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Naturalism and Relativism
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17420 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1990 |
762 Words |
| Author
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Morton A. Kaplan
Editor and Publisher |
Carl F.H. Henry's article, "The 1990s: Projections for a New Millennium," raises a number of profound questions. Although Henry is correct in finding a relationship between the Judeo-Christian religious tradition and liberal democracy and in recognizing the excesses of a certain type of relativism, which he fails to distinguish from other types, his dismissal of naturalism and religious ecumenism is divisive and highly problematic.
The Judeo-Christian tradition, with its prescription of a covenant binding humans to God that is superordinate to the state, has on many occasions buttressed liberal and democratic traditions. However, the same tradition also has supported the Inquisition, the extermination of the Albigenses, and the Crusades. Furthermore, the attraction to democracy and human rights that the Chinese students supported in Tiananmen Square was quite unrelated to a supernatural religion. This suggests that the premises we find in the Judeo-Christian tradition that are supportive of liberal democracy are embedded in a framework that can support nonliberal institutions and that liberal institutions can inspire support in their absence.
Thus, although the support for liberal democratic institutions that can be found in Judeo-Christian premises may not exist with the same strength in other religions, these traditions are likely to have aspects that can be brought to support such political systems, once their preferability on other grounds is recognized. If this is so, there is no need to make invidious distinctions with respect to other religions, even those with quietistic premises according to which the individual finally becomes part of the whole. My experience with proponents of other religious traditions under the
... (1992 of 4801 Characters)
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