The study of the history of religions seems to be at a critical point in its development. Professor Wach was determined to build a strong discipline of the history of religions in the midst of a major American university. At the risk of oversimplifying, here are four main criticisms of the history of religions.
Society for the Study of the History of Religions." It is clear that the term. Unfortunately, the field of the history of religions is plagued by many such dangerous oversimplifications. Earlier we discussed some aspects of the problems of teaching history of religions discussed in.
Questions have been raised again and again about the real meaning of religious history.
Comparative Religion: Whither -- and Why? by Wilfred Cantwell Smith
It is only when these are accurately established that the study of the religions themselves can proceed; and this last shell. Part of the personalization of our studies shows itself in the shift of recent decades to a primary interest in the great living religions of the world. In the case of the living religions, this question affects not only the perception of what is studied, but also the method used.
Most of the significant academic advances in the study of religion before or around World War I were made by the secular rationalist. It is part of the contemporary history of the religions (and possibly one of the most profound matters in the whole history of religions) that they encounter each other, both on systematized occasion and informally in the. This can be generalized so that in this is stated one of the fundamental tasks of our studies today.
Particularly relevant here is the attempt to explain the meaning of Islam as a religion, p. Von Grunebaum studies Islamic civilization as a conscious representative of the Western academic tradition ("we") confronting the Islamic tradition ("they"). Some changes in phraseology would be necessary in certain cases, e.g. Theravadin Buddhists; but the substance of the approach does not change.
Since every religion deals with a transcendent reality, it is part of the truth of that religion that it is not satisfied with its existing forms. It is generally accepted that each of the world's religions is in some sense a separate entity. Ashby, The Conflict of Religions (New York, 1955), the first work of the first scholar in the field at Princeton, is a treatise.
The Supreme Being: Phenomenological Structure and Historical Development by Raffaele Pettazzoni
Van der Leeuw outlined the phenomenological structure of the Supreme Being and distinguished it from the structure of Yahweh. Religionswissenschaft, XXIX According to Van der Leeuw, the specific structure of the Supreme Being is mainly represented by the various Supreme Beings that can be found among peoples of a lower civilization. This characterization of Yahweh completely abstracts from his uranic aspect, as well as from every other naturalistic aspect of the personality of the Supreme Being.
But in turn, this last character of God is also one of the most constant attributes of the Supreme Beings of primitive peoples. On the other hand, for Van der Leeuw, Varuna is the maximum approximation of Indian religious thought to the structure of. The same character is observed in the Supreme Being of the Cuna Indians of Darien (Panama).
The notion of the Supreme Being is not exhausted in the notion of a Heavenly Being. The creation of the earth is also different from the creation of the Heavenly Being. There is a sky-oriented Supreme Being phenomenology and there is an earth-oriented Supreme Being phenomenology.
Mother Earth is the Supreme Being typical of farmers who live on the products of the earth. There are always reasons at play in the notion of a Supreme Being that are vital to human existence. The notion of a Supreme Being derives less from intellectual demands than from existential anxieties.
Phenomenology of Religions and Philosophy of Religion by Jean Daniélou
For it is a matter of knowing how the notion of the Trinity has been worked out. These meanings show that those statements are expressions of the eternal relationship between God and the mind. One will notice the reduction of hapax to the pure fact of anecdotal history.
This means that the mind can only realize itself through the immanent presence within itself of the One (PR, I, 283). This is not to say that the field of the science of religions coincides with the fields of the other disciplines. The procedure of the historian of religion is just as different from that of the theologian.
In the broad sense of the word, the science of religion includes both phenomenology and the philosophy of religion. But this theology presupposes the existence of the history of the religions and depends on its results.) Similarly, the method of the historian of religion can be compared to that of a biologist.
To give just one example, there are countless varieties of the symbolism of the cosmic tree. But the problem of the symbolism of the cosmic tree as such would not thereby be solved. We have studied the symbolism of the cosmic tree in several of our previous works, (cf.
Historian of Religion One's task is not fulfilled unless he succeeds in discerning. Let us now examine the conclusions of the historian of religion as he reflects on his own documents.
The Notion of "Real Elite" in Sociology and in History by Louis Massignon
Thus they explain the social upward mobility of the inner circle of Caesar or Napoleon in terms. The great effort of Arnold Toynbee in his interpretation of world history does not escape the error of the axiomatics. 34; L'Arithmologie dans la pensée sémitique primitive," Archéion (Rome), July-August, 1932, pp. 370-71.) The turba magna of the elect, in the Johannine Apocalypse is gathered up to the ONE: through of numbers: four (the four evangelical animals) and twelve (the twelve judges of the Twelve Tribes, the 144,000 Righteous of Israel).
It is equally interesting to note that the number 313 is the number of the heroic elite chosen by Gideon, and it also happens to be the number of victors in the first raid on Bedr by Islam. Such symbolic numbers indicate not only the simultaneous presence of the members in the group at a given time, but also the duration of the groupings. According to the Koran (s. 18, v. 24), 309 is the number of years of the mysterious slumber of the Seven Sleepers in the Cave of Ephesus, the time for their maturation by grace.
It is also, for the Shiites, the period of hiding from the Fatimite pretense until the time of their victorious uprising with their Mahdi in North Africa. As Bravais showed in compiling the science of phyllotaxy, this series really represents the rhythm of the essential growth of plant stems. The strong instinct for unity in Semitic thought is reflected in the undifferentiated character of the Arabic alphabet, which makes each letter both the sign of a number and the element of a name.
The revolt took place and led to the proclamation of the Fatimid Caliphate in 309 AH, which incidentally established Cairo under the Mahdi. The elite is necessary for introspection, the true moral attitude of the members to the whole body for the welfare of the group. Without a hypothesis about the functioning of a real elite in such a group, at least latently, it cannot be understood.
On Understanding Non-Christian Religions by Ernst Benz
Accompanied by my friends, I visited the holy places and participated in the services and worship ceremonies of different religions. With their sympathetic outlook and knowledge, they kindly explained to me the religious symbols of the temple and the forms of religious expression in the ceremony. It is here that the experience of the transcendent is cultivated and secured for the total life of Buddhism.
What role does each god play next to the other in the mind of the devotee. The experience of numen praesens is primary and decisive for cultic piety. Time and time again I have been amazed at the power of symbol in Buddhist worship.
Likewise, the history of the spread of Buddhism is most strongly associated with the appearance of such charismatic personalities. In the structure of the human personality there is undoubtedly a tradition of earlier forms of religious experience and earlier stages of religious consciousness. We cannot separate ourselves from the experiences and ideas of countless generations behind us.
For myself I covet another intuition: a clear insight into the earlier stages of the religious consciousness of mankind. It is rather a desire to recognize the inner continuity of meaning in the development of different forms and stages of religious consciousness. And if so, then the history of religions and the history of the development of religion.
The History of Religions as a Preparation for the Co- operation of Religions by Friedrich Heiler
Schleiermacher, in his Reden, embraced the full diversity of the religious life of the non-Christian world. You will not find many such admonitions in the history of the Christian religion. The first impression evoked by the study of the history of religions is that of the wonderful richness of religions.
There are seven main areas of unity manifested by the high religions of the earth. Therefore, this highest good is the ultimate goal of all the longings and efforts of the high religions. This reality of the Divine is the ultimate love that is revealed to people and in people.
Mercy and grace are the attributes of Yahweh in the experience of the prophets of Israel. All pious people pray, partly with words, partly without words, partly in complete solitude, partly in the community of believers. The mystical road to salvation is not completed in the via contemplativa, in the "flight from one to the one," as Plotinus said.
One of the most important tasks of the science of religion is to bring to light this unity of all religions. The same thing happened in the worship services of the sessions of the World Congress of Faiths. In Sufi worship, these scriptures are spread over the altar on which seven candlesticks stand.
