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8/16/2019 Peter Donovan - The Intolerance of Religious Pluralism [a]
1/14
The Intolerance of Religious PluralismAuthor(s): Peter DonovanSource: Religious Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Jun., 1993), pp. 217-229Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20019607 .
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8/16/2019 Peter Donovan - The Intolerance of Religious Pluralism [a]
2/14
Rel. Stud.
29,
pp. 217-229.
Copyright
?
1993
Cambridge University
Press
PETER DONOVAN
THE
INTOLERANCE
OF
RELIGIOUS
PLURALISM
The
pluralistic approach
to
religions
has
come
in
for
some
serious criticism
in
recent
writings.
I shall
consider
two
examples
in
particular.
The
first is the
book
Christian
Uniqueness
Reconsidered:
The
Myth
of
a
Pluralistic
Theology
of
Religions,
edited
by
Gavin D'Costa.1 This is a collection of
essays
offered in
response
to
The
Myth
of
Christian
Uniqueness,
edited
by
John
Hick and
Paul
Knitter.2
The second
example
is
an
essay
by
Paul
Morris,
'Judaism
and
Pluralism: the
Price
of
"Religious
Freedom"',
in
Religious
Pluralism and
Unbelief,
edited
by
Ian
Hamnett.3
Gavin D'Costa and the other defenders of Christian
uniqueness,
in
framing
what
they
call
'a
proper
Christian reflection
on
religious
diversity',
do
not
simply
offer
customary
theological
reaffirmations.
They
set
out,
as
well,
to
attack
pluralism
itself,
using
in
some cases
the
most
up-to-date
of
weapons,
a
postmodernist critique
of the whole
Enlightenment
tradition of
intellectual
liberalism. Paul
Morris,
in
framing
his
objections
to
religious
pluralism,
similarly
criticizes
liberalism,
particularly
as a
political
ideology
and
pro?
gramme.
He,
too,
is
impressed
by postmodernist
writings
with their
suspicion
of Western
rationality
and
its claims
to
universality.
I
shall
attempt
to
clarify
some
main
elements in
these
critiques,
and
consider what
implications they
may
have for
the
academic
study
of
religions
as
a
liberal,
pluralist
enterprise.
OBJECTIONS
TO PLURALISM
Since the
early
1970s,
writers
on
religious
diversity
and
plurality (John
Hick
in
particular)
have
commonly
classified
into
exclusivist,
inclusivist,
and
pluralist
the
possible
attitudes
people might
hold towards
religions
other
than
their
own.
The
implication
has
been,
for
most,
that these
attitudes
range
from
the
less
generous
or
tolerant
(i.e.
exclusivist)
to
the
more
so
{i.e.pluralist).
('Plural?
ism' here
means
regarding
the
world's faiths
as
being
more or
less
equally
valid,
or
at
least
equally
capable
of
making
their
contribution
to
an
on-going
search for common religious insight and understanding.)
What is
being alleged,
by
the
new
wave
of
writing
critical of such
a
position,
is that
genuine
tolerance of
differences
and
respect
for
otherness
is
1
Christian
Uniqueness
Reconsidered
(Maryknoll,
New York:
Orbis,
1990).
2
The
Myth of
Christian
Uniqueness
(London:
SCM
Press,
1988).
3
Religious
Pluralism
and
Unbelief (London:
Routledge,
1990),
pp.
179-201.
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8/16/2019 Peter Donovan - The Intolerance of Religious Pluralism [a]
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2l8
PETER
DONOVAN
by
no
means
an
assured
outcome
of
a
pluralist
attitude. On the
contrary,
pluralism
is
coercive. It does
not
allow others
simply
to
be themselves.
To
play
the
pluralist
game
properly, parties
are
expected
to countenance
quite
radical
reinterpretations
and
amendments
being
made
to
their
own
positions
as
well
as
those
of others. Pluralism
presupposes
liberalism,
which
involves
compromise,
accommodation,
and
the
dismantling
of
distinctive
traditional
convictions.
The
common
features and
agreed
truths it
purports
to
arrive
at,
through
embracing
a
wide
range
of
viewpoints,
are
in
fact
simply
reinforce?
ments
for
the
political
and economic interests of
a
dominant
ideology.
Religious
pluralism,
as
found
in
writers
like
John
Hick,
Wilfred Cantwell
Smith and Ninian
Smart,
is
charged
with
being similarly
a
product
of the
'Enlightenment mentality',
a
lingering
form
of
European
cultural
imperial?
ism which
today's
more
politically perceptive
intellectuals have
seen
through
and
are
learning
to
live
without.
Let
us
look
first
at
this
critique
as
it
is formulated
in
Christian
Uniqueness
Reconsidered.
In
introducing
the
book,
Gavin
D'Costa remarks how
pluralistic
theology
'often
seems
to
hinder rather than
aid
a
proper
recognition
of
religious
plurality'.4
Christoph
Schw?bel
notes
how
the
pluralist
approach,
contrary
to
its avowed
intentions,
seems
to
rest
on
the
picture
of
an
ultimate
noumenal focus
or a common
anthropological
basis of all
religions
'
which
allows their distinctive
particularity
only
a
penultimate
and
preliminary
status'.5
J.
A.
DiNoia
points
out
that the
pluralist proposals
under discussion
[i.e.
those
in
Hick
and
Knitter's
Myth
of
Christian
Uniqueness]
do
not
so
much
account
for the
diversely
featured
religious
world
they
observe
as
suggest
some
important
changes
in it.
They
can
be read
as
in
effect
inviting
the
Christian
community
and,
by
implication,
other
religious
communities
as
well,
to
entertain and
adopt
certain
revisions of their
doctrines...6
Lesslie
Newbigin
sees
pluralism
as
akin
to
the
competitive
economic
liberalism
on
which the
developed
world
at
the
moment
is hell-bent...
'
a
form of
paganism
which surrenders
ultimate
authority
to
"the
market'".7
J?rgen
Moltmann
also likens
pluralism
in
religion
to
the consumerism
of
Western
society,
and
accuses
it
of
a
'repressive
tolerance',
which allows
everything
a
subjective possibility
but
is
sceptical
about
any
objective
reality
being
adequately
mediated
by religious
symbols.8
It
is
in
the
chapters
by John
Milbank
and Kenneth
Surin,
however,
that
the
most
pointed
criticisms,
in
the
postmodernist
idiom,
are
offered. Milbank
alleges
that
pluralist
theologies
are
in
fact
pervaded
by
a
rhetoric of
liberalism
'which assumes the propriety of theWest-inspired nation-state and theWest
inspired
capitalist
economy.
'9
And
Surin,
after
comparing
the
global
preten?
sions
of
Enlightenment
liberalism
to
the
marketing
of the
Macdonald's
hamburger,
concludes:
4
Christian
Uniqueness
Reconsidered,
p.
xi.
5
Ibid.
p. 33.
6
Ibid.
p.
121.
7
Ibid.
p. 147.
8
Ibid.
p.
152.
9
Ibid.
p.
175.
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RELIGIOUS PLURALISM
210,
Traditional
liberal
intellectuals
pride
themselves
on
acknowledging heterogeneity
and
plurality,
but this
acknowledgement
is
always
fatally
compromised
by
a
de?
ployment
of
homogeneous logic
- a
logic
which irons out the
heterogeneous precisely
by
subsuming
it
under the
categories
of
comprehensive
and
totalizing global
and
world
theologies...
'I
am
convinced',
he
continues,
'that the time of this
modernist
general
intellectual
is
over,
even
in
the
philosophy
and
theology
of
religions.'10
The
heat
at
times evident
in
these attacks
on
pluralism
is
partly
explained,
no
doubt,
by
the fact that the
writers
being
criticized
(i.e.
the
contributors
to
The
Myth
of
Christian
Uniqueness,
and those
elsewhere
in
the
even
more
provocatively
titled
Myth
of
God
Incarnate)
contemplate
some
very
radical
revisions of the central Christian doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trin?
ity. They
do this
partly
on
the
grounds
that
exclusivism
based
on
such
doctrines has been the
source
of
much
injustice
and
oppression.
A
radical
rethinking
of
those
beliefs,
they
believe,
would
remove
a
serious
impediment
to
inter-religious harmony
and
reconciliation.
It is
not
surprising
that de?
fenders of traditional
Christianity,
however
ready
they
may
be
to
look
with
greater
sympathy
than
in
the
past
on
the other faiths of
the
world,
will
vigorously
reject
such
theologies
if
they
seem
to
involve massive
departures
from central Christian
tenets.
It is
also,
of
course,
a
shrewd tactical
move
for
confessional Christian
theologians
to
complain
that
pluralism
puts
the
distinctives of
other faiths
equally
at
risk.
A
conservative
stance
which also
champions
the
right
of
'
the
other'
to
be left alone
can
thus
be
seen
to
take
over
the moral
high
ground,
in
the
area
of
inter-faith
dialogue
and
co-operation.
And
if
the
rhetoric of
postmodernism
lends
itself,
temporarily
anyway,
to
the
chastening
of
liberals,
then
so
much the
better
it
would
seem.
(Though
a
cynic might
well be
intrigued
to
see
the
descendants
of
Calvin and
of the
Inquisition joining
forces
with
the
disciples
of
Nietzsche
to
give
lessons
on
tolerance
to
the
children of
the
Enlightenment )
Leaving
that
irony
aside for
a
moment,
we
must
consider the
possibility
that
these critics of
pluralism,
whatever
their
theological
agenda
may be,
are
raising
issues
with
serious
implications
for the
theory
and
practice
of
aca?
demic
religious
studies
itself.
Does
this
discipline's
high-minded
commitment
to
freedom of
thought
contain,
in
its
implicit
assumptions,
a
capacity
for
coerciveness which
destroys
its would-be
neutrality,
and
makes
it
through
and-through
ideological, intrinsically
intolerant
and
culturally
hegemonic?
THE
POSTMODERNIST
CRITIQUE
The
postmodernist
critique
can
be
simply expressed.
The
value
placed by
philosophers
in
the
Enlightenment
tradition
on
freedom
of
thought,
toler?
ance
of
dissent,
and the
search for
truth
through
agreed
empirical
methods,
10
Ibid.
p.
210.
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8/16/2019 Peter Donovan - The Intolerance of Religious Pluralism [a]
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220
PETER DONOVAN
was
because
such
an
approach
provided
an
escape-route
from
the domi?
nation
of
entrenched
ideology
and authoritarian
tradition.
But the
resulting
Liberalism,
it
is
alleged,
with
the institutions and
disciplines
committed
to
it
(intellectual,
political,
and
economic),
has
developed
an
equally
totalitarian
character and become
just
such
a
system
of
power-structures.
As Morris
in
his
essay says,
commenting
on
Michel
Foucault's
analysis
of
the
coercive
powers
of
liberalism
:
A state
whose
success
is
measured in
terms
of
the introduction
of modern
mercantile
economies
requires
the
management
of
individuals,
goods,
family
wealth,
etc. to
facilitate
this
economy.
No
aspect
of
life,
customs,
traditions, ways
of
thinking
and
doing,
is
exempt
from this end
and
its attendant
disciplines.11
Underlying
this abuse
of
power
by
the
state
is
'
the liberal
discourse of
reason
and
progress
'.
Using
examples
from
Jewish
experience,
Morris
demon?
strates
ways
in
which
'
the
supposed
universal
notion of
liberal
rationality
can
and does have
grave
consequences
for
religious
traditions
in
the
context
of
the
modern
state'.12
At
this
point
a
preliminary
attempt
could be made
to answer
the
critique
of liberalism outlined
so
far. We
might
begin
by
drawing
a
distinction
between
respect
for
liberty
of
opinion
as
an
epistemological principle,
and
liberalism as a total belief-system and political policy. The former we may
call
epistemic
liberalism
;
the
latter,
ideological.
Not
all
liberal thinkers
by
any
means,
we
might
argue,
have
been
ideologically
committed
to
a
'
modernist
'
project
whereby
the
beliefs and
practices
of others
are
to
be
progressively
brought
into line with
a
secular, scientific,
and
humanistic
world-view,
to
form
a
uniform
global
culture.
The
intentions
of
most
liberals involved
in the
study
of
religion
have
been
far
more
modest
:
the conscientious
application
of
the
best
scholarship
they
knew
to
the
questions
before
them.
Only
when
urged
on
by
secular
voices,
perhaps,
or
provoked
by
the
reactionary
response
of the guardians of orthodoxy, have they found themselves taking on the role
of
crusaders
for
a new
world
order.
The
modernist
ideology,
it
could be
argued,
has
in
many
ways
been
thrust
upon
liberal
scholarship,
rather than
being
inevitably
bound
up
with
it.
Such
a
fundamental
confusion
about
liberalism
may
well
infect the
dis?
cussion
of
religious
pluralism,
when
critics
fail
to
distinguish
pluralistic
tolerance
as
an
epistemic
requirement,
from
ideological
pluralism
as
a
faith
commitment,
super-theology,
or
universal
way
of salvation.
It
is
clearly
one
thing
to
say
pluralism
is
a
way
to
finding
truth,
and
quite
another
to
say
Pluralism is the Truth. If the main
objection
to the
religious
pluralists
is that
they
have been
too
ready
to
suggest
what
must
be
the
truth
of the
matter,
and have
attempted
to
manufacture
agreement
on
that truth
by carrying
out
radical
surgery
on
the
traditions,
then
the
criticisms
may
be sound
ones.
Despite
describing
their efforts
as
'hypotheses'
only,
pluralist
theologians
11
In
Hamnett, ed.,
Religious
Pluralism
and
Unbelief,
p.
192.
12
Ibid.
p.
193.
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RELIGIOUS
PLURALISM
221
such
as
the
contributors
to
volumes like
The
Myth
of
Christian
Uniqueness
may
well,
at
times,
have laid themselves
open
to
the
charge
of
seeking
to
promote
some
new,
all-embracing, global
ideology,
a universal faith or World
Theology.
If this
is
so,
then
it is of
course
vitally
important
for
the
practice
of
religious
studies
that
a
clear
distinction be
preserved.
The
pluralist approach
to
religions
adopted
on
epistemic
and
methodological grounds
is
quite
a
dif?
ferent
matter
from
pluralistic hypotheses,
soteriologies
or
theologies
offered
for
ideological
or
confessional
reasons.
Both
fall
within
the
subject-matter
with
which
religious
studies
concerns
itself.
But
the
profound
difference
between the
two
must
be
clearly
recognized
(however
difficult
it
may
be
to
do
so
owing
to
the
frequent
overlap
on
the
part
of
scholars, institutions,
publishers,
and wider
audiences with
an
interest
in
both
activities).
LIBERALISM,
TOLERANCE,
AND FALLIBILITY
How far does the distinction between
epistemic
and
ideological
pluralism
go,
towards
answering
the
postmodernist
critique
outlined above?
I
believe
it
is
crucial,
but
it
may
well
seem
to
be
only
the
beginning
of
a
much
larger
debate.
For
might
it
not
be claimed that it
is
in
fact
at
the
epistemic
level
that
liberalism
is
most
at
fault,
when it
comes
to
complicity
in
the
prevailing
Western
ideology
and
structures
of
power?
Is it
not
on
this
count,
the
identification
of
knowledge
and truth with
power
and
domination,
that
writers such
as
Foucault and
Lyotard
make
their
most
penetrating analyses?
One
way
to
approach
this
question
might
be
to
consider
the
classic defence
of
epistemic
liberalism found
in
J.
S.
Mill's
essay
On
Liberty,
in
the
chapter
on
the
liberty
of
thought
and
discussion.
Mill
writes
:
The
peculiar
evil of
silencing
the
expression
of
an
opinion
is,
that it is
robbing
the
human race ;posterity as well as the existing generation ; those who dissent from the
opinion,
still
more
than those who hold it. If the
opinion
is
right, they
are
deprived
of
the
opportunity
of
exchanging
error
for truth
;
if
wrong,
they
lose,
what
is almost
as
great
a
benefit,
the
clearer
perception
and livelier
impression
of
truth,
produced
by
its collision with
error.13
Tolerance
of free
thought,
Mill
argues,
is the
best
guarantee
there is that
truth will
emerge
from
debate,
and that
knowledge
will be
maintained
on
the
basis
not
of
authority
and
prejudice,
but
of
rational
assurance
arising
from
the
continuing
need
to
withstand refutation.
Mill
himself makes
no
attempt
to
disguise
the
paradox implicit
in
such
a
position.
When truth does
emerge
out
of
diversity
of
opinion,
error
is
thereby
excluded. And the
greater
the
degree
of
agreement
as
to
truth,
the less the
scope
for tolerance of
disagreement
-
or so
it
would
seem.
Mill
puts
it
thus:
13
John
Stuart
Mill,
'On
Liberty' (1859),
in
Utilitarianism,
Liberty,
and
Representative
Government,
Every?
man
Library
edn
(London: J.
M.
Dent
&
Sons,
1910),
p. 79.
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222
PETER
DONOVAN
As mankind
improve,
the
number of doctrines
which
are no
longer disputed
or
doubted will
be
constantly
on
the
increase... The
cessation,
on one
question
after
another, of serious controversy, is one of the necessary incidents of the consolidation
of
opinion...14
Mill
admits
that,
on
his
own
argument,
this
would
be
'
no
trifling
draw?
back',
involving
as
it would 'the
loss of
so
important
an
aid
to
the
intelligent
and
living
apprehension
of
a
truth,
as
is
afforded
by
the
necessity
of
explain?
ing
it
to,
or
defending
it
against,
opponents_'15
Perhaps
we
can
find
confirmed
in
this
admission
by
an
arch-liberal,
the
spectre
of
totalitarianism
to
which
the
critics
of
pluralism
are
drawing
attention with such alarm.
Liberalism's tolerance is
provisional
only
and
aims,
in the
end,
at a
closure;
the
arrival
at one
universal
truth and the
negation
of
all
other
possibilities.
Not
only
ideological
liberalism
then,
but
epistemic
liberalism
too,
if
taken
as
the
'royal
road
to
truth',
ends
up
involving
itself
in
an
ultimate
imperialism.
But is this
an
inevitable
outcome
of the
liberal
path?
Mill
has
already
set
in
place
a
fundamental
safeguard.
It
is the
principle
of
fallibility,
and the
necessity
of continued
openness
to
criticism,
even
when beliefs
and
opinions
have reached
the
point
of
being
uncontested.
If
they
are
justifiably
held
as
truths,
it will
be
only
because
they
have
succeeded
so
far in
resisting
refu?
tation,
and for the time
being
continue
to
do
so.
('The
beliefs which
we
have
most
warrant
for have
no
safeguard
to rest
on,
but
a
standing
invitation
to
the whole world
to
prove
them
unfounded.')16
Acceptance
of
fallibility,
openness
to
refutation,
and invitation
to
radical
critical
scrutiny
is,
in
Mill's
view
anyway,
of the
essence
of liberalism.
Consistently
applied,
it
provides
the needed
protection
against
liberalism's
developing
into
a
totalitarian
ideology.
Properly
understood,
that
is
to
say,
liberalism welcomes
a
plurality
of
opinions,
not
so as
to
absorb them
all
into
a
rational
uniformity,
but
so
as
to
guarantee
that
any
belief
or
opinion
presently
held
as
the truth remains
constantly
open
to
challenge
and
cor?
rection.
Now far from
this
being utterly
at
odds
with
the
postmodernist
viewpoint,
it is
in
fact
entirely
consistent
with
it.
The
deconstructionist,
ironist,
rhe?
torical
stance
inevitably
presupposes
a
fallibilist
epistemology
such
as
Mill's,
and could
hardly
function without
it.
For
what
power
is there
in
a
critique,
however
radical,
unless there
are
those
who feel bound
to
take notice of
criticism?
Indeed,
Mill himself
explicitly
welcomes
the radical
voice.
So long as popular truth is one-sided, it is more desirable than otherwise that
unpopular
truth should
have one-sided
assertors
too;
such
being
usually
the
most
energetic,
and the
most
likely
to
compel
reluctant
attention
to
the
fragment
of
wisdom
which
they
proclaim
as
if
it
were
the
whole.17
He
goes
on
to
commend such
a
one-sided
radical, Rousseau,
whose
para
14
Ibid.
p.
103.
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid.
p.
83.
17
Ibid.
p.
106.
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RELIGIOUS
PLURALISM
223
doxes
exploded
'
like bombshells
'
amongst
those
of the
eighteenth
century
who 'were lost
in
admiration
of what
is
called
civilisation,
and
of
the marvels
of modern
science, literature,
and
philosophy...'.18
Thus the
extreme
opposition
apparently
mounted
by
radical thinkers with
regard
to
liberalism,
rationality
and
the
Enlightenment
heritage,
their
some?
times
outrageous
overstatements,
devastating
insinuations and
ruthless de
constructions,
may
be
recognized
by
the
perceptive
liberal
as
entirely
necess?
ary
to
their
rhetorical
intent.
When it is claimed
by
postmodernists
that
Western ideals of
rationality
and liberalism
are
self-interested,
imperialistic,
hegemonic,
destructive of
otherness,
and
so
on,
and when
in
making
that
claim the normal
philosophical, literary
or
academic conventions
are
flouted
and
assailed,
it is
not
necessarily
an
invitation
to
abandon liberalism's critical
ideals
;
nor
is
it
a
proof
(as
the
conservative
theologians
seem
to
hope)
that
such
ideals
have
at
last
gone
out
of fashion.
For
suppose
there
are
lessons
to
learn
from
the social distortions
and
injustices
unearthed
by
Foucault,
and
the
new
insights
into
oppression
and
otherness
brought
to
light
by
the
deconstructions
of
Derrida. Those lessons
will
be
appropriated
not
through
abandoning
notions
of
rationality
and
a
common
quest
for
truth,
but
through
a
greatly
enhanced
appreciation
of
the
difficulty involved in properly applying such notions, given the inevitability
of their
being
compromised,
in
subtle and
unsuspected
ways,
by
their
in?
volvement with economic and
political
interests and
power-struggles.
The
intent is
not
to
overthrow
rational,
critical
methods,
in
other
words,
but
to
free them
up
and make them
perform
far
better.
This is
not,
of
course,
something
that
postmodernist
ironists and
radical
deconstructionists
can ever
admit.
To do
so
would
destroy
the
power
of their
rhetoric,
the effectiveness
of
their
paradoxes.
They
are
seeking
to
bring
about
an
enlargement
of
perception
through
using
reason
against
itself,
through
testing to destruction the critical process. This endeavour has a long and
honoured
history,
but
to
maintain
continued effectiveness it
has
to
emerge
again
and
again
in
ever-more-extreme
forms.
As
in
the
old
game
of
out-staring
one's
partner,
in
confrontation with
conventional
epistemic
liberals,
postmodernist
radicals
cannot
afford
to
blink
first.
Their
very
effectiveness lies
in
their
refusal
to
allow
the
liberals
to
get
off
lightly,
announcing
too
glibly
that
they
have
seen
the
point
or
got
the
message.
For
the
chances
are
that
however
much
liberals
may
think
they
can
grasp,
theoretically,
what the
critics
are
trying
to
convey,
they
will
barely
have begun to appreciate what itmeans at the political and pragmatic levels.
Indeed,
as
feminist
criticism
brings
out
so
clearly,
they
must not
assume
they
necessarily
ever
will have
that
capacity,
however hard
they
may
try.
Morris's
paper
shows
an
understanding
of
this whole
strategy.
He
sets out
to
demonstrate,
in
the
case
of
Judaism,
the
serious
deficiencies
of liberalism
18
Ibid.
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8/16/2019 Peter Donovan - The Intolerance of Religious Pluralism [a]
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224
PETER
DONOVAN
as
a
political ideology,
and
the
implications
this has for
a
religious
pluralism
analogous
to
it.
Drawing
support
from
postmodernism's scrutiny
of the
universal claims of
Enlightenment,
he
calls
for
a
'
genuine
pluralism
'
which
would
recognize
that 'liberal
rationality
has
no
prior
claim
to
truth,
nor
justification
for
being
the
yardstick by
which all
other
traditions
are
to
be
evaluated,
judged,
and
transformed'.19
But far from
this
being
a
rejection
of liberal
rationality
and its
critical
methods
at
the
epistemic
level,
it
is
in
fact
an
appeal
to
them,
and
an
intensification
of them.
Without
these,
as
Morris is well
aware,
relativism
and
scepticism
would
prevail
and
critiques
of
liberalism's
shortcomings
would
carry
no
more
weight
than
the
arbitrary expression
of
any
other
point
of
view.
Thus Morris concludes:
Jews
have
no
desire
to return to
their
ghettos,
and
the
Enlightenment
cannot
be
undone.
Nor
should
we
reject
Kant's
understanding
of man's
responsibility
to
use
his critical
rationality,
entailing
a
relentless
examination of
our
most
cherished and
central beliefs... .20
So
for
Morris,
at
least,
the
postmodernist critique
leads
not
to
any
refu?
tation
of
religious pluralism
as a
rational,
critical
enterprise,
but
to
a
refine?
ment
and
enlargement
of
its
scope,
particularly through
the
d?mystification
of its entanglement with the dominant political ideology of the West.
THEOLOGICAL
CONSERVATISM
AND
PRAGMATIC TOLERANCE
For
the
defenders
of Christian
uniqueness,
however,
the
matter
is
very
different.
They
take the
postmodernist
achievement
to
be
one
which
con?
veniently
frees
theological
conservatism
from the
uncomfortable
pressures
of
secular,
rationalist
criticism.
The
file
can now
be
closed
on
their
unfinished
business with the
Enlightenment.
With the liberal
opposition
finally
put
in
its
place they now,
as
representatives
of
traditional
orthodoxies,
can
gladly
embrace
the
task
of
getting
on
with other
religions, finding
any
number
of
pragmatic,
strategic,
or
missiological
reasons
for
at
last
showing
such
tol?
erance.
I have
already
mentioned
the
irony
to
be found
in
the
appropriation
of
a
postmodernist
critique
by theological
conservatives.
For what
postmodern?
ists
most
reject
in
the
Enlightenment
mentality
is
not
simply
its
tendency
to
be
embodied
in
ideology
and
absolutism,
but the realism
and
objectivism
which
its
progressivist
epistemology
presupposes.
Yet such
a
view
of truth
is
one
to which theological conservatism,
even
more
than
liberalism,
is
pro?
foundly
committed.
It is
perhaps
understandable
that
today's
conservatives,
in
writing
their
'post-liberal'
theologies,
will
find
some
affinity
with
the
deconstructionist
method
which
accounts
for
meaning,
knowledge,
and
rationality
not
by
19
In
Religious
Pluralism
and
Unbelief,
p.
194.
20
Ibid.
p.
195.
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RELIGIOUS PLURALISM
225
reference
to
correspondence
with external
reality,
but
rather within the
semiotic domain
of'narratives',
'texts' and
'traditions'. For
the
confessional
Christian
theologian,
these
terms
can seem
rich with revelationist
possibilities
and ecclesiastical associations.
But
one
of the lessons which
the
fact
of
religious
diversity
makes
unavoid?
able is that
others
can
appeal
with
equal
justification
(or
lack
of
it)
to
the
meaning
and truth
conveyed
by
their revealed
texts,
ancestral
narratives,
and
tradition-constituted rationalities. And while
for
the
essentially
pragmatic
and
relativistic
postmodernists,
plurality
of
texts,
narratives and
traditions is
not
a
problem,
it
clearly
is for
conservative
theologians.
They,
even
more
than
liberals and
modernists,
are
in
need of
a
realist,
absolutist,
view of
truth,
if
they
are
to
hold
their tradition
and
revelation
to
be the final
word,
rendering
all
others false
or
incomplete.
Thus conservative
theologians
in
fact have
very
little
in
common
with
the
postmodernists.
And their difference with the liberal
pluralists
does
not
lie
at
all,
I
suggest,
in
the
conservatives'
having
any
greater
concern
about the
oppressiveness
of totalistic
and
absolutist claims
to
truth. It is rather
that
they
are
much less
prepared
than
liberals
are
to
accept
the
means
by
which
the
potential
coerciveness
of truth-claims
may
be
ameliorated
;
that
is,
rig?
orous
application
of critical
methods,
and
a
scrupulous acceptance
of
one's
own
fallibility.
Be
that
as
it
may,
the
contributors
to
D'Costa's book
defending
Christian
uniqueness
do have
one
clear
message
to
give
to
the
advocates of
religious
pluralism.
It is
this
:
a
commitment
to
religious pluralism
derived from
liberal
epistemic
and critical
principles
is
by
no
means
the
most
promising
basis
on
which
to
promote
religious
toleration
in
practice.
For it is
obvious that
few
participants
in
the
inter-religious
domain
are
likely
to
share
the
liberal's
view
of
the
priority
of
epistemic
over
other considerations.
In
an
everyday sense,
tolerance
means
'
putting up
with
'
something
which
one
would
prefer
to
be
otherwise,
not
primarily
on
intellectual
or
philosophi?
cal
grounds,
but
because there
are
prudential
reasons
for
doing
so.
On
religious
questions,
unshakeable
conservatives
may
well be
far
better
placed
than
fallibilist
liberals
to
engage
effectively
in
practical
co-operation
with
those
holding
different
beliefs. Mutual
concerns
can
be
dealt with
more
congenially
when
there
is
no
question
of the
parties
involved
being
expected
to
reconsider
their
deepest
traditional
convictions
or
commitments.
As
con?
servative
folk-wisdom has
always
said,
'
strong
fences make
good
neighbours
'.
There is also
the
further basis for toleration
on
the part of religious
conservatives which
I
have
called
'strategic
and
missiological'.
According
to
this
argument,
Christians have
good
reasons
for
being
respectful
and
attent?
ive
towards
non-Christian
faiths,
for
through
such
an
approach,
it is
claimed,
they
will
best
be able
to
'receive
God's
judgement'
on
their
own
short?
comings,
and
to
'
find
Christ
coming
to
them
'
from
within
other
cultures and
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226
PETER
DONOVAN
traditions.21
This
argument
for tolerance
underlies
the
Vatican
II
statements
concerning
the
Catholic Church's
relationship
with
other
faiths,
and
is
an
application
of the inclusivist
approach
promoted particularly by
the theo?
logian
Karl Rahner. Such
theological
inclusivism is
commonly
criticized
by
liberal
pluralists
as
patronizing
and
offensive because
it
involves
defining
the
'other'
in terms
of one's
own
interests.
But
in
the
political
domain
and the
world
of
everyday
life,
a
symbiotic
form
of
toleration,
on
the basis of
mutually
inclusive
ideologies,
might
well
be
welcomed
as a
considerable advance
on
most
other
alternatives.
Advocates
of tolerance
in
the
face of
religious
diversity,
then,
can
clearly
appeal
to
a
number
of
arguments,
by
no means
all
of which have
anything
to
do with the
epistemic, truth-seeking
process
of
thinking epitomized by
Mill
and
so
cherished
by
liberal
intellectuals. It is
a
mistake
to
assume
that
a
philosophical preference
for
diversity
of belief and
freedom
of
thought
automatically
leads
in
practice
to
religious
toleration,
or
has
any
privileged
status
over
other
possible
justifications
for it.
RELIGIOUS
STUDIES AND
THE
'WHO'S
RIGHT?'
QUESTION
In
conclusion,
I
wish
to
consider
how academic
religious
studies
might
make
use
of
some
of
the distinctions I
have
mapped
above,
in
dealing
with
issues
of
religious pluralism
and tolerance.
In
a
recent
copy
of the
Spectator,
columnist
A. N. Wilson
tells how
a
number
of
recent
Jewish/Christian
debates have led
him
to
ask
again
'Who's
right?'.
Christians
[he writes]
claim
that
Jesus
was
the
Jewish
Messiah and the Founder
of
the
Catholic
Church.
Jews
believe
that
Jesus
was a
Galilean
holy
man
who
repre?
sented
much
that
was
sublime
in
his ancestral
prophetic
tradition,
and who died
tragically
in
about
the
year
30
of
the
Common
Era.22
Having
studied
the
matter
for
years,
Wilson
says,
he
now
admits
that
he is
reluctantly
drawn
to
the
view that
the
Christian belief
is
unsupported
by
evidence.
'
Far from
proclaiming
a
Decade of
Evangelism
to
convert
the
Jews
and
infidels',
he
concludes,
'
I
wish the
Christians
would
admit
that
they
had
got
this
matter
wrong,
and
that,
had he
ever
lived
to
hear of such
a
thing,
Jesus
would
have been
horrified
by
"Christianity"'.
Suppose
a
practitioner
of
religious
studies
were
called
upon
to comment
on
the
question
posed
by
Wilson,
'Who's
right?'.
What
appropriate
re?
sponses are available? How would one decide, reasonably, morally, which to
choose?
(i)
A
strong argument,
on
postmodernist
grounds,
could be
offered
for
rejecting
the
question
'Who's
right?'
altogether.
At
the
epistemic
level
it is
21
See
especially
Gavin
D'Costa's
own
chapter
'
Christ,
the
Trinity
and
Religious
Plurality'
in
Christian
Uniqueness
Reconsidered,
pp.
16?29.
22
The
Spectator,
4
January
1992, p.
6.
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RELIGIOUS
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unintelligible,
presupposing
as
it
does
some
superior
reference-point
from
which
to
arbitrate
between
different
belief-systems.
There
are no
such ab?
solute
reference-points,
no
metanarratives
in
terms
of
which
to answer
the
matter
once
and
for all.
At the
political
level,
moreover,
to
press
the
question
'Who's
right,
as
between
Jews
and Christians?' is
to
risk
exploiting
an
already
glaring
im?
balance
between
powerful majority
and
fragile minority
interests.
A
schol?
arly
crusade
to
settle the
matter
'in
the interests
of
truth',
could
not
take
place
in
a
political
vacuum.
These
are
the
1990s.
Antisemitism and its
allies
lurk
always
in
waiting.
Christian
triumphalism
is
more
selfconfident than
ever
with
the
collapse
of its
communist
enemies.
Popular
millenialist fantasies
are
widespread.
Fermenting
a
showdown
over
Jesus,
a
global
confrontation
between
Jewish
and
Christian
protagonists
(and,
of
course
Islamic
and
secular
ones)
would
be
inviting diplomatic
chaos
and international
disaster,
while
offering
the world's
news,
propaganda
and
public
relations
companies
a
media
coup
matching
the Gulf War.
One
might
indeed have
strong
suspicions
about the
motivation
of
a
journalist
or
publisher,
in
posing
the
question
so
provocatively
at
this time.
Can
anyone
put
pen
to
paper,
on
such
a
subject,
without
betraying
vested
interests of
some
sort? Likewise,
a
branch of the Western liberal education
industry
calling
itself
religious
studies,
which
claimed
to
facilitate academic
debate
on
such
questions
in
the interests
of
'pure
scholarship',
would be
ludicrously
naive,
if
not
criminally
incompetent,
if
it failed
to
recognize
the
political
implications
of
promoting
such
an
illusory
ideal,
in
today's
world.
(ii)
Choosing
like
postmodernism
to
repudiate
the
'Who's
right?'
ques?
tion itself would be
congenial
also
to
conservative thinkers
amongst
Jews
and
Christians. Each
being
convinced
that the
true
answer was
known
only by
divine revelation
received
in
obedient
faith,
they
could well
agree
that
for
pragmatic and strategic reasons such an issue was best left alone, or taken
only
so
far
at
the
scholarly
level
as was
needed
to
define
the
areas
of their
fundamental
differences.
An
'agreement
to
disagree'
on
this crucial
matter
can
be
seen
to
have
much
pragmatic
wisdom
on
its
side. Freed from
the
pressures
of
a
major
rift,
the
parties
can
still maintain
a
respectable degree
of
judicious
cooperation
for
shared
moral
and humanitarian
goals
and
common
action
against
mutual
adversaries.
Embarrassment about the
past,
whether
as
oppressor
or as
oppressed,
can
meanwhile be
dissolved,
little
by
little,
through
gracious
understatement, mutual restraint, and tacit forgetfulness. Respect for other?
ness
is
preserved throughout,
and
neither
party
is
coerced into
selling
out
on
their
heritage.
Loyal Jewish
and Christian
traditionalists,
engaged
in
this
profound
and
delicate
business, may
well be
inclined
to
doubt
whether
an
eclectic and
superficial
subject
like
religious
studies
(as
they
regard it)
can
have
anything
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228
PETER DONOVAN
useful
to
contribute.
Certainly,
pressing
for
answers
to
the
question
'Who's
right?'
will
not
be
thought
at
all
helpful.
(iii)
For those schooled
in
liberal traditions of
scholarship,
it
remains
difficult
to
give
up
the
conviction
that their
primary
task,
indeed their moral
duty,
is
to
try
to
'
get
the
facts
straight
',
by
the best
humanly
available
means,
even
in
matters
of
religious
history
and
interpretation.
If
this involves
un?
settling
the
faithful,
exacerbating long-time injustices,
or
fuelling
the fires of
prejudice
and
hatred,
these
are
regrettable
but inevitable
costs
to
be borne.
The alternative
is
to
allow
people
to
go
on
living
in
a
world
of
errors
and
delusions.
Even when due allowance
is
made
for
the
ideological
distortions
and
colonizing
ambitions
with
which critical
rationality
has
again
and
again
been
contaminated,
there
remains
a
task
for
it
to
do,
so
long
as
there
are
any
matters
of fact
at
all,
any
lasting
constraints
on
claim
and
counterclaim,
interpretation
and
re-interpretation.
Adherence
to
some
basic
principles
of
honesty
and
truthfulness,
it
is
felt,
must
be fundamental
to
any
form of
communication.
That
being
so,
the liberal will
argue,
the
question
about the rival
Jewish
and
Christian
views of
Jesus,
and the
many
possible
positions
and shades
of
meaning
within the articulation
of
those
views,
is
an
entirely legitimate
one
for
scholarly
debate,
and it
ought
to
be
pursued
by
all
available
empirical
and
critical methods
(such
methods
themselves,
of
course,
being
open
to
on?
going
rational
criticism).
If the result of such
scholarship,
as
A. N.
Wilson
claims,
does
in
fact
support
one
view rather than the
other,
there is
a
scholarly
and
(the
liberal
will
argue)
a
religious duty
to
make that conclusion known.
Only
then
will
there
be
the
opportunity
for that reform of incorrect
opinion,
and
consequent
growth
in
understanding,
on
which
all
human
knowing
rests.
If,
in
the
process,
massive
and almost
inconceivable
adjustments
to
tra?
ditional
creeds
and institutions
seem
called
for,
it
will
not
be
for the first
time,
the liberal
will
point
out.
And
as
in the
past,
the
experience
of
adjustment
may
prove
to
be for
the
overall
enhancement,
rather than
the
destruction,
of the
faith of those involved.
'Great is
truth',
after
all,
and
surely
'it
shall
prevail'.
Liberal
thinkers
will
take
it for
granted
that academic
religious
studies
should
stand
with them
in
this
enterprise,
providing
them
with
a
forum and
many
of the
resources
with
which
it
can
best
be furthered.
(iv)
Meanwhile
there
remain the
Pluralists,
in
the
ideological
or
theo?
logical sense, who will approach the question 'Who's right?' committed
to
finding
a
place
for both views.
Rejecting
a
pragmatist
relativism
('all
views
are
right
if
they
work
for those
who hold
them')
the
pluralist
will seek
an
interpretation
which
allows
Jewish
and
Christian
responses
to
be,
in Hick's
term,
equally
'
salvific
'
by
virtue of
some
higher
principle
under
which each
can
be
subsumed.
If the
suggested
reinterpretation
seems,
to
the
faithful,
to
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RELIGIOUS
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229
be
a
denial of traditional
distinctives,
that is
because
they
are
in
thrall
to
the
antagonisms
and
exclusivisms
of the
past.
The world's future
safety
and
security
demands that believers
be
re-educated
to
leave
such
ways
behind
them.
Pluralists,
like
liberals, may
see
religious
studies
as
their natural
ally,
assuming
that the
exposure
of
many
faiths
to
one
another will
inevitably
lead
to
mutual
adjustment
and
gradual
harmonization.
CONCLUSION
Postmodernist, Conservative, Liberal,
Pluralist
-
there ismuch
to
be said for
each
of
those
positions,
in
relation
to
questions
of
religious diversity,
toler?
ance,
and
respect
for difference. But
so
far
as
academic
religious
studies is
concerned,
I
suggest,
no
one
of
these
options
should be favoured
above the
others.
At
most,
religious
studies should commit itself
to
a
pluralism
based
strictly
on
epistemic
principles
;
that
is,
the
recognition
of
human
fallibility
and
the
responsibility
to
take
account
of
all
sides
of
an
issue.
By doing
this
it
can
continue
to
foster
that
precious
human
capacity
for
informed,
respon?
sible
judgement.
And
at
the
same
time it
can
help keep
the
way
open
for the
enlargement of spirit which comes through the interaction of competing
ideas,
not
merely
between diverse
religious
traditions
and
institutions,
but
above
all
within the minds of individual
men
and
women
themselves.
As
Emperor
Ashoka
proclaimed
:
'
Concord
is
meritorious,
to
wit,
hearkening,
and
hearkening
willingly,
to
the Law of
Piety
as
accepted
by
other
people.
'23
John
Stuart
Mill
could
not
have
put
it better.
Department of
Religious
Studies,
Massey University,
Palmerston
Morth,
Mew
Zealand
23
Ashoka,
Rock Edict
XII,
trans,
by
Vincent A.
Smith,
in
Classical
India,
edited
by
William H.
McNeill
and
Jean
W. Sedlar
(New
York:
OUP,
1969),
p.
106.