The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (743 page)

.

 
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(Heb.,
ner tamid
). The light kept burning before the
ark
in the Jewish
synagogue
. The
ner tamid
is a symbolic reminder of the golden seven-branched candlestick (
menorah
) which burned continually in the
temple
.

 
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Eternity
.

Not a long time, since ‘eternity’ does not enter into the dimension of time.
Brahman
and God have been thought of as ‘being’ of that eternal state, where there is no passing of
time
, although the passing of time is simultaneously present to Brahman/God. Thus Boethius defined eternity as
interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio
(‘the total, simultaneous and absolute possession of unlimited life’).

 
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Etheria
(early pilgrim to Jerusalem)
:

see
PILGRIMAGE
,
CHRISTIANITY
.

 
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Ethical monotheism
.

The worship of, and adherence to, one God which is based on practice, rather than arrived at as the conclusion of a philosophical argument. An example is the gradual insistence on
Yahweh
to the exclusion of other gods in the biblical period of Judaism.

 
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Ethics
.

The human concern for what is right and wrong, good and evil. Ethics arise from the human awareness of the future, combined with a lack of detailed knowledge about it. Lives and actions have to be projected into acknowledged but unknown futures, which at once makes evaluation inevitable: is a possible action right or wrong, wise or foolish, prudential or risky, good or evil? The attribution of value then extends to much else, and produces the characteristic recognition by humans of truth, beauty, and goodness, not as contingent or arbitrary, but as independent of the moment which gives rise to them—i.e. as absolutes. What
counts
as good or evil varies from age to age, culture to culture, though even then there is a considerable convergence which overrides what is known as
cultural relativity
.
Religions are aware of these universals as a matter of experience. They know that thoughts and actions based on the absolutes of truth, beauty, and goodness are to be endorsed and encouraged, and perhaps are to be rewarded after death, even if not in this life. Religious ethics are concerned, far more than secular ethics are, with the causes and consequences of evil. Nevetheless, they affirm (and give good grounds for doing so) the sovereignty of good.
On the basis of the experience of the human universal to make moral judgements and recognitions, religions have believed, in general, that there is a naturally good way to live and behave. In the E., this tends to be summarized under
dharma
, in the W. under
natural law
. Roughly speaking, if there is a consistent way for things to behave appropriately in the natural order (e.g. for stones to fall when dropped, or for the movement of planets to be predictable—hence the interest in the connections between those regularities and humans in
astrology
), it would be extremely odd if there were not a naturally good way for humans to live with each other. In the W., this led Aristotle to propose what has subsequently been elaborated as eudaimonism—human flourishing. What has been a matter of contest, within religions as well as between them, is whether what counts as ‘flourishing’ has been fixed for all time (e.g. in the word of God in revelation, whether Vedic, Biblical or Quranic), or whether there is a constant exegesis of the eudaimonic—no doubt on the basis of previous experience and revelation (where applicable), but nevertheless prepared to move and change. Aristotle, after all, could not imagine a world without slaves and the subordination of wives to husbands—it was both natural and eudaimonic for those concerned; we do not agree, because the detail of the eudaimonic is not fixed for all time in all respects.
On the same basis of the human universal to make judgements of what is right and wrong, good and evil, religions have developed many different styles of moral living and accountability. But all religions believe that we have some competence to take charge of the lives we project into whatever futures there may be, and to allow moral considerations to act upon our decisions. This is what it means to be human. If there is a basic human right (concerning which, in such terms, religions say little), it is the right to be human in this way—to be sufficiently free to exercise responsibility and accountability in this way.
Judaism
Jewish ethics are derived from
Torah
as the God-given revelation of the way in which the broken human condition (described graphically in the opening chapters of
Genesis
) can be repaired. Humans are not radically evil (the story of
Adam
and Eve is not understood as Christians understand it): they are confronted by the two
inclinations
. In this context, law merges with morality—and it was a dispute among the
rabbis
whether an act to be moral had to go
beyond
what the law required (
lifnim mi-shurat ha-din
, ‘beyond the boundary of the law’). It is perhaps simplest to say that law is the necessary, but not the sufficient, condition of the good life. In the vital
imitatio Dei
(
imitation of God
), the details are all derived from Torah itself. Judaism, while based on law, is not legalistic. There are in fact only three moral absolutes, summarized in
kiddush
ha-Shem; otherwise, much rabbinic discussion is devoted to ranking obligations in order of priority: saving life having precedent over keeping the
Sabbath
is an example.
Christianity
Christian ethics derive from the occasion when Jesus was asked, as teachers, especially rabbis, often were at that time, to give his
kelal
of Torah (choice of verse which summarizes Torah). His choice, the love of God and the love of one's neighbour, was neither unique nor controversial. This context-independent command of love had to be made context-specific: it had to be related to the circumstances in which the early and subsequent Christians found themselves. This is exactly what one finds
Paul
and others doing in the writings which became eventually the New Testament. For example, in 1 Corinthians, Paul states how they should deal with a case of incest, with dietary scruples, with marriage and virginity, with support of ministry, with the behaviour of women in services, until he bursts out, almost in exasperation, ‘I will show you a more excellent way’; and he reverts to the controlling, but context-independent, command of love. Christian ethics have oscillated through history between these extremes: on the one side, Situation Ethics, associated with Joseph Fletcher, emphasized the importance of each situation determining what is the most loving thing to do (echoing
Augustine's
,
Ama
,
et fac quod vis
, ‘Love, and do what you will’); on the other, when the
pope
defines a matter of morals (as also of faith), it is infallibly decided. Between the two, most Christians refer to the Bible (though with great division about whether or not the Bible, or at least the New Testament, should be treated as containing commands, applicable as non-negotiable law) and live their lives somewhere between the two extremes by the exercise of conscience. In the main forms of Christianity, conscience is the absolutely inviolable and sacrosanct centre of the person as human, as responsible for her or his decisions.
Islam
Since God has given to humans his guidance for their behaviour in the Qur’
n, Muslim ethics (
akhl
q
) are necessarily grounded in the Qur’
n. But as with all revelations, not every conceivable circumstance is covered in the Qur’
n. A second major source of guidance, therefore, lies in
ad
th
: Mu
ammad and his Companions were the first living commentaries on Qur’