RELIGIOUS PLURALISM 79- it offers a sham explanation.
2 RP cannot ascribe to the Real any property by virtue of which positing it
might explain anything whatever.
But then RP is explanatorily vacuous. When it comes to unpack its
cognitive content, its briefcase is empty.
One might offer this suggestion: when RP posits the Real, it is to be seen
as itself a metaphor. It has no literal meaning and it is to be judged in terms
of whether it is useful. Does encountering the RP-myth make people nicer?
But then RP will offer no explanations of anything. It will not be an
alternative to the one-religion-is-right line, the all-religions-are-right line,
or any other actual account of religious plurality.
Questions for reflection
1 What is religious pluralism?
2 Does religious pluralism have the religious consequences ascribed to it
in this chapter?
3 What (other?) religious consequences does religious pluralism have?
4 Explain and assess the claim that religious pluralism is self-
contradictory.
5 Explain and assess the claim that religious pluralism’s use of “the Real”
suggests that we know more about the alleged source of religious
experience than it says we do.
6 Suppose we can tell that some religious doctrine is false, or is even less
reasonably believed than its alternatives. What implications would this
have for religious pluralism?
7 Suppose we can tell that some religious doctrine is true, or is even more
reasonably believed than its alternatives. What implications would this
have for religious pluralism?
Annotated reading
In the list that follows, books that disagree with the view regarding doctrine
defended in the preceding chapter are unmarked, books that argue for a view
similar to the author’s are marked with an asterisk, and those marked with a plus
sign contain essays on both sides of the dispute.
*D’Costa, Gavin (1980) Theology and Religious Pluralism, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
+Hewitt, Harold (1991) Problems in the Philosophy of Religion, New York: St
Martin’s Press.
Hick, John (1980) God Has Many Names, London: Macmillan.