The Significance of the Changing Function of Religion
| Autor: | William H. Bernhardt |
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| Rok vydání: | 1932 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | The Journal of Religion. 12:556-570 |
| ISSN: | 1549-6538 0022-4189 |
| DOI: | 10.1086/481258 |
| Popis: | T HAS long been a truism that theologies change: that the conceptions of God, Christ, sin, salvation, and revelation must change with preceding changes in psychology and metaphysics. Recently the theory has been developed by Dean Shailer Mathews that changes in theology may be traced to changes in social patterns.' It has become necessary, therefore, to add to the psychological and metaphysical changes supposedly responsible for changing theologies the fact of changes in social patterns. Thus the principle, by means of which changes in theology may be somewhat intelligently interpreted, has been discovered. Theologies change with preceding changes in psychology, metaphysics, and social patterns. This discovery has confirmed the suspicion long held that theologies, even as philosophies, represent man's attempt to systematize and evaluate critically the beliefs which have arisen out of his experiences. It has enabled students to interpret more sympathetically and truly the historic development of doctrines. No longer are historic doctrines swept aside as false because they differ from those we happen to hold at the moment. Rather, a further study is undertaken in order to understand the functional significance of the particular doctrine in the light of the social, psychological, and metaphysical theories regnant at the time. The history of religions discloses yet another fact. Changes have occurred not only in the interpretative aspect of religion; they have also occurred in the conception of the functional significance of religion itself. The values sought through religion |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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