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The Fullness of God: Frithjof Schuon on Christianity. By Frithjof Schuon. Ed. James S. Cutsinger. Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2004. Paper. 250 p. $19.95.
Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998), born in Basle, Switzerland, was one of the main representatives of the Perennialist school of comparative religious thought who believe in the existence of a primordial tradition which runs through the apparent diversity of religions; therefore, they claim a transcendent unity of religions. Schuon's emphasis that God is the center and all paths lead to Him, reminds one of John Hick's Copernican Revolution, moving from a Christocentric to a theocentric understanding, by which the different religious traditions are all in some way or other related to the same God. Yet this selection of writings, ably assembled by James Cutsinger, Professor of Theology and Religious Thought at the University of South Carolina, is not so much about religious traditions outside Christianity, but focuses mainly on Christianity itself. Cutsinger calls Schuon "one of the greatest spiritual teachers of our time," and "one of the twentieth century's foremost authorities on the world's religions" (xviii). He also considers Schuon rightly a man of prayer. Schuon was brought up as a Protestant, and then became a Roman Catholic, but was also friends with representatives from many other religious traditions, from Hinduism to native Americans and Shamans. Deeply steeped in the Christian religious tradition, Schuon has an amazing command of the Church Fathers and the Church's artistic, spiritual, and liturgical traditions.
But Cutsinger sees Schuon as "a metaphysician and esoterist,...