Exclusive Truth, Inclusive Truth, Pluralist Truth, or.....Nihilism?

Andrew Pessin Blogs from HuffingtonPost.com

Are all the major religions the same? Obviously not. But are they ultimately the same? Quite possibly, depending on what the word "ultimately" means here. Stephen Prothero's best-selling book, God Is Not One,
makes the rather easy case that the major religions are not all the same. But that is to leave largely untouched the much more subtle question of whether they are ultimately the same. If one wants to avoid mere glibness on the question, then there are a few things one needs to consider.

First, the easy case for their difference: Some religions believe in one God, some in many, some in none. Some conceive of God as a person, some as impersonal. Some conceive of God as a unity, some as a multiplicity. Some believe God has taken human form, some do not. Some believe in a soul distinct from the body, some do not; some believe that that soul is repeatedly reborn, others do not. And so on. The different major religions could not be more different -- on the surface.

But let's go deeper than the surface. When we do, we can identify at least four general positions one can take on the question.

1) Exclusivism. This is the position that truth, the truth, belongs to one religion alone, and that all other religions that differ from it are simply false.

2) Inclusivism. This is the position that the truth belongs to one religion alone, but it allows that differing religions may express that same truth -- though less explicitly, clearly, or adequately.

3) Pluralism. This is the view that all religions are more or less equally true, or equally valid ways of expressing the truth.

4) Finally, Nihilism. This is the view that none of the religions is "true" in any genuine, literal sense, and so the problem of their differences just goes away.

So which position should one adopt?

Exclusivism seems outrageous, at least to most impartial thinkers. To believe that, say, your own religion is the one true one and all others are false seems incredibly arrogant and even offensive. There are just too many possibilities, and too little explicit evidence, to justifiably choose between the competing dogmas -- not merely between religions but even between competing denominations of the same religion.

Inclusivism is perhaps slightly less offensive but no less outrageous, philosophically speaking. For while it's less dismissive of conflicting religions, it still privileges one religion over all others, as getting the truth completely right. To this it also adds the rather incredible claim that other religious doctrines are obscure versions of one's own doctrines. For example, a Christian Inclusivist must hold that the "salvation" that other religions claim occurs by following the Torah, or Sharia, or the eight-fold path, etc. is the same as that salvation that occurs by faith in Christ -- even when these religions explicitly repudiate Christ, the role of "faith," and even the Christian notion of salvation.

Then there is Pluralism, the kum-ba-yah position. This appeals to many because it's so harmoniously inoffensive: you don't have to determine which religion is true because they're all equally true. There's really only one problem with Pluralism: it completely dispenses with any reasonable conception of truth. For the irrefutable foundation of reasonable thinking is the Law of Non-Contradiction, that contradictory propositions cannot simultaneously be true. Christians insist on the divinity of Jesus; Jews deny it; and Buddhists deny "divinity" altogether. These propositions all contradict each other. To claim that they are all equally true is to so twist the
concept of truth that it becomes absurd.

That would leave Nihilism -- which in fact comes in two varieties.

Negative Nihilism denies the literal truth of all religions and adds a negative appraisal of the role and value of religious belief. This is the nihilism associated with Marx and Freud, who see religious belief as not merely false but dangerous and unhealthy and something to be overcome.

But then there is Positive Nihilism. This position denies the literal truth of all the religions but does not, thereby, dismiss religious belief altogether: such belief can display all sorts of values, it may be beautiful, profound, transformative, and so on. What it isn't is "literally true" -- but it can be immensely valuable anyway.

The main advantages of Positive Nihilism? It avoids the arrogance of Exclusivism and Inclusivism, and avoids Pluralism's playing fast and loose, literally, with the "truth." But perhaps more importantly, it
allows one to fully support and promote religious belief and religious communities, to actually be a religious person of whichever denomination most moves one, without having quite the same need and urgency to do
what fundamentalist Exclusivists seem enjoined, by rational norms, to do: to refute, reject, and maybe even destroy other forms of religion.

So all religions may well be ultimately the same, after all, Prothero's book notwithstanding -- systems of practices and beliefs that share many of the same attributes and values, including, perhaps ironically, that of not being literally true.

Some questions worth considering: Is Pessin too dismissive of exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist approaches to religious truth? Is it really fair to pluralists to call their viewpoint the "kum-ba-yah position", implying a degree of impractical idealism that has little real-world applicability? Finally, considering "positive nihilism" presupposes that one cannot find literal truths in religious beliefs, does Pessin's argument really speak to religious communities, many of whom maintain the literal truths of their traditions? Please offer your thoughts, and feel free to respond to your own questions that were raised.

Tags: exclusive, inclusive, nihilism, pessin, pluralism, prothero, religion, truth

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Comment by Mystic Tourist on July 6, 2010 at 9:34am: Religion more often than not has an overstated value. Regardless of their origins religions become social-political structures that impose norms on people and society. We are far more likely to find our way when we place our confidence directly in what is true without the intervention of human institutions. Do we have any confidence in God, in what is true, or do we separate ourselves with an intermediary? Religion does not prohibit the discovery of what is true but it is not what is true.

The best value of religion, I think, is when people congregate to work together for the public good without regard to their religion. When we consider instead the community at large and how to be of service without our own prejudice. Should we accomplish that we lose the prejudice and the the boundaries created by them.

The Mystic Tourist MysticTourist.com

Comment by Paul Christopher Martin on July 6, 2010 at 4:37am: Hartmut,

Thanks for your keen observations. Granted that various religions are constituted of many factors, I would want to maintain that each propounds or abides by a moral code, or a set of ethical behaviours, whether that has a religious basis or a humanist basis. On this theme, if I can quote, e.g., from a recent attribution in a PeaceNext blog by Cara Stevens on Feminism and Faith:

"As Sister Chittister has pointed out, every religion and faith, no matter how radically different they may seem at first blush, is built upon adherence to compassion:

'One, the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
And the other, the undisputed and indispensable moral compass of them all, compassion, the unwavering ability to feel pain that is not our own.

In Hinduism, compassion is one of the three central virtues.

In Buddhism and its commitment to end suffering, compassion is the very core, the warm center of the tradition.

In Judaism, the Talmud teaches, "that which is hateful to you, do not impose on others".

In Christianity, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you", is a constant theme.

In Islam, 113 of the 114 chapter[s] of the Koran open in the name of God, "the most merciful...the most compassionate".'"

I would seek to define God metaphorically mathematically, such that God is the ground of existence in the same way that mathematics underpins natural processes. I would define love and beauty post-structurally, where love is the energy of beauty, and beauty is the momentum of divinity (divine consciousness). In other words, love is a force that is generated by acting in consonance with an ethical (sacred) way of life, and beauty is the level of one's integral work that regard.

By 'essence' I do not mean a core around which love and beauty are aggregated, but rather the enhancement, or apotheosis, of living in the divine way.

Theravada Buddhism may disavow the notion of a singular or theistic God, but Mahayana Buddhism comes close to such a concept, or at least it has a plethora of deities that admit of worship.

Comment by Hartmut Friedrichs on July 1, 2010 at 11:05am: Paul, I would not follow you in "as surely the definition of a religion ought to be that it is ethically based". If you look at the positions via the definition of religion, in Wikipedia for instance, the only thing which comes out is that there is not a single trait which is without doubt common to all definitions of religions.
"Spirituality, or mystical consciousness, is about community, helping people to see that God pervades everything (as the ground of being), and is the essence of love and beauty. On this minimalist understanding of mysticism, so to speak, I think there is kinship between all faiths,..."
I cannot follow you with that either. I do not use the word "God" at all. I see not that being needs a ground, I see it as just being as it is without further qualification. Atheist religions like Buddhism and Naturalistic Pantheism have no concept of God. " Essence of love and beauty" opens the question if you would imply that without such an "essence" love and beauty are impossible or worthless.

Comment by Paul Christopher Martin on July 1, 2010 at 8:41am: Devin,

In relation to my thesis topic, it was an inter-disciplinary study of some of the constitutive elements of mystical experience, or rather consciousness, as I saw it, using ideas from art, philosophy, and religion. You can view the complete abstract from a link provided on my home page.

I didn't try to relate it to other religions at all. Actually, to be honest, I wrote the thesis from a perspective that was deeply informed by my own long-standing, and intense, mystical consciousness; so whether it can be relevant to the mystical outlooks of other religions is a moot question. It depends on your position with regard to the idea of the applicability of ‘transcendental’ consciousness across human cultures.

The term mysticism (a noun) is problematic in the sense that it only appeared in the Western lexicon in the seventeenth century, and since then has assumed psychological dress, as distinct from a hermeneutic dress. In other words, whereas in the past the term mystical (adjective) was employed in the sense of interpreting scripture to divine the truth of God's word – a mystical theology – nowadays mystical in the popular imagination seems to mean oddness. Although there were people who had 'mystical experiences', or evinced a mystical consciousness, it was generally in this context of a tradition, even if some mystics stretched the conventional meaning and understanding of that tradition. Such people were called 'spirituals' or 'contemplatives'. In saying all this, I am following the work of Bernard McGinn at Chicago University, who has written/is writing a history of Western Christian mysticism.

I acknowledge what Ron has just said, yet I think the idea of preferring ‘spirituality’ to ‘mysticism’ is to get away from the prevailing idea that mystical consciousness betokens an attitude that is divorced from this reality, as being other-worldly, and instead think of it as a distinctive awareness of the presence of God, as being this-worldly; in short, it affirms this world as meaningful and precious (some will say that this might in fact be the only reality there is, although I personally do not believe so). Spirituality, or mystical consciousness, is about community, helping people to see that God pervades everything (as the ground of being), and is the essence of love and beauty. On this minimalist understanding of mysticism, so to speak, I think there is kinship between all faiths, as surely the definition of a religion ought to be that it is ethically based.

Comment by Ron Krumpos on June 28, 2010 at 5:19pm: You do not have to be a mystic to be a good person or to be spiritual. On spirituality, another quote from my e-book:

Spirituality, unlike the occult spiritualism, is sometimes defined as an “attempt to grow in sensitivity to self, to others, to non-human creation, and to God who is both within and beyond this totality.” In practice, spirituality will often “cultivate tranquility, mindfulness and insight, leading to virtues of wisdom and compassion.” Most mystics are quite spiritual, yet not all spiritual people are mystics. True devotees of mysticism should be spiritual. In the New Penguin Handbook of Living Religions, within an extensive chapter on Spirituality, it says that “the term spirituality covers a wide range of religious orientations and experiences, whereas the different types of mysticism represent very specific spiritual experiences.”

All mystical traditions, among all religions, in all eras, have had many common themes and beliefs, still they were not identical. Just as no two witnesses will testify to the same event in the same way, mystics’ accounts of divine consciousness quite often differed. They usually interpreted spiritual input through their historical, cultural and personal situation. Similar or different, it changed their lives.

Comment by Hartmut Friedrichs on June 28, 2010 at 3:53pm: During my life I had some experiences of awareness which surpassed reason and logic at that time or in that situation, that inspired awe and a feeling of wholeness which I could not describe to another person or explain rationally to yourself at that time or in that situation, but in the course of times it resolved itself. When other people told of such experiences and I asked about it, either it resolved itself into something "normal" (nothing is normal) or finally there was nothing than the insistence "I can't explain it" without further description neither rational nor imaginary or in any way.
That's why I said on the one hand it would be useless to dig into those personal insides and on the other hand you have to be a little bit clearer if you want to communicate with others.
As it is not yet clear if people see the same colour when they tell you that they see "red", I leave my mind open wether two mystics coming together are really speaking about the same thing.

Comment by Hartmut Friedrichs on June 28, 2010 at 3:43pm: There are mystic people and non-mystic people in all religions. If you say only the mystic wing is the "true" one, the others will protest. I am non-mystic and I have no use for the mystic quest nor had I ever experiences of mystic awareness nor see I any need for them. I also don't use the term spirituality for me. I speak of feelings and emotions (as English is not my mothertongue I will not judge about those two words).
The paradigm of connecting the religions via their mystic wings is a well known one, but it reduces historic reality for the needs of a certain scheme.

Comment by Devin O'Rourke on June 28, 2010 at 1:57pm: Thanks for your thoughts, Paul!

I'd love to hear more about your thesis topic. Perhaps you could blog a short description about it? Do you think it relates to interfaith dialogue in any way? (Even if it doesn't, I'd still like to hear more about it)

About your last comment-how or why do you think the term mysticism is problematic, and why is 'spirituality' any better? At least for me, I think the modern adoption of 'spirituality' in the last 30-40 years is extremely frustrating, because it overlaps with so many other terms that it becomes very ambiguous.

Also, why is do the mystic practices and understandings of religions best express the "kinship of faiths"?

Just hoping to keep this conversation going...it's been great!

Comment by Paul Christopher Martin on June 27, 2010 at 9:04am: Devin,

Your reference to Kant's book is intriguing. I haven't actually read this particular work, but I have done some exploration of his books Critique of Pure Reason (mainly in the first division on the Transcendental Analytic) and his Critique of the Power of Judgement in relation to appropriating his terminology for a thesis on Christian mysticism (my PhD topic), which I found to be fruitful (even if no one else has).

I think philosophy is extremely relevant for understanding mysticism; particularly in the philosophy of art, or aesthetics (though perhaps more Continental than Analytic?).

Regarding the origin of this thread - on the question of religious truth - I'd have to agree with Ron that '[t]he true kinship of faiths may be best found in their mystical traditions'. The term mysticism is problematic, and I'd probably prefer to use the idea of spirituality.

Comment by Ron Krumpos on June 24, 2010 at 1:00pm: Davin,

Philosophy and/or religion can lead you to the mystical quest, but not to mystical awareness. They are not mutually exclusive, but they are not necessarily inclusive. You do not have to be philosophical or religious to be a mystic, although most of the best known mystics were one or both.