All
religions in all cultures refer to three basic questions of humans who
seek help, observe, or search for explanations:
ÞWhich
forces caused Creation and, mainly, which forces direct the natural phenomena,
fate or destiny?Which forces can
help or hurt us humans, or which forces judge us?What
happens to us when we die?Why do
evil and suffering exist?–From
these questions result the concepts of gods or of the one God
and the concepts of an afterlife in a world to come.
ÞHow
can humans derive favors from those divine forces, at least not irritate
them, and live correctly?What is
good for people?What rules of behavior
or what Laws result from this for us humans?
ÞWhy
do we exist?What shall we strive
for in this world beyond survival and the satisfaction of our basic needs?Does
Creation, possibly also our own life, follow a plan?That
is the question concerning the meaning and direction of existence
and of human life.
The
Question of God and Afterlife
There
were always two different, often interrelated paths for humans searching
for the knowledge of God:
*Intuition,
visions, or divine revelations
*Observation
of Creation – of the world as it is and of destiny as it evolves
All
human creative thought is combinatorial (see the essays “Creative Thought”
or “Mental Creativity” by H. Schwab).Starting
from what one once learned or recognized, new recognitions, observations,
or own thought are used to build ever higher or more complex systems of
thought.Founders of religions perceive,
convey, or produce their higher or different doctrines also corresponding
to their own cultural preconditions or recognitions.All
founders of religions or theologians refer also to the observation of nature
in order to justify their teaching – to Creation and destiny.They
often do so selectively.Christ did
so, too.
Followers
of a doctrine often refuse to think or observe beyond the teachings of
the founder of their respective religion, and thereby to evolve the doctrine
further.Some religions, however,
do go through “reformations” and arrive at new doctrines or one that can
lead further.
All
theology has to respond to five basically different questions regarding
God:
1.The
question regarding the origin of creation, the origin of the existence
that we are placed in, the question regarding the original force, regarding
God
the Creator.
2.The
question regarding the course of the world and of natural events, the evolution
– mainly, the question regarding the course of destiny, the question regarding
the active, living, still-acting God,
the “Divine Agency Within Creation”.[1]
3.The
question whether we can call to God for help in distress or to give thanks,
the reachability of God, the personal, responsive, and merciful God.
4.The
question whether and how God judges us humans, the judging God,
and thereby the question of a human existence after death, an afterlife,
a next world to come.
5.The
question regarding the evil, uselessness, and suffering occurring in the
world, their origin and meaning, the question regarding God’s tolerance
of the evil, useless, and suffering,
the issue of “theodicy”.[2]
The
Creator
There
is only one God in the Judeo-Christian doctrine, without origin or beginning,
who once created the world as it now is, out of free will and without known
reason or purpose.
The
Still-Acting God
The
Bible saw the once-created, natural world as static.Through
interpretation (exegesis, hermeneutics) of the 7-day Creation story, theology
opened a modest accommodation with the scientific doctrine of natural evolution.The
Bible says nothing whether or to what extent God directs the natural events
or interferes with the further development of the universe and of Earth
or with the natural evolution of life in nature.Nor
does the Bible say whether God leaves any further development solely up
to the laws of nature as they were once created by God and to probabilistic
events as also provided for in Creation.
According
to the Bible, however, God quite often interferes with the course of human
destiny.This happens mostly in order
to punish, to reward, or to save whole nations or only some individuals
or families, occasionally in response to prayer.The
Bible thus sees catastrophes or miserable lives as punishment for individuals
for their transgressions or as trials in which to prove themselves (from
Job to the Christian martyrs).Good
events or prosperity are seen as coming from the mercy of God or as rewards.
In
practical life, of course, this is seen quite differently, even by Christians.There,
unfavorable events or bad behavior inflicted by other people are seen by
those concerned as undeserved sorrow or as the result of events in accordance
with the laws of nature or of inadequate own behavior.On
the other hand, exceptional advantage is seen by the recipients as undeserved
good luck or as resulting from circumstances or personal initiative and
qualified performance.Thereby,
the attitude toward life changes from a passive acceptance of destiny from
the hands of God to an active, personally responsible interference with
the course of the world and to the forming of one’s own path through life.
The
Personal, Merciful God
Following
the Judeo-Christian faith, God is seen as a loving father and can be appealed
to by everybody at all times.God
seldom answers verbatim those appeals, but actually does react from time
to time to some of the appeals, to others not.
The
Bible reports, however, only about appeals to God by the Jews – later by
the Christians – and only about God’s responses to those.It
probably is assumed in the Bible that not-Jews or not-Christians appeal
to their own gods – or do they all call and cry out unheard into emptiness?
This
biblical presentation of selective personal connections between God and
mankind requires a theological and religio-historical clarification, enlargement,
or correction as our Earth becomes “global” (when did, or possibly will,
God talk to whom on Earth), especially in preparation of religious thought
related to cosmic space.It is not
tenable that God talked in thousands of years of human development (and
billions of years of development in cosmic space) only to the Jews of the
Old Testament on Earth and last to Christ and Paul. [3]
The
Judging God
and The Soul’s Existence After Death
Christian
doctrine (and others, too) sees every human being as morally not perfect,
afflicted with shortcomings, and, in a Christian sense, sinful.Thus,
Christian doctrine perceives life primarily as a period of trial and probation.At
the end of life comes God’s judgment.
On account
of human fallibility, every human being would necessarily have to be condemned.The
Bible now shows two different ways out of this predicament.On
the one hand, the merciful-loving God-Father can graciously forgive.On
the other hand, Christ’s sacrificial death is required in order to compensate
for the sins of humanity, as if, otherwise, God would not forgive.Faith
and good deeds are required to obtain God’s mercy – or only faith, in the
opinion of some Christians.
God’s
judgment leads to eternal life in “heaven” or in “hell”, or, temporarily,
in “purgatory”.
Therefore,
the significance of the divine judgment is not only in the approving or
rejecting consideration of the individual’s faith and conduct of life,
but mainly in the subsequent compensation for the life on Earth through
an afterlife in the next world.Whoever
has innocently suffered here can expect great joy in heaven; whoever had
a pleasurable life in evil will have to suffer eternal penitence in hell.
God’s
Tolerance of Evil
Why
do good people often lead such miserable lives on Earth?Why
do evil people often go unpunished and do so well on Earth?How
can one combine this observation with the image of a merciful God-Father?If
not from God’s hand, where do evil and suffering come from in this world?The
Christian faith and other religions explain all this with a second, God-opposed,
evil force also of transcendental nature.If
not another god, then it is at least a renegade angel – Lucifer, or the
devil.To this devil the power is
given to impose trials upon human individuals and to offer benefits to
the evil ones among them.If the
trials are passed successfully, rich compensation can be expected in the
next world.If people succumb to the
temptations and enjoy the fruits of evil, heavy punishment will follow
in the next world.
The
concept of a God-opposed evil force, a “devil”, relates mainly to moral
temptations in life.It does not explain,
however, why small children suffer already from bodily and mental afflictions
and have to die, why adolescents suffer heavily from birth defects, diseases,
accidents, or psychological mistreatments, and why many old and weak people
have to pass through a painful death not in accordance with their merits,
but in statistical probability (and almost arbitrarily).It
does not explain either the death of many millions in the Holocaust and
of about 40,000 people (mostly women, children, and the old) in Dresden,
of the many innocent victims of terrorism, and all the other cruel events
that annually or almost daily shake the world.The
talk about “imposed trials”, the necessity for repentance, and “signs for
others to see” totally fails here, irrespective of whether those afflicted
by the profound suffering are Christians, Jews, or other people who have
never heard of the Christian doctrine.
A
theological explanation is also needed for the premature death of valuable
individuals, the mindless destruction of cultural values (beyond a possible
punishment of the involved individuals), or the wide-ranging destruction
that occurs in nature, mainly in the major extinctions[4]
in geological time, but also in the many events observable everywhere in
our own time.
What
rules of conduct or laws apply to us humans in order to attract the favors
of those forces that control Creation and destiny, to not render them irate,
to live correctly?
All
religions require sacrifices to the gods in order to dispose them favorably
or to reconcile them.These sacrifices
to the gods are transformed in the course of history into sacrifices to
the temple, ultimately to the priests or monks.That’s
the way it also was in the Christian church.In
the further course of history, the sacrifices are redefined as social contributions
in a humane society or as moral exercises of voluntary privation or discipline.
Ritual
became equally important as sacrifice, defined and supervised by the priests,
mostly demanding their presence.It
is interesting to see how, in all religions, the ritual – the prescribed
motion, dress, or action sequence – becomes an essential part of the human
effort to please the gods or the one God.
In
addition, ritual became partially reinterpreted as a moral exercise of
self-discipline, whether genuflection, prostrating, or carrying of a specific
piece of dress on some part of the body or specifically not (hat, scarf,
shoes).
All
developing religions add to the rules for sacrifice or ritual additional
rules for cleanliness or the behavior of humans among themselves.Hence,
the behavioral rules adopted in any culture correspond to the request of
some of their gods or the order from the one God.Therefore,
the virtuous life pleases these gods, while the non-virtuous life angers
them.And therein lies the transition
from a cult of sacrifice to a force that shapes society and its laws.
Inversely,
priests presented those laws that they themselves had recognized as necessary
or recommendable for society as desired by the gods (see the Ten Commandments
or the Koran).A basic reason
may have been the fact that in early times a person’s own good “ideas”
for such laws were felt by that individual to be divine inspirations.It
may also be (as in ancient literature), that attribution of authorship
of the laws to the gods may have resulted in greater effect and personal
prestige for the lawgivers (see the origin of Deuteronomy [5]).
Judeo-Christian
doctrine sees the foundation of its laws in the Ten Commandments, which
determine the adoration of God and a practical, tolerable way for people
to live together.The Ten Commandments
do not contain any indications for charity.The
laws in the books of the Old Testament that go beyond the Ten Commandments
are either more detailed extrapolations on the given ideas of human communal
life, or they are of a practical-hygienic or ritualistic nature, and are
somewhat arbitrary, at that.The former
were further elevated through Christ and brought to their essential meaning
by him.The latter were declared
as overcome and were abandoned by the Christians when they accepted converts
from among the heathen of diverse cultures.
Christian
doctrine emphasizes brotherly love, rejection of power, wealth, or pleasure,
and following the spirit of the law, not just the letter of the law.With
its emphasis on brotherly love and the attention directed toward the meek,
merciful, clean of heart, peaceful, poor, and suffering, in preference
to the rich and powerful, Christian doctrine rose above the thinking of
its time and distinguished itself among all other religions – bringing
a breakthrough of cultural development of human civilization.Christian
doctrine thereby opened a new dimension and new values to human thought
and feeling, elevated above the practicality of communal life –
along with new contradictions in practical life.Sacrifice
to the gods and rituals are no longer at the center of religious life;
in addition to the humble prayer to God, the fellow human being and
feeling are at the center.
Modern
ethics (or moral philosophy) evolved as a branch of philosophy, in practice,
becoming the successor to the doctrines of law and morality of religions.In
its present expression, ethics originated after the renaissance, reformation,
and enlightenment.Detached from its
roots in divine will, ethics searches for a rational foundation of its
doctrine.Ethics finds it in the
benefit or utility for society and for the individual (or in personal “happiness”).But
what is lacking is an in-depth analysis of what constitutes human happiness [6],
and how to balance the various dimensions thereof.[7]
Priority
for utility has led to remarkable abuse (see the Nazis, but not only them).This
has led back to a desire for absolute, humanely acceptable maxims for moral
doctrine.New theories (see John Rawls)
attempt to minimize such abuse by reversing the utility preference to a
preference for minimizing the risk for the weakest members of society,
demanding the inviolability of each person’s life.This
can provide protection for the underprivileged and suppressed, but does
not sufficiently consider the hopes and aspirations that all people harbor.It
also neglects large areas of human values in emotions and culture.
Lacking
in philosophical ethics is also the unequivocal resolution of the dilemma
whether moral rules must apply to all human action or are voided by the
moral desirability of the goal or end-result (recent example, terrorism
in order to reach freedom and torture or killing of many innocents in order
to prevent expected major terrorist activities).
What
remains is the desire for absolute, humanely acceptable
directives for the moral conduct of our own lives, family life,
industry, and government.But the
academic-intellectual philosophy of ethics leaves the questions of conscience
or human feeling unanswered, especially since psychology analyzes all emotions
relative to their causality or, more recently, relative to their purpose
in evolution.
The
formulation of (God-pleasing) rules of conduct with validity for all people
of all cultures remains as the most important task for the religions in
our time – more so in the course of globalization on Earth (see Hans Küng’s
“Yes to a Global Ethic” and other writings).It
becomes apparent in this process that the rules of conduct related to God
(as well as to ritual) increasingly move into the background as the rules
for conduct related to fellow humans move into the foreground.Thus,
the religious laws should become a guiding principle for the well-being
of people on Earth (with an occasional look over the shoulder whether God
feels adequately adored).In practical
terms, the concern for well-being relates mostly to the people of the same
nation, ethnic group, or religious denomination, only in a translated way
also to all humans, but not to the respective enemies.Those
enemies become endowed with sanctions, harassments, terrorism, and even
torture, whether they are political adversaries or neighborly tribes in
territorial disputes (for instance, inthe
In
consequence, religious laws find themselves increasingly in parallel to
the political and mainly to the sociopolitical guidelines and rules of
human society.This leads to the question
whether the growing political maturity of people will lead in their social
rules to the same laws as those of the principal religions, or who has
to learn from whom and what differences will or must remain.Furthermore,
a global, multicultural society may want to free itself from relating
to the rules of conduct or proclamations of a singular god or a single
religion.
The increasingly
visible problems of the social welfare state and international aid show
the practical limits of the old religio-idealistic moral doctrine.Whoever
does not show personal accomplishment and discipline will now receive less
support.These limits on the practicality
of aid are also recognized by practical psychology and by pedagogy.For
example, parents are advised to leave something for their children to want,
in order to let them mature thereby.Parents
of drifters and addicts are advised to deny them help until they reach
a real low, at which point they are hoped to begin to help themselves.
Once
society has arrived at this point, the danger exists that the door
is open for arbitrariness and prevalent fashion of political correctness
or psychology in interpreting the saying “love your neighbor as yourself”.The
Christian neither wants a world of the raw utility doctrine, nor the prevalent
fashion in politics or psychology.Thus,
one searches the foundation for a world of warm humanity and doing good
in the simple fundamentalism of old religious doctrine.
As people
increasingly follow modern thought and as their faith in the all-controlling
rule by God diminishes, they find themselves increasingly with the responsibility
for personal action and the personal responsibility for the consequences
of their actions in life.
Religious
laws, moral doctrine, and ethical philosophy relate mainly to human weaknesses
and solutions to problems; only secondarily are they directed toward an
increase of utility, “happiness”, quality of life, or reaching of individual
or communal potential as possibly offered by life.Consequently,
there are no directives, religious laws, or concepts of ethics that have
the goal of promoting human strengths and capabilities (there only are
public laws compelling school attendance) or the use of opportunities and
possibilities for the development of the individual and society, or growth
over time (leaving the latter to free-market considerations).Only
in modern times have nations begun to demand the definition of goals from
their intellectual or political leaders and strategies to reach them (as
has been common for some time among business leaders).Already,
for a long time now, the education of our children and adolescents, up
to the college level, has aimed in that direction – toward the promotion
of strengths and capabilities, as well as the utilization of opportunities
and possibilities.
Is
there some catching up to do in the development of religious thought and
in theology?
The
meaning or plan of existence and of human life
Why
do we exist?Is existence in this
world based on a divine plan?Does
God direct our lives in accordance to a plan?What
shall we aim for in this world once at least our survival is assured and
our basic needs have been fulfilled?
Judeo-Christian
doctrine indicates no reason why God created the world, what God intends
with the world, or to what purpose it was created.The
Bible only says that God was satisfied with His Creation.This
leads to the conclusion that the whole world, including us, exists
only for the pleasure of God.
Since
the Judeo-Christian doctrine does not know of any evolution of Creation,
one cannot talk about any goal in the further development of Creation or
of human cultures.Only the doctrine
of the church sees a divine plan for mankind and for each individual in
our turning toward God and in the final redemption through Christ
for eternal life in the next world.
What
shall we aim for in this world?Humans
did not receive any orders for the development of their civilization or
for personal development upon being driven out of
In
all these statements, theology always proceeds from the Sacred Scriptures.Science
in its method, however, always proceeds from observation.Why
can or should theology not also accept in its thoughts relevant observations
concerning God’s Creation and its history?
The
most famous basaltic deposits resulting from those events are the “Deccan
Traps” in
It
appears certain that more catastrophes of this sort will occur at random
time intervals in the future.Would
mankind and its civilizations survive?What
direction could evolution take after mankind’s demise?