Ninian Smart
Roderick Ninian Smart (6 May 1927 – 29 January 2001)[1][2] was a Scottish writer and university educator. He was a pioneer in the field of secular religious studies. He is best known for his seven-dimensional definition of religion.
In 1967 he established the first department of
Smart became widely known outside the academy, at least in Britain, when he was editorial consultant for the major BBC television series, The Long Search (1977). His book The World's Religions (1989) also reached a considerable popular readership. His defence of religious studies as a secular discipline helped the formation of departments in many public universities, especially in the United States. He distanced religious studies from traditional theology in that evaluating truth claims and apology have no role but regarded investigation into the "truth and worth" of religion per se as a valid academic enterprise in the public arena of state-funded education.[3]
Early life
Ninian Smart was born in Cambridge, England, where his father, William Marshall Smart (1889–1975) was the John Couch Adams Astronomer in the University of Cambridge. His mother was Isabel (née Carswell). W. M Smart, who died in 1975, also served as president of the Royal Astronomical Society (1950). Both parents were Scottish. They moved to Glasgow in 1937, when W. M. Smart became
Smart was one of three brothers, all of whom became professors: Jack (1920–2012) became a professor of philosophy; Alastair (1922–1992) was Professor of Art History at the University of Nottingham.
Smart attended
Career
After teaching in the
Despite the attraction of prestigious posts elsewhere, he chose
At Lancaster he was respected by his students for being so accessible, for his willingness to engage his formidable intellect without pretension in informal debate over a pint in the bar.[citation needed]
Visiting professorships and lectures
Smart was also visiting professor at
Activism
In addition to teaching, research, and writing, Smart was something of an activist in promoting improved cross-cultural understanding. In the 1970s, he was involved in several initiatives in Britain to broaden the public
Academic honours
Smart received honorary doctorates from
In 1994, the volume Aspects of Religion, edited by Peter Masefield and Donald Wiebe, was published in his honour.
Retirement and death
Smart officially retired from Lancaster in 1982 (he was Honorary Professor from 1982 to 1989, then Professor Emeritus) and from Santa Barbara in 1998, but remained active as a professor emeritus in both universities, living mainly in Lancaster, where he died in 2001 from a massive stroke, aged 73.
Scholarly contribution
Smart is mainly noted for his contribution in the area of methodology, although he saw his contribution as conceptual as well as methodological, commenting that while expertise in languages was not to be dismissed, it should not be "rated above conceptual insight."[9] Secular Religious Studies dates from the mid-1960s, when new departments were established, several in state universities in the United States. At the time, it was only just beginning to earn academic recognition and Smart was a pivotal figure in this process and, as Cunningham comments, "it is difficult now to recall that the emergence of Religious Studies as a higher-education subject was then controversial."[10]
Smart's early work involved linguistic analysis, in which he had experience in, from Oxford. Later, he said that this came close to "cross-cultural study" but had stopped short, since he was still too captive to "our language" and "various assumptions of our culture".
He situated Religious Studies in contrast to
I … believe we are moving toward a global ideology that has a place for religion and recognizes the contributions of the different traditions. Hopefully, it will have an overarching view as to how we can work together for the promotion of human values and spirituality.[13]
Dimensions of religion
Smart is widely known for his seven-part definition of religion, or rather scheme of study; as this approach avoids the problem of defining altogether. Whatever else religion may or may not be – whether theistic or non-theistic, religions possess certain recognisable elements, which can be studied. These dimensions vary in importance but are almost always present. Smart divided these into "historical" and "para-historical," meaning by the latter those dimensions that take the investigation into the experience, or inner lives, or religious people. The "historical" can be studied empirically, but the para-historical takes the student into the realm of belief and concepts and requires dialogue and participation. "... since the study of man is in an important sense participatory – for one has to enter into men's intentions, beliefs, myths, desires, in order to understand why they act as they do – it is fatal if cultures including our own are described merely externally, without entering into dialogue with them".[14]
Smart's sevenfold scheme of study:
- Doctrinal
- Mythological
- Ethical
- Ritual
- Experiential
- Institutional
- Material (added in his 1989 text, The World's Religions[15])
Note: Smart categorised 1–3 as para-historical and 4–6 as historical. [citation needed]
Legacy
Smart's contribution to Religious Studies continues to influence curricula, syllabi and methodology. In particular, his "dimensions of religion," a framework for comparing religions, has been influential within the academy. His willingness to take seriously what others saw as "illegitimate," such as ideologies and new religious movements, did much to allow Religious Studies to distinguish itself from theology and from any charge of privileging any particular faith or version of a faith. Hecht commented that, "When the definitive history of the study of religion in the 20th century is written..." Ninian Smart "will certainly be seen as a giant among his peers" since Smart's "many books opened religion to scholar and layperson alike".[2] The Ninian Smart Annual Memorial Lecture, created in his honour, alternates between Lancaster and Santa Barbara. At Loyola, he is honoured by the Ninian Smart Award for Excellence in Religious Studies. In April 2001, the Santa Barbara Templeton Research Lecture series was dedicated to the memory of Smart, and a commemorative plaque was presented to the Smart family. He had been due to deliver a Templeton lecture himself.
Personal life
Smart married Libushka Baruffaldi in 1954. Their children were Roderick, Luisabel, Caroline and Peregrine. Smart had eight grandchildren at the time of his death, followed by his ninth shortly after.
Libushka was originally from Lake Como, Italy, where Smart regularly spent his summer vacations at his family home. Ninian and Libushka were the first from the Western academy to have their marriage blessed by Sun Myung Moon and his wife Hak Ja Han in August 1992.
Towards the end of his life, Smart described himself as a "Buddhist-Episcopalian", saying, "No religion, it seems to me, contains the whole truth. I think it's mad to think that there is nothing to learn from other traditions and civilizations. If you accept that other religions have something to offer and you learn from them, that is what you become: a Buddhist-Episcopalian or a Hindu-Muslim or whatever".[13]
Selected writings
- Reasons and Faiths: An Investigation of Religious Discourse, Christian and non-Christian. London: Routledge, 1958. ISBN 0-415-22564-7
- World Religions: A Dialogue. Baltimore: Penguin, 1960.
- Historical Selections in the Philosophy of Religion. NY: Harper & Row, 1962.
- Doctrine and Argument in Indian Philosophy. London: Allen & Unwin, 1964.
- Secular Education and the Logic of Religion. NY: Humanities Press, 1968.
- The Yogi and the Devotee: The Interplay Between the Upanishads and Catholic Theology. London: Allen & Unwin, 1968.
- The Religious Experience of Mankind. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1969. ISBN 0-02-412141-X
- Philosophy of Religion. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1970. ISBN 0-19-520138-8
- Mao. Fontana/Collins, 1974.
- Background to the Long Search. London: BBC, 1977. ISBN 978-0-563-12779-6
- In Search of Christianity. NY: Harper & Row, 1979. ISBN 0-06-067401-6
- The Phenomenon of Christianity. Collins, 1979. ISBN 0-00-215115-4
- Beyond Ideology: Religion and the Future of Western Civilization (Gifford lectures). Harper & Row, 1981. ISBN 0-06-067402-4
- Worldviews: Crosscultural Explorations of Human Belief. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1981 (3rd edn. Pearson, 1999). ISBN 0-13-020980-5
- (with Swami Purnananda) Prophet of a New Hindu Age: The Life and Times of Acharya Pranavananda. NY: Routledge, 1985.
- Religion and the Western Mind. NY: State University of New York Press, 1987. ISBN 0-88706-383-7
- The World's Religions: Old Traditions and Modern Transformations. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989. ISBN 0-521-63748-1
- Religions of Asia. Pearson College Div., 1992.
- (with Steven Konstantine) Changing Worlds: Christian Systematic Theology in a World Context. HarperCollins, 1992.
- Buddhism and Christianity: Rivals and Allies. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993. ISBN 0-8248-1520-3
- Religions of the West. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993. ISBN 0-13-156811-6
- Choosing a Faith. NY: Marion Boyars Publishers, 1995. ISBN 0-7145-2982-6
- Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World's Beliefs. Berkeley, Cal: University of California Press, 1998. ISBN 0-520-21960-0
- World Philosophies. NY: Routledge, 2000. ISBN 0-415-22852-2
- Collected essays
- Concept and Empathy: Essays in the Study of Religion. Edited by Donald Wiebe. New York UP, 1986.
- Reflections in the Mirror of Religion. Edited by John P. Burris. Palgrave Macmillan, 1997.
- Poetry
- Smart Verse: The Owl Flies Amid the Wood Wind Hooting. Daniel & Daniel, 1996.
Notes
- ^ Saxon, Wolfgang (25 February 2001). "Ninian Smart, 73, Author and Scholar of Comparative Religion". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
- ^ a b c d Hecht, Richard. "IN MEMORIAM Roderick Ninian Smart". University of California Academic Senate. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
- ^ Smart (1968), p. 105
- ^ a b Smart (2000), p. 20
- ^ a b Smart (2000), p. 21
- ^ Smart (2000), p. 19
- ^ Wilson (1991)
- ^ The Global Ethics and Religion Forum, The Global Religion and Ethics Forum.
- ^ Smart (2000), p. 31
- ^ Adrian Cunningham, Professor Ninian Smart. Archived 23 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Smart (2000), p. 23
- ^ Smart (1968), pp. 105–106
- ^ a b Scott London, The Future of Religion: An Interview with Ninian Smart.
- ^ Smart (1968), p. 104
- ^ Rennie, Bryan S. "The View of the Invisible World: Ninian Smart's Analysis of the Dimensions of Religion and of Religious Experience" (PDF). Westminster. ATLAS. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
References
- Sharpe, Eric J. (1983). Understanding Religion. New York: St Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-83208-7.
- Smart, Ninian (1968). Secular Education and the Logic of Religion. New York: Humanities Press. ISBN 978-0-571-08284-1.
- Smart, Ninian (2000). "Methods in My Life". In Jon R. Stone (ed.). The Craft of Religious Studies. New York: Palgrave. pp. 18–35. ISBN 0-312-23887-8.
- Smart, Ninian; Masefield, Peter; Wiebe, Donald (1994). Aspects of Religion Essays in Honour of Ninian Smart. New York: P. Lang. ISBN 978-0-8204-2237-4.
- Wilson, Andrew, ed. (1991). World Scripture: a Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts. St Paul, Minnesota: Paragon House. ISBN 1-55778-723-9.
External links
- University of Alabama Bio of Ninian Smart (Archived by Wayback Machine)
- Ninian Smart 2 February 2001 obituary by Brian Gates for The Guardian