Toynbee Says One Religion To Absorb All Other Faiths

In an era of continuous peace, one religion will eventually win the allegiance of the whole of mankind, Arnold J. Toynbee said last night in the fourth and last of the Hewitt Lectures at Sanders Theatre. The winning religion will not eliminate other religions, but absorb their best elements, he added.

Toynbee argued from a parallel to the Christian-pagan struggle in ancient Rome, where the Christians, while bitterly opposed to the infields, ultimately incorporated much of Graeco-Roman paganism into the new religion.

There is an increasing tendency today toward free choice of religion, he said, and this tendency will grow as the world grows closer together. If Christianity is to win new converts, its followers must purge themselves of "exclusive-mindedness," the sin of collective pride, he added. They need to recognize that Christian truths are not exclusively Christian, but universal, he said.

The cause of social justice is in harmony with the spiritual goals of the higher religions, Toynee stated. Social injustice, "the inescapable price of civilization," must be alleviated and material standards raised, he said, before any betterment in the spiritual standard of living is possible.

Toynbee cited the responsibility of all religions to help human nature to cope with its innate sinfulness. "Within the last 5000 years, any change in human nature has been imperceptible," he said; "individuals differ in personality, but certain psychological types inevitably occur in the same proportions in all races."

For practical purposes, he contended, human nature is "uniform and permanent," and human nature is the ultimate ground for the silent struggle between religions.