Reviews for Historian's Approach to Religion - Arnold Joseph Toynbee

The average rating for Historian's Approach to Religion - Arnold Joseph Toynbee based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-08-30 00:00:00 Corey Duguay This book was given to me by my grandfather before I entered college. It introduced me to the idea that religions drive the growth and development of civilizations. Much of the book specifically addresses Christianity's path to becoming a world religion and how it interacted with the rise of Western secularism. The author's sympathetic view on religions, while clearly recognizing their failings at particular various stages of their development, set the standard for the religious search which I began as a college student. I went on to read much of the author's writings and found that his cyclical approach to world history meshed well with the Baha'i concept of progressive revelation. I also recommend the two-volume abridgment by D.C. Somervell of Toynbee's most famous work, A Study of History, published by Oxford University Press in 1957. September 2010: I re-read this all-time all-time scholarly favorite book of mine. I last read it around 15 years ago. I am happy to report that it still stands up to the exalted place I placed it in my collection. So many of the themes the author touched on in the later 1950's still hold true with many of them now translated from the religious realm to the political realm.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-08-31 00:00:00 Jaime Amaya Toynbee rehashes some material from his multi-volume work, but there are still some great chapters here. I especially liked 'The Re-Erection of Two Graeco-Roman Idols,' and 'Idolization of the Technician,' and most especially his look at what happens between religions and empires. Also valuable is how Toynbee points out that the way religion and society interact goes far beyond whatever individuals do on 'Sunday' (I use the term broadly). I found his comments about power and suffering provoking. The book's significant problems come when Toynbee goes beyond looking at religion as an historian, and starts looking at religion per se. He seems too much of a Platonist. As he does not believe in the Incarnation, he seems to posit too great a difference between the physical/spiritual, animal/rational, etc. Thus, religious truths get boiled down to their 'essence' apart from their 'incarnations,' which in Toynbee's eyes inevitably distort 'true' religion. Religious 'truth' gets buried too deep in the sub-conscious or to put too high in the ethereal mist. If we think of Raphael's famous painting of the Academy in Athens (and imagine adding Carl Jung pointing back at himself, beside Plato and Aristotle,) why couldn't all three be right? Can't truth be 'out there, in front of us, and within us (to some extent anyway). Toynbee, I think, would exclude Aristotle, or at least diminish his role, and this error impacts his thinking.