Major Trends in Religious

Pluralism:
1. Secular Humanism Founding Fathers
of America and Harvey Cox
2. Global Theology Wilfred C. Smith and
John Hick
3. Syncretism Kabir and Nanak Ram
Mohan Roy Sri Ramakrishna
Mahatma Gandhi
4. Perennial Philosophy Thomas Huxley
Rene Guenon Frithjof Schuon
Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Secular Humanism Founding

Fathers of America and Harvey
Cox

Anthropocentric outlook - humanistic approachman is the measure of everything-man as center

of cosmos
the reawakening of the humanistic approach
rooted in the philosophy of Protagoras (490-460
BCE)- as alleged by F.C.Schiller (1937)
Since man is the measure of everything no
human view is certain enough, that every human
view is relative and subjective in terms of its
certainty
Avocation of relativism and rejection of
absolutism as the episteme of modern humanism

 The humanistic philosophy; logical positivism,

pragmatism, democracy, nationalism,
globalization, (human as the sacred)
Humanism as the method not merely as
theory or a system of philosophy
Therefore humanism is;
Cultural and ideological revivalism for
secularism as the outcome of admiration for the
Greco-Roman culture
Methods of thinking that advocate for human
values as the ultimate
A system of philosophy that concerns on human
interest and wellbeing

 Such is a form of desacralization, modern

humanism is secular in nature leading to
agnosticism and finally atheism (A.J.Ayer
1910-1989)
Secularism become part of humanism
Therefore secular humanism is the ethical
system that advocate human values as the
ultimate such as tolerance,
compassionate , respectfulness, devoid of
divine or religious values

 Two important pillars of secular humanism;

human centric as the principle and objective
Secularism as the foundation for peaceful coexistence of religions

HUMAN CENTRIC AS THE PRINCIPLE AND

OBJECTIVE
August Comte (1798-1857), the founding
father of positivisme, in Religion of
Humanity: humanism to fulfill human
spiritual/religious needs in replacement of
religion/god

 The most exploited human value therefore;

tolerance; to substantiate democracy
Thus leading to political pluralism and religious
pluralism
In the context of US, John Adams (1735-1826),
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) and Thomas
Jefferson (1753-1826) advocated E pluribus
unum (Out of many, one), addressed as The
Republican Banquet, William James (1842-1910)
Pluralism thus became one of the terms in the US
constitution and its public life. (Martin Marty,
1987)
The American Enlightenment; in contradiction to
the European Enlightenment that marginalized
religion and religious tradition, the former
crystalized religious claims

 Also Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790);

the Public Religion (1749) as political
means to advocate loyalty and tolerance
in the face of multiplicity (of religions,
races, cultures, ethnicities)
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), The
Social Contract, The Discourses, that put
forward the term Civil Religion
The main characteristics of public religion
or civil religion emphasis on collective
moralities in the execution of individual
right and societal role and obligation

 This human religon-faith in collective human

values rather than faith in religious metaphysics
and transcendant
Perfect example of deism; faith devoid of belief
in revelation and metaphysics, denounce divine
intervention in the natural law, rely on human
reasoning, natural and empirical evidences.
William James (1842-1910), the American
prominent secular humanist; the essence of
religion as human experience, The Varieties of
Religious Experience: Study of Human Nature
His pragmatic philosophy accepted religion, (as
variously experienced by man)
The Will to Believe; W.James condemned
absolutism and exclusivism

 A more radical and pragmatic approach, in 1934,

John Dewey introduced A Common Faith; calling
for religion without god, but to ascribe to
humanistic values, rationalism and democracy as
the foundation and objective of the new religion.
Even if god is to be regarded as component in the
new religion, the combination of humanistic values
and its practicalities is the god for the new
religion.
To him, all religions that exist are identical but they
are potential threats/stumbling blocks to the
realization of the democratic ideals in human
affairs

 This radical development of secular

humanism was embraced and manifested
in the universal declaration of human
rights of the united nation 1948 that
advocate for human dignity and freedom
An author, J.Paul William disqualify the
traditional religion and secretarian as
outdated, thus calling for the churches to
adopt democracy as religious teaching and
values

2. Secularism as the foundation for peaceful coexistence of religions

Secularism as secretarial and secularization as a
process
Harvey Cox in The Secular City;
Secularization as the freedom of human mind and
language from the domination of religion and
metaphysics , and defatalization of history; the
freedom of man from fatalistic belief that dominate
the past by changing the orientation of their belief
from metaphysics to the present secular world
Pluralism and tolerance is the outcome of
secularization

 He substantiated from the Bible to

justify his theory of secularization
Thus man is free to belief and to
practice his belief as long as it is an
individual/a personal endeavor
On the other hand, communal and
collective matters should submit to
the political system; secular state

Global Theology Wilfred C.

Smith
Wilfred Cantwell Smith: Towards a
World Theology & The Meaning and End
of Religion (1962) heralding the ways
for rp
stressed the need for a more adequate
understanding of religion, (of others as
well as ones own religion) for the
betterment of mankind in living together
To develop universal friendship but this
is difficult if to be based on religion
the root problem was in the definition of
religion, no one valid definition ,
therefore to redefine the term

 religion in its contemporary Western usage as an

evolving Western concept leading to an
understanding of religion as an objective
systematic entity; a system of ideas or beliefs and
practices in which men of faith were involved, or
with which men of potential faith are confronted
Religion therefore has been interpreted as a
positive organized/ systematic entity; and this
definition is problematic; confront the pluralistic
reality, and lost of its essence
The problem with such an understanding,
according to Smith, is that it concerns only the
external observable part which constituted
religion and ignored the most important inner part
of religion, that is the relation with the
transcendent

 the existing conception of religion has finally

led to a differentiation process, religion in a
variety of minor forms and identified as
Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and so on,
later to be phrased as religions of the
world indicating the plural religions. Indeed,
such naming and identification of one
religion is the ultimate development of the
evolving Western conception of religion (as
an external objective systematic entity
The questions arising on the very existence
of religion and the truth claim posed by
religions
To him there is no such thing as religion as a
noun and therefore there will be no need
for propagating the truth

 Smith offers his ideas of faith and cumulative

traditions, two elements mistakenly understood
as religion.
Cumulative tradition is the outcome of human
interactions and human cultures that include;
the entire mass of objective data that constitutes
the historical deposit, for instance; temples,
scriptures, theological systems, dance patterns,
legal and other social institutions, conventions,
moral codes, myths and so on; anything that can
be and is transmitted from one person, one
generation, to another and that an historian can
observe
religious tradition enters the mundane aspect of
religious life as it is a historical construct and,
indeed, a human construct which can take many
forms and is simply the expression of mans faith;
they are inherently and inevitably contingent,

 The collection of hymns in the Rig Veda of

the Hindus, the Islamic legal system - the
shariah, the different religious context
that constituted the Christian Church of
Western Europe and the Russian Church,
are examples of religious traditions that
are emerging, changing and developing
cumulative traditions are all historical
entities, and since they are adaptive to
changes, transformation and alteration,
this implies that no one tradition is fixed,
certain and objective. Indeed, cumulative
tradition, according to Smith, is a human
construct

 Faith, more to address one personal

conviction, inner religious experience or
involvement of a particular person; the
impingement on him of the transcendent,
personal and profound matter, too divine for
public exposition and not directly
observable.
Faith can be expressed and expressions of
faith vary and are identifiable; faith is but an
expression of religious faith; The faith of men
in all communities is not the same. Even the
faith of one man within one community is
not the same. In fact, any one mans faith is
different on any given morning from what it
was the preceding afternoon.

 Smith notions of faith and

cumulative tradition, it is speculated
that his contribution to the spirit of
religious pluralism lies in three facts.
Firstly, in disqualifying the concept of
religion as imposed by modernity,
secondly, in negating the exclusive
spirit brought by the concept of
religion and thirdly, in celebrating the
multiplicity and divergences of the
religious life of mankind depicted in
cumulative divergent traditions

JOHN HICK: Godcenteredness

John Hick; the prominent propagator
Copernican Revolution (against the
Ptolemaic theory of the earth) centrality of
sun to the universe instead of the earth
In the context of religion, transformation
from religion-centeredness to Godcenteredness; centrality of god instead of
Christianity
Using Smithians lense, Hick in Philosophy
of Religion, dynamic of religious life,
development is inevitable, and gradually
there will be converging courses

 Hick in his first book Philosophy of

Religion, in 1963 launched his discourses
on religion and religions; historical
constructs of religions
There will be converging courses; religions
become plural sects
Called for a global theology; as
preparation for future plural religious
engagements

 Religion is a fortuity of birth, man born

and affiliated to particular religion
familiar to his environment
Religion to him is a cultural factor; those
who are born to Buddhist parents in
Thailand are very likely to be Buddhist,
while someone who is born to Muslim
parents in Saudi Arabia will be a Muslim,
someone born to Christian parents in Mexico
is likely to be a Christian, and so on.

 Hick quoted Xenophanes

Ethiopians make their gods black with
turned up noses. Thracians make them with
red hair and blue eyes; mortals think that
gods are born and have their own food,
voice and shape.that the ancient nomadic
pastoral communities tended to think of the
divine in male terms, in contrast to settled
agricultural peoples who tended to think of
the divine in female terms

 Hick propagate the idea religion

centeredness to God centeredness;
The transformation of selfcenteredness to Reality centeredness
Faith is a cognitive freedom; therefore
it can be developed and changed
Salvation is a process of
transformation

 Every religion propagate different way of

salvation, when in reality they are different
responses to the Reality/Transcendent/God
Eg; he propagated Christological revolution;
doctrines of Christianity as myth rather than
reality -to avoid the confusion of plural
truth-claim put forward by religions
Using Kantian epistemology; noumenon
thing as it is in itself and phenomenon
thing as experienced by human being

 Therefore prefer the Real than god

Concerns over the plural truth claim
made on salvation
is dissatisfied, however, with the word God, he
prefers the Real, believing that the term has the
advantage of not being the exclusive property of
any tradition but is familiar within all of them.
the Real an sich or the Real in itself is distinguished
from the real as manifested within the intellectual
and experiential purview of any one religious
tradition.

 He claimed that the doctrine of

Incarnation is responsible for
cultivating the idea of the
uniqueness, superiority,
exclusiveness, absoluteness and sole
saving power of Christianity
Incarnation should be understood as
a symbolical or metaphorical or
mythic rather than as a literal truth

 the traditional argument (of substance

and hypostatic union of Jesus and God)
was not only out of fashion, but has a
tendency to mislead
Hick chose to understand the Incarnation
as the divine purpose of Agape (love),
which is disclosing itself in the life of
Jesus. It is indeed Gods love becoming
incarnate in Jesus dealing with sinful
humanity

 Using mystical approach: Hick has made

a considerable recommendation for the
mystical approach as propagating a
means for a pluralistic account of religion.
Cited Jall al-Dn al-Rum, the lamps are
different, but the Light is the same; it
comes from Beyond, to propagate what
he believed as a pluralistic account in
religion.

 Hick acknowledged a few Muslim Sufis of

the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,
for example Muy al-Dn Ibn Arab, and
al-Junayd al-Baghdd, who taught that
the divine light is refracted through many
human lenses
within the spectrum of mysticism, which
according to Hick has captured the idea of
the transcendent God as inwardly
manifested in every religion.

 Hick was suggesting that the spiritual

experience of mankind on the
transcendent God, as providing a
ground for a pluralistic account in
religions, in the view that every
spiritual endeavor would finally reach
an acknowledgement of the existence
of a transcendent God which has
been variously interpreted by man

 Hick claimed that even such mystical

experience is unable to provide a
definite account of the Real an sich
In this regard, Hick insisted that event
the mystics are not free form their
cultural conditioning
indeed, it is the manifestation of the
real rather than the postulated Real an
sich

 Wittgensteins family-resemblance concepts to

religion so that different traditions, movements, and
ideologies could be classified under the word religion
to employ Wittgensteins family-resemblance concept
on the belief in a transcendent or an ultimate reality
which has been affirmed in most religions
different religions have different identification for the
transcendent or the ultimate; the Yahweh for the Jews,
the Brahman for the Hindus, the Holy Trinity for the
Christians, the Dharmakaya/Nirvana/Sunyata for
Mahayana Buddhism

 three important features which shaped

Hicks philosophical formulation on the
philosophy of religious pluralism. First is
the sociological approach; Hicks adoption
of the sociological theory of religion, that
every religion is cultural-based. Second is
the theological approach; the problem of
salvation and its new interpretation as
central to Hicks pluralistic position.
Finally, the mystical approaches; Hicks
ideas of religious pluralism is made
possible and sanctioned under mysticism

Syncretism Kabir and Nanak Ram

Mohan Roy Sri Ramakrishna
Mahatma Gandhi

Perennial Philosophy Thomas Huxley

Rene Guenon Frithjof Schuon
Seyyed Hossein Nasr