The Six Dimensions of a Religious Tradition

n his return from the war in Borneo, ONinian Smart left the British Army The Ritual Dimension and took the opportunity to go to Religion tends in part to express itself University to study religion. Years later, through such rituals: through worship, he wrote about the six dimensions of prayers, offerings, and the like. We may religion, a topic that had begun to call this the ritual dimension of religion: fascinate him while in the jungles of some form of outer behavior coordinated Borneo. with an inner intention to make contact with, or to participate in, the invisible The six dimensions outlined by him are as world. follows:  doctrine  myth The Experiential Dimension  ethics Religious people may hope to have contact with, and participate in, the invisible world  ritual through ritual, [but] personal religion  experience normally involves the hope of, or  social realization of, experience of that world.

The Doctrinal Dimension The Social Dimension Doctrines are an attempt to give system, The mode in which the religion in question clarity, and intellectual power to what is is institutionalized, whereby through its revealed through the mythic and symbolic institutions and teachings, it affects the language of religious faith and ritual. The community in which it finds itself. The dividing line between the mythological doctrinal, mythological, and ethical and what I shall call the doctrinal is not dimensions express a religion’s claim easy to draw. The world religions owe about the nature of the invisible world and some of their living power to their success its aims about how people’s lives ought to in presenting a total picture of reality be shaped; the social dimension indicates through a coherent system of doctrines. the way in which people's lives are, in fact, shaped by these claims and the way in The Mythical Dimension which religious institutions operate. Myth is used here to mean stories about God, about the gods and also stories Discussion relating to historical events of religious significance in a tradition. We can count  Which of the six dimensions of both historical myths, that is, stories about religion do you find easiest to the invisible world which have an understand? Explain why. anchorage in history and non-historical  Which of the six dimensions seems myths, that is, those that have no such anchorage, as aspects of the mythological furthest from your experience of religion? Suggest some reasons why dimension. this could be the case. The Ethical Dimension  Choose one of the dimensions and The code of ethics of the dominant explain it to the class drawing on religion controls the community. Quite your own experience of religion for obviously, people do not always live up to examples of that dimension. the standards they profess, therefore, we must distinguish between the ethical teachings of a faith and the actual sociological effects and circumstances of a religion.