Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative Theology — John Shaqi
Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative TheologyClarke, James Freeman
Islamic
Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative Theology
Clarke, James Freeman
Christianity and other religions; Religions
This idea of the kingdom of heaven, so central in Christianity, is also
the essential motive in the religion of Zoroaster. As, in the Zend Avesta,
every man is a soldier, fighting for light or for darkness, and neutrality
is impossible; so, in the Gospel, light and good stand opposed to darkness
and evil as perpetual foes. A certain current of dualism runs through the
Christian Scriptures and the teaching of the Church. God and Satan, heaven
and hell, are the only alternatives. Every one must choose between them.
In the current theology, this dualism has been so emphasized as even to
exceed that of the Zend Avesta. The doctrine of everlasting punishment and
an everlasting hell has always been the orthodox doctrine in Christianity,
while the Zend Avesta probably, and the religion in its subsequent
development certainly, teaches universal restoration, and the ultimate
triumph of good over evil. Nevertheless, practically, in consequence of
the greater richness and fulness of Christianity, this tendency to dualism
has been neutralized by its monotheism, and evil kept subordinate; while,
in the Zend religion, the evil principle assumed such proportions as to
make it the formidable rival of good in the mind of the worshipper. Here,
as before, we may say that Christianity is able to do justice to all the
truth involved in the doctrine of evil, avoiding any superficial optimism,
and recognizing the fact that all true life must partake of the nature of
a battle.
The positive side of Egyptian religion we saw to be a recognition of the
divine element in nature, of that plastic, mysterious life which embodies
itself in all organisms. Of this view we find little stated explicitly in
the New Testament. But that the principles of Christianity contain it,
implicitly, in an undeveloped form, appears, (1.) Because Christian
monotheism differs from Jewish and Mohammedan monotheism, in recognizing
God "_in all things_" as well as God "_above all things_." (2.) Because
Christian art and literature differ from classic art and literature in the
_romantic_ element, which is exactly the sense of this mysterious life in
nature. The classic artist is a ποιητής, a maker; the romantic artist is a
troubadour, a finder. The one does his work in giving form to a dead
material; the other, by seeking for its hidden life. (3.) Because modern
science is _invention_, i.e. finding. It recognizes mysteries in nature
which are to be searched into, and this search becomes a serious religious
interest with all truly scientific men. It appears to such men a profanity
to doubt or question the revelations of nature, and they believe in its
infallible inspiration quite as much as the dogmatist believes in the
infallible inspiration of Scripture, or the churchman in the infallible
inspiration of the Church. We may, therefore, say, that the essential
truth in the Egyptian system has been taken up into our modern Christian
life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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