A Radical Pluralist Philosophy of Religion

Cross-Cultural, Multireligious, Interdisciplinary

Mikel Burley

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781350098312
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350098336
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy of Religion

This book is a unique introduction to studying the philosophy of religion, drawing on a wide range of cultures and literary sources in an approach that is both methodologically innovative and expansive in its cross-cultural and multi-religious scope.

Employing his expertise in interdisciplinary and Wittgenstein-influenced methods, Mikel Burley draws on works of ethnography and narrative fiction, including Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman, to critically engage with existing approaches to the philosophy of religion and advocate a radical, pluralist approach. Breaking away from the standard fixation on a narrow construal of theism, topics discussed include conceptions of compassion in Buddhist ethics, cannibalism in mortuary rituals, divine possession and animal sacrifice in Hindu Goddess worship and animism in indigenous traditions.

Original and engaging, Burley's synthesis of philosophical, anthropological and literary elements expands and diversifies the philosophy of religion, providing an essential introduction for anyone interested in studying the radical plurality of forms that religion takes in human life.

Part One

Critique and Methodology

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1Religious Pluralisms

2Radical Plurality and Critical Description

3Narrative Fiction and Philosophical Inquiry

1

Religious Pluralisms

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Chapter Outline

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John Hick’s pluralistic hypothesis

Reductive and homogenizing implications of Hick’s approach

John Cobb’s vision of creative transformation

Victoria Harrison’s internalist pluralism

A difficulty with the internalist picture

Working with examples

Conceptual schemes, incomprehensibility and respect

Concluding remarks

The context in which philosophizing about religion takes place in the contemporary world is one characterized by a plurality of worldviews and forms of life, both religious and nonreligious – a ‘polyphony’ (Bakhtin 1984a, esp. Ch. 1) or ‘hubbub of voices’ (Phillips 2001b: 135, 322; 2004a: 22). Some philosophers of religion continue to pretend that this hubbub or polyphony can be largely ignored, and that philosophical inquiry into religion can carry on as though Christianity were the paradigm case from which the largely theoretical invention known as theism may be distilled. But most philosophers now recognize that religious diversity is a reality that unsettles past assumptions about how to proceed in philosophy of religion.

To the question of how to proceed, various responses are evident in the literature. Some of these derive from thinkers who are more commonly identified as theologians than as philosophers, but the disciplinary boundaries are fluid in this discursive area. A well-known threefold typology of theoretical positions is that which comprises exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism. Initially devised by Alan Race in the early 1980s,¹ the typology has been enthusiastically endorsed and appropriated by many participants in the debate, albeit not by all.² My purpose in this chapter, and in the book as a whole, is not to enter into the dispute over the viability of the typology. Rather, my interest here is to critically examine the position known as religious pluralism in particular, since, on the face of it, this comes closest to recognizing the kind of radical plurality with which my own project is concerned. As we shall see, religious pluralism is itself really a cluster of positions. Indeed, there have now been too many versions of religious pluralism proposed by philosophers and theologians for it to be feasible to survey them all here. As Gavin D’Costa has put it, ‘“pluralism” is Hydra-like in its growth’ (2016: 137).³ I shall thus be selective in my focus, though not arbitrarily so. My principal exemplars of religious pluralism will be the respective variants proposed by three authors – namely John Hick, John Cobb and Victoria Harrison – each of whom, while self-identifying as a proponent of religious pluralism, brings out different aspects of the purportedly pluralistic project. These aspects will provide useful points of contrast with the radical pluralism that is to be developed and exemplified in this book.

My procedure will be to begin with Hick, who from the 1980s until his death in 2012 became ‘the best known as well as the most controversial representative of the pluralist position’ (Meacock 2000: 3),⁴ the locus classicus of his pluralistic hypothesis being his comprehensive work, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent (2004, esp. Ch. 14), which was based on his 1986–87 Gifford Lectures and first published in 1989.⁵ Though much admired and celebrated, this work, and Hick’s pluralist position more generally, have been the target of extensive criticism. My own appraisal, too, will be largely critical, my main complaint being that, despite styling itself as pluralistic, Hick’s position really amounts to a highly reductive and homogenizing account of religion. Far from doing justice to the genuine diversity that has characterized modes of religiosity throughout history and across the world, Hick’s theory proposes that ‘all the great traditions’ pursue the same ethical ideal and are directed towards a single metaphysical principle, which Hick designates ‘the Real’. Those forms of religion that diverge from this normative paradigm are relegated to the subordinate category that Hick variously terms ‘pre-axial’, ‘primal’, ‘archaic’ or ‘tribal’ religion, instances of which may possess ‘some dim sense of the Real’ but have yet to evolve to the heights of ‘developed monotheism’ (Hick 2004: 275 n. 2). A consequence of this homogenization of the ‘great traditions’, combined with a hasty and condescending dismissal of smaller religions, is that what began by claiming to be an interpretation of religion in general ends up being, at best, a one-sided distortion.

My second exemplar, John Cobb, has been especially influential within the field of process philosophy and theology, a movement that draws its inspiration from the work of Alfred North Whitehead.⁶ Cobb has himself been critical of Hick’s brand of pluralism. Rather than supposing all religions, or even all the ‘great’ ones, to be promoting the same values and revering (albeit indirectly) the same metaphysical reality, Cobb admits that there are ‘ontologically distinct’ realities towards which different religions are directed (Cobb 1993). His position has been dubbed complementary pluralism because he regards the claims of diverse religions as, on the whole, ‘complementary rather than contradictory’ (Cobb 1990b: 14; see also Griffin 2005a). Thus, like Hick, he sees no ultimate incompatibility between the major religions. But unlike Hick, Cobb wishes to distance himself from any suggestion that those religions have ‘a common characteristic’ underlying them (Cobb 1990a: 81). The compatibility and complementarity, Cobb maintains, are found not in commonality or sameness, but in dialogue and the potential for mutual ‘creative transformation’.⁷ However, despite Cobb’s sometimes referring to his position as ‘radical pluralism’ (1990a: 88, 92), I shall argue that it ends up becoming another form of homogenization. This is because, while recognizing some degree of current diversity, Cobb nevertheless adopts a limiting threefold categorization of religions that labels them as ‘cosmic’, ‘acosmic’ or ‘theistic’ depending on their conception of divinity (Cobb 1993). Moreover, the transformation that Cobb wishes to promote consists in ‘a movement toward greater resemblance’ (1999: 59), his own theological ideal being a global religious convergence in which diversity is diminished.

What we see, then, both in Hick’s pluralistic hypothesis and in Cobb’s complementary or professedly radical pluralism, are two varieties of homogenization. The third exemplar whose work will be discussed in this chapter, Victoria Harrison, has sought to avoid the homogenization of different religious perspectives by developing a theory that she calls internalist pluralism. This theory is intended to do justice to the diversity of religious and nonreligious worldviews while at the same time serving to ‘underwrite the appropriateness’ of interreligious toleration and respect (Harrison 2008: 109). The theory contends that apparent disagreements between members of different religions are not, at least for the most part, genuine disagreements at all; they are instead mere differences that emerge from distinct conceptual schemes, a conceptual scheme being the ‘general system of concepts with which we organize our thoughts and perceptions’ (Blackburn 1994: 72, quoted in Harrison 2008: 98 n. 4). In this context, ‘we’ and ‘our’ may refer either to human beings in general or, more relevantly to Harrison’s thesis, to some particular community or group. As will become evident, I am doubtful about the coherence of Harrison’s proposal, both as a theory and as a means of purportedly advancing interreligious tolerance or respect. I am also concerned that the perfunctory manner in which Harrison discusses underdescribed examples in her argument typifies a common tendency in philosophy that has afflicted the philosophy of religion; this is the tendency to overlook alternative interpretive possibilities that, if attended to, may help us to avoid overgeneralizing conclusions.

The purpose of this chapter is, therefore, largely critical rather than constructive. It is to bring out some of the ways in which positions that go by the name of religious pluralism often end up overlooking or misdescribing the diversity that exists in their hurry to devise a general theory of religion. In many cases, including those examined in this chapter, the devising of a theory is motivated by a specific theological or otherwise irenic agenda – a desire to foster greater harmony among religions. There is, of course, nothing wrong with wishing to promote harmony rather than discord. But even if the theories were apt to be successful in this aim – which is doubtful – a harmony based on theoretical illusions is unlikely to be enduring. If our priority is clarity and understanding, then alternative methods will need to be sought – methods that enable attentiveness to nuance and particularity and hence to the overall complexity that those particularities betoken.

John Hick’s pluralistic hypothesis

As I have acknowledged in the introduction to this book, John Hick was a pioneer in the philosophy of religion who was one of the first to take seriously the need for philosophical scrutiny of (in principle) ‘the religious experience and thought of the whole human race’ (2004: xiii). Unlike philosophers who pay lip service to the desirability of cross-cultural and multireligious understanding but then politely excus...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part One Critique and Methodology
• 1 Religious Pluralisms
• 2 Radical Plurality and Critical Description
• 3 Narrative Fiction and Philosophical Inquiry
• Part Two Exemplifying a Radical Pluralist Approach
• 4 ‘Compassion beyond Our Imagination’: Radical Plurality in Buddhist Ethics
• 5 ‘Ways of Being Human’: Cannibalism and Respecting the Dead
• 6 ‘Awe at the Terrible’: Divine Possession, Blood Sacrifice and the Grotesque Body
• 7 ‘A Language in Which to Think of the World’: Animism, Philosophy and Indigenous Traditions
• 8 Conclusions: Loosening Up Our Lives
• References
• Index
• Copyright