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Creating Options: Shattering the ‘Exclusivist, Inclusivist, and Pluralist’ Paradigm

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Ian Markham
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Organization and classification of material is essential as an aid to effective communication. Good teachers and writers will use labels to organize material, which play a valuable role in simplifying a debate. They provide a way in for the student or reader. However, this organization and classification of material is not a neutral and objective enterprise. One’s classification will hide certain basic decisions and options.

It is the argument of this article that the ‘theology of religions’ debate has been stifled by an over-emphasis on the standard threefold paradigm. I will be taking issue with John Hick’s judgment: ‘the simplest and least misleading classification is the now fairly standard threefold division into exclusivism (salvation is confined to Christianity), inclusivism (salvation occurs throughout the world but is always the work of Christ), and pluralism (the great world faiths are different and independently authentic contexts of salvation/liberation) ‘. I am not alone in wanting to point out the cracks in this paradigm, but I want to go a stage further and attempt to formulate one option which cannot be embraced by the traditional paradigm.

The underlying problem with the traditional classification results from the conflation of three matters:

1. The conditions for salvation.

2. Whether the major world religions are all worshipping the same God.

3. The truth about the human situation.

The traditional paradigm emphasizes the first, is confused about the second, and, with regard to the third, links truth questions with soteriology. This is easily exposed as unsatisfactory.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 74 , Issue 867 , January 1993 , pp. 33 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 John Hick, Review of Glyn Richards, Towards a Theology of Religions, in Religious Studies Vol.26, no.1, March 1990, p.175. Those working in the Theology of Religions who have emphasized the traditional paradigm include: D'Costa, Gavin, Theology and Religious Pluralism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1986)Google Scholar and Race, Alan, Christians and Religious Pluralism (London: SCM Press 1983)Google Scholar. Also one finds Paul Knitter, although less overt, is still working within this paradigm in No Other Name? A Critical Study of Christian Attitudes Towards the World Religions (London: SCM Press 1985)Google Scholar.

2 Some who claim to be breaking the paradigm are in fact simply sophisticated inclusivists. Michael Barnes in Christian Identity and Religious Pluralism: Religions in Conversation (London: SPCK 1989)Google Scholar develops a trinitarian framework which is still Christian. Those more entitled to claim the destruction of this paradigm are scholars like Ken Surin in D'Costa, Gavin (ed.) Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered: The Myth of the Pluralistic Theology of Religions (New York: Orbis 1990)Google Scholar.

3 This is what D'Costa considers central. See D'Costa, Theology and Religious Pluralism p.4.

4 See for example Ward, Keith, Images of Eternity, (London: D.L.T. 1987)Google Scholar. Hick is wrong in The Interpretation of Religion, (Basingstoke: Macmillian 1989) to treat Ward as an uncomplicated ally. For all Ward has done is show the remarkable similar sets of ways in which orthodox accounts of the ulitimate in each religion agrees. This should be treated as phenomenal evidence for the orthodox claim that the same reality is underpinning all the major religions of the world.

5 See John Hick, The Interpretation of Religion, p.233f.

6 See St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, translated T.C.O 'Brien Volume 31, 2a 2ae Question 1, especially article 2, (London: Blackfriars 1974) p. 11 ff.

7 One should note the sentiments in Matthew 25, where action to those suffering is the criteria for determining human destiny. Perhaps there is a divide between Pauline/epistles stress on belief and Jesus/Gospels' stress on actions?

8 See Price, H.H., Belief (London: George Allen and Un win 1969)Google Scholar.

9 The complexity of the nature of religious experience is beyond the confines of this paper. Perhaps the most public example of someone with a religious sensitivity but never granted an experience is Michael Goulder. See Goulder, Michael and Hick, John, Why Believe in God?, (London: SCM Press 1983)Google Scholar chapter 1.

10 Dr. Paul Avis finds this the weakest part of the paper. He argues that attitudes and dispositions depend on both experience and beliefs. It is to answer this criticism that the paper now goes on to develop a psychological analysis between dispositions/actions and beliefs.

11 This might seem much like Hans Kung ethical criterion which is his fourth ecumenical strategy. Clearly, there are similarities but Kung has not disentangled the questions in the way that I have done. For see, Kung, Global Responsibility, (London: SCM Press 1990) p.77–90Google Scholar.

12 Few have developed the religious significance of the lack of certainty. Why has God allowed such significant epistemological problems to surround our metaphysics? This question is important for the faith and reason relationship. Alasdair MacIntye has argued that it was always inappropriate to seek complete certainty: this was‐ and is the Enlightenment's error. Yet religious faith is precisely a certainty of belief which his ‘tradition‐constituted enquiry’ will never justify. For A. MacIntyre see Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (London: Duckworth 1988)Google Scholar. For further discussion of this point see my article ‘Faith and Reason: Reflections on MacIntyre's“Tradition‐Constituted Enquiry’” in Religious Studies vol.27, no.2, June 1991 p.259–267Google Scholar.

13 For Demam, V.A. see The Religious Prospect (London: Frederick Muller 1939)Google Scholar.

14 See Ward, Keith, ‘Truth and Diversity in Religions’ in Religious Studies, Vol.26, no. 1, March 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 For Ken Sunn, see ‘A “Politics of Speech”’ in D'Costa, (ed.) Christiam Uniqueness Reconsidered p.135f.

16 For Lesslie Newbigin, see ‘Religion for the Market place’ D'Costa (ed.) Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered p. 135 f.

17 An important point made by B.L. Hebblethwaite in his presidential address ‘God and Truth’ at the S.S.T. Conference in Oxford 1989.

18 Mention must be made of those who offered critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper: Dr. Paul Avis, Dr. John Saxbee, Professor Leslie Houlden, and my colleagues at Exeter. Special thanks are due to Dr. Richard Burhdge and the Chapel Society at Exeter University.