Abstract
The obvious problem with concepts of God as cross-cultural comparative categories is that some religions do not have them, or conceive gods in relatively trivial ways. To appreciate why this is a problem, however, it is important to see why concepts of God are so attractive for comparative purposes. The main reason is that, at least for the monotheistic religions, the categories spelling out divinity refer to what is religiously most important. God is the center around which all other religious elements move. Whether conceived in metaphysical ways as creator or in existential ways as judge, savior, lover, goal or eschatological finisher, God is conceived in the monotheistic religions to be the most important reality for human life, concepts of which determine more of all the other religious notions than any of them directly affects the concepts of God. So naturally comparative theology ought to be able to recognize what at least some religions take to be the most important reality and compare religions in respect of it. If a religion cannot be compared to others with respect to what it takes to be most important, the comparisons that are left seem trivial. Religions can be compared on their respective attitudes toward eating popcorn, but so what? Religions can be compared with respect to their moral codes, but, without connection to the concepts of God, moral codes fail to be religious for the monotheistic traditions.
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References
I Although some of the comparative points to be made in this essay are in need of much justification, the expository points about individual religious or theological traditions are commonplaces. Encyclopedias or introductory text books can be consulted if necessary. The comparisons themselves come from a richer ground than can be explained with particular citations, however. I had the privilege to direct the Cross Cultural Comparative Religious Ideas Project at Boston University which engaged a collaborative team of scholars in a selfcorrective process that ran from 1995 to 1999, the public results of which were published in three volumes: The Human Condition, with a foreword by Peter Berger, Ultimate Realities, with a foreword by Tu Weiming, and Religious Truth, with a foreword by Jonathan Z. Smith, all edited by myself (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001). The team included six historical specialists in different traditions of world religions (Francis X. Clooney, S.J. on Hindu traditions, Malcolm David Eckel on Buddhist traditions, Paula Fredriksen on Christian traditions, S. Nomanul Haq on Islamic traditions, Livia Kohn on Chinese religion, and Anthony J. Saldarini on Jewish traditions), each chosen because of a penchant for particularity and suspicion of easy generalizations. Four generalists from different disciplines were included to push the discussion to comparative issues (Peter Berger, a sociologist of religion, John H. Berthrong, an historian of religions, Wesley J. Wildman, a philosophical theologian, and myself, a philosopher of religion and theologian). Graduate assistants participated vigorously in the collaboration, including Christopher Allen, Joseph Kanofsky, James Miller, Hugh Nicholson, Tina Shepardson, Celeste Sullivan, and John Thatamanil). Each year the group discussed one of the topics in the book titles (save the fourth year that was devoted to editing the publications). In the fall semester each of the historical specialists presented a paper on what their tradition or text had to say about the comparative topic. After much discussion each then rewrote the paper for the spring meetings so as to reflect comparative comments. In addition to revising the comparative points many times, the collaborative discussion also honed a theory of comparison, changing it as our experience and shared knowledge grew. The individual essays on a given tradition read across each of the volumes gives a good introduction to that tradition. The summary comparative and methodological chapters provide detailed philosophical reflections. A narrative of each year’s discussion describes the existential aspects of collaboration. Many of the comparative points made in the present essay arose from that collaboration, and some are to be found in the publications. The experience of the collaboration goes beyond any particular comparison.
Huston Smith is the most influential comparative historian of religions to employ the Perennial Philosophy. See his The World’s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991; revised edition of Religions of Man, 1958). six historical specialists in different traditions of world religions (Francis X. Clooney, S.J. on Hindu traditions, Malcolm David Eckel on Buddhist traditions, Paula Fredriksen on Christian traditions, S. Nomanul Haq on Islamic traditions, Livia Kohn on Chinese religion, and Anthony J. Saldarini on Jewish traditions), each chosen because of a penchant for particularity and suspicion of easy generalizations. Four generalists from different disciplines were included to push the discussion to comparative issues (Peter Berger, a sociologist of religion, John H. Berthrong, an historian of religions, Wesley J. Wildman, a philosophical theologian, and myself, a philosopher of religion and theologian). Graduate assistants participated vigorously in the collaboration, including Christopher Allen, Joseph Kanofsky, James Miller, Hugh Nicholson, Tina Shepardson, Celeste Sullivan, and John Thatamanil). Each year the group discussed one of the topics in the book titles (save the fourth year that was devoted to editing the publications). In the fall semester each of the historical specialists presented a paper on what their tradition or text had to say about the comparative topic. After much discussion each then rewrote the paper for the spring meetings so as to reflect comparative comments. In addition to revising the comparative points many times, the collaborative discussion also honed a theory of comparison, changing it as our experience and shared knowledge grew. The individual essays on a given tradition read across each of the volumes gives a good introduction to that tradition. The summary comparative and methodological chapters provide detailed philosophical reflections. A narrative of each year’s discussion describes the existential aspects of collaboration. Many of the comparative points made in the present essay arose from that collaboration, and some are to be found in the publications. The experience of the collaboration goes beyond any particular comparison.
On personification of the ultimate in religious symbols, see my Religion in Late Modernity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), chapter 4.
See “Cooking the Last Fruit of Nihilism: Buddhist Approaches to Ultimate Reality” by Malcolm David Eckel with John J. Thatamanil in Ultimate Realities, chapter 6.
On this general theory of comparison, see chapter 1 of The Human Condition and chapter 8 of Ultimate Realities, both by Wesley J. Wildman and myself.
I have analyzed Peirce and developed his ideas in my own ways, reflected in the current essay, in The Highroad around Modernism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), chapter 1; Recovery of the Measure (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), divisions 1 and 4; Normative Cultures (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), part 4; and most recently and succinctly Religion in Late Modernity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), chapter 3.
See “Religious Dimensions of the Human Condition in Judaism: Wrestling with God in an Imperfect World” in The Human Condition and “Ultimate Realities: Judaism: God as a Many-sided Ultimate Reality in Traditional Judaism” in Ultimate Realities, both by Anthony J. Saldarini with Joseph Kanofsky.
See Richard Rorty’s edited book, The Linguistic Turn: Recent Essays in Philosophical Method (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), including his introduction.
On the proper vagueness of the notion of ultimacy, see the Introduction to Ultimate Realities by Wesley J. Wildman and myself.
On the spectrum of personification and abstraction, see “Comparative Conclusions about Ultimate Realities” by Wesley J. Wildman and myself in Ultimate Realities, chapter 7. On the Axial Age, see Karl Jaspers’ The Way to Wisdom, translated by Ralph Mannheim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954).
See S. Nomanul Haq’s “Ultimate Reality: Islam” in Ultimate Realities, chapter 4.
See his “The Two Types of Philosophy of Religion” in Theology of Culture, edited by Robert C. Kimball (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 10.
This analysis of the one and the many is dealt with at length in my God the Creator (revised edition; Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992; original edition Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), part 1.
See the fine discussion in Livia Kohn’s “Chinese Religion” in The Human Condition.
The position of George Lindbeck, for instance, in his The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984).
On the question of ultimacy and human nature, see my “Human Nature” in Religion in Late Modernity.
On the idea of the sage or perfected one, see “Ultimate Reality: Chinese Religion” by Livia Kohn with James Miller in Ultimate Realities, chapter 1, and “Truth in Chinese Religion” by Livia Kohn and James Miller in Religious Truth, chapter 1
See “Beginningless Ignorance: A Buddhist View of the Human Condition” by Malcolm David Eckel with John J. Thatamanil and “To be Heard and Done, But Never Quite Seen: The Human Condition According to the Vivekacudamani” by Francis X. Clooney, S.J., with Hugh Nicholson, in The Human Condition, chapters 3 and 4 respectively.
On this interpretation of prayer, see James P. Carse’s brilliant The Silence of God: Meditations on Prayer (New York: Harper/Collins, 1985)
Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967).
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Neville, R.C. (2004). The Role of Concepts of God in Cross Cultural Comparative Theology. In: Hackett, J., Wallulis, J. (eds) Philosophy of Religion for a New Century. Studies in Philosophy and Religion, vol 25. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-2074-2_15
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