Is there a 'right' religion...if so which one is the right one, and does that mean that all the others are false?
56-60, M
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SW-User
I can only speak of how I see it. In speaking of T.S.Eliot some one wrote of how he would often allude to various Religions in his poems. This is the full quote:-
[i]Eliot feels no compunction in alluding to the Bhagavad Gita in one section of the poem and Dante's Paradiso in the next. He neither asserts the rightness nor wrongness of one set of doctrines in relation to the other, nor does he try to reconcile them. Instead, he claims that prior to the differentiation of various religious paths, there is a universal substratum called Word (logos) of which religions are concretions. This logos is an object both of belief and disbelief. It is an object of belief in that, without prior belief in the logos, any subsequent religious belief is incoherent. It is an object of disbelief in that belief in it is empty, the positive content of actual belief is fully invested in religious doctrine.
[/i]
This points to how each and every one of our world's Faith Traditions can actually be the means to "salvation" or "enlightenment" - call it what you will.
Obviously the fly in the ointment are the "One Way" Christians who insist that their way is the sole truth, the only way. Regarding such it has to be said that the verses always cited in support of their claims can be understood in ways beyond their own comprehension. Thus, "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me" can be understood as the Voice of the Eternal Logos ([i]through Whom all things are made[/i] - as per St John's Gospel) rather than a declaration by the historical Jesus of time and space.
Again, the "No other name" passage found in Acts can be understood in the light of the following way of understanding/interpreting Scripture, as per the Catholic Church:-
[i]To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to "literary forms." For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture. For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another. [/i](Dei Verbum, III, 12, 2)
But whatever, as I see it, Grace is One. The very nature of Reality. It unfolds in infinite ways according to the uniqueness of each human being. Those who would seek to set parameters to it are not guided by the Spirit, but by their own limitations of understanding, born of dogma and the conditioning of particular theologies of time/space learnt often in childhood.
[i]The spirit blows where it will [/i] - as is said.
[i]Eliot feels no compunction in alluding to the Bhagavad Gita in one section of the poem and Dante's Paradiso in the next. He neither asserts the rightness nor wrongness of one set of doctrines in relation to the other, nor does he try to reconcile them. Instead, he claims that prior to the differentiation of various religious paths, there is a universal substratum called Word (logos) of which religions are concretions. This logos is an object both of belief and disbelief. It is an object of belief in that, without prior belief in the logos, any subsequent religious belief is incoherent. It is an object of disbelief in that belief in it is empty, the positive content of actual belief is fully invested in religious doctrine.
[/i]
This points to how each and every one of our world's Faith Traditions can actually be the means to "salvation" or "enlightenment" - call it what you will.
Obviously the fly in the ointment are the "One Way" Christians who insist that their way is the sole truth, the only way. Regarding such it has to be said that the verses always cited in support of their claims can be understood in ways beyond their own comprehension. Thus, "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me" can be understood as the Voice of the Eternal Logos ([i]through Whom all things are made[/i] - as per St John's Gospel) rather than a declaration by the historical Jesus of time and space.
Again, the "No other name" passage found in Acts can be understood in the light of the following way of understanding/interpreting Scripture, as per the Catholic Church:-
[i]To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to "literary forms." For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture. For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another. [/i](Dei Verbum, III, 12, 2)
But whatever, as I see it, Grace is One. The very nature of Reality. It unfolds in infinite ways according to the uniqueness of each human being. Those who would seek to set parameters to it are not guided by the Spirit, but by their own limitations of understanding, born of dogma and the conditioning of particular theologies of time/space learnt often in childhood.
[i]The spirit blows where it will [/i] - as is said.
