Many “revealed religions” depend on prophets and holy texts to get their messages out to people: in order to figure out what God wants, you either have to read this holy text or have a class of priests that read the text tell you what the text says.
But this is a form of cultural diffusion: whether or not the text is available to you before the modern world (with printing presses and internet) depends on whether you’re born in the region where the book is in print, whether your culture supports the priest class that can tell you what the text says (such as if you’re illiterate), things like this. Even today, we see religions based on particular texts to be somewhat geographically locked as tends to happen with things (like fashion) that are spread through cultural diffusion.
Why would gods choose such an obviously inefficient way to spread their message, especially if (in some worldviews) that message has infinite consequences?
For instance, for a being with godlike power, it would be trivially easy to just implant whatever knowledge is supposed to be gleaned by the holy text directly into every newborn: then it won’t become region locked, people wouldn’t fight over whose holy text is holiest, people wouldn’t be born in regions that don’t have easy cultural access to the holy text or priest class that reads it, etc. Why not this instead?
A thought-provoking premise for a thread MM.
There are religions such as Judaism, Sikhism and Islam where the '
text' in its sacred language -
Hebrew, Gurmukhī script and Arabic - is the paramount sacral focus and even given a kind of primordial status (i.e. there's a Jewish belief found in the Mishnah that God looked into the Torah while creating the world—that is, he used it as a blueprint as it were for his creation; Muslims likewise believe the Qur'an is the pre-existent, pre-eternal, uncreated speech of Allah and Sikhs hold their
Guru Granth Sahib ji to be infused with the spirit of the eternal Guru). In most branches of Hinduism or Vedanta, the Sanskrit
Vedas are also regarded as
nitya (eternal and uncreated), in my understanding.
With reference to your cultural diffusion argument, I think it likely does present a challenge to those religions that, in particular, claim to worship a universal and transcendent God who is the conscious agent or ultimate reality behind the entire universe, with (purportedly) a plan / message / divine order to impart to humanity at large.
This method of delivering - or discovering - an 'eternal' (without beginning or end) truth on the part of a prophet or mystic, who then conveys it via his / her contingent literary production, which is limited by its genesis and reception by readers / listeners in a given language with a certain phonetic word order in a script comprehensible only to those fluent and literate in that tongue and at a certain point in time.....
yes indeed, I can see why this might all seem like an implausible mode of transmission for a timeless, self-existent and infinite Supreme Being who is omnipresent and sustains the entirety of the cosmos.
There's definitely an issue here, with the truth / revelation / message itself meant to be eternal and imperishable yet its manifestation is certainly not eternal, and actually can be relatively limited in its availability by a variety of linguistic, cultural, educational and geographical barriers.
When it comes to Christianity - and especially traditional Catholic and Orthodox Christianity - I think our approach to this issue is a bit distinct from the other faiths already mentioned. For one, the eternal truth is not associated with the written word so much as with a Person (which the written word testifies to), namely Jesus as God incarnate:
Pope Francis: 'The Word of God Precedes the Bible' (learnreligions.com)
Sacred Scripture is the written testimony of the divine Word, the canonical memory that attests to the event of Revelation. However, the Word of God precedes the Bible and surpasses it. That is why the centre of our faith isn't just a book, but a salvation history and above all a person, Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh.
It is precisely because the Word of God embraces and extends beyond Scripture that, in order to properly understand it, the Holy Spirit's constant presence, who guides us "to all truth," is necessary.
Scripture and Tradition
Catholics, on the other hand, recognize that the Bible does not endorse this view and that, in fact, it is repudiated in Scripture. The true "rule of faith"—as expressed in the Bible itself—is Scripture plus apostolic tradition, as manifested in the living teaching authority of the Catholic Church, to which were entrusted the oral teachings of Jesus and the apostles.
Christianity began in Jerusalem when disciples of Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed that he was the expected Messiah, after having a range of allegedly visionary experiences following his execution. From the earliest days, the church regarded itself as the guardian of a developing
oral tradition supposedly passed down from these disciples, a portion of which was eventually committed to writing, in Koine Greek, in the form of the New Testament.
This sacred tradition was - and is - flexible and adapted quickly to a multiplicity of languages and cultures, resulting in a startling diversity of liturgical rites, each 'inculturating' the message of the gospel in a different language, with its own unique customs. I think Christianity harvested and acted upon what already existed. And that's because it's not a religion confined by one sacred language or culture.
As the Latin Church Father St. Augustine of Hippo wrote in his mammoth tome,
The City of God (413–426 CE):
Philip Schaff: NPNF1-02. St. Augustine's City of God and Christian Doctrine - Christian Classics Ethereal Library
"This heavenly city [the Church], then, while it sojourns on earth, calls citizens out of all nations, and gathers together a society of pilgrims of all languages, not scrupling about diversities in the manners, laws, and institutions whereby earthly peace is secured and maintained, but recognizing that, however various these are, they all tend to one and the same end of earthly peace. It therefore is so far from rescinding and abolishing these diversities, that it even preserves and adopts them." (De civitate Dei Ch. XXV)
The Anglican scholar, Professor John Barton of Oxford University, explained in relation to the apostolic Tradition:
“the earliest Christians perceived the traditions about Jesus as oral…it is well known that many of the Fathers cite sayings not recorded in any existing Gospel, the so-called agrapha. Certainly it is still true for Irenaeus that words of Jesus have an authority which has little to do with whether or not they stand in a written gospel…These traditions are cited as ‘what all Christians know’, not as facts attested by specific documents…Christians who saw things this way agreed in principle with Papias that, ‘I do not think that what was taken from books would profit me so much as what came from the living and abiding voice’’” (John Barton, Holy Writings, Sacred Text p.99).
Moreover, when I read your words in the OP
"it would be trivially easy to just implant whatever knowledge is supposed to be gleaned by the holy text directly into every newborn", I'm reminded of our actual doctrine of the
semina verbi. The prologue to John's gospel affirms that “
the Word [pre-incarnate Jesus] is the true light that enlightens every man coming into the world” (
John 1:9):
"We have been taught that Christ is the First-born of God, and…that he is the logos of whom every race of men and women were partakers."
St. Paul likewise informs us of pagans being able to access the 'natural law' of God inhering in every conscience and thus attaining salvation in Christ:
"Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the Law, do by nature what the Law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the Law, since they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness" (
Romans 2:14).
And St. John Chrysostom (347-407), Archbishop of Constantinople and an important early church father, addressed this doctrine in his
Homily 8 on the Gospel of John, in the context of an exegetical commentary on
John 1:9:
CHURCH FATHERS: Homily 8 on the Gospel of John (Chrysostom)
"How then does He [the Word of God] light every man? He lights all as far as in Him lies [...] For the grace is shed forth upon all, turning itself back neither from Jew, nor Greek, nor Barbarian, nor Scythian, nor free, nor bond, nor male, nor female, nor old, nor young, but admitting all alike, and inviting with an equal regard."
