What’s the evidence that religion makes a difference in a person’s level of altruism? Pretty slim, depending how religion is defined. People who go through the motions of being religious but are basically motivated by self-interest . . . well, what do you think? Right. No difference between external religion and no religion at all when it comes to doing for others.
What about persons who devoutly embrace religious teachings as truths of intrinsic value? Here’s the real surprise: no difference again. The same level of altruism.
Given those findings, three psychologists set out to define religion in a different way and came out with a significant difference. Daniel Batson, Patricia Schoenrade, and W. Larry Ventis studied persons for whom religion is an adventure. These people do things for others more than average.
Taking the perspective of religion as adventure, let’s consider what its influences might be on the activities and faith evident in the other two types of religion. First of all, participation in group worship is perfectly consistent with adventurous religion. And benefits to self certainly accrue to a person who reaches the level of self-forgetting service.
Second, abundantly adventurous living is based on deep sincerity of faith in religious truths as intrinsically worthy. A quotation from Gandhi, the fourth in the second group listed below, illustrates an adventuresome attitude toward truth. “I decline to be bound by any interpretation that violates reason or moral sense.” Nevertheless, some will say, there is a risk: if you “exalt” reason or moral sense above authoritative interpretation, you risk losing truth. Yes, but there is a risk in accepting a human interpretation, too. Authority can err. Reason and moral sense are gifts of God to enable us to play the adventurous game of seeking and finding truth. “Despise these gifts,” says Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust, “and you are mine.” Our human use of these gifts is fallible, and that goes for authority, too. Insofar as authority represents the winnowed wisdom of centuries and millennia, it is genuinely worth respect. But authority should liberate our adventure, not clip our wings.
[I. The deepest level of religion]
1. “By religion, I do not mean formal religion, or customary religion, but that religion which underlies all religions, which brings us face to face with our Maker.”
2. “It is not the Hindu religion which I certainly prize above all other religions, but the religion which transcends Hinduism, which changes one’s very nature, which binds one indissolubly to the truth within and which ever purifies. It is the permanent element in human nature which counts no cost too great in order to find full expression and which leaves the soul utterly restless until it has found itself, known its Maker and appreciated the true correspondence between the Maker and itself.”
3. “The purer I try to become the nearer to God I feel myself to be.
4. “God to be God must rule the heart and transform it. He must express Himself in every smallest act of His votary. This can only be done through a definite realization more real than the five senses can ever produce. . . . It is proved not by extraneous evidence but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the real presence of God within.”
5.“To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself.” “Identification with everything that lives is impossible without self-purification; without self-purification the observance of the law of ahimsa [non-violence] must remain an empty dream; God can never be realized by one who is not pure of heart.” “I am endeavouring to see God through service of humanity . . . .”
6. “Divine knowledge is not borrowed from books. It has to be realized in oneself. Books are at best an aid, often even a hindrance.” “It is better to allow our lives to speak for us than our words. God did not bear the Cross only 1,900 years ago, but He bears it today, and He dies and is resurrected from day to day. It would be poor comfort to the world if it had to depend upon a historical God who died 2,000 years ago. Do not then preach the God of history, but show Him as He lives today through you.” “I do not believe in people telling others of their faith, especially with a view to conversion. Faith does not admit of telling. It has to be lived and then it becomes self-propagating.”
[II. Attitude toward different religions]
1. Real religion “transcends Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc. It does not supersede them. It harmonizes them and gives them reality.” “Religions are different roads converging to the same point.” “If a man reaches the heart of his own religion, he has reached the heart of the others too.”
2. “So long as there are different religions, every one of them may need some distinctive symbol. But when the symbol is made into a fetish and an instrument of proving the superiority of one’s religion over others’, it is fit only to be discarded.”
3. “After long study and experience, I have come to the conclusion that (1) all religions are true; (2) all religions have some error in them; (3) all religions are almost as dear to me as my own Hinduism, inasmuch as all human beings should be as dear to one as one’s own close relatives.” “I believe that all the great religions of the world are true more or less. I say “more or less” because I believe that everything that the human hand touches, by reason of the very fact that human beings are imperfect, becomes imperfect. Perfection is the exclusive attribute of God and it is indescribable, untranslatable. I do believe that it is possible for every human being to become perfect even as God is perfect.”
4. “My belief in the Hindu scriptures does not require me to accept every word and every verse as divinely inspired. . . . I decline to be bound by any interpretation, however learned it may be, if it is repugnant to reason or moral sense.”
5. “I do not believe in the exclusive divinity of the Vedas. I believe the Bible, the Koran and the Zend Avesta, to be as much divinely inspired as the Vedas.” “I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world. I believe that they are all God-given, and I believe that they were necessary for the people to whom these religions were revealed. And I believe that, if only we could all of us read the scriptures of the different faiths from the standpoint of the followers of those faiths, we should find that they were at the bottom all one and were all helpful to one another.”
The research by Batson and colleagues is discussed in Religion and the Individual (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), chapter 10.
Excerpts from the autobiography of Mohandas (“Mahatma”) Gandhi (1869-1948) were published in 1948 by UNESCO under the title, All Men Are Brothers. These selections are from chapter II, “Religion and Truth.”
Photograph: Aix galericulata by Hafen Riesbach, Zurich, Switzerland
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Aix_galericulata_-_Z%C3%BCrich_-_Hafen_Riesbach_2011-05-07_18-55-56.JPG/1280px-Aix_galericulata_-_Z%C3%BCrich_-_Hafen_Riesbach_2011-05-07_18-55-56.JPG
Indeed my religion has become a spiritual adventure, but it was not always that way. I traverse the early surface phases of religion, but soon found them unsatisfactory as my soul remained hungry. It took some time for me to discover what the problem was. Now my religion, I define as intellectual recognition of being in partnership with God, while spiritually I strive to reveal the effects of this partnership in my soul to the outside. And this striving to perfect this partnership on the outside is reflected on the outside by unselfish loving service.
And since this partnership is directed by God, I never know what is coming next as I enter upon some unexpected moral or spiritual engagement. I never know what particular value of divine love is needed as I enter upon these new experiences. Sometimes one particular value of divine love is revealed; at other time a different combination is revealed, and these different combinations eventuate in new meanings of the values themselves, as well as in an increase in the value.
In an analogous way, these ever increasing meanings of values can be compared to being in a long term intimate relationship. As the years go by the meanings of the relationship change so that the initial meaning undergoes change over time. In a positive relationship, these meanings are delightful and joyful to experience.
This adventure that I am embarking upon requires the ability and skill to display these divine values as well as the perfection of them as they flow through my soul at all times, and under all circumstances. And as they flow, the residual accumulations of evil debris is gradually washed away, and I realized that I am on my way to obtaining a pure heart where I shall see God. In the meantime faith, hope and trust keep this partnership afloat on my end.
And though there are definite positive character changes as a result of this relationship, there are times when I don’t quite measure up to the mark. I experience disappointment, and so I learn from my experiences, and await the next opportunity to try again, and to keep trying until I do get it right. That this is a growth process brings me great comfort as I seek to perfect this partnership.
I am amazed and sometimes perplexed by the ever increasing growth of these values. As soon as I am reasonably comfortable with one level of display, I am required to display an even greater and higher display of the value as I respond to the ever increasing moral and spiritual challenges of life. It is as if my soul is being pruned so that it will be even more effective and purer in its revelation of divine values which the Father is propagating through my soul. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”
Dr. Perry
I love this beatitude. Blessed are the pure in heart . . . . Most of the beatitudes refer initially to experiences that many people would find unwelcome. Our spiritual path leads to gradually greater purity (with an occasional suddenly thrown in). My experience today in this matter had to do with an attraction, quite normal, one would say, that I do not experience when I’m at my best. I realized that it wasn’t merely my response to that particular phenomenon, but rather a certain inadequacy of my momentum at that time; and I resolved to upgrade that momentum by making my desire to live the Father’s will and way supreme. As I made that change, I immediately felt a different quality of living.
(How long will it last? My new stock answer is: Not to worry. Consecration and trust will enable the necessary cooperation with divine spirit.)
Indeed my religion has become a spiritual adventure, but it was not always that way. I traverse the early surface phases of religion, but soon found them unsatisfactory as my soul remained hungry. It took some time for me to discover what the problem was. Now my religion, I define as intellectual recognition of being in partnership with God, while spiritually I strive to reveal the effects of this partnership in my soul to the outside. And this striving to perfect this partnership on the outside is reflected on the outside by unselfish loving service.
And since this partnership is directed by God, I never know what is coming next as I enter upon some unexpected moral or spiritual engagement. I never know what particular value of divine love is needed as I enter upon these new experiences. Sometimes one particular value of divine love is revealed; at other time a different combination is revealed, and these different combinations eventuate in new meanings of the values themselves, as well as in an increase in the value.
In an analogous way, these ever increasing meanings of values can be compared to being in a long term intimate relationship. As the years go by the meanings of the relationship change so that the initial meaning undergoes change over time. In a positive relationship, these meanings are delightful and joyful to experience.
This adventure that I am embarking upon requires the ability and skill to display these divine values as well as the perfection of them as they flow through my soul at all times, and under all circumstances. And as they flow, the residual accumulations of evil debris is gradually washed away, and I realized that I am on my way to obtaining a pure heart where I shall see God. In the meantime faith, hope and trust keep this partnership afloat on my end.
And though there are definite positive character changes as a result of this relationship, there are times when I don’t quite measure up to the mark. I experience disappointment, and so I learn from my experiences, and await the next opportunity to try again, and to keep trying until I do get it right. That this is a growth process brings me great comfort as I seek to perfect this partnership.
I am amazed and sometimes perplexed by the ever increasing growth of these values. As soon as I am reasonably comfortable with one level of display, I am required to display an even greater and higher display of the value as I respond to the ever increasing moral and spiritual challenges of life. It is as if my soul is being pruned so that it will be even more effective and purer in its revelation of divine values which the Father is propagating through my soul. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”
Dr. Perry
I love this beatitude. Blessed are the pure in heart . . . . Most of the beatitudes refer initially to experiences that many people would find unwelcome. Our spiritual path leads to gradually greater purity (with an occasional suddenly thrown in). My experience today in this matter had to do with an attraction, quite normal, one would say, that I do not experience when I’m at my best. I realized that it wasn’t merely my response to that particular phenomenon, but rather a certain inadequacy of my momentum at that time; and I resolved to upgrade that momentum by making my desire to live the Father’s will and way supreme. As I made that change, I immediately felt a different quality of living.
(How long will it last? My new stock answer is: Not to worry. Consecration and trust will enable the necessary cooperation with divine spirit.)