Religions work with forces which are both finite and infinite ideas. All religions, either revealed or natural, interact with the finite in a social process, while at the same time perfect this process in time thru what I would term a historical filtering. This filtering is also a dominant element in every emerging religion, whether it is a revealed religion as Catholic or Jewish or a natural religion based on the natural desire of man to commune with God. The Catholic Catechism calls man a “religious being,' since form the first moment of his coming into being he is called to this communion with God.
When we speak of a historical filtering of the progress or emergence of religion we are referring the absolute necessity of every religion to have its feet on the ground. This doesn't mean that it cannot be free to have its heart in the skies, in the transcendent reality for which it longs. Social interaction is a necessity to either Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian or Muslim. One of the reasons why all major world religions have inter-faith dialogue with one another is because it needs to know that these others whom journey along the space of the same earth have some one common goal, the ultimate end. Perhaps some will disagree with the idea of an ultimate end, but no one will disagree that there is a relative end of life. It up to each individual to freely choose a path of faith or not. Freedom of religion is the right to choose one's own religious affiliation and expression according to conscience. More than likely this path will also incur some interaction with others who will help to refine each person's concept of what religion is.
While man can surely be called to a communion with God even on a natural level, all will accept the fact that man is situated in a historical setting and need to develop in the midst of social forces.
Social Forces
What are these social forces at work in man to create tensions even among religious believers of organized religions: Catholic, Jewish or Buddhism, Zen, Muslim or Protestant. One recent study focused on what happens when those who practice religion choose to exit their affiliation. Their model outlines an approach to understanding the development of apostates:
To do this, we will (1) build a conceptual typology of religious careers based on past and present communal membership; (2) explore empirically the direction of change from original denominational identifications; (3) investigate selected measures of religiosity which differentiate among various religious careers; (4) examine sources of doubt, including cognitive conflicts; (5) examine the loss of faith or belief dimension of disaffiliation, and (6) explore the "consequences" of apostasy. (Brinkerhoff, and Mackie 236)
This can be seen as one of the primary reasons why believers choose to re-educate themselves or to continue their exploration of other religions. Vatican II in its document called Lumen Gentium points out that other religions have wisdom, though it is not revealed, that all peoples should honor. Furthermore, in this ability to remain free in one's own commitment to one's belief, it is not right to consider that the dread that comes with committing to a religious belief does not make the social forces that affect those commitments disappear (Ussher).
It may seem to many, like Kierkegaard that religious commitment means not so much as being loyal to the objective organization as to the faith that animates those beliefs and commitments to external actions (Griffin). It seems more probable to say that when a person commits to faith, he commits to belief in a person who is trans-historical, despite the fact that these commitments are expressed in the historical context of ever-changing events in time. Commitments to faith come in many flavors, both natural and revealed.
Sartre and Kierkegaard
Sartre and Kierkegaard regarded existentialism as one expression of this historical tension of the dread of personal commitments to unseen values, while being related to the transitory events of time. In both Kierkegaard and Sartre they try to come to some understanding of the reality of dread in their lives, this dread is a contextual element in every religious relationship. Though dread gives the possibility to religious belief, it is not in the going thru the actions in a historical emerging among social forces like politics, education, psychology and the like.
Rather all of these secondary emerging forces are only outer shells to the inner commitment of the transcendent one. In other words, this dread for personal commitment to the other beyond history is not really seen at all as much as expressed as a "leap of faith" out of the emerging environment. The leap of faith cannot occur outside of the dread drives one to the jump into that faith. The dictionary term for dread is "to feel extremely frightened about a future event." One author sees that the full range of dread is approached in their writings:
