Will Humanity Survive Religion?

This book answers the question of how the world can agree on an ethic when each religion thinks the ethic must be grounded only on its unique Absolute. W. Royce Clark argues that humanity’s survival may depend on a universal or inclusive ethic in which religions move beyond their Absolutes or unquestionable premises.

In Will Humanity Survive Religion? Beyond Divisive Absolutes, W. Royce Clark confronts the burden borne by contemporary religious communities: the problem of reconciling scientific ways of understanding the world with the absolutist traditions inherited from the distant past. He does not confine his examination to the works of Western philosophers and theologians, but also uses insights gained from eastern religions, fictional literature, and even music theory. Among others, he analyzes the attempts of thinkers such as Crossan, Pannenberg, and Rubenstein to come to terms with the significance of ancient texts.

This is not a volume to ease the doubts of the doubter. It is a call to stimulate the seeker to find a universal ethic based on human relationships.

This massive volume of philosophical theology is a rewarding intellectual journey of an age-old Hegelian dialectic: the relation between Absolute and Relative. To the ordinary reader, say a professing Christian, the challenge is an honest and scholarly attempt to understand one's own faith in a religious world that is divided by so many other truth-claims.

W. Royce Clark is professor emeritus of Pepperdine University.