Frithjof Schuon

on Christianity

Frithjof Schuon was a great sage of the Islamic tradition and one of the few great religious intellectuals of the twentieth century. During his life he authored many books and articles on religious themes and was a vigorous proponent of a universalist school of islamic metaphysics that became known in the west as 'Traditionalism' and expounded the sophia perennis, the immutable and divine wisdom that is the source of the diverse religious traditions of the world. As a movement particular attention is paid, on the one hand, to expounding and championing the spiritual wisdom inherent in pre-modern civilizations and their ancient and continuing links to the Divine, and on the other hand, decrying the spiritual vacuity of the modern western civilization. Rene Guenon, in particular, wrote savagely of the spiritual dilemmas of the modern world.

In expounding the sophia perennis Schuon wrote on diverse religious traditions, from the primal traditions of the American Indians (with whom he felt a special affinity) to the modern religion of Islam and the ancient emmensities of the Jewish traditions, from the traditions of the Far East such as Buddhism to the Christianity of the western world in both its orthodox and protestant forms.

Many consider Schuon, together with Rene Guenon and Ananda Coomaraswamy, to be the founders of the Traditionalist (or Perennialist) articulation of traditional spiritual truth. It seems that Traditionalist 'camps' have coalesced around these founding figures, particularly Guenon and Schuon and that relations are not always fraternal. It seems that after an initial friendship with Guenon, Schuon lost his favour. I don't know why. I think that's one of the good things about modern Australian culture: the cultural and ethnic animosities of the 'old world' seem a long way away. We tend to be skeptical of that kind of religious or political fervour that would descend into schismatic fanaticism.

A recent anthology of Schuon's writings has been published by World Wisdom Book under the title "The Fullness of God: Frithjof Schuon on Christianity" The following articles were prepared for use by World Wisdom in promoting the book on there website (in a 'slideshow' called The Fullness of God: Frithjof Schuon on Christianity). Rather than simply summarizing the 15 essays in the book, I chose to identify a series of important Christian and Schuonian themes and to write in accord with those themes.

Much care has been taken in these small thematic presentations to reflect his writings and (hopefully) his thinking on the subjects at hand rather than the point of view of the author - that is, me. I have not, however, always repeated his examples and quotations in my commentary but have at times added my own. I mention all of this because for me these are primarily scholarly works; so think of this as as the boring 'methodology' section. Supplementary material, not suited to the initial medium is being added over time.