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The Presuppositions of Religious Pluralism and the Need for Natural Theology

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Abstract

In ‘The Presuppositions of Religious Pluralism and the Need for Natural Theology’ I argue that there are four important presuppositions behind John Hick’s form of religious pluralism that successfully support it against what I call fideistic exclusivism. These are i) the ought/can principle, ii) the universality of religious experience, iii) the universality of redemptive change, and iv) a view of how God (the Eternal) would do things. I then argue that if these are more fully developed they support a different kind of exclusivism, what I call rational exclusivism, and become defeaters for pluralism. In order to explain rational exclusivism and its dependence on these presuppositions I consider philosophers J.P. Moreland, William Lane Craig, and Alvin Plantinga, who offer arguments for their forms of exclusivism but I maintain that they continue to rely on fideism at important points. I then give an example of how knowledge of the Eternal can be achieved.

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Notes

  1. Seager (1995), p. 111

  2. Seager, p. 82.

  3. Vivekananda (1983).

  4. Hick (1999), p. 77.

  5. Hick (1997), p. 163.

  6. ‘We call this attitude “exclusivism” in the sense that it assumes that one’s own tradition is the exclusive beneficiary of a vital gift or discovery -salvation, blessing, truth, - so that humankind beyond its borders lacks that all-important good. (Hick 1985). ‘Naturalism, then, is the belief that reality consists exclusively in the multiple forms of discharging energy that constitute the physical universe’ (Hick 1999, p. 14).

  7. Hick (1997), p. 163

  8. Hick (1980), p. 31.

  9. ibid., p. 21.

  10. ibid., p. 18.

  11. ibid., p. 48.

  12. For an example of an attempt to use religious experience to justify belief in a specific scripture, see Alvin Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief, beginning on p. 258. He also considers the objection from religious experience beginning on p. 324. If we grant that there is initial warrant from religious experience that disappears once defeaters are raised Plantinga’s considerations do not pose a problem for pluralism.

  13. A term used by Hick in (Hick 1980 p. 22).

  14. ibid., p. 34.

  15. Rowe (1999). and, Hick, The Possibility of Religious Pluralism: A Reply to Gavin D’Costa, p. 164.

  16. Hick, God has Many Names, p. 17. At this point in his account Hick is still using the term ‘God’, although he comes to use the term Eternal One to refer to ultimate reality.

  17. ibid., p. 31.

  18. ibid., p. 23.

  19. ‘we can see that the universe, so far as we are able to observe it, is ambiguous. As humanly conceived and experienced, it can have either a naturalistic or a religious character. It is possible to describe it, in principle, completely in naturalistic terms within which religious experience is included as imaginative projection and religious life as a response to that projection. But it is equally possible to describe it, again in principle, completely in ways that accept most of the naturalistic account but which set this in the context of a more encompassing spiritual reality, variously conceived and experienced as God, or Brahman, or the Dharma, or (in Chinese religion) Heaven, or the Tao, or in yet other forms.’ Hick 1999, p. 15.

  20. John Hick proposes that while evidence in this life is ambiguous, religious belief can still pass the test of empirical verification in the next life where it will be evident which view was correct. In his book Faith and Knowledge Hick accepts an empirical verification model for truth, and sets out to show that religious beliefs can satisfy the requirement of, at least in principle, empirical verification. (Hick 1957).

  21. Gill (1971), p. 141.

  22. Silver (2001), p. 15.

  23. Hick, God has Many Names, p. 23.

  24. A further question can be raised about whether or not mercy can be required or if it is by its nature a gift that can be given to some without being given to all.

  25. ibid., p. 24.

  26. Rowe, Religious Pluralism, p. 149.

  27. Hick, God Has Many Names, p. 17.

  28. Cobb (2005), p. 367.

  29. If there is no such knowledge available then it cannot be said that humans ought to be redeemed from the self-centered view. I’m assuming this implication is rejected by pluralism.

  30. Hick 1999, 77. This paper has studied pluralism as the conclusion of four important presuppositions. However, it is sometimes the outcome of skepticism about knowledge. If it is held that humans cannot know, then all views of the Eternal are epistemically equal. This is importantly different than the kind of pluralism considered in this paper which does make claims about the Eternal, although sometimes retreats into skepticism when challenged by the law of non-contradiction. A complete rebuttal of pluralism would need to include an argument showing that skepticism about the human ability to know the Eternal is misguided, and that some things can be known about the Eternal. For the purposes of this paper it can be affirmed that if humans cannot know at least some things about the Eternal then they cannot be responsible for their beliefs about the Eternal.

  31. Hiriyanna (2005), p. 220

  32. ibid., p. 222.

  33. Moreland and Craig (2003), p. 662

  34. ibid., p. 615.

  35. ibid., p. 615.

  36. ibid., p. 615.

  37. ibid., p. 464.

  38. ibid., p. 464.

  39. Plantinga (2002), p. 188.

  40. Moreland and Craig, 18.

  41. Plantinga (2000), p. 263.

  42. Plantinga, p. 453.

  43. Moreland and Craig, p. 615.

  44. Vivekananda, p. 673.

  45. Anselm (1968)

  46. Vasubandhu (2003), p. 94.

  47. Hiriyanna, p. 220.

  48. ibid., p. 222.

  49. Vivekananda, p. 672.

  50. Anselm, p. 244.

  51. ibid., p. 239.

  52. Vasubandhu, p. 71.

  53. See Plantinga, Warranted, p. 30.

  54. Plantinga, Warranted, p. 25.

  55. ibid., p. 29.

  56. ibid., p. 63.

  57. ibid., p. 62.

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  1. Integrative Studies Department, Arizona State University, 4501 W Thunderbird, Phoenix, AZ, 85069, USA

    Owen Anderson

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Anderson, O. The Presuppositions of Religious Pluralism and the Need for Natural Theology. SOPHIA 47, 201–222 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-008-0065-4

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