. Describe how one of these forms of religious pluralism is an attack against the uniqueness of Jesus|Course hero helper

Posted: February 18th, 2023

APOL 500

Discussion Assignment Instructions

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The student will complete two discussions in this course. The student will post one thread of at least 400 words for the assigned Module: Week. There are two parts to each prompt, so approximately half of the 400 words should be dedicated to each part. For each thread, students must support their assertions with at least one scholarly citation for each prompt part. Be sure to avoid extended quotes. These citations must be in current Turabian format. Acceptable sources include the textbooks and the Bible.

Some attacks that cast doubts on Christianity come from one of several types of pluralism, that is, from an inclusive understanding of religious belief. The following are discussed in Gould:

a. Simple Religious Pluralism (Gould p. 129-31)

b. Sophisticated Religious Pluralism – Knitter’s Version (Gould p. 131-32)

c. Sophisticated Religious Pluralism – Hick’s Version (Gould p. 132-37)

All three versions are really an attack on the uniqueness of Jesus.

In this discussion, you will need to do two things:

1. Describe how one of these forms of religious pluralism is an attack against the uniqueness of Jesus (use of the textbook is required here but other sources may be of great help).

2. Construct a scriptural argument in defense of the uniqueness of Jesus (while using sources for support is good, be sure that your argument in dependent on scripture and not on those sources).

Religious Pluralism Defined

What, then, is religious pluralism? Religious pluralism is the view that there are many (i.e., a plurality of) ways to God—where “God” is broadly construed to mean any ultimate reality beyond the natural world—and that many (if not most or even all) of the religions of the world provide these ways. It follows from this that, for the pluralist, there is no one religion that is exclusively correct.

There are many ways to be a pluralist. Let’s first look at what we will call simple religious pluralism (simple RP) according to which all or most religious views are literally correct. Though the view is simple and even somewhat naive, it is very common among students (and most Hollywood celebrities!). There is something attractive about simple RP in the sense that we never have to say someone’s view is wrong. We never have to rain on anyone’s religious parade. Everybody is right about everything!

Sounds great, right? Well, get your umbrella; it’s about to rain. The problem with the view is it is logically incoherent!

Christianity says that God is trinitarian (three persons in one). Islam says that God is strictly unitary (no division at all). Buddhism says that there is no personal God. The obvious problem here is that, just as a matter of logic, these couldn’t all be true. It couldn’t be that God is trinitarian, strictly unitarian, and nonexistent. If God is trinitarian, then this logically entails that God is not strictly unitary. If the Muslim is right that God is unitary, then it follows that the Buddhist is wrong in thinking God does not exist. Each of these could perhaps be false (i.e., polytheism could be true), but they cannot logically all be true. In sum, simple RP is logically incoherent since religious traditions make mutually incompatible claims.

If this weren’t bad enough, simple RP is also self-refuting. Suppose one had the religious view (as most Christians arguably do) that simple RP is false. Given the thesis of simple RP—that all religious views are true—this would mean that it is true that simple RP is false (let that sink in!). Thus the truth of simple RP would have the logically incomprehensible consequence of falsifying simple RP.

So, though simple RP is a common view, it is not a defensible view. The view literally collapses under its own logical weight.

But why do people hold this view? It is sometimes claimed that religious exclusivity is arrogant and that simple RP is a position of tolerance. But these claims are unsustainable as well. Exclusivism can’t be thought arrogant merely because the exclusivist claims that his or her view is true. To see why, consider that pluralists also claim their view is true and would then also be arrogant. Moreover, it is difficult to understand what it means to say that a claim itself is arrogant. This seems to be a category error—this is where a property or attribute is ascribed to something that can’t possibly possess that property or attribute (e.g., to say, “The color red is heavy”). Claims are either true or false. It is people (or, more specifically, the way people act) that are either arrogant or humble. Though one may defend exclusivism in an arrogant way, one may defend it with humility as well. The pluralist can also act arrogantly (or humbly). The views themselves are neither arrogant nor humble, and it is a category error to think they are.

How about tolerance? Is it intolerant to be an exclusivist and tolerant to be a pluralist? Tolerance has become something of a contemporary buzzword. It is often taken to mean that we are tolerant insofar as we believe all views are equally valid. That is, it is intolerant to claim that one view is true and the rest false. If this is how we understand tolerance, then of course the exclusivist is intolerant. However, is the pluralist tolerant in this sense? No, not even close. The pluralist claims our view, the view of Christian exclusivism, is false. It claims that all exclusivist views are false. Given that the pluralist disagrees, this makes the pluralist, by definition, intolerant as well.

But this is not what tolerance really even means. A more sensible definition is the idea that even though we believe others have false beliefs, we respect their right to hold to and defend alternate beliefs (i.e., we do not silence them, inflict violence on them, unfairly tax them, etc.). We are all for this idea of tolerance, since it allows for meaningful discussion. But this definition assumes that we in fact disagree with (i.e., assert the falseness of) contrary views. After all, if we didn’t disagree, then there wouldn’t be a reason to tolerate them.

Sophisticated Religious Pluralism

There is a more sophisticated version of religious pluralism (henceforth RP). Here the view is that all religions are, strictly speaking, false. That is, all religions, insofar as they make specific claims about God and transcendent reality, are false regarding those specific claims. Now, this might sound like atheism. But the sophisticated religious pluralist thinks, unlike the atheist, that there is a reality to which the religions of the world point. Though they believe that the specific claims of specific religions are, in their literal sense, false, most religions do provide a way to reach, in some sense, this supernatural or transcendent reality. That is, each religion provides a valuable and helpful framework for approaching transcendent reality with none being the exclusively right way of approach. That Jesus died to secure our salvation with God, though literally false as the means of salvation, helps Christians approach this supernatural reality. Whereas, following the pillars of Islam, though not literally currying favor from Allah, is valuable for getting in touch with the ultimate reality for Muslims. And so on, for the religions of the world.

What reasons are there for thinking there is a plurality of ways to approach God? Even though the view is more sophisticated, the arguments for this thesis are not always very compelling. Consider Columbia University professor Paul Knitter’s defense of RP, for example: “I suspect that one of the few things that all Christians—no matter what their denominational or theological colorings—would agree on is the recognition that God is a reality that no human mind can fully grasp.” He quotes certain church councils and the likes of Thomas Aquinas and Paul Tillich where they each make the point, in effect, that “God will always transcend, always be more than, what human beings can know or what God can give them to know.” He goes on:

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