Islam and Religious Pluralism

by Dr Muhammad Legenhausen

Liberalism and Pluralism
The history of the world's religions is full of horrible tales of persecution and intolerance. Often times the religious opposition to the beliefs of a people has been used to serve colonialist purposes, as in the treatment of Native American peoples by Christian Europeans. It is not surprising to find that with increased awareness of this history, and of the beliefs and customs of others, among sincere Christians there also comes compassion, regret for what has been done in the past, and a resolve to prevent its recurrence.
Indeed, the development of political liberalism in eighteenth century Europe was largely fueled by a rejection of the religious intolerance exhibited in the sectarian wars of the Reformation period. While liberalism was the political response to diversity of beliefs within the Christian community, its tenets were extended to non-Christian beliefs only in the twentieth century. Even in the late nineteenth century, the Mormon sect was considered sufficiently heretical to lie beyond the pale of' proper Christianity and as such was publicly denounced by the U.S. President Graver Cleveland (1837-1908).
But the failure of liberal efforts to successfully eradicate religious intolerance was nowhere more manifest than in the rise of anti-Semitism and its institutionalization by the fascists. Eventually, the fascists were defeated and the liberal tolerance of non-Christian beliefs was written into the Declaration of Human Rights, but within Catholic Churches around the world, the Jews continued to be cursed as Christ killers. It was only iii the 1960's, with the Second Vatican Council, that reference in the Mass to the "perfidious Jews" was expunged.
This background of religious intolerance and the rise of liberalism must be kept in mind in order to understand what, has come to be called "religious pluralism." Religious pluralism is the outcome of an attempt to provide a basis in Christian theology for tolerance of non-Christian religions; as such, it is an element in a kind of religious modernism or liberalism. No matter how laudable the intentions of those who have advanced religious pluralism, and no matter how much we may sympathize with their struggle against entrenched intolerance, the theological project is severely flawed, and its flaws are not unrelated to those found in liberal political philosophy - flaws which stand out most prominently in contrast to Islamic political thought.
In order to recognize these flaws, we must first call to mind the basic outline of the historical development and the central ideas of religious and political liberalism. Then an examination and criticism of the theology of the most outspoken advocate of religious pluralism, John Hick, will be presented with particular attention to the reasons why his proposals should be rejected by Muslims. Finally, I shall advance an approach to religious pluralism consonant with Shi`i Islamic theology which is free of the difficulties attributed to liberal religious pluralism.
Although liberalism in religion and in politics bear significant historical and theoretical relations to one another, they ought not to be confused. The term "liberalism" was first used to designate a political ideology in late nineteenth century Europe, and it was in the same period and locale that the theological movement initiated by Friedrich Sehleiermacher (1768-1834) came to be known as liberal Protestantism. Although there are liberal Protestants who are not politically liberal, and political liberals who have no use for religious liberalism, the attitudes toward moral, social and political issues among religious and political liberals are often the same.
As a political ideology, liberalism does not have any precise definition, although all liberals emphasize the importance of tolerance, individual rights and freedoms to safeguard a pluralism of life styles. A wide variety of political theorists have been called liberal, some of the more important of whom are Adam Smith (1723-1790), Thomas Paine (1737-1809), Benjamine Constant (1767-1830), James Madison (1751-1836), and, perhaps of the greatest philosophical importance, John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). The ideas of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1634-1704) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) have had a tremendous influence on liberal theory, even if Locke and Kant cannot themselves be called liberals, let alone Hobbes.
Among contemporary philosophers John Rawls is undoubtedly the champion of liberalism about whom the most has been written, although attention has also been given to the forms of liberalism advanced by Aron, Berlin, Dewey, Dworkin, Habermas, Hayek, Popper and Rorty, to mention but a few. Most liberals agree that liberalism is to be traced to the aftermath of the Reformation. Freedom of conscience in religious matters came first, and was then extended to other areas of opinion. So, tolerance of different opinions about religion ties at the very foundations of political liberalism, and religious pluralism may be viewed as a very late arrival which seeks to provide a theological basis for this tolerance.
Characteristic of political liberalism is a sharp division between the public and the private, and the assertion that individuals enjoy a number of rights which safeguard the private realm from interference by the state. Secularism is the first product of the liberal separation of the private from the public. Foremost among the individual rights protecting the private realm is freedom of opinion (especially religious opinion), which gradually has degenerated into the notion of freedom of expression.[1]
In order to protect individual liberties, liberals have advocated the constitutional government of nation states, the rule of law, representative democracy and market economies. Utilitarianism provided the philosophical underpinning to the dominant form of nineteenth century liberalism. Contemporary liberalisms range from libertarian views, according to which the role of the state is to be minimized, to liberal socialism. While the rights advocated by liberals were often restricted in practice to white European males, liberals have been instrumental in the struggle for their universal extension and have led movements for universal suffrage, the abolition of slavery, prison reform and equal rights for women, minorities, the disabled and, most recently, homosexuals.
In the mid-twentieth century, welfare-state liberalism became predominant, according to which various kinds of equality are to be protected by the state. Rawls describes his own welfare-state liberalism as one which gives priority to the principles of justice over those of the good. The principles of justice, according to Rawls, are to minimize disadvantage while allowing individuals to pursue their own ends. This point is especially important, because many religious outlooks include a conception of the good to which the principles of justice are considered derivative. This opens the way for opposition between religious and liberal principles of justice, so that rather than playing the role of the neutral arbiter among disputing religious factions, the liberal becomes just one more party to the conflict.[2]
The application of liberal theory in the United States has not always exhibited the homogenizing force it currently displays. In the past, even though religions could not be officially established, there was sufficient local autonomy to allow for the enactment into law of precepts stemming from the religious views which prevailed in various regions. The continued prohibition of alcohol in various counties is a reminder of how distinctive religious practice claims found their way into civil law.
The struggle between community rights and individual rights in the United States has a long and sometimes bloody history. In retrospect, the defeat of the autonomy of the community seems all almost inevitable consequence of the consistent application of liberal theory.
The movement toward the maximization of individual liberty is at the same time a movement by central authority to restrict the legislative power of local communities. Liberal Protestantism may be defined in terms of the following features: a receptive attitude toward unorthodox interpretations of Christian scripture and dogma, particularly when informed by attention to claims of the natural sciences and history; A general skepticism toward rational speculation in theology; An emphasis on religious support for modern moral principles and social reform consonant with such principles; and The doctrine that the essence of religion lies in personal religious experience rather than in dogma, canon, community or ritual.
While religious liberalism is sometimes identified with modernism, liberal Protestantism is best seen more specifically as a particularly influential form of modernism, where the term "modernism" is used for all religious reform movements which focus on the need for religion to accommodate itself to the realities of the modern world. Religious pluralism is an outgrowth of liberal Protestantism which Requires unorthodox interpretations of Christian scripture and dogma to make salvation available by routes other than Christianity, Is skeptical toward rational arguments in favor of the superiority of Christian beliefs, Appeals to the modern moral principles of tolerance and rejection of prejudice, and Emphasizes the elements common to personal religious faith, particularly the inward turning toward the Ultimate, while the outward expressions of faith in religious law, ritual and theological doctrine are considered to be of secondary importance. Religious pluralism is a theological movement grounded in the ethos of political liberalism and emerging directly out of liberal Protestantism.
It has drawn fire from conservative Christians and from post-modernist thinkers who have found that at many points their critique of modernist thought applies to religious pluralism. However, the internal weaknesses common to political liberalism and religious pluralism are most prominent when contrasted with Islamic thought, for the liberal separation of religion from social order is founded on the assumption that this separation is consistent with the tenets of all sects, while it is in direct conflict with the ideals of Islam.
Nevertheless, this does not mean that there is no place for any sort of religious pluralism in Islam. To the contrary, a case can be made for an Islamic form of religious pluralism free from the flaws of liberalism, but first, we had better investigate the claims of liberal religious pluralism by turning to the ideas of its most outspoken proponent, John Hick.[3]
Religious pluralism is described by Hick as a doctrine of salvation, and is contrasted with two earlier Christian views of the matter, termed by Hick exclusivism and inclusivism. In simplistic terms, the question is: 'who is to be allowed to go to heaven'?. The exclusivist answers that it is only those of his own faith who can reach heaven. The Christian evangelist who preaches that there is only one way to be saved, and that the way is to be found exclusively in the Christian tradition, would be characterized by Hick as an exclusivist.
Inclusivists would open the doors to heaven a bit wider to allow for the admission of honorary Christians who participate in some non-Christian religious tradition, but who, by Christian standards, could be said to have led sincere lives of moral rectitude, those who were called "anonymous Christians" by Karl Rahner (1904آ­-1984). More radical than inclusivism is Hick's own religious pluralism which would allow just about anyone into heaven, regardless of race, color or creed, provided that the person undergoes a transformation from "self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness" within some religious tradition.
Hick is even prepared to allow that communism may provide the route to salvation for some; at least he is not prepared to rule this out on purely doctrinal grounds. It must not be forgotten that the three views regarding salvation described above are all Christian theological positions. Hick himself describes religious pluralism as "a Christian position" which starts at inclusivism, but accepts certain further conclusions.[4]
The problems which generate the debate over religious pluralism are problems about how to understand the Christian doctrine of salvation. According to traditional Christian doctrine, salvation consists in the divine forgiveness of sin, a forgiveness which, with respect to the universal human participation in Adam's original sin, is made possible only by Christ's suffering and sacrifice on the cross. Christians have furthermore held that to share in the redemption provided by Christ, one must personally respond by placing one's faith in that redemption, according to Protestants, or by the sacrament of Baptism, in Catholicism.
It is to be observed that the doctrine of salvation in Protestant Christianity is articulated in terms of faith, while in Catholicism the emphasis is on the sacramental, although exceptions are allowed. According to Catholic doctrine, salvation is the proper end of man, the beatific vision of God in heaven. Redemption is the release of man from the bondage of sin and restoration of friendship with God through the suffering and death of Christ as God incarnate. One participates in the redemption through the sacraments, by means of which grace is obtained, and first of all, through Baptism.
There are three kinds of Baptism in Catholicism: (a) Baptism by water, administered by pouring water on the head and reciting the words: "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"; (b) Baptism by desire, considered to obtain in the case of adults who sincerely intend to enter the Catholic Church, but for whom Baptism by water is for some reason impossible; and (c) Baptism by blood, martyrdom,[5] which is bearing witness to Christ through the sacrifice of one's life. It is useful to keep the Catholic doctrine in mind in order to highlight, by way of contrast, some of the features of Hick's position on salvation and redemption.
Hick does not give much consideration to the Catholic doctrine, for he is writing as a Presbyterian minister who is at once a theologian, philosopher and a liberal social activist. His social activism brought him into close contact with the Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs of Birmingham when in 1967, he accepted a chair in the Philosophy of Religion at Birmingham University. As a result of his engagement in community relations and his activities to combat racism, he became a part of a religiously pluralistic community, and he could not accept the judgment of traditional Christianity that his non-Christian friends would not be able to achieve salvation.
The practical religious pluralism experienced by Hick led him to view Christian theological doctrine as lagging behind the reality he himself was experiencing, but his religious pluralism is not merely an attempt to make room in heaven for his nonآ­ Christian friends, for he was led by his reflections on the capacities of the non-Christian to be saved to question the most fundamental teachings of Christianity, and to formulate a new Christian theology consonant with religious pluralism.
In place of the Christian doctrine of salvation, Hick came to a broader, more abstract understanding according to which salvation is simply the human transformation that takes place when a person turns away from a life of self-centeredness and turns to a life centered on the Ultimate Reality, regardless of whether this ultimate reality is called God, Brahman, Nirvana, or the Tao. If this is how salvation is to be understood, there would seem to be little place left for the special role given to Christ and the Incarnation in Christian dogma.
Christ is just one vehicle among many by means of which the personal transformation which is the orientation toward the Ultimate may be realized. Hick did not shy away from this conclusion. Indeed, perhaps his most controversial work in Christian theological circles has been the collection of essays he edited under the title, The Myth of God Incarnate.' [6] But Hick does not really deny the doctrine of the Incarnation, rather he reinterprets it in accordance with "degree Christologies" which hold that a person may be considered to be divine, or an incarnation of Divinity, to the extent that the person lives in accord with the Divine will.
To be redeemed in Christ then comes to mean that it is through Christ in his exemplary life that one finds the way to personal transformation from selfishness to a focus on transcendent reality. Hick's religious pluralism and his reformulation of Christian theology is influenced by his social activism, on the one hand, but also by his reflections on the rationality of religious belief. The question of the rationality of religious belief is the single most important, most discussed question in the philosophy of religion in the twentieth century.
Like many philosophers of religion writing in English, Hick has come to the conclusion that it is religious experience which makes religious belief rational. Hick argues that it is rational for those whose religious experience strongly leads them to do so to believe wholeheartedly in the reality of God. The centrality of the problem of religious diversity for those who would base religious belief on religious experience is clearly expressed in Hick's An Interpretation of Religion: "If there were only one religious tradition, so that all religious experience and belief had the same intentional object, an epistemology of religion could come to rest at this point.
But in fact there are a number of different such traditions and families of traditions witnessing to many different personal deities and non-personal ultimates."[7] Responding to the problem of religious diversity in the context of a discussion of Alvin Plantinga's reformed epistemology, in which religious experience also plays a basic role, William J. Wainwright sees only three options: firstly, one may deny that any real conflicts occur.
This is a popular view, according to which all the religions are really saying the same thing but in different words. Secondly, one may claim that those who hold religious beliefs at odds with one's own are epistemic inferiors, perhaps because their religious capacities have been distorted by sin or other cultural deficiencies. Finally, one may attempt to find relevant differences; between the ways in which orthodox and non orthodox beliefs are produced which could be used to explain the unreliability of non orthodox belief formation.[8]
The plausibility of Wainwright's second and third moves, according to which those who do not share one's religious beliefs are somehow in an epistemologically deprived set of circumstances seems to vary inversely to one's familiarity with other religious traditions. Hick argues this point most forcefully, and the force of his argument is moral as well as epistemological. It is wrong to view others as epistemologically inferior simply because their religious views are opposed to ours.
Thus, Hick defends a version of the first move, the denial of ultimate conflict. The possibility that a fourth alternative exists in addition to those proposed by Wainwright will be considered later, but Hick certainly does not allow for any such fourth alternative. Hick was by no means the first to have suggested that all the great religions are somehow expressions of the same truth, despite their surface differences; it is the thesis of Frithjof Schuon's first book, The Transcendental Unity of Religions.[9]
What is exceptional about Hick is the thoroughness of his attempt, in the context of Christian theology, to recognize and accommodate radical diversity of belief and even of mystical experience as stemming from an ineffable Reality. Many of the students of world mysticism have argued that the experiences of the mystics transcend religious and cultural boundaries, and that mystics have the same fundamental types of experiences regardless of their religious differences. Largely due to the work of Steven T. Katz, this view has increasingly come to be rejected.[10]
Katz points out that the experiences of the mystics are often highly specific and often reinforce the detailed structures of belief within the traditions which give rise to them. Taxonomies which typify religious experiences across religious boundaries tend to underrate or ignore the importance of the contribution of the concepts and categories provided by a specific religious tradition to the religious experience itself. If Katz is right, the superficial similarities of religious experiences cannot be used to support a doctrine of religious pluralism; indeed, the more important diversities would seem to undermine the pluralist's claim that religious conflicts are not ultimate.
Surprisingly, Hick accepts Katz's view of the ultimate diversity of religious experiences, but nevertheless defends a pluralism which would reconcile all such diversity as having its source in the differences in the ways it which people think about Ultimate Reality. Hick writes: The Real an sich is postulated by us as a presupposition, not of the moral life [as in Kant], but of religious experience and the religious life, whilst the gods, as also the mystically known Brahman, Sunyara and so on, are phenomenal manifestations of the .Real occurring within the realm of religious experience.[11]
Ultimate Reality is thus an ineffable phenomenon to which we are directed in apparently conflicting ways by the religious traditions of the world and the experiences generated within these traditions. Recall that pluralism is supposed to function in the reconciliation of differences in beliefs prompted by religious experiences in such a way that the entitlement to believe on the basis of the experience is preserved by analogy to the manner in which sense experience warrants perceptual belief.
Faced with conflicting perceptual reports made by epistemic peers, one may preserve the degree of warrant provided by experience for one's belief only if the conflicting reports are found to be ultimately reconcilable with one's own, or if good reasons can be found for thinking that the conflicting reports are mistaken.
Given the general skepticism about rational theology among liberal Protestants, it should come as no surprise that Hick seeks the route of reconciliation. The reconciliation should show how, despite differences in categories and concepts, some common information is conveyed in the apparently conflicting reports. Thus, in case of religious conflict, if one person asserts that his spiritual perceptions convey to him the information that God is the greatest while another person claims that he spiritually perceives that Brahman is the greatest, one might attempt a reconciliation by showing that Brahman is the name Hindus use for God.
Hick is aware, however, that the matter is not as simple as this. The concepts of Brahman and God are really different, and must be understood in terms of the vastly different theological world views of the Vedas and the Semitic scriptures. Despite such differences, Hick asserts that claims made about God and Brahman may ultimately point to the same ineffable reality.
The admission of the difference in the concepts deprives us, however, of the grounds for asserting ultimate agreement, and without such grounds, the diversity of religious beliefs and experiences undermines the attempt to fund in religious experience rational warrant for belief.
Hick uses the example of those who cannot see describing an elephant (one feels its trunk and claims it is like a snake, another feels its leg and says the animal must be like a tree, etc.) from Maulavi Jalal al-Din Rumi [12] claiming that we are in the position of the blind men whose descriptions of the elephant of ultimate reality are given the limited forms of the various religions. Against this, it has been argued that if we were really in the position of one of the blind men and were faced with such a variety of reports, we should conclude not that all of the reports describe the same elephant, but that all of the reports are wrong.[13]
It should be noted that Rumi's own use of the example was to point out how limited are our abilities to know the divine, and that one should attempt to understand God by means of a spiritual light which cannot be provided by the normal modes of understanding. To extend the allegory to differences in religious experience, it would seem that what is needed is some guidance beyond that which is to be found by reliance upon one's own religious experiences, and that religious experiences by themselves cannot serve as a reliable basis for religious belief. In the Islamic tradition, the wayfarer is not led by religious experience, but by gnosis (marifah).
This conclusion is disputed by William P. Alston.[14] Alston holds that religious experience can support religious beliefs analogously to the manner in which sensory experience supports beliefs about the physical world, despite the problem of the diversity of religious faiths. The difference between the situation of the blind men and the elephant and that of religious diversity is that in the case of the elephant we can easily imagine ways in which the blind men could revise their beliefs and arrive at a consensus.
They merely need to explore further. Alston holds that since there is no such means for resolving religious differences, the cases are not analogous, and in the absence of such means, it is rational to believe in accordance with the experience available, despite the conflicting reports of the experiences of others.
A detailed examination of Alston's views is not relevant to our investigation of religious pluralism, but four points are worth mentioning. Firstly, like Hick, Alston has no faith in the ability of rational argument to settle the differences. The idea that the sort of further exploration by means of which consensus is to be achieved is a process of inquiry in which reasons are given, weighed and examined is not considered.
This is especially odd, since Alston scolds other philosophers for nor paying sufficient heed to the epistemology of their own discipline. In philosophy, it is not reasonable to simply adopt a metaphysical stance because it is dominant in one's culture, or because one's teachers propounded it, or because it reflects the way one happens to see the world. Arguments are required, and even if decisive arguments are not to be had, this is no excuse to give up looking for reasons altogether.
Second, Alston admits that even according to his own assumptions, the existence of conflicting religious experiences indeed does undermine the warrant provided by experience for religious belief to some extent, He thinks that the damage is not serious enough to threaten the rationality of religious belief, but he admits that it is indeed damage. Third, Alston does not accept Hick's pluralism because he holds that this would require a revision of Christian doctrine while his project is to defend the rationality of actual Christian belief. "Since I take my task to be the analysis and evaluation of real life religious dogmatic practices, not the reform, or degradation, thereof, I will not avail myself of Hick's way out."[15
Alston claims that religious believers normally understand their faith realistically, rather than as a culturally conditioned expression of something shared in common by such diverse faiths as Judaism and Buddhism. Fourth, the religious pluralist's position seems to be incompatible with the idea of revelation found in the Abrahamic religions.
According to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, God truly reveals Himself to man. If He were to provide us with accounts of Himself that are couched in terms of one of the many ways in which He could appear to us, rather than in terms of what He is and does, revelations would be "misleading at best and deceptive at worst".[16]
Aside from the failure of Hick's pluralism to rescue the attempt to model the rationality of religious belief on perceptual belief from the problem of the diversity of religious beliefs and experiences, there have been other objections raised against Hick's pluralism. Generally, commentators have expressed dissatisfaction with the ineffability of the Ultimate Reality in Hick's theory. "If we are left with nothing to be said about God or the Ultimate as it is in itself," it is argued, "our religious belief more closely approximates unbelief and becomes relatively indistinguishable from atheism." [17]
Another problem with Hick's religious pluralism has to do with the fact that religions are more than collections of doctrines. Religions have important practical dimensions, not only because of the moral codes they promote, but because of their ritual and aesthetic dimensions. Even if the doctrinal conflicts among religions could be reconciled along the lines suggested by Hick, the practical conflicts would remain. Of course, the practical demands of a religion with a strong juridical element, like Judaism, are integrated with its doctrinal elements. The force of Jewish law derives from its source in God mediated by the prophets.
To the extent that the characterization of God presented to Jews through their prophets is considered a merely human product which does not really describe the Supreme Being itself, the force of Jewish law is weakened. The difference between being circumcised and uncircumcised becomes a mere cultural difference.
Ritual and sacrament are able to lift the believer from the mundane world to a confrontation with the Ultimate because they are special; because they have been ordained by the Ultimate or the representative of the Ultimate. While this is compatible with there being a variety of ritual ways ordained by God, the replacement of particular beliefs about the Ultimate by the notion that particular beliefs, old practices are mere cultural products by means of which one approaches an ineffable reality reduces the specifically religious imperative.
If the Jewish law is a cultural expression of God's will which is in no way superior to the absence of such law in Christianity, why bother with it? Hick's religious pluralism is the advocacy of a forced doctrinal synthesis. It will not allow for ultimate differences in religious belief. No matter how strenuously the Hindu or Buddhist denies the personal nature of ultimate reality, and no matter how fervently the Christian asserts it, Hick would claim that there is no real conflict. Each merely expresses features of his or her own avenue to the Ultimate. This fails to do justice to the lived differences and conflicts among the adherents of the world's religions. While religious pluralism is advertised as a theology of tolerance, it turns out to be intolerant of real religious differences.
According to liberal political theory there is a sharp distinction between the public and private realms. Essentially private individuals posit a public realm through the social contract in order to satisfy mutual interests. Since the society includes those with differing religious ideas, religion is to be excluded from the public realm. Secularism is a corollary of political liberalism. Differences in religious belief are treated as aesthetic differences, or differences in taste. The social dimension of religion is subordinated to the personal.
This attitude toward religion is also reflected in the philosophy of religious pluralism advocated by Hick and Smith, for they see differences in religion as cultural differences in the expression of belief. All the religions involve a turning of the individual from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness, and the differences between the ways in which this is done in the various religions are non-essential, like matters of personal taste. According to reductive pluralism, preference for the Buddhist, Islamic, or Jewish ways is not to be decided by rational deliberation, for it is simply a matter of feeling, largely determined by one's cultural training.
As a result of such a view, reductive pluralists, like liberals, will underrate the social dimensions of religion. The specifically religious is excluded from public discourse by the liberal because of the lack of mutual interest, and by the reductive pluralist because the specifically religious can have no cognitive import, since it is merely an aspect of personal preference. Liberalism and reductive religious pluralism both emphasize faith over practice in religion. The fact that no one should be forced to espouse a given creed is taken by liberals as a definitive statement of religious freedom.
The use of the coercive force of the state to impose laws at odds with religious codes, e.g. the illegality of Mormon polygamy, is not considered to impinge on religious freedom, for what is restricted is practice, not belief. Pluralism also emphasizes faith over practice in its very conception of the problem of religious diversity as one to be solved by an ultimate reconciliation of beliefs. Liberalism and reductive pluralism both present themselves in the guise of neutrality while in fact they both exclude various religious systems of belief and practice. In some cases we may applaud the exclusions. No one should object to the fact that religions in which Human sacrifice is a central part are stifled in liberal societies.
While Hick is willing to allow for a hidden compatibility among a wide variety of beliefs, exclusivist beliefs themselves are to be rejected rather than reinterpreted. Reductive pluralism dismisses the exclusivist claims of any religion as nonessential, no matter how important in that religion's own tradition. Neither liberalism nor reductive religious pluralism are religiously neutral. Both discriminate against religious views in which there is a strong emphasis on the practical social dimension of religion.
This line of criticism has been leveled against Hick's pluralism by Ninian Smart,[18] who points out that differences among religions in truth-claims are at least matched in importance by differences in practice-claims. A similar critique of the religious pluralism of W.C. Smith has been presented by Ali Quli Qarai,[19] who argues effectively that religion has been understood as law no less than as faith in most of the major religious traditions of the world. Even if an ultimate resolution of truth-claims were a plausible suggestion, this would not resolve the conflict of' practice-claims.
What is distinctive and important about religions is not only their particular systems of belief, but rituals, ethical ideals, and laws. If a religion is valuable and worth preserving, much of its value would appear to stem from its practical side. A freedom of religion which was limited to freedom to believe as one chose, but not necessarily to practice the ordinances of' one's faith would result in the devaluation of' religion.
A number of recent critics whose views are presented and criticized by Peter Donovan[20] have taken note of the similarity between religious pluralism and political liberalism and reject both. Both involve compromise, accommodation, and the abandonment of tradition. Some conservative Christian thinkers contend that pluralism must be rejected because it threatens to undermine the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation.
As political liberalism undermines the political power of the Church, religious pluralism undermines its dogmas. Jurgen 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 skeptical about any objective reality being adequately mediated by religious symbols. [21]
Many of the critics of whom Donovan reports find common cause with post-modernistic critiques of liberalism and the Enlightenment. Donovan finds it ironic "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",[22] and he observes that despite their common cause in attacking liberalism, the conservative Christian and the post modernist are fundamentally opposed on epistemological issues, with the postmodernist rejecting the realism of the conservative, while it is precisely because of his theological realism that the conservative cannot accept liberal religious pluralism.
Donovan himself seeks to defend some form of religious pluralism and liberalism, but only in the sense of respect for differences. of belief, which he calls epistemic liberalism in contrast to the ideological liberalism of modernists who seek to bring the beliefs and practices of others into line with a secular, scientistic and humanistic world-view to form a uniform global culture. The culture of materialistic consumerism and extreme individualism associated with ideological liberalism threatens to destroy the Christian culture out of which it emerged, and which often seems to have been taken for granted by advocates of liberalism themselves, at least prior to the second Half of the twentieth century.
Although political liberalism arose out of an attempt to protect Christian culture from destroying itself through sectarian strife, the social changes which are justified by contemporary ideological liberalism are no less destructive, particularly the weakening of traditional familial relationships. The Christian response to the onslaught of ideological liberalism and its attendant social changes has been divided between the resistance and accommodation characteristic of' conservative and liberal Christianity respectively.
In this conflict, the religious pluralism advocated by John Hick, W. C. Smith and others provides a theological basis for ideological literalism because it is precisely the moral perspective of ideological liberalism that underlies its standards of reform. Hick claims that on the basis of the common ethical ideals of the great traditions, beliefs may be discredited if they run contrary to the dominant ethical current, e.g. the Jewish doctrine of `the chosen people'.[23]
Indeed, although Hick is willing to open the gates of heaven to the heathen, this does not mean that he is unwilling to pass moral judgment on religions. In fact, Hick argues that since reason cannot provide any useful criterion for grading religions, the standard against which they are to be measured is moral, although even here the great religious traditions of the world are so rich and varied that they cannot be judged as totalities:
"How do we weight the savage aspects of life in some Eastern and Middle Eastern countries-the bloody massacres at the time of the partition of India, the cutting off of a thief's hands under Islamic law-against the Christian persecution of the Jews throughout the ages and above all in our own century?" [24]
Its is clear from Hick's query, the fact that whole traditions cannot be graded effectively does not mean that particular elements and practices are not to be judged. And what are the standards to be used for such judgments? Hick's answer is clear. His preferred moral response to the Ultimate Reality is modern liberalism. He does not mean to claim that Christianity is preferable to other religions because of its liberalism, but rather he invites all to moral approbation under the wide umbrella of religious pluralism to the extent that they are willing to participate in the liberal agenda, about which Hick writes: "These modern liberal ideas have indeed first emerged in the West; but they are essentially secular ideas, which have been and are as much opposed as supported within the Christian churches.
Contemporary Marxist, humanist and feminist critiques of economic, racial and sexual oppression have become common currency in Western liberal thinking, and have evoked their echoes in liberation and black and feminist theologies. But it would be erroneous to conclude, from the fact that these ideas have affected Western Christianity first among the religions, that Christianity has a proprietary interest in them. Our contemporary Western liberal-democratic, politically, racially and sexually liberated form of Christianity represents a creative synthesis of the Christian tradition with secular liberalism; and analogous syntheses are beginning to emerge within the other traditions."[25]
Muslims will have no quarrel with the liberal's rejection of racism, but from the standpoint of Islamic morals (and for that matter, traditional Christian morals, as well), "sexual liberation" is an euphemism for licentiousness together with its public acceptance, which has profound social consequences. While the contemporary Western liberal assimilates condemnation of homosexual behavior to racism, the contemporary Muslin considers any sort of sex out of wedlock, like racism, to be sinful. Hick's willingness to use his liberal standards to condemn the application of the shari`ah is also clearly stated:
"But, whilst the enshrining of detailed seventh-century Arabian laws as permanent divine commands for Islamic societies has hindered the development of more humane and sophisticated penal systems, fortunately it has not prevented many modern Islamic states from finding ways to depart in practice from the full rigour of the traditional Shariah. It has made penal advances difficult but happily not impossible."[26]
We can summarize the criticisms of Hick's religious pluralism as follows. First, it advertises itself as the toleration of different faith traditions while in fact it prescribes the mutilation of these traditions in order to eliminate the ultimate differences among them. Second, it considers the apparent conflicts among religious traditions to be doctrinal rather than practical, thus ignoring the importance of religious law and community. Third, by diminishing the importance of doctrinal differences it weakens the prescriptive force of religious law.
Fourth, it dismisses the use of reason as a means to advance religious understanding and settle disputes, despite the fact that such rational argumentation has been prominent in the theological or scholarly traditions of all the major world religions.
Fifth, it construes mysticism as a means of obtaining personal religious experiences on the basis of which beliefs may be formed, while the very concept of religious experience is the invention of liberal Protestantism and is foreign to traditions such as Islam.
Sixth, it presupposes the correctness of the modern ethos of political liberalism despite the fact that this, too, is inconsistent with the moral traditions of the world religions as they have been understood for centuries.
On the other hand, it is part of the appeal of Hick's program that it does promise some form of reconciliation, some attenuation of the conflicts among religious believers which cause so much suffering in the world today, even as it has for centuries past. It would seem that an ideal approach to the problem posed by the variety of religious faiths would be one which both recognized and allowed for ultimately irreconcilable differences in practice as well as theory, while at the same time providing motivation for tolerance.
I believe that valuable suggestions for such an approach to the world's religions can be found within the Islamic tradition, which I shall dub non-reductive pluralism. Non-reductive pluralism is able to avoid the objections raised against liberal or reductive pluralism while maintaining an attitude of tolerance and rejecting prejudice. In order to develop a non-reductive pluralism it will be helpful to reflect a bit more on why the sort of pluralism advocated by Hick might be expected to win little support among Muslims, and why it has won the support of an important, if small, group of Christians.
The first difficulty has already been mentioned: Islam, like Judaism, features a legalistic form of piety. Its aspirations are social. No matter how miserably we fail, Muslims aspire to build a society founded on the example of the Prophet's just governance in accordance with Divine law. This aspiration cannot be sustained if the shari'ah is nothing more than a byproduct of early medieval Arabia's cultural response to its Prophet's confrontation with Reality.
In terms of the Christian experience, however, in which legalistic forms of piety are viewed at best with suspicion, if not condemned as outright Pharisaic hypocrisy, the idea that ritual laws and taboos are human constructs rather than Divine ordinances is much more likely to be welcomed. Another difficulty is that its relationship to other religions is a matter treated fairly extensively within the shari'ah itself, and even in the Qur'an. Pre-Islamic paganism cannot be viewed as simply another way in which man relates himself to Ultimate Reality, reconcilable with monotheism since polytheism and monotheism are conceptually different approaches to what is inconceivable.
This aspect of Hick's pluralism seems to be what is most repugnant to many Christian thinkers, as well as Muslims. Monotheism is inherently iconoclastic, but if monotheism and polytheism are just two ways to the Ultimate, how can we justify Abraham's breaking of the idols? Was his message really nothing more than that the worship of idols had become inappropriate in his time and locale? A non-reductive pluralism should respect the absolute claims of monotheism. According to traditional Christian thinking, salvation is only possible through belief in Jesus Christ as Lord, and it is through this faith that one participates in the redemptive sacrifice of the Son of God.
True belief is a necessary condition for salvation. Christians who are unwilling to go as far as Hick in their acceptance of nonbelievers yet who reject the dogmatic assertion of their damnation have found a third alternative in Karl Rahner's concept of anonymous Christians mentioned above. According to this idea non-Christians who lead good lives about whom it seems monstrous to claim that they must be damned may be said to be Christians even though they do not recognize this themselves. Rahner goes on to assert that if such people were properly exposed to the true teachings of Christ, they would abandon their former beliefs and become official Christians. Being an anonymous Christian is a bit like holding an honorary degree from a university, despite lack of training at the school, one's achievements are recognized by the university and the degree is awarded.
Hick has argued that this view is unsatisfactory for a number of reasons. It is patronizing. It fails to recognize the positive role a non-Christian faith may have in turning one from self-centeredness toward the Ultimate. It also substantially weakens the meaning of salvation through faith in the death and resurrection of Christ. If the university awards too many honorary degrees the value of its diploma will be deflated. What is needed is a religious pluralism able to fully appreciate the significant differences among religions, able to recognize that different ways toward human perfection and ultimate felicity are offered by the religions, despite their differences, and yet able to grant these points without diluting the strength of the religious claim by any kind of relativism. This is the promise of the non-reductive religious pluralists of Islam proposed below.
The Non-Reductive Religious Pluralism of Islam
When we consider how a non-reductive religious pluralists might be formulated in the context of Islam, we must keep in mind that the issue of religious pluralism emerges in Christianity as a reaction to specifically Christian doctrines about salvation: that it is only through Christianity that one can benefit from the Redemption and gain salvation. A similar exclusivist doctrine can be found in some interpretations of the Jewish claim to be 'the chosen people'. These doctrines are thoroughly condemned in the Qur'an:
And they say none shall enter paradise unless he is a Jew or a Christian, these are their vain wishes. Say, 'Bring your proof if your are truthful.' Yes! If Whosoever submits himself to Allah and he is a doer of good, for him there shall be his reward with his Lord, on such shall be no fear nor shall they grieve. (Al-Quran, 2:110-111)
Religious pluralism emerges in Christianity as a reaction against the very attitude so eloquently condemned in the verses cited above. According to traditional Christian teaching, there is no way to salvation aside from the redemption offered by Christ, and even the great prophets, peace be with them, must wait in limbo until the resurrection, after which Christ must come to release them! Those Christian theologians who have opposed this line of thought and have sought to allow that non-Christians can achieve salvation have claimed that the saving faith either includes the unconscious acceptance of Christianity or is the common heritage of the world's major religious traditions.
Despite their differences, there is a common presumption shared by the various Christian parties to the dispute on pluralism. For Hick and Rahner, as well as the dogmatist, correct faith is necessary for salvation. In order to widen the opening of the gates of heaven, Rahner extends the notion of correct faith to those who live as if they were Christians and who would accept Christianity if properly exposed to it, while Hick goes further to deny that the apparent differences among the world's faiths are irreconcilable.
Hick's ultimate reconciliation is what makes apparently different faiths correct. What Hick does is to loosen the condition of correct belief so that it reduced to the common factor in all the world's religions, however abstract this may be; nevertheless, it remains as much a part of Hick's doctrine as Luther's that there can be no salvation without correct faith, even if the correct faith according to Hick is something of a least common denominator. In order to understand how to approach the problem of religious pluralism in the context of Islam, the two issues of correct faith and salvation need to be clearly distinguished.
According to Islam, the correct religion ordained by God is that revealed to the last of His chosen prophets, Muhammad (s); this and no other religion is required by Allah of all mankind. In this sense, Islam is exclusivist. However, at various times prior to His final revelation, God ordained other religions by means of His prophets. So, the reason why the religion brought by Moses ('a) is not acceptable today is not that what Moses taught was wrong or incompatible with the teachings brought by Muhammad (s), for they taught the same things, but because God has ordained the latter teachings for this era.
The previous teachings were not incorrect, and they were sufficient to guide the people for whom they were revealed to salvation. Although some scholars seek to minimize the importance, of this fact by appealing to riwayat (narrations) according to which the differences among the revealed religions amount to no more than the details of ritual practice, such as how many prostrations occur in various prayers, the number of days on which fasting is prescribed, and the like, there can be no denying that different paths can lead to God, and in different circumstances have been ordained by Him.
All of the divinely revealed religions are called Islam in the general sense of complete submission to the commands of Allah; while Islam is used in a specific sense to refer to the final version of Islam (in the general sense) brought by Muhammad (s). The difference between general and specific Islam gives rise to a number of interesting questions. How much variation can there be in the varieties of general Islam? Could God have ordained a version of general Islam for a people so different from us that we would not recognize it as such? Why did God ordain different versions of general Islam? The exact answers to these questions are with God alone.[27]
But in the present age, general Islam implies specific Islam, and this must be understood if one is not to fall into error about the position of Islam with respect to religious diversity. In the present human condition, it is specific Islam, Muhammadan Islam, and it is only Muhammadan Islam, which is the revealed religion which He calls upon us to follow. Nothing less is demanded, and nothing better is possible. There are several good reasons for this exclusivist element of Islam. First, the call to Islam is a call to unity of belief:
He has laid down for you the religion which He enjoined upon Noah, and which We revealed to you, and which We enjoined upon Abraham, Moses and Jesus: Establish the religion, and be not divided therein. (Al-Quran, 42:13
Islam presents itself as a way to reconcile the differences between Jews and Christians. The compromise offered by Islam affirms common elements between Judaism and Christianity, and accepts Christ ('a) as one of the greatest prophets of all time, but not as "God the Son" or as "the Redeemer". Christianity erred by failing to allow divine guidance as a means to salvation without the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The remedy to this error proposed by Hick has been recognized by many to amount to a dismantling of Christian theology.
In Islam, on the other hand, from its very inception, there has been awareness of other revealed religions by which felicity was obtained during the periods of their validity. So, the basic teachings of the Christian way are accepted by Islam, but the theological elaboration of those teachings in such doctrines as the Trinity, the Redemption and the Incarnation are rejected. Islam's willingness to accept the previous prophets as ordained by God comes with a demand that His final apostle Muhammad (s) also be accepted. The form of pluralism suggested here is like the famous Muhammadan compromise about the placement of the black stone.
When the Meccan tribes quarreled over who should have the Honor of placing the black stone during the refurbishing of the Ka'abah, the compromise offered by Muhammad (s) was that members of the rival tribes could each hold a corner of the blanket by which the stone would be raised and then Muhammad (s) would set it in place. It is because of the demand for the recognition of the Seal of the Prophets (s) that the reductive pluralists' solution to the problem of religious diversity cannot be accepted. To accept only some of the prophets ( `a) to the exclusion of others, particularly Muhammad (s), with the excuse that it makes no difference because all the religions are ultimately saying the same thing, is to fail to heed the divine call.
Verily those who deny God and His apostles and desire that they differentiate between God and His apostles and say 'We believe in some and we deny, some,' and intend to take a course between this (and that), these are the infidels, truly, and We have prepared for the infidels a disgraceful torment. (Al-Quran, 4:150-151)
There can be no Islamic version of reductive pluralism because Islam directly addresses itself to the question of religious diversity and calls for the dominion of Islam over all other religions:
He it is Who sent His Apostle with guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it prevail over all religions, although the polytheists may be averse. (Al-Quran, 9:33)[28]
According to reductive religious pluralism there can be no better reason for adopting one religion rather than another than cultural affinity. As a result, the importance of the divine law is undermined. In the context of Islam, on the other hand, the shari'ah brought by God's final chosen Apostle (s) is understood as the perfection of all previously ordained ways. The divine call to follow the law of Islam is extended to all humanity, not merely to those of a specific cultural setting
And We did not send you but to all people as a bearer of good tidings and as a warner, but most people do not know. (Al-Quran, 34:28)
With regard to the question of the correctness of faith, the position of Islam is clear. At various times it human history different faiths and laws were decreed by Allah. At present, however, there is but one divinely ordained religion, Muhammadan Islam, which requires belief in tawhid, prophecy (nabbuwah), and the Resurrection (ma'ad), and according to Shi'i theology, imamah, and divine justice, as well. As God says:
O you who believe! Believe in Allah and His Apostle and the Book which He has sent down to His Apostle and the Book which He sent down before; and whoever decries Allah and His angels and His books and His apostles and the Last Day has indeed strayed off, far away. (Al-Quran, 4:136)
Not only is a verbal or mental affirmation of these things required, for the divine call is a call to iman, which is not quite what is expressed by the English word "faith". To have iman, to be a mu'min, is to be wholeheartedly committed, to believe in as well as to believe that, and to be ready to put one's beliefs into action.[29]
It is not righteousness that you turn your faces towards the East and the West, righteousness is rather one who believes in Allah and the Last Day and the angels and the Book, the apostles, and gives his wealth out of love for Him to the kindred and the orphans and the poor and tire wayfarer and the needy and for those in bondage, and established prayer and pays zakat and those who fulfill their promise when they make a promise and the patient ones in distress and affliction and in the time of war. These are they who are the Truthful and these are they who are the pious. (Al-Quran, 2:177)
In sum, reductive pluralism is incompatible with Islam because according to reductive pluralism there is no requirement to accept all of the prophets ('a) and no requirement to obey the practical laws given through God's last chosen messenger (s), while according to the teachings of Islam, these divine prescriptions are clear. Reductive religious pluralism presents itself as an opening up toward other traditions, while from the standpoint of Islam, it is an attempt to open the way to kufr, a covering of one's eyes and ears to the truth of God's final revelation and its practical implications.
Hick is perfectly well aware of the inconsistency between Islam and the reductive religious pluralism he proposes. He admits: "In Islam there is the firm belief that Muhammad was 'the seal of the prophets' and that through the Qur'an God has revealed to mankind the true religion, taking up into itself and fulfilling all previous revelations. 'thus, whilst a Muslim should give friendly recognition to those within the other Abrahamic faiths and may even, in some interpretations, extend the Qur'anic concept of the People of the Book to include those who encounter the divine through the Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist as well as Jewish and Christian scriptures, yet he or she will retain a strong sense of the unique status of the Qur'anic revelation. Here is God's final, decisive and commanding word which all must heed and obey. And such a conviction, again, does not naturally encourage a full and unqualified acceptance of religious pluralism."[30]
The solution proposed by Hick to this conflict is garbed in the euphemism "creative doctrinal development,"[31] which the scholars of Islam would call bid'ah (heresy). Hick also expresses his optimism that sufi ideas may help win acceptance for reductive religious pluralism in the Islamic world, so that Islam may take roughly the same course that he has charted for Christianity. (May Allah preserve us from such a fate