Reference: The World’s Religions
[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]
Things are more integrated than they seem, they are better than they seem, and they are more mysterious than they seem; something like this emerges as the highest common denominator of the wisdom traditions’ reports. The world at large, however, particularly the modern world, is not persuaded by this view of things; it cannot rise to the daringness of the claim.
The most obvious question that suggests itself at the close of this inquiry is: What have we gotten out of it? Has it done any good?
What have we gotten out of it? Has it done any good?
It would be surprising if we had not picked up some facts along the way: what the yogas are, Buddha’s analysis of the cause of life’s dislocation, Confucius’ ideal of the true gentleman, what the yin/yang symbol signifies, the literal meaning of “Islam,” what the Exodus means to the Jews, what was the “good news” that excited the early Christians, and so on. Such facts are not to be belittled; a well-stocked mind adds interest to the world that comes its way. But is this all?
It would be surprising if we had not picked up some facts along the way. But is this all?
New questions may have emerged from the reading, or old ones assumed new urgency. Three such questions suggest themselves, and their consideration will round off this study. First, how are we to gestalt or pattern the religions we have considered? Having listened to them individually, what do we now take to be their relationships to one another? Second, have they anything to say collectively to the world at large? Granted their variety, do they speak with a concerted voice on any important matters? Third, how should we comport ourselves in a world that is religiously pluralistic where it is religious at all?
New questions may have emerged from the reading, or old ones assumed new urgency.
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The Relation between Religions
To the question of how to pattern these religions, three answers suggest themselves. The first holds that one of the world’s religions is superior to the others. Now that the peoples of the world are getting to know one another better, we hear this answer less often than weused to; but even so it should not be dismissed out of hand. The opening chapter of this book quoted Arnold Toynbee as saying that no one alive knows enough to say with confidence whether or not one religion is superior to the others—the question remains an open one. True, this book has found nothing that privileges one tradition above the others, but that could be due to the kind of book it is: It eschews comparisons in principle. Nothing in the comparative study of religions requires that they cross the finishing line of the reader’s regard in a dead heat.
A religion may be superior to others in the reader’s regard.
A second position lies at the opposite end of the spectrum: It holds that the religions are all basically alike. Differences are acknowledged but, according to this second view, they are incidental in comparison to the great enduring truths on which the religions unite.
This appeals to our longing for human togetherness, but on inspection it proves to be the trickiest position of the three. For as soon as it moves beyond vague generalities—“every religion has some version of the Golden Rule”; or, “Surely we all believe in some sort of something,” as a Member of Parliament once ventured following a bitter debate in the House of Commons over the Book of Common Prayer—it flounders on the fact that the religions differ in what they consider essential and what negotiable. Hinduism and Buddhism split over this issue, as did Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In the nineteenth century Alexander Campbell tried to unite Protestants on grounds of their common acceptance of the Bible as the model for faith and organization. To his surprise he discovered that denominational leaders were not prepared to concede that the uniting principle he proposed was more important than their distinctive tenets; his movement ended by adding another denomination—the Disciples of Christ (Christian Church)—to the Protestant roster. On a world scale Baha’u’llah’s mission came to the same end. Baha’i, which originated in the hope of rallying the major religions around the beliefs they held in common, has settled into being another religion among many.
We may consider that the religions are all basically alike; but, this view flounders on the fact that the religions differ in what they consider essential and what negotiable.
Because this second position is powered by the hope that there may someday be a single world religion, it is well to remind ourselves again of the human element in the religious equation. There are people who want to have their own followers. They would prefer to head their own flock, however small, than be second-in-command in the largest congregation. This suggests that if we were to find ourselves with a single religion tomorrow, it is likely that there would be two the day after.
There are people who want to have their own followers.
A third conception of the way the religions are related likens them to a stained glass window whose sections divide the light of the sun into different colors. This analogy allows for significant differences between the religions without pronouncing on their relative worth. If the peoples of the world differ from one another temperamentally, these differences could well affect the way Spirit appears to them; it could be seen from different angles, so to speak. Stated in the language of revelation, for God to be heard and understood divine revelations would have had to be couched in the idioms of its respective hearers. The Koran comes close to saying just this in Surah 14:4: “We never sent a messenger except with the language of his people, so that he might make (the message) clear for them.”
Stated in the language of revelation, for God to be heard and understood divine revelations would have had to be couched in the idioms of its respective hearers.
Having mentioned three obvious ways in which the world’s religions might be configured, we turn to what they might have to say collectively to the world at large.
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The Wisdom Traditions
The opening chapter of this book mentioned T. S. Eliot’s rhetorical questions: “Where is the knowledge that is lost in information? Where is the wisdom that is lost in knowledge?” And even earlier, in one of the book’s epigraphs, we encountered E. F. Schumacher’s assertion that “we need the courage to consult and profit from the ‘wisdom traditions of mankind.’” Those traditions have been the subject of this book. What wisdom do they offer the world?
What wisdom do these traditions offer the world?
In traditional times it was assumed that they disclosed the ultimate nature of reality. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries science began to cast doubt on that assumption; for Scriptures only assert their truths, whereas controlled experiments can prove scientific hypotheses. After three centuries of confusion on this point, however, we now see that such proofs hold only for the empirical world. The worthful aspects of reality—its values, meaning, and purpose—slip through the devices of science in the way that the sea slips through the nets of fishermen.
The worthful aspects of reality—its values, meaning, and purpose—slip through the devices of science in the way that the sea slips through the nets of fishermen.
Where then can we turn for counsel concerning things that matter most? Our realization that science cannot help us reopens the door to looking seriously again at what the wisdom traditions propose. Not all of their contents are enduringly wise. Modern science has superseded their cosmologies, and the social mores of their day, which they reflect—gender relations, class structures, and the like—must be reassessed in the light of changing times and the continuing struggle for justice. But if we pass a strainer through the world’s religions to lift out their conclusions about reality and how life should be lived, those conclusions begin to look like the winnowed wisdom of the human race.
But if we pass a strainer through the world’s religions to lift out their conclusions about reality and how life should be lived, those conclusions begin to look like the winnowed wisdom of the human race.
What are the specifics of that wisdom? In the realm of ethics the Decalogue pretty much tells the cross-cultural story. We should avoid murder, thieving, lying, and adultery. These are minimum guidelines (the chapter on Judaism expands them slightly) but they are not nothing, as we realize if we reflect on how much better the world would be if they were universally honored.
The minimum guidelines are: we should avoid murder, thieving, lying, and adultery.
Proceeding from this ethical base to the kind of people we should strive to become, we encounter the virtues, which the wisdom traditions identify as basically three: humility, charity, and veracity. Humility is not self-abasement. It is the capacity to regard oneself in the company of others as one, but not more than one. Charity shifts that shoe to the other foot; it is to regard one’s neighbor as likewise one, as fully one as oneself. As for veracity, it extends beyond the minimum of truth-telling to sublime objectivity, the capacity to see things exactly as they are. To conform one’s life to the way things are is to live authentically.
The wisdom traditions identify the virtues as basically three: humility, charity, and veracity.
The Asian religions extol these same three virtues, while emphasizing the obstacles that must be overcome in acquiring them. The Buddha identified these obstacles as greed, hatred, and delusion, and called them the “three poisons.” To the degree that they are eliminated, selflessness (humility), compassion (charity), and seeing things in their Suchness (veracity) replace them. Though the word virtue now carries a heavy moralistic ring, the wisdom traditions emphasize the root meaning of the word, which inclines toward power; philosophical Taoism has remained particularly alert to this original meaning. We catch echoes of the power component of “virtue” when people speak, as they still occasionally do, of “the virtue of a drug.”
The obstacles that must be overcome in acquiring these virtues are: greed, hatred, and delusion.
When we turn to vision, the wisdom traditions’ rendering of the ultimate character of things, three points must here suffice.
The religions begin by assuring us that if we could see the full picture we would find it more integrated than we normally suppose. Life gives us no view of the whole. We see only snatches here and there, and self-interest skews our perspective grotesquely. Things that are close to us assume exaggerated importance, while the rest we view with cold dispassion. It is as if life were a great tapestry, which we face from its wrong side. This gives it the appearance of a maze of knots and threads, which for the most part appear chaotic.
If we could see the full picture we would find it more integrated than we normally suppose.
From a purely human standpoint the wisdom traditions are the species’ most prolonged and serious attempts to infer from the maze on this side of the tapestry the pattern which, on its right side, gives meaning to the whole. As the beauty and harmony of the design derive from the way its parts are related, the design confers on those parts a significance that we, seeing only scraps of the design, do not normally perceive. We could almost say that this belonging to the whole, in something of the way the parts of a painting suggest, is what religion (religio, rebinding) is all about; the theme of at-one-ment laces its every expression. Buddhists bring their palms together to symbolize the overcoming of duality, and Advaitic Vedantins deny duality altogether.
As the beauty and harmony of the design derive from the way its parts are related, the design confers on those parts a significance that we, seeing only scraps of the design, do not normally perceive.
The second claim the wisdom traditions make about reality is implied by the first. If things are pervaded by a grand design, they are not only more integrated than they seem; they are also better than they seem. Having used art (via a tapestry) to symbolize the world’s unity, we shall invoke astrophysics to allegorize this second point, reality’s worth; for if the upshot of astronomy is its verdict that the universe is bigger than human senses disclose, the conclusion of the wisdom traditions is that it is better than our sensibilities discern. And better to comparable degree, which means that we are talking about the value equivalent of lightyears here. T’ien and the Tao, Brahman and nirvana, God and Allah all carry the signature of ens perfectissium—perfect being. This causes the wisdom traditions to flame with an ontological exuberance that is nowhere else to be found. This exuberance is reflected in their estimates of the human self, for in the way that the world’s unity implies that selves belong to the world, its worth implies that they share in the world’s exalted stature. The sheer immensity of the human self as envisioned by the world’s religions is awesome. Atman and the Buddha-nature come immediately to mind, and we remember the rabbis’ angels who precede human beings crying, “Make way for the image of God.” Saint Paul reports that “beholding the glory of the Lord [changes us] from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
If things are pervaded by a grand design, they are not only more integrated than they seem; they are also better than they seem.
Beyond the unity of things and their inestimable worth is the wisdom traditions’ third report. Reality is steeped in ineluctable mystery; we are born in mystery, we live in mystery, and we die in mystery. Here again we must rescue our world from time’s debasement, for “mystery” has come to be associated with murder mysteries, which because they are solvable are not mysteries at all. A mystery is that special kind of problem which for the human mind has no solution; the more we understand it, the more we become aware of additional factors relating to it that we do not understand. In mysteries what we know, and our realization of what we do not know, proceed together; the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. It is like the quantum world, where the more we understand its formalism, the stranger that world becomes.
A mystery is that special kind of problem which for the human mind has no solution; the more we understand it, the more we become aware of additional factors relating to it that we do not understand.
Things are more integrated than they seem, they are better than they seem, and they are more mysterious than they seem; something like this emerges as the highest common denominator of the wisdom traditions’ reports. When we add to this the baseline they establish for ethical behavior and their account of the human virtues, one wonders if a wiser platform for life has been conceived. At the center of the religious life is a particular kind of joy, the prospect of a happy ending that blossoms from necessarily painful beginnings, the promise of human difficulties embraced and overcome. We have only hints of this joy in our daily life. When it arrives we do not know whether our happiness is the rarest or the commonest thing on earth; for in all earthly things we find it, give it, and receive it, but cannot hold onto it. When those intimations are ours it seems in no way strange to be so happy, but in retrospect we wonder how such gold of Eden could have been ours. The human opportunity, the religions tell us, is to transform our flashes of insight into abiding light.
Things are more integrated than they seem, they are better than they seem, and they are more mysterious than they seem; something like this emerges as the highest common denominator of the wisdom traditions’ reports.
The world at large, however, particularly the modern world, is not persuaded by this view of things; it cannot rise to the daringness of the claim. So what do we do? This is our final question. Whether religion is, for us, a good word or bad; whether (if on balance it is a good word) we side with a single religious tradition or to some degree open our arms to all: How do we comport ourselves in a pluralistic world that is riven by ideologies, some sacred, some profane?
The world at large, however, particularly the modern world, is not persuaded by this view of things; it cannot rise to the daringness of the claim.
We listen.
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Listening
If one of the wisdom traditions claims us, we begin by listening to it. Not uncritically, for new occasions teach new duties and everything finite is flawed in some respects. Still, we listen to it expectantly, knowing that it houses more truth than can be encompassed in a single lifetime.
If one of the wisdom traditions claims us, we begin by listening to it expectantly.
But we also listen to the faith of others, including the secularists. We listen first because, as this book opened by noting, our times require it. The community today can be no single tradition; it is the planet. Daily the world grows smaller, leaving understanding the only place where peace can a find a home. We are not prepared for the annihilation of distance that science has effected. Who today stands ready to accept the solemn equality of peoples? Who does not have to fight an unconscious tendency to equate foreign with inferior? Some of us have survived this bloodiest of centuries; but if its ordeals are to be birth pangs rather than death throes, the century’s scientific advances must be matched by comparable advances in human relations. Those who listen work for peace, a peace built not on ecclesiastical or political hegemonies but on understanding and mutual concern. For understanding, at least in realms as inherently noble as the great faiths of humankind, brings respect; and respect prepares the way for a higher power, love—the only power that can quench the flames of fear, suspicion, and prejudice, and provide the means by which the people of this small but precious Earth can become one to one another.
But we also listen to the faith of others, including the secularists because our times require it. The community today can be no single tradition; it is the planet.
Understanding, then, can lead to love. But the reverse is also true. Love brings understanding; the two are reciprocal. So we must listen to understand, but we must also listen to put into play the compassion that the wisdom traditions all enjoin, for it is impossible to love another without hearing that other. If we are to be true to these religions, we must attend to others as deeply and as alertly as we hope that they will attend to us; Thomas Merton made this point by saying that God speaks to us in three places: in scripture, in our deepest selves, and in the voice of the stranger. We must have the graciousness to receive as well as to give, for there is no greater way to depersonalize another than to speak without also listening.
So we must listen to understand, but we must also listen to put into play the compassion that the wisdom traditions all enjoin, for it is impossible to love another without hearing that other.
Said Jesus, blessed be his name, “Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.” Said Buddha, blessed be his name as well, “He who would, may reach the utmost height—but he must be eager to learn.” If we do not quote the other religions on these points, it is because their words would be redundant.
Said Jesus, blessed be his name, “Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.” Said Buddha, blessed be his name as well, “He who would, may reach the utmost height—but he must be eager to learn.”
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