation in Christianity is that of a self-manifestation of the Divine Being which sets the exemplary model for human life and effects participation in the Divine Life. The new community of the Church is

one which unites humans to God as they participate in Christ.?? The Jewish model of encounter and law is radically modified by a stress on participation and a universalizing and internalizing of the prophetic promises. At the same time, the transcendence of a personal God and the moral teleology of creation is strongly affirmed. Thus Christianity may plausibly be seen as combining elements of the Semitic and Indian traditions, being basically Semitic but with a new emphasis on the Divine self-manifestation

Spirit).

in time (incarnation), human participation in the Divine Life (atonement), and a replacement of social regulations by a model of interior growth in response to prevenient love (sanctification by the

As both fulfilling and transcending their respective traditions,

the Buddha and the Christ seem to stand opposed to one another in all the major elements of their teaching. Between the intense love of °° ‘The Church is Christ’s body, the fullness (pleroma) of him who himself fills all things everywhere’: Eph. 1: 23.

334 Religion after Enlightenment God who has a positive redemptive purpose for the world, and the transcendence of all conditioned realities in the attainment of total non-attachment there can, it seems, be little common ground. It is useless and superficial to claim that both are somehow the same, or equally correct construals of ultimate reality and the final human goal. Yet the greatest Christian saints, who speak of an intense love of God, also speak of the necessity of passing beyond any subject— object duality which would reduce God to the status of an object and leave God in an external relation to the loving self. They speak of the necessity of passing beyond self to achieve an experience of supreme bliss, wisdom, and compassion; and that would not be an unfamiliar concept for one who follows the Buddhist way.”* On

the other hand, many Buddhist sages find themselves speaking of nirvana, the Unconditioned, as supreme joy, wisdom, and compassion—terms only properly applicable to personal forms of

reality. They speak of the unsatisfactory nature of the sensory realm and the necessity of passing beyond it to find a changeless and uncaused reality of supreme perfection, which would not be an unfamiliar idea for one who follows the Christian way.” This suggests the thought that these icons of the Christ and the Buddha stand as complementary polarities marking out the path of human spiritual experience. They are the universalized epitomes

of historically and culturally determined polar models of the suprasensory realm, as it has been apprehended by spiritually devoted individuals. The Buddha commits himself wholly to the path of non-attachment and discovers release from self and union with a supreme bliss, wisdom, and compassion. The Christ commits himself wholly to devotion to God and discovers in himself the Divine love, purpose, and power working actively to found the dawning of God’s rule in a new community of the Spirit. Seen in this way, neither Gautama nor Jesus are sudden arbitrary

eruptions of the supernatural into an otherwise closed web of natural causality. They represent the fulfilment of natural human potentialities, whereby the suprasensory 1s brought into living re-

°4 Cf. for example, John of the Cross, The Spiritual Canticle B, 38. 2-3, where he speaks of the soul loving God with the very same love with which God loves it.

°° ‘Beyond the transience of time, he will find the joy of Eternity, the joy supreme of Nirvana’: Dhammapada, 25. 381, trans. J. Mascaro (London: Penguin Books, 1973).

Religion after Enlightenment 335 lationship with the sensory realm.”° The goal of human life is attained; what has to be done is done; the Eternal achieves embodiment under the forms of time. One major difference is this: in the person of the Buddha, the temporal is decisively transcended 1n the unbroken calm of the Unconditioned and a human person achieves

liberation from the chains of desire and ignorance. But in the person of the Christ, the eternal dynamically enters into and transfigures the temporal, so that individuality, creativity, temporality,

and community are positively affirmed as that person finds its fulfilment in a transparency of feeling, mind, and will to the creative source and goal of all things. The Christian will naturally say that this element of creativity and Divine prevenience is a fundamental

aspect of reality which the Buddhist viewpoint misses, and many forms of Buddhism witness to this by introducing more devotional, dynamic, and purposive elements into their basic model.?’ The Buddhist witness is, the Christian may add, nevertheless necessary to remind Christians of their tendency to turn faith into acceptance of external dogma, and forget the primary and fundamental impulse of religious faith to facilitate the interior realization of the human goal of true joy, wisdom, and compassion. 13. Towards an Open Theology

There are many other religious movements 1n the world, some of great importance both spiritually and socially; it would be quite impossible to do justice even to a fair range of them. I have simply tried to elucidate some major patterns which help to locate Christian revelation in a wider religious context. I have, however, discussed one post-Christian faith which stands out as a particular problem for the Christian view, placing question-marks against Christian claims to final revelation, to complete spiritual adequacy, and to a unique global mission. That is Islam, which calls for a return to the

simplicity of belief in one transcendent Creator, moral judge of humanity, who reveals to the prophets the Shari’a, the laws by °6 Thus Karl Rahner: ‘[it is possible] for there to be a man, who, precisely by being man in the fullest sense (which we never attain), is God’s existence into the world’: Rahner, Theological Investigations (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1966), 1. 184.

°7 This is particularly true in some forms of Japanese Buddhism, such as YodoShin-Shu. Cf. A. Bloom, Shinran’s Gospel of Pure Grace (Tucson, Ariz.: University of Arizona Press, 1965).

336 Religion after Enlightenment which society must be structured to relate it rightly to God. In Islam, human experience and the discernment of Divine action or of an innate moral structure in reality are de-emphasized, so that all

the weight is put on the revealed words of God. Ironically, the transcendence of God is emphasized to such a degree that analogies

of personal relationship fall away and experience of the wholly other God becomes almost indistinguishable from the non-dual experience of the Indian traditions.”® If the object of my experience bears no relation to any finite or conceivable object, then it is truly akin to ‘Nothing’, to that of which nothing can be said. Not being

an object, it cannot be clearly separated from any apprehending subject; no proper subject—object relation exists between One on whom the subject wholly depends for its being and one who has no being except in the One. Total transcendence and total dependence, taken together, lead to a form of experience of God which is best construed as wordless union with the Unknown. In this sense, the Sufi experience is a natural consequence of Islam, though orthodox Muslims often feel uncomfortable with any talk of ‘experience of God’ at all, precisely for this reason, that it brings Islam uncom-

fortably close (it may seem) to the possibility of an orthodox Christian doctrine of incarnation, with its notion of a unity of being between Divine and human. The fundamental nature of revelation in Islam is the aural or mental reception of a social law for relating

society rightly to God. Torah is taken out of its historical and covenantal context and universalized so that it drastically simplifies the requirements of faith and insists only on the unity and perfection of God and the Divine claim to sovereignty over the whole of life. Islam questions the exclusivism of many Christian views, which reserve Paradise for Christians alone.”” It questions the Christian tendency to become involved in highly abstract disputes about the

intra-Trinitarian relations or the exact nature of incarnation. It questions the Christian stress on human sinfulness and the frequently heard teaching of the necessity of atonement by the shedding of the blood of an innocent victim. It questions the tendency of %8 ‘Everything will perish except his own Face’: Koran 28. 88; a text used by many writers, including al-Ghazzali, to express the extinction of all sense of duality, the stage of ‘extinction in God’, in the final vision of God. ”? ‘They say, none shall enter Paradise unless he be a Jew or a Christian . . . nay,

whoever submits his whole self to God and is a doer of good—he will get his reward’: Koran, 2. III.

Religion after Enlightenment 337 Christians to divinize the Church by giving it a strongly hierarchical

authority which possesses the power to save or damn individuals

and decide their beliefs for them. It questions the often-heard Christian demand for a degree of individual perfection, construed

in terms of pacificism, poverty, and chastity, which makes any realistic social policy impossible.!°? Above all, it questions the identification of God with one human individual, historically remote

from most other persons. The faith of Islam issues from an unwavering insistence that God has no kinship with anything created

and that God is wholly one and transcendent. The rejection of Christianity follows from just those elements of an incarnational and redemptive faith which bring the Semitic tradition closer in some respects to the Indian. However, as I have suggested, within Islam itself strong movements exist which come near to a doctrine of the manifestation of God in wholly obedient human wills and of human fulfilment as lying in a relationship of such total dependence upon God that it is very hard to distinguish it from unity. Yet its religiously motivated opposition to Christianity shows, with regard to religion as a social phenomenon, that complete universality in religion is an impossible hope; and this may lead one to be more keenly aware both of the distinctiveness and of the shortcomings of one’s own religious tradition. In this necessarily restricted survey of religious traditions, I have

tried to counteract the inevitable element of generalization and therefore of superficiality by considering one topic in some detail from each tradition I have considered. My conclusion 1s that 1t does make sense to speak of a common structure of faith at the heart of

many religious traditions, and that it makes sense to speak of a common, if rather general, core of belief in a number of traditions

about the ultimate goal of religious practice.'®’ All the faiths mentioned here have a common concern to know suprasensory reality

and to relate to it in ways conducive to true human fulfilment. They are concerned to provide a diagnosis of the human condition, 100 This is the basic accusation made in the ecumenically unhelpful but instructive work of Sayyid Qutb, Islam: The Religion of the Future (Beirut and Damascus: Holy Koran Publishing House, 1977); from which a revealing extract is reprinted in: Paul J. Griffiths, Christianity through Non-Chnistian Eyes (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990),

ary "This case is argued in a rather different way in my Images of Eternity (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1993).

338 Religion after Enlightenment as one from which liberation is desirable; an authoritative teaching of a final goal of human striving in which liberation is to be found,

which is characterized in terms of knowledge, bliss, and compassion; and a disclosure of a supreme intrinsic value which is actualized or actualizable in reality. They are revelatory of that supreme value (in Christianity, God as self-giving love); they are exemplary, in providing a delineation of the final goal (in Christianity, participation in the Divine love); and they are charismatic, in providing an empowering way towards that goal (in Christianity, the Spirit patterning human lives on the model of Christ). All are centrally concerned to preserve the insights given in an authoritative liberating disclosure, realized in or through one or more prophets or seers who promulgate a form of experience and teaching which is ultimately salvific for human life.

It 1s thus possible to hold that, in an important sense, many faiths may offer different paths to a common goal, conceived in a number of rather different ways. “Truth is one: the sages call it by many names.’!°* Yet there are some distinctive truth-claims made in each tradition which distinguish it from others. In Christianity, it 1s said to be true that God spoke to the prophets, was incarnate in Jesus, and is present in the Spirit. These are, or entail, historical

truth-claims, not just elements of one imaginative story among others. Beliefs in the incarnation, atonement, and the Trinity, which are founded upon and develop from such historical claims, are not shared by other faiths and exclude all beliefs which contradict them. These beliefs, in turn, are interpretable in a number of distinctive ways, which constitute diverse doctrines within the Christian spectrum. To the extent that such beliefs are understood to be partly metaphorical attempts to express matters too difficult, complex, or mysterious to comprehend, they may be regarded as

complementary. However, to the extent that they are taken to embody or presuppose straightforward truths (as, perhaps, that Jesus is fully human and fully Divine), they are exclusive truthclaims. One might thus envisage a branching tree of doctrines, from the most general and basic belief in one perfect reality, up through distinctive claims about how that reality is revealed, to very particular claims on a relatively straightforward observable level (as that Jesus died on the cross). Different religions might 102 Rig-Veda, 10. 164. 46.

Religion after Enlightenment 339 share, to varying extents, parts of this tree, and then diverge as more particular claims are made. They may also overlap at a number of points, so that the branches may often intertwine, and not simply grow apart.

I have occasionally spoken of the possibility of a ‘convergent spirituality’!°? in the modern world, referring to a possible convergence of the central focal concepts of various religions. This is especially true of the Semitic and Indian traditions, as they encounter one another and reinterpret themselves in the light of new, scientifically based Knowledge. Convergences may arise at many points between traditions, though new contrasts and insights may also continually be expected to arise. There will be some basic

insights which a tradition will not be prepared to surrender—for Christians, a belief in God’s redemptive love, focused in the person of Jesus and spreading out to offer conscious unity with God to all humanity. Even here, however, it is possible that severe polarities

of belief may be mitigated by a more nuanced understanding of their complexity and their potential for recontextualization. The convergence in question is not a movement of all traditions

to a new, universally accepted tradition. It 1s a recognition that many cultures and traditions are engaged in a common quest for unity with supreme perfection; a hope that they may seek and achieve a convergence in common core beliefs, as complementary images come to be more widely recognized; and an acceptance of the partiality and inadequacy of all human concepts to capture the object of that quest definitively. One might perhaps speak of an ‘open theology’, which can be

characterized by six main features. It will seek a convergence of common core beliefs, clarifying the deep agreements which may underlie diverse cultural traditions. It will seek to learn from complementary beliefs in other traditions, expecting that there are forms of revelation one’s own tradition does not express. It will be prepared to reinterpret its beliefs in the light of new, wellestablished factual and moral beliefs. It will accept the full right of diverse belief-systems to exist, as long as they do not cause avoidable injury or harm to innocent sentient beings. It will encourage a dialogue with conflicting and dissenting views, being prepared to confront its own tradition with critical questions arising out of such 103 Cf. above, 95 f.; 302.

340 Religion after Enlightenment views. And it will try to develop a sensitivity to the historical and cultural contexts of the formulation of its own beliefs, with a pre-

paredness to continue developing new insights in new cultural situations. A ‘closed theology’, by contrast, is one which insists on the total

distinctiveness of its own beliefs, excluding others from any share

in important truths. It rejects all contact with other systems of belief. It rejects any developments of knowledge which would force

a reinterpretation of its own tradition. It will, if possible, restrict or prevent the expression of criticism or dissent. It will seek to suppress other religions. It will insist that 1t possesses a complete or sufficient understanding of truth, which change could only impair or destroy. Perhaps no theology is wholly open or wholly closed. But if truth is indeed one; if humans come to apprehension of it from various cultural backgrounds, usually by a laborious development of under-

standing; and if there is a Supreme Reality which wills all to be consciously related to it; then one will hope for a convergence of beliefs between the great religious traditions. If that remains a distant, asymptotic goal, we can each at least hope to develop a more open theology, built on the insights and restrictions of our own historico-cultural viewpoint. 14. Concluding Remarks

Within such an understanding of religions and theology, an intelligible account of the nature, sources, and limits of revelation can

be given. That is what this volume has attempted. So Part I began with an account of theology as an enquiry into the truth and rationality of religious claims about the nature of ultimate reality and an alleged final goal of human life. Theology must take claims

to revealed knowledge seriously, but I contrasted confessional theology, which expounds and defends one set of revelatory claims, with comparative theology, which enquires into the whole range of such claims in human history, without any methodological commitment as to their truth. Proper method in comparative theology will be pluralist, dialectical, and self-critical. It will accept the existence of many competing alleged revelations, none of which is uniquely privileged. In this context, revelation was characterized as a direct

intention by God to communicate truths beyond the range of ordinary human cognitive capacity. Such communication occurs in

diverse cultures and histories and takes its particular form from

Religion after Enlightenment 341 those contexts. It requires, for its reception, a practical commitment to the possibility of a worthwhile goal and of a liberation from

evil, involving obedience to the perceived demand of Divine disclosure, trust in its liberating power, and hope for its final fulfilment. Revelation is thus primarily a Divine existential challenge. It exists

in many diverse cultural forms. It can justifiably give rise to a practical certainty of commitment, though not to the sort of dispassionate theoretical certainty that may be thought to be characteristic of the experimental sciences. In Part II, I tried to place the genesis of revelatory traditions in a

global historical perspective. I suggested that a development is traceable from the use of spirit-powers to gain good fortune, to the

idea of one supreme value and goal, which can be discerned, participated in, and mediated to others. The main criteria governing such a development are those of rational coherence, moral univer-

salism, and capacity to achieve personal integration. I suggested that the best model of revelation to explain this process is a model

of co-operative persuasion, with human imagination, poetic thought, and reflection playing an important part. By a consideration of four main world religions, Part III sought

to elucidate a common structure in religion, of liberation from self to union with a reality of supreme intrinsic value. Different cultural traditions, interpreting basic concepts of causality, reality,

and identity differently, and making differing evaluations of action and desire, develop their own canonical models of Supreme

Reality. The main models in the traditions considered can be described as the models of objective moral will (Judaism), the supreme Self (Hinduism), transcendent sovereignty (Islam), and Pure Bliss (Buddhism). Embodied in Scripture, these are often taken as inerrant and final. Comparative study suggests, however, that they are all culturally influenced, with primitive traces remaining in them, and with the capacity of further development through a process of dialectical interaction—in which oppositions remain, but are seen as in dynamic and complementary

interaction. .

In Part IV, the Christian view of revelation was explored in its |

global context as a distinctive model which emphasizes individuality and creativity as temporal expressions of the Supreme Reality. The

Christian canonical model is that of self-manifesting and unitive love. Jesus is the foreshadowing manifestation of the final goal of creation, and the Christian Scriptures present theological medi-

342 Religion after Enlightenment tations on his life to bring out its function as a historical disclosure

of the Supreme Reality and Value. A preliminary interpretation of a doctrine of incarnation was sketched, so that the full and distinctive Christian concept of revelation can be seen as that of a historical self-disclosure with the power to effect liberating union with the Divine. Also in Part IV, the question of the response of revealed faith to the challenge of modernity was addressed, specifically with regard

to the growth of historical criticism and consciousness. I argued that the extreme historicism which undermines any possibility of understanding distant cultures and any hope of founding faith on historical claims is indefensible. Yet it is important for religious faith to understand its own historical roots, development, and limitations, and this may make an important difference to the way one’s religious beliefs are held. In Part V, two further aspects of modernity were considered, the rise of the natural sciences and the Enlightenment emphasis on the ethical value of autonomy. In each case, extreme views which deny

any truth or authority to religious claims were rejected, but both aspects were judged to have important implications for an understanding of revelation. The rise of the natural sciences places revelation in a vastly expanded cosmic context. In an emergent, value-oriented cosmic process capable of a trans-historical fulfilment, the diverse revelatory traditions may be seen as manuifestations of Supreme Value to finite human consciousnesses. A certain

complementarity of canonical models may be looked for, though

each tradition must be loyal to its own insights. This view 1s consonant with the Christian claim that the fullness of revelation lies in the future (in the parousia), that Christ truly manifests and foreshadows it, but that we may only understand his reality in part.

With regard to the questions of autonomy and authority, an analysis of the basic structure of religious authority was developed

from the threefold distinction of thought, feeling, and will. This traditional distinction correlates with revelatory elements of oracle,

vision, and divination or empowerment, which can be found in religious structures from the primal to the canonical traditions. One can distinguish in each tradition elements, differently emphasized, of inspiration (whether interpreted primarily as insight or as Divine dictation), of experience (interpreted as encounter or as non-dual awareness), and of empowerment (the social or individual attain-

Religion after Enlightenment 343 ment of the human goal). It is within this complex of elements that revelation, as the extraordinary Divine communication of suprasensory truth, takes form. Thus one can see how the person of Jesus is accepted by Christians as the supreme spiritual authority, because he 1s supremely aware of God (the element of experience), liberated from sin (the element of empowerment), and inspired by the Spirit (the element of inspiration). In summary, revelation may be characterized as a direct intention

of God (or of a spiritually enlightened person) to communicate truths beyond normal human cognitive capacity. Its form is influenced by the cultures and histories in which it occurs. It is properly received only by commitment, trust, and hope. It is a blend of human imagination and reflection and Divine (or enlightened) co-operative persuasion, which leads, in the great scriptural traditions, to a canonical model of one supreme value and

goal. In the Christian tradition, revelation takes the form of a historical self-disclosure of the Divine. The source of revelation lies

in an authoritative empowerment, experience, and inspiration, to which Scripture witnesses. It thus involves elements of reflective thought, experiential awareness, and cognitive, moral, and mental

empowerment. For each canonical tradition, the paradigm revelation is given through an authoritative experient in whom these elements are found in their fullest form, in a culture which is believed to be conducive to the development of an adequate canonical model. It is directed towards liberation from self and union with supreme intrinsic value. Its proper purpose is to show the nature of

Supreme Value, the final human goal in relation to it, and to originate a way of life which leads to that goal. If there is a suprasensory reality of supreme worth, and a human

goal to be attained by unity with it, one would expect revealed knowledge to exist. Theology is the systematic articulation of such revealed knowledge. This account has sought an understanding of what revelation is, of what its sources and limits are, and of how the world’s revelations can be viewed from a particular, in this case a Christian, standpoint. If one can get reasonably clear about these things, then one can proceed to ask what sort of positive theological construction is possible in one’s own historical epoch.

BLANK PAGE

INDEX OF AUTHORS

Ali, Yusuf 180n. Eusebius 266n.

Anselm 312 Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 58, 66, 80n. Apollinarius 269

150 Feuerbach, L. 71

Aquinas, Thomas I, 3-7, 23, 37; 147; Farmer, H. H. 227

Aristotle 98 Frazer, J. §2, 54, 76 Asvaghosha I7In., 288n., 327n. Athanasius 148, 153, 194, 261, 237, Gadamer, H.-G. 32, 76

2570. Galileo 283 ff.

Athenagoras 210 Ghazzali, Al- 190 Augustine 72, 287n., 295n. Gillen, F. J. 84n.

Aurobindo, Sri 296 Goodenough, E. R. 103n. Gregory Nazienzen 207n., 260, 268n.

Babb, L. A. 136n. Gregory of Nyssa 97n.

Bacon, F. Iorn. Griffiths, P. 183n., 337n. Badarayana 143 Badham, P. 299n. Hallaj, Al- 190 Baillie, J. 225, 228 Hardy, F. 135n., 144n. Balthasar, H. V. von 280n. Harnack, A. 33

Barrow, J. 297n. Harrison, J. 84n., 99n. Bellah, R. N. 77, 109n. Harvey, Van A. 247-56

Bloom, A. 335n. Hegel, G. W. F. 50, 208 n. Borst, C. V. 266n. Heiler, F. 95, 111 Bowden, J. 238n. Heisenberg, W. 290 Brunner, E. 15, 17f., 221-3, 228, 321 Hesiod 69

Buber, M. 227, 328n. Hick, J. 107f., 299n., 310-18 Buddhaghosa 159n., 162, 327n. Hinnells, J. 60n. Byrne, P. §2n., §9n., 107 Hobbes, T. 7 Hoffman, W. J. 64n.

Calvin, J. 41, 225 Hopkins, J. 165n. Campbell, J. 63 n. Horton, R. 59 Capra, F. 290 Hudson, W. D. 156 Chi-tsang 332n. Hume, D. 60, 156 Clarke, P. §9n., 107 Huxley, A. 197

Codrington, R. H. 61n. Huxley, T. H. 104, 294 Collingwood, R. G. 14 Cyril of Alexandria 148, 261, 265, 268, Irenaeus 263 f. | 270N.

Jaki, S. 285n., 291

Dawkins, R. 295 n. James, W. 26

D’Costa, R. 319 ff. John of the Cross 334n. Douglas, M. 61f., 64, 85n., 118 Justin Martyr 288 n. Dulles, A. 226f., 327 ff.

Durkheim, E. 59, 76 Kant, I. 14, 74n., 302, 313 Katz, S. 13n., 165

Eliade, M. 60n., 67n., 69n. Keith, A. 106n.

346 Index of Authors Kerr, F. 10n. Polkinghorne, J. 292 n. Kierkegaard, S. 26, 76, 159

Kindaiti, K.C.6361n. n. utb, Kluckholhn, Queb,Sayyid Sayyid 183n., 1831.» 337n. 337 Kopf, D. 141 n.

Kraemer, H. 16, 331 n. Rahman, Fazlur 187 Rahner, K. 318, 335n. Kramer, S. N. 85n

Kun Rahula, W.143, 158n. B>H 1. 33, 33> 45 459xen 3250. Ramanuja 149 Rasmussen, K. 6§n. Lao Tsu 972. Ritschl, A.N.3318 Laplace, P. S. 289n. Rob;

Leighton, D. 61n. obinson, IN. 102 Leontius of Byzantium 272 Sanders, E. P. 249 Lessing, G. E. 244

Leuba, J. H. 52 Sankara 140, 142—56, 286 L evy-B ruhl. L. 66 Schechter, S. 204n. Lewis. LM. 60n Schillebeeckx, E. 15 n. Lienhardt G 70 Schleiermacher, F. 39, 46f., 228f.,

;Locke, > 289n., 295 n. J. 21n., 22

Lipner, J. 137n., 142n., I5on. Schmidt, W. 62

Lorenz, K. 73n. Schweitzer, A. 45, 237, 239, 252

. Seng-Ts’an 114

Lossky, V. 207n Scotus, Duns 15 Louth, A. 34, 38 Sharpe, M. E. 53ff.

MacIntyre, A. 44n. Macquarrie, J. 40, 227f., 234f., 238n. smart, ye 55f., 83 Sing-tsit Chang 332n.

Madhva 140, 143 mith, W.C. 49, 318, 325n. Maimonides I16, 122 eorrates Wy Massignon, L. 190n. Ofomon, N. 13in. Melton, J. G. 81n. Southwold; M. 541. Morris, T. V. 264f., 269 Sozomen, H. E. 265 n. Spencer, B. 84n.

Muhammad 175-88 Spencer, H. 59, 76

Muller, Max 52 Spiro, M. E. §3

Stanner, W. E. H. 77n.

Nadel, 5. F. 56 — Strauss, D. F. 45 Nagarjuna 163, 260n., 290

. Swanson, G. E.R79 Nestorius 270 Swi Netland, H. 316, 320n. winburne, R. 28n., 245 f., 283, 289n. Neusner, J. 203n., 204n.

Newton, I. 288 ff. Talcott Parsons 93

Nichols, Aidan 38—40 Taymiyya, Ibn 177 f. Niebuhr, Richard 248 Teilhard de Chardin 296, 300 Temple, W. 223f.

Origen 272 Tennyson, A, 102

Otto, R. 98 Tertullian 220n., 267n. Thibaut, G. 144

Parrinder, G. 182 Tillich, P. 229 ff. Pascal, B. 27 Tipler, F. 297n. Paul, St 26, 153 Troeltsch, E. 233f., 244 Peacocke, A. R. 296n. Turner, H. 81

Philo of Alexandria 134 Tylor, E. B. 51, 61n. Plato 98, 205f.

Polanyi, M. 15 Vivekananda 198

Index of Authors 347 Wells, G. A. 234n. Wittgenstein, L. 8 ff., §3f. Wilberforce, A. 294 Worsley, P. 55, 56 Williams, P. 167, 312

Winch, P. 11 Zaehner, R. C. 1§2 Wisdom, J. 12 Zizioulas, J. 200n.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS Abraham 213 ff. Church, the 257f.

truth Christianity 153-6

absoluteness of Christianity; see final complementarity of Vedanta and

Adam 264 connecting technique 12

Advaita Vedanta 142-56 contradiction, principle of 321 f., 331 Ainu, the (Bear cult) 63 f. convergent spirituality 96, 191 f., 302,

Algonquin 64 f. 339

animism 61 cosmic Christ, the 287f.

206 f. Creation:

appearance and reality 146f., 149-52, Covenant, Divine 116, 118

Arianism 178f. Babylonian account 126

Ark of the Covenant 126 in Buddhism 170f. astronomy, impact on religion 283-8 in Christianity 295

atheism 157 in Vedanta 152

Atman 142-56 creativity, principle of 201 f. Atonement 181-6, 190 credulity, principle of, see trust authority: criteria of rational assessment, see

in religion 302-6 rationality

of Jesus 306-10 Crucifixion, in Islam 182 f.

autonomy 302 ff. cultural influences on beliefs 12f., 90, Avatara 139, 150, 195, 197 135f., 154 ff., 187 ff. Avidya 14§f., 148, 151

axiogical explanation 289f. Dhammapada 58n., 162, 334n. Dharmakaya 167-70, 327n.

Ban, the (Herem) 122 dialectic 31f. Beatific Vision, the 166 diversity of truth-claims 6ff., 8 ff., Bodhisattva 168 ff. 12 ff., 23 ff., 93 f., 108f., 133,

Bhagavadgita 139 187 ff. Brahman 106ff., 112, 137, 139, I4I, dream-times 77 155, 328, 330

Nirguna 145, 149 enhypostatic Christology 265-73

Saguna 14§ Enlightenment:

Brahmo Samaj 141 in Buddhism 160 Buddha, the 30, 156-73, 195 in Europe 160

three bodies of 288 entropy, law of 297

and Christ 332-5 evolution 294-9

Buddhism §8, 112, 114, 142, 143, experience and interpretation 164 ff.,

156—73, 260, 262, 288, 332-5 315

Zen 321f. faith 277f.

Canon of Scripture, development of common structure of 337f.

218-21 Fall, the 73 ff., 155

causality (in Vedanta) 150-2 falsifiability 242

certainty: Fatherhood of God 105, 202

in theology 6f., 25—30 final truth, Christian claim to 217,

theoretical and practical 8-12 278-80

Index of Subjects 349 food laws 116ff. karma 136f., 155, 158

forgiveness (in Islam) 184f. Kingdom of God 194, 196f., 226, 236,

form of life 9f. 240, 252 Four Noble Truths, the 158 Koran, the 174-91, 209, 217, 220 framework beliefs 1of., 12-15 Krishna 139f. freedom, human 91

and incarnation 260—5 language games of. laws of nature 289-92

apne! 175 Lotus Sutra 167-71, 209 od: appearances of I15§ Madhyamaka 163f.

as moral demand 130, 132f. magic 52, 85, 100, 121 speech of 89, 115f., 127ff., 213 f. Mana 61

oa. 328 f.

CosPels: r eliability of 245 f. metaphor, in scripture 4f., 125 ff.

reek religion 98, 134 miracle 243f., 254f., 275, 288-94,

historical eriticism, principles of monism 144, 152 1.

»P pies 0 morality and religion 132f.

hi are “ts ¢ Moses 103, 114f., 127f., 203, 253

- tical (Indi ligi —6, 110,

ever nowledge, autonomy o Mother Goddess 99, 104f. Hypostasis (qua ‘person’) 265 ff., 268 mys ard lan) religions 94 tro

; th 55f., 67 ff., 83f., 93, 128,

identity 266f. il 3 78 f. natural theology 41

icon, Jesus aS 219, 238f., 247, 272 myn 35 7 3 h+2 932 1285 255 imagination, in religion 62—7, 69-71, natura! law II

Incarnation 148f., 193-7, 203-9, name, desacralization of 100 ff.

236 ff., 240, 257, 258-73 Ni ushian 103 , ff. 161-6

classical doctrine of 267 f., 287 PVANA 30; 53> 59> 142, 1571., LOI—0,

in Koran 178-81, 189f. N 330° 327 "66

Indian and Semitic traditions compared Her religion 135-44, 147-56, 172f., 191f., 223, 286, 291, 293, 298f., 326-35 open theology 2, 3391. ineffability, of the Real 311-13, 322 original sin 75, 183, 261 inerrancy of Scripture 4, 210-12,

215 f., 232, 324f. paganism 81

inspiration, Divine 90, 174, 190, paradigm shifts, in doctrine 33

209-32 Parousia, of Christ 206

as dictation 210—12 perennial philosophy, the 197f. as illumination 211, 216f., 220, 318 perfection, of God 207

Islam 112f., 173-92, 335-7 plurals religions 278 ff., 310-17, Brunner’s discussion of 19 of 338 f.

Isvara 149 hard and soft 317 Inuit 65, 70f. probability, in history 234-8, 241, 244, 247, 251, 254f.

Jesus: prophetic (Semitic) religions 94-6,

306-9 329 f.

consciousness of 240 ff., 253f., 102—5, I10, 129, 134f., 201, 259,

teaching of 213, 235 ff., 308 f. prophets 87-92, ror f.

historical 248-58 propositional view of revelation 5,

in the Koran 176ff., 188 11§f., 129, 174, 213 f., 221, 224ff.,

Judgement (in Koran) 183 ff. 231

350 Index of Subjects rationality, criteria of 80, 319-24 spirits 52, 63, 68, 77f.

redemption 270f. Sufism 189f., 336 Reform Judaism 124 Sunya 163

reincarnation 296 religion: Talmud, the I15 as idolatry 16f. temptations of Jesus 264

definition of 51-4 theology:

six dimensions of §§f., 83 ff., 109 as comparative 36—42, 324, 340

resurrection 293, 299-302 as confessional 36—42

revelation: as pluralistic 45—9

as clear and certain 22, 274f. open and closed 339f. definition of 16, 24, 30, 91, 93, 343 as science 3-6, 31, 34, 324 as encounter 125, 221-3, 225ff., 328 | Theotokos 268, 287

as guidance 124, 128f., 188f., 191, time, importance of 197-9, 206-9

215~—17, 220, 231 f. Torah 84f., 114-29, 204, 209, 330 as historical action 223-6 cultic laws I19—22 as inner experience 226—31, 328 as gradually revealed 124, 130f.

as disclosure 275-8, 281 purity laws 116-18

six models of 326-9 tradition 43, 309

in Buddhism 159 Trinity 200-5

three forms of (oracle, vision, in Islam 178, 188 empowerment) 87, 130, 134, 225, Triple Vow (Buddhist) 159

231 f., 326-8, 342f. trust, principle of 240-7

ritual §5, 85, 93 Truth:

criteria of 319-24

sacrifice (in Judaism) 120f. mythological 315 f.

saints 70 | pragmatic 310f. salvation and truth 316f. unrevisable 32, 42, 94 Sankhya 142

Satan 329 uniqueness of Christ 258-65, 272 f.

science, natural 3 Upanishads 137, 139, 142

Sedna (Takanaluk) 65, 70f. Urim and Thummim 103 f. Semitic and Indian traditions compared,

see Indian and Semitic traditions Veda 106, 137, 139, 142f., 209

compared virgin bride, Israel as 118

Sermon on the Mount, the 183 f. vocation 118, 124, 133, 195f. shamans 60f., 67, 90

Sheol 123 Yodo-Shin-Shu 20, 335 n. Sheva Mitzvot 131, 133 Yoga 143f. Shirk 176ff., 181

sinlessness of Jesus 261 ff., 270 Zen (Ch’an) 114

soul, the 147-52 Zoroastrianism 329 Spirit of God 202 f.