“Asian Philosophies” was a tremendously successful course at our local state college. The first class of the quarter was full to the brim. Late arrivals had to sit on the floor. Most of the students were upperclassmen; freshmen were left dangling on a long waiting list.
Even so, seats began to open up as we began to cover the arcane details of Upanishadic Hinduism and Pure Land Buddhism. As a graduate assistant on several occasions, I was always amazed to see this level of interest. I could scarcely imagine the same numbers clambering to take a course on the life of Jesus or the Protestant Reformation. Many students were drawn to the novelty and strangeness of all things Eastern. This was spiritual tourism from the safety and comfort of a mid-western town. Others students in the class were looking for something, anything, other than their parents’ religion.
With the increasing mobility of the world’s population, Westerners are coming into contact with a tremendous variety of religious traditions, and they like what they see. If one of the latest Pew surveys is anything to go by, many of the people praising Jesus on Sunday also believe that Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and others are fellow travelers on separate but converging paths to the same spiritual goal.1
Let us be clear from the outset: the “many roads” doctrine is entirely inconsistent with a Christian worldview. Jesus said of Himself: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). The Apostles certainly took Jesus at His word. According to Peter, there is no salvation outside of Jesus Christ, “for there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Paul exalted Christ as the only foundation of true religion and the sole Mediator between the Father and fallen man (1 Corinthians 3:11; 1 Timothy 2:5).
The view just expressed has a convenient label: it is called exclusivism. It is, in fact, a term of abuse. In our postmodern culture, it is roundly condemned as backward, narrow minded, and condescending.
John Hick has done more than anyone else to denigrate exclusivism. In his groundbreaking work God Has Many Names, Hick describes a former stage of “ignorance” in which unbelievers were consigned to everlasting damnation. This outdated view, he says, “is as arrogant as it is cruel.”2 Hick’s allegedly kinder, gentler alternative is known as pluralism. His case rests on two critical observations. First, he draws attention to the diversity of religious experiences around the world.3 A Christian is filled with love and appreciation for the God who answers prayers. A Muslim is walking in awe around the Ka‘bah. A Zen acolyte is trying to attain the next level of contemplation. To think that the experiences of our faith are the only experiences worth having is, Hick contends, the height of arrogance. Second, Hick observes that in every religious tradition there are “saints” who perform wonders, offer profound teachings, and lead personal lives of humility and compassion. All of this leads Hick to conclude that there is a single profound truth—an “Ultimate Reality” or “the Real”—that the different religions of the world are all seeking in their own special way.
Hick believes he has offered an unassailable empirical argument,4 but the sacred texts of the world’s religions are awash with contradictory evidence. As we have seen already, the Bible makes no bones about the uniqueness of Christian faith. Hick must either explain these passages away or write them off, which only demonstrates his lack of respect for Christian faith in God and His Word. Pluralists love the many-roads approach, it seems, as long as they get to build the roads and direct the traffic. Christians who take their texts seriously are denied a seat at the table—so much for openness and acceptance.
As for “saints” in all traditions, the apostle Paul is certainly willing to acknowledge the presence of law-abiding pagans (Romans 2:14-15), but this is not enough for the inspired apostle. Erring believers and devout unbelievers alike will be judged by a single standard: the Gospel of Jesus Christ (v. 16). Hick is incensed. What about the Buddhists in Myanmar who have never heard the Gospel of Christ? Will we say they are lost by a mere accident of birth? Does this not seem so arbitrary, so cruel, so unfair? It might seem that way to critics of Biblical faith, but it changes nothing about the centrality of Jesus’ saving blood (Romans 5:9). It is not as though the Bible avoids the question of God’s alleged injustice to man. It devotes at least two entire books—Job and Romans— to this question. None of this matters to Hick, because he has no interest in understanding the source of Christian belief: “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17).
Hick might think he can get more traction in the East. Religions in this part of the world are valued for their many-roads possibilities, but tolerance can only go so far. Built into certain varieties of Hinduism, as seen for example in the exchange between Krishna and Arjuna in the famed Bhagavad Gita, is the notion that there are multiple paths leading to an understanding of what is ultimately real.
One of those paths includes devotion to a god. At least in principle, any god will do, whether Vishnu, Yahweh, Christ, Buddha or Allah. From the perspective of the Gita, my devotion to Jesus should bring me to a single, all-encompassing reality known as Brahman. But from the perspective of the Gospels, my devotion to Jesus will take me in a very different direction. Hindu views on God, individuality, the world, and salvation are fundamentally incompatible with a Christian world view.
Other seemingly flexible faiths fare no better. Mahayana Buddhism spread like wildfire through Asia because of its willingness to accommodate a variety of different belief systems. However, Buddhism is essentially a non-theistic worldview—it has no god in the sense envisioned by Christianity. Further, as a matter of principle, Buddhism rejects the notion of permanence (anitya). This immediately sets Buddhism against Jewish, Christian, and Muslim notions of an eternal God, and against Hindu notions of Brahman.
One of us has got to be wrong about “the Real.” Hick finds himself having to reinterpret the doctrine of permanence in order to keep his theory alive.5 As in the case of Christianity and the Bible, he must presume to know Buddhism better than the Buddhists do. This is hardly a recipe for universal love and understanding. The fundamental failing of Hick’s pluralism is to ignore and even denigrate the deeper differences that separate the religions of the world.
While good, diversity is not the highest goal for Christians. In reaching out to the world, the disciples were forbidden from discriminating on the basis of religion, nationality, sex, or economic status (Acts 10:34-35; Galatians 3:26-28; James 2:1-4). In writing to the strife-torn church at Corinth, Paul praised the mixture of Jews and Gentiles, slaves and freedmen, prophets and teachers, healers and interpreters (1 Corinthians 12:12-31).
There was unity in diversity, but the unity had to be found within Christ. Christianity is, in a very real sense, the most inclusive religion of all. It is not something into which we are born. It is not tied to a single culture. It does not require us to learn a particular language to appreciate the Truth of its holy texts. It is not a religion that reserves the richest spiritual rewards for ascetics, scholars, and other elites. The Gospel is free to all. By that same Gospel, all shall be judged. Of that truth I, as a Christian, cannot be ashamed (Mark 8:38; Romans 1:16).
By Trevor Major, M.S.
This article first appeared in Think magazine. To learn more or to subscribe, click here.
1 Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center), 2008, p. 3-5,58.
2 John Hick, God Has Many Names: Britain’s New Religious Pluralism, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press), 1982, p. 29.
3 John Hick, Problems of Religious Pluralism, (New York: St. Martin’s Press), 1985, p. 37.
4 John Hick, “The Epistemological Challenge of Religious Pluralism,” in Dialogues in the Philosophy of Religion (New York: Pelgrave Macmillan), 2001, p. 25-36.
5 Jung H. Lee, “Problems of Religious Pluralism: A Zen Critique of John Hick’s Ontological Monomorphism,” Philosophy East & West, 1998, 48[3]:453-477.
