November 6, 2004
Major World Religions
Hinduism
Emergence
Hinduism emerged by slow, spiritual
accretion (p. 67).
Human Wants
1. The Path of Desire:
a. Pleasure (hedonism).
b. Success (wealth, fame and power).
2. The Path of Renunciation:
a. Duty (devotion to the community).
b. Liberation from everything that distances us from infinite being, infinite awareness, and infinite bliss (moksha). This we already have, for underlying the human self, and animating it, is a reservoir of being that never dies, is never exhausted, and is unrestricted in consciousness and bliss. This hidden self (Atman) is no less than the Godhead (Brahman). The mind is infinite in being, infinite in awareness, and infinite in joy.
Paths to God
God may be reached through:
1. Reflection (Jnana Yoga): An intuitive discernment that transforms the knower into the likeness of what it knows. Self-identification is shifted to one=s abiding part. The guiding image is an infinite sea of being underlying the wavelets of our finite selves. The jnanic God is transpersonal and infinite. There is one indivisible, eternal, all-knowing bliss (pp. 29 and 56).
2. Love (Bhakta Yoga): Loving God, repeating His name (Japam).
3. Work (Karma Yoga): Work for God=s sake instead of one=s own; work in the spirit of detachment, dis-identifying with the finite self and identifying with the eternal, infinite Self.
4. Psycho-physical Exercises (Raja Yoga): Through willed introversion, the psychic energy of the self is driven to its deepest part, Being itself B infinite, eternal, unthwarted. In the eighth, climactic stage (samadhi), the object on which the yogi has focused attention, vanishes. The knower is confronted with total being, and for a spell, is immersed in it.
God
The nature of God can be conceived as either of the following:
1. Transpersonal (Nirguna Brahman): This is God-without-attributes B the ocean without a ripple.
2. Personal (Saguna Brahman): This is approximated by thinking of the noblest instance of what is found in the sensible world B the ocean alive with waves and swells. God is the Creator (Brahma), Preserver (Vishnu), and Destroyer (Shiva) who in the end resolves all finite forms back into the primordial being from which they sprang. Shiva destroys the finite so as to make way for the infinite (pp. 47 and 55).
Cosmology
The universe had no beginning and will have no end. The world emerged in some unfathomable way from the divine plenitude and is sustained by its power. God did not intentionally will the world, and is not scarred by its inherent ambiguity, imperfections, and finitude (p. 47).
Metaphysics
The Hindu world is:
1. Multiple B It includes innumerable galaxies horizontally, innumerable tiers vertically, and innumerable cycles temporally.
2. Moral B The moral law of cause and effect (karma) is inexorable. The present condition of each interior life is an exact product of its past wants and deeds, and its present thoughts and decisions determine its future experiences after reincarnation (transmigration of the soul). Each act directed upon the world reacts on oneself, delivering a chisel blow that sculpts one=s destiny.
3. Middling B It will never replace paradise as the spirit=s destination.
4. Tricky (Maya) B It is deceptive in passing off its materiality, multiplicity and dualities as ultimate, independently real apart from the stance from which we see them B when in fact, they are provisional, reality being undifferentiated Brahman throughout, the same way a rope lying in the dust remains a rope while being mistaken for a snake.
5. A Gymnasium B It is where we can develop spiritual capacities.
6. God=s Play (Lila) B It is the play of the divine in its cosmic dance, untiring, unending resistless, yet ultimately beneficent with a grace born of infinite vitality.
Buddhism
Emergence
Siddhartha Gautama (c.563 - 483 B.C.) was born in what is now Nepal. After a six-year quest, Gautama sat down under the Bo Tree (short for Bodhi, enlightenment) and his mind pierced the world=s bubble, collapsing it to nothing, then finding it restored with the effulgence of true being. The Great Awakening had arrived. Gautama had been replaced by the Buddha.
Buddhism appeared overnight in large measure as a reaction to Hindu perversions.
Buddha preached a religion:
C Devoid of authority
C Devoid of ritual
C Devoid of tradition
C Devoid of the supernatural
C That skirted speculation
C Of intense self-effort
Buddha=s religion is unique in that it was:
C Empirical
C Scientific
C Pragmatic
C Therapeutic
C Psychological (in contrast to metaphysical)
C Egalitarian
C Directed to individuals
The Four Noble Truths
Buddha=s key discoveries became known as the Four Noble Truths.
1. Life is Suffering (dukkha): Life as typically lived is out of joint. Something is awry. Its pivot is not true. This restricts movement (blocks creativity), and causes undue friction (interpersonal conflict).
2. The Cause is Desire for Private Fulfillment (Tanha): Tanha is the ego oozing like a secret sore. It consists of those inclinations that make demands for oneself at the expense, if necessary, of others. These demands bring suffering because the law of life calls for seeing others as extensions of ourselves, not our rivals.
3. The Cure lies in overcoming the Desire for Private Fulfillment: To overcome Tanha is to be released from the narrow limits of self-interest into the vast expanse of universal life.
4. The Path is through the Eightfold Path: With the Aextirpation of delusion, craving, and hostility,@ we see things not as we had supposed, but by direct perception.
a. Right Knowledge B knowledge of the Four Noble Truths.
b. Right Aspiration B to decide we want enlightenment.
c. Right Speech B to notice our speech.
d. Right Behavior B
i. Do not kill.
ii. Do not steal.
iii. Do not lie.
iv. Do not be unchaste.
v. Do not take drugs or drink intoxicant.
e. Right Livelihood B engage in occupations that promote life instead of destroying it (such as being an arms maker).
f. Right Effort B moral exertion.
g. Right Mindfulness B The Dhammapada (the best loved of all Buddhist texts) opens with the words:
AAll we are is the result of what we have thought.@
Liberation from unconscious, mechanical existence is a product of self-awareness.
h. Right Absorption B as in Hinduism=s raja yoga.
Life=s Goal
Life=s goal is nirvana, meaning to extinguish, in the sense of a fire ceasing to draw. What is to be extinguished are the boundaries of the finite self. Buddha described the unconditioned as Aincomprehensible, indescribable, inconceivable and unutterable,@ and as Abliss.@
Nirvana, as the Godhead, is:
C Permanent, stable, imperishable, immovable, ageless, deathless, unborn, and unbecome.
C Power, bliss and happiness, the secure refuge, the shelter and the place of unassailable safety.
C The real Truth and the supreme Reality.
C The Good, the supreme goal and the one and only consummation of our lives.
C The eternal, hidden and incomprehensible peace.
Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism
|
|
Theravada (Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia) |
Mahayana (Korea, Japan, Tibet) |
|
Progress |
Rests with the individual B the extent of his informed exertion. |
Is a field phenomenon. |
|
The Universe |
Individuals are on their own in the universe. No gods exist to help us. |
Grace is a fact. Buddhas and bodhisattvas work on our behalf. |
|
Enlightenment |
The prime attribute of enlightenment is wisdom (bodhi) B profound insight into the nature of reality, the causes of anxiety and suffering, and the absence of a separate, self-existent core of selfhood. It gives rise automatically to the Four Noble Virtues B loving kindness, compassion, equanimity, and joy in the happiness and well-being of others. |
Compassion is not an automatic byproduct of enlightenment. Even more than wisdom, it must be actively cultivated. |
|
The Buddhist Monastic Order |
Is at its heart of the religion. |
Is not at the heart of the religion because the religion is primarily one of lay persons. |
|
The Ideal |
Is the perfected disciple. |
Is the bodhisattva, one whose essence is perfected wisdom B a being who, having reached the brink of nirvana, voluntarily renounces that prize and returns to the world to make it available to others. |
|
The Buddha |
Is a saint, a supreme sage. |
Is a world savior who continues to draw all creatures toward him. |
Zen Buddhism
Originating in the Buddha=s Flower Sermon, the insight contained in that sermon (in which he remained silent, simply holding aloft a golden lotus) spread in India, from there being carried to China in 520 A.D., and from there to Japan in the 12th century.
Zen alerts us to how often spiritual nourishment stops with menu reading. It emphasizes the experiential. By wrestling with what (from the rational perspective) is absurd, the mind sees that thinking is never more than thinking about. Reducing the rational mind to an impasse, Zen counts on a flash of insight to bridge the gap between secondhand and firsthand life.
As the dichotomies between self and other, finite and infinite, acceptance and rejection are transcended, even that between life and death disappears. According to one adept, AWhen Zen realization is achieved, never again can one feel that one=s individual death brings an end to life. One has lived from an endless past and will live into an endless future.@
Confucianism
Confucius
Kung Fu-tzu (Kung the Master) (c.551- 479 B.C.), was born in what is now the Shantung province of China. From the eighth to the third centuries B.C., the Chou Dynasty=s ordering power progressively deteriorated and Confucius lived at a time when warfare was unrestrained. The population was increasing and people were self-conscious rather than group-conscious, guided more by self-interest than social expectations.
History
Confucius has emerged as the most important figure in China=s history. Some features of the Chinese character that he and his disciples reinforced B where they did not originate them B include:
C China=s social emphasis B its overriding concern with social, ethical and political matters.
C The importance of the family.
C Respect for age.
C Preference for negotiation, mediation and the Amiddle man,@ as against impersonal courts of law.
C
The conviction that learning and the arts (wen)
are not mere veneer but powers that elevate societies and the human heart. China placed the scholar-bureaucrat at the
top of its social scale, and soldiers at the bottom.
During the Han Dynasty (202 B.C. - 220 A.D.), Confucianism became in effect China=s state religion.
In 130 B.C., the Confucian texts became the basic discipline for the training of government officials, a pattern that continued until the empire collapsed in 1905.
In 59 A.D., sacrifices were ordered
for Confucius in all urban schools.
In the 7th and 8th
centuries, temples were erected in every prefecture of the empire as shrines to
Confucius and his principal disciples (p. 119).
The Ideal for Human Beings
1. Human-heartedness (Jen): This is untiring diligence in public life, courtesy, unselfishness and empathy in private life. Apart from human relationships, there is no self. The self is a center of relationships. It is constructed through its interactions with others and is defined by the sum of its social roles. It is a node, not an entity. It is a meeting place where lives intersect.
2. The Mature Person (Chun tzu) B the ideal host, a fully realized human being, achieved by expanding one=s empathy indefinitely, transcending:
a. Egoism (in relation to one=s family).
b. Nepotism (in relation to one=s community).
c. Parochialism (in relation to one=s nation).
d. Ethnocentrism and chauvinistic nationalism (in relation to humanity).
e. Humanism because it is isolating and sees itself as self-sufficient.
One=s inner world deepens and grows more refined as empathy expands. In its fullness, humanity Aforms one body with Heaven, Earth and the myriad things.@
3. Propriety/ Rite (Li): This is propriety in the sense of right conduct and rite in the sense of the choreographing of life into a sacred dance.
4. Power (Te) B This is specifically the power by which men are ruled, the power of moral example.
5. The Arts of Peace (Wen): Music, poetry, painting, philosophy, the sum of culture in its aesthetic and spiritual mode, as contrasted to Athe arts of war.@ In international relations, victory goes to the state with the highest culture, for in the end, it is this that elicits the spontaneous admiration of people everywhere.
The Transcendent Dimension of Confucianism
Confucius reversed the worldview he inherited. He shifted China=s attention from Heaven to Earth without removing Heaven from the picture. He shifted attention from ancestor worship to filial piety.
God
Confucius believed that somewhere in the universe, was a power on the side of right and hence that the spread of righteousness was a cosmic demand. He believed the will of Heaven backed his mission and that this will was the first thing a chun tzu would respect.
Taoism
Lao Tzu
Lao Tzu was born around 604 B.C. in a western state of China. His beliefs are recorded in a slim volume of 5000 characters, entitled The Way and its Power (Tao Te Ching) which remains to this day the basic text of Taoist thought. The Tao Te Ching probably did not attain the form in which we have it until 225 B.C. Its lessons are simplicity, openness and wisdom.
The Way (Tao)
The Away@ can be understood in three senses:
1. The Way of Ultimate Reality: This Tao cannot be perceived or even clearly conceived, for it is too vast for reason to fathom. It is, all the same, the ground of everything that follows. Above all, behind all, beneath all is the Womb from which all life springs and to which it returns. This Tao is transcendent.
2. The Way of the Universe: This Tao is the norm, the rhythm, and the driving power in all nature. Basically spirit rather than matter, it cannot be exhausted, for the more it is drawn upon, the more it flows. There are marks of inevitability about it, for when autumn comes, Ano leaf is spared because of its beauty, no flower because of its fragrance.@ Yet ultimately, it is benign. Giving life to all things, it may be called Athe Mother of the World.@ This Tao is immanent.
3. The Way of Human Life: This Tao refers to the way of human life when this life meshes with the Tao of the universe.
The Postulates of Taoism
1. The Maximization of Tao=s animating Power (Te):
a.
Philosophical Taoism: This
Taoism is reflective. It seeks to manage
life=s normal
quotient of the Tao efficiently through pure effectiveness/creative quietude (wu
wei). The object of this Taoism
is to align one=s daily
life to the Tao, to ride its boundless tide and delight in its flow. This Taoism
is relatively unorganized.
Wu wei is the supreme action, the precious simplicity, suppleness and freedom that flows from us, or rather through us, when our egos and conscious efforts yield to a power not their own. A life fed by the Tao B a force that is infinitely subtle and intricate B is graceful, for it lives by a vitality that has no need of abruptness, much less violence. The Tao flows in and flows out again, turning life into a dance that is nether feverish nor unbalanced. Wu wei is life lived above excess and tension.
b. The AVitalizing Taoisms@: These Taoisms are active. They seek to raise the normal quotient of the Tao [vital energy (ch=i)] at their disposal. These Taoisms are relatively unorganized.
c. Religious/Popular Taoism: This Taoism developed into a full-fledged church in the 2nd century A.D. The church devised ways to harness higher powers for humane ends.
1. Rejection of Competition: Taoists reject self-assertiveness and competition. They have an almost reverential regard for humility and a profound disinterest in things society prizes.
1. Naturalism: Nature should not be exploited nor abused B any more than people should be. Human beings are at their best when they are in harmony with their surroundings.
2. The Relativity of All Values: The relativity of all values B and its correlate, the identity of opposites. Taoism eschews sharp dichotomies. Death is life=s natural complement.
3. Pacifism: Taoism inclines toward pacifism.
Islam
Islam
The word Islam derives from salam, meaning Apeace@ primarily but in a secondary sense, Asurrender.@ Its full connotation is the peace that comes from surrendering one=s life to God.
The Beginning
AIn the beginning, God...,@ the Book of Genesis says. The Koran agrees while using the word Allah, which means literally Athe God.@ God created the world, and after it, human beings. The name of the first man was Adam. The descendants of Adam and Eve led to Noah, who had a son named Shem (from which the word Semite derives). The descendants of Shem led to Abraham who married Sarah. Sarah having no son, Abraham took Hagar for his second wife, and she bore him a son, Ishmael B whereupon Sarah conceived and likewise had a son, named Isaac. Sarah then demanded that Abraham banish Ishmael and Hagar from the tribe.
Up to this point the Koran follows the Bible, but here the accounts diverge, for according to the Koran, Ishmael went to the place where Mecca was to rise. His descendants, flourishing in Arabia, become Muslims whereas those of Isaac, who remained in Palestine, gave rise to the Hebrews who were later called Jews.
Following Ishmael=s line in Arabia, we come eventually in the latter half of the sixth century A.D. to Muhammad, the prophet through whom Islam reached its definitive form. No legitimate prophet will succeed him.
Muhammad (Ahighly praised@) (c.570 - 632 A.D.) was born in Arabia, into the Koreish, the leading tribe of Mecca. Following his marriage to Khadija, a wealthy widow, there came 15 years of seeking solitude in a cave. Muhammad was unable to accept the superstition and fratricide that seemed normal to his contemporaries. He then had the realization, AThere is no god but God!@ (la ilaha illa >llah!). The only miracle that Muhammad claimed was that of the Koran itself B he, with his own resources, could not have produced such truth.
In 622 A.D., Muhammad migrated to Yathrib, a city 280 miles north of Mecca, which soon became known as the City of the Prophet (Medinat al-Nabi), and then as Athe City@ (Medina).
In 630 A.D., Muhammad returned to Mecca as a conqueror. Two years later, in 632 A.D., he died B with virtually all of Arabia under his control. Before 700 A.D., his followers had conquered Armenia, Persia, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, North Africa and Spain, and had crossed the Pyrenees into France.
The Koran
The Koran is the bible of Islam. Muslims tend to read it literally, considering it the earthly facsimile of an Uncreated Koran (in the same way that Christians consider Jesus to have been the human incarnation of God). The created Koran is the material crystallization of the infinite reality of the uncreated Koran. The Koran continues God=s revelations to the Jews and Christians, and presents itself as their culmination. It is the final and infallible revelation of God=s will.
The Koran=s overwhelming thrust is to proclaim the unity, omnipotence, omniscience and mercy of God B and correlatively the total dependence of human life upon Him. The Lord-servant relationship is the essential point of the Koran, all else commentary and allusion.
In the Koran, God speaks in the first person. He describes himself and makes known his laws. It is impossible to over-emphasize the central position of the Koran in Islamic life.
Theological Concepts
The basic theological concepts of Islam are virtually identical with those of its forerunners, Judaism and Christianity.
1. God: God is immaterial and therefore invisible. The Koran honors Jesus as a prophet and accepts his virgin birth, but draws the line at the doctrine of the Incarnation and the Trinity, seeing these as blurring the divine/human distinction. God is an awe and dread-inspiring power but this feature of Him is more than out-weighed by his love for his creatures.
2. Creation: Allah deliberately created the world. The following two correlates inspire a respect for the material sides of life that the other two Semitic religions, Judaism and Christianity, likewise affirm:
a. The world of matter is completely real.
b. Having been fashioned by a Craftsman that is perfect, matter must be B not perfect, for there cannot be two perfections B but overwhelmingly good.
3. The Human Self: Foremost among God=s creations is the human self, whose nature is unequivocally good B not having been stained by any catastrophic fall. The closest Islam comes to the Christian doctrine of original sin is in its concept of forgetting B forgetting one=s divine origin.
There are two human obligations:
Gratitude for life received.
Surrender. To be a slave of Allah is to be freed from other, degrading forms of slavery B such as to greed, anxiety or ambition. The Aslavery@ is voluntary, for the human soul is a free agent.
4. The Day of Judgment: Depending on how it fares in its Reckoning, the soul will repair to either the Heavens or the Hells, which in the Koran are described in vivid, concrete, and sensual imagery. Muslims believe that each soul will be held accountable for its actions on earth, with its future thereafter dependent upon how well it has observed God=s commands. Souls may even judge themselves, death burning away self-serving defenses, forcing one to see one=s life with total objectivity.
The Five Pillars of Islam
1. The Confession of Faith (Shahadah): AThere is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet.@
2. Canonical Prayer: To voice gratitude for life itself and to keep human life in perspective. Muslims should pray five times a day.
3. Charity: Those who are comfortable should give, annually, 2 2 percent of their holdings to the poor.
4. Observance of Ramadan: Ramadan is the holy month in the Islamic calendar because during it, the Koranic revelation commenced and (10 years later), Muhammad emigrated from Mecca. From dawn to the setting of the sun, able-bodied Muslims fast and abstain from sexual activity.
5. Pilgrimage: Once during his or her lifetime, every Muslim who is physically and economically able to do so, is expected to journey to Mecca where God=s climactic revelation first descended.
Proscriptions
Gambling, thieving, lying, eating pork, drinking intoxicants, and being sexually promiscuous, are things Muslims should not do.
Social Teachings
Islamic law, as specified in the Koran, is of enormous scope:
1. Economics: Wealth is to the body politic as blood to the body B it must flow freely and vigorously. Sluggishness can induce disease and blood clots occasion death. Wealth similarly should be pumped into the smallest capillaries (the poor).
2. The Status of Women: The Koran improved the status of women in the Arab world.
3. Race Relations: Islam stresses racial equality.
4. Use of Force: The Koran does not counsel turning the other cheek, or pacifism. It teaches forgiveness and the return of good for evil when circumstances warrant, but these do not add to not resisting evil. The Koran allows punishment of wanton wrongdoers to the full extent of the injury done. Extended to collective life, this principle allows a just or holy war, which the Koran also endorses. The Koran=s definition of a Holy War is virtually identical to that of a Just War in the Canon Law of Catholicism. It must be either defensive or to right a horrendous wrong.
Sufism
The Sufis are the mystics of Islam. The Sufis were drawn to the Koranic disclosure that there is an inward as well as an outward side to the divine nature. They gathered in communities of Sufis around the gifted among them, whom they called masters (shaikhs). In the 12th century, these communities crystallized into orders whose members were known as faqirs B poor in the sense of poor to the world while being rich in God.
Sufis developed their doctrine of extinction (fana). Their self-consciousness was to be extinguished B the consciousness of themselves as separate selves replete with private personal agendas. If the termination was complete, when they looked inside the dry shells of their now-emptied selves, they would find nothing of themselves B only God.
The routes to God are:
5. The Mysticism of Intuitive Discernment: In this mysticism, no images and no thought are needed. In the directness of its discernment, it resembles sensory knowledge, but in this case, the objects that it directly apprehends are immaterial. They are spiritual objects. Knowledge of this sort clothes the world in celestial light. It recognizes the world=s objects as garments that God must assume if there is to be a world in the first place. These garments become progressively transparent as discernment gains strength. One sees through them B they are guises in which God has bedecked, and thereby veiled, himself.
6. The Mysticism of Love.
7. The Mysticism of Ecstasy.
Judaism
God
Whatever a people=s philosophy, it must take account of the Other B because no human being is self-created and hence humankind has issued from something other than itself; and because at some point, everyone finds his or her power limited and hence an Other exceeds our control.
The Hebrews= conception of the Other confronting human beings was that it was not prosaic B for at its center was a Being of awesome majesty. It was not chaotic B for it coalesced in a divine unity. And it was neither amoral nor indifferent B for its goodness was Afrom everlasting to everlasting.@
Creation
The account of creation in the opening chapter of Genesis concludes with Yahweh surveying his handiwork and finding it Avery good.@ This was the Jewish affirmation of the world=s goodness. When, after registering earth=s goodness, Yahweh goes on to commission his children to Ahave dominion@ over it (Gen. 1:26), a new note is struck. The combined thesis that nature is good and that it is a field for importantly constructive endeavor, was novel of its day. It is no accident that modern science first emerged in the Western world.
Human Existence
The Jewish assessment of human life has five components:
1.
Frailty: The Jews saw human
weakness. Compared with the majesty of
the heavens, people are Adust,@ the powers of nature can crush them Alike moths,@
their earthly span is brief Aas
grass,@ and
troubled Alike a
sigh@ (Ps.
8:4).
2. Grandeur: Concomitantly with seeing humans as weak, the Jews saw their unspeakable grandeur. The same creatures who on occasion deserve the epithets Amaggot and worm@ (Job 25:6) are also the beings whom God has Acrowned with glory and honor@ (Ps. 8:6).
3. Sin: Sin is moral weakness, its root meaning being Ato miss the mark.@ Sin weighed heavily on the Jews. People repeatedly mis-step.
4. Freedom: The Jews never questioned human freedom. People forge their destinies through freely chosen decisions.
5. Love: People are God=s beloved children.
History
The Jews saw history as of towering significance:
1. Context: The context in which life is lived affects that life in every conceivable way, positioning its problems, delineating its opportunities, and conditioning its outcomes.
2. Social Action: If contexts are important, so is collective action B planning, organizing, and acting in concert.
3. Opportunities: History is a field of opportunity. Yahweh=s hand fashions it into lessons for those who have the wit to learn.
4. The Opportunity for Decisive Events: The opportunities history offers are not on a par B some are decisive.
God would not have created nature were it unimportant. At the same time, as nature=s creator, he could not be reduced to it. The consequence of distinguishing clearly between God and his handiwork was momentous, for it meant that the Aought@ could not be assimilated to the Ais.@ God=s will transcended (and often differed from) what was happening in history. By this double stroke of planting man solidly in nature B and in history as nature=s human stratum B but not confining him to it (because God=s will constitutes a different order from nature=s claims), the Jews established history as both important and subject to review. As a consequence, Judaism laid the groundwork for the social conscience that has been a hallmark of Western civilization.
Morality
Rabbinic Law contains 613 commandments. The four ethical precepts of the Ten Commandments are:
Force: AThou shalt not murder.@
Sex: AThou shalt not commit adultery.@
Wealth: AThou shalt not steal.@
Speech: AThou shalt not bear false witness.@
Justice
Moses stands in a class by himself. Excluding him, the prophetic movement passed through three states in each of which Yahweh worked differently:
1. The Prophetic Guilds: Ethics was of no concern at this stage. The ecstatic states of consciousness that came over the prophets made them and others assume that they were divinely inspired.
2. The Individual Pre-writing Prophets: Ethics arrived with this second stage B Elijah, Elisha, Nathan, and others. These prophets registered individual acts of injustice. Divine visitations could come to them while they were alone, and Yahweh voiced his concerns through them.
3. The Writing Prophets: These prophets include Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and others. They discerned Yahweh=s disapproval of injustices that were embedded in the social fabric.
The prophets of Israel and Judah form one of the most amazing group of individuals in all history, bringing passion for social justice into a world where only might had ruled before. They held the conviction that every human being, simply by virtue of his or her humanity, is a child of God and therefore in possession of rights that even kings must respect.
Suffering
From the 8th to the 6th centuries B.C., during which Israel and Judah tottered before the aggressive power of Syria, Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon, the prophets saw God as serious in demanding that the Jews be just.
In 721 B.C., Assyria wiped the Northen Kingdom from the map forever.
In 586 B.C., Judah, the Southern Kingdom, was likewise conquered, though her leaders survived and were taken captive to Babylonia. The prophet Second Isaiah, writing in 6th century Babylonia, taught that the Israelites needed to learn something from their defeat B the true worth of freedom B but that their experience would also be redemptive for the world. The Israelites= gift would be a passion for freedom and justice that would spread to all humankind.
Messianism
The upward tilt of Jewish hopes and imaginings during their oppression and displacements, impregnated the Western mind, eventually culminating in the idea of historical progress B a better tomorrow is possible, if not assured.
The Jews personified their hope in the figure of a coming Messiah, or Chosen One. During the Babylonian Exile, they looked to this Messiah to effect the Aingathering of the exiles@ to their native homeland. After 70 A.D., when the Temple in Jerusalem that the Jews had rebuilt upon returning from their Babylonian exile, was destroyed for the second time by the Romans, the Messiah was expected to reverse the diaspora that ensued (pp. 195 and 202).
Christianity reshaped the Messianic idea into the Second Coming of Christ; Europe, during the 17th century, reshaped it into the idea of historical progress; and Karl Marx (1818-1883), reshaped it into his dream of a coming classless society.
The Hallowing of Life
Judaism is less an orthodoxy than an orthopraxis. It has no official creed, but ceremonies and rituals are decisive. The function of rituals in Judaism is to hallow life B in principle, the whole of life. The Jew sees the world as reflecting the source of all holiness, namely Yahweh. The route to such seeing is piety. The Talmud (a vast compendium of history, law, folklore and commentary that is the basis of post-biblical Judaism), compares eating or drinking without first making a blessing over the meal to robbing God of his property.
Revelation
The Jews recorded Yahweh=s disclosures to them in a book, the Torah, and commentaries on it. However, it was through actions (like the Exodus) that God initially revealed himself.
The Chosen People
The Jewish doctrine of their election differs from others in that not only did Jews consider themselves special, but they singled themselves out for responsibilities rather than privileges. Today, Jewish opinion is divided on the doctrine of the election.
Christianity
Jesus
Christianity centers in the life of Jesus of Nazareth (c.4 B.C. - c.32 A.D.). Jesus was born in Palestine and grew up in Nazareth.
Jesus stood in a tradition that stretched back to the beginnings of Hebrew history. The prophets and seers that comprised that tradition mediated between the everyday world, on the one hand, and a Spirit world that enveloped it B and from which, they drew power which they then used both to help people and challenge their ways.
Jesus was baptized by the prophet, John, who was electrifying the region with his proclamation of God=s coming judgment, and was Jesus= immediate predecessor in the tradition of Spirit-filled mediators which then dominated the biblical tradition. We are told that during his baptism, Jesus saw Athe heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove.@ Jesus then went into the wilderness where, during forty days of prayer and fasting, he consolidated the Spirit that had entered him, returning to the world empowered.
In his early thirties, Jesus had a teaching-healing career that lasted between one and three years. The hostility of some of his own compatriots and the suspicion of Rome, led to his crucifixion.
Jesus= Teachings
Jesus= Ministry included:
1. AThe Spirit of the Lord is upon me@ (which, according to Luke, is from Isaiah). Jesus added, AToday, this scripture has been fulfilled.@
2. ABy the Spirit of God, I cast out demons.@ The Jews accepted without question the supremacy of Spirit over nature. The Spirit-filled personages of the Bible have power vis-a-vis nature. Jesus used Spirit not just to heal individuals but B this was his hope B to heal humanity, beginning with his own people.
3. AThy kingdom come, on earth.@ The Jews had been in servitude to Rome for almost a century.
a. The Sadducees favored making the best of a bad situation.
b. The Essenes withdrew into property-sharing communes and devoted themselves to piety.
c. The Pharisees sought to revitalize Judaism through adhering strictly to the Mosaic law. They stressed Yahweh=s holiness.
d. Still others thought that change could come only through armed rebellion B their catastrophic revolt of 66-70 A.D. leading to the second destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.
e. Jesus introduced a fifth option. Unlike the Pharisees, Jesus stressed Yahweh=s compassion. This proved to be too big for a single religion to accommodate. Jesus was a social prophet who challenged the boundaries of the existing order and advocated an alternative vision of the human community. He saw the type of social system which was structured by the holiness code, an affront to Jahweh=s compassion.
Jesus= Followers
After Jesus= death, his followers quickly came to believe he had been Christ, God in human form.
1. AHe went about doing good,@ reports Peter.
2. ANever spoke man thus.@ Unlike the teachings of the Old Testament or Talmud, Jesus= teachings have a vividness, urgency, and absence of second-rate material that makes them startlingly new. Jesus= language was extravagant.
C ALove your neighbor as yourself.@
C AWhat you would like people to do to you, do to them.@
C ACome unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give your rest.@
C AYou shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.@
Jesus= scheme of values was at radical odds with the usual. It reflects a God who loves human beings absolutely, without pausing to calculate their worth or due. We are told:
C Not to resist evil.
C To love our enemies.
C That the sun rises on the just and the unjust alike.
C That outcasts and harlots enter the kingdom of God before many who are perfunctorily righteous.
C That the gate to salvation is narrow.
C That we should be as carefree as birds and flowers.
C That it is more difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom than for a camel to pass through a needle=s eye.
C That happy people are those who are meek, who weep, who are merciful and pure in heart.
AWe have seen his Glory.@ Jesus appears to have lived his teachings. His entire life was one of humility, self-giving, and love that sought not its own. He was a man in whom the human ego had disappeared, leaving his life so completely under the will of God that it was transparent to that will.
After the Crucifixion
After being crucified, Jesus entered into another mode of being B he was resurrected (not resuscitated). His followers experienced him as having the qualities of God, in that he could now be known anywhere, not just in physical proximity. Faith in Jesus= resurrection produced the Church and its Christology. Instead of being fragile, the love the disciples had encountered in him was victorious over everything, including death. Tongues of fire descended upon the dozen or so of his followers. They exploded across the Greco-Roman world, preaching what came to be called the Gospel (the Good News). Their lives were transformed. Christian love gives because giving is its nature.
The Church
The Holy Spirit B Christ=s deputy in the world from which he had departed B was flowing though his disciples as palpably as sap flows though a vine.
Saint Paul added the human body as a second metaphor for the emerging Church B though the talents and offices of individual Christians might differ as much as eyes and feet, all were animated by a single life-giving substance, the Holy Spirit. The Church was the Mystical Body of Christ. The Invisible Church was perfect.
The Incarnation
The doctrine of the Incarnation holds that in Christ, God assumed a human body and hence that Christ was both God and man B fully both. In Christ, God was willing to assume the limitations of a human life. The Christian God was concerned enough about humanity to suffer in its behalf. Christ was the bridge that joined humanity to God B AGod became man that man might become God.@
The Atonement
Christendom=s presiding metaphor for the Atonement has been release from bondage. The bondage from which Christ released humanity was sin. Sin is disconnectedness, or estrangement from God. It is the heart=s misplacement, a misalignment of its affections. Where there is wholehearted love for the All, for the universal good, the will wants that good, and rules are superfluous. Normally, though, self-love pulls against our love for others. The bondage that imprisons us is self-love. Bondage is the estrangement from participation in the divine life which is premised on the well-being of all.
The Trinity
While God is fully one, He is also three. Jesus= disciples assimilated Christ as Yahweh=s extension in the world and, therefore, divine. Pentecost, during which the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit, marked the arrival of a third party to the divine assembly.
History of the Church
The Christian Church is divided into three great branches:
Up to 313 A.D., the Church struggled in the face of official Roman persecution. That year, it became legally recognized and enjoyed equal rights with other religions of the empire.
In 380, the Church became the official religion of the Roman Empire. It continued essentially as a single institution up to 1054.
In 1054, the Church divided into the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
In the 16th century, with the Protestant Reformation, the Western Church divided.
The Branches of Christendom
1. Roman Catholicism:
a. The Church as Teaching Authority: The Church stands as the Asupreme court,@ to adjudicate between truth and error on important matters. This idea of the church as Teaching Authority culminates into the doctrine of papal infallibility.
b. The Church as Sacramental Agent: Sacraments help us do what we should do. Since the 12th century, the Roman Church has fixed the number of Sacraments at seven B
Baptism
Confirmation
Holy Matrimony
Holy Orders
The Sacrament of the Sick (extreme unction)
Reconciliation (confession)
The Mass (Holy Eucharist or Communion). The Eucharist conveys grace in the way a boat conveys its passengers.
1. Eastern Orthodoxy: The easternmost branch of Christendom has emphasized the Church=s corporate nature B both the ecclesiastical equality of its members (in contrast to Catholicism), and their solidarity (in contrast to Protestantism). This may also bear on its emphasis on mysticism.
a. Dogmas: The Roman Catholic Church looks positively on pronouncements made after those mentioned in the scripture (and interpreted seven times, during the Seven Ecumenical Councils, all before 787 A.D.). These pronouncements are on purgatory, indulgences, the Immaculate Conception, the bodily assumption of Mary, and the like. The Church regards them as Adevelopments@ of doctrine. The Eastern Church, however, looks on them as Aadditions@ which Christians may, but need not, endorse.
b. How the Dogmas are arrived at: The Roman Church holds that the dogmas are delivered through the Pope. The Eastern Church holds that God=s truth is disclosed through Athe conscience of the Church@ B Christian consensus.
c. Mysticism: Roman Catholicism holds that the Trinity dwells in every Christian soul, but its presence is not normally felt. Prayer and penance can dispose the soul to receive exceptional infusions of supernatural grace, but souls have no right to mystical states in this life. These arrive (when they do) as free dispensations. The Eastern Church actively encourages its members to take the initiative toward the mystical life. As the supernatural world intersects the world of sense throughout, it should be a part of Christian life in general to develop the capacity to experience ecstatically the glories of God=s indwelling.
Protestantism: The two central features of the new conception of Christianity that emerged in the 16th century, were Justification by Faith and the Protestant Principle.
Justification by Faith: Faith is a response of the mind, the heart and the will. When Protestants say that human beings are justified (restored to right relationship with other people and the ground of their being) by faith, they mean that the change effected was through a movement of the self on three of its fronts. Where faith is genuine, people want to help others.
The Protestant Principle: This Principle warns against absolutizing the relative. It warns against idolatry B such as giving one= life first and foremost to something in the finite world. People are Aidol factories,@ and the idols they produce include sex, success, oneself, ideologies, ethnic groups and nations.
Reference
Smith, Huston, The Illustrated World=s Religions B A Guide to our Wisdom Traditions (HarperSan Francisco, New York, N.Y.), 1958/ 1991/ 1994.
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