ABSTRACT
The standpoint is not that of theology, but that of the philosophy of religion. The theologian’s approach to the subject-matter of the study has been stated quite clearly by Tillich: It should elaborate the motives and types of religious expression, showing how they follow from the nature of the religious concern and therefore necessarily appear in all religions, including Christianity in so far as it is a religion. It is right in its insistence that the distinction between truth and error is as valid in religion as elsewhere in human experience. The mistake lies in supposing, first, that the true and the false in religion are to be identified with particular religions, and, second, that in the case of the true the identification is with one’s own religion. The history of religion shares the features common to all history. It is a record, not of steady progress, but of advance and retreat, of brilliant achievement and shameful failure.
