The entire concept of a divine self-disclosure through the created universe and through conscience can easily and naturally lead to the question as to whether various religions practiced among the peoples of mankind are to be connected essentially with such divine revelation. Hence the topic of revelation, religion, and religions seems to follow closely upon general revelation.

I. SOME DEFINITIONS OF “RELIGION”#

How ought one to understand the English word “religion,” whose etymology suggests that from its Latin root comes the idea of bindingness?

1. First, it is possible to define religion as the relationship of human beings to one Supreme Being.

This is a theistic definition of the term which does not strictly apply to religions that have no concept of a God or of gods.

2. Second, one can define religion as the relationship of human beings to the object of their supreme devotion.

This is a more inclusive definition than the first. Under such a definition, for example, Marxist-Leninism would be considered a religion, whereas under the first definition it would not.

3. Third, religion can be defined as “the response by the totality of man’s being to the totality of existence.”

Such a definition serves to emphasize the complete involvement of human beings in religious commitment but can also be used of pantheistic forms of religion.

4. Fourth, religion can be defined as “that complex of phenomena, permeated by symbol and expressed in creed-code-cult, which accompanies … the experience of the Transcendent. "

5. Fifth, religion is “the human attitude towards a world beyond, which is unquestionably assumed as the authentic and authoritative reality and the relation to which finds its expression in a body of myth, rite and individual and social behaviour.”

Both the fourth and the fifth definitions focus upon beliefs, ethics, and worship as being characteristic of religion.

Whatever definition or definitions of religion may be employed, it should be clearly recognized that religion is a widespread phenomenon among humankind, if not indeed absolutely universal.

II. THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION#

The study of the origin of religion has not been confined to Christian theologians.

Modern philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, and comparative religionists have entered into this arena, expounding diverse and varied theories as to this origin. Christian systematic theology hardly permits a detailed treatment of these many theories.

Hendrik Kraemer, who treated these with careful specificity, differentiated naturalistic or immanental theories which find no transhuman factor in the origin, philosophical theories of various types, and theological theories, examples of which extend throughout Christian history from Justin Martyr to Vatican Council II.

The naturalistic theories are incompatible with general revelation. General revelation is most fully harmonizable with theological theories.

III. CHRISTIANITY’S CONFRONTATION WITH NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS#

Today there is a major crisis in the relation of the Christian revelation to non-Christian religions.

In 1938 Kraemer described the twentieth century crisis as consisting of

• A “Western crisis,” precipitated by the rise of relativism and secularism.

• An “Eastern crisis,” resulting from the penetration of the West into the East.

In 1956 Kraemer more pointedly underscored the inevitability of more thoroughgoing encounter of the Christian faith with religion and religions because of

a) the nature of the biblical message

b) the present unprecedented interdependence of all parts of the world and the recognition of the fact of religious pluralism

c) the missionary character of the Christian church.

Within the past one-third of a century this confrontation has become much more apparent. Today the East is penetrating the West, as Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and others are emigrating to Western nations. Moreover, non-Christian religions are now sending their representatives (missionaries) to Western nations.

IV. ASSESSING THE CLAIMS OF NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS TO AN AUTHENTIC REVELATION OF GOD#

In order to investigate the possible connection between non-Christian religions and divine revelation, it is necessary to attempt to determine whether these religions actually claim to embody or convey a disclosure of deity and, if so, to seek to evaluate or assess such claims.

A. JOHN MACQUARRIE’S CLASSIFICATIONAL APPROACH#

Macquarrie held that variations in religions are due to at least three factors:

a) “variation of symbolism”

b) variations in “the psychology of the individual or group”

c) “variations in Being’s own self-disclosure”

He sought to classify various religions under distinctive types of religion, asserting that such classification must be on “a logical basis” and consistently applied and must be from a perspective. Macquarrie stated that his perspective was “the Christian one.”

The following chart, most of which has been reproduced from his book, will serve to clarify Macquarrie’ s classification of religions:

TYPICAL CONTRASTS

Existential-Ontological Theism
Examples: Christianity (doctrine of incarnation), Mahayana Buddhism

The major mark of differentiation among non-Christian religions, according to Macquarrie, is whether the religion veers toward transcendence or toward immanence.

It should also be noted from Macquarrie’s analysis of variations that he has assumed that there may be the self-disclosure of Being in non-Christian religions.

B. EMIL BRUNNER’S EVALUATIVE APPROACH#

Brunner’ s treatment of world religions was not so much in order to classify them according to types as to evaluate their claims to revelation in view of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

He began with primitive religions.

Every religion, however primitive, has some traces of the idea of revelation… But no one seriously believes that the primitive religions have any claim to be an authentic revelation which could possibly be compared with the claim of the Christian revelation… Even the most primitive religions have intercourse with divine powers, and thus presuppose that these powers, in some way or another, manifest themselves and can be encountered.

Yet these religions have

no awareness of anything possessing universal validity; nor can the multiplicity of divine powers be combined with the strict sense of truth. These religions contain no traces of a truth or a bond which is holy and binding for all men, at all times, of an eternal divine Being, and of an eternal will of God.

Brunner cited favorably John Calvin’s view “that the sensus numinis is derived” from general revelation.

Brunner then moved to the higher polytheistic religions of ancient Greece and modern India. These, he concluded, do not embody

any revelation that could be a rival to the claims of Christian revelation. The element that distinguishes these religions from the primitive forms of religion is not anything essentially religious, but rather something rational or cultural. Religious feeling and religious imagination are here restrained and purified by the political, legal, social, moral, and scientific reason… There is no trace here of a revelation that claims uniform and universal validity.

Omitting such national or ethnic religions as Confucianism and Shintoism, Brunner proceeded to the higher forms of mysticism and Buddhism, which he deemed the borderline between the lower religions and the religions that explicitly claim revelation.

The way to the mystical experience is… exactly described, but the revelation itself, in its essentials, is inexpressible. Thus the mystic cannot, like the Prophet or the Apostle, proclaim as valid a revelation that has taken place… The mystic’s message does not claim the heart and life of the person in question; he cannot claim the person for the revelation itself; all he can do is to point to the way, open to all, of the experience of the revelation.

According to Hinayana Buddhism, neither Buddha nor original Buddhism claimed to have “received a divine revelation.” Buddha’s “illumination”, however, is understood as an event of a supernatural character, as a mystical experience, through which he received the ultimate truth about the nature of the world, the reason for suffering, and the possibility of escaping from the latter.”

Mahayana Buddhism sees Buddha as a savior or deliverer, not merely a teacher or enlightened one. Buddhists are “trustfully” to call upon the name of Arnita Buddha. But

Amita Buddha is not God, the Creator and Lord, nor is he a historical revealer of God’s will. He is a mythical figure, borrowing the name from the historical Buddha, but otherwise having nothing in common with him…. He is a religious hero, who, after he had already entered into nirvana, out of pity for men sacrificed his bliss in order to become a helper to man. But his help does not consist in the fact that through him man shares in the hidden divine truth.

Mahayana Buddhism shares with Hinayana “the same impersonal outlook”, but in Mahayana “everything has been transformed from the pessimistic world-denying view into a more pantheistic world-affirming understanding of life.”

Then Brunner analyzed what he called the “prophetic religions”, Zoroastrianism, Islam, and Judaism.

Although it appears that Zoroaster was a prophet speaking for the Creator of heaven and earth and communicating his instruction and was the forerunner of a coming victorious Redeemer, Zoroastrianism was an ethical religion lacking any promise of forgiveness and mercy. It “is moralism projected into the sphere of metaphysics.” This religion’s “metaphysical dualism of the good and evil principles” makes the good god to be bound by the good, but he “is not himself the principle which separates good from evil.”

Islam clearly and distinctly sets forth “a claim to revelation of the highest kind. The Koran claims to be a book of divine revelation.” According to Brunner, the Koran is lacking in “creative originality,” being made up of Old Testament, Christian, and Arabian pagan elements. Having rejected the revelation in Jesus Christ, Mohammed (570-632) “never dared to assert that he himself, in his own person, was a revelation of God.” The Islamic faith “knows nothing of the revelation of a Person; it is first and foremost the religion of a book”. Furthermore, it is “a religion of righteousness of works, of moralism”, lacking any “revelation of the gracious mystery”.

Like Islam, Judaism, as distinguished from the Old Testament itself, is the religion of a Book; its revelation is the Sacred Book.

It is therefore incorrect to regard Judaism simply as the continuation of the revealed religion of the Old Testament. Through the rejection of Jesus as the Messiah the Jewish religion has taken its stand upon a particular interpretation of the Old Testament, namely, that Jesus cannot have been the Messiah.

Thus Jews “refuse to admit that the final revelation has taken place” and acknowledge “the temporary character of the revelation that has come to them.”

Brunner completed his evaluation of religions by discussing “Rational-Moralistic Theism,” which he traced from Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca through Herbert of Cherbury (1583-1648) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) to more recent theists. He found its chief distinctive to be “the rejection of ‘positive’ revelation.”

This Theism, both in its ancient and modem form, is the ultimate product of a movement of emancipation, of severance from the positive religions of the ancient world, and from Christianity." It has substituted “the moral law” for salvific revelation. Lacking “redeeming power,” it “is the religion of self-redemption,… of the self-complacent bourgeoisie, and of the self-sufficient human reason.” Hence it lacks a genuine “claim to revelation”.

By his evaluative approach Brunner is open to the criticism that he has permitted his own Christian commitment and perspective to govern and shape the entire evaluative process, and he likely would not have denied outright such criticism. Every evaluative approach to religions is made from a perspective or an overview or a faith-principle.

V. REVELATION AND THE HUMAN RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS#

Some of the world’sreligions,especially the animistic, polytheistic, and mystical types, do not make a clear, specific claim to the self-disclosure of deity, though they may teach or imply a coming into contact with ultimate reality.

The great monotheistic religions (Islam, Judaism) do claim to be religions of divine revelation, especially religions of a sacred book.

Furthermore,the widespread and almost universal occurrence of religion among humanbeings seems to be relatedto a truth which will be subsequently treated

Man’s being created by God with capacity for fellowship with God and man’s unfulfillment until he should be rightly related to the true and living God.

Even idolatrous paganism, to say nothing of the more sophisticated or serular paganisms, affords an indirect witness to the existence of the true God as the properobject of humanworship and allegiance.

God does not reveal Himself as the gods of various non-Christian religions, but the allegiance of human beings to these gods points to their own basic nature as worshipping beings and to the existence of One who is both the Author of such a worshipping or idolatrous humanity and the proper Recipient of the worship and obedient service of humanbeings.

VI. THE RELATION OF NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS TO THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION OF GOD#

How ought Christians to understand the relationship between non-Christian religions and the Christian revelation of God?

A. THE FULFILLMENT THEORY#

According to this view, the Christian revelation of God is a direct fulfillment of “what truth and revelation there are in other religions.”

A leading exponent was J. N. Farquhar (1861-1929), who in The Croum of Hinduism “tried to show how the various strands of Hindu belief and practice came to their real fulfilment in Christ and the Christian religion.”

There is an element of truth in the fulfillment theory, but there is also the dimension of judgment and replacement.

B. THE LOGOS THEORY#

According to this view, the relationship between non-Christian religions and the Christian revelation of God is to be understood by means of the concept of the Logos. The preexistent and enlightening Logos (Word) of the Fourth Gospel (John 1:1,9) is active wherever the Christian gospel has never been preached.

Developed during the age of the Church Fathers, this theory attributes elements of truth in non-Christian religions to the activity of the Logos.

One must ask, is the Logos to be held responsible for the untruths and distortions to be found in these religions? The answer is obviously to be negative, but some other explanations must be supplied.

C. THE DISCONTINUITY THEORY#

According to this view, there is no “organic relation between the Christian revelation and man’s religions,” religions being the products of humankind and especially of the human religious consciousness. Consequently, common religious practices such as prayer and sacrifice are to be attributed to the human religious consciousness and not to a “common revelation” of God.

The Christian revelation stands, therefore, “in utter uniqueness and unrelatedness.

VII. THE QUEST FOR A COMMON DENOMINATOR, THE DRIFT TOWARD SYNCRETISM, AND INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE#

The topic of revelation and religions necessarily includes some consideration of those modern and contemporary trends in the interaction of the world’s major religions that are somewhat distinctive of the modern era and are impacting Christian theology today.

Three of these warrant the attention of Christian theologians.

A. THE QUEST FOR A COMMON DENOMINATOR IN RELIGIONS#

Nicholas (Krebs) of Cusa (1401-64) in his De Pace Fidei (1453) made a proposal for the unification of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Since the era of the Enlightenment and of Deism, a religious relativism has tended to prevail in the developing new discipline of comparative religion.

Emil Brunner described such relativism in these words: “All religions contain an element of revelation, and no religion has any right to arrogate to itself a monopoly of revelation”.

Whereas the Deists posited a “natural religion” without historical revelation and apart from the existing world religions, later comparative religionists searched for a common denominator within world religions. Thus, according to such a position, Christianity would be to religion as species to genus, and so would all other religions.

Over against and contrary to this quest for a common denominator, Brunner reasserted the uniqueness of the Christian revelation.

B. THE DRIFT TOWARD SYNCRETISM#

During the past three decades there has been a pronounced drift or shift toward by avowedly Christian thinkers. They recognize the revelational and salvific character of non-Christian religions as being necessary to the present-day confrontation of Christianity with non-Christian religions and/or necessary to the compelling needs of humankind.

Sometimes this drift has involved the quest for a common denominator in religions even while the goal of syncretism was being denied.

1. The Call for Christianity to Surrender Its Claim to a Unique Revelation of God (Arnold J. Toynbee) (1889-1975)

Toynbee called upon “all the living higher religions” to “make a new approach towards one another in face of a fearful common adversary,” namely, “the worship of collective human power.” He suggested that the “common ground” might be found to be self-centered “human nature.”

Toynbee advocated that Christianity be purged of its “traditional … belief that Christianity is unique” and of"the exclusive-mindedness and intolerance that follows from a belief in Christianity’s uniqueness.”

The noted historian argued on the basis of God’s love that God must have made various revelations other than that in Jesus and declared that “exclusive-mindedness is a sinful state of mind,” indeed “the sin of pride.”

2. The Call for Christian Recognition of the Occurrence of Divine Revelation (and Presumably of Salvation) in Non-Christian Religions (Neo-Henotheism) (John Macquarrie)

Macquarrie assumed “that in all religion there is some genuine knowledge of God, genuine revelation, and genuine grace.”

• He rejected “the view that one religion is true and all the rest false”

• Rather he argued that “One can commit oneself within one’s own community of faith and in terms of the symbols established in that community, and yet believe that for a person in other circumstances, the same God reveals himself in another community and under different symbols, and that there be nothing defective or inadequate about that person’s commerce with God.”

One should not, Macquarrie continued, “deny” that revelation has occurred in another religion, though as an outsider one cannot truly affirm such either.

3. The Call for the Non-Evangelization of the Adherents of the Higher Non-Christian Religions on the Ground That God’s Grace is Available to Them in and through Their Own Religions (Paul J. Tillich)

Tillich called for “a mutual judging” of religions that would “open the way for a fair evaluation of the encountered religions.”

He agreed with the tendency not to seek to convert Jews to Christianity and expressed the hope that this attitude would be extended to Muslims. Tillich urged that dialogue should replace conversion in the Christian relationship to non-Christian religions.

Christianity must break “through its own particularity” and “penetrate” into its own depth so that Christianity will lose its own “importance” as Christians become free to see God’s presence “in other expressions of the ultimate meaning of man’s existence.”

Summary

It is significant that each of these three, Toynbee, Tillich, and Macquarrie, drew the line of demarcation between true religion and false religion, not in terms of Christianity and other religions and philosophies; but in terms of his own personal religio-philosophical postulate and views that would deny or obscure this.

• For Toynbee true religion is a faith that overcomes “the worship of collective human power.”

• For Tillich true religion is that which expresses “the ultimate meaning of man’s existence.”

• For Macquarrie true religion is “the knowledge of God and of the grace of holy Being” as distinguishable from “materialism” and “positivism.”

In each case true religion is definable without reference to Jesus Christ.

• Tillich and Macquarrie had ontological interests which made it easy for them to absolutize “Being” or “the Ground of Being” and to connect true religion with such reality.

• Toynbee seemed to want the emerging world culture, presumably a single culture, to have allied religions strong enough to resist totalitarianism or other collectivisms.

Although each of three writers specifically denied that syncretism should be the goal

• Toynbee urged the finding of “common ground” among all major religions

• Tillich called upon Christianity to break through “its own particularity” and for Christians to see “the spiritual presence” in other religions

• Macquarrie taught “that in all religion there is some genuine knowledge of God, genuine revelation, and genuine grace”

C. INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE#

1. Rise and Growth of Interreligious Dialogue

Formal dialogues between/among leaders of major world religions is a phenomenon of the twentieth century. Factors which may have contributed to the rise of such dialogues may include the following:

• The World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893

• The American Protestant laymen’s report in 1932 entitled Rethinking Missions

• The resurgence of Buddhism

• The increasing migration of adherents of non-Christian, non-Jewish religions to Western nations

For Roman Catholics interreligious dialogues began after Vatican Council II’s adoption of Nostra Aetate, the decree on non-Christian religions, and have been conducted under the Secretariat for Non-Christian Religions.

For Protestants such dialogues have been chiefly but not solely conducted through the World Council of Churches.

2. Present-day Trends in Interreligious Dialogue

Two fundamentally different trends or patterns respecting today’s interreligious dialogues need to be identified and evaluated.

1. Participants in dialogue should be equal partners fully open to the religious beliefs or insights of other participants, willing to acknowledge truth in the religions of others, ready to yield the absoluteness of Jesus Christ, and on the verge of undertaking a new syncretism or developing a “global theology”

The first of these two trends poses quite serious problems for the integrity of Christian belief and teaching. Especially is this true for the doctrine of the person and work of Jesus, for the missionary role of present-day Christians - if dialogue is to replace witness to adherents of non-Christian religions - and for the future recognition of the uniqueness of the revelation/salvation of God in Jesus Christ if interreligious relativism is to prevail in the future.

2. Participation in dialogue should be out of one’s “common humanity,” not out of any “common religiosity,” should not necessarily be between total religious traditions, and, for Christians, should be predicated on the absoluteness of Jesus Christ.

The second trend seems to pose fewer problems for the integrity of Christian belief and teaching, but it is not yet clear how this trend is to be related to Christian witness and missionary activity.

3. Interreligious Dialogue and Salvation in and through Non-Christian Religions

a. Anonymous Christian

Karl Rahner as a Roman Catholic theologian, beginning in 1961, espoused the concept of the “anonymous Christian.” This is the idea that persons who have adhered to non-Christian religions may “unknowingly” have “received the grace of Christ outside the [Christian] church.”

Non-Christian religions can actually help such persons to receive such grace, but after Christianity comes to such peoples, their non-Christian traditions are “in principle superseded.”

b. Non-Christian Religions Themselves as Bearers of Divine Salvation for Their Adherents

Hans Küng has specifically taught that every world religion can be the bearer or vehicle of divine salvation, even though it contains major errors.

• The Christian Church is “the ’extraordinary’ way of salvation”

• World religions are “the ‘ordinary’ way of salvation for non-Christian humanity”

The soteriological teachings now common to the interreligious dialogues in which numerous Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants are now involved are contrary to the soteriological teachings set forth by evangelical Protestants in the past and in the present.

VIII. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SPECIAL REVELATION IN RELATION TO NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS AND THEIR ADHERENTS#

A. Christianity, beginning with the apostles, has claimed that God’s revelation has uniquely and supremely ocrurred in Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah, Son of God, and Lord and that this revelation has had a certain exclusive salvific character. Christian doctrine has emphasized that God’s salvation is through Jesus Christ.

B. This Christian claim at its best is not a manifestation of human achievement and hence not an instance of human or “parochial” pride, but it points to the glorification of God in Jesus Christ.

C. Christianity’s eras of advance or expansion, from the preConstantinian to the modem, have involved the presupposition of the uniqueness and sole sufficiency of God’s revelation in Christ rather than any major syncretistic tendencies or the quest for the common denominator in religions or the pronouncement that other religions are true bearers of salvation. The cutting edge of the Christian message and its proclamation has been the uniqueness and sufficiency of Jesus Christ.

D. Is it not possible and feasible that a modus vivendi between Christians and the adherents of non-Christian religions be actualized, such as through cooperation in humanitarian projects and efforts for international peace, without the Christian surrender of the uniqueness and indispensability of the revelation and redemption in Jesus Christ?

E. The proclamation of the gospel to all human beings and to all nations and peoples remains the task of Christians and of the Christian Church between the first and second advents of Jesus Christ (Matt. 24: 14 ).