A History of God

Title: A History of God

Author: Karen Armstrong

Publisher: Vintage, 1999 (First published 1993)

ISBN: 9780099273677

Pages: 511

Men always believed in god – some god, be it a force of nature, one among a pantheon, a personal one or a universal one. It helped mankind find solace among the manifest evil of their day to day lives. They thought him to be an arbiter of human affairs providing justice and fairness in all transactions. Many attributes were added to him in due course, like omnipotence and omniscience. This obviously created practical difficulties. How can an omnipotent god allow evil to thrive in the midst of his followers? Citing a case from recent memory, many Jews thought that god was dead in the gas chambers and torture rooms of Auschwitz. Philosophers stepped in to provide a way out of the paradox by traditionally assigning transcendence to god and making him detached from this world. Armstrong traces the story of the birth and development of the concept of divinity from ancient Sumer to the end of the last century. The book is very relevant to our society which is racked with suicide bombers encouraged to waste their own as well as of a good many innocent ones, by the misguided conception of a god. The author opines that in order to face the spiritual challenges of a new century, we need to have a look at the history of god and hence the relevance of this book. Coming from an author who had been a nun once, this book is written with the sharpness one would associate with a person of the priestly class. Though she has lost faith in god, the book is written in an objective way – never once allowing the author’s personal faith stand in the way of narration.

An excellent coverage of the origin of the concept of divinity in the middle-eastern region is presented. Earliest civilizations came up with a belief system that was thankful to the godhead for creating order by dispelling chaos. Sumerian origin myths appearing in the litany of Enuma Elish speak about a featureless watery realm existing in the beginning, on to which life forms and geographical features were created by god. Armstrong argues that this is a distant memory of the swampy land of the ancestors of the Sumerian people. Their brave act of creating a civilization from the primal disorder is projected on to a god who is credited with creation of the world. Paganism ruled the world in that distant era. They surmised a bewildering multiplicity of gods who were worshipped in the form of idols, poles, trees or mountains and others. Contrary to popular belief that the pagans considered the idols to be gods, the author asserts that it was a monotheist conceit to accuse their rivals of worshiping material objects. The devotee offers his prayers to the divinity who is ‘represented’ in the idol and not the material itself. Ask any practicing Hindu even now, and he will cheerfully declare that he is only worshiping an aspect of the god which transcends the material world. Similarly, paganism is inherently tolerant as there is always room for another god. Then comes the contrast with monotheism, as represented by its oldest representative, Judaism. The world first glimpsed a vengeful god full of jealousy against other gods and his prophets steeped in intolerance and violent usurpation of other religions. We read about Yahweh asking his followers to attack pagans and to ‘tear down their altars, smash their standing stones, cut down their sacred poles and set fire to their idols’ (Exodus 34:13). The modern world is still reeling under the harmful effects of strict monotheism in the form of terrorism. But the author, writing before the onset of suicidal jihad, does not make this logical conclusion, which is apparent now. Armstrong also notes that the status of women went down as monotheistic religions having a male divinity gained ground. Gone were the days when pagan gods and goddesses shared their fortunes with their followers.

The book gives an enlightening discussion on the development of the concept and nature of divinity ascribed on Jesus in the first four centuries of the Common Era. He is described as a man without the trappings of being a god in the gospel according to Mark, which was the oldest. It is curious to note that as the further gospels came along, more miracles and deification had taken place on the person of the revolutionary carpenter of Galilee. Early Christian fathers found it difficult to sell the Jewish god to gentiles from across the Roman world. St. Paul took Christianity out of the confines of Judaism as a replacement to pagan beliefs of Rome. Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, adapted the Jewish god to Roman sensibilities by cloaking him with Greek philosophy. Concepts of trinity and divinity of Jesus seemed to contradict the fundamental precept of monotheism. In response to theological counter-arguments, Church developed its dogma. The first clash of belief systems occurred in 325 CE at the First Council of Nicaea, when the heresy of Arrius was soundly defeated by Athanasius. With the conversion of Emperor Constantine, Christianity became the official religion. The philosophy of god in the religion was further enriched by Augustine, and after the end of the first four centuries, it had solidified beyond revision or redemption.

When it comes to Islam, we see the author shedding all traces of disinterested skepticism and approving its tenets wholeheartedly, at face value. The uncritical acceptance of Islamic ideas is in marked contrast to the attitude shown towards Judaic and Christian precepts. We see verbatim reproductions about the beauty of structure and poetic nature of the Arabic language expressed in the Koran, as seen in propaganda literature handed out by Islamic proselytes. She even goes to the extreme as saying that “Muhammad preached an ethic we might call socialist” (p.167). In a bid to stress on the universal acceptance of religious truth by Islam, Armstrong argues that if Muhammad had known about Hinduism and Buddhism, he’d have included their religious sages as prophets (p.178). This is far from convincing and may even be shown to be entirely false. Seventh-century Arabia had a flourishing trade with India, and Mecca was a prominent trading post in Hijaz. Even if he was not aware of these Indian religions, the Koran is not Muhammad’s word – it is the word of god revealed through the Prophet. Surely, god knew about the existence of these religions? Another outrageous suggestion is that the Koran grants women equal status! This is thrust into our throats with a pinch of salt in the assertion that veiling of women was a Persian custom adopted by their Muslim conquerors. Nobody was said to be forced into accepting Islam, but its rapid spread to North Africa is offhandedly explained away as the result of Arab imperialism. Why this hypocrisy is hard to imagine.

If the readers had any doubts about what is in religion in addition to an all-pervading god, an exhaustive discussion on what happened in philosophical discourses that run from dark ages to the present is given. Most of the readers would find this tedious and boring. This is definitely not due to any incompetence or lack of preparation on the part of the author. On the contrary, every effort has been made to condense the arguments in a few paragraphs and in lucid style. Salient points of the systems proposed by a lot of philosophers over the centuries are neatly catalogued. But lengthy narratives on god, transcendence and spirit are bound to elicit a yawn from most of us lay men. The failasufs (practitioners of Falsafah, from which the word philosophy came into vogue) made deep study on every aspect of Islam’s seemingly straightforward monotheism. Muid ad-Din ibn al-Arabi, a Spanish mystic in the Umayyad period, is noted for the tolerance advocated in his works. Sufism also tried to make Islam mellow. The physical success made possible by its armies made Islam accommodative and poised to conquer Europe when the axe fell in the form of Renaissance. The Reformation and Enlightenment that followed it, made Europe at the forefront of material development. Discovery and conquest of the New World made it vigorous. Islam suddenly found itself on the back foot. It succumbed to fundamentalist doctrines like Wahhabism propounded by Mohammed ibn al-Wahhab in Saudi Arabia. Exactly at this point, Europe turned to reason and secularism. Whereas the word ‘atheist’ was used disparagingly as a nasty slur even till the Middle Ages, it acquired the overtones of a badge of honour. It is curious to compare atheists of today with Christians and Jews who were called atheists by pagan Romans.

The book’s extensive coverage is limited to the Semitic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Some traces of Buddhist philosophy is included, which is more of a comparative nature. It gives undue significance to medieval practices like mysticism by giving it a good press in assertions like “even though there are obvious differences between medieval mysticism and modern psychiatric therapy, both disciplines have evolved similar techniques to achieve healing and personal integration” (p.290). The book is adorned with an extensive index and a thorough bibliography.

The book is recommended only to serious readers.

Rating: 3 Star