History of Religions: Its Nature and Significance for Christian Education and the Muslim-Chistian Dialogue

Abstract

i) A lecture delivered to the faculty of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, on April 30, I964, in the course of the author's residence as guestresearcher at the said institution. Professor Bernard E. Meland, Professor of Constructive Theology, and Professor Charles H. Long, Professor of History of Religions, read critical responses. The response of the former appears at the end of this article. That of the latter, consisting largely of notes, appears in footnotes appended to the article where they are relevant. 2) Prof. Long's note: Dr. Faruqi's portrayal of the history of the discipline of history of religions presupposes that the history of this discipline was carried out along lines which were quite rational. Such was not the case. The history of religions is a child of the enlightenment. This is to recognize that the history of religions had its beginnings in a period in which the Western World was seeking some rational (as over against a religious) understanding of the history of man's religious life. The history of religions during the enlightenment was for the most part rationalistically and moralistically oriented. Prior to this time, the understanding of religion from a religious point of view yielded even less on the level of scientific understanding, for while the medieval theologians were able to see Islam, for example, as a religion and not as an instance of a truncation of reason, it was nevertheless relegated to the level of paganism since it did not meet the standards of the one true revelation. The rationalistic interpretation of history had the value of establishing a criterion other than revelation as the basis of religion. This meant that to a greater degree the data of the nonChristian religions could be taken a bit more seriously. This along with the universalism of the enlightenment and the reports from colonizers and missionaries established a broader if inadequate basis for the understanding of other religions and cultures, though in several instances the final revelation of God in Jesus Christ was transformed into the final apotheosis of reason in the enlightenment civilization of the western world.