Stephen Prothero has recently published God is Not One. In brief, he argues that religions are not all the same. They are motivated by essentially different views of the world, its core problems, and their proposed solutuions.
He's right about this, I think. No religion is one; taken together, they are a bewildering multitude.
The idea that 'religion' has a single essence and various manifestations is a creature of Romantic philosophy. Cool as reading, but misleading as social science or description.
Stephen, I agree that the religions are not all the same, meaning, I assume that their views of God are different. However, I do not see this as a refutation that God is One. If God is transcendent then no finite description, bound by human language, finitude, and the institutional motivations of religions is adequate.
ReplyDeleteOne could say that the Jewish concept that "God is One" represented an attempt to build a new nation after the Babylonian captivity that argued, for the sake of national unity, that Yahweh, Elohim, and other names those people used to call God were all referring to the same God. It was a method of bringing tribes together in national unity. The burning bush episode where Moses hears Yahweh say that "you have heard me called by many names" is a key scripture.
This is similar to phenomenon today as many different religions are colliding in a global culture. Many people are saying that all the religions are seing different aspects of ultimate reality.
Gordon,
ReplyDeleteI agree. Prothero's point, I think, is that religions construe ultimacy in a range of ways. This is not to deny, nor really even to comment on, reality in itself.
Steve
Ron,
ReplyDeleteI have often heard this claimed, sometimes by mystics themselves. Also I have heard it said that when mystics meditate together, they experience the same reality, but that reality becomes multiple when they put it to words in discussion....
Steve Healey