East and West

How can we explain the significant difference between what are often called Eastern religions and Western monotheistic religions?

One answer may be that eastern religions are primarily ethical while monotheisms are primarily metaphysical (explaining the nature of the what is real).

This bears explanation.

While it is obvious that all religions (and even secular humanism) combine both ethics and metaphysics, the monotheistic religions draw their ethical requirements from the metaphysical structure of reality. The eastern religions paint a metaphysical background to support their ethical claims.

The sages of the east, from the origins of Hinduism to Buddhism to Confucius and others, focused on how one should behave in society as the first concern. Duties to one’s family, friends and society at large are paramount. Be a good citizen, a good friend, a good father, mother or son or daughter.

Eastern mythology paints a backdrop of what the universe is to support these ethical claims. From the Vedas to Taoism’s Tao Te Ching and even Confucius’ references to Heaven’s Mandate there is little concern as to whether the sagas and descriptions of the Ultimate Reality are factual. It is one’s duty that is foremost. The nature of the universe is secondary.

In the monotheistic religions and in the secular worldview the prime concern is to discern the nature of the universe at large. As Thomas Cahill has argued in "The Gifts of the Jews," Abraham was the first to successfully promote a linear view of history rather than a cyclical view.

For eastern religions the universe proceeds in endless cycles. The basic metaphysical conditions that support the human quest for meaning are almost irrelevant. Humans are re-born in countless cycles until they achieve ethical perfection, whereupon they cease to exist as individuals, merging with The One in an existence that is neither spatial nor temporal.

In the western view history is linear. It has a beginning, a middle and an end.

The universe was created at a precise time in the past—perhaps some 13 billion years go. Our study of the dynamics of the universe enable us to predict an end of history as we know it when the sun explodes and in the end the universe winds down some billions of years in the future. Meanwhile, we live somewhere in the middle.

Because of this view of reality, western thought derives its ethics in keeping with this worldview. Life is not a cycle of suffering that one hopes to be relieved of. Life is an opportunity to engage in the drama of cosmic history. One strives to live an ethical life in order to enjoy the beauty and wisdom of God long after life on this planet is over. Rather than achieving a release from individually conscious life, one seeks an enhancement of life, in which the individual reaches a higher awareness of the universe and the One who has created it. A single lifetime on this planet is all we need to secure our place in the unfolding story of creation.

Secular humanism arose in this western context. Humans, say humanists, have one lifetime in which to arrive at ethical fulfillment. Secularism of course denies that life goes on after death. But the arrow of time proceeds in one direction, whether one believes in immortality of the individual or not. There is no evidence that humans cycle through countless lives on this planet. We get only one chance. For the secularist we must get whatever we can before we die and suffer the extinction of the self. For the theist we must live in such a way as to prepare ourselves for life on a higher plane - a new heaven and a new earth. But that future world will have space and time and personal experiences.

This explains why monotheists believe in the resurrection of each person to face a verdict as to their place in the higher level of life that is coming. One’s ethical achievements show what that destiny is to be. But the significant difference is that an individual persists in the future timeline fully cognizant of his or her prior experience. By contrast, in eastern cyclical worldviews the individual’s goal is to cease existing as an individual altogether. To be sure, there are exceptions to these details among the permutations of eastern religions. But this is true as a generalization.

The ethical systems of monotheism arise from the wider concept of its linear metaphysical worldview. The metaphysical views of eastern thought are created to support its ethical requirements. In the West reality determines ethics. In the East ethics determines reality.

To grasp this provides insight into these diverse worldviews. If we wish to analyze the comparative credibility of each system one must scrutinize the underlying (and to most people invisible) assumptions of epistemology. How does one sort out what counts for knowledge? That is a long story, to be continued....