One of the most puzzling theological questions of our age - how
to account for the great number and diversity of world religions and at the same time to
acknowledge their similarities - is also one of the most challenging social issues
confronting humanity.
Disputes and disagreements over religious beliefs have been and continue to be one of the
main sources of conflict, civil war, terrorism and even genocide in the modern world. As
the noted theologian Hans Küng has said: "There will be no peace among the peoples
of the world without peace among the world religions."
In Beyond the Clash of Religions: The Emergence of a New Paradigm, Udo Schaefer offers a
new theological conceptualization that seeks both to explain how the world's great
religions can be so different and yet the same, and also to suggest how a wider acceptance
of this understanding could cure religious intolerance and the social ills that stem from
it.
"The fact that religion appears in such colorful variety - that there is not one
single religion but a plurality - has always been a source of irritation for people,"
writes Dr. Schaefer, laying out the problem. "Religions are in many ways similar, and
yet they are so different; there is much which unites them, but also much which divides
them. This is indeed irritating. All the world religions teach that there is only one
ultimate reality, which we call God. If that is so, there can logically only be one truth:
But if there is only one truth, why are there so many religions?"
The answer, writes Dr. Schaefer, lies in understanding a new "unity paradigm" in
religious studies - a paradigm that is as different from the old "absolutist"
paradigm in theology as the Ptolemaic view of the universe is from the Copernican - and
one which conveys "a new image of religious phenomena and of religious history."
Dr. Schaefer, a respected German jurist who has made writing about comparative religion a
second career, begins with an analysis of the old paradigm, wherein each religion has
traditionally laid claim to "uniqueness, finality and exclusivity."
"That religion is always associated with a claim to truth is self-evident," he
writes. "Something that is untrue is unworthy of faith. All of the world
religions… make absolute claims to truth. Each is convinced that it possesses a
divine message brought by its founder which to them is 'the way, the truth and the life.'
"
The problem with this attitude is that it too often leads to intolerance. "This claim
to exclusivity and superiority, in which one's own religion is regarded as a priori better
than others…easily slips into fanaticism," Dr. Schaefer writes, adding that
"[h]atred is never so profound and irreconcilable; envy never so wretched and wars so
merciless and cruel as when their motives spring from the deepest levels of consciousness,
from religious belief."
As if it were necessary to verify this notion, Dr. Schaefer recounts a few of history's
many examples of religious persecution and intolerance: pogroms against the Jews, the
Crusades, the displacement of Jews and Muslims under the Spanish Inquisition, the European
religious wars resulting from the Reformation, the current wars in the Punjab, Sudan,
Algeria and Lebanon, and "last but not least the bloody persecutions of the Bahá'ís
in Iran by a clerical, obscurantist regime." All of these are "consequences of
claims to exclusivity and finality," he writes.
The curious thing, says Dr. Schaefer, is that all of the world's religions also preach
tolerance and peace. Although the absolutist paradigm was the dominant one in religious
history, there have always been religious officials who have pleaded for such
understanding and tolerance.
The plea for tolerance, however, has only come into widespread acceptance in the last 100
years, Dr. Schaefer notes. Advances in religious studies and modern communications, he
writes, have illuminated the similarities between the religions - while the highly
destructive nature of modern warfare has made tolerance all the more necessary.
Writes Dr. Schaefer: "The fact that we are now living in a global society in which
technology permits much greater mobility than was previously possible; the fact that huge
migrations have come about due to wars, persecution and poverty in many parts of the
world, means that the borders established on the basis of religion have gradually become
blurred. The earth has become a communicational unity through radio and television, mass
tourism and mass publications. People have become vividly aware of the plurality of
faiths. Thus, the religions no longer exist separated from one another in distant
continents: they exist very close together - and now find themselves confronted by an
urgent necessity for an interfaith dialogue."
And, indeed, the development of modern religious dialogue and studies have opened the door
to new understandings. "Religions that in the past were condemned without anything
being known about them are now known," he writes.
Dr. Schaefer then makes a comprehensive but concise list of the "essential
similarities" of the world's major religions.
"The first fundamental point that all religions have in common are the convictions
that religious phenomena are based on the reality of the Transcendental, the Holy, the
Divine, the Eternal One, the Great Being, and that beyond all the fluctuations there
exists eternal reason, an eternal order, a non-material ultimate reality, the Reality of
Realities, the Eternal Truth, which is neither empirically verifiable nor logically
demonstrable." He notes that this "Reality" is commonly called God in all
but the Buddhist tradition, where the concept of God is absent, but which nevertheless
uses other terms such as Nirvana, Shunyata, and Dharmakaya.
The degree of similarity among the religions at the fundamental level, writes Dr.
Schaefer, "provides evidence for the unity of religions." Other commonalities
include: "the belief that this transcendental reality reveals itself to mankind in
the form of great, holy figures, who speak to man and show him the path to the
sanctification of his life"; that this ultimate reality is "man's ultimate and
highest goal," the embodiment of absolute perfection, truth and justice and of all
that is good and beautiful"; that that which we call God is justice, love, compassion
and mercy, which are generously poured over humanity; that "man's path to God is one
of sacrifice, renunciation, resignation, moral discipline, the via purgativa, prayer and
meditation"; that the path to God is also "the path to one's neighbor, service
to others, the via activa"; that in "all religions this love also includes love
for one's enemies"; that all religions share "the belief that man's life is not
confined to this earthly existence; that he possesses an immortal soul"; "that
man must live on earth according to certain standards in order to attain salvation in both
this life and the life to come"; and that the common ethical basis of all religions
is the so-called "Golden Rule known to us from the Gospel: 'Therefore all things
whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you even so to them' "; and that,
finally, the "most fundamental feature common to all religions is mysticism, the
highest aim of which is the unity of the soul with the
eternal God."
The degree of similarity among the religions at the fundamental
level, writes Dr. Schaefer, "provides impressive evidence for the unity of
religions." This unity, however, he says, is not subject to scientific proof, nor can
it be classified as rational, empirical knowledge.
Two things religious studies cannot do, he says, are create "by means of
eclecticism" a "uniform world religion as a sort of substrate of all the various
religions." And they cannot "deliver incontrovertible proof of the unity of
religions." "It is like a glass of water which, depending on the observer's
point of view, is either half full or half empty: both views are correct," he writes.
"Similarly, one can regard the differences and contradictions among religions as the
most important aspect; or, if one chooses, one can recognize that beyond the diversity
there is an essence which is the same in all."
Dr. Schaefer, however, suggests that "a conclusive, rationally acceptable,
comprehensive explanation" for the unity paradigm can be found in the writings of the
Bahá'í Faith, which suggest, essentially, that God's Revelation is the "central,
dominant theme" of history - and in this way provides an answer to the question of
why there is not only one religion.
The book's final pages, then, are devoted to explaining some basics of Bahá'í theology,
with a view to helping even the most skeptical reader at least acknowledge that a cogent
explanation for the outward diversity but inward unity of all religions can be found in
the Faith's doctrine of progressive revelation.
The essence of the doctrine, Dr. Schaefer writes, lies in the idea that the "Creator
of the universe did not create man and thereafter abandon him to himself; He reveals
himself to mankind, speaking through His prophets and messengers." These messengers
have successively revealed God's will in relation to the capacity of the peoples to whom
they have appeared. "This capacity differs according to the spiritual, cultural and
social level of the development of those people," writes Dr. Schaefer - not in
relation to the absolute truth that God represents. This, he explains, accounts for the
apparent differences of the various religions - and yet upholds their essential unity.
"God's revelation in the course of history is a continual, cyclically recurring
phenomenon," Dr. Schaefer writes. "The purpose of divine revelation is the
education of humanity."
"Seen in this way," he continues, "religion is not static but dynamic. In
its origin it is the most revolutionary, the most radical of all forces. All the Founders
of the world's major religions have inevitably broken with past traditions; with obsolete
outworn forms and institutions… in order to protect the remaining substance of the
religion of God and adapt to the requirements of a new era."
As Dr. Schaefer himself concludes: "The unity paradigm constitutes a positive basis
for the study of religions. They are taken seriously, revered and portrayed in a
sympathetic light. They are regarded in no other light except as different stages in the
eternal history and constant evolution of one religion, Divine and indivisible."
