The
Doctrinal Dimension(doctrine = belief)
The doctrinal dimension is what most religious studies courses and books are about. The doctrinal dimension is what people believe. In fact, when the question "What is your religion?" arises, people are usually asking, ''What do you believe, what are the set of answers you have accepted to life's profound questions?"
While religion is more than just a set of answers, religious doctrines have a profound effect on the behaviour of believers within a given religious community. Religious doctrines give focus and order to the symbolic and the mythical. They offer believers authoritative and sometimes systematic proof that their religious reality and everyday reality are one and the same.
Doctrines are logical descriptions of reality for the believer. When two very different descriptions of reality collide, world history tells us that the doctrinal dimension can stir believers to commit the bloodiest atrocities in the name of their belief. We only have to look in the Middle East or our own indigenous collision with Christianity since the 19th Century to see the tension created by opposing worldview doctrines.
The doctrinal dimension is what most religious studies courses and books are about. The doctrinal dimension is what people believe. In fact, when the question "What is your religion?" arises, people are usually asking, ''What do you believe, what are the set of answers you have accepted to life's profound questions?"
While religion is more than just a set of answers, religious doctrines have a profound effect on the behaviour of believers within a given religious community. Religious doctrines give focus and order to the symbolic and the mythical. They offer believers authoritative and sometimes systematic proof that their religious reality and everyday reality are one and the same.
Doctrines are logical descriptions of reality for the believer. When two very different descriptions of reality collide, world history tells us that the doctrinal dimension can stir believers to commit the bloodiest atrocities in the name of their belief. We only have to look in the Middle East or our own indigenous collision with Christianity since the 19th Century to see the tension created by opposing worldview doctrines.
Religious Doctrines
Definition: Death, suffering, and change are problems that cannot be resolved in terms of common sense or scientific knowledge. Doctrines are belief systems; they provide specific answers to boundary/identity questions. They give the institutionalized answers to the unexplainable (boundary questions).
Faith is a religious way of knowing the truth based on the authority of the church, a sacred book, or a religious leader.
Definition: Death, suffering, and change are problems that cannot be resolved in terms of common sense or scientific knowledge. Doctrines are belief systems; they provide specific answers to boundary/identity questions. They give the institutionalized answers to the unexplainable (boundary questions).
Faith is a religious way of knowing the truth based on the authority of the church, a sacred book, or a religious leader.
FUNCTIONS OF DOCTRINES
· Bring order to focus on myth and ritual
· Provide the institutionalization of answers to the unexplainable (death, suffering, change).
· Control the boundaries of religious expression
· Determine what is inclusive and exclusive in a given religion.
· Bring order to focus on myth and ritual
· Provide the institutionalization of answers to the unexplainable (death, suffering, change).
· Control the boundaries of religious expression
· Determine what is inclusive and exclusive in a given religion.
Adapted from Susan Cafarelli Burke.
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