Deep Religious Pluralism

Encounter, Summer 2006 by Ford, Lewis S

Deep Religious Pluralism. Edited by David Ray Griffin. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005. 272 pages.

In Part 1, Griffin presents John Cobb's deep religious pluralism based on the existence of at least two ultimates: creative activity which all actualities instantiate, and God as the supreme instance of this activity. Part 2 develops Cobb's Buddhist-Christian dialogue. Steve Odin traces the remarkable similarities between Amida Buddha, the Lord of the Pure Land (heaven), and the Christ. John Shunji Yokota presents a deeply confessional account of how he, as a Shin Buddhist, came to accept Christ as the historical embodiment of Amida. (He notes that his fellow Shin Buddhists seem to be untroubled by the nonhistorical [i.e., mythical] depiction of Amida.)

Part 3 presents Buddhist, Chinese, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, and Jewish versions of deep religious pluralism by scholars such as Sandra B. Lubarsky, Jeffrey D. Long, Mustafa Ruzgar, Christopher Ives, Michael Lodahl, Chung-ying Cheng, and Wang Shik Jang. Finally, in Part 4, Cobb presents some basic assumptions of his quest for religious pluralism. These assumptions are not distinctively Whiteheadian, but are more general. For example, Cobb wants to avoid reifying "religion" and seeking an essence of Christianity, but he does want religious experience to have a realistic dimension.

The most important assumption for our purposes is that there is no common goal for the various religions. This makes perfect sense for a descriptive account, for then each religion is presented in its own terms. But it is problematic in terms of any normative judgment, for it suggests valuation in terms of conflicting goals-theirs and ours. Whitehead's complementary ultimates are not mentioned as a possible way out.

Griffin's initial chapter, after noting how supernaturalist views of God preclude the possibility of any genuine religious pluralism (18), is a detailed examination of Mark Heim's critique of religious pluralism in its identist version (Hick, W. C. Smith, Knitter). According to this version, there is one essence, one ultimate, underlying all true religions. Hick's notion is taken as paradigmatic, seeing the ultimate as beyond all human concepts, as formless. If so, all that is distinctively Christian (or Buddhist, etc.) is eliminated. Griffin argues that Heim's assumption that all pluralisms are identist does not do justice to Cobb's position, which is that different religions seek different ultimates. Relying upon Whitehead's philosophy, Cobb discerns three ultimates: God, creativity, and the world (49).

Hick insists on only one ultimate; Cobb champions many. But at least in earlier writings Cobb does not claim that there could be an unlimited number of ultimates. His commitment to two or three is controlled by Whitehead's theory of ultimates. Many will question Cobb's willingness to allow a philosophical account to form the backbone of a religious inquiry. Yet philosophy can abstract from all the historical contingencies surrounding the origination and continuation of religious traditions, and make perspicacious correlations between differing traditions. Though this issue is not broached, I believe the fundamental reason for any insistence upon only one ultimate is the Christian (and not only Christian) rejection of other gods.

To be sure, the personal God of monotheism is generalized in terms of an unspecified ultimate, but the same prohibition stands: "Thou shalt have no other ultimates before me." The reason for this prohibition in the first place lies in the fact that gods may conflict with one another. The virtue of philosophical accounts of ultimates is that they cannot conflict. As the supreme instantiation of creativity, God is the only God, and has no other instantiation capable of conflicting with it. God and creativity are not two actualities, for while creativity is an activity instantiated by all actualities, it is not itself an actuality. This coordination of nonconflicting ultimates, then, is the basis of deep religious pluralism.

Lewis S. Ford

Old Dominion University