This third post “from the hiatus,” now over two months since the second one, marks the beginning of the end of this longer-than-expected seven month break from my usual custom over the past three years of posting a blog every couple of weeks or so. Once I’ve put a “button” on this study of world religions with this post, and ones to follow, I plan and hope to get back to that routine.

Similarly to those earlier musings, these reflections on our study of Taoism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity—with a brief nod to what Smith terms “the primal religions” and a “final examination”—will explore how these four major religions weigh in on some of the topics that were addressed in the posts on the first three, and with quick (really quick) references to the first three. The offerings to follow will focus as well on some ideas, practices, beliefs, etc. that “jumped out” to me in the categories of what I Learned, Liked/ Didn’t Like, or Didn’t Understand from the readings on each of these last four religions. So, here we go . . .

We’ll look first, then, at the familiar topic of who, if anyone, “founded” the particular religion

Among the first three religions, only Hinduism claimed no founder.  Confucianism  and Buddhism are, of course named for their founders, Confucius and Siddharta Gautama, later to be called Buddha. Among the Primal religions, about whom I’ll explain more later, none claim a founder.

Moving to the last four religions, Taoism originated, according to tradition, with a man named Lao Tzu, said to have been born about 604 B.C. Although he is respected by Taoists, he is a “shadowy” figure, whose name translates as “the Old Boy” or “the Grand Old Master,” and about whom we know nothing but legend.

Islam is easy: there is little doubt or controversy among Muslims that Muhammed, born in 570 A.D. and died 632 A.D., both established the religion—founded, they insist, by God/Allah—and, with all of Arabia under his control when he died, laid the basis for the empire his followers would establish in the next decade.

Judaism, it would seem, has more than one founder, beginning with Abraham as the founder of the Hebrew people more than of the religion. Moses then emerges as the most likely human candidate for title of Founder of Judaism, since he was the central figure of the crucially significant Exodus from Egypt, which would establish the Israelites as a nation and from which the Jewish religion would emerge. He is also identified, of course, as the recipient of the Ten Commandments—the first four of which comprise the core ethical precepts of Judaism and the most important of the 613 commandments found in the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures).

Finally, who founded Christianity?  The names of Jesus, of course, and Paul are usually the ones to surface. And, yet, the evidence of the New Testament is persuasive that both of them, while offering in their teachings important and significant revisions to the Jewish faith, remained dedicated to that Judaism throughout their lives. In the generations that followed Jesus and Paul, a number of competing sects emerged out of Judaism until in the fourth century CE, the Council of Nicaea sanctioned a unified Christian Church. Apart from that, the answer may be that no one officially founded Christianity.

We turn now, then, to the topic of the place of God, or a Divine Being, by whatever name.

Among the first three religions we studied, Confucianism perhaps has the least metaphysical depth—Confucius acknowledged a “power on the side of right,” and while the “spirits” should not be neglected, he was clear that people should come first. Buddhism, likewise, acknowledged no personal God but spoke, like several of the other religions, of the “Godhead,” a term not easily defined or explained, but earning, perhaps, the notion of an “impersonal Essence.” Hinduism, on the other hand, speaks of “God” in two senses—the Atman, the “hidden self” within every human, and the Brahman—wait for it—the “Godhead.” So, two concepts of God, one personal and the other transpersonal, both of which—think of the wave/particle theory—may be true!

Moving to the final religions in this study, with the last first, while the Primal religions are said to have “sensed” a Divine Being, none have either named or personified such a transcendent reality.

Taoism approached this important topic in the same way—as Smith descriptively pointed out—that it does most issues, in “ineffable, murky, abstract, cryptic” words. Ultimate Reality, it argues, is “too vast” to understand . . . . and that’s enough to be said!

The other three religions share a monotheistic view of God, each with their own individualistic descriptors “around the edges,” each embracing characteristics of God that stand in a paradoxical relationship, and one with a unique belief in a God that is “Three-but-One.”

Islam not only posits a single and indivisible God, known as Allah, but claims to be the primary founder of monotheism for the world! God is described with two primary characteristics—a fear-inducing power and compassionate mercy—and Muslims see no conflict between them. However, one of what Smith identifies as Islam’s basic theological concepts is a Day of Judgment, when those whose “actions on earth” have not earned them entrance into heaven will be cast into the fiery pits of hell, which seems not exactly consistent with “compassion and mercy.” The Koran, then, comes to the rescue by removing Allah as “the punisher” and makes each soul as its own judge against the standards of a “moral universe.” But, wait—another of Islam’s theological concepts makes Allah the Creator of this world and, therefore, the one responsible for its moral standards, against which the Judgment takes place. The Paradox—compassionate mercy vs. harsh judgment—stands, but is it possible for an “either-or” to be a “both-and”? More about that “down the road!”

The oldest monotheistic religion is Judaism and, thus, perhaps a challenger to Islam as its founder. Similarly to Islam, Judaism centers on a God of righteousness and love, which can be open to a similar paradoxical problem if judgment in an afterlife were basic to Jewish belief. But, as we shall see, that is a complicated issue in Judaism—more to come on that! But we cannot leave this issue without addressing its relationship to the Holocaust. One of the essential teachings of Judaism is the belief that God is not only righteous and just, loving and good, but also all-knowing and all-powerful. If so, He must have known, then, of the imminent death of eleven million human beings, six million of whom were his chosen people, and He could have stopped the atrocities. How could an all-good, loving, compassionate God have allowed them to occur? I will not attempt even to approach a solution to that question, but simply acknowledge that these inconsistencies belong to the theological/philosophical debate known as theodicy, meaning literally to “justify God,” and have given rise to understandable ongoing debate among Jewish thinkers, as well as among Christians.

Finally, we come to Christianity, which shares a monotheistic view of God, but with an “extended” understanding of “God is One” that is not a part of the other monotheistic religions, and we shall return to that. Christianity also shares with Islam, and to some extent with Judaism, the paradoxical issue around a God who is believed to be—with a series of descriptors—fearsomely powerful/righteous/just and at the same time compassionate/ merciful/loving. In Christianity, this issue emerges in two places. The crucifixion of Jesus is said to have been required as “payment” for all sin, thus paving the way to salvation for all. Since God is the complete Sovereign, such a demand could not have been forced on him by some moral law not of his making, so how does one reconcile such a brutal execution with a loving and compassionate God, described as the Father of his son, Jesus? This issue arises again on the Day of Judgment, when the “sheep” are separated from the “goats”—the righteous to heaven and the unrighteous to the eternal fire of hell—and justice would appear to triumph over love and compassionate mercy. And so, that paradoxical issue, which we have already acknowledged in Judaism, remains! We must return now to the unique Christian belief in a Triune God, who is Three, but One. When the earliest followers of Jesus explored this mysterious twilight zone of all religions, they spoke of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I certainly don’t mean to cast aspersions on the several creeds/confessions of faith that have become a part of the lives of most churches for centuries, especially those in the liturgical tradition. In my opinion, however, neither those initial followers of Jesus nor the writers and purveyors of the New Testament documents were ever aware of the theological controversies that would later brew over Trinitarian language, especially since, as Smith observes, it wasn’t in place as a “doctrine” until late in the 4^th century (by the Council of Constantinople’s alteration and expansion of the Nicene Creed), although even then the term “Trinity” was not used. On the contrary, for the early followers of Jesus, it was not “doctrine” at all, but their experience that had gradually unfolded—they were expressing their belief in a Creator and Sustainer of their world; their confidence that in the life and teachings of Jesus they had touched “the near side” of the Divine Being and seen what this Being was like; and their awareness of a divine presence in their lives. It remained for later reflection to make of that uncritical experience such a theological puzzle that, as Harry Emerson Fosdick put it (somewhat lightly), the Trinity is a doctrine which if one does not believe it, one might lose one’s soul, but if one tries to understand it, one is sure to lose one’s wits!

Perhaps that’s enough for this first post—in what’s beginning to look like, hopefully, a brief series of them over the next several weeks. In the next posts, we’ll look at the views of an afterlife, the practice of meditation, the role of tradition and ritual, the observance of egalitarianism, and, finally, a summary of the appearance and significance of paradox in the religions we have studied. I hope you can bear up and stay tuned.

Sources consulted apart from Houston Smith, The World’s Religions

“Who Founded Christianity? Some Say Jesus; Some Say Paul. What If Neither Did? The Answer Will Surprise You.” Bernard Starr, Contributor, Professor (Emeritus, City University of NY), Dec. 23, 2016, Updated Dec. 245, 2017. HuffPost, The Blog.

Major Religions of the World. Infoplease.com.

International Social Science Review Volume 90 | Issue 2 Article 3, 2015
    “A Defective Covenant: Abandonment of Faith among Jewish Survivors of the Holocaust,”
    Jennifer Lassley, University of Nebraska-Omaha