From a child’s point of view, parents are sometimes hard to understand. There are differences between generations. But truthfully, this is no barrier. When one is weak, it is a temptation to take refuge in subterfuges and lies: it is this which builds the wall.
Children can reconcile their differences with their parents. Before any shouting begins, one can at least try to talk it over quietly. If the child is frank and honest, there cannot help but be an appeal that will reach. It is often possible to attain a compromise where both sides now understand and can agree. It is not always easy to get along with others but one should try.
One cannot overlook the fact that almost always, parents are acting from a very strong desire to do what they believe to be best for the child.
Children are indebted to their parents for their upbringing—if the parents did so. While some parents are so fiercely independent that they will accept no return on the obligation, it is nevertheless true that there often comes a time when it is the turn of the younger generation to care for their parents.
In spite of all, one must remember that they are the only parents one has. And as such, no matter what, one should honor them and help them.
The way to happiness includes being on good terms with one’s parents or those who brought one up.
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Exercise
0. Make sure you have completed the exercise section at Happiness: Precept 4. Study the precept above.
1. Check the responses to the following questions for false data (see false data steps at Happiness: Prologue).
(a) “Have you been told or taught not to honor and help your parents?” (b) “Do you have any rules or ideas contrary to honoring and helping your parents?” (c) “Have you been led to believe that you shouldn’t honor and help your parents?” (d) “Do you know of anything that conflicts with honoring and helping your parents?” (e) “Do you have any false data about honoring and helping your parents?”
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2. Go over each of the following questions repetitively, until there are no more answers:
(a) “How have others transgressed against the precept: ‘Honor and help your parents’?” (b) “How have you transgressed against the precept: ‘Honor and help your parents’?”
Do a quick review to see if you did not miss any answers on this step. You should be feeling good about this step.
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3. See if the following question definitely brings up some name you know of:
“Is there any specific person in your past who really transgressed against the precept: ‘Honor and help your parents’?”
If no name comes up then go to step 4. if a name has come up, then continue with step 3 as follows:
“Can you recall an exact moment when you observed ___(name)___ transgressing this precept?”
If there is a realization, go to step 4. Otherwise, continue contemplating as follows, until there is some realization.
“Is there any time when you wanted to be like ___(name)___ ?” “Is there any time when you decided that not honoring and helping your parents was a good thing?” “Did you ever do anything bad to ___(name)___ ? (Get all possible answers) “Are there any differences between ___(name)___ and yourself?” “Are there any similarities between ___(name)___ and yourself?”
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4. Handle any anomalies that come up on the following question by looking at the anomaly more closely.
”Do you have any reservations about honoring and helping your parents?”
If the anomaly does not resolve then review the precept as well as all the exercise steps above to see if anything was missed. Then do step 4 again. When there is no anomaly go to step 5.
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5. Contemplate on the following question.
“Do you have any reservations about getting someone else to honor and help their parents?”
If any reservation comes up, then consider the following:
“How would that be a problem?”
Get answers to this question until there are no reservations.
In Theravada Buddhism the prime attribute of enlightenment is wisdom (bodhi), from which flow automatically the compassion for others. From the Mahayana perspective compassion must be given priority over wisdom from the beginning.
Thus far we have been looking at Buddhism as it appears from its earliest records. We turn now to Buddhist history and the record it provides of the variations that can enter a tradition as it seeks to minister to the needs of masses of people and multiple personality types.
When we approach Buddhist history with this interest, what strikes us immediately is that it splits. Religions invariably split. In the West the twelve Hebrew tribes split into Israel and Judah. Christendom split into the Eastern and Western churches, the Western church split into Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, and Protestantism splinters. The same happens in Buddhism. The Buddha dies, and before the century is out the seeds of schism have been sown. One approach to the question of why Buddhism split would be through analyzing the events, personalities, and environments the religion became implicated with in its early centuries. We can cut through all that, however, by saying, simply, that Buddhism divided over the questions that have always divided people.
Buddhism split just like most religions have split as they seeks to minister to the needs of masses of people and multiple personality types.
How many such questions are there? How many questions will divide almost every assemblage of people whether in India, New York, or Madrid? Three come to mind.
First, there is the question of whether people are independent or interdependent. Some people are most aware of their individuality; for them, their freedom and initiative is more important than their bondings. The obvious corollary is that they see people as making their own ways through life; what each achieves will be largely of his or her own doing. “I was born in the slums, my father was an alcoholic, all of my siblings went to the dogs—don’t talk to me about heredity or environment. I got to where I am by myself!” This is one attitude. On the other side of the fence are those for whom life’s inter-connectedness prevails. To them the separateness of people seems tenuous; they see themselves as supported and vectored by social fields that are as strong as those of physics. Human bodies are of course separate, but on a deeper level we are joined like icebergs in a common floe. “Send not to ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”
There is the question of whether people are independent or interdependent, which will divide almost every assemblage of people. There is that strong feeling of individuality that contributes to it.
A second question concerns the relation in which human beings stand, not this time to their fellows, but to the universe. Is the universe friendly—helpful on the whole toward creatures? Or is it indifferent, if not hostile? Opinions differ. On bookstore shelves we find volumes with titles like Man Stands Alone, and next to them Man Does not Stand Alone and Man Is Not Alone. Some people see history as a thoroughly human project in which humanity raises itself by its own bootstraps or progress doesn’t happen. For others it is powered by “a higher power that makes for good.”
A second question concerns the relation in which human beings stand, not this time to their fellows, but to the universe.
A third dividing question is: What is the best part of the human self, its head or its heart? A popular parlor game used to revolve around the question, “If you had to choose, would you rather be loved or respected?” It is the same point with a different twist. Classicists rank thoughts above feelings; romantics do the opposite. The first seek wisdom; the second, if they had to choose, prefer compassion. The distinction probably also relates to William James’s contrast between the tough-minded and the tender-minded.
A third dividing question is: What is the best part of the human self, its head or its heart?
Here are three questions that have probably divided people as long as they have been human and continue to divide them today. They divided the early Buddhists. One group took as its motto the Buddha’s valedictory, “Be lamps unto yourselves; work out your salvation with diligence.” Whatever progress those in this group make will be the fruit of wisdom—insight into the cause of suffering as gained through meditation. The other group held that compassion is the more important feature of enlightenment, arguing that to seek enlightenment by oneself and for oneself is a contradiction in terms. For them, human beings are more social than individual, and love is the greatest thing in the world.
One Buddhist group focused on the insight into the cause of suffering as gained through meditation. The other group held that compassion is the more important feature of enlightenment.
Other differences gathered around these fundamental ones. The first group insisted that Buddhism was a full-time job; those who made nirvana their central object would have to give up the world and become monks. The second group, perhaps because it did not rest all its hopes on self-effort, was less demanding. It held that its outlook was as relevant for the layperson as for the professional; that in its own way it was as applicable in the world as in the monastery. This difference left its imprint on the names of the two outlooks. Both called themselves yanas, rafts or ferries, for both claimed to carry people across life’s sea to the shores of enlightenment. The second group, however, pointing to its doctrine of cosmic help (grace) and its ampler regard for laypeople, claimed to be “Buddhism for the people” and thereby the larger of the two vehicles. Accordingly it preempted the name Mahayana, the Big Raft, maha meaning “great,” as in Mahatma (the Great Souled) Gandhi. As this name caught on, the other group came to be known, by default, as Hinayana, or the Little Raft.
The second group, pointing to its doctrine of cosmic help (grace) and its ampler regard for laypeople, claimed to be Mahayana (Big Raft). As this name caught on, the other group came to be known, by default, as Hinayana, or the Little Raft.
Not exactly pleased with this invidious designation, the Hinayanists have preferred to call their Buddhism Theravada, the Way ofthe Elders. In doing so they regained the initiative by claiming to represent original Buddhism, the Buddhism taught by Gautama himself. The claim is justified if we confine ourselves to the explicit teachings of the Buddha as they are recorded in the earliest texts, the Pali Canon, for on the whole those texts do support the Theravada position. But this fact has not discouraged the Mahayanists from their counterclaim that it is they who represent the true line of succession. For, they argue, the Buddha taught more eloquently and profoundly by his life and example than by the words the Pali Canon records. The decisive fact about his life is that he did not remain in nirvana after his enlightenment but returned to devote his life to others. Because he did not belabor this fact, Theravadins (attending too narrowly to his initial spoken words, the Mahayanists contend) overlook the importance of his “great renunciation,” and this causes them to read his mission too narrowly.
Not exactly pleased with this invidious designation, the Hinayanists have preferred to call their Buddhism Theravada, the Way of the Elders. In doing so they regained the initiative by claiming to represent original Buddhism, the Buddhism taught by Gautama himself.
We can leave to the two schools their dispute over apostolic succession; our concern is not to judge but to understand the positions they embody. The differences that have come out thus far may be summarized by the following pairs of contrasts, if we keep in mind that they are not absolute but denote differences in emphasis.
Our concern is not to judge but to understand the positions they embody.
1. For Theravada Buddhism progress is up to the individual; it depends on his or her understanding and resolute application of the will. For Mahayanists the fate of the individual is linked to that of all life, and they are ultimately undivided. Two lines from John Whittier’s “The Meeting” summarize the latter outlook:
He findeth not who seeks his own The soul is lost that’s saved alone.
Theravada Buddhism focuses on individual effort; whereas, for Mahayana Buddhism the fate of the individual is linked to that of all life.
2. Theravada holds that humanity is on its own in the universe. No gods exist to help us over the humps, so self-reliance is our only recourse.
By ourselves is evil done, By ourselves we pain endure, By ourselves we cease from wrong, By ourselves become we pure. No one saves us but ourselves, No one can and no one may; We ourselves must tread the Path: Buddhas only show the way.
For Mahayana, in contrast, grace is a fact. We can be at peace because a boundless power draws—or if you prefer, propels—everything to its appointed goal. In the words of a famous Mahayana text, “There is a Buddha in every grain of sand.”
Theravada holds that humanity is on its own in the universe. For Mahayana, in contrast, grace is a fact.
3. In Theravada Buddhism the prime attribute of enlightenment is wisdom (bodhi), meaning profound insight into the nature of reality, the causes of anxiety and suffering, and the absence of a separate core of selfhood. From these realizations flow automatically the Four Noble Virtues: loving-kindness, compassion, equanimity, and joy in the happiness and wellbeing of others. From the Mahayana perspective karuna (compassion) cannot be counted on to be an automatic fruit. From the beginning compassion must be given priority over wisdom. Meditation yields a personal power that can be destructive if a person has not deliberately cultivated compassionate concern for others as the motive for arduous discipline. “A guard I would be to them who have no protection,” runs a typical Mahayana invocation; “a guide to the voyager, a ship, a well, a spring, a bridge for the seeker of the other shore.” The theme has been beautifully elaborated by Shantideva, a poet-saint who has been called the Thomas à Kempis of Buddhism:
May I be a balm to the sick, their healer and servitor until sickness come never again; May I quench with rains of food and drink the anguish of hunger and thirst; May I be in the famine of the age’s end their drink and meat; May I become an unfailing store for the poor, and serve them with manifold things for their need. My own being and my pleasures, all my righteousness in the past, present and future, I surrender indifferently, That all creatures may win through to their end.
In Theravada Buddhism the prime attribute of enlightenment is wisdom (bodhi), from which flow automatically the compassion for others. From the Mahayana perspective compassion must be given priority over wisdom from the beginning.
4. The sangha (Buddhist monastic order) is at the heart of Theravada Buddhism. Monasteries (and to a lesser extent nunneries) are the spiritual dynamos in lands where it predominates, reminding everyone of a higher truth behind visible reality. Monks and nuns—only partially isolated from society because they are dependent on local people to put into their begging bowls their one daily meal—are accorded great respect. This veneration is extended to people who assume monastic vows for limited periods (a not uncommon practice) in order to practice mindfulness meditation intensively. In Burma “taking the robe” for a three-month monastic retreat has virtually marked the passage into male adulthood. Mahayana Buddhism, on the contrary, is primarily a religion for laypeople. Even its priests usually marry, and they are expected to make service to the laity their primary concern.
The sangha (Buddhist monastic order) is at the heart of Theravada Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism, on the contrary, is primarily a religion for laypeople.
5. It follows from these differences that the ideal type as projected by the two schools will differ appreciably. For the Theravadins the ideal was the Arhat, the perfected disciple who, wandering like the lone rhinoceros, strikes out alone for nirvana and, with prodigious concentration, proceeds unswervingly toward that goal. The Mahayana ideal, on the contrary, was the boddhisattva, “one whose essence (sattva) is perfected wisdom (bodhi)”—a being who, having reached the brink of nirvana, voluntarily renounces that prize and returns to the world to make nirvana available to others. The boddhisattva deliberately sentences himself—or herself: the best loved of all boddhisattvas is the Goddess of Mercy, Kwan Yin, in China—to agelong servitude in order that others, drawing vicariously on the merit thus accumulated, may enter nirvana first.
The difference between the two types is illustrated in the story of four men who, journeying across an immense desert, come upon a compound surrounded with high walls. One of the four determines to find out what is inside. He scales the wall, and on reaching the top gives a whoop of delight and jumps over. The second and third do likewise. When the fourth man gets to the top of the wall, he sees below him an enchanted garden with sparkling streams, pleasant groves, and luscious fruit. Though longing to jump over, he resists the temptation. Remembering other wayfarers who are trudging the burning deserts, he climbs back down and devotes himself to directing them to the oasis. The first three men were Arhats; the last was a boddhisattva, one who vows not to desert this world “until the grass itself be enlightened”.
For the Theravadins the ideal is the Arhat, the perfected disciple. The Mahayana ideal, on the contrary, is the boddhisattva, who, having reached the brink of nirvana, voluntarily renounces that prize and returns to the world to make nirvana available to others.
6. This difference in ideal naturally floods back to color the two schools’ estimates of the Buddha himself. For one he was essentially a saint, for the other a savior. Theravadins revere him as a supreme sage, who through his own efforts awakened to the truth and became an incomparable teacher who laid out a path for them to follow. A man among men, his very humanness is the basis for the Theravadins’ faith that they, too, have the potential for enlightenment. But the Buddha’s direct personal influence ceased with his paranirvana (entrance into nirvana at death). He knows nothing more of this world of becoming and is at perfect peace. The reverence felt by the Mahayanists could not be satisfied with this humanness—extraordinary, to be sure, but human nonetheless. For them the Buddha was a world savior who continues to draw all creatures toward him “by the rays of his jewel hands.” The bound, the shackled, the suffering on every plane of existence, galaxy beyond galaxy, worlds beyond worlds, all are drawn toward liberation by the glorious “gift rays” of the Lord.
Theravadins revere Buddha as a supreme sage, who through his own efforts awakened to the truth and became an incomparable teacher. For Mahayanists the Buddha was a world savior who continues to draw all creatures toward him “by the rays of his jewel hands.”
These differences are the central ones, but several others may be mentioned to piece out the picture. Whereas the Theravadins followed their founder in considering speculation a useless diversion, Mahayana spawned elaborate cosmologies replete with many-leveled heavens and hells. The only kind of prayer the Theravadins countenanced was meditation and invocations to deepen faith and loving-kindness, whereas the Mahayanists added supplication, petition, and calling on the name of the Buddha for spiritual strength. Finally, whereas Theravada remained conservative to the point of an almost fundamentalistic adherence to the early Pali texts, Mahayana was liberal in almost every respect. It accepted later texts as equally authoritative, was less strict in interpreting disciplinary rules, and had a higher opinion of the spiritual possibilities of women and the laity in general.
Whereas the Theravadins followed their founder in considering speculation a useless diversion, Mahayana spawned elaborate cosmologies replete with many-leveled heavens and hells.
Thus, in the end, the wheel comes full circle. The religion that began as a revolt against rites, speculation, grace, and the supernatural, ends with all of them back in full force and its founder (who was an atheist as far as a personal God was concerned) transformed into such a God himself. We can schematize the differences that divide the two great branches of Buddhism as follows, if we bear in mind that the differences are not absolute:
Which one wins? Inwardly, there is no measure (or better, no such thing as winning); but outwardly (in terms of numbers), the answer is Mahayana. Part of the reason may lie in the fact that it converted one of the greatest kings the world has known. In the history of ancient royalty the figure of Asoka (c. 272–232 B.C.) stands out like a Himalayan peak, clear and resplendent against a sunlit sky. If we are not all Buddhists—Mahayana Buddhists—today it was not Asoka’s fault. Not content to board the Big Raft himself and commend it to his subjects—his Buddhist wheel of the law waves on India’s flag today—he strove to extend it over three continents. Finding Buddhism an Indian sect, he left it a world religion.
In my opinion, one should become an Arhat and then take on the mantle of Bodhisattva. Buddha was both.
It would be going too far, however, to suppose that a single historical personage made Buddhism cosmopolitan, and the different ways Asia heard the Buddha’s message and took it to heart provides a final touchstone for distinguishing Theravada from Mahayana. The differences that have occupied us thus far have been doctrinal, but there is an important socio-political difference between them as well.
There is a socio-political difference beyond the doctrinal difference.
Theravada sought to incarnate a feature of the Buddha’s teachings that has not thus far been mentioned: his vision of an entiresociety—a civilization if you will—that was founded like a tripod on monarchy, the monastic community (sangha), and the laity, each with responsibilities to the other two and meriting services from them in return. South Asian countries that remain to this day Theravadin—Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia—took this political side of the Buddha’s message seriously, and remnants of his model are discernible in those lands right down to today. China’s interest in Buddhism (which she transmitted to the other lands that were to become Mahayanist: Korea, Japan, and Tibet) bypassed its social dimensions, which included education as well as politics. In East Asian lands Buddhism appears as something of a graft. Buddhist missionaries persuaded the Chinese that they possessed psychological and metaphysical profundities the Chinese sages had not sounded, but Confucius had thought a lot about the social order, and the Chinese were not about to be lectured to on that subject by aliens. So China discounted the political proposals of the Buddha and took from his corpus its psycho-spiritual components with their cosmic overtones. The world still awaits a history of Buddhism that tells the story of the Theravada/Mahayana divide in terms of the way in which (for geographical and historical reasons) Theravada remained faithful to its founder’s vision of a Buddhist civilization, whereas Mahayana becomes Buddhism trimmed to its religious core: a module that could be grafted onto civilizations whose social foundations were securely in place.
Theravada remained faithful to its founder’s vision of a Buddhist civilization, whereas Mahayana becomes Buddhism trimmed to its religious core: a module that could be grafted onto civilizations whose social foundations were securely in place.
The doctrinal differences between Theravada and Mahayana appear to have softened as the centuries have gone by. Following World War II two young Germans who were disillusioned with Europe went to Sri Lanka to dedicate their lives to the Buddha’s peaceable way. Both became Theravada monks. One, his name changed to Nyanaponika Thera, continued on that path; but the other, while on a sightseeing trip to north India, met some Tibetans and switched to their tradition, becoming known in the West as Lama Govinda. Toward the close of Nyanaponika’s life a visitor asked him about the different Buddhisms the two friends had espoused. With great serenity and sweetness the aging Theravadin replied: “My friend cited the Bodhisattva Vow as the reason for his switch to Mahayana, but I could not see the force of his argument. For if one were to transcend self-centeredness completely, as the Arhat seeks to do, what would be left but compassion?”
Today’s children will become tomorrow’s civilization. Bringing a child into the world today is a little bit like dropping one into a tiger’s cage. Children can’t handle their environments and they have no real resources. They need love and help to make it.
It is a delicate problem to discuss. There are almost as many theories on how to raise a child or not raise him as there are parents. Yet if one does it incorrectly much grief can result and one may even complicate his or her own later years. Some try to raise children the way they were themselves raised, others attempt the exact opposite, many hold to an idea that children should just be let grow on their own. None of these guarantee success. The last method is based on a materialistic idea that the development of the child parallels the evolutionary history of the race; that in some magical way, unexplained, the “nerves” of the child will “ripen” as he or she grows older and the result will be a moral, well-behaving adult. Although the theory is disproven with ease—simply by noticing the large criminal population whose nerves somehow did not ripen—it is a lazy way to raise children and achieves some popularity. It doesn’t take care of your civilization’s future or your older years.
A child is a little bit like a blank slate. If you write the wrong things on it, it will say the wrong things. But, unlike a slate, a child can begin to do the writing: the child tends to write what has been written already. The problem is complicated by the fact that, while most children are capable of great decency, a few are born insane and today, some are even born as drug addicts: but such cases are an unusual few.
It does no good just to try to “buy” the child with an overwhelm of toys and possessions or to smother and protect the child: the result can be pretty awful.
One has to make up his mind what he is trying to get the child to become. This is modified by several things: a) what the child basically can become due to inherent make-up and potential; b) what the child, himself, really wants to become; c) what one wants the child to become; d) the resources available. But remember that whatever these all add up to, the child will not survive well unless he or she eventually becomes self-reliant and very moral. Otherwise the end product is likely to be a liability to everyone including the child.
Whatever is one’s affection for the child, remember that the child cannot survive well in the long run if he or she does not have his or her feet put on the way to survival. It will be no accident if the child goes wrong: the contemporary society is tailor-made for a child’s failure .
It will help enormously if you obtain a child’s understanding of and agreement to follow the precepts contained in this book.
What does have a workability is simply to try to be the child’s friend. It is certainly true that a child needs friends. Try to find out what a child’s problem really is and without crushing their own solutions, try to help solve them. Observe them—and this applies even to babies. Listen to what children tell you about their lives. Let them help—if you don’t, they become overwhelmed with a sense of obligations which they then must repress.
It will help the child enormously if you obtain understanding of and agreement to this way to happiness and get him or her to follow it. It could have an enormous effect on the child’s survival—and yours.
A child factually does not do well without love. Most children have an abundance of it to return.
The way to happiness has on its route the loving and the helping of children from babyhood to the brink of adult life.
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Exercise
0. Make sure you have completed the exercise section at Happiness: Precept 3-1. Study the precept above.
1. Check the responses to the following questions for false data (see false data steps at Happiness: Prologue).
(a) “Have you been told or taught not to love and help children?” (b) “Do you have any rules or ideas contrary to loving and helping children?” (c) “Have you been led to believe that you shouldn’t love and help children?” (d) “Do you know of anything that conflicts with loving and helping children?” (e) “Do you have any false data about loving and helping children?”
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2. Go over each of the following questions repetitively, until there are no more answers:
(a) “How have others transgressed against the precept: ‘Love and help children’?” (b) “How have you transgressed against the precept: ‘Love and help children’?”
Do a quick review to see if you did not miss any answers on this step. You should be feeling good about this step.
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3. See if the following question definitely brings up some name you know of:
“Is there any specific person in your past who really transgressed against the precept: ‘Love and help children’?”
If no name comes up then go to step 4. if a name has come up, then continue with step 3 as follows:
“Can you recall an exact moment when you observed ___(name)___ transgressing this precept?”
If there is a realization, go to step 4. Otherwise, continue contemplating as follows, until there is some realization.
“Is there any time when you wanted to be like ___(name)___ ?” “Is there any time when you decided that loving and helping children was not a good thing?” “Did you ever do anything bad to ___(name)___ ? (Get all possible answers) “Are there any differences between ___(name)___ and yourself?” “Are there any similarities between ___(name)___ and yourself?”
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4. Handle any anomalies that come up on the following question by looking at the anomaly more closely.
”Do you have any reservations about loving and helping children?”
If the anomaly does not resolve then review the precept as well as all the exercise steps above to see if anything was missed. Then do step 4 again. When there is no anomaly go to step 5.
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5. Contemplate on the following question.
“Do you have any reservations about getting someone else to love and help children?”
If any reservation comes up, then consider the following:
“How would that be a problem?”
Get answers to this question until there are no reservations.
Divine cannot be equated with anything finite. One cannot absolutize dogmas, the Sacraments, the Church, the Bible, or personal religious experience. But as long as they point beyond themselves to God, they can be invaluable.
The causes that led to the break between Roman Catholicism and what came to be known as Protestant Christianity are complex and still in dispute. Political economy, nationalism, Renaissance individualism, and a rising concern over ecclesiastical abuses all played their part. They do not, however, camouflage the fact that the basic cause was religious, a difference in Christian perspective between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. As we are concerned here with ideas rather than history, we shall say no more about the causes of the Protestant Reformation. Instead, we shall be content to treat the sixteenth century—Luther, Calvin, the Ninety-five Theses, the Diet of Worms, King Henry VIII, the Peace of Augsburg—as a vast tunnel. The Western Church entered that tunnel whole; it emerged from it in two sections. More accurately, it emerged in several sections, for Protestantism is not so much a Church as a movement of Churches.
Protestantism is not so much a Church as a movement of Churches.
The deepest differences in Protestantism today are not denominational; they are emphases that cut across denominations and often combine in the same person: fundamentalist, conservative evangelical, mainline, charismatic, and social activist. In this brief overview we shall not go into these differences, which tend to be of recent origin. Instead, without repeating the bulk of its faith and practice, which it shares with Catholicism and Orthodoxy—Protestantism is more Christian than Protestant—we shall proceed to its two great enduring themes with which we must here be content. They are (1) justification by faith and (2) the Protestant Principle.
Protestantism is more Christian than Protestant—its two great enduring themes are (1) justification by faith and (2) the Protestant Principle.
Faith. Faith, in the Protestant conception, is not simply a matter of belief, an acceptance of knowledge held with certainty yet not on evidence. It is a response of the entire self; in Emil Brunner’s phrase, “a totality-act of the whole personality.” As such it does include a movement of the mind in assent—specifically, a conviction of God’s limitless, omnipresent creative power—but this is not its all. To be truly faith it must include as well a movement of the affections in love and trust, and a movement of the will in desire to be an instrument of God’s redeeming love. When Protestantism says that human beings are justified—that is, restored to right relationship with the ground of their being, and with their associates—by faith, it is saying that such restoration requires a movement of the total self, in mind, will, and affections, all three. It is a mark of the strength of the ecumenical movement in our time that Roman Catholic theologians now increasingly understand faith in the same way.
Faith, in the Protestant conception, is not simply a matter of belief, it is a response of the entire self. It requires a movement of the total self, in mind, will, and affections, all three.
Thus defined, faith is a personal phenomenon. “Right beliefs” or “sound doctrine” can be accepted secondhand and largely by rote, but service and love cannot. Faith is the response by which God, heretofore a postulate of philosophers or theologians, becomes God for me, my God. This is the meaning of Luther’s statement that “Everyone must do his own believing as he will have to do his own dying.”
Faith is a personal phenomenon—“Everyone must do his own believing as he will have to do his own dying.”
To feel the force of the Protestant emphasis on faith as response of the entire self, we need to see it as a passionate repudiation of religious perfunctoriness. Luther’s protest against indulgences, which were thought to help reduce their purchasers’ time in purgatory, is only a symbol of this wider protest, which extended in a number of directions. No number of religious observances, no record of good deeds, no roster of doctrines believed could guarantee that an individual would reach his or her desired state. Such things were not irrelevant to the Christian life; but unless they helped to transform the believer’s heart (his or her attitudes and response to life), they were inadequate. This is the meaning of the Protestant rallying cry, “Justification by faith alone.” It does not mean that the Creeds or the Sacraments are unimportant. It means that unless these are accompanied by the experience of God’s love and a returning love for God, they are insufficient. Similarly with good works. The Protestant position does not imply that good works are unimportant. It means that fully understood, they are correlatives of faith rather than its preludes. If one really does have faith, good works will flow from it naturally, whereas the reverse cannot be assumed; that is, good works do not necessarily lead to faith. To a large extent both Paul and Luther had been driven to their emphasis on faith precisely because a respectable string of good works, doggedly performed, had not succeeded in transforming their hearts.
To feel the force of the Protestant emphasis on faith as response of the entire self, we need to see it as a passionate repudiation of religious perfunctoriness.
Once more we need to draw here on the analogy of the child in its home, an analogy that speaks so directly to one aspect of human religiousness that we have cited it several times already. After the child’s physical needs have been met, or rather while they are being met, the child needs above all to feel the enveloping love and acceptance of its parents. Paul, Luther, and Protestants in general say something comparable for human beings throughout their lifespans. Since from first to last they are vulnerable before the powers that confront them, their lifelong need is to know that their basic environment, the ground of being from which they have derived and to which they will return, is for them rather than against them. If they can come to know this to the extent of really feeling it, they are released from the basic anxiety that causes them to try to elbow their way to security. This is why, just as the loved child is the cooperative child, the man or woman in whom God’s love has awakened the answering response of faith is the one who can truly love other people. The key is inward. Given faith in God’s goodness, everything of importance follows. In its absence, nothing can take its place.
Since from first to last human beings are vulnerable before the powers that confront them, their lifelong need is to know that their basic environment, the ground of being from which they have derived and to which they will return, is for them rather than against them.
The Protestant Principle. The other controlling perspective in Protestantism has come to be called the Protestant Principle. Stated philosophically, it warns against absolutizing the relative. Stated theologically, it warns against idolatry.
The Protestant Principle warns against absolutizing the relative.
The point is this. Human allegiance belongs to God—this all religions (with allowance for terminology) will affirm. God, however, is beyond nature and history. God is not removed from these, but the divine cannot be equated with either or any of their parts, for while the world is finite, God is infinite. With these truths all the great religions in principle agree. They are, however, very hard truths to keep in mind; so hard that people continually let them slip and proceed to equate God with something they can see or touch or at least conceptualize more precisely than the infinite. Early on they equated God with statues, until prophets—the first “protestants” or protesters on this score—rose up to denounce their transpositions, dubbing their pitiful substitutes idols, or “little pieces of form.” Later, people stopped deifying wood and stone, but this did not mean that idolatry ended. While the secular world proceeded to absolutize the state, or the self, or human intellect, Christians fell to absolutizing dogmas, the Sacraments, the Church, the Bible, or personal religious experience. To think that Protestantism devalues these or doubts that God is involved in them is to misjudge it seriously. It does, however, insist that none of them is God. All, being involved in history, contain something of the human; and since the human is always imperfect, these instruments are to some degree imperfect as well. As long as they point beyond themselves to God, they can be invaluable. But let any of them claim absolute or unreserved allegiance—which is to say claim to be God—and it becomes diabolical. For this, according to tradition, is what the devil is: the highest angel who, not content to be second, was determined to be first.
Divine cannot be equated with anything finite. One cannot absolutize dogmas, the Sacraments, the Church, the Bible, or personal religious experience. But as long as they point beyond themselves to God, they can be invaluable.
In the name of the sovereign God, who transcends all the limitations and distortions of finite existence, therefore, every human claim to absolute truth or finality must be rejected. Some examples will indicate what this principle means in practice. Protestants cannot accept the dogma of papal infallibility because this would involve removing from criticism forever opinions that, having been channeled through human minds, can never (in the Protestant view) wholly escape the risk of limitation and partial error. Creeds and pronouncement can be believed; they can be believed fully and wholeheartedly. But to place them beyond the cleansing crossfire of challenge and criticism is to absolutize something finite—to elevate “a little piece of form” to the position that should be reserved for God alone.
Every human claim to absolute truth or finality must be rejected, such as, the dogma of papal infallibility.
Instances of what Protestants consider idolatry are not confined to other sects or religions. Protestants admit that the tendency to absolutize the relative is universal; it occurs among them as much as it does anywhere, bringing the need for continual self-criticism and reformation to the door of Protestantism itself. The chief Protestant idolatry has been Bibliolatry. Protestants do believe that God speaks to people through the Bible as in no other way. But to elevate it as a book to a point above criticism, to insist that every word and letter was dictated directly by God and so can contain no historical, scientific, or other inaccuracies, is again to forget that in entering the world, God’s word must speak through human minds. Another common instance of idolatry within Protestantism has been the deification of private religious experience. Its insistence that faith must be a living experience has often led its constituents to assume that any vital experience must be the working of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps so, but again the experience is never pure Spirit. The Spirit must assume the contours of the human vessel, which means again that the whole is never uncompounded.
In entering the world, God’s word must speak through human minds that are not perfect. This applies to words recorded in the Bible as well.
By rejecting all such absolutes, Protestantism tries to keep faith with the first Commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). The injunction contains a negative, and for many the word Protestant too carries a predominantly negative ring. Is not a Protestant a person who protests against something? We have seen that this is certainly true; Protestants who are truly such protest without ceasing the usurpation of God’s place by anything less than God. But the Protestant Principle can just as well be put positively, which is how it should be put if its full import is to be appropriated. It protests against idolatry because it testifies for (protestant = one who testifies for) God’s sovereignty in human life.
By rejecting all such absolutes, Protestantism tries to keep faith with the first Commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me.”
But how is God to enter human life? To insist that God cannot be equated with anything in this tangible, visible world leaves people at sea in God’s ocean. God doubtless surrounds us; but to gain access to human awareness, divinity needs to be condensed and focused.
But, to gain access to human awareness, divinity needs to be condensed and focused.
This is where, for Protestants, the Bible figures. In its account of God working through Israel, through Christ, and through the early Church, we find the clearest picture of God’s great goodness, and how human beings may find new life in fellowship with the divine. In this sense the Bible is, for Protestants, ultimate. But note with care the sense in which this is so. It is ultimate in the sense that when human beings read this record of God’s grace with true openness and longing for God, God stands at the supreme intersection between the divine and the human. There, more than anywhere else in the world of time and space, people have the prospect of catching, not with their minds alone but with their whole beings, the truth about God and the relation in which God stands to their lives. No derivative interpretation by councils, peoples, or theologians can replace or equal this. The Word of God must speak to each individual soul directly. It is this that accounts for the Protestant emphasis on the Bible as the living word of God.
The Word of God must speak to each individual soul directly. It is this that accounts for the Protestant emphasis on the Bible as the living word of God.
Is not this concept of Christianity freighted with danger? The Protestant readily admits that it is. First, there is the danger of misconstruing God’s word. If, as the Protestant Principle insists, all things human are imperfect, does it not follow that each individual’s vision of God must at least be limited and possibly quite erroneous? It does. Protestantism not only admits this; it insists on it. But as the fact happens to be true, how much better to recognize it and open the door to the corrections of the Holy Spirit working through other minds than to saddle Christendom with what is in fact limited truth masquerading as finality. As Jesus himself says: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:12). One very important reason for restricting final loyalty to the transcendent God is to keep the future open.
All things human are imperfect; therefore, it does follow that each individual’s vision of God must at least be limited and possibly quite erroneous.
The other danger is that Christians will derive different truths from the Bible. The nine hundred-odd denominations of Protestantism in the United States alone prove not only that this danger exists, but that it could conceivably slope toward complete individualism. Protestantism admits this, but adds three points.
First, Protestant diversity is not as great as its hundreds of denominations, most of them more adequately termed sects, suggest. Most of these are of negligible size. Actually, 85 percent of all Protestants belong to twelve denominations. Considering the freedom of belief Protestantism affirms in principle, the wonder lies not in its diversity but in the extent to which Protestants have managed to stay together.
Second, Protestant divisions reflect differing national origins in Europe or differing social groupings in the United States more than they do differing theologies.
The third point, however, is the most important. Who is to say that diversity is bad? People differ, and historical circumstances, too, can occasion life-affecting differences that must be taken seriously: “New occasions teach new duties.” Protestants believe that life and history are too fluid to allow God’s redeeming Word to be enclosed in a single form, whether it be doctrinal or institutional. They are concerned about the brokenness of Christ’s “body” and take steps to mend differences that are no longer meaningful; this is the so-called ecumenical movement, which is vigorous. But they do not believe that people should cuddle up to one another just to keep warm. Comforts of togetherness should not lead to structures that will restrict the dynamic character of God’s continuing revelation. “The Spirit bloweth where it listeth” (John 3:8).
Diversity is not bad. Comforts of togetherness should not lead to structures that will restrict the dynamic character of God’s continuing revelation.
Protestants acknowledge, then, that their perspective is fraught with dangers—the danger of uncertainty as individuals wrestle inwardly (and at times in what seems like a frightening aloneness) to try to determine whether they have heard God’s will correctly; the danger of schism as Christians find themselves apprehending God’s will diversely. But they accept these dangers because, risk for risk, they prefer their precarious freedom to the security of doctrines or institutions that, even while looking toward God, remain fallible. It is their faith that, in the end, prevents these burdens from discouraging them. Asked where he would stand if the Church excommunicated him, Luther is said to have replied, “Under the sky.”
Protestants prefer their precarious freedom to the security of doctrines or institutions that, even while looking toward God, remain fallible. Asked where he would stand if the Church excommunicated him, Luther is said to have replied, “Under the sky.”
Unfaithfulness on the part of a sexual partner can heavily reduce one’s survival. History and the newspapers carry floods of instances of the violence of human passions aroused by unfaithfulness. “Guilt” is the milder evil. Jealousy and vengeance are the greater monsters: one never knows when they will cease to sleep. It is all very well to speak of “being civilized” and “uninhibited” and “understanding”; no talk will mend ruined lives. A “feeling of guilt” is nowhere near as sharp as a knife in the back or ground glass in the soup.
Additionally, there is the question of health. If you do not insist upon faithfulness from a sexual partner, you lay yourself open to disease. For a very brief period, it was said that sexual diseases were all under control. This is not now the case, if it ever was. Incurable strains of such diseases now exist.
The problems of sexual misbehavior are not new. The powerful religion of Buddhism in India vanished from there in the seventh century. According to its own historians the cause was sexual promiscuity in its monasteries. More modernly, when sexual promiscuity becomes prevalent in an organization, commercial or otherwise, the organization can be seen to fail. No matter how civilized their discussions about it, families shatter in the face of unfaithfulness.
The urge of the moment can become the sorrow of a lifetime. Impress those around you with that and safeguard your own health and pleasure.
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Exercise
0. Make sure you have completed the exercise section at Happiness: Precept 3. Study the precept above.
1. Check the responses to the following questions for false data (see false data steps at Happiness: Prologue).
(a) “Have you been told or taught not to be faithful to your sexual partner?” (b) “Do you have any rules or ideas contrary to being faithful to your sexual partner?” (c) “Have you been led to believe that you shouldn’t be faithful to your sexual partner?” (d) “Do you know of anything that conflicts with being faithful to your sexual partner?” (e) “Do you have any false data about being faithful to your sexual partner?”
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2. Go over each of the following questions repetitively, until there are no more answers:
(a) “How have others transgressed against the precept: ‘Be faithful to your sexual partner’?” (b) “How have you transgressed against the precept: ‘Be faithful to your sexual partner’?”
Do a quick review to see if you did not miss any answers on this step. You should be feeling good about this step.
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3. See if the following question definitely brings up some name you know of:
“Is there any specific person in your past who really transgressed against the precept: ‘Be faithful to your sexual partner’?”
If no name comes up then go to step 4. if a name has come up, then continue with step 3 as follows:
“Can you recall an exact moment when you observed ___(name)___ transgressing this precept?”
If there is a realization, go to step 4. Otherwise, continue contemplating as follows, until there is some realization.
“Is there any time when you wanted to be like ___(name)___ ?” “Is there any time when you decided that not being faithful to your sexual partner was a good thing?” “Did you ever do anything bad to ___(name)___ ? (Get all possible answers) “Are there any differences between ___(name)___ and yourself?” “Are there any similarities between ___(name)___ and yourself?”
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4. Handle any anomalies that come up on the following question by looking at the anomaly more closely.
”Do you have any reservations about being faithful to your sexual partner?”
If the anomaly does not resolve then review the precept as well as all the exercise steps above to see if anything was missed. Then do step 4 again. When there is no anomaly go to step 5.
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5. Contemplate on the following question.
“Do you have any reservations about getting someone else to be faithful to their sexual partner?”
If any reservation comes up, then consider the following:
“How would that be a problem?”
Get answers to this question until there are no reservations.
“Is there any conflict between not being promiscuous and any other ideas you have encountered?”
Handle any conflict with false data steps.
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2. Go over each of the following questions repetitively, until there are no more answers:
“Have you thought of any other transgressions of others against the precept: ‘Don’t be promiscuous’?” “Have you thought of any other transgressions of your own against the precept: ‘Don’t be promiscuous’?” “During these sessions have you thought of any withhold?”
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3. Consider this question:
“Do you have any feeling that you wouldn’t be yourself if you followed the precept: ‘Don’t be promiscuous’?”
If this is not the case, go to the Step 4. Otherwise, ask yourself,
“Can you recall any person who felt the way you do about the precept: ‘Don’t be promiscuous’?”
If no name comes up then go to step 4. if a name has come up, then continue with step 3 as follows:
“Can you recall an exact moment when you observed ___(name)___ transgressing this precept?”
If there is a realization, go to step 4. Otherwise, continue contemplating as follows, until there is some realization.
“Is there any time when you wanted to be like ___(name)___ ?” “Is there any time when you decided that being promiscuous was a good thing?” “Did you ever do anything bad to ___(name)___ ? (Get all possible answers) “Are there any differences between ___(name)___ and yourself?” “Are there any similarities between ___(name)___ and yourself?”
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4. Check over the following questions. and handle any anomalies that come up.
“Do you have any other considerations about not being promiscuous?” “Do you have any other considerations about others not being promiscuous?”
