The Unification of Religions

A brief review of concepts of salvation shows that on a simple level there is a wide range of ideas about salvation, from those that suggest God is a brutal tyrant to those suggesting that in the end God is a loving father. All religions or spiritual systems being considered here generally conceive of God as providing a beneficent and pain-free “afterlife,” in the sense of what follows the current life on earth. What is most telling here, however, is how God treats those who commit wicked deeds or do not believe in a particular theology.

Though virtually all religions have variations in theological views amongst their followers, not all maintain the view of God as a cruel tyrant toward non-believers. The harshest views of God are found amongst the Semitic religions. In Conservative Protestantism,

Heaven is first a spiritual existence of the soul in communion with God and then—following Christ’s return—a bodily one where our perfected bodies will live on a New Earth in complete joy, happiness, and fellowship. For those who have rejected Jesus, eternal separation from God, the source of all goodness, follows.1

Put also,

Heaven is a glorious location where there is an absence of pain, disease, sex, depression, etc. and where people live in new, spiritual bodies, in the presence of Jesus Christ. Hell is a location where its inmates will be punished without any hope of relief, for eternity. The level of punishment will be the same for everyone....

The second major belief is that most humans will be sent to Hell after they die. Only those few who have been “saved” will go to heaven. Salvation requires repentance of sins and trusting Jesus as one’s Lord and Savior. People who have been saved and make it to heaven will not all be treated equally. Believers who have done many good deeds will be rewarded more in heaven; believers who have led an evil life will be rewarded less.2

Liberal Protestants in turn also believe in heaven and hell and that generally that Jesus is the way to salvation. They also, however, tend to believe “‘right action’ take precedence over ‘right belief’: integrity and love are regarded as more important than belief in a particular dogma.”3 In other words, God’s grace and salvation are available to people of other religious traditions also. Some do not even believe in heaven and hell, but for those who do, hell is separation from God.4

For Roman Catholicism, there are three afterlife alternatives: “Either heaven, which is union with God, life forever in Christ; Purgatory, a temporary period of purification; or Hell, a state of self-chosen exclusion from God.”5 Hell is described as “some supernatural form of fire which causes endless pain but does not consume the body.”6 Though conservative Catholics follow Pope Leo XII’s dictum that “there is no salvation outside the Church,”7 liberal Catholics endorse the idea of “baptism by desire,”8 “in which it is assumed that non-Catholics who live good lives would have wanted baptism (wanted to accept Jesus) had they known about it and so can be saved.”9

Islam appears to be similar to conservative Christianity in that “a final day of judgment is coming, followed by heaven for the faithful and hell for the lost.”10 Support for this belief is outlined in Sura 69:30-33:

30. (The stern command will say): “Seize ye him, and bind ye him, 31. “And burn ye him in the Blazing Fire. 32. “Further, make him march in a chain, whereof the length is seventy cubits! 33. “This was he that would not believe in Allah Most High.”11

At the same time, believers are not born saved or sinful, and “it is important to do good deeds to earn their ‘salvation’.”12

Judaism appears to be more ambiguous about salvation. According to one source, “the notion of individual salvation and heavenly existence is not prominent in Judaism.”13 Orthodox Judaism does emphasize the concept of an afterlife, and “the highest good in Judaism is living a moral life, that is its own reward.”14 Indeed, the “Torah emphasizes immediate, concrete, physical rewards and punishments rather than abstract future ones,” and “We prepare ourselves for the Olam Ha-Ba [spiritual afterlife] through Torah study and good deeds.”15 The ethical emphasis in this concept may be partly responsible for the significant secularization of Western civilization. Nor is heaven (Gan Eden) confined to Jews: “All righteous persons, not just Jews, get a place in the world to come.”16 Moreover, hell is a relatively light sentence: “Except for the worst human beings, the maximum stay in Gehinnom is one year, after which the soul ascends to Gan Eden.”17 Some Jews question whether Judaism has a concept of an afterlife or salvation at all.18 According to one source, the Sadducee-derived tradition within Judaism rejects the concept of resurrection from the dead for the righteous or anyone else.19 The minority, mystical Kabbalistic school in Judaism, however, accepts the idea of reincarnation as intrinsic to salvation:

All souls are subject to the trials of transmigration; and men do not know the designs of the Most High with regard to them; they know not how they are being at all times judged, both before coming into this world and when they leave it. They do not know how many transmigrations and mysterious trials they must undergo; how many souls and spirits come to this world without returning to the palace of the divine king.

The souls must reenter the absolute substance whence they have emerged. But to accomplish this end they must develop all the perfections, the germ of which is planted in them; and if they have not fulfilled this condition during one life, they must commence another, a third, and so forth, until they have acquired the condition which fits them for reunion with God.20

The concept of reincarnation also existed in Christianity until it was condemned by the Second Council in 553 A.D. Catholic scholars think now this may have been only due to the pressure of the Byzantine emperor, Justinian, not the willing decision of the Church.21

Hinduism as well as Tantra see salvation as freedom from endless reincarnations and merger in God’s eternal bliss. For Hinduism this means “an eternal resting place for the individual personality in the arms of a loving, personal God.”22 For Tantra specifically, salvation is becoming one with God in his supreme stance as Lord and Father of the universe or merger with God in his infinite, blissful, formless, and pre-manifest state. In Tantra also, salvation or merger in God need not occur after death but can occur in life, and the spiritualization of man is something that must occur as a prelude to death or salvation. Since Tantra is a set of principles and practices, salvation is not confined to any set of religious beliefs but is given to those who follow those principles and practices and develop an ardent longing to merge in God. Neither Hinduism nor Tantra recognizes the existence of hell as a permanent abode for any living being, though one’s harmful or malicious deeds can make life a living hell until the reactions of those deeds are undergone. The Judaic idea of one year in hellish conditions for most immoral people does not seem realistic in either view. Nor does only ethical behavior appear to be a sufficient condition for salvation since spiritual practices are required at least in Tantra, the Kabbalistic view being closer to the Hindu and Tantric concepts in regards to the necessity of reincarnation and the idea of salvation as merger in divinity rather than as a place with an existence still separate from God. Indeed, the word “Kabbalah” may be derived from Sanskrit word “Kapalik,” which refers to an unmarried male or female Tantrik practitioner of higher spiritual practices, suggesting a non-Semitic origin of some aspects of Kabbalism, a proposition that deserves some credence since cave drawings suggest Tantra has been around over 25,000 years, far longer than Judaism or any other religion, including Hinduism.

Buddhism is similar to Kabbalism, Hinduism and Tantra in that it accepts the notion of reincarnation and merger into some kind of cosmic state.

After death, one is reborn in successive incarnations until he/she awakens (as the Buddha did) and becomes liberated from the cycle of life and death (samsara), thus reaching nirvana. Nirvana is not exactly a “state”—it’s an awakening to truth. In this “place” one is free from suffering, attachments, and delusions. Although there is a concept of “hell(s)” in Buddhist cosmology, it is not considered a place of permanent damnation. It is understood more as state of mind that anyone can experience in his/her lifetime. The emphasis in Buddhism is on spiritual practice rather than adherence to a particular belief system or the development of a relationship with God.23

In conclusion, religious and spiritual concepts of salvation cover a broad range. At one end are conservative Semitic beliefs that condemn people to torture in hell for eternity simply because they do not accept the preceptor of those beliefs as the only way to salvation. At the other end are Kabbalism, Hinduism, Tantra, and Buddhism, which to some extent, like liberal Christianity and Judaism, allow salvation for anyone based on certain conditions. These conditions, however, vary widely among all systems, particularly when the concept of reincarnation of the soul makes salvation a much less easily achievable state than any salvation achievable in a single lifetime.

The main issue though is what these concepts of salvation say about our concept of God. If we accept the proposition that all creatures are the children of God, a God who would condemn any of his children to an eternity of suffering in hell for not believing in him or in a preceptor would not appear to be a loving father, in spite of some claims to the contrary, but rather an impersonal judge issuing a death sentence at best, a psychopathic personality at worst. Rather than having the perfected attributes of fatherhood, this view makes God sound worse than Stalin, and is more like defamation than praise, regard, love, or anything else that is positive. Considering how long eternity is (forever), permanent condemnation to hell is not even rational, since at some point even the worst wrongdoer would have undergone enough suffering to compensate for the wrong he or she has done, making eternal punishment a sentence all out of proportion to any deed. Theological ideas do carry with them psychological attitudes and conceptual assumptions, no matter how subtle or subconscious they may be.

For the sake of greater closeness and less enmity among religions, this is not an irrelevant issue. Rather, a common, unified concept of God in regards to possibilities of salvation is required if humanity is to take a step towards commonality and unity. Let people be free to believe in their scriptures, but ultimately they have to ask themselves in their hearts what kind of personality and what kind of father they think God really is—a brutal tyrant or someone who loves all his children forever and wants them all back.

References

1. “Beliefnet's faith-by-faith guide to how major world religions view heaven, hell, and the concept of salvation,” http://www.beliefnet.com/story/173/story_17380.html.
2. “Universal Afterlife,” http://death.monstrous.com/afterlife_across_cultures_and_.htm.
3. Beliefnet, op. cit.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. “Universal Afterlife,” op. cit.
7. Beliefnet, op. cit.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. “The Problem of Islamic Salvation,” http://www./comereason.org/cmp_rlgn/cmp011.asp.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. “Universal Afterlife,” op. cit.
14. Beliefnet, op. cit.
15. “Olam Ha-Ba: The Afterlife,” http://www.jewfaq.org/olamhaba.htm.
16. “The Problem of Islamic Salvation,” op. cit.
17. Beliefnet, op. cit.
18. Ibid.
19. “Olam Ha-Ba: The Afterlife,” op. cit.
20. “Universal Afterlife,” op. cit.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Beliefnet, op. cit.