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Online Glossaries For Articles Click on underlined term for definition from Source: Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Winter, 1974). World Wisdom, Inc. www.studiesincomparativereligion.com
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MUCH of what is written and said with a bearing on religion today seems to suggest that the traditional conception of the destiny of man is giving way to a new conception. This new conception is to the effect that the culminating point of the destiny of man is some kind of collective Utopia peopled by supermen or by some hypothetical super-society, which will be realised in this world, that is to say, within the domain of time, space and relativity, even though its realisation may be long delayed; and consequently that the primary purpose of religion is to help mankind to bring about that Utopia by a proper use of human faculties and powers. The relationship of this conception to current theories of progressive evolution is evident: Teilhard de Chardin is its most widely acclaimed prophet. The traditional conception, which in the Christian tradition is derived from the Gospels, is to the effect that the destiny of every individual soul, but not of the collectivity nor of any particular collectivity, is a paradise, or a hell, situated in eternity and infinity and face-to-face with the Absolute; and consequently that the primary purpose of religion is the salvation of the souls of men now living in this world, where change is still possible for them, while at the same time offering them the possibility of realising in this world an inward peace independent of all contingencies agreeable or disagreeable. The new point of view is neatly set out by Sir Julian Huxley in an article entitled The Crowded World in Your Environment, No. 4, Autumn 1970. He says: We must look at it (the question of population increase) in the light of the new vision of human destiny which human science and learning have revealed to us. We must look at it in the light of the glorious possibilities that are still latent in man This vision of the possibilities of wonder and more fruitful fulfilment on the one hand as against frustration and increasing misery and regimentation on the other is the twentieth century equivalent of the traditional Christian view of salvation and damnation. I would say indeed that this new point of view that we are reaching, the vision of evolutionary humanism, is essentially a religious one, and that we can and should devote ourselves with truly religious devotion to the cause of ensuring greater fulfilment for the human race in its future destiny We have learnt how to control the forces of outer nature. This last observation is perhaps the most remarkable of allcoming as it does from a scientist whose boastlike that of other scientistsis a strict objectivity. How trivial is the conception of religion as little more than a guide to a hypothetical evolutionary progress! And how improbable is the fulfilment of the hopes it fosters in view of the cataclysmic character of all history, human, terrestrial and cosmic! And how patently false is it in the light of the Gospels! Are we not told that Gods Kingdom is not of this world, that It is both within you and at hand; and are we not commanded to take no thought for the morrow? The Utopian conception of the destiny of man offers a hope which is certainly not the Christian hope, whatever it may be, and it seems steadily to be replacing the Christian hope, sometimes openly, but more often as it were by stealth, by a process of dilution and suggestion, so that its intrusion is not always obvious. Many religious people seem indeed to be unable to see that either conception excludes the other; but it is bound to do so in practice because a hope centred on a terrestrial future must exclude or weaken by dilution a hope centred on what is not of this world; and where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The fundamental incompatibility between the two conceptions resides however in the fact that they imply two radically different conceptions of the nature of Gods dispositions as they affect the destiny of this world in general and the situation and function of a terrestrial humanity in particular. This is the crucial point, and it underlies all that follows. The Utopian ideal is usually in mind when people speak of building a better world or making the world a better place, or even hastening the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth. There is not much reason to think that any such enterprise is within our competence. What else have we been trying to do for the last one hundred and fifty years or so, and with what success? The advent of modern science and the industry which depends on it was hailed by our great-grandfathers as the beginning of a new era of well-being for mankind, and even now we can think of nothing better than an intensification of the application of the governing principles of industry and science to our problems. Something that can be called the building of a better world, at least on a firmly restricted and local scale and in the short term, is no new idea; it is as old as mankind. What is new is its assimilation to Christian eschatology and its extension to a very long term, and perhaps, above all, the attribution of its fulfilment to a hypothetical evolutionary development in humanity as such. It looks as if we may have to learn by painful experience that such an enterprise is not within our competence, and that we must once more put our trust in God, absolutely, without knowing what the terrestrial future holds for us nor thinking that it is for us to decide, and above all without confusing Gods will with our own desires.
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There are some who would maintain that the Utopian conception represents the true interpretation in the light of modern discoveries of
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