Religious Pluralism and Diversity
The study of the philosophical problems raised by the existence of many incompatible religious traditions, each claiming truth and salvific efficacy.
Definition
The branch of philosophy of religion concerned with how the plurality of mutually incompatible religious traditions bears on the truth, justification, and salvific claims of any one of them.
Scope
This area covers the threefold typology of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism regarding religious truth and salvation, the epistemological challenge that awareness of disagreement poses to the rationality of religious belief, and the related question of miracles as alleged evidence specific to particular traditions. It does not cover the argument from religious experience to God's existence, treated under arguments for the existence of God.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- Can at most one religion be true, or can many be paths to the same reality?
- Does awareness of equally sincere, informed believers in rival traditions undermine the rationality of one's own faith?
- Is religious exclusivism epistemically or morally objectionable?
- Can the great traditions be understood as diverse responses to a single ultimate reality?
Key theories
- Pluralistic hypothesis
- Hick argues that the major world religions are differently culturally conditioned but equally valid human responses to a single ineffable transcendent Real, so no one tradition has privileged access and all can be salvifically effective.
- Defense of exclusivism
- Plantinga argues that holding one's own religion true while judging incompatible claims false is not necessarily arrogant or irrational, since the pluralist faces the same charges and exclusivist belief can still be warranted.
History
Awareness of religious diversity sharpened with modern global contact and comparative religion. Hick developed the most influential pluralist hypothesis from the 1970s, drawing on a Kantian distinction between the Real in itself and as humanly experienced. Exclusivist and inclusivist replies followed, with Plantinga and Alston defending the rationality of committed religious belief amid diversity, and Hume's critique of miracles bearing on tradition-specific evidence.
Debates
- Whether religious diversity undermines exclusivism
- Pluralists such as Hick argue that the parity of traditions makes exclusivism arbitrary and arrogant; Plantinga and Alston reply that the pluralist position is itself one contested view among others and that exclusivist belief can remain warranted.
- Whether the pluralist hypothesis is coherent
- Hick posits an ineffable Real beyond all traditions' descriptions; critics object that an utterly ineffable Real cannot ground the substantive evaluative claims pluralism makes and effectively privileges a particular interpretation.
Key figures
- David Hume
- John Hick
- Alvin Plantinga
- William Alston
- William Rowe
Related topics
Seminal works
- hick1989
- plantinga1995
- alston1991
Frequently asked questions
- What is the pluralist hypothesis?
- Associated with John Hick, it is the view that the major world religions are equally valid responses to one ultimate transcendent reality, experienced and described differently through different cultural and conceptual lenses.
- Is religious exclusivism necessarily intolerant?
- Philosophers distinguish believing that one's own tradition is true (exclusivism about truth) from intolerance toward others; defenders argue one can hold exclusivist beliefs while respecting and engaging charitably with adherents of other faiths.