i want to share some thoughts about monotheism particularly as it relates to christianity and
judaism from the perspective of pure monotheism as such . and there's a particular writer Frithjof
Schuon who is known as the preeminent spokesman of the perennial philosophy in the 20th century
who has written quite a lot about this . his work is not always easy to understand
but there's a lot of reward if one persists in trying to get to the bottom of what he's about
and there's a fascinating selection here of his thoughts in this book which is fascinating to
read about monotheism , i just want to share it with you . as i say his thought is not easy to access but
it repays the effort and i perhaps i'll explain one or two points as i go through and he writes :
in relation to monotheism considered as such , judaism stabilized but confiscated the message .
christianity universalized but altered it . islam in turn restored it by stabilizing and universalizing
it . the christian perspective is essentially determined by a divine manifestation a theophany
that rebounds upon the very conception of god . and this manifestation gives rise to a mysticism
of sacrifice and love . now Frithjof is referring to the incarnation , the idea that god became man
in jesus . this anthropo theism so to speak together with the trinitarianism resulting
from it is certainly one spiritual possibility among others but it is not monotheism in itself .
now islam which represents monotheism in itself and nothing else , is logical in reproaching
christianity for not bringing out the full value of the message of monotheism and for replacing it
with another message that of divine manifestation . islam is equally logical in reproaching judaism
for having unduly nationalized monotheism , amazing expression (the jews have nationalized monotheism
and of course today the ideology is zionism) and for having monopolized prophecy for wanting god
to belong to the jews alone and for passionately opposing any prophecy outside israel even in the
abrahamic line as in the case of islam (because of course they reject muhammad) certainly mosaism (he
means judaism) and christianity are intrinsically orthodox but this is beside the point when it is
a question of disengaging the essential message of monotheism which is what islam intends to do .
this being said it is important not to lose sight of the fact that it is god
himself who successfully manifests different aspects of the one truth whatever men may do .
now this next part is quite complicated but i'm just going to get it on
youtube so to speak , i think it's a great piece of theology even though it's quite complicated .
he says : christianity can be characterized by this paraphrase of a patristic formula the interior
became exterior in order that the exterior might become interior . the one god of monotheism as such
the god of abraham is in practice replaced by the interior god who exteriorizes himself
out of love while exteriorizing himself already in divinis whence the trinity . and the divine law
concerning the exterior is abandoned and replaced by the law of inwardness namely the sacraments
and evangelical councils . now the evangelical councils are poverty chastity and obedience
and these are the vows taken by monks and nuns in monasteries of course and convents
so its intoxication within inwardness hence the non-exteriority
the newborn church abandoned the advantages of the prudent and sagacious mosaic law along
with its pharisaic exaggerations depriving itself thereby of many a factor of health and equilibrium
the premises of this attitude are to be met with already in the gospel where it is said that the
disciples in the name of the primacy of inward purity did not wash their hands before meals
and other characteristics of this kind . so fish job shown here is reproaching christianity
basically of abandoning the divine law the sharia or the halika , the jewish law
in favor of an intense inwardness , a focus on interiority of purity and
he says : and this led to depriving itself thereby of many a factor of health and equilibrium
the stability of a society , its social order and arrangements for the good health of people
is thereby abandoned in favor of this intense spiritual inwardness . and i think he has a point
so he continues : the outward law (this is the jewish law) was replaced on his own
plane by roman law and a few elements of germanic law and the consequences of this
were grave because christianity when it became a political entity when it became
an empire still had to run society order itself . it borrowed from pagan elements , from roman law
and germanic law to create an ordered social being . so he continues : the
universality of the church abolished the world of abraham . the universality of
islam on the contrary spreads it everywhere . so christianity basically gave up on monotheism
but the universality of islam spread the abrahamic faith everywhere . islam thus
reproaches christianity for having conceived the trinity to the detriment of unity as such
and for having renounced an outward law of sacred character while assuming the function
of an integral religion ; integral religion meaning an ordered whole , an organic whole it still
functioned in a society but it basically gave up the unity of the divine and it reproaches judaism
for having rejected jesus a jewish prophet and for having enclosed the one god within israel
thus reducing him (this is god) to being the king of a people he the king of the universe . so this
is the the travesty of reducing the king of the universe to a tribal deity in judaism .
the fact that these judgments are clothed with an imagery sensibility and logic that
are more or less bedouin takes nothing away from their profound significance
on the contrary it is a question here of the point of view of monotheism as such and nothing else .
for the intrinsic truth of the mosaic and christic perspectives is not at issue . the monotheistic
idea is that god is one and that being one he is universal , he is not threefold in his absoluteness
and he does not belong to any single people . it is according to this perspective alone that islam
judges the other religions . and of course we see this in the quran endlessly reproaching
christians and jews for distorting in various ways the revelation that they had received .
and he concludes : all of this is in accordance with the egocentric logic if one may so express it
of every religious crystallization . wow so that is a very densely packed
passage full of i think profound insights into the abrahamic faith from the perspective
of monotheism as such how judaism claimed it for itself , deny the universality
of god , becoming a tribal god and christianity basically subverting it and creating a
threefoldness in god and abandoning the divine law which brings unity and order
to an organic society founded on the divine will . there we go , until next time