Three Ways Religions Pluralism Fails

Is it bigoted to claim that Christianity is the exclusive way God desires humanity to approach him? Many people think so, citing the importance of being tolerant of others' beliefs. But to simply allow a lot of different religious systems exist within a society would be a culture that allows for religious liberty or religious diversity. Episcopal Bishop John S. Spong has stated, "The idea that Jesus is the only way to God or that only those who have been washed in the blood of Christ are ever to be listed among the saved, has become anathema and even dangerous in our shrinking world."1

In today's parlance, tolerance doesn't mean we should allow others to practice their faith even though we believe it is false. Rather, it is interpreted to mean all religions are equally true or worthy. That seems to be the positon taken by Scotty McLennan, Dean of Religious Life at Stanford University, who preached a sermon entitled "Religious Pluralism as the Truth" at Stanford Memorial Church. He opened that message by declaring:

There are many roads to the top of the spiritual mountain. There's not just one way through Jesus Christ. As a Christian pluralist, I personally affirm Jesus as my way, as my Lord and Savior, but I also believe that the exclusivist claim is wrong. I have no doubt that Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father, at least figuratively speaking, but I believe that Moses, Muhammad, Krishna, the Buddha and Socrates do too, among others. They're all there at the top of the metaphorical spiritual mountain — they are all the way and the truth and the life — and no one comes to the Father except through a multitude of them, or by having walked in many footsteps, or by being in a large presence (whether one fully realizes that or not).2

I wonder just how carefully those who hold to such a view have considered their position. It seems to me that to hold the idea of equal worth of all religious faiths, one is forced into one of three positions: all faiths are true, all faiths are false, or the very concepts of true and false are meaningless. I'd like to look at these one at a time and see if they make any sense.

Knee-jerk Pluralism — "They're All True"

The first way one may intend the statement all religions are "way and the truth and the life' would be to make the claim that all religions are equally true. This may be what Dean McLennan is asserting above. However, as I demonstrated in a recent article, such claims make no logical sense. God cannot be the Christian's Triune deity and the Muslim's monadic deity and the Advaita's brahman (the non-personal ultimate soul of the universe3) as well. These are simply contradictory claims and logic tells us it is unreasonable to believe contradictions.

Sophisticated Pluralism — "They're All False"

Sometimes academics will recognize the contradictory nature of different faiths, but still hold a sincere belief that all religions offer the same worth. They are simply trying to communicate that all religions are in fact feeble attempts to express our approach to the divine. In other words, religions are simply cultural developments to explain the unknown or to establish certain moral guidelines and frameworks for the benefit of their particular society and the true reality is simply unknowable. One proponent of this view is philosopher John Hick who writes, "We cannot attribute to the Real a se any intrinsic attributes, such as being personal or nonpersonal, good or evil, purposive or nonpurposive, substance or process, even one or many… It is only as humanly thought or experienced that the Real fits into our human categories."4

This strikes me as an equivocation. It isn't illogical to hold the possibility that all faiths have it wrong, but it doesn't explain anything. It leaves us as agnostics who want to feel the warm-fuzzies of transcendence. But if everything is wrong, why should anyone believe there's a transcendent reality at all? Also, I don't think such a position takes the details of faith seriously enough. There are reasons why I am a Christian, good solid, rational reasons. Those should not be dismissed so easily.

Religious Relativism — "There Is No Truth"

The last option for the pluralist is to simply discount the notion of religious truth altogether. Alister McGrath summed up the view with the question, "How can Christianity's claims to truth be taken seriously when there are so many rival alternatives and when 'truth' itself has become a devalued notion? No one can lay claim to truth. It is all a question of perspective."5 Such a person would hold there is no way anyone can tell what is true since truth is different for each person. Therefore, beliefs are a personal matter based on the holder's perspective and they become true for that person.

However, to hold this is to become a relativist and give up any idea that statements of God have any significance at all. We cannot ascribe the existence of the universe, why there's something rather than nothing to God because we cannot make any meaningful statements about God that would be objectively true. The problem becomes in the grounding of the belief that "No one can lay claim to [religious] truth." How does the religious relativist know that claim is true? That strikes me as a claim about ultimate reality that applies to all people. How can one be so sure this belief objectively holds and then dismiss all other ultimate claims about reality as preferences and not objective?

Each of the three different approaches one must take to hold to religious pluralism fails in some way. Thus, exclusivist claims about religion are a much more rational position to hold.

References

1. Spong, John Shelby. A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith Is Dying and How a New Faith Is Being Born. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001. Print. 179.
2. McLellan, Scotty. "Religious Pluralism as the Truth." Stanford Office for Religious Life. Office for Religious Life, Stanford University. 22 May, 2011. Web. 14 Oct 2015. http://web.stanford.edu/group/religiouslife/cgi-bin/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/sermon_5-22-11_McLennan1.pdf
3. "Brahman | Hindu Concept." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 5 Mar. 2015. Web. 14 Oct. 2015. http://www.britannica.com/topic/brahman-Hindu-concept.
4. Hick, John. "A Pluralist View." Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World. Ed. Dennis L. Okholm and Timothy R. Phillips. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1996. 50. Print.
5. McGrath, Alister E. "Understanding and Responding to Moral Pluralism." Center for Applied Christian Ethic. Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois. February, 1994. 5. Web 14 Oct 2015. http://www.wheaton.edu/~/media/files/centers-and-institutes/cace/booklets/moralpluralism.pdf
Image courtesy Jyri Engestrom. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Commons.

Why "Many Ways to God" Makes No Sense

Oprah had a captive audience as she spoke on faith and belief. Referencing the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn she states "One of the mistakes that human beings make is that there is only one way to live, and that we don't accept that there are diverse ways of being in the world. There are millions of ways of being a human being and many paths to what you call God…"

I'm certain that many in the studio audience as well as at home agreed with her. The idea that the Christian faith could be the exclusive path to God usually spurs discomfort on the part of people who hear it explained that way. They don't like the idea of only one way and their immediate reaction is to think the Christian who holds to exclusivity is being biased in his or her own favor. But is this so? Let's take a look at a few reasons why people believe in Oprah's understanding of multiple paths to God and see if they make sense.

Exclusivity is Bigoted

In the Oprah quote above, you can immediately see how the television host reacts to the audience member who stated there is only one way to God. She called it a mistake and she tied the idea of communing with God to the diversity of human living on the globe. Many others I've spoken to have similarly challenged me, claiming that I was being bigoted by proposing my way as the only way to God. This concept has become even more prominent as we strive to become a more diverse and multicultural society.

Yet multiculturalism in and of itself tells us nothing about the truth value of any belief. For example, different belief systems vary greatly in how they understand even the fundamental aspects of who God is. Theraveda Buddhism doesn't hold to any kind of personal God at all while Judaism believes in a God who interacts with men. Islam is strictly monotheistic while Hinduism holds to a multiplicity of gods. How could these all be true?

All religions make exclusive claims about God. The fact that these claims exist tell us at least two things: not all religions can be right sine their claims about God stand in contradiction to one another and a claim of exclusivity does not automatically disqualify any belief from being right, lest they all be disqualified. The last point is simply logical and we recognize it in other areas. A lot of people wish to have children, but there's only one way to create a child and that involves combining male and female reproductive cells and gestation inside a womb. The process is exclusive. Men cannot become pregnant, but because it is exclusive doesn't mean that it is incorrect.

An All-Loving God Would Be More Accepting than Me

The second objection offered against an exclusive way to God is that an all-loving God would be more willing to look past the faults and flaws of individuals and see the desire to please him as enough. Such a position emphasizes one aspect of God's character at the expense of another; it touts God's grace and forgiveness without taking into account God's justice and holiness. It is very common for people to believe that all God needs is a sincere belief and a level of basic morality to please him. Of course, what counts as basic morality is left out of the discussion. Certain traditional Hindus would see the practice of sati (throwing a dead man's wife on his funeral pyre so she will burn with him) as proper. The word "sati" (sometimes transliterated "suttee") even means "good wife".1 Saudi Muslims believe that it is immoral for women to not be cloaked in a veil or in any space with a man that isn't an immediate relation. I'm sure that Oprah would see these kinds of subjugations as immoral, so the assertion strikes me as question-begging.

How do you know which actions done ion sincerity are the ones that would please God? Should God be angry with those who inflict female genital mutilation upon young girls? Would a just God allow that to "slide"? Does a perfectly holy God allow ANY sin a free pass or do they all need to be dealt with so that justice may be fully realized? Interestingly, only Christianity offers the solution to God's absolute holiness, God's full justice, and God's loving grace in the atoning death of Jesus.

The idea of many paths to God sounds good to our 21st century ears, but such a position usually shows the person who asserts such hasn't truly thought through the position carefully. God is not only forgiving, but holy and just. Any path to God must take those attributes into account before it can be considered viable.

References

1. Doniger, Wendy. "Suttee | Hindu Custom." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2015. http://www.britannica.com/topic/suttee.

Answering "You'd be Muslim if You Were Born in Morocco"

Have you ever tried to argue for the truth of Christianity and had a person object that "The only reason you're a Christian is because you were born in a Christian country. If you were born in a Muslim nation, you'd be Muslim"? It's a common charge that sounds like it makes sense, but as Alvin Plantinga shows below, nothing follows from it. Plantinga writes:

There is an oft-repeated pluralistic argument that seems to be designed to appeal to reliabilist intuitions. The conclusion of this argument is not always clear, but here is its premise, in Hick's words:

For it is evident that in some ninety-nine percent of cases the religion which an individual professes and to which he or she adheres depends upon the accidents of birth. Someone born to Buddhist parents in Thailand is very likely to be a Buddhist, someone born to Muslim parents in Saudi Arabia to be a Muslim, someone born to Christian parents in Mexico to be a Christian, and so on.

As a matter of sociological fact, this may be right. Furthermore, it can certainly produce a sense of intellectual vertigo. But what is one to do with this fact, if fact it is, and what follows from it? Does it follow, for example, that I ought not to accept the religious views that I have been brought up to accept, or the ones that I find myself inclined to accept, or the ones that seem to me to be true? Or that the belief-producing processes that have produced those beliefs in me are unreliable? Surely not. Furthermore, self-referential problems once more 100m; this argument is another philosophical tar baby.

For suppose we concede that if I had been born of Muslim parents in Morocco rather than Christian parents in Michigan, my beliefs would have been quite different. (For one thing, I probably wouldn't believe that I was born in Michigan.) The same goes for the pluralist. Pluralism isn't and hasn't been widely popular in the world at large; if the pluralist had been born in Madagascar, or medieval France, he probably wouldn't have been a pluralist. Does it follow that he shouldn't be a pluralist or that his pluralist beliefs are produced in him by an unreliable belief-producing process? I doubt it. 1

Plantinga clearly points out the propensity to identify with a belief because one is born into a certain culture does nothing to prove the truth or falsity of that belief. Sure, if I were to  be born in aboriginal Australia five thousand years ago, I probably wouldn't believe men could ever construct flying machines, but such a belief would be untrue.

Further, it doesn't even follow that I would continue to be a Muslim if I was born into a Muslim culture. I have several friends who were born and raised Muslim, and yet they converted to Christianity when they saw its truthfulness. Thus, the objection falls flat on every point.

References

1. Plantinga, Alvin. "A Defense of Religious Exclusivism." Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology. By Louis P. Pojman. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub., 1987. 651. Print.