If you were born in Saudi Arabia, you’d hold the tenets of Islam sacred and aver that Christian belief was wrong; if you were born in Mississippi, you’d have exactly the opposite view. How can you think your belief is right if it would differ depending on the conditions of your upbringing?
John Hick states, “For it is evident that in some ninety-nine percent of cases the religion which an individual professes and to which he or she adheres depends upon the accidents of birth. Someone born to Buddhist parents in Thailand is very likely to be a Buddhist, someone born to Muslim parents in Saudi Arabia to be a Muslim, someone born to Christian parents in Mexico to be a Christian, and so on.” There exist various beliefs regarding the Ultimate Reality.
Religious exclusivism is a dominant view. Most people think that only their religion is correct and provides the way to salvation. Some exclusivists think that other religions are partly true, or even that God is working within all religions. But exclusivists contend that they alone have the worldview that corresponds to reality. One merit of this view is consistency: after all, the world really is one certain way, and not also a contradictory way.
It seems arbitrary and cruel that billions of people would miss out on salvation just because they were born into the wrong religion. One answer to this is religious inclusivism. According to inclusivists, only one religion is fully true, but true religious seekers of all religious traditions will find salvation, at least in the afterlife. One difficulty with this view is that each religion has tended to claim exclusive truth. Why would God send Jesus to claim he was the only path to salvation if he really wasn’t? Or if Islam is the correct religion, why would God send Mohammad (PBUH) to claim that his was the only path to salvation, when it really wasn’t?
One objection to both inclusivism and exclusivism is that there is no neutral way to decide which religion is correct, or privileged. Some have replied that religion is a matter of faith, not rational assessment. This view is called fideism. Others have replied that a particular religion is true because its claims are warranted by evidence and argument, or because believers “just know” their religion to be true.
Religious pluralism, such as that of John Hick, says that the example of God is like an elephant surrounded by blind men. One man touches the elephant’s tail and says “The elephant is like a rope!” Another touches the trunk and says, “No, it is like a snake!” Another touches one of the elephant’s massive legs, and says, “You’ve both got it wrong; it is like a tree!” Another touches the elephant’s side and says “Nay, brothers, it is like a wall!” Just as the blind men experienced the same elephant in different ways, religions experience the same Ultimate Reality in different ways. Some experience it as a personal God, others as Brahman, others as a plurality of deities, and so on. How we experience the Ultimate Reality depends on our culture and education and modes of thought.
Another illustration of pluralism is borrowed from Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. A society that has rabbits but not ducks will look at the picture on the right and see a rabbit. A society that has ducks but not rabbits will look at the same picture and see a duck.
But then, if Ultimate Reality is experienced in such diverse ways, what can we say of Ultimate Reality itself? Is it personal or impersonal? Is it good or evil or indifferent? Moreover, it is hard to see how an atheistic Buddhist could be experiencing the same Ultimate Reality as a fundamentalist Muslim.
Another view is religious relativism which argues that religions are true or false only in relation to the broader worldviews of their adherents. The main defender of this view is Joseph Runzo. Runzo agrees with Hick that religions make mutually incompatible truth claims and that one’s worldview affects how one experiences Ultimate Reality. But, he says, there is no universal truth about religious claims; each religion is “true” only in so far as it fits within the broader worldview to which it belongs.
This has some advantages of pluralism. For example, it offers a stronger account of the beliefs of each tradition, for it says they are each making true claims.
The agnostic, such as that Bertrand Russell, sees a bewildering array of belief systems about undetectable realms and magical beings and despairs that we could ever know which one of them is true, if any. He thinks religious truths, unlike scientific truths, are unknowable. As London lady suggested to Russell, at his 90th birthday party, that he was not only the world’s most famous atheist but, by this time, very probably the world’s oldest atheist. “What will you do, Bertie, if it turns out you were wrong?” she asked. “I mean what if – uh - when the time comes, you should meet Him? What will you say?” Russell pointed a finger upward and cried, “Why, I should say, ‘God, you gave us insufficient evidence.”’
Believers object that one can know which religion is true by seeing which religion’s claims best fit reality, or which religion has the most impressive miracles, or which religion tells the most hopeful story. I, personally, favor religious pluralism over any beliefs, even religious inclusivism.