Idolatry and Comparative Religion

Peter J. Leithart, September 29, 2005

In its origins, the study of comparative religion in the West arose within a Christian context. Many of the early writers in this field emphasized the imperfections of other world religions, and attempted to show how those imperfections were realized or corrected in Christianity.

In an 1871 volume entitled Ten Great Religions (first serialized in The Atlantic Monthly!), James Freeman Clarke argued that "comparative theology" (tinged with competitive Darwinism) could be used to establish the superiority of Christian faith. A "fair survey of the principal religions of the world" will show that Christianity is

superior at every point: "while they are ethnic or local, Christianity is catholic or universal; that, while they are defective, possessing some truths and wanting others, Christianity possesses all; and that, while they are stationary, Christianity is progressive." The fact that Christianity is so perfectly adapted to
human nature is an argument for its truth, for "When we see adaptation we naturally infer design."

Well-meaning as this apologetic effort may have been, it rested on fundamental theological errors. On the surface, it depends on the notion that Christianity is one religion among others, and thus depends on a definition of "religion" that has a fairly brief pedigree in Western history.

John Milbank criticizes the authors of The Myth of God Incarnate for treating Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduisms as species within a particular genus, an approach that subsumes "alien cultural phenomena under categories which comprise Western notions of what constitutes religious thought and practice." To treat the various "religions" as variations on one phenomenon is a "covert Christianization."
Efforts to locate common features among religions invariable fail because there are always exceptions. The narrower the definition of "religion," the less apt it is to serve as a description of many different religions, but the larger the definition of "religion," the more difficult it is to distinguish from "culture." As Milbank notes, "Any conception of religion as designating a realm within culture, for example, that of spiritual experience, charismatic power, or ideological legitimation, will tend to reflect merely the construction of religion within Western modernity."

Behind this treatment of religion as a genus is an implicit denial of the classic Christian claim that God neither belongs to a genus nor is a genus. According to Aquinas, God is not a member of any class. His essence is to exist, and this distinguishes Him from all other beings: "Species is constituted by specific difference added to genus. Hence the essence of any species possesses something over and above its genus. But existence itself, ipsum esse, which is God's essence, does not comprise within itself any factor added to some other factor. Thus, God is not a species of any genus."

Since a genus "potentially contains specific differences," it is comprised of act and potency. Since there can be no potency in God, God is not a genus. Further, the essence of a thing – what it is – derives from its genus, but its existence – that it is – is established by specific differences within a genus. Since God's essence is to exist He cannot be a genus. Comparative religion is implicitly idolatrous, assuming as it does an immanent God, a being among other beings, who can be compared to other existing or non-existing beings.