446 a note on the three orientationsTh ey arose from a series of spiritual innovations or revolutions that
occurred across more than a thousand years, from the beginnings of
prophetic Judaism in the eighth century b.c. to the rise of Islam in the
seventh century a.d. Th ey diverged radically from one another. Never-
theless, they shared important common ground: the commonalities
are all the more striking in light of the depth of the divergence. I have
emphasized these shared elements for a polemical and programmatic
reason as well as for their intrinsic importance. Th e direction for which
I have argued breaks with this common ground in some ways while
clinging to it in others.
In the pre sen ta tion of these views, I have thus repeatedly referred to
the religious revolutions of the past, or to the turn to transcendence
that they brought about, and contrasted them, in practice and doctrine,
with a religious revolution of the future. Th ese claims and proposals
will naturally evoke, in anyone familiar with the contemporary litera-
ture on the history of religion, the idea of the Axial Age.
Th e purpose of this note is twofold. First, I seek to compare and
contrast my argument about three major orientations to existence
with the ideas associated with the concept of an Axial Age. In this re-
spect, my aim is to prevent the misunderstandings that would result if
my treatment of the three orientations were to be read in the context of
the notion of the Axial Age. Second, this note uses the contrast with
the Axial Age thesis to sketch the relation of my account of the three
orientations to the history of ideas about world religions. By address-
ing these two goals here, in a separate note, rather than in the main
body of the work, I avoid interrupting the fl ow of an argument that is
meant to be philosophical and theological rather than historical and
comparative.
Th e contemporary use of the idea of an Axial Age begins in Karl
Jaspers’s Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (On the Origins and
Goal of History), published in 1949. He argued that a par tic u lar histori-
cal period, extending from about 800 b.c. to 300 b.c. but chiefl y con-
centrated around 500 b.c., saw the emergence of a view of the world
that has shaped our most general religious and philosophical ideas ever
since. Th is view stood in sharp contrast to earlier forms of religion and
of speculative thought. It was not simply a turn to transcendence— to a
higher realm of reality, regulative of our thought and conduct. It was