source https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/religious-pluralism/

Historically there has been one specific “diversity issue” with which philosophers have been most concerned: the question of the eternal destiny of humankind, that is, the question of who can spend eternity in God’s presence — who can obtain salvation.

Those who are religious exclusivists on this question claim that those, and only those, who have met the criteria set forth by one religious perspective can spend eternity in God’s presence.[7] Adherents of other religious perspectives, it is acknowledged, can affirm truth related to some or many issues. But with respect to the question of salvation (one’s eternal destiny), a person must come to understand and follow the unique way.

It is important to note, though, that not only Christians are salvific exclusivists. For example, just as Christian salvific exclusivists maintain that only those who respond appropriately to requirements set for in Christian belief can spend eternity in God’s presence, Muslim salvific exclusivists maintain that “whether a person is ‘saved’ or not is principally determined by whether he or she responded appropriately to Islamic belief” (Aijaz 2014, 194).

Also important to note is that differing, sometimes even conflicting, exclusivistic claims can exist within the same world religion. For instance, significant intra-Christian debate has centered historically on the eternal fate of young children who die. For some, the answer was (and still is) that all children who die are separated from God eternally. Others have believed that God “elects” some for heaven and allows the rest to spend eternity in hell, while still others have held that only the deceased children of believers are allowed to enter heaven or that salvation for children who die is tied to the sacrament of baptism. A more common belief today among Christians, though, is that all those who die in early childhood (or die having possessed only the mental capacities of young children) enter automatically into God’s eternal presence (Basinger 1992, 4).

But what of those “adults” who die having never been aware of the salvific conditions of the one true religion? Is it not clearly unjust for exclusivists to claim that they cannot spend eternity with God because they have not met the criteria for salvation stipulated by this religion? For salvific inclusivists, the answer is yes. Like exclusivists, inclusivists believe that eternal existence in God’s presence is only possible because of the salvific provisions noted in the one true religion. However, religious inclusivists allow that some adherents of other religions can be saved because of these provisions, even if the individuals in question haven’t made the personal commitments normally stipulated as necessary to appropriate these salvific provisions. Put in philosophical language, as inclusivists see it, particular salvific events may be ontologically necessary for salvation in the sense that salvation cannot occur without them but not epistemically necessary in the sense that one need not know about them to be saved or liberated (Moser 2011;Peterson et al. 2013, 334).

Probably the best known Christian proponent of this inclusivist perspective is Karl Rahner. Christianity, he argues, cannot recognize any other religion as providing the way to salvation. However, since God is love and desires everyone to be saved, God can apply the results of Jesus’s atoning death and resurrection to everyone, even to those who have never heard of Jesus and his death or have never acknowledged his lordship. Just as adherents to pre-Christian Judaism were able, through the redemptive acts of Jesus of which they were not aware, to enter God’s presence, so, too, is it possible for adherents of other religions to enter God’s presence, even though they are not aware of the necessary redemptive acts of Jesus that makes this possible (Peterson et al. 2013, 334–335). Inclusivists, it should be noted, differ on the conditions such “anonymous Christians” must meet. Some stipulate, for instance, that those who have never heard “the gospel” still have both some innate knowledge of God and the freedom to establish a relationship with God and, therefore, that the eternal destiny of those in this category is dependent on the extent to which they commit as much as they knows of themselves to as much as they know of God through, or even apart from, a religion other than Christianity. Other inclusivists don’t want to be as specific, maintaining only that, because God is just, there will surely be some adherents of other religions who will be in God’s presence because they have met some set of divine conditions they have it within their power to meet. But all agree these “anonymous Christians” are the recipients of supernatural grace.

Salvific pluralists, however, find such reasoning no more convincing than that offered by exclusivists. Inclusivists are right, pluralists grant, to say that individuals need not necessarily know of or fulfill certain requirements normally specified in a given religion to attain salvation. But inclusivists, like exclusivists, are wrong to argue that this salvation is, itself, possible only because of certain conditions or events described in the one true religion. There is no one true religion and, therefore, no one, and only one, path to eternal existence with God.

Why, though, ought we consider this pluralistic salvific hypothesis more plausible than that offered by the exclusivist or inclusivist? According to Hick, the most influential proponent of pluralism, three factors make a pluralistic perspective the only plausible option. First, and foremost, he argues, is the reality of transformation parity. An efficacious salvific process is not just other-world centered — does not simply give individuals a “ticket” to eternal existence with God. It begins “the transformation from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness” in this life (Hick 1984, 229). That is, an efficacious salvific process changes lives in the sense that it begins to turn people from thinking about, and acting only to enhance, their own personal well-being to viewing themselves as responsible participants in a much greater, more expansive reality. In short, an efficacious salvific process makes its participants better people. And all the evidence we have, Hick maintains, shows that many religions are equally transformational, given any general standard for positive transformation we might want to consider (Hick 1989, chapter 3).

There continues to be debate, however, over whether the same basic personal transformation actually does occur within various religions — over whether there is real transformational parity. Few claim that there is a strong experiential basis for denying such transformational parity or that it can be demonstrated on other objective, nonquestion-begging grounds that such parity does not exist. However, proponents of many basic theistic systems claim that while transformational parity may appear to be the case, this is actually not so — that is, claim that the transformation within their systems actually is qualitatively different than that produced by allegiance to other systems. It is sometimes argued, for instance, that the transformation within other systems will not last, or at least that this transformation, while possibly real and even lasting for a given individual, is not what it could have been for that individual within the one true theistic system. And some exclusivists have argued that unless it can be demonstrated in an objective, nonquestion-begging sense that they are not justified in affirming a religious perspective that makes such claims (which even Hick does not attempt to demonstrate), they are justified in denying that such parity actually exists (Clark 1997, 303–320).

It can also be argued that focusing on transformational parity can be used as an argument against salvific pluralism. The basis for this claim is the fact that people making a “secular” (non-religious) commitment to some goal, value, or metaphysical perspective — be it concern for the environment or world hunger or emotional health — often appear to have their lives transformed in ways quite similar to the ways in which the lives of religious believers are transformed. They, too, appear to have changed from self-centeredness to a focus on reality outside of self. If this is so, however, then might it not be that the religious transformational parity we observe is simply a sub-set of the general transformational parity we find among individuals who commit themselves to any perspective on life that centers reality outside of self, and thus that it is just as plausible to assume that all religious transformational parity is the result of some form of internal conceptual realignment than the result of some form of connection with an external divine reality? And if this is the case, then transformational parity is at least weakened as support for any salvific perspective, whether pluralistic, inclusivistic, or exclusivistic.

Seeming transformational parity is not, however, Hick’s only reason for believing non-pluralistic salvific perspectives to be untenable. A credible perspective, he tells us, must account for the fact, “evident to ordinary people (even though not always taken into account by theologians) that in the great majority of cases — say 98 to 99 percent — the religion in which a person believes and to which he adheres depends upon where he was born” (Hick 1980, 44). And given this fact — given that “religious allegiance depends in the great majority of cases on the accident of birth” — it seems implausible to hold that “being born in our particular part of the world carries with it the privilege of knowing the full religious truth” (Hick 1997a, 287).

This contention, though, has also been challenged. No one denies that the admittedly high correlation between where and when a person is born and the religious perspective she affirms is relevant and might in fact negatively affect an exclusivist’s confidence. But many exclusivists deny that a pluralistic explanation should be seen as the only plausible option. As they see it, exclusivists need not consider the high place-time/religious allegiance correlation in question in isolation from other relevant beliefs. For example, the Christian exclusivist need not consider this correlation in isolation from her basic belief that the Bible is an authoritative source of truth and that the Bible teaches that only the Christian perspective contains a totally accurate view of reality. And it is justifiable, some maintain, for exclusivists to consider the plausibility of such relevant background beliefs to outweigh the seeming counterevidence posed by the correlation in question (Plantinga 2000, 187; Plantinga 1997, 198).

Finally, Hick argues, a credible religious hypothesis must account for the fact, of which “we have become irreversibly aware in the present century, as the result of anthropological, sociological, and psychological studies and the work of philosophy of language,” that there is no one universal and invariable pattern for the interpretation of human experience, but rather a range of significantly different patterns or conceptual schemes “which have developed within the major cultural streams.” And when considered in this light, a “pluralistic theory becomes inevitable” (Hick 1984, 232).

While no one denies that culture shapes reality to some extent, it can again be argued that when comparing the plausibility of specific beliefs, we must consider not only these specific beliefs themselves but also the basic background beliefs in which they are embedded. Thus, even if we grant that a pluralistic response to the obvious shaping power of culture is preferable to any exclusivistic response when such shaping power is considered in isolation, it isn’t clear that exclusivists must acknowledge that Hick’s hypothesis is so strong that it renders implausible the whole set of basic background beliefs out of which the exclusivist’s response to the profound shaping influence of culture on religious belief arises. Hence, it isn’t clear that exclusivists can’t justifiably reject Hick’s contention that a pluralistic cultural/religious interpretation of reality must inevitably be considered superior.

Hick argues for salvific pluralism on what might best be called metaphysical or epistemological grounds. Other philosophers, however, have attempted to make a moral case for salvific pluralism (or at least against salvific exclusivism.) For instance, Kenneth Himma has argued that moral considerations require Christian salvific exclusivism to be rejected (Himma 2002, 1–33). It follows both from God’s perfection and conceptual truths about punishment, Himma maintains, that God would not punish individuals who are not morally culpable for their behavior. But those with non-Christian beliefs are generally not morally culpable for the fact that they hold these beliefs. Not only is it not the case that any objective line of reasoning demonstrates the Christian (or any other religious) path to salvation to be the correct one, religious traditions are, themselves, extremely elastic. That is, because of the shaping, foundational nature of basic religious belief, devout proponents of any given religion are capable of (in fact, usually simply find themselves) offering self-consistent responses to almost any challenge to their salvific perspective, no matter how strong or damaging this challenge might seem on the surface. Furthermore, recent sociological, psychological, and anthropological studies have confirmed that while one’s basic religious beliefs are not inevitable, they are quite often to a significant extent “beyond the direct volitional control of the believer” (Himma 2002, 18). So we must conclude, argues Himma, that it would not be morally just for the Christian God to deny salvation to devout people of other faiths.

Not surprisingly, many nonexclusivists and pluralists will find this basic line of reasoning persuasive. However, some (although not all) exclusivists reject the basic moral assumption on which Himma’s argument is based: that we are in a position to correctly identify some of the basic moral principles that guide God’s interaction with us as humans. Specifically, while many Christian exclusivists do believe that God’s behavior is guided by the same basic principles of justice and fairness that are so fundamental to our human moral thinking, this is not true for all. There is a strong Christian tradition that holds that God is under no obligation to treat any individual in what we would consider a just, fair fashion. God can do what God wants (including how God responds to those who haven’t affirmed Christian beliefs) for whatever purposes God has. What God does is right simply because God does it.[9] And even among those Christian exclusivists who come to acknowledge Himma’s basic point — that a just God cannot condemn those who aren’t culpable for their non-Christian beliefs — the response has normally not been to reject their overall exclusivistic perspective. It is often simply assumed, rather, that “God’s ways are above our ways” in some manner unfathomable to the human mind.

However, even if we were to agree with pluralists that both exclusivists and inclusivists are wrong to claim that the basis for true salvation can be found in only one religion, the question of what type of pluralistic hypothesis we ought to affirm remains. Hick, himself, favors what might be called a selective pluralism that centers on the world’s great religions. Hick has never denied that the major world religions — Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam — make conflicting truth claims. In fact, he believes that “the differences of belief between (and within) the traditions are legion” and has often discussed these conflicts in great detail (Hick 1983, 487). His basic pluralistic claim, rather, is that such differences are best seen as differing ways in which differing cultures have conceived of and experienced the one ultimate divine Reality. Each major religious perspective “constitutes a valid context of salvation/liberation; but none constitutes the one and only such context” (Hick 1984, 229, 231).

Why, however, select only the paths offered by the world’s great religions as ways to salvation? For Hick the answer lies in the fact that, unlike “Satanism, Nazism, the Order of the Solar Temple, etc.,” the world’s great religions offer paths that lead us away from “hatred, misery, aggression, unkindness, impatience, violence, and lack of self-control” to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Hick 1997b, 164). Some, though, see this sort of ethical standard for acceptable salvific perspectives to be as arbitrary as the standard for acceptable paths to salvation set forth by exclusivists or inclusivists (Meeker 2003, 5). In fact, some have questioned whether, given this rather specific ethical criterion for assessing the salvific adequacy of religions, Hick’s perspective should actually be considered pluralistic at all.

S. Mark Heim, for instance, argues that pluralists such as Hick are really inclusivists in disguise in that they advocate only one path to salvation — the transformation from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness — and thus in essence deny that diverse religions have real, fundamental salvific differences. A better, more honest salvific pluralism, we are told, is to acknowledge that each religion has its own path to salvation that may be either similar to or different from that of other religions. That is, a more honest pluralistic perspective is to deny that the seemingly different salvific paths offered by various religious traditions are all just culturally distinct manifestations of the same fundamental path and maintain instead that salvific paths of various religions remain incompatible, but equally valid ways to achieve salvation. This is not to say, of course, it is acknowledged, that all the details of all the salvific paths are actually true since some of the relevant claims are inconsistent. But the appropriate response to this is not to claim there is one true path to salvation. It is rather to claim that many distinct paths, while remaining distinct, can lead to salvation (Heim 1995).

Critics, however, wonder whether part of this seeming disagreement is verbal in nature. Heim can appear to be bypassing the question of whether there is some sort of final, ultimate eschatological salvific state that the proponents of various religious perspectives will all experience, emphasizing rather that many distinct religious paths can liberate people (produce salvation) here and now (Peterson et al. 2013, 333). Hick, on the other hand, seems most concerned with the nature of salvific reality — with what it means to experience salvation — while not denying that there exist in this world distinct ways that remain distinct to access this ultimate reality.