Why You Can't Think That All Religions Are Correct

A year or two ago I wrote this review of a text titled Five Voices, Five Faiths.

The book illustrates the trouble with contemporary efforts at pluralistic thinking. I post it here in the wake of the recent discussion with Main Stream and others on religious tolerance and respect.

*********************************

FIVE VOICES, FIVE FAITHS

As the title suggests, Five Voices, Five Faiths is a collection of five essays, each introducing one of the world's major religions and authored by a practicing adherent of that religion. In order of presentation (as well as the historical order of the founding of these religions, according to the editor), we encounter a "Hindu," a Jew, a Zen Buddhist, a Christian, and a Muslim--Americans all--each explaining the basic tenets of their respective faiths.

The five essays vary in their quality and depth of insight into the respective religions. Given the fact that each author was allotted only twenty pages to introduce a major world religion, one must expect the essays to be selective and limited with regard to their subject matter. The brevity, combined with each author's pluralistic outlook-a sort of rush to non-judgment as it were-lends itself to a misleading presentation of the views.

Professor Anantanand Rambachan's essay on "Hinduism" blurs important distinctions among religious traditions that are often given this designation. Indeed, the reader comes away with the impression that Hindus are committed to a sort of panentheism, as he cites a hymn in the Rg Veda that "states that while God pervades the universe by a fourth of God's being, three-fourths remain beyond it" (p. 3). He fails to tell his readers that he himself is an adherent of Advaita Vedanta, Shankara's 9th century philosophy of absolute non-dualism. On Advaita, Brahman is the only existing being, so that the observable world of samsara around us is actually an illusion due to avidya or ignorance. Further, Brahman is literally "propertyless" according to Advaita Vedanta, so that no properties-from personhood to power to goodness-apply to "him." The Advaitan concept of Brahman is a far cry from any theistic conception of God, and readers may be misled by the theistic overtones of Professor Rambachan's use of "God" to refer to Brahman. Though the Hindu doctrine of ishtadeva and the corresponding doctrine of diverse margas or "approved ways" "has enabled Hindus to think of the world's religions in complementary and not exclusive ways" (p. 7), the Absolute Monism of Rambachan's own view entails that, while theistic belief may be instrumental as a stepping stone to the truth of Brahman, it is little more than a useful fiction.

Yaakov Ariel's essay on Judaism emphasizes Jewish culture and practice and decidedly de-emphasizes doctrine. We learn something of Hannukah and Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Purim, and of the cultural shift from the priestly class to a lay priesthood, from temple to synagogue, but precious little about what Jews believe about the Creator-or the Messiah.

Patricia Phelan tells us something of the Buddha's early life and original teachings, including the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. The latter, with its practical emphasis, gets the most attention, and she steers clear of the
metaphysical implications of, say, the Buddhist doctrines of "dependent origination" and its corollaries of anitya (impermanence) and anatman (no-self). After nodding in the direction of the other Buddhist traditions of Theravada and Mahayana, she settles into a discussion of her own Zen practice.

Editor Amanda Millay Hughes, an Episcopalian, emphasizes the confessional nature of Christianity, and opens her essay with a statement and brief exposition of the Nicene Creed. She nicely articulates an orthodox account of such doctrines as the Trinity and Incarnation, and, importantly given this interfaith context, the ontological transcendence of God ("God is fundamentally other than any created thing or being," p. 75). She affirms the universality of sin and the need for forgiveness, but says little to nothing about the Atonement itself. She does, however, offer the exclusivist claim that "Christians believe that all human life needs the redemptive action of God in Christ Jesus" (p. 79).

This does not sit well with the pluralist motivation behind this project, as one of her collaborators points out in the Q&A section. Rambachan asks, "How do you relate [this claim] with the reality of different religions?" (p. 88). Her reply is evasive. She notes that exclusivist thinking engenders "dark judgments about other religions" and confesses,"it is hard to give a definitive answer to your question" (p. 88). The non-definitive answer that follows urges the need for love and the universal "desire to live in harmony," and concludes with an appeal to "mystery." I'll return to her dilemma momentarily.

Amy Nelson, a self-described "white, educated, American-born" convert to Islam, explains the basic tenets of her faith. Allah has no cohorts, and "there is no god but Allah" is the cornerstone of Muslim faith. She explains the exalted view that Muslims take of Mohammed and of the Q'uran. And we learn something of the five pillars of Islam: monotheistic belief itself, prayer, fasting, alms, pilgrimage. Many post-911 readers may hope to learn whether Islam is, after all, a peaceful religion. But for a couple of oblique references to "popular western conceptions" (p. 111) of Islam, little to nothing is said in either the essay or the Q&A section to dispel the alleged misconceptions.

Five Voices, Five Faiths is motivated by the desire to "live amicably" with those whose beliefs are different from one's own, to "live with and value fundamental differences" (p. xiv), and to find "common ground" for interfaith dialogue (p. xiii). These are noble aspirations, all, I suppose.

But the concerns go beyond a desire for harmonious co-existence. We are told that mere "tolerant forbearance" implies (arrogantly, I take it) that one is in a "position of privilege" that is not enjoyed by the other. Indeed, we are to avoid "unproductive dogmatic debate" (p. xv) and are urged to "do more than tolerate difference--we can honor it as part of the richness of human experience" (p. xiv). "Celebrate diversity," as they say.

Ms. Millay Hughes quotes approvingly from an essay on religious pluralism by a Christian pastor who bubbles that "the Christian calling allows him to sing his song to Jesus `with abandon ...without speaking negatively about others'" (p. xvi). Though she once subscribed to the mandate to make disciples of all people (p. xvii), now, "as a middle-aged woman," she "reflects more deeply" on Jesus' "new commandment" to love one another. Her advice to the adherents of the different traditions these days is "hold onto the truths you have received" (p. xviii). One might draw the conclusion that somehow the Great Commission and this "new commandment" are mutually at odds. One might also be a child of the times.

Ms. Millay Hughes' dilemma in attempting to answer Professor Rambachan's question is symptomatic of the pluralistic perspective that motivates projects such as Five Voices, Five Faiths. She wishes to affirm her own Christian faith while commending other competing traditions, as "sacred truths." She wishes to "sing her song to Jesus without speaking negatively of others." Her trouble arises from a simple point of logic. To believe something just is to believe that it is true. And to believe that it is true entails believing that its denial is false. The Islamic version of monotheism requires that the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation is not only false but blasphemous. The Advaita Vedantan doctrine of Nirguna Brahman entails the falseness of all varieties of monotheism. There just is no sense in which all of these competing doctrines may be said to be "true"-not in a way that does full justice to the sense in which actual believers (as opposed to Religious Studies scholars) take their doctrines to be true. To believe anything is to believe that lots of other things-even doctrines that are cherished by fine people-are false. If tolerance means never thinking that those cherished beliefs of others are false, then, necessarily, no one is ever tolerant.

I do not recommend Five Voices, Five Faiths....