Introduction and Significance of Religion
It is like humans that they look for someone metaphysical and supernatural for the solution of their problems and difficulties, whenever they feel unable to do the same. It is therefore the institution of religion that came into being. Looking into the history of the world at large, it becomes evident that religion existed in all human societies from the most primitive to the most modern ones. “Humans have formed their own beliefs (called probability belief in mathematics and science) about the set of unknowable elements of the universe.
They have branded their beliefs about the unknowable as religion.” (Acharya, 2006) Since religion is a highly diversified subject, different societies maintain different religious faiths and beliefs and Almighty God is the central and most powerful figure among most of the religions of the world. The disparity in religious beliefs has created a wide range of gulf among the individuals, though all religions strongly believe that God is the Lord of the Empyrean and has complete command over the past, present, and future of the whole universe.
Christianity is among one of the three Abrahamic religions and is regarded as the most popular faith of the world at large, as the number of its followers is the largest of all. The foundation of all the three Abrahamic religious sets of beliefs has been laid on the concept of monotheism, though the contemporary Christian faith has invented the Holy Trinity, where the followers regarded god as one in three as well as three in one single deity.
The book understudy has been written by D. A. Carson, where the author aims to discuss the inclusion of philosophical and religious pluralism in modern Christianity. Being the Biblical scholar Evangelical theologian, Carson has elaborated the growing pluralistic theology all over the world. He has also discussed the ignorance of the Christians regarding their faith, which has resulted in the inclusion of many amendments in the basic teachings of Jesus Christ.
Critical analysis of the Book
D. A. Carson has divided the book into four parts. Part One elaborates the author’s comprehensions and reservations about their religion and the Holy Scriptures. An overwhelming majority of Christians, according to Carson, do not know that the Bible consists of Old and New Testaments. Furthermore, he criticizes their disability in respect of apprehending the text and the meanings of the Divine message given through this Holy Book to the human generations.
The scholars, interpreters, and translators have defined the Book according to their views, which may create ambiguity in apprehending the true word of God. By this, the scholars are creating the polarization in the religious practices. People perhaps are forgetful of the very notion that the Holy Scriptures maintain their unique style of addressing the prophets and common people. Their divine words and tone look sonorous and inspiring that narrate the stories of the past civilizations on the one hand, and provide a complete code of life on the other.
Almighty God has conveyed His sublime message through His prophets and angels in the form of revelation. Since Torah, Gospel and Bible are Divine revelations, the message they give must also be taken in the same pretext. But the rivalry among divergent religious groups has given birth to people’s ignorance and apathy towards the Divine message.
The inclusion of many religious and cultural norms and values from other faiths and societies, there has been created severe problems in respect of defining the real point from the Scriptures. All the challenges, according to Carson, arising from post-modernism and philosophical pluralism are connected in some way with hermeneutics, with how to interpret things. (1996: 57) Moreover, ancient Greek and Roman philosophies and thoughts on the one hand, and modern leftist and rightist views have got the people deviated from the right path.
The influence of ancient and modern philosophy has become an essential part of people’s faith, where they have put aside the word of God. People do not strive even to study the holy book concerning the context and the background under which some specific message was revealed. Only a few individuals are acquainted with the very reality that Christianity is the continuity of the Abrahamic religion Judaism.
Like other religious beliefs, Christianity has also defined morality as the essence of their traditional faith on the same footing as it has been described in Torah. The illustration of the Sermon on the Mount is a significant example of understanding the text and teaching of the Christian faith. Attributed to the Holy Christ, the famous “Sermon on the Mount” has preached kindness and care as the sources of ethics and morality in the sermon aforementioned.
The remarkable sermon has been described in Chapters 5-7 of the Gospel of St. Matthew and is considered as the word delivered by Christ. Sermon on the Mount, according to Jacobus, serves as the universal charter on ethics and morality for the people of all nations and areas at large, for it contains the gist of sharing the miseries and woes of others. The sermon is regarded as the continuity or interpretation of the Ten Commandments, the first and oldest of the Abrahamic Holy Scriptures and is also named the Old Testament.
Revealed in the House of Jacob upon the Prophet Moses, it was in the Hebrew language in which the complete code of moral and religious practices has been described in detail to the Hebrew people i.e. Jews. Judaism also signifies moral values and people’s rights and obligations to one another. The Book of Leviticus (Old Testament) defines almost the same codes of leading a modest life revealed upon Moses from God. It preaches the followers to observe virtue and chastity as well as always do well with neighbors and other fellow beings. Helping the poor and the needy and always displaying justice is the aim behind those teachings as well. (Chapter 19: 13-16)
Carson submits the influence of the views of French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650), who argues that religious sets of faith should not be taken as a mere imitation of the ideas which have blindly been adopted by a large number of one’ community members without applying one’s intellect. Rather, the human brain contains the powers to prove the legality of God’s existence. He refutes the very idea of accepting some presumptions and propositions without analyzing their validity through intellectual capabilities and sound examinations. It is, therefore, he lays stress upon the significance of doubtfulness about some specific belief.
He is of the view that blind faith cannot make people understand the realities of life on the one hand and the phenomena of nature on the other. His meditations are based on his theory that certain false and unproved presumptions get the form of particular beliefs to which people imitate and follow blindly without submitting intellect and seeking proof for this all. He believes that critical appreciation of any natural phenomenon wide opens countless avenues of vigilance and knowledge to man. If the universe contains realities regarding the Supreme Being, then why should one not examine and accept it to bring it before the world on pertinent intellectual foundations.
Hence, Descartes proves the existence of God based on his meditation, observation as well as his thorough study of philosophy, theology, and literature. The future philosophers and their theories also submit the same notions. Scottish thinker David Hume and German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche have also argued regarding the significance of proper evidence and observation for demonstrating the ideas regarding natural and social realities.
Nietzsche strongly believes that the concept of God is the product of society; it is, therefore, the quantity, characteristics, and nature of God varies from culture to culture and from one set of religious beliefs to the other. The strongest and most evil spirits, Nietzsche submits, have so far advanced humanity the most: they have always rekindled the drowsing passions— all ordered society puts the passion to sleep: they have always reawakened the sense of comparison, of contradiction, of joy in the new, the daring, and the untried: (1882 4)
Carson reveals the very fact that the inclusion of scientific inventions and modern technology
References
Jacobus, Lee A., Kennedy, Dorothy M., Kennedy, X.J. & Maria, F. Muth. A World of Ideas. 7th Edition Bedfort/st Martins Publication 2007.
Malikail, Joseph. Iris Murdoch on Good, God and Religion. 2000. Web.
Nietzsche, Frederick Wilhelm. (1882) The Gay Science.
Sankarsan Acharya. (2006) Religion, God and Science. Web.
Bibliography
Acharya, Sankarsan. 2006 Religion, God and Science. Web.
Carson, D. A. 2002. The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
Jacobus, Lee A., Kennedy, Dorothy M., Kennedy, X.J. & Maria, F. Muth. World of Ideas 7th Edition Bedfort/st Martins Publication 2007.
ST Mathews “The Sermon of the Mount”.
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