PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: A contemporary introduction

SORTS OF RELIGION 33

Advaita Vedanta, the sickness is our ignorance of our being identical with
Brahman and the cure is gaining this knowledge. According to Jainism,
the sickness is that we think we are ignorant and dependent and the cure
is learning that we are omniscient and existentially independent.
According to Theravada Buddhism, our sickness is that we take ourselves
to be enduring substances and the cure is learning that we are only
transitory states. While brief, lacking subtlety and detail, these remarks
are also accurate.
We can summarize the diagnoses and cures as follows:

• Christianity: sinners, divine forgiveness and restoration;


• Advaita Vedanta: ignorance of Brahman, knowledge of Brahman;


• Jainism: assumed ignorance and dependence, knowledge of
  independence and omniscience;


• Theravada Buddhism: assumed status as enduring substances,
  knowledge of transitory states.

Earlier, three criteria were offered of what it might mean to speak
about different sorts of religions. The first of these was:

Criterion 1: Religion A is of a different sort from Religion B if one
can have the problem that A diagnoses without having
the problem that B diagnoses, one can have the problem
that B diagnoses without having the problem that A
diagnoses, the cure that A proffers would not cure the
disease that B diagnoses, and the cure that B proffers
would not cure the disease that A diagnoses.

Assuming that it is logically possible that any one of these diagnoses be
correct, and logically possible that any one of these cures works regarding
its target disease, it is obviously possible to have any of the alleged
diseases – sin, ignorance of Brahman, assumed dependence and ignorance,
assumed enduring substance and actual transitory states – without having
any of the others. Further, no one cure would work for any of the
sicknesses save the one with which it is correlated by the religious
tradition that suggests it. So, by Criterion 1, we have four distinct sorts of
religions.
The second criterion was:

Criterion 2: Religion A is of a different sort from Religion B if
what must exist if A’s diagnosis and cure is correct can
exist without what must exist if B’s diagnosis and cure
are correct, and conversely.