DOCTRINE AND RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS 55others’ diagnoses to be in error and the others’ cures to be ineffective
regarding what the real problem is.
To believe that John is a sinner in need of God’s forgiveness, or that John
is unknowingly identical to qualityless Brahman, or that John at a time is
but a cluster of momentary states and over time a series of such clusters
and will unfortunately remain so unless he recognizes his nature and
enters nirvana, or that John is actually an enduring and indestructible self-
conscious being whose embodiment hides his omniscience and existential
security, is also to think that anything incompatible with the diagnosis and
cure that one accepts is false. If it is true (as it is) that the National
Basketball franchise that has won the most championships is the Boston
Celtics, it is not another thing for it to be false that the Celtics are not this
franchise. If my view is that we are in need of God’s gracious forgiveness,
and that this is the basic religious problem that I share with all others, then
if my belief is true it is not another thing for it to be false that this is not
the basic religious problem that I share with all others. The same holds for
the truth about any other proposed diagnosis. Any diagnosis is either true
or not true. The same applies to any cure.
It could be contended that, just as different people have different
diseases, so they may have different religious problems. In some sense, no
doubt, they may. But religious traditions focus on what they take to be the
deepest religious illness and suppose it to be shared by all human beings.
This is not arbitrary on their part – the problem, however construed, is one
viewed by these traditions as closely connected to human nature. On their
view, the problem is human nature, or it is due to a universal misuse of
capacities, possession of which is constitutive of being human, or the like.
They take it that everyone lives in the same cosmos, has the same nature,
and so is disjointed or warped in essentially the same way. From their
perspective, to propose seriously that different persons have different
religious problems at the deepest level is tantamount to suggesting that not
all human beings are members of the same species. This suggestion is
incompatible with at least most religious traditions, and there is little if
any reason to think it true.
The viewpoints expressed in the passages recently quoted, then, is
exactly what one would expect from anyone who was sincerely committed
to the religious tradition in question – who took that tradition’s diagnosis
and cure to fit their condition and meet their deepest religious need. There
is no good reason to think it wicked of religious believers to hold the views
these passages express. Sincere Marxists, Socialists, Feminists, Freudians,
Supplyside Economists, Animal Rights Activists, Right to Choose
Advocates, and Right to Life Advocates hold similar views regarding the
inelegant consequences of those who reject their political and social
programs. That is, they actually believe what they say and act on.