Religions - Historical Development

Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, was an Indian philosopher and statesman and one of India's most acclaimed scholars of comparative religion and philosophy. He is credited with building a bridge between East and West by having shown the philosophical systems of each tradition to be comprehensible within the terms of the other. He wrote authoritative exegeses of India's religious and philosophical literature for the English speaking world. His academic appointments included the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta and Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford University (1936-1952).

"No one to date has been able to offer our generation a more impressive, warmer, or more persuasive picture of a religion of the future than the president of India Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, which will be able to unite fundamental unity with the most varied differentiation" Ratzinger, J. Truth and Tolerance, page 24

According to Radhakrishnan, there is a wide sphere of religion in which commonly shared religious experience is more decisive than the differences between the outward forms.

"In the final analysis, all religion is said to be based on the experiences of the mystic, who alone is able to make contact directly with the Divine and who passes along something to the many", Ratzinger, J (2004)

Historical Development of Religions - Ratzinger, J. (2004)

In Ratzinger's historical development of religions, mysticism is defined as the absolute value of unnamable experiences, monotheism is the absolute nature of the divine call issued through the prophets and enlightenment as rational knowledge as recognized as the absolute value. Hence, all forms of religion, including enlightenment has staked out a claim for the absolute truth.

Religion- Definitions

The "feeling religion" - "Action is art, speculation is science, religion is the sense of and taste for the infinite" F. Schleiermacher

"If all utopian model ..lead to dead ends, yet at the same time the Christian certainties are powerlessly..toppling, then we have to come to terms with the fact that there are not more answers available to our demand for transcendence" - J. Fest

"If a religion can no longer be reconciled with the elementary certainties of a given view of the worlds, it collapse. But, on the other hand, religion needs some authorization that reaches beyond what we can think up for ourselves, for only thus will the unconditional demand it makes upon man be acceptable". Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger