One common criticism of the pluralistic view of religions–and one that I have found persuasive–is that it presupposes a “god’s eye” vantage point that seems to be ruled out by the theory itself. That is, asserting that all religions provide a partial perspective on the divine, seems to imply that the pluralist can discern clearly the Reality that the various religious traditions perceive only dimly.

John Hick, who probably has as large a claim as anyone to putting religious pluralism on the agenda of (Anglo-American) philosophy of religion, has a response to this objection. The pluralist hypothesis, he says, is an inductive hypothesis, founded in part on the assumption that religious experience is not illusory:

The advocate of the pluralist understanding cannot pretend to any such cosmic vision. How then does he profess to know that the situation is indeed as he depicts it? The answer is that he does not profess to know this, if by knowledge we mean infallible cognition. Nor indeed can anyone else claim to have knowledge, in this sense, of either the exclusivist or inclusivist picture. All of them are, strictly speaking, hypotheses. The pluralist hypothesis is arrived at inductively. One starts from the fact that many human beings experience life in relation to a limitlessly greater transcendent Reality–whether the direction of transcendence be beyond our present existence or within its hidden depths. […] Treating one’s own form of religious experience, then, as veridical–as an experience (however dim, like “seeing through a glass darkly”) of transcendent divine Reality–one then has to take account of the fact that there are other great streams of religious experience which take different forms, are shaped by different conceptualities, and embodied in different institutions, art forms, and life-styles. In other words, besides one’s own religion, sustained by its distinctive form of religious experience, there are also other religions, through each of which flows the life blood of a different form of religious experience. What account is one to give of this plurality? (Problems of Religious Pluralism, pp. 37-38)

Assuming that religious experience is to some extent veridical, Hick asks, is it more reasonable to think that one (and only one) tradition has discerned the truth about the divine, or that all the major traditions contain some truthful perception of that Reality? Hick’s argument is that the pluralistic hypothesis is the most reasonable.

Most mainline Christians (Protestant and Catholic) no longer take the hard-line exclusivist stance that Christianity is true and other religions simply false. They also generally affirm that adherents of other religions can find salvation (though there’s a variety of accounts about how that’s supposed to work). But mainline theology has generally moved in the direction of “inclusivism.” What Hick contends, though, is that inclusivism is a logically unstable half-way house between exclusivism and a more thorough-going pluralism. His argument hinges on his understanding of the nature of salvation.

For Hick, salvation is the process whereby we move from being self-centered to “Reality-centered.” That is, we become less preoccupied with our selves and move toward a universal compassion. Religion, then, is a vehicle for attaining salvation/liberation. And since, as seems evident, no one religion has a monopoly on this form of liberation, it seems reasonable to conclude that all religions with such spiritual and moral fruits are rooted in some kind of authentic experience of ultimate Reality. And it further seems to follow that no one religion can, on these grounds at any rate, claim to be the one unsurpassable truth.

Religions–with their complex systems of symbol, myth, metaphysics, ritual, devotional practices, ethical principles, art, and social organization–are culturally conditioned responses to an encounter with “the Real”–an encounter often mediated through charismatic leaders and founders. What accounts the differences among religions is the diversity among human beings: their cultures, their histories, and other factors that shape their response to ultimate Reality. The Real as it appears in forms of religion must be distinguished from the Real as it is in itself. Different religions may reflect different aspects of the Real, but, as far as we can observe their effects, it would be presumptuous to assert that one is superior to the rest.

Hick to some extent offers a pragmatic criterion of religious truth. Various culturally conditioned manifestations of the Real are true and good to the extent that they enable their adherents to move from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness. “These many different perceptions of the Real, both theistic and non-theistic, can only establish themselves as authentic by their soteriological efficacy” (p. 44). This doesn’t mean that religions don’t make truth-claims, but that their ultimate claims–in this life at any rate–can only be evaluated by their efficacy in making salvation possible.

I think this version of pluralism is stronger than it’s often given credit for, and Hick has responses to some of the most common objections. But one question that occurs to me is whether the “soteriological efficacy” of a particular religion depends, at least in part, on its being believed in a non-pluralistic fashion. In other words, many of the great saints of the Christian tradition seem to be those who believed most wholeheartedly in Christianity’s truth claims. By contrast, if I come to see Christianity as one among many culturally conditioned responses to the Real, might it not be harder for the Christian narrative, symbols, practices, etc. to form me in a way that makes salvation/liberation possible? Won’t I be tempted to hold them at arm’s length, having seen them as the product of human minds as much as the divine mind?

Of course, Hick might well respond that this is simply the position that all moderately critical religious believers find themselves in. Anyone who has rejected the inerrancy of the Bible and the infallibility of church and tradition must reckon with the fact that, to some extent, their religion is man-made. It may be a response to a divine revelation, but that revelation is mediated through human language, symbols, and concepts. Wholehearted, uncritical belief just isn’t an option.