World_Religions

МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ

ОМСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ

WORLD RELIGIONS

Учебное пособие

УДК 42(075.8) ББК 81.432.1-923

Р 368

Р368 World religions: Учебное пособие / Сост. М.Х. Рахимбергено- ва. – Омск: Омск. гос. ун-т, 2003. – 156 с.

ISBN 5-7779-0422-X

Пособие ставит своей целью развить навыки англоязычного обще- ния по теме “Религии мира”. Предназначается для студентов первого, второго курсов дневного и вечернего отделения факультета теологии. Может быть использовано как для аудиторной, так и для самостоятель- ной работы.

Основная часть пособия включает тексты и разнообразные упраж- нения, призванные научить беседовать на тему различных религий: хри- стианства, иудаизма, ислама, буддизма, синтоизма, индуизма и т. д. Вто- рая часть состоит из аутентичных текстов, представляющих собой как богатый словарный и информативный материал, так и возможность раз- вития навыков и умений перевода теоретических текстов.

УДК 42(075.8) ББК 81.432.1-932

Unit one

Part I

Before you read this excerpt from an essay that offers a general definition of the word “religion”, answer the question below. Write a short definition and discuss it with a partner. Although there can be diverse views on this question, the passage tries to make broad generalizations applicable to many religions and different periods of history.

How would you define the word Religion?

RELIGION

from Compton’s interactive encyclopedia

1. It has been said that thoughts of death lead necessarily to the development of religion. It is difficult to imagine what need there would be for religion in a world in which no one ever died or became ill. The literatures of all religions attempt to give answers to basic questions: From where did the world come? What is the meaning of human life? Why do people die and what happens afterward? Why is there evil? How should people behave? In the distant past, these questions were answered in terms of mythology. In literature, they are dealt with in poetry. Modern sciences try to investigate them.

2. As a word religion is difficult to define, but as a human experience it seems to be universal. The twentieth century German-born American theologian Paul Tillich gave a simple and basic definition of the word. “Religion is ultimate concern”. This means that religion encompasses that to which people are most devoted or that from which they expect to get the most fundamental satisfaction in life. Consequently, religion provides adequate answers to the most basic questions posed above.

3. Four centuries earlier the German social reformer Martin Luther spoke in similar terms about God. He stated that to have a god was to “have something in which the heart trusts completely” putting Tillich’s and Luther’s definitions together, it is possible to see that religion does not necessarily have to be involved with shrines, temples, churches or synagogues. It does not need complex doctrines or clergy. It can be anything to which people devote themselves that fills their lives with meaning.

4. In Western civilization, religion has traditionally been defined as belief in and worship of one God. This is true for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The statements by Tillich and Luther make it clear, however, that such a definition may be too narrow. In original, Buddhism in India and Confucianism in

China, there was no recognition of a supreme being. Both of these philosophies were basically concerned with patterns of human behavior.

5. Regardless of definition, all religions (as the word is normally used) have certain elements in common: rituals to perform, prayers to recite, places to frequent or avoid, holy days to keep, means by which to predict the future, a body of literature to read and study, truths to affirm, charismatic leaders to follow, and ordinances to obey. Many have buildings set aside for worship, and there are activities such as prayer, sacrifice, contemplation, and perhaps magic.

6. Closely associated with these elements is personal conduct. Although it is possible to separate ritual observances from moral conduct, worship has normally implied a type of relationship with a god from which certain behavior patterns are expected to follow. A notable exception in history is the official state religion of ancient Rome, which was kept separate from personal commitment and morality.

Paul Tillich: protestant theologian (religious thinker) (1886–1965). Martin Luther: German leader of the Protestant Reformation (1483–1546).

Task 1. On a separate piece of paper, write an explanation of the following quotes from the text:

1.“In the distant past, these questions were answered in terms of mythology. In literature, they are dealt with in poetry. Modern sciences try to investigate them”. (Paragraph 1)

2.“Putting Tillich’s and Luther’s definitions together, it is possible to see that religion does not necessarily have to be involved with shrines, temples, churches or synagogues. It does not need complex doctrines or clergy. It can be anything to which people devote themselves that fills their lives with meaning”.

(Paragraph 3)

3. “Although it is possible to separate ritual observances from moral conduct, worship has normally implied a type of relationship with a god from which certain behavior patterns are expected to follow”. (Paragraph 6)

Compare your answers with those of a partner.

Task 2. Make up 15 questions about the text.

Task 3. Work in pairs. Read the sentences and match the underlined word or expression with a synonym from the list. The first one has been done for you:

1. The Buddhist religion believes in the idea that individual people can come back in a new life form after death. – e

2.Spiritual concerns are usually associated with religion, but worldly, material concerns are usually identified with government authority. In some cultures, however, the spiritual leader is also the head of government.

3.When someone asks you to guess what the future will bring, you are being asked to theorize about what may happen.

4.In some countries, an unpopular political, spiritual, or artistic leader can be forced into leaving his country and living in a foreign land.

5.In many religions, the leaders are not elected. The heads of the religion choose their successors.

6.Many parents give their children a religious education, hoping that when the children grow up they will be observant members of the religion.

7.Some young people feel that religious concerns are no longer related to modern life.

8.History shows that brutal dictators do not think much about the longterm interests of their people. They are often reckless and interested only in the

moment.

9. Some religions are practiced only among their own people, but other religions seek to spread their ideas among as many people as possible.

Part II

Religion

Religion is one of the phenomena that influences and excites the human mind since the time immemorial. One of the many definitions of religion regards it as human being’s relation to what people consider holy, sacred, or divine, namely God or gods or spirits. Worship is probably the most basic element of religion, but moral conduct, right belief, and participation in religious institutions are generally also constituent elements of the religious life.

A lot of scientists throughout the 19th and 20th centuries tried to give classifications of religion from different points of view. Considerable progress toward scientific classifications of religions was marked by the emergence of morphological schemes, which assume that religion in its history has passed through a series of discernible stages of development, each having readily identifiable characteristics and each constituting an advance beyond the former stage. So essential is the notion of progressive development to morphological schemes that they might also be called evolutionary classifications. The pioneer of morphological classifications was E.B. Tylor, a British anthropologist, whose Primitive Culture (1871) is among the most influential books ever written in its field. Tylor developed the thesis of animism, a view that the essential

element in all religions is belief in spiritual beings. According to Tylor, the belief arises naturally from elements universal in human experience (e. g., death, sleep, dreams, trances and hallucinations) and leads through processes of primitive logic to the belief in a spiritual reality distinct from the body and capable of existing independently.

Of immediate interest is the classification of religions drawn from Tylor’s animistic thesis. Ancestor worship, prevalent in preliterate societies, is obeisance to the spirits of the dead. Fetishism, the veneration of objects believed to have magical or supernatural potency, springs from the association of spirits with particular places or things and leads to idolatry, in which the image is viewed as the symbol of a spiritual being or deity. Totemism, the belief in an association between particular groups of people and certain spirits that serve as guardians of those people, arises when the entire world is conceived as peopled by spiritual beings. At a still higher stage, polytheism, the interest in particular deities or spirits disappears and is replaced by concern for a “species” deity who represents an entire class of similar spiritual realities. Polytheism may evolve into monotheism, a belief in a supreme and unique deity. Tylor’s theory of the nature of religions and the resultant classification were so logical, convincing, and comprehensive that for a number of years they remained virtually unchallenged.

The morphological classification of religions received more sophisticated expression from C.P. Tiele, a 19th century Dutch scholar and an important pioneer in the scientific study of religion. His point of departure was that of distinguishing between nature and ethical religions. Ethical religion, in Tiele’s views, develops out of nature religion and falls into two subcategories. First are the national nomistic (legal) religions that are particularistic, limited to the horizon of one people only and based upon a sacred law drawn from sacred books. Above them are the universalistic religions, qualitatively different in kind, aspiring to be accepted by all men, and based upon abstract principles and maxims. In both subtypes, doctrines and teachings are associated with the careers of distinct personalities who play important roles in their origin and formation. Tiele found only three examples of this highest type of religion: Islam, Christianity and Buddhism. Tiele’s classification enjoyed a great vogue and influenced many who came after him.

The past 150 years have also produced several classifications of religion based on speculative and abstract concepts that serve the purposes of philosophy. The principal example of these is the scheme of G.W.F. Hegel in his famous Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (1832). In general, Hegel’s understanding of religion coincided with his philosophical thought; he viewed the whole of human history as a vast dialectical movement toward the realization of freedom. The reality of history, he held, is Spirit, and the story of religion is the

process by which Spirit comes to full consciousness of itself. Individual religions thus represent stages in a process of evolution directed toward the great goal at which all history aims.

Hegel classified religions according to the role that they have played in the self-realization of Spirit. The historical religions fall into three great divisions, corresponding with the stages of the dialectical progression. At the lowest level of development, according to Hegel, are the religions of nature, or religions based principally upon the immediate consciousness deriving from sense experience. They include: immediate religion or magic at the lowest level; religions, such as those of China and India plus Buddhism, that represent a division of consciousness within itself; and others, such as the religions of ancient Persia, Syria and Egypt, that form a transition to the next type. At an intermediate level are the religions of spiritual individuality, among which Hegel placed Judaism (the religion of sublimity), ancient Greek religion (the religion of beauty), and ancient Roman religion (the religion of utility). At the highest level is absolute religion, or the religion of complete spirituality, which Hegel identified with Christianity. The progression thus proceeds from man immersed in nature and functioning only at the level of sensual consciousness, to man becoming conscious of himself in his individuality as distinct from nature, and beyond that to a grand awareness in which the opposition of individuality and nature is overcome in the realization of Absolute Spirit. Many criticisms have been offered of Hegel’s classification. An immediately noticeable shortcoming is the failure to make a place for Islam, one of the major historical religious communities. The classification is also questionable for its assumption of continuous development in history. Nevertheless, Hegel’s scheme was influential and was adapted and modified by a generation of philosophers of religion in the Idealist tradition.

Sociological studies of religion were undertaken by Auguste Comte who is considered the founder of modern sociology. His general theory hinged substantially on a particular view of religion, and this view has somewhat influenced the sociology of religion since that time. In The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte he expounded a naturalistic Positivism and sketched out the following stages in the evolution of thought. First, there is what he called the theological stage, in which events are explained by reference to supernatural beings; next, there is the metaphysical stage, in which more abstract unseen forces are invoked; finally, in the positivistic stage, men seek causes in a scientific and practical manner. To seek for scientific laws governing human morality and society is as necessary, in this view, as to search for those in physics and biology.

A rather separate tradition was created by the German economic theorist Karl Marx (1818–1883). A number of Marxists, notably Lenin (1870–1924) and K. Kautsky (1854–1938), have developed social interpretations of religion based

on the theory of the class struggle. Whereas sociological functionalists posited the existence in a society of some religion or a substitute for it (Comte, incidentally, propounded a positivistic religion, somewhat in the spirit of the French Revolution), the Marxists implied the disappearance of religion in a classless society. Thus, in their view religion in man’s primordial communist condition, at the dawn of the historical dialectic, reflects ignorance of natural causes, which are explained animistically. Religion, both consciously and unconsciously, becomes an instrument of exploitation. In the words of the young Marx, religion is “generalized theory of the world…its logic in popular form”.

One of the most influential theoreticians of the sociology of religion was the German scholar Max Weber (1864–1920). He observed that there is an apparent connection between Protestantism and the rise of capitalism, and in The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism he accounted for the connection in terms of Calvinism’s inculcating a this-worldly asceticism, which created a rational discipline and work ethic, together with a drive to accumulate savings that could be used for further investment. Weber noted, however, that such a thesis ought to be tested; and a major contribution of his thinking was his systematic exploration of other cultural traditions from a sociological point of view. He wrote influentially about Islam, Judaism, and Indian and Chinese religions and, in so doing, elaborated a set of categories, such as types of prophecy, the idea of charisma (spiritual power), routinization, and other categories, which became tools to deal with the comparative material; he was thus the real founder of comparative sociology. Because of his special interest in religion, he can also be reckoned a major figure in the comparative study of religion.

In the study of religious psychology the most influential were the psychoanalysts. A considerable literature has developed around the relationship of psychoanalysis and religion. Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, maintained that inner conflicts-often the result of repression, particularly in relation to sex – become expressed in peculiarities of behavior and mood, especially in the vivid imagery of dreams that erupt from the unconscious area of one’s personality. By comparing the symbolism of dreams and mythology, Freud held that belief in God – in particular, the father image – merely perpetuates in fantasy what the individual must in actual fact overcome as part of his growth to maturity, thus giving religious belief a treatment that not only made belief in God unnecessary but positively unhelpful.

The Swiss psychoanalyst C.G. Jung (1875–1961) adopted a very different posture, one that was more sympathetic to religion and more concerned with a positive appreciation of religious symbolism. Jung considered the question of the existence of God to be unanswerable by the psychologist and adopted a kind of agnosticism. Yet he considered the spiritual realm to possess a psychological reality that cannot be explained away, and certainly not in the manner suggested

by Freud. Jung postulated, in addition to the personal unconscious (roughly as in Freud), the collective unconscious, which is the repository of human experience and which contains “archetypes” (i. e., basic images that are universal in that they recur in independent cultures). The irruption of these images from the unconscious into the realm of consciousness he viewed as the basis of religious experience and often of artistic creativity. Religion can thus help men, who stand in need of the mysterious and symbolic, in the process of individuation – of becoming individual selves.

Among other psychoanalytic interpreters of religion, the American scholar Erich Fromm (1900–1980) modified Freudian theory and produced a more complex account of the functions of religion. Part of the modification is viewing the Oedipus complex as based not so much on sexuality as on a “much more profound desire” – namely, the childish desire to remain attached to protecting figures. The right religion, in Fromm’s estimation, can, in principle, foster an individual’s highest potentialities, but religion in practice tends to relapse into being neurotic. Authoritarian religion, according to Freud, is dysfunctional and alienates man from himself.

Summing up the above said it is necessary to note that the classification of religions that will withstand all criticism and serve all the purposes of a general science has not been achieved. Each classification presented above has been attacked for its inadequacies or distortions, yet each is useful in bringing to light certain aspects of religion. Even the crudest and most subjective classifications throw into relief various aspects of religious life and thus contribute to the cause of understanding. The most fruitful approach for a student of religion appears to be that of employing a number of diverse classifications, each one for the insight it may yield. Though each may have its shortcomings, each also offers a positive contribution to the store of knowledge and its systematization. And it must be kept in mind that classification should be viewed as a method and a tool only.

Although a perfect classification lies at present beyond scholars’ grasp, certain criteria, both positive and negative in nature, may be suggested for building and judging classifications. First, classifications should not be arbitrary, subjective, or provincial but objective to the extent possible. It is not just to divide religions into lower and higher or primitive and higher religions. Second, an acceptable classification must concern itself with the fundamentals of religion and with the most typical elements of the units it is seeking to order. Third, a proper classification should be capable of presenting both that which is common to religious forms of a given type and that which is peculiar or unique to each member of the type. Fourth, it is desirable in a classification that it demonstrate the dynamics of religious life both in the recognition that religions as living systems are constantly changing and in the effort to show, through the

categories chosen, how it is possible for one religious form or manifestation to develop into another. Few errors have been more damaging to the understanding of religion than that of viewing religious systems as static and fixed, as, in effect, historical. Fifth, a classification must define what exactly is to be classified. If the purpose is to develop types of religions as a whole, the questions of what constitutes a religion and what constitutes various individual religions must be asked. Since no historical manifestation of religion is known that has not exhibited an unvarying process of change, evolution, and development, these questions are far from easily solved. With such criteria in mind it should be possible continuously to construct classification schemes that illuminate man’s religious history.

Task 1. Answer the following questions to check how carefully you have read the text:

1.What is religion?

2.How does religion influence human life?

3.Why do people believe?

4.What approaches to the study of religion are offered in the text?

5.Speak on each classification mentioned. Which one do you favour?

6.Why isn’t there a classification, which withstands all criticism?

7.What criteria should be kept in mind while building a classification?

Task 2. Match the quotations with their authors:

1. The belief in spiritual arises naturally from elements universal in human experience and leads to the belief in a spiritual reality capable of existing independently.

2.In their view, religion reflects ignorance of natural causes, which are explained animistically.

3.A major contribution of his thinking was systematic exploration of dif-

ferent cultural traditions from a sociological point of view.

4.He classified religions according to the role they played in the selfrealization of Spirit.

5.He considered theological thinking to be only the first stage in the evolution of thought.

6.He held the spiritual realm to possess a psychological reality that cannot

be explained away.

7. The belief in God, in particular, the father image, is part of a man’s

Task 3. Translate the words and word-combinations given in brackets into English. Consult the prompt in the box:

To withstand criticism; to concern oneself with; phenomena; since the time immemorial; the cause; fundamentals; to illuminate; to construct a scheme; the crudest; second; fixed; to throw into relief; beyond scholar’s grasp; criteria; first; arbitrary; the dynamics; third; to appreciate; few errors have been more damaging; to define; to excite; perfect; shortcomings; to contribute to; summing up the above said.

Religion is one of the (явлений) that (волнует) the human mind (с

незапамятных времен). And the man always (занимался, интересовался) analyzing and estimating religious experience. There were a lot of attempts to build classifications but all of them do not (выдерживают критики) as they have a lot of (недостатков). But even the (самая грубая) and most subjective classifications (рельефно, выпукло отражает) various aspects of religious life and thus (вносит вклад в) (дело) of understanding.

Although a (совершенная) classification is (недосягаемая для современ-

ных ученых), certain (критерии) may be suggested for building classifications. (Во-первых), a classification should not be (случайной, произвольной). (Во-

вторых), it should (интересоваться, заниматься) (основным, главным) of religion. (В-третьих), it is desirable that a classification demonstrate (дина-

мику) of religious life. (Мало какие ошибки были более вредны) than viewing religious systems as static (неподвижные) and ahistorical. In addition it must (определить) what exactly is to be classified. (Учитывая все вышесказанное) it should be possible to (создать такую схему) that (прольет свет, разъяс-

нит) man’s religious history.

Task 4. Translate the following text into Russian:

Religion is invariably theistic. It involves belief in a personal living, and spiritual God, distinct from the world that he has created as the human mind is felt to be distinct from what it knows. Various forms of theism exist, however. The Old Testament shows a progress from henotheism (belief that the community must be loyal to one god only) to monotheism (belief that this god is the one and only God). Other forms of theism are polytheism, belief in many gods, which includes usually at least a vague apprehension that the many are aspects of one; pantheism, the belief that God is simply all things in the universe (although this type of belief is historically a philosophical idea rather than a religious belief); and panentheism, the belief that every creature is an appearance or manifestation of God, who is conceived of as the divine actor playing at once the innumerable parts of humans, animals, plants, stars, and natural forces.

Religion is therefore communal faith in and conformity to the pattern that thought discovers, or has revealed to it, as the will or commandment of the intelligence behind the world. The community binds itself to this pattern as its rule of life consisting of three elements – the creed, the code, and the cult. Creed is faith in the revealed pattern and in the divine intelligence that gave it. Code is the divinely sanctioned and authorized system of human laws and morals comprising the rules of active participation in society. Cult is the ritual of worship, or symbolic acts, whereby the community brings its mind into accord with the mind of God, either by ceremonial dances or dramatic reenactments of the deeds of God, or by sacrificial meals held in common between God and his people. It is from this last-mentioned type of cult that, for example, the Christian Mass or communion service is derived.

Task 5. Write an essay on one of the following topics:

1.Construct your classification of religions.

2.Role and place of faith in the life of people.

3.Speak on any religion, its origins and influence on the life of people.

4.The role of religion in historical development.

Part III

What is a definition?

When writing a definition essay, the writer enters the world of classification. Through classification, we analyze a subject by dividing it into categories. First we find what all of the categories have in common – the “common characteristics” – and then we seek to determine how each of the categories can be distinguished from one another.

This is precisely what a definition is: the process of putting nouns in categories or “classes”. In a definition, we show how the item or concept to be defined is part of a broader category and how it is different from the other members of this category. The box that follows gives examples.

1.“A rabbi is a religious leader in the Jewish community”.

2.“A mullah is a religious leader in the Islamic community”.

3.“Rabbis and mullahs are religious leaders”.

Research and preparation

The writer of the definition essay “Religion” went through a similar process of analysis throughout the research stage. After studying “all religions” and analyzing their “common characteristics” and differences, as in the classification box above, the writer was then ready to write an essay defining “religion”.

ESSAY STRUCTURE

The definition essay goes from the realm of the “indefinite” (a religion is … / religions are …) to the realm of the “definite” the Moslem religion, unlike the Buddhist religion, is … provides a thesis statement (“As a word religion is difficult to define, but as a human experience it seems to be universal”). The writer also permits his point of view to surface. For example, at the beginning of the essay “Religion”, the statement (“It is difficult to imagine what need there would be for religion in a world”). The writer first tells us what “all religions” have in common (“all religions attempt to give answers to basic questions”). Then, after interpreting the quotes by Paul Tillich and Martin Luther, the writer shows that the Western belief in one God is not shared by followers of the Eastern religions. The writer then refers to other “elements in common: rituals to perform, prayers to recite, holy days to keep”. It is apparent from the way this brief excerpt unfolds that in the rest of the essay the writer will continue to show a pattern of common characteristics and specific differences.

In a definition essay, as in all other kinds of essays, the writer introduces examples, shows similarities and differences, uses quotations, and so on, in order to make sure the information is communicated as effectively as possible. The writer in which no one ever died or became ill – immediately familiarizes the reader with the writer’s point of view. Thus, despite the difficult task of objective analysis that the writer must go through when preparing a definition essay, one thing is certain: The writer’s point of view remains very important.

Task 1. Work in a small group. Brainstorm a definition for the word love. Many religions preach “love your fellow man”. But what exactly is love? Analyze at least five types of love. Two types of love have been suggested to you below. Find the common characteristics and differences of each type of love. Then write down the definition of love that the group agrees upon.

1.self-love

2.the love of a parent for a child

Definition of Love: _______________________________

Task 2. Write an essay defining and explaining the meaning of love to you.

UNIT TWO

Part I

Christianity

Christianity is one of the major world religions, arising out of Judaism and founded on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christians regard the Bible as authoritative, but the place given to the tradition and reason varies. Early Christians suffered persecution until the Emperor Constantine proclaimed freedom of worship throughout the Roman Empire (313 A.D.). He made Christianity Rome’s official religion in 324 A.D./C.E. Almost from the beginning the Church had been divided into the Greek-speaking East and the Latin-speaking West. This division finally led to the Great Schism of 1054. In medieval Western Europe the increasing secular power and corruption of the Roman Church sparked the Reformation of the 16th century and Protestantism emerged as various national churches separated from the Roman Catholic Church. Modern Ecumenical Movement among the Christian churches encourages greater cooperation and eventual unity. But substantial progress was not made until 1948, when representatives of 147 world churches agreed to form the World Council of Churches.

Orthodox Christianity is characterized by monasticism and veneration of icons. It rejects papal claims, the “immaculate conception”, purgatory and does not require clerical celibacy.

Task 1. The following are the definitions of words from the text bellow. What are the words?

–state of living unmarried as a religious obligation;

–pure, faultless;

–regarding with deep respect;

–division of an organization;

–immoral, dishonest;

–condition after death in which the soul has to be purified by temporary suffering; place where souls are so purified;

–punishing, treating cruelly, esp. because of religious beliefs;

–reverence and respect paid to God.

The Christian View of Life

Although we have described Christianity as a religion of Semitic origin, this is only partly true. Christianity has two roots. One is the Jewish world of ethical monotheism; the other is the classical world of the Roman Empire.

Christianity began as a reform movement within Jewish religion, a movement aiming to call the Jewish people away from inessentials and back to what

was most central in their faith. In the process it developed a message of universal significance, and one which found much of a response outside the Jewish community, in the Graeco-Roman world.

The Christian view of life can perhaps be summed up in the phrase, the humanity of God. The God who made the heavens and the earth has become human, born as a child, growing to a man, teaching us the ways of God, and sharing our fate in suffering and death, for love of mankind. Although we are by nature sinful, he himself has made atonement for our sins, and has reconciled us to himself. “There is no greater love than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends”.

To understand the meaning of Christianity, it is helpful to understand both the condition of the Jewish community in Jesus’ time, and also the state of religion in the Graeco-Roman world, which provided its larger context and eventually became its home.

Some Christian terms

It may be useful at this point to explain some Christian terms in common use. The language spoken by the early Gentile Christians was predominantly Greek, which is the language of the New Testament and other early Christian documents.

Christ. This is not a personal name, but a title, meaning in Greek “the Anointed One”, that is, the Messiah. In classical Hebrew religion, anointing with olive oil was a ceremony of special importance, setting a person aside for a special purpose. Kings, priests, and prophets were anointed. The Hebrew word for “anointed” is “messiah”, the Greek translation of which is “christos”.

Church. The Greek term for the Christian community was “kyriake ekklesia”, “ekklesia” meaning “community”, and “kyriake” coming from “kyrios”, a lord or master, and meaning “belonging to the Lord”. “Kyriake ekklesia” thus means “the community of the Lord”. The word “church” derives from “kyriake”, a fact that can perhaps be seen more clearly in the Scottish word “kirk”.

Christianity. The early followers of Jesus called their religious faith simply “the Way”. The word “Christian” came into use first in the city of Antioch, toward the end of the first century.

Catholic. The Greek word “holos” means “the whole”. “Kata” means “according to”. The two words are combined into the adjectival form “katholikos”, meaning “universal”.

Philosophy and theology

As it became the religion of the European peoples, Christianity inherited the European tradition of philosophical inquiry. The use of philosophical methods to understand and explain religious belief is called theology. This theologi-

cal tradition, which shows itself in the wrestling over the doctrines of the Incarnation and Trinity, as well as many others, has resulted in an exceptional development of the theoretical side of Christianity by comparison with many other religions, especially with Judaism and Islam. For example, it provided Christianity with a philosophical understanding of such concepts as person and nature. Christ, as God incarnate, was one person, namely the divine person of God the Son, but a person with two natures, one divine and one human. The Trinity by contrast was three persons with one nature, namely the divine nature. The nature of a being represents the kind or species of being that it is, while the person represents the acting subject, the individual who is responsible for the being actions. These concepts were applied not only to the understanding of the divine, but also of human beings.

One of the noteworthy achievements of Christian thought was the philosophical elucidation of the concept of God, carried out especially by St Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274). God, said Aquinas, making use of conceptions developed by Aristotle, is Pure Actuality, without trace of potentiality, Pure Being, without any element of becoming. Aquinas insisted that there can be no hostility between religion and reason, the true religion must be reasonable, because the same God created both. In defense of this view he developed the theory of the Analogy of Being, which explains how it is possible for our human minds and conceptions, which are limited, to attain some knowledge of God by reason. When we say that God is good, for example, while it is true that there is an infinite gap between God’s goodness and anything we can possibly mean by “goodness” on the basis of our limited human experience, and so the word “good” used of God cannot not mean precisely what we normally mean by it, nonetheless the statement can be meaningful and true because there is an analogy between our meaning and the reality of God. In other words, there can only be one universe, the finite and the infinite do not exist in separate worlds but necessarily stand in some relation.

Christianity and the problem of evil

Our sense of the meaningfulness of the life is threatened fundamentally by our experience of evil. This is of two general kinds, physical and moral. On the one hand human beings, like the rest of the animal world, are condemned by the course of nature to eventual death, and often to extremes of suffering during their lives, as the result of illness and accident. On the other, they inflict harm and death on one another, often without cause. If there was a God both all-good and all-powerful, it is often objected, he would not permit this state of affairs, for he would have both the desire and the power to prevent it.

Christianity does not offer a theoretical solution to this problem, although theologians have argued that we cannot rule out the possibility that God might

have a reason for allowing evil, which we do not comprehend, and they have pointed out that faith in a life after death holds out the hope that justice will finally be done. But in its conception of the suffering God, Christianity offers what might perhaps be called an existential response to the problem. The God who made the world, and who by nature was far above all experience of evil, nonetheless, out of love for mankind, took on himself the full burden of human existence, and with it suffering and death. While this does not solve the problem, Christians feel that it sets it in a new light.

Purgatory and prayers for the dead

Through Christ God offers us the grace necessary to attain salvation. Whether we accept that grace, however, depends on us. A person who accepts God’s grace and leads a good life will acquire merit before God, and will deserve to enter heaven, while one who rejects God’s grace and leads an evil life will deserve the eternal punishments of hell. Between the saint, so devoted to God that he or she enters heaven immediately after death, and the person who deserves hell, will be many who deserve neither the one nor the other. The souls of these at death will enter temporarily an in-between state known as Purgatory, in which they will experience sufferings designed to expiate their guilt, and after a time, when they have been sufficiently purified, they will enter heaven.

On the basis of this doctrine it is possible for the living to help the dead by their prayers. The living can intercede with God to have pity on the souls in Purgatory, and even offer their own present sufferings and merits in this life so that the dead may be released the sooner from their sins. The chief form that this intercession for the dead takes is the offering of the sacrifice of the Eucharist or Mass on their behalf.

The split between East and West

By the end of the third century the Roman Empire had become too big for one emperor to manage. The Emperor Diocletian split it into two, an eastern half including Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine, and Egypt, where the predominant language was Greek, and a western half including Italy, Spain, and Gaul, where the predominant language was Latin. This political division had a farreaching effect on the Christian Church.

Gradually the two corresponding halves of the Church began to drift apart. Although nominally united, significant differences developed between them. The Church in the Eastern Empire came to be more closely identified with the state, becoming in effect a department of the imperial government, a system, which has been called Caesaro-papism: the emperor was the practical head of the Church. In the West the Church retained its independence. Especially, the Eastern Church had a different conception of the government of the Church. It

maintained the earlier arrangement of the collegiality of the bishops. While it honored the Bishop of Rome as the chief bishop, it considered his authority was limited to his own region, and it looked to the Patriarch of Constantinople as its leader. The Western Church, on the other hand, came to attribute to the Bishop of Rome more and more authority.

Eventually, in 1054, the two churches excommunicated one another. The Eastern Church is now referred to as the Orthodox Church, the Western Church as the (Roman) Catholic Church.

Although there are many minor differences of spirit and emphasis, the two Churches teach essentially the same doctrines. Both adhere to the seven Sacraments and to the Nicene Creed (with the exception of one phrase about the Holy Spirit). The worship of both centers on the Eucharist. The decisive differences are in organization and authority. The split between them is not termed heresy, but schism.

The Germanic tribes and the Middle Ages

Roman Christianity contained elements which emphasized both the merit of the individual and the unmerited grace of God. It could be described as holding a certain balance between saviorist and Palagian tendencies. In the course of the fourth and fifth centuries, however, the western Roman Empire collapsed. Northern Europe was inhabited by Germanic tribes, many of whom migrated into the Roman territories, took over the reins of power, and became Christians. This admixture of Germanic culture changed the character of Western Christianity profoundly.

One effect was to emphasize even more strongly the sacramental aspects of Christianity. In addition to the seven Sacraments properly so called, many other rituals of a quasi – sacramental nature, called “sacramentals”, were added, such as the veneration of relics, pilgrimages to distant shrines, and the practice of indulgences. (An indulgence is a promise that, in return for certain prayers or good deeds, God will lessen the punishment inflicted after death.) The general effect of this was to give a greater role in the Christian life to the virtuous actions and the merit of the individual, rather than the unmerited grace and mercy of God. In medieval Christianity Pelagian tendencies became more manifest.

The Reformation: Luther and Calvin

In 1517 Martin Luther (1483–1546) raised the standard of protest against this development. Inaugurating a movement that swept through northern Europe, he cast off the authority of the Catholic Church. Previous individuals who had attempted that had run afoul of the political power of the Catholic Church and had typically lost their lives, but Luther succeeded in obtaining the support of a German prince, who protected him. John Calvin (1509–1564) developed a re-

lated viewpoint in a more systematic fashion, making explicit some assumptions, which Luther had made tacitly. Calvin was able to convert the independent Swiss city of Geneva to his views, which gave him the political protection he needed. While there are important differences between the two on secondary matters, their main doctrines are very similar, and amount essentially to a strict interpretation of the faith that it is God who saves us, and not we ourselves.

Salvation by grace alone. We are saved, not by our own actions, however virtuous, nor by actions of other men, such as the priests of the Church, but only by the grace and mercy of God, which is entirely undeserved. Human beings contribute nothing to their own salvation. This view involves a doctrine of predestination: since the decision whether a particular individual will be saved or damned rests entirely with God, and in no way depends on the individual’s behavior, the individual’s fate must have been decided even before the person was born.

Nature and reason are corrupt. No human activity can be of help toward salvation because human nature has been corrupted by Adam’s sin. In consequence of this corruption, every human being is condemned by God as a sinner. This corruption extends not only to our moral character but also to our reason, which is of no avail for salvation. Whereas the Catholic tradition has assumed, for example, that we could know through rational argument that God exists, the view of the Reformers was that this is possible. We can come to know God effectively only through his revelation of himself to us.

The grace of God comes only through Jesus Christ because of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God, God overlooks the corruption men have inherited from Adam, forgives the sin of those destined for salvation, and bestows righteousness on them. Jesus Christ and he alone is the savior of mankind.

Salvation by faith alone. The grace or mercy of God of given to the individual through faith. Our first obligation is to believe in God’s mercy. Having faith in God means, for the Reformers, in the first place having confidence in His compassion, and only secondarily signifies an intellectual assent to the doctrines of Christianity – which is what it primarily means for the Catholic tradition.

Certainty of salvation: According to Catholic doctrine, we can never be certain in this life that we will attain salvation, since it is always possible for us to reject God’s grace, and to sin. According to Luther and Calvin, by contrast, we cannot reject God’s grace if it is once given, otherwise God would not be sovereign. While only God knows with certainty who has been destined for salvation and who for damnation, there are powerful signs or indications that we have been saved that may be available to us. The first of these is just the fact that we have faith in Christ. Later Puritans saw other signs in the blessings of God bestowed in this life, such as material prosperity.