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RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY II
Religious Pluralism
Religious pluralism is an attempt to show that more than one religion (if not, all) can be true and lead to salvation.
It seems possible to find the roots of such a pluralist view particularly in the mystical traditions of some major religions.
One pluralistic attempt has been to show that there is a transcendental unity of religions.
Another pluralistic view will be to see all different beliefs or beliefs-systems
as equally authentic manifestations of the ultimate being.
John Hick and the Pluralistic Hypothesis
In the contemporary philosophy of religion, John Hick has been the leading philosopher to defend religious pluralism.
Hick’s defence of religious pluralism is based on the hypothesis that different religions, particularly the great (post-axial) religions are equally authentic responses to deity.
The starting point of Hick is that the world is religiously ambiguous. Hence
the pluralistic hypothesis is advanced as an explanation for such religious
phenomena.
Hick starts with various instances of religious experience as embodied in different religious traditions, theistic and non-theistic alike.
In order to avoid a naturalistic interpretation, Hick proposes that all these religions or instances of religious experience can be seen as different human responses to the same Reality, which he calls «the Real».
In his attempt to ground such an hypothesis he employs the Kantian distinction of noumena and phenomena together with idea of categories which are active in the interpretation of the religious experince.
However, unlike the Kantian categories, the categories of religious
experience are not universal but culture-relative.
Given such philosophical background, Hick argues that the theistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam as well as non-theistic religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism are different phenomenal representations or manifestations of the same noumenal Real, which is beyond any experience and conceptualisation. No categories apply to the Real an sich. One can refer to the Real an sich only in terms of formal properties.
What makes a religion an authentic representation of the Real is its ability to transfer one from being «self-centered» to «Reality-centered».
In so doing, one has to follow the Golden Rule, that is, to presume the same
«cognitive vericality» to the claims of religious experience in other traditions.
Evaluation
Hick’s plurastic hypothesis raises some important philosophical and theological questions:
How can different religions with contradictory truth claims be equally authentic representation of the same Reality or «the Real»?
If the Real in itself is beyond our epistemic ken, what reasons are there for thinking that all these religions are the representation or manifestations of the Real in itself.
The criterion proposed in terms of transferring from being «self-centered» to
«Reality-centered» can be helpful only if one can grasp (know) what the Real is.
