Summary |
There is great
religious diversity in the world—both of religious traditions (e.g. Christianity,
Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, etc.) and of traditions within religions (e.g. Protestantism,
Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, etc. within Christianity). This religious
diversity raises a number of pressing philosophical questions; in particular,
questions regarding the epistemic and soteriological import of such diversity. Some epistemic questions include: What
epistemic obligations does religious diversity impose on us, given that this
diversity highlights substantial religious disagreement—indeed, disagreement
amongst interlocutors who are, at least prima
facie, intellectual peers? Are we permitted to be dogmatic about our own
religious convictions? Or should such diversity cause us to question the
veracity of any one tradition? Soteriological
questions include: What does this diversity amongst sincere and pious
religious practitioners suggest about the soteriological value of any one of
the religious traditions? Assuming that there is at least one god, can any one
religious tradition lay sole claim to garnering divine favor? Or does every
religious tradition offer its own, viable path to divine favor? While the term “religious
pluralism” sometimes simply designates the phenomenon of religious diversity,
in the context of philosophy of religion it designates a specific philosophical
view that aims to answer questions like those above.
What is the view?
In response to epistemic questions from religious diversity, the religious
pluralist claims (roughly), for any given area of religious
diversity—especially areas where there is substantial disagreement amongst
intellectual peers—that “no specific religious perspective is [epistemically]
superior” and, what is more, that “the religious perspectives of more than one
basic theistic system or variant thereof are equally close to the truth” (Basinger
§2, 2014). And in response to the soteriological questions, the religious
pluralist claims (roughly) that “there is no one true religion, and therefore,
no one and only path to eternal existence with God” or divine favor (Basinger §7,
2014). |