11 RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY I The Problem of Religious

-11 RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY I

The Problem of Religious Diversity There are many religions in the world, each of them has it own set of beliefs and practices and also a doctrine of salvation. Thus, there is not an agreement among religions. They hold different and even contradictory beliefs and practices. There are theistic as well as non-theistic religions. Moreover, there are some significant differences even among theistic religions. The question: How can all these religions be equally true or justified? Can they all lead one to salvation?

Or else, are they equally false? Given the fact that they contradicts each other, a negative/ reductionist attitude might simply conclude that they are all false. But is this a justified attitude? Clearly, from the fact that there are different or even contradictory truth claims, it does not follow that they are all false. A claim that all of them are false will equally be unjustified like the claim that they all true. If so, it seems that one ought to consider each religion on its own merit.

In the contemporary literature there have three basic approaches to the problem of religious diversity. (1) Religious Exclusivism (2) Religious Inclusivism (3) Religious Pluralism

Religious Exclusivism is the view that only one religion is true and can therefore lead to salvation. Since religious exclusivism that the beliefs/ doctrines of one particular religion are true and justified, it excludes all the rest of religions or belief systems which contradict as false and unjustifed. Religious exclusivism seems to have been the general and traditional attitude of religions. Such an exclusivist attitude can be considered as ‘natural’ to some extent because all truth claims seem to be necessarily exclusive. Hence if you believe that is p is true you exclude all non-p beliefs as false. Yet, religious exclusivism has been criticized for being intolerant and undervaluing other religions / system of beliefs.

Religious Inclusivism Although religious inclusivism too takes one particular religion as the reference of truth and salvation, unlike exclusivism, it also admits that some other religions may be partially true and hence deserve to be considered within the boundaries of salvation. Although religious inclusivism does not seem to be the general attitude of traditional religions, however there has been some attempts to underline the common ground among the in theistic traditions for the sake of inclusivism. However religious inclusivism has its own problems inasmuch as it may prove difficult to show incompatibe or even contradictory religious beliefs can be realistically accommodated if only one religion is at the center.