Program / Course 18: World Religions / Lesson 1.4
What you will learn
- Name the five questions the course asks of every tradition.
- Explain why each question is a fair and useful one to put to any religion or worldview.
- Use the grid to take notes on a tradition without forcing it into Christian categories.
- Recognize where a question fits a tradition poorly and say so.
The big idea
To compare religions without confusion, the course asks the same five questions of each. What is ultimate reality or God? How is it known, and what is revealed? Where does authority lie? What is a human being, and what is wrong with the human condition? What is the hope, and how is it reached? The questions are not neutral in every case, because some traditions answer them differently or reject one of them. Used carefully, the grid helps a student see where traditions truly agree and where they part.
Key terms
- Ultimate reality
- Whatever a tradition holds to be the deepest or highest reality: a personal God, an impersonal absolute, or, for some, nothing of the kind.
- Revelation
- The disclosure of what is divine or ultimate, through a word, a law, an event, a person or an awakening.
- Authority
- The source or sources a tradition treats as binding for belief and life, such as a scripture, a teaching office, a community or a teacher.
- Anthropology (theological)
- The doctrine of the human person: what a human being is, and what has gone wrong.
- Soteriology
- The doctrine of salvation or liberation: what the hope is and how it is reached.
- Theism
- Belief in a God or gods. Monotheism is belief in one God, and polytheism in many.
- Orthopraxy
- Right practice, as against orthodoxy, which means right belief. Some traditions weigh practice more than doctrine.
Background
Comparing religions without a plan leads to scattered impressions. A student learns that Muslims fast, that Buddhists meditate and that Hindus honor many deities, and cannot tell how the pieces relate. A fixed set of questions, asked in the same order of every tradition, makes the pieces fit side by side.
The five questions of this grid are not neutral. They come from the history of Christian theology, where God, revelation, scripture, human sinfulness and salvation are the standing topics. The previous lesson warned about this. The grid is still useful if it is held loosely. Where a tradition answers differently or declines a question, the student should say that and not force an answer.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Ultimate reality, or God
The first question asks what a tradition holds to be ultimate. Judaism, Christianity and Islam answer: one personal God who created the world. They differ on who God is, with Christians confessing the Trinity, which Judaism and Islam reject as incompatible with divine oneness. Sikhism also teaches one God. Many Hindu traditions speak of Brahman, which some describe as impersonal and others as a personal God. Theravada Buddhism does not speak of a creator God at all, and its teaching centers on suffering and its end.
Atheism, deism and agnosticism are also answers to this question, and later lessons treat them. Noting differences at this stage guards against the idea that every religion is about “God” in the Christian sense.
Step 2: Revelation and knowing
The second question asks how ultimate reality is known and what has been revealed. For Jews, God spoke to Israel at Sinai and in the prophets. For Christians, God has spoken fully in his Son (Hebrews 1:1-2). For Muslims, God sent a series of prophets and gave the Qur’an to Muhammad as his final word, recited and not authored by him. For Sikhs, the Gurus received and taught the divine Name. For Buddhists, the Buddha awakened and taught what he found, without being the messenger of a creator. For many Hindus, truth is heard in the Vedas and realized in experience.
The key word is the kind of revelation: a word, a law, a person, an awakening. Module 6 takes up these differences.
Step 3: Authority and scripture
The third question asks what is binding. Many traditions have a scripture, though they use it differently. Jews study Torah with the rabbinic tradition of interpretation. Muslims hold the Qur’an together with the example of the Prophet. Sikhs treat the Guru Granth Sahib as their living Guru. Hindus draw on a wide range of texts and teachers. Christians differ on how scripture and tradition relate: Catholic and Orthodox Christians hold that scripture is read in the Church’s tradition, while Protestants teach that scripture is the final authority (sola scriptura).
Authority also includes teaching offices, councils, scholars, saints and teachers. Ask who has the right to settle a dispute, and the answer will differ greatly from one tradition to another.
Step 4: Humanity and the human problem
The fourth question asks what a human being is and what is wrong. Christians teach that humans are made in the image of God and are fallen, needing rescue from sin and death. Judaism holds that humans have both an inclination toward good and an inclination toward evil, and that they are responsible to repair the world; most Jewish thought does not teach inherited guilt of the kind found in some Christian traditions. Islam teaches that humans are made to serve God, are prone to forgetfulness and are not born guilty. Buddhism names the problem as craving and ignorance, which produce suffering. Many Hindu traditions name it as ignorance of the true Self and the pull of karma.
These diagnoses differ because the traditions have different pictures of what a person is, and no tradition’s answer can be read without its picture.
Step 5: Salvation, hope and practice
The last question asks what the hope is and how to reach it. Christians hope for forgiveness, new life with God and the resurrection of the body, given by grace through Christ. Jews hope for the repair of the world and the coming of the Messiah, and live by the commandments. Muslims hope for God’s mercy and paradise on the day of judgment, through faith and right action. Sikhs hope for union with God in grace through remembrance of the Name. Hindus describe liberation (moksha) from the cycle of rebirth by different paths of knowledge, devotion and action. Buddhists teach awakening (nirvana) through the Eightfold Path.
At each step the student should also ask what practice goes with the belief, since some traditions weigh orthopraxy (right practice) more than creed.
- What does this tradition hold to be ultimate, and is it a person, a principle or neither?
- How is the ultimate known, and who first received that knowledge?
- What is binding for members, and who settles disputes?
- What is a human being, and what is wrong with the human condition?
- What is the hope, and what must a person do or receive to reach it?
- Which of these five questions does the tradition itself consider the most important?
Examples
A grid entry for Islam
God: one, Allah, who has no partners. Revelation: prophets from Adam to Muhammad; the Qur’an as the final recited word. Authority: the Qur’an and the example of the Prophet, with schools of law. Humanity: made to serve God, forgetful, not born guilty. Salvation: God’s mercy, faith and righteous action, and paradise. This is a short summary, and Sunni, Shia and Sufi traditions would each add detail.
A grid entry for Theravada Buddhism
Ultimate: no creator God; the focus is the nature of suffering and its end. Revelation: the Buddha’s awakening and teaching. Authority: the Buddha’s teaching as preserved in the Pali canon, and the monastic community. Humanity: beings bound by craving and ignorance. Salvation: nirvana, reached by the Eightfold Path. Mahayana traditions would add different emphasis.
A question that fits poorly
Asking what “sin” means in Theravada Buddhism may mislead, since the tradition speaks of unskillful actions and their consequences, not offenses against a divine lawgiver. The honest entry notes that the question is shaped by Christian vocabulary.
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholics hold that the Church has a duty to ask about the meaning of human life and hope, and that other religions respond to the same questions. Nostra Aetate lists the great questions that people of all religions ask: what is man, what is the meaning of life, what is sin, what is the way to happiness. A grid of this kind follows that approach.
Orthodox
Orthodox theology begins with the knowledge of the Trinity and with the church’s worship, and a grid that starts with abstract categories may seem foreign to it. Orthodox students can still use it as a notetaking tool while remembering that for their tradition theology is first experienced in prayer.
Protestant
Protestants will recognize the topics of the grid as the headings of systematic theology. They may stress the authority of scripture in the third question and justification by faith in the fifth, and may note that their own tradition’s categories should not be assumed in others.
Scholarly study of religion
Many scholars use comparison charts but warn that they flatten differences and treat traditions as sets of beliefs, when for many believers the life of ritual, community and ethics matters more. Some propose adding questions about ritual, community and ethics.
Adherents of other traditions
Some adherents, especially of Hindu and Buddhist traditions, point out that their traditions do not begin with doctrines about God but with practice and experience. A grid that starts with belief will give them less than they would give themselves.
Why it matters
A single frame keeps the course fair. Each tradition gets the same questions and the same attention, and the student is protected from judging by whichever feature happens to stand out. The grid also helps locate real disagreements: two traditions may agree on the problem and disagree on the cure, or the reverse.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: If two traditions give a similar answer to one question, they agree overall.
Correction: Traditions may agree on one point, such as that humans need moral change, while differing sharply on why and how. Fill in all five questions before judging.
Misunderstanding: Every religion has a God, a scripture and a doctrine of salvation.
Correction: The categories fit some traditions well and others poorly. Theravada Buddhism has no creator God, and some traditions give practice priority over doctrine.
Misunderstanding: A grid entry is enough to understand a tradition.
Correction: A grid is a starting point. It says nothing of ritual, community, art or daily life, which are central for believers.
Misunderstanding: Using Christian categories makes the grid unfair by nature.
Correction: The categories come from Christian history, which is a limit, but they are also broad human questions. The remedy is to note where they fit poorly, not to abandon comparison.
Knowledge check
List the five questions of the comparison grid.
The five are: what is God or ultimate reality, how is the ultimate known and what is revealed, where does authority lie, what is a human being and what is wrong with the human condition, and what is the hope and how is it reached. Each tradition is asked the same five in the same order.
Why might the first question fit Theravada Buddhism poorly?
Theravada Buddhism does not teach a creator God. Its central concern is suffering and the way to its end. To ask about God in the Christian sense risks forcing the tradition into a pattern it does not use, so the entry should note that the question fits poorly.
What is the difference between orthodoxy and orthopraxy?
Orthodoxy means right belief, and orthopraxy means right practice. Some traditions, such as Judaism and Islam, give great weight to practice and law, while Christianity has often stressed creed. All traditions combine both, but they differ in which they treat as primary.
Why should every grid entry be checked against an adherent’s own account?
The grid is shaped by outside categories, and a summary can flatten internal variety. Comparing the entry with how members describe their faith shows whether the entry passes the recognition test and where it leaves out ritual, community or other features.
Think it through
- Which of the five questions do you think matters most for a religion? Would a Buddhist or a Jew agree?
- Where did the five questions of the grid come from, and does that make them unfair?
- What questions would you add, such as ritual, community or ethics?
- Choose a tradition you know little about. Which question would be the hardest to answer for it?
Independent assignment
Build your grid
In your notebook, draw a table with five rows (God or ultimate reality, revelation, authority, humanity and its problem, salvation and hope) and as many columns as you like. Fill in the Christian column in your own words, naming whether you describe the Catholic, Orthodox or a Protestant view. Leave the other columns blank. You will complete them as the course goes on. Add a sixth row for ritual and community. Length: about 300 words in the first column.
Further study
- Huston Smith, The World’s Religions Use the book’s chapters to fill in grid entries for each tradition.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Religious Diversity (Pluralism) Read for how philosophers frame the competing claims of the religions.
- Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church Read the opening paragraphs on the desire for God, which present the human question that the grid explores.
- Hebrews 1:1 God spoke in many ways and finally by his Son.
- Psalm 8:4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
- Deuteronomy 6:4 The Shema, the confession of one God.