Continuity Between Religion and Modernity

The case for continuity between religion and modernity

The next several posts will make the case for a continuity between traditional religion and modern thought by showing an evolution that moves continually, although not smoothly, from primitive religion to the theological ethical, and scientific thinking of our own time. This continuity includes an intimate connection between a world-forming consciousness and the notions and experiences that human beings have with such a consciousness. At first sight the anthropomorphic notions of the Creator, and the religions that have developed around these notions, seem to be so far removed from any feasible scientific explanations as to be useless. In fact they may be worse than useless in that they stand in the way of rational understanding. But the status of traditional theistic religion deserves and requires a further look, beginning at the beginning. Generations educated with an acceptance of physical and biological evolution should at least be open to the possibility of spiritual evolution.

            Our remote ancestors faced mysterious phenomena that far surpassed their understanding and ability to control. These phenomena included things that are no longer mysteries to us, such as the sun moving across the sky, the change of seasons, lightening and thunder, and natural disasters. As consciousness developed, our forerunners projected consciousness on things that we look on as inanimate such as the sun, a holy mountain, or the unseen source of thunder and other phenomena. People faced these seemingly higher realties with a sense of what Rudolph Otto, in his classical work The Idea of the Holy, called Mysterium tremendum and fascionsum. The mystery appeared to them as overwhelming and at the same time fascinating. They were not yet ready to think philosophically about whatever is the highest power in the universe, but it struck them as extremely powerful and also as fundamentally good. Therefore they approached and avoided it with a combination of fear and reverence.

            In trying to understand the notion of God that has come down to us through the Judeo-Christian tradition, we have to look at the development among the Greeks and the Hebrews. In Western culture, both the popular and the theological notions of God descended primarily from these two sources. A scanning of the development of consciousness in each of these traditions will show the continuity between the early notion of the power behind the universe and an understanding of a divine being that can serve as a live option for scientifically educated people today.