The Reluctant Vision: An Essay in the Philosophy of Religion by T. Patrick Burke (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 401 not eliminate the necessity to return to the classical writers and their work in their entirety. This is clear today in psychology of religion with Freud and Jung and in socio-anthropology of religion with Weber and Durkheim. No anthology in method can be a substitute to return consistently to the classics of Otto, Vander Leeuw, Wach, and Eliade, for no discipline cancels its classics without fundamentally altering itself. Mention should be made of the three indices in this volume: an index of personal names; an index of scholarly concepts; and an index of concrete subjects. The second, the index of scholarly concepts, contains terms which are both theoretical and methodological in the study of particular materials. A historical development is found in this index itself. Rarely is an index so useful in research. This indicates the perduring value of the book as a research tool. The second volume, which is now in print, is an extensive bibliography of the forty-one scholars in this anthology and over 170 scholars treated in Waardenburg's introduction. The outcome is a basic research tool rarely found in publishing today. The Catholic University of America Washington. D. C. WILLIAM CENKNER, 0. P. The Reluctant Vision: An Essay in the Philosophy of Religion. By T. PATRICK BURKE. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974. Pp. 136. $3.00. One of the curiosities of recent philosophy of religion in English-speaking countries has been its narrow focus. The point of departure has been almost invariably a set of problems associated with· the crisis of modern Western theism-the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the ethics of belief. The authors and editors evince little awareness that these issues have no such prominence in non-Western cultures and that they consume less than the total attention of Judaism and Christianity. Consequently it does not dawn on them that the " philosophy of religion " might start with larger concerns likely to embrace the wide range of religious experiences and traditions. T. Patrick Burke's slender but eloquent The Reluctant Vision provides a fine antidote to this narrowness. Burke attempts a functional analysis which would illuminate religion in its diverse as well as in its common features. What he sees as common is a structured interpretation of life which involves a problem of over-riding importance, a proposed solution and a corresponding path towards the solution. The difference of problems, solutions, and paths appears, in this scheme, to distinguish one religion from another. Thus, Chinese religions (Taoism and Confucianism) have a char- 402 BOOK REVIEWS acteristic preoccupation with the relation of man to nature, Indian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism) dwell more on the problem of suffering, and the semitic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) on the relationships of men with each other. The nuances of problem, solution or path make for the more precise distinctions within these broad cultural groupings. It is, then, interest rather than sheer curiosity which is at the heart of religion and the diversity of interests which makes for the diversity of religions . The Buddhist stands apart from the Christian, to take one instance of diversity, more because of the centrality of pain in his interpretation of life than because of any directly theoretical disagreement about Gautama or Jesus. The problem-solution-path analysis is reminiscent of the familiar presentation of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism: there is pain; desire is the cause of pain; the elimination of desire eliminates pain; and the Eightfold Noble Pathway is the road to the elimination of desire. Applied to other religions in The Reluctant Vision, the method proves fruitful in abundant insight. Yet the same fecund method can be a procrustean bed when applied as single-mindedly as in this book. Burke would make the questions he calls factitive or metaphysical (questions about the nature of Brahman or Nirvana or God) secondary, albeit important matters for religions. The Christian churches have, nonetheless, generally given these same questions a priority and have claimed to draw the interpretation of life from authoritative answers. This author prefers to let the strength of his method justify itself by a method of disclosure, but he needs some argument for bypassing...