What History Can Tell Us, And What It Can't

It is clear that religion is one of the driving forces of history; many significant events and trends are fueled by faith: the abolition of slavery in America, the right of women to vote, the environmental movement to protect the earth, freedom of speech and of the press, various forms of aid to developing countries, and international negotiating organizations seeking to avoid war. Many other examples could be added. Some of these are obviously more religious than others, but historical investigation will find that all of them originated in a worldview shaped by faith and by sacred text.

But what can history tell us about religion? We are instructed to strive ever more for a neutral objectivity - studying religion in history, and the history of religion, can be done in this way - but for someone who is the product of American popular culture, it is a foreign notion. History can describe for us those events and trends, and their emergence from a particular spiritual tradition. Indeed, history is obliged to do so. History cannot, however, evaluate truth claims made by specific religions, because those claims are sometimes about things bigger than history, beyond history, and embracing history from without. Walther Eichrodt writes that

history can say nothing about the final truth of a matter; that is, it is unable to make any claims concerning its validity for our current existence or its significance for our worldview. To the extent that historical research is able to view and to describe more precisely any event - also anything of an intellectual scope - only within a system of relations, its assertions about a historical entity always remain relative; that is, they have meaning only in relation to other entities and only in this sense command assent. To judge regarding what is true and what is false, what has an absolute claim to validity and what is worthless, continues to be reserved fundamentally to the science of values, to philosophy or to dogmatics.

History can tell us, for example, which religions lead more often to war, and which ones lead more often to peace; history can tell us which religions are inclined to expand the dignity and rights of women, and which ones are inclined to minimize women and their social roles; history can tell us which religions see an essential value in every human life, a value which demands recognition, and which religions see some human lives as worth less than others, and therefore expendable.

But history cannot tell us which religions are true, and which are false; history cannot tell us which beliefs are good, and which are evil. These determinations belong to a higher academic discipline. The historian may narrate the roles of various spiritual traditions in history, but he may not make value judgements about those traditions. Those judgements are to be made by the philosopher and the theologian.

History shows us that religion is the engine of history, that faith propels great historical movements; but history must refrain from deciding which religion is ultimately the true religion. Determining what is 'true religion' - this cannot be left in the realm of mere opinion: this is the task of rational investigation, close textual study, and academic theology.