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The Slippery Slope of Religious Relativism Author(s): J. Kellenberger Reviewed work(s): Source: Religious Studies, Vol. 21, No.

1 (Mar., 1985), pp. 39-52 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20006137 . Accessed: 04/02/2012 23:12
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Rel. Stud., 21, pp. 39-52

J. KELLENBERGER
California State University, Northridge

THE

SLIPPERY

SLOPE

OF RELIGIOUS

RELATIVISM
Among the questions facing the religious there is one that is becoming particularly pressing in our contemporary world of mingled cultures. Expressed as religious people sometimes put it to themselves, it is:How does my religion relate to other religions? There are two very different answers
abroad. One is: mine is true and all others, The to the extent other is: mine that they depart from mine, are false and are to be rejected. is valid-for-me,

and those of others are valid-for-them. The first answer has the virtue of being utterly straightforward and not mealy-mouthed, but it seems parochial and myopic, for, as John Hick points out:
In the great majority of cases, the tradition within which a religious person finds his relationship to the Real depends to a very great extent upon where and when he or she is born... In view of this situation, can one be unquestionably confident that the religion which one happens to have inherited by birth is indeed normative and that all others are properly to be graded by their likeness or unlikeness to it?'

The second seems open-minded and open-hearted, but it comes part way
down a slippery slope of concessions, and once one has gone so far it may

not be possible to stop before one concedes the pointlessness of all belief and in thisway ends with nihilism. So Roger Trigg argues.2 Iwant to examine
that slippery one can halt slope and see if there are not the descent. in fact some stopping places where

What is the slippery slope of religious relativism? It can be formulated in several ways. Following Trigg, we can depict it as a slide down seven steps. It begins when one steps from the firm ground of regarding religious belief as objectively and literally true (or false) to (I) accepting religious belief as not literally true but true as myth, which leads to (2) regarding belief as valid within the religious society that accepts themyth and its conceptual scheme, which leads to
1 John Hick, 'On Grading Religions', Religious Studies, xvii (I98I), 456. Quoted 'Religion and the Threat of Relativism', Religious Studies, xix (I983), 298. 2 pp. 30I-5. In 'Religion and the Threat of Relativism', by Roger Trigg,

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J.

KELLENBERGER

(3) regarding religious conceptual schemes as ultimate, and on to the two corollaries of (4) regarding no religion as better than any other as a guide to the nature of God or the Divine, and (5) giving up the idea of a definite religious reality independent of conceptual schemes, which leads to (6) giving up the idea of making claims about an independent, external religious reality, which finally leads to (7) accepting the pointlessness of belief, that is, nihilism. The big step, I think, is from (2) to (3). Before I turn to an examination
of that step, however, let me say a few words about an element within the

Judaeo-Christian heritage that creates a disposition to take the first step on to the slope. In religion, certainly inJudaeo-Christian religion, there is a kind of ambivalence: on the one hand God is described as good, loving, and merciful (and more); on the other hand it is felt that these human terms do not really apply to theGodhead. This latter tendency isoften associated with the experience of religious mystery and especially with mysticism. Dionysius (or Pseudo-Dionysius) is one who emphasizes the mystery of the Godhead. Beyond God, for him, is the Super-Essential Godhead, which is beyond all Being and transcends all knowledge. While we can 'celebrate' theNameless
with to an without every name, 'emanation' a nature. of him, we cannot reveal or express Eckhart it. Rather, says: 'It when is God's we apply nature terms to be

like 'wise' and 'good' to God we are applying symbolic terms that apply
of it.' Meister To or wisdom, or power think of his goodness, to obscure it with thoughts about him '.2 This but of God or it is not from concepts limited to the mystics. God's mercy to belittle and and in part because the goodness, appear is to hide tendency It arises in mercy course these it the

the essence is pronounced part because and beings goodness, attributes. exists and been resolve within as He that

in mysticism, of the mystery these and terms

goodness, God. Of to have

love seem so vastly

different

love of human

counterpoised against this tendency is traditional religious belief in God's


mercy Here, love, which within requires religious that God and, belief, saw can be said we should indeed, possibly and again, is the ambivalence; appreciate, within

raises a problem for some

religious sensibility of a single believer. That there is this ambivalence has


appreciated it with religious time. Aquinas of analogical there the problem life. But within the doctrine belief itself predication.3 to deny to sought In any case this this is to say that is literally religious belief
(London: S.P.C.K.

ambivalence

is a phenomenological in traditional

fact of religious is a tendency belief. Consequently


The Areopagite, Harper

that God

is represented

1 See chapter

i of The Divine A'ames:

Dionysius

trans. C. E. Rolt I941),

1940), pp- 5i-64. 2 Meister Eckhart, trans. R. B. Blakney 3 Summa Theologica, 1, q. I3, a. 5.

(New York:

& Row,

pp. 243-4.

RELIGIOUS

RELATIVISM:

A SLIPPERY

SLOPE

4I

we

find Once

a disposition one within is on

to go

to the first step and slope religious it is fairly societies

onto easy,

the slippery and, it seems, them

slope not and

of too

religious relativism.
the slippery

damaging,
as valid

tomove to the second step (regarding different religious beliefs


the different that accept their

underlying myth, or vision, with its accompanying conceptual scheme). After all, this step allows that there isone Divine Reality standing behind themyths of different religious traditions, which would mean that there is an objective
religious gone truth even if what step it is remains not unknown. to go However, once we have step, or so Trigg to the second it is hard to the third

believes. Is this right? II


At the third step Since of God at steps it is accepted this entails and that that there schemes the conceptual is no Divine scheme of each religion guide is what two as to of and

is ultimate. the nature underlying is accepted step we settings) ultimate) about hard

that no religion

is a better Reality once we

(or worse) independent which arrive

the conceptual

of the various

religions,

four and

five respectively, two. But each that

at the third

are forced to step ? Initially

on to the next three it may (regarding appear systems, when

is it necessary religious

to go from step scheme says,

(regarding each religious conceptual

scheme as valid in their different


conceptual As Trigg religions, the belief is necessary. 'the idea

that divergent to grasp,

conceptual or

such as different we reflect that

are all equally structures of

the same reality

certainly

seems hard

to grasp'.1 The

idea is particularly

to allow,

different religions apparently contradict one another. The religions of the Western heritage are resolutely theistic; Buddhism and forms of Hinduism are nontheistic. Christianity affirms the Divinity of Jesus of Nazareth; Judaism denies it. A slope is slippery indeed when we are forced down it by logical necessity. However, the necessity of making this step isworth a closer look. The crucial question regarding it may be put this way: Can different - even incompatible - religious conceptual schemes be about the same reality? I
shall offer two reasons for allowing that they can be. One has to do with the

logic of belief in; one has to do with the logic of reference. Typically when believers believe inGod they conceive ofGod in somemore
or less definite way. Thus God may be conceived of as the God of Abraham,

Isaac and Jacob, theCreator of the universe, who lovesHis children and who requires obedience of them. Or, again, God may be conceived of such that He is as just described but in addition He is the Remission of sins through the sacrifice of His Son. The conceptions are different and are even
1 Trigg, 'Religion and the Threat of Relativism', p. 303 (his emphasis).

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J.

KELLENBERGER

incompatible ifwe append to the first a denial of the added element in the second, the Remission of sins through the Son's sacrifice. Nevertheless believers of both types believe in the same God; they only conceive of him differently. That this is so is a matter of the general concept of belief in and has nothing to do with the special features of religious belief or faith. Consider
a case of belief in a human being. It of course is possible to believe in another

human being, a doctor, say, or a person that one does not know very well who has promised to give one much needed aid. Say that such a stranger promises two different men aid, twomen in very different circumstances. One needs aid in the form of a near-miraculous cure for his dying brother. The other needs aid in the form of obtaining the release of his brother from a prison
in a totalitarian state. The stranger talks to each of the two men in their

different settings, but only briefly. Still, in each case he succeeds in impressing the man to whom he speaks, so that each comes to believe in the stranger and his promise. But each man conceives of the stranger differently. One thinks of him as a kind of renegade medical practitioner, as flamboyant as a magician, who has attained hermetic skills through a lifetime of arcane studies. The other thinks of him as a prestigious diplomat, powerfully connected in the world of international affairs, whose life has been devoted exclusively to improving international understanding. Each of the two men believes in the stranger, but the two of them have very different, in fact incompatible, conceptions of him. This, however, does not entail that they
do not believe in the same person, so far as the point in whom, concerned of logic before both - and for ex hypothesi they do. Somehow us is concerned, it does not matter how - at them in both believe. And so far as belief and in is

least one of them has come to hold wrong beliefs about the stranger's nature,
nevertheless, the logic of is the same the religious the non-religious

case.
Of course cases. trusting in both If belief one's God, can be the conception there may be limits on how far wrong For one thing the nature of belief inmay impose some limits. in, as it is in these I suggest, is trusted. to be absolute belief in God's the other cases, requires In fact then one it is or involves trust; as good faith goodness, in another we find note, the one can and to in in another, to see the other and God's trust

in is faith that

the degree accordingly, again

in the case of religious Similarly

or trust in God, is believed

the trust is or should

be absolute,

or perfect.

may carry implications for believing in the other's power or abilities. And
in the case of religious related goodness by belief and in theJudaeo-Christian tradition both we an internally in the other's are required requirements believes omnipotence. However, the belief in the other's power, of trust the way itself. It remains may one conceives the belief

should

the relationship Thus,

of the relationship,

that, beyond of him in whom have seen, one

is not determined.

as Kierkegaard

RELIGIOUS

RELATIVISM:

SLIPPERY

SLOPE

43

have

a wrong

conception

of God

and yet believe

in or have

faith

in Him,'

and two communities of believers - two religions - can have mutually exclusive conceptions of God and yet believe inGod. As itmay be put, despite their different and possibly wrong conceptions their belief or faith in God in each case relates to God. My second reason for holding that different, even incompatible, religious conceptual schemes can be about the same reality has to do with reference
and its logic. Fortunately it is not necessary to say a lot about reference, or

referring to things, to make the point I want to bring forward. It will be sufficient, I believe, to present a non-religious case or two where different and incompatible conceptual schemes, or their analogues, operate and yet the same reality or entity is referred to. Consider the following case. In a certain family there isa deep-rooted belief that generations ago the family, over a period of some decades, was helped in various ways by a 'mysterious stranger' - for so this person is called by the family. However, thiswas some time ago, and while the belief is strongly held throughout the family there ismuch disagreement within the family about the character of this stranger. One side of the family describes him as a wealthy and forceful individual who dramatically provided monetary aid
at the apex of crises for the family. Another side of the family characterizes

him as a humble and poor person who provided moral encouragement, delivered in the form of parables that effectively crystallized the resolve of certain family members. These two sides of the family agree on which of their antecedents itwas he helped. A third side of the family believes that he helped not those antecedents but others. A fourth side of the family agrees with each of the others on certain points but believes that themysterious stranger was a woman who for reasons of her own often disguised herself as a man. All sides of the family agree that there was a mysterious stranger, and indeed there was. They are all referring to the same individual however much their conceptions of that individual vary. In fact their disagreeing about the stranger's attributes requires that they are referring to the same individual. For if some were referring to one individual, and others were referring to another, there would be no real disagreement among them.We see, then, that even though somemembers of the family must be wrong about how they think of themysterious stranger, and all may be wrong regarding significant attributes, this does not prevent them from referring to the same person. A second case. In the last century a revered ancestor of another family made long treks into what was then an area of Africa unexplored by Europeans. In doing so he endured considerable hardship. He was often gone
1 See Kierkegaard's parable of the idol-worshipper, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. David F. Swenson and Walter Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, I94I), pp. 179-80. I have briefly discussed Kierkegaard's and Truth in Incompatible parable in 'Wittgenstein Religious Traditions', Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, XII ( I983), I74-5.

44

J. KELLENBERGER

formonths and sometimes for years. In letters written by his acquaintances he is presented as one inspired, even obsessed and driven. Contemporary members of the family keep alive the stories of this ancestor, and all refer to his inspiration. However, accounts of that inspiration vary. Some, drawing upon certain documents, see his inspiration as the desire to find gold or diamonds. Others, citing other sources, describe it as a desire to convert the inhabitants to Christianity. Others describe it as an unmitigated seeking of adventure. Again, despite these differences in conception, all the members of the family are referring to the same thing: their revered ancestor's inspiration for his long treks. The first case, which is superficially like the case I presented in discussing
the logic of belief in, is, we should be clear, about reference and not belief

in.The logic of belief in,where it isfaith in, relates to human persons or to a personal God (or, inmyths and stories, to person-like entities). The logic of reference, though, is not limited in this way, as is demonstrated by the second case; there it is a person's inspiration, and not a person, that is referred to.While we have faith only in persons, we refer to all sorts of things.What these last two cases show us is that different speakers with different, even incompatible, beliefs about a thing - different conceptual schemes, in effect can still refer to that thing. The implications of this point are significant when applied to the world's different religions, some of which regard ultimate reality as God and some of which regard ultimate reality in a non-theistic, non-personal way. Given the point we have just seen, despite their different and perhaps incompatible conceptual schemes those in even such deeply
different How religions can could still be referring can to the same reality. and generally, that this be? How it be in the religious thing? This do not need some in question. marks' person 'by case,

different people with different, even incompatible, ways of thinking of a thing


can be referring we that need not will it can be; we to the same it. We need only answer exhibit can be asked, but strictly question an account of how it can be to see Nevertheless believed for that, examples accounts have true by since been

flesh-and-blood

examples

the logic identifying

given. Perhaps Saul Kripke is right: reference is in general not determined


by a set of rather use 'uniquely to refer of to be the speaker, who passed a being reference is or can be determined to a certain the community of false beliefs by a 'community or object, from link of speakers to link'

the name'

the name

to members member despite passes

tradition

so that

of the community any number from link

can refer to a person about

or object

by use of that name

that referred community

to link in a language

a name to.1 For Kripke from a single individual

' and in Semantics of Natural Language, ed. D. Davidson and Necessity', 'Naming Saul A. Kripke, 'Must We Know I972), pp. 301-3 and 309. See Leon Immerman's D. Reidel, G. Harmon (Dordrecht: of Kripke's ideas about naming and reference What We Say?', Religious Studies xv (I979), for an application about God. to religious language

A SLOPE RELATIVISM: SLIPPERY RELIGIOUS

45

who through an 'initial baptism' gives an object its name. However, perhaps we can allow that a single person or object can sometimes be given several different names through several 'baptisms', all of which are passed to various members of the community. Ifwe allow this, then applying Kripke's account to religion, we might regard one religious community of speakers as consisting of the entire Western tradition of religious belief (in which the names used to refer are 'God' or 'Allah' or one of God's titles), or we might regard all religions as forming one religious community of speakers (inwhich the names used to refer range from 'God' to 'Brahman'). But, again, we need not agree thatKripke's account is right inorder to see that individuals with incompatible conceptions of a person or object can still refer to that person or object. To see thismuch is to see the correctness of the second reason for holding that different, even incompatible, religious conceptual schemes can be about the same Reality. In the light of the two reasons I have brought forward - one
relating to belief in, the other to reference I suggest that the necessity of

going from step two to step three becomes questionable. That is, ifwe accept it that different religious beliefs are asmyths valid in their own social settings, even though the beliefs of one religion are incompatible with the beliefs of
others, still we need not accept it that each religious conceptual scheme is

'ultimate' in the sense that it cannot refer to something beyond itself towhich other religions refer as well.
III

The reason that sliding from step two to step three is so horrendous for anything like traditional belief has to do with what is implied if each religious conceptual scheme is ultimate. The implications are expressed in step four (regarding no religion as better than any other as a guide to the nature of
God or the Divine) and step five (giving up the idea of a definite religious

reality independent of conceptual schemes). However two points are worth noting, I think. First, it is especially step five that strikes at a traditional understanding of religious belief, and, in fact, itmay be that step four can be disarmed. Second, while both steps four and five are corollaries of step three, step five does not logically follow from step four. That is, the proposition accepted at step four does not entail the proposition accepted at step five. Let me speak to both points, starting with the first. In 'Religion and the Threat of Relativism' Trigg says 'Either God, as he is conceived of by Christians, exists or he does not'.1 This seems right. However, it may be salutary to remind ourselves that there are Christians and there are Christians. There are Catholics and Protestants, Anglicans and Southern Baptists. Does a contemporary Southern Baptist minister conceive of God in
the same way as did,
1 Trigg,

say,

the Medici
and

pope,

Leo X?

Yes

and no. No,

if we

'Religion

the Threat

of Relativism',

p. 305.

46

J.

KELLENBERGER

count views about transubstantiation, the intercession of the saints, and the approachability or at least the glorification of the Divine through the aesthetic. Again, either God, as he isconceived of by Southern Baptists, exists or he does not. But, we may want to say, at least the core beliefs about God are the same for all Christians, and it is this core of belief that is a guide to the nature of God. However, within Christianity there are many traditions, including thatmystical tradition inwhich Dionysius and Eckhart stand. For Dionysius, aswe have seen, while God isa personal God, there isbehind God, as itwere, a Super-Essential Godhead that isnonpersonal, that is, transcends the category of personhood. This is the deeper understanding, forDionysius. Thus if we are to include Dionysius as a Christian, as Aquinas surely did, we shall need as Christianity's core belief not 'The deepest reality is a living, personal God' or 'The deepest reality is a personal God made incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth', but 'There is a Divine Reality conceived of as a personal God or as nonpersonal Being'. But if so, then the core of Christian belief may be shared by religions other than Christianity and other than the theistic religions of theWestern heritage. Of course many, like Trigg, may be prepared to part company with Dionysius. For Trigg, as I understand him, Christians identifyJesus and God and believe that God is 'uniquely revealed in Jesus'.1 Now it does not seem to me that if we accept it that God is uniquely revealed in Jesus we must deny that He is uniquely revealed in the prophets of Israel, inKrishna, and in the Buddha. Various representations can be unique in their own ways. what helps bring persons True, God may not be spoken of inBuddhism; but if into a lived relationship with God?or Ultimate Reality reveals God, then it is arguable that the life of theBuddha reveals God, whether or not Buddhists speak of God. Of course if one maintains that God is revealed only in Jesus, then one cannot allow thatGod was revealed in other religions; but the claim that God is revealed only in Jesus, with itsMarcion-like rejection of theOld Testament, is, I believe, not a Christian claim. However itmust be admitted that different religions can have conflicting and incompatible beliefs, and, interestingly, itmay be that the closer they are themore they conflict. Thus it seems that orthodox Christianity and orthodox Judaism must differ over the truth of the belief that Jesus is to be identified with God or is the only
begotten it must Son of God. be - denied If I am right, by some other in itself even this belief does not rule out be

unique revelations of God in other religions; nevertheless itmay be - perhaps


religions. And, of course, there may

other beliefs of Christianity that are incompatible with other religions.


If this is so, then some mean nature that the religion Let of God? beliefs of some whose central beliefs this religions cannot be true. Does to the are true is the best guide that God
p. 303.

us assume
'Religion

that it is true not merely


and the Threat of Relativism',

is uniquely

1 Trigg,

A SLOPE RELIGIOUS RELATIVISM: SLIPPERY

47

revealed in Jesus but that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, and let us assume further that this truth is incompatible with other religions. Does this mean that Christianity is a better guide to the nature of God than religions that deny this truth?Not necessarily, it seems tome. For one thing there still may be uniquely significant revelations of God in other religions. But there is another consideration, already touched upon. Of great concern in all religions, certainly in Christianity, is the nature of the individual believer's religious life in relation to God or toUltimate Reality. However it is after we have accepted it that Jesus uniquely reveals God or Reality and is the
Son of God virtue and Christianity by stymied. that we have faith. One and If a mark may the questions accept or what, the other a guide about works let us allow, on to the nature and contemplation is the central of God belief and of

go one way

these matters,

or go no way, is in fear and

of having

trembling working out a day-to-day lived relationship with God or Reality, then something else is required besides even this central belief of Christianity, even though it be true. Thus it is possible to insist that those central beliefs of one's own religion which are denied by other religions are true and yet
to allow equally that other good guide religions are as adequate of God as one's own as guides suggested to the - even

nature of God. If so, then it may be that each major religion provides an
to the nature in the way I have

though the central beliefs of one religion, and not those of others, are true. Now Iwould like to turn to the second point, that step four does not entail step five. At step four it is accepted that no religion is a better guide toGod's
nature than any other. What counts as a guide to God's nature is open to

interpretation, aswe havejust seen. But, beyond what we havejust seen, there is a further ambiguity. The proposition accepted at step fourmay mean: (i) we cannot tell which religion best reflects God's nature or (ii) no religion reflects God's nature better than any other. However neither (i) nor (ii) entails the proposition accepted at step five, that there is no Godhead or Divine Reality independent of religious conceptual schemes. Proposition (i) would be true if we human beings cannot penetrate the mystery of the Godhead, but see only darkly, while there is a Godhead to be known and which is perfectly known by God. And proposition (ii) would be true if each religion were in some ways wrong in its conception of theGodhead or Real, or in its projection of religious relationships toReality, and each was equally wrong - which requires that there is a Reality independent of religious conceptual schemes in comparison with which they are true or false. The proposition accepted at step fourmay be open to other constructions
as well. I suspect, however, that only if it is construed as 'No religion is a better

guide to the nature of God because there isnothing for religion to be a guide to' does it entail that there is no independent Godhead. Earlier we saw that
step two does not force us to step three. Now we see that a qualified step four

may be unobjectionable and, in any case, step four does not force us to step

48

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KELLENBERGER

five.We of coursemust have step five to be forced on to six (giving up religious claims about an independent Reality) and seven (nihilism). Thus even if step two leads directly to four, we could stop at four and proceed no further on the slippery slope. IV Now let us seewhere we are. The descent down the slippery slope of religious relativism begins when we allow that religious beliefs are not literally true; and it ends with nihilism, the rejection of all belief as pointless. But I think that we are now in a position to see that the slide down the slope of relativism is not irresistible. There are stops for those who in some way seek to give a place to religions other than their own without setting up their own as the standard. I have argued that, ifwe get onto the slope, it is possible to stop
at step two, or, if we go on, to skip three and stop at step four. In addition

there are other justifications for stopping at different points on the slippery slope. John Hick, who is foremost among thosewho are seeking a view of religion thatwill accommodate the religions of theworld, and inwhose thought Trigg finds the beginnings of relativism, if he does enter upon the slippery slope, has a justification for stopping early on. Does he step onto the slope in the first place? Hick staunchly emphasizes the factual character of religious assertions like the Christian assertions that 'God exists' and 'God loves
mankind'; shared matter and so for him by and underlying of myth that Ultimate these are not mythical.' the different Reality major is infinite, Also there are what it is not I think a

must be, for him, literal, as opposed tomythological,

religious truths or beliefs


for him mind, the human

religions: transcends

is eternal, and is one.2 On the other hand, however, Hick speaks of the mythological character of the Christian belief in the Incarnation, as Trigg
observes, Hick, and he speaks of the mythology the nature are not of the Koran literally for instance, religions as well (regarding, the nature of Krishna); and, for true or, if they are concepts, do not literally of other and

such myths

apply.3 Consequently, regarding a number of beliefs deemed to be central in different religious traditions, Hick arguably must take the first step onto
the slippery its cultural each religion slope. But while setting, as and 'ultimate'. Hick For clearly to step Hick regards there each so goes two, he need religion as valid within not and does not regard independent Reality

is an

experienced differently by those in different religions. Which

religion has

1 John Hick, in God and the Universe of Faiths (London: Macmillan, as fact-asserting', 'Religion I973), pp. 22-6. 2 It is recognized divine reality is religious 'in all the main traditions', Hick says, 'that the ultimate of Faith', 'The New Map of the Universe the grasp of the human mind'. infinite and as such transcends reality', that the 'same transcendent he suggests in God and the Universe of Faith. p. 139. And elsewhere religions. 'Sketch for a Global in different or theistically nontheistically is experienced the Eternal One, The Westminster Press, I980), in God Has Many Names (Philadelphia: Knowledge', of Religious Theory God and the Universe of Faiths, p. 175. and Mythology', 'Incarnation 3 John Hick, pp. 83-4.

ASLIPPERY SLOPE RELIGIOUS RELATIVISM:

49

which part of the truth,which comes closest toDivine Reality, inHick's view, is open to a final verification that is eschatological. Thus, he says,
in that future it may turn out that the root visions [of the different religions] were or it maps of different possible universes, only one at most of which is actualized; may turn out that they were analogous tomaps of the same world drawn in radically of projection distorting different projections, each method reality in a different fashion and yet enabling the traveller successfully to find his or her way.'

Another philosopher mentioned


stopping live and place. Trigg the "myths

by Trigg, D. Z. Phillips, may also have a


who talk 'in terms of the way that finally they may people differ live by'

says of relativists " or " stories " they

from conscious atheists only in 'that theywant to save religion as aworth-while activity'.2 I think that Trigg must have Phillips in mind as one who emphasizes 'stories' and the way religious people live. For Phillips, as for Wittgenstein, being religious is holding before oneself a picture and using it to regulate in all of one's life; being religious is learning what forgiving, thanking, loving, and more, mean in religious contexts, though which 'the believer is participating in the reality of God'.3 In fact, for Phillips, the religious way of life isGod: there isno meaningful question, 'Does God exist independently of the religious way of life'? And, for him, the religious way
of life is in order as it is, in itself, with its own meanings and criteria, which

are not open to judgement by external criteria. Given Phillips' view of religion, he does step upon the slippery slope of religious relativism, and,
unlike picture Hick, he must go a long way in a way down the slide. But he can come to a in the

halt, even if not until the sixth step. Given his view of belief as belief in a
and participation of life, he can maintain that belief

religious sense survives giving up making claims about an independent Reality. Whether Phillips can correctly maintain this is another question. Trigg would say not.4 And others too, includingJohn Hick, would point out that Phillips' view of religious belief and practice severs both from the traditional understanding of belief as cognitive. Nevertheless, given his own terms, Phillips can pull up before renouncing belief as pointless. Among thosewho seek to give a place to religions not their own and refrain fromjudging different religions by the standard of their own, there are others who can find a place to stop. Religious believers following the direction of RudolfOtto's thinking, for instance, could look for a common element among religions in the numinous consciousness.5 Following Otto, such believers
1 Hick, 'On Grading Religions', p. 462. Given the first alternative it appears that, on Hick's view, the basic beliefs of one religion could turn out to be literally true after all, while those of other religions would be true only as myths. 2 Trigg, 'Religion and the Threat p. 305. of Relativism', 3 D. Z. Phillips, Death and Immortality (London: Macmillan, of his views I970), p. 55. For a development on religion see his collection of essays, Faith and Philosophical Enquiry (New York: Schocken Books, I97 I). 4 Roger Trigg, Reason and Commitment (London: Cambridge University Press, I973), pp. 9I-2. 5 Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, trans. John W. Harvey, 2nd edn. (London: Oxford University

Press, I950).

50

J.

KELLENBERGER

could maintain that the 'rational' attributes of God (those that can be thought) do not exhaust the Divine subject, that there is in addition a nonrational numinous experience, an experience of awe and mystery before the 'wholly other', that informs their religion. Still following Otto, they could regard all religions as being grounded in this experience. At the same time they need not abandon every conception of God.1 They can yet regard God as a personal God and as all-good, and they can accept this conception as literally true. In thisway these believers would have a stop before the first step, that is, before they even step onto the slippery slope. Other believers might take up a Kierkegaardian way of thinking. Kierkegaard himself was not concerned with accommodating other religions. His concern was with what it is to be a Christian. However his categories, especially that of subjective truth, invite an application to the other task. Following Kierkegaard, but modifying his ideas, such believers might allow, not that subjective truth is precisely faith and faith is the holding fast of an objective uncertainty with themost passionate inwardness,2 but that subjective truth may be found in a religious relationship - a wider category than
faith - and that a relationship can be to the true God by virtue of the depth

of its inwardness, the passion of its trust or thewholeness of its commitment, whether or not the Divine is rightly conceived. For such a view as this there are objective religious truths, but a religious life has depth not by virtue of
a person's a view holding those truths to be true, but by virtue religious truth, of the depth and of that

person's response to the Divine, however the Divine


as this there is a literal, objective

is conceived. For such


so the slippery

slope is not entered upon, but different religions are accommodated because those in various religions may have a right relationship toGod despite wrong ideas about God. v Finally let me address Trigg's concern that those views of religion that get us onto the slippery slope may, beyond leading to a nihilistic rejection of religious belief, lead to a justification for a nonreligious outlook. In
cormmenting says it proves requires but we
I Otto

on Hick's too much.

argument His

against

using

one's

own

religion

as a are

my opening comments - Trigg standard forjudging others - which Iquoted in


reasoning them not the is this: today thus, religion there are those who

raised in traditions that renounce religion, and the logic of Hick's argument
us to accommodate that we ought not to use ought as well; if the argument to judge other outlook is sound, religions, to judge a it is not only to use one generically

religious

of a clear sense and the importance numinous of the non-rational stressed both the importance by the way, was acutely for religious knowledge. Otto, he saw as necessary of God, which conception the rational and for him is between in section I, which I discussed aware of the tension or ambivalence v, pp. I98-9. See The Idea of the Holy, appendix the non-rational. 2 This is Kierkegaard's of faith. Concluding Unscientific Postscript, p. I82. Postscript definition

RELIGIOUS

RELATIVISM:

SLIPPERY

SLOPE

51

nonreligious outlook; and, accordingly, we ought to conclude that both, or


all, are equally argument, extended response, will valid. Trigg and means his extension is telling. be a difference to be a reductio of the original For the argument that makes not to be a difference that it of course; in this way on the other. his point

there must If such

between the various religious responses, on the one hand, and a nonreligious
a difference is to be found, it will relate it is likely lie in the area of religious epistemology: towhat the religious,

but not the nonreligious, perceive, experience, encounter, or have come to know. There are of course various ways to understand the epistemological position of religious persons. I shall touch upon three, two of which allow Trigg's extension of Hick's argument, while the third, if I am right, does not. The first way of understanding the epistemological status of religious persons isJohn Hick's. For Hick inFaith andKnowledgefaith isan interpretation of the ambiguous 'given' by which the religious experience the religious
significance of the world.' It is experiencing the world as God's domain - as

opposed to a retrospective, theoretical interpretation brought to their experience. Where Hick presents this view he focuses on Christian faith,
perhaps in part because faith can be so important in Christianity. But

presumably he would allow that his analysis applies to religious experience in other religions that do not emphasize faith. In any case he allows that it applies to anti-religious outlooks:
This analysis of religious faith as interpretation is not itself a religious, or an but an epistemological It can with logical propriety be antireligious, doctrine. both by the theist and by the atheist.2 accepted....

For Hick, then, Christians, and by extension those in other religions, and as well the non-religious are in the same epistemological position: all experience and interpret in their experience the ambiguous given of theworld; however some interpret it theistically, some nontheistically but religiously, and some atheistically, that is, nonreligiously. Which is right, Hick sometimes suggests, is a matter for future verification, of eschatological verification in the next life.3 If so, then this future verification, if the future is such that there is an eschatological verification, will not only tell us which religion has which part of the truth (in accord with the quotation in the last section), but whether the nonreligious interpretation is right.Until then, however, the religious and the non-religious are in essentially the same epistemological position so far as any of us can tell. Thus, on this account, itwould seem that Hick should extend his argument in accord with what Trigg says. The second view is that of D. Z. Phillips. Phillips says:
I and John Hick, Faith and Knowledge, 2nd edn. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University 141-7. Hick returns to this theme in 'Religious Faith as Experiencing-as' Press, I966), pp. I I3-I9

in God and the Universe of

Faiths.
John Hick, 'Eschatalogical

p. 2Hick, Faith andKnowledge, I44.


Verification Revisited', Religious Studies xIII (1977).

52

J.

KELLENBERGER

speak as if one had constant factors called 'the phenomena', of which Philosophers are these are competing But what religion and humanism interpretations. is not an interpretation of how things are, but phenomena? Religious language determines how things are for the believer. The saint and the atheist do not interpret the same world in different ways. They see different worlds.1

Clearly Phillips' comments address and rejectHick's view, which ishis target,
although than the not his only He target. Phillips that, is not given saying their that the saint sees more for atheist. is saying different 'criteria

meaningfulness', their different conceptual schemes, their projected worlds are different. And for Phillips, since their conceptual schemes are 'ultimate',
there Phillips' argument, But is no appeal view, which, to an independent then, provides in fact, reality no by which reason not they can be judged. to extend Hick's as us to extend persons. and are to, and versions places, religions he does Given but within to which the that to its so this us with

I think Phillips

would

encourage status way

Trigg does.
there is a third view to it the to the Real, the nonreligious ways. Hick, of the epistemological have in some which of religious According responding to which of in various namely his view religious experienced to be responded possible may

to the Divine,

is there

do not respond. experience presents way which and blind. by I think,

TFhere are various of the Real such each a view

this third view, those places of faith there

for religious where

be understood major

as this in many Where

he portrays

of the various

as responding third view, the various religious something accommodate schemes


1 Phillips,

in its distinctive is a Real have with

to the same Reality.2 recedes into the various to which This is indeed

as interpretation contact

the background. religions, they respond, a difference And the religious it to be,

or many

religions, and

the nonreligious

are somehow the non-religious

between I think who then from seek

that makes If it is right,

a difference. as I take

like it is often other

assumed

those among

religions.

rightness alone it follows that we ought not to consider religious conceptual


as ultimate.
'Religion- and Epistemology: Some Contemporary Confusions', Faith and Philosophical Enquiry,

P. 132. 2 See the last sentence of' On Grading Religions'; 'Sketch for a Global Theory of Religious Knowledge', God Ilas Many Names, p. 83;' The New Map of the Universe of Faiths', God and the Universe of Faiths, p. 146. In the last two essays he advances this view as a 'hypothesis', but in 'On Grading Religions' he suggests that we can 'only ackinowledge, and to within each of these vast historical indeed rejoice complexes', in the fact, that the Real... that is, Hinduism, Buddhism, is known and responded Islam and Christianity.

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