If there be truth to the commonplace that the first millenium was focused upon God and the second upon man, then this beginning of the third millennium should be the opportunity to unite both. This would render religion more inspiring and transformative and thereby enable humankind to be more holy and social.

The radical character of the present challenge — and hence of today’s opportunity — appears from a review of the 2000 year story of our era. The first millennium generally is characterized as God-centered. Its beginning is counted from the birth of Christ and its history can be told in two broad strokes: the first being the sweep of Christianity across the West; the second being the sweep of Islam across the Southern rim of the Mediterranean to the Atlantic on the West and across Asia to the Pacific on the East. Everywhere life was highly sacralized in form and symbol, as is typified by the Christian liturgical year and the Moslem practice of praying five times daily. All was God’s will, which individuals and communities sought to know and to follow.

The second millenium came gradually to be centered upon human reason and its free exercise. This process began with the introduction of Aristotle’s thought to Islam and thence to Christianity. The period was marked by such great and integrating thinkers as al-Farabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas with their massive summas, soaring cathedrals of the mind.

At midpoint in the second millenium, however, attention to reason was radicalized and became a reductionist rationalism. At that time clear and distinct ideas clearly ordered became the norm for the validity of all that would be considered to be worthy knowledge, which, in turn, became the norm for values. What was clear to the human mind was, of course, what was human rather than what was of divine or even physical nature. Hence, the Enlightenment heritage tended to consider the universe as total and humanity as self-sufficient; religion was looked upon as but a superstructure or projection of what was, in fact, human. As described by Milton in "Paradise Lost" this attempt of humanity to save itself or to become God is both primordial and catastrophic. What is human becomes the center and measure of all, thoughtlessly abandoning God and viciously attacking nature. Nothing is sacred; all is subject to ever more restrictive and conflictive human self-interests.

The final implications of this orientation became clear in the closing century of the second millenium, marked by wars hot and cold, pogroms and holocausts, and exploitation of humankind and of the environment. People now are no longer willing to proceed further along this path. Having come to the brink, humankind senses its desperate need to find another path for collaboration among itself and with nature and God.

At this juncture we find ourselves on the threshold between challenge and opportunity. Progress can no longer be seen as merely a matter of the implementation of human life in terms of its material support and physical organization, or even of its network of personal communication and social interaction. All of these are ultimately ambiguous, with great potential for good, but also with a capacity to support evil bent upon human destruction. True progress must be founded in the creative power of God; it must be implemented by the development of human dignity, creativity and responsibility; and it must be centered upon what is ethically good and aesthetically moving because inspired by the Spirit. Precisely in these terms new and exciting ways open to a life with meaning and value for all.

Such human efforts point neither back to the second millennium with its ambiguous sense of "progress" forgetful of both God and nature, nor even to the first millenium focused upon God but less vividly conscious of humankind. Rather, they must begin with a recuperation of the sacred as appreciated in even the earliest of human settlements where it suffused and inspired the whole of life, giving it meaning and founding community. This sacredness of life must be followed through time as it unfolds in, and as, the multiple human cultures and civilizations. All of this must be harvested afresh.

The present work is an effort to take up this challenge in a way that looks forward, seizing the opportunity of this turn of the millennia to find ways, old and new, along which humanity can proceed. The task of our times is to provide direction and motivation for life; to inspire meaning for the many technical and communicative human creations; to provide norms and balance for interaction with the local, global and indeed galactic environment; to explore the true dignity and creativity of personal and social life in our time; and to do all this by renewing and unfolding the import of the divine origin, sacred meaning and transcendent goal of all.

The particular occasion of this work was an invitation from the University of the Punjab in Lahore, Pakistan, to deliver its Iqbal lecture. That underscored the spirit of Mohammed Iqbal who in the first half of the 20th century took up the challenge of human meaning in our times, drawing upon the great religious tradition of Islam and relating it to present thought. In his honor and under his inspiration the work of shaping these chapters into the present work was begun. Hence, the chapters often note their relation to the Islamic horizon and inspiration, as well as to issues faced commonly by Christian and Chinese, Indian and African cultures.

These issues now are unfolding ever more rapidly with the dramatic new developments in the relation of philosophy and reason to faith and religion, and to the dialogue of civilizations in a global community. These have been treated in other lectures, delivered especially in Islamic contexts at the University of the Punjab in Lahore, the al Azhar University in Cairo and Mofid University in Qom, as well as the universities and academies of Science of the newly independent states of Central Asia. Those lectures can be found in the companion volumes being published along with the present one and entitled respectively Faith, Reason and Philosophy and Religion and the Relation between Cultures. But first there is need to examine more comprehensively the many ways to God which have bee pioneered and elaborated through the centuries and which provide the bases for responding to present challenges.

The term "way" in the title should not be taken instrumentally in the sense of employing religion as a means for human fulfillment. That would invert the order of God and man after the manner of the secularizing influence of the Enlightenment. God is source and the goal, never a means. It is precisely in restoring this relation as creature to Creator that humankind rediscovers its real possibilities for fulfillment, peace and happiness.

The term "way" as employed here bears a number of connotations. It connects from the past in order to bring forward the achievements of humanity, especially its discoveries concerning the deepest meaning and highest horizons of life; it bespeaks the ability of humankind to pioneer and create new realms; it points ahead and hence has about it an active, dynamic newness.

Moreover, the "way" which all seek leads not to alien places, but to our true home in which we find our deepest peace, contentment and fulfillment. Ultimately, it leads to God, who not only is immanently present in our inner hearts, but whose transcendence opens before us both limitless possibilities and the prospect of definitive fulfillment. With this last note "way" takes on its ample religious connotation and thereby echoes the most basic themes in the several cultures. Thus the ways to God in the different civilizations provide the basis of global cooperation in the common search both for God beyond this life and for godliness within it.

- For the Greek mind "the way" is the great arching road, referred to by Parmenides in the Proemium of his Poem; it passes through all and unites all, touching the heavens and even the underworld.

- For the Sufi it is the "Way" of spiritual growth lived in the Spirit, a holy life in time.

- For the Buddhist it is the sevenfold Path of spiritual growth.

- For the Catholic it bespeaks the five ways which Thomas articulated at the beginning of his Summa Theologica for relating all things back to God, St. Bonaventure’s itinerary of the mind to God, St. Teresa of Avila’s spiritual ascent of Mount Carmel, and even the "little way" of Theresa of the Child Jesus.

- For all nations it is the multiple paths by which all peoples, religions and civilizations in their separate pilgrimages converge toward the one Holy Mountain.

This work reflects research into these "ways" in many ancient and modern philosophical traditions, in Rome and Chennai (Madras), in Paris and Egypt, in China and Peru. Echoes of those studies appear in the various chapters. The effort, however, is not merely one of comparative philosophy, for as there can be but one infinite Being it would be inadequate and misleading simply to juxtapose multiple ways as if they were not intimately related and convergent. In the present global intersection of religiously founded civilizations there is special need and opportunity to search out how these are organically related.

This could be done after the manner of Hegel in his Science of Logic and Phenomenology of the Mind. That would enable one to see the inherent relatedness of the ways as the dialectical unfolding of the very nature of being as idea or spirit. But in these times, as noted above, the concern is to look not only for what is essential, necessary and universal, but especially for what is existential and unique in the free and creative exercise of life. Hence, it is important to examine how the consciousness and commitments of human life have developed as ways to God within the stories of persons and peoples. Part I "Proto-philosophies as Ways to God" undertakes that task. Chapter I "Method: From the Structure of Consciousness to an Archeology of Ways to God" reviews the developmental pattern of the cognitive abilities of children elaborated by Piaget and Kohlberg, which Fowler applied to religious development. It points out how the structure of human cognitive abilities is constituted sequentially first of the external senses such as sight and hearing, next of the internal senses such as the imagination for figurative or picture thinking, and finally of the intellect which grasps meaning. These three constitute the grid upon which philosophers from Aristotle to Descartes have structured their thought.

By following these cognitive capabilities developmentally the chapters of this work — analogously to Piaget’s sequence of the stages of cognitive and affective development — unveil how the ways to God developed and were lived existentially. Moreover, as each stage remains as a substratum in the subsequent stages, the sequence is cumulative and progressive in character, so that each way not only includes the former, but unfolds their potentialities in ever new and richer ways.

Chapter II "The Totemic Way to God: the Religious Base of Thought and Culture" examines the beginning of this process in the totemic thought of the earliest peoples. Here the intellect, working in terms of what the external senses perceive, interprets all in terms of a totem, which might be a bird or an animal. All the members of that tribe are understood by identity with the one totem as their sacred center; their relations among themselves and with nature are understood on this basis and in these terms. Through the subsequent ages the intensity and natural spontaneity of this religious or proto-religious sense of life will be continually mined and rearticulated in the deepest formulas of human wisdom and relived ritually as the heart of the religions to follow.

Chapter III "Greek Myth as a Proto-Philosophical Way to God" unfolds this at the mythic stage of human consciousness where the intellect works in terms of what the imagination can picture. Here there developed a rich pattern of the gods as transcendent and personal beings, in terms of which all of human life and nature was interpreted. As seen in the great epics of Homer, all of nature was sacred and human destiny lay ultimately the will of the gods who ruled and were ruled in turn by yet further powers.

Chapter IV "The Ritual Hindu Way to God as a Proto-Metaphysics" studies how Hindu thought bridged between the mythic panoply of the gods and a yet higher metaphysical vision. Both of these are most ancient in the Hindu tradition and both have remained in complementary relationship in Indian thought up to the present time. This provides the affirmative spiritual roots of Buddhism and thus of Asian culture as a whole.

Part II "Classical Philosophical and Mystical Ways to God" extends the above pre-philosophical pattern of thought to the development of systematic philosophy proper. Chapter IV on Hindu philosophy remains relevant here as foundation and archetype of the East. Chapter V "The Development of Greek and Judeo-Christian Philosophy: Bases for Ways to God" follows the elaboration of systematic philosophy in the West in Greek and Christian thought. The key steps here are in the field of metaphysics and include: Parmenides’ elaboration of the notion of Being as One, unchanging and eternal; Plato’s elaboration of participation as the structure of the relation of the many to the One; and the development by the Christian Fathers of the appreciation of existence beyond essence. Together they progressively elaborated the elements needed by reason in its effort to understand and articulate the relation of all to God.

Chapter VI "Systematic Christian Philosophy as a Way to God" shows how these three elements were brought together in the high Middle Ages through the rediscovery by Islam, and in turn by Christianity, of the Aristotelian sciences. This made it possible to elaborate a rigorously integrated vision of the participation of humans in God as his images and vice-gerants on earth.

Chapter VII "Al-Ghazali and Mulla Sadra: Islamic Mystical and Existential Way to God," studies the Islamic reactions to this reintroduction of Greek philosophy. These range from al-Ghazali’s departure from philosophy in order to follow the mystical Sufi way, to Mulla Sadra’s intensive employment of Greek philosophy and the Christian sense of existence to shape a masterful structure in the Islamic tradition relating all to God and describing the ways thereto.

There is a fascinating interplay between Islam and Christianity in the Chapters of this second Part. Chapter V is a common background for both traditions, and the High Middle Ages saw massive and interlinked accomplishments in the two. Chapter VII describes the heroic decision of al-Ghazali to leave philosophy when he perceived that the work of Avicenna and other philosophers was unable adequately to provide for the great vision of responsible human freedom required by the eschatology of the Qu’ran. But it suggests as well that he may have moved too quickly to abandon philosophy, for a century later philosophical responses to his concerns would be worked out by Aquinas. These could be helpful as well in enabling the thought of Mulla Sadra to evolve more amply the role of the body in the life of the human person, both here and hereafter.

Part III "Contemporary Philosophical Ways to God" shows how the new appreciation of human subjectivity opens ways to God that are both personal and social. Chapter VIII "Human Subjectivity and Personal Ways to God" describes the way in which the sense of the person has been dramatically renewed in recent times by attention to personal subjectivity which modernity had ignored in favor of the objective and universal categories of science. But subjectivity that is fully human entails also the intersubjective relations between persons of which social life is built. Hence, Chapter IX "Cultural Traditions and Civil Society as Social Ways to God" examines the development of culture and cultural traditions especially as these emerge from, and in turn shape, the exercise of social life.

In the modern humanist manner religion had been seen as superfluous or at most a means for social life, leaving humankind trapped within itself. In contrast, the contemporary (as well as the ancient Hindu) mode of religious awareness sees the divine not only as transcending or above, but also as immanent or within, that is, as the depth dimension and foundation of being. In this light the creative exercise of social freedom is the very emergence of being into time and hence the expression of divine life. All then becomes theonomous and social life can be appreciated and lived as the unfolding in time of the eternal power of Being and love of God. This is a way to God, but, even more, it is the special way in which God is present in and through our lives together. In this humankind is not only vice gerant ruling over the rest of creation, but priesthood offering all back to God, including its own life in time..

It would be magnificent, but less real and less challenging, if human freedom were unambiguous and remained simply in the role of an expression of divine life. In fact, it is highly torn between good and evil. This is the burden of Chapter X "The Dialectic of Good and Evil: `Ultimate Concern’ in History as a Way to God." It follows Paul Tillich’s dialectic of the existential exercise of human freedom not only as expression, but also as negation of its divine heritage. This is the concrete drama of everyday life, and hence of the life of each person and people. Thus, the ways to God become not simply paths over which one travels, but the continuing vital drama of Fall and Resurrection. In these terms human life achieves its meaning as a struggle in faith and hope to rise to a fuller life in God; this is its true vocation.

The overall order of this work is then at once diachronic and synchronic. It is diachronic moving from the past and depicting a sequence of stages each of which opens its own new mode of relating to God. This begins from the totemic sense of unity which in terms available through the external senses coordinated and rendered meaningful all aspects of the earliest forms of social life. The subsequent chapters unfold this understanding progressively through the successive actuation of the intellect in terms of the imagination in mythic thought and in terms of the intellect itself in philosophical thought, both objective and subjective. Thus Part I constitutes an archeology of religious knowledge as pre-philosophical, and Part II shows this being further developed into systematic philosophical ways to God.

The sequence of ways is also synchronic, for it is not simply an account of what is past, a sequence of insights which arise and then disappear. Rather, what once was seen remains and cumulatively provides a theoretical and practical base for what is yet to come. Moreover, as subsequent forms of thought can never adequately express all that was vividly conscious in the previous forms, the earlier ways must be retained, even in being superseded. Each remains as a building block in a stable edifice or, better, a part of an organic system. Thus the chapters also construct progressively an integrated synchronic pattern of life rooted in the divine.

Finally, the ways in Part III move diachronically toward the future. They give life and hope for persons and society in facing the decisive choices of good or evil in private and public life. Each of the great civilizations has developed its distinctive identity precisely through the choices that constitute its history; cultures consist basically in this. In the present global context each has its own integrating contribution to make to the cooperation between civilizations in our days from which the future of humanity as a whole will emerge. Viewed thus prospectively the ways to God are redemptive as the restoration, orientation and commitment of one’s freedom in the Good. Not only for individuals, but for peoples this constitutes the definitive process of homecoming in God. Thus, the final phrase of the title, "at the turn of the millennia," suggests that the ways to God are not only historical and of the past or even perduring structures in the present, but future oriented paths for contemporary renewal and future progress. They are indeed responses to the present challenge to reintegrate heaven, humankind and nature for the third millenium.