Dreams fulfilled

Christian Century, Jan 17, 2001 by S. Mark Heim

The pluralism of religious ends

IMAGINE FOR A MOMENT that we meet an angelic visitor who can tell us the future, and we ask whether some person we know will be "saved." Suppose our visitor says, "No, she will not be saved; instead she is going to get everything she truly wants." Suppose, on the other hand, that our visitor says, "Yes, she will be saved, though she will never come to know Christ or have communion with the triune God."

If we are Christians, both of these predictions may seem a bit odd. They point up an ambiguity in our use of salvation. We use the word as if it could refer to only one thing, containing all possible good, and as if there could be only one alternative to it, completely evil. Salvation as a Christian term, referring to a concretely Christian hope, is thoroughly blurred with the notion of some general positive possibility. But not all religions share the concept of salvation, nor would they necessarily find salvation all that attractive.

Both extreme liberal and extreme conservative theologies agree that there is and can be only one religious end, one actual religious fulfillment. They then fight fiercely over the means to that end: Is there one way or many ways? The dogmatic pluralist believes that the particularities of all religions are insignificant. The dogmatic exdusivist believes that the particularities of all religions but one are insignificant. There are good reasons to think that both these positions are mistaken.

It is hard to see how we can take religions seriously and at the same time regard all the distinctive qualities that are precious to each as essentially unimportant in terms of religious fulfillment. Religious traditions agree that the ends they seek are closely linked with the distinctive ways of life that they prescribe. We are often told that it is important to study traditions in their unique texture, to understand them on their own terms. But it is hard to see why that should be so if we already know in advance that specific differences do not correspond to any variation in religious outcomes.

Is there a perspective that honors the distinctive testimony of the various faith traditions as religiously significant? Are there conditions under which various believers' accounts of their faiths might be extensively and simultaneously valid? If we can give a positive answer to these questions, then we can affirm the various religious traditions in a much more concrete sense than either liberal or conservative theologians allow.

The key to gaining such a perspective is recognizing that religious paths may in fact lead people to the distinctively varied states that they advertise. If different religious practices and beliefs aim at and constitute distinct conditions of human fulfillment, then a very high proportion of what each tradition affirms may be true and valid in very much the terms that the tradition claims. This may be so even if deep conflict remains between the religions regarding priorities, background beliefs and ultimate metaphysical reality.

Two religious ends may represent two human states that no one person can inhabit at the same time. But there is no contradiction in two different persons simultaneously attaining the two ends. Adherents of different religious traditions may be able to recognize the reality of both ends, though they are not able to agree on the explanation of how and why the two ends exist or on the priority they should be given. On these terms, salvation (the Christian end) may differ not only from conditions humans generally regard as evil or destructive but also from those that specific religious traditions regard as most desirable and ultimate. We can avoid the stale deadlock of the instrumental question over what will get you there--"One way or many ways?"--by asking with real openness, "Way to what?"

Gandhi wrote, "Religions are different roads converging to the same point," and asked, "What does it matter if we take different roads so long as we reach the same goal? Wherein is the cause for quarreling?" (Actually, it is all too easy to quarrel even given exactly this assumption, as bitter conflict within a single religion shows.) But I ask, "What if religions are paths to different ends that they each value supremely? Why should we object?"

A famous verse of the Bhagavad Gita is often quoted on the presumption that it indicates the identical goal of all religions: "Howsoever people approach Me, even so do I welcome them, for the paths people take from every side are Mine." But Krishna's declaration in the voice of supreme Brahman would seem to be an equally good charter for a diversity of religious ends, affirming that people will receive different receptions corresponding to their different approaches to ultimate reality. If human beings form their ultimate desires freely from among many options, and then through devotion and practice are able to see those desires actually realized, there is no reason to complain about the process but ample room to differ over which end we should seek. Pluralism looks real. The best explanation for this appearance is that it is real.