It seems to me that a large part of religion is merely a social construct. That is, religious beliefs, piety, doctrines, etc, are all products of man. So the question comes to mind, and assuming that
God does exist, how much of religion is set into motion from God's providence. This includes his guidance and ordinances through his revelation.
Let's consider, for example, the three main monotheistic faiths: Christianity, Judaism, Islam. Now what we have here is an interesting assortment of religions that are clearly distinguishable from one another. Now if we consider the origin of these religions, we see that they are not entirely different from one another. In fact they all diverged from one another for either social or political reasons.
Moreover, as we notice today and all througout history, the image of God seems to have been shaped in various ways according to our needs and desires. In the bible we see God as wrathful, mysterious and hidden. But we also see Him as gracious and loving, Who anthropomorphisized Himself in the way of Yahweh and Jesus.
Now the deification of Christ is another matter. It seems to me that the gathering at Nicaea (that established the divinity of Christ), the overseer of which, Constanine, was under extreme social and political pressure from the emperor at the time. So can we say that the divinity of Jesus was constructed because Jews at the time, for some inherent and obscure moral reason, were convinced that Jesus was here to appease our conscience? So did Jews and Muslims keenly pick up on this construct or are Christians the keen ones?
On the other hand, who's to say that the early Hebrews who were essentially pagans, that there idea of the gods was inaccurate? What makes us so sure that religion today correctly interprets how God should be defined. It appears to me that fundamentalist and charismatic movements are not necessarily fine tuning religion, or returing to the "roots" but simply providing another interpretation, of which cannot be defined as correct or aberrant.
So it seems that our ultimate question here is to determine God's motives. Why would he not provide us with more revelation, so that we may not be as confused as we are. He provided Abraham with his revelations, Joseph Smith with his, Muhammad with his, etc, etc, etc. How should we discern what is orthodox? Do we, as Socrates (i think) said, "know
truth through silence?" Do we, as Luther admonished, avoid speculation about the inner nature of God because it is dangerous for a finite mind to try to conceive of an incomprehensible, infinite one? If this is the case, what's the use of reason?
So if God's intent is for us to be confused by providing us with only minute portions of revelation, then how are we supposed to trust such a God?
