0n 25 October 1994, the Turkish scholar Adnan Aslan interviewed Profs. Nasr
and Hick at the home of John Hick in Birmingham. The topic of discussion was
religious pluralism, about which Dr. Aslan was writing his doctoral
dissertation. Later Dr. Aslan published a book in which he compares the ideas of
Profs. Nasr and Hick on religious pluralism. Unfortunately, I have not yet had
the opportunity to see this work, but the interview, which was published in the
Islamic Quarterly, [1] is quite thought provoking.
Here follows a brief summary of the discussion, and then comments and criticisms. By commenting on it, I hope to clarify my own views about religious
pluralism and to gain some understanding about the resources available to
Muslims for explaining the plurality of religions.
1. Synopsis of the Discussion:
Perhaps the strangest thing about the discussion is the point with which John
Hick begins. He notes that both he and Dr. Nasr agree on the truth of different
religions, but observes the main difference between them is that Hick sees this
as requiring reform, while Nasr wants to leave the traditions alone. What then
unfolds is the odd spectacle of a Christian cleric who would reform Christianity
by denying the Trinity being advised by a Muslim sage that the doctrine of the
Trinity must not be abandoned by Christians. Such an ironic turn of events is
surely a sign that the end times are near!
Nasr states that while Hick sees the differences among religion to be due to
human factors, he sees them as divinely ordained because of human differences.
Nasr will admit a need for reform but only to the extent necessary to dispel the
sense of absoluteness harboured by exclusivists.
According to Hick, the concepts of omnipotence, omniscience, and many others
that are taken to indicate attributes of God, are entirely human products which
do not accurately describe what he prefers to call the infinite or the ultimate
as it is in-itself.
Nasr responds that the ways in which God describes Himself in revelation are not
human inventions, and must not be subject to any supposed programme of reform.
He claims that change in religion must be gradual and organic or natural,
although he hastens to add that there can be no change in the immutable divine
laws of Islam or Judaism.
The distinction Nasr makes between those aspects of religion in which acceptable
organic change is possible and those aspects which are immutable prompts Hick to
ask how the difference can be discerned. Hick's primary concern here is with
Christian claims about the divinity of Christ (`a). Is this to be seen as an
essential element of Christianity or as an accretion to be reformed?
Nasr does not provide any criterion by which to distinguish the immutable from
the reformable, but insists that God would not allow a major religion to rest on
a single mistake for two thousand years. Nasr goes so far as to assert that even
if historical documents could prove that Christ (`a,) and his Apostles did not
believe in the doctrines of the Trinity or Incarnation, such doctrines were
divinely willed for later Christians.
Hick responds that the idea of God's not allowing fundamental error to persist
in a major religion to which Nasr appeals presupposes a personification of the
Ultimate which Hick finds unacceptable. For Hick, the concept of the divine will
is merely a human response to the Ultimate. After some cross-examination by
Hick, Nasr accepts that the concept of divine will is applicable to certain
manifestations of the Real rather than to the Real in itself, although he also
contends that the Divine takes into consideration, i.e., wills, the way in which
It will become manifest.
If this discussion exposes a difficulty in Nasr's thought, the going gets
rougher in the next exchange, in which Nasr apparently denies the principle of
non-contradiction. He claims that although the Christian and Islamic
descriptions of Christ are contradictory, they are nevertheless both true, and
admits that this is "very difficult from a rationalistic point of view."
Nasr next alludes to different perspectives and different "levels of knowing" by
means of which the contradiction could be resolved, but he does not explain how
Christ could be crucified on one level and not on another. He claims that only
an elite of advanced thinkers will be able to understand his claims, and he
compares the situation with that of astronomical knowledge. Nasr also explains
the differences among religions in terms of the intellectual climates during
which the religions emerged. Christianity had to confront Greco-Roman
rationalism, which was no threat to Arabia in the years leading up to the coming
of Islam. The differences between what Christianity and Islam say about Christ
(`a) are thus, according to Nasr, due to the different functions played by
Christ (`a) in the two religions in order to lead the people of different
cultural and historical environments to salvation.
The discussion becomes even more confused when Hick asks whether such absolute
claims within the religions have not often caused them to go to war. Instead of
separating the moral and metaphysical questions, Nasr responds that most modern
wars have been prompted by secular ideologies (fascism, nationalism, communism).
Hick protests that religions often contribute to divisiveness and Nasr ~answers
that the differences among religions confirm the existence of different human
collectivities.
Then both Hick and Nasr agree that religions should get rid of their claims to
be the one and only truth, Nasr reasserts his communal relativism with the claim
that exclusivist statements attributed to Christ are meant only for Christians,
not for Muslims and vice versa. Hick agrees, "No one comes to the Father but
through me" is only to be true for the Christians, not universally. This denial
of universality is also accepted by Nasr with respect to Islam, and he claims
that Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rums had the same idea. Hick agrees that the sufi
element of Islam has always been pluralistic.
Aslan next asks who can be saved. Hick responds that anyone who is empty of self
and open to the Ultimate is saved. Nasr, first affirms his belief in a Qur'anic
eschatology, but then he claims that the different eschatologies of all the
religions are "correct in their own spiritual universe." Hick agrees.
Finally, on the issue of religion and science, both Nasr and Hick agree that
science cannot guide theology.
2. Comments on the Discussion:
Since I have already provided a fairly lengthy critique of the pluralism
advocated by John Hick, [2] in these comments I am more interested in the view
advocated by Dr. Nasr. Through his vigorous defense of Islamic thought and
culture in a long series of eloquent and erudite articles and books, Dr. Nasr
has emerged as the most eminent Muslim intellectual in the U. S. No one else has
defended Islam with the quality and quantity of his writings in English. Hence,
what Dr. Nasr has to say about the important topic of religious pluralism, [3]
at the very least, will have serious consequences for the way Islam is
understood in America, and the rest of the English speaking world.
2.1 Religious Pluralism and Sophia Perennis:
The approach taken by Dr. Nasr is that of the perennial philosophy he has
advocated for years, with acknowledgments -of the works of Frithjof Schuon. With
regard to the topic of religious pluralism, the most important work of Schuon is
his very first book, The Transcendent Unity of Religions. [4] This book expands
on a theme common among the `urafa- of Islam, that the divine religions are
different only in their external aspects, but have the same interiors Schuon's
ideas may be further traced to Rene Guenon (1886-1951) who appears to have
initiated the school of thought associated with the advocacy of sophia perennis
or philosophia perennis. The basic idea of this school is that all the religions
are ultimately saying the same thing but in different ways, but that to see this
universal core, one must turn from the exoteric to the esoteric aspects of the
religions.
Given this background, one of the most prominent differences between the
approach taken by Hick and Nasr to the plurality of religions is that for Hick
the problem is first and foremost soteriological and moral, and subsequently
epistemological and metaphysical, while for Nasr religious diversity is
primarily a metaphysical or (more specifically) a theosophical problem, although
he does not ignore its epistemological and moral dimensions. Hick begins with
traditional Christian exclusivism, the doctrine that there is no salvation
outside the church (extra ecclesiam nulla salus), which he finds unacceptable
because he cannot believe that the good people of non-Christian traditions of
faith will not be saved. The rejection of the traditional Christian doctrine of
salvation has major implications for theology and religious epistemology, to
which Hick has devoted considerable attention for more than twenty years.
For Nasr, on the other hand, a pluralistic acceptance of the esoteric unity of
all religions is a core feature of the perennial philosophy, and is merely one
more aspect of the relationship between the One and the many which is to be
found in so many variations among the writings of the sufis.
Perhaps the attitudes of both Nasr and Hick toward the multiplicity of religions
are outgrowths of nineteenth century romanticism, for Guenon's teachings on the
philosophia perennis arose out of the occultist circles of Paris in which a
romantic view of the orient was itself hardly exotic, while Hick's ideas are
founded on a liberal Protestant ethos which can be traced to Schleiermacher's
romanticism. But romantic optimism plays decidedly different roles in the two
contemporary thinkers, so that Hick sees himself as leading a movement of
theological reform within Christianity that will lead Christians to have more
tolerance for others, while Nasr is led to an optimistic reading of traditional
beliefs of all the major religions without any modernizing reform. Hick
idealizes the future of Christianity, while Nasr idealizes its past. And both
would extend their respective idealizations beyond Christianity to ail the major
religions of the world. So Hick invites Muslims and Jews to join his reform
movement by making analogous reforms in their own creeds to annul the
exclusivism he abhors, and Nasr is willing to defend the perennial wisdom to be
found in shamanism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, etc., as traditionally taught
and practiced.
2.2 Divine and Human Elements of Religion:
The fundamental difference between the ways Hick and Nasr view religion in
general is that while Hick sees it as a human phenomenon, Nasr sees it as divine
revelation. Likewise, Schleiermacher considers the essence of religion to lie in
religious experience, while for Schuon the marrow of all religion is to be found
in transcendent reality. [5] Thus it is that, for Hick, differences among
religions are to be explained in terms of the different human reactions to the
Real, while, for Nasr, the differences among religions are explained in terms of
the different manifestations through which the Real presents Itself.
It would seem that both positions are rather extreme. Hick seems to err by
making religion too much of a human construct, although he rejects the ideas of
Durkheim, Marx and Freud, according to whom religion is entirely determined by
social, economic or psychological factors. Hick contends that religion is a
genuine response to the Real, but it is a human response to the real whose form
is determined by humans rather than God, while Nasr seems to think that it all
must be divine. If we must fall into error, it would seem more pious to accept
the position offered by Nasr, for true religion teaches that there is a sense in
which everything that takes lace does so by the will of God, and that revealed
truth is sent by God rather than constructed by human factors. Ultimately,
however, a middle course must be found between -the views of Hick and Nasr if we
realize that there are human constructions as well as divine revelations
contained in the religious traditions of mankind. They are not to be equalized
by the two false claims that the religions are all completely human
constructions or completely divine manifestations. Even if the light of divinity
shines through all the major religious traditions, this does not mean that the
intensity of the light is the same in all of them. Even if each star, in its own
system of planets, is a sun, this does not make all such suns equal in
luminosity and the ability to support spiritual life. Furthermore, even if
Christianity was at one time the most luminous of divinely revealed religions,
this does not mean that it has been able to maintain its original intensity even
within its own world throughout the course of its history.
Hick is right to assert that religious differences may reflect differences in
human attempts to confront the Real, but he is wrong to think that the Real
cannot purposefully make Itself manifest in different, even apparently
contradictory ways, and hence that all difference must have its source in human
fabrications. Hick presents his religious pluralism with the Kantian contrast
between the noumenon and the phenomena, with the Real, or Ultimate Reality,
playing a noumenal role and religion being considered as phenomenal. If we look
at the history of Western philosophy after Kant, we see that German idealism was
based on the observation that Kant's noumena had become so cut off-from
phenomenal reality that nothing would be lost by its elimination. If Hick is
unable to defend his noumenon better than Kant, we should be left with religion
as nothing more than a product of culture, rather than as a vehicle to the
divine. [6]
Nasr is right to insist that the religions as revealed by God are different
crystallizations of the divine message; but he is wrong to think that because of
this, the doctrines accepted by the major religious traditions today are all
divinely sanctioned.
Both Hick and Nasr advocate forms of religious relativism, yet the forms of
relativism they favour are not as extreme as could be imagined. Both seek to
preserve some sense of the absolute quality of each of the religious world
views, but, to use Schuon's phrase, it is only the relatively absolute that is
to be found in the manifestations of the specific religious traditions. Neither
is willing to allow a potpourri religion gathered from various creeds according
to taste. Both see themselves as defenders of their respective traditions
against the onslaughts of modern skepticism.
2.3 Is Traditional Christian Dogma Divine?
The argument Nasr gives in his discussion with Hick for the God-given character
of traditional Christianity, however, is atrocious. With respect to the question
of whether Jesus (`a) is the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, he
asks rhetorically:
If this was simply a mistake, how could God allow, with His infinite wisdom and
justice, one of the major religions of the world within which millions of people
have sought their salvation, to be misguided for two thousand years? Was this
simply a mistake?... If one says that this was all a horrendous mistake for this
thousand years, I cannot accept this. [7]
This seems to imply that Nasr thinks that a non-relativistic approach to
religious truth would be incompatible with traditional claims about the wisdom
and justice of God. However, it is not unjust for God to allow a tradition to
persist in error if either the error is the result of punishable voluntary sin
or the error is excusable due to ignorance or inability and will not be
punished. On the other hand, it is not contrary to divine wisdom for God to
allow a tradition to persist in error for two thousand years if there is some
benefit to creation to be gained by allowing this, even if that benefit is not
known to man. Theodicies have often explained the wisdom in God's failure to
prevent sin by alluding to the value of voluntary human choice.
The emphasis placed by Nasr on the number of those in error and the length of
duration of the error also seems misplaced. Surely such quantitative factors
have no bearing on the metaphysical issue at hand.
2.4 Distinctions:
The issue of the existence of conflicting religious views will be further
clarified if we keep in mind two aspects of the divine will: the ontological (takwini)
and the legislative (tashri`i). If Christians have worshipped the Trinity for
many centuries, then this must accord with the will of God, but only in the
ontological sense. It need not by any means accord with the legislative sense of
the divine will. God permits the existence of many things which are contrary to
His commands and ordinances, for He permits us to sin. The permission here is
purely ontological and does not imply moral or religious permission. From the
existence of religious beliefs contrary to Islam, without fallacy one cannot
infer that God condones such beliefs.
Further distinctions that must be kept -in mind if we are to avoid confusion and
fallacy are the difference between containing the truth and being a vehicle of
salvation and the diference between each of this and being ordained by God for
man in the present age. According to the Qur'an, all divinely revealed religions
contain truth and light, but this does not mean that they are equal; it does not
mean that during the present age they are all suited to bring salvation; and it
does not mean that some previously ordained religions have not become divinely
proscribed. Nasr seems to betray some confusion with respect to these
distinctions when he writes:
There is many a soul who cannot retain faith in his or her own religion at the
expense of considering the followers of all other religions as being damned and
who is intelligent enough to detect in the sacred art, doctrines, and rites of
other traditions the seal of the Divine. [8]
On the assumption that God has ordained different religions at different periods
of history due to the changing social and historical circumstances and given
that the sole ordained religion for the current age is Islam, we should also
expect the intelligent to detect the seal of the Divine in the previously
ordained religions or what remains of them. But the divine origin of a religion
must not be mistaken for divine permission to practice that religion today, or
to accept the doctrines now associated with that religion. If one accepts a
religion of divine origin previously ordained in preference to Islam because of
prejudice or a fanatical attachment to one's own cultural traditions, this is
rebellion against God and leads to perdition instead of salvation, regardless of
the fact that one may be especially attached to the esoteric dimensions of one's
favoured creed. On the other hand, there is no need to deny that God may grant
guidance leading to salvation to those .who through no fault of their own are
unable to accept the truth of Islam. God's infinite mercy is certainly
compatible with the fact that He has bestowed the most perfect version of His
revelations upon the last of His chosen messengers (s).
2.5 Why Is There Religious Diversity?
Now we can return to the question of why there is religious diversity. According
to Hick, the reason for diversity is that different cultures produce different
genuine responses to their confrontations with the Real. According to Nasr, God
purposefully manifests Himself in ways appropriate to different cultures in
order to be understood in the various cultures, in order to perform functions in
accordance with the divine plan at the locale of revelation, and in order to
maintain the differences between human communities. Nasr asserts, "The different
religions, I believe, are to confirm the separate existence of various human
collectivities." [9] In this vein, Schuon contends that there are national or
racial predilections for some forms of religious expression. [10] Each divine
manifestation or revelation is meant exclusively for a specific community in
which it becomes relatively absolute.
While there is much insight in the explanation advanced by Nasr, and while it is
certainly an improvement over the cultural relativism suggested by Hick, it
fails to lead us completely out of the woods. A more satisfactory explanation of
religious diversity would give greater emphasis to the idea that it should be
part of the divine plan that successive revelations build upon the spiritual
ground won through what had come before. To explain religious diversity, it is
not enough to consider differences in cultures and the roles played in the
various cultures by the major religions, for this way of looking at things
neglects the dynamic element in human spirituality and religion. As history
unfolds and cultures evolve and degenerate, the prospects for the human
appreciation of various forms of divine revelation will change. So, instead of
explaining religious diversity analogously to ethnic diversity, as Hick does, we
should follow the lead of Nasr and Schuon and seek to explain religious
diversity as required by differences in manifestation which God arranges to
accord with cultural differences, but then we should go further and seek to
understand these differences in manifestation as part of a historical process
through which God realizes His plan for humanity. Spiritual wayfaring is not a
journey for individuals alone, for human spirituality as such has a course to
follow; and if, as the sophia perennis suggests, there are cycles in this
course, patterns that repeat themselves, there can be ascension, as well. We
need not be running around in mere circles; it may be that God calls on us to
look with greater insight to His signs each time they are repeated so that we
might spiral upward toward Him.
2.6 Seven Reasons to Deny the Cultural Relativity of Religion:
The claim that divine manifestations are meant by God exclusively for the
specific communities in which they appear is incompatible with the following
facts: (1) cultural diversity within religions, (2) religious diversity within
cultures, (3) the phenomenon of conversion, (4) revealed claims to universality,
(5) revealed invitation to members of other communities to join the new faith,
(6) doctrinal contradictions between religions, and (7) practical contradictions
between religions. More specifically, as these facts pertain to Islam they
appear to be incompatible with the explanation of religious diversity offered by
Nasr.
2.6.1 Cultural Diversity Within Religions:
Cultural diversity comes to exist within a single religious community as that
community spreads geographically and is extended over different periods of human
history. Nasr attempts to explain the elements of love and sacrifice in
Christianity as divine responses to the Greco-Roman heritage of sophism and
skepticism during the period leading up to the birth of Christ (`a). However,
Christianity has taken root in times and places where the Greco-Roman legacy has
little or no influence. Islam thrives in Indonesia just as well as in Egypt, and
over periods of time when the major cultural influences have altered radically.
These cultural differences within religious communities are at least as great as
the differences which occur between religious communities. Hence, diversity
among religions cannot be explained solely in terms of the need to preserve
distinct cultures or serve some limited cultural aim.
2.6.2 Religious Diversity Within Cultures:
Likewise, within a single cultural milieu there may be very different forms of
religious life. Jews and Christians in New York participate in a common culture
influenced largely by consumerism and the entertainment industries, although
their theological perspectives remain quite different and exhibit no tendency to
merge into a single Judeo-Christian sect. So, the religious diversity in New
York which exists between Jews and Christians cannot be explained in terms of
God's need to address people of different cultures differently. New York, of
course, is merely one example among many in which religious differences cut
across a single culture.
2.6.3 Conversion:
As someone who has converted to Islam, I personally take offense to the
suggestion that religious affiliation is to be understood as similar to
ethnicity.
Although it sometimes happens that the members of a religious community will
fail to propagate their faith except by reproduction, this is generally a mark
of degradation in the community whose faith teaches that its truths have been
revealed for all mankind. As contemporary men and women begin to shrug off the
illusions of communism and atheistic humanism and wake up to the living
religious communities around them, they will have to make difficult choices
about religious commitments with which considerations of personal ancestry can
provide no standard. If the vast majority of men content themselves with what is
familiar to them, the fact that this practice is widespread is no justification
for it.
The fact that conversions do take place provides ample evidence for the fact
that people are capable of making judgments about the comparative merits of
different religions. Of course, this is not to say that those who convert always
have good reasons to support their choices. As people all around the world are
becoming more informed about religious traditions, conversions are taking place
with increased frequency. In America since the 1960's, religious communities
have been set up and sustained by American converts to various forms of Islam,
Hinduism and Buddhism. New forms of Christianity have also won converts.
Conversion need not involve a crossing from one religious tradition to another.
Christians appropriately refer to the commitments of those said to be "born
again" as conversions. As conversions of different sorts become more common,
seekers must attempt to avoid error by using a combination of reason and insight
the like of which is generally valued iii coming to weighty decisions and
evaluating competing claims. No one wants his or her own religious conversion to
be frivolous.
Buddhism, Christianity and Islam have begun their careers with invitations and
conversions, and so have many denominations within these and other religious
traditions. Conversion often involves entrance into a community to which one had
been alien. If such conversion is ever valid, the message of revelation cannot
be interpreted as being intended exclusively for those within the community.
2.6.4 Revealed Claims To Universality
At least in the case of Islam, the universal proclamation is plain. The Qur'an
is not a mere dead letter of historical interest pertaining to seventh century
Arabia. It speaks to all who would engage its text:
It is He Who sent His Apostle with guidance and the religion of the Truth, that
He may cause it to prevail over all religions, even if the idolaters detest it.
(9:33) [11]
To read these words as having only a relatively absolute meaning and not an
absolutely absolute meaning deprives contemporary Muslims from being guided by
the Qur'an. If the words, "to prevail over all religions," are interpreted as
meaning all religions in the world of seventh century Arabian culture alone,
then the Qur'an ceases to speak to us today. Furthermore, such an interpretation
does not seem consistent with the understanding of the Prophet (s) himself. For
he sent emissaries to distant lands inviting those there to Islam (see below).
The mission entrusted to the Prophet of Islam (s) is universal:
Verily, you are a Warner and a guide unto every people. (13:7)
The Qur'an itself, though revealed more than fourteen centuries ago, has reached
us today, and speaks to us, inviting us to Islam and forbidding us from taking
up other ways:
And verily this is My path, the straight one, so follow it and do not follow
other paths for they will scatter you from His path; this He enjoins upon you
that you may be wary. (6:153)
2.6.5 The Invitation to Others:
The Quran enjoins the believers to invite others to the faith, and cautions
against pointless disputing with them. Different revelations had been given to
different peoples, but they are expected to recognize the divine source of Islam
and to heed its invitation.
Unto every people have We prescribed tire rites of devotion which they .observe,
so they should not dispute with you about the affair. So call unto your Lord.
Indeed, you are on the right way. (22:67)
What is of interest in this verse is that despite the affirmation of the fact
that the rites of different peoples have been divinely prescribed, they are not
to dispute with the Prophet (s) about such things, and he is ordered to call
them to the Lord. So, the Prophet (s) is to call people to whom previous rites
were prescribed and they are not to argue with him about it.
And thus have We made you a group of middling stand that you may be witnesses
unto mankind and tire Prophet be a witness unto you; (2:143) [12]
Here the universality of Islam is implied by the idea that the Muslims are to
bear witness to all mankind, rather than to the people of a specific time or
place. If it is objected that what is meant by "mankind" here is restricted to
those who lived in the time and environs of the Prophet (s), the following ayah
,makes it clear that the warning is intended not merely for those addressed by
Prophet (s), but for all to whom the message of the Qul'an reaches, regardless
of cultural background:
Say: God is witness between me and you; and this Qur'an has been revealed to me
that 1 may warn you with it and whomsoever it reaches. (6:19)
In addition to exhortations to warn and invite others, the Qur'an itself
directly addresses the Jews and Christians, calling upon them to embrace the
final revelation of God. [13] The Qur'an presents itself as the final revelation
to pronounce judgment over that about which those communities to whom
revelations had previously been given have come to disagree. These verses
display an historical awareness incompatible with the idea that each of the
religions forms its own separate community destined by God to remain in
isolation from the others. Those of understanding from each religious community
are invited to accept Islam as the culmination of that which they already
believe.
If the revelation of Islam itself seeks to trespass over the ground claimed for
other religions, it cannot be properly understood relativistically as confining
itself to a single cultural world. Further proof that the message of the Qur'an
is addressed to humanity in its totality, and not only the humanity at large in
seventh century Arabia, may be found in the Prophet's own (s) understanding of
his mission, expressed in his dispatch of emissaries to Byzantium and Persia
with letters proclaiming the universal call to Islam.
Consider, for example, the following letter reportedly sent to the Byzantine
Emperor Heraclius:
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate
From: Muhammad, servant of Allah and His prophet. To: Heraclius the Great of
Byzantium.
Peace be to those who follow guidance.
I invite you with the invitation of Islam. If you submit, it is to your benefit,
for if you submit Allah will give you two rewards. If you turn this down, then
upon you will be the error of your peasants. O People of the Book! Come to a
word between us and between you that we worship none but Allah and shall riot
associate anything with Him and some of us shall not take others for lords other
than Allah. And if they turn back, then say: Bear witness that we are Muslims."
[14]
[Seal:] Muhammad, Rasul Allah" [15]
Not only does this letter show that the Prophet (s) understood his calling as a
universal mission, not to be confined to any particular cultural context, it
also shows that he understood the message of the Qur'an to be likewise
universal, speaking not only to the People of the Book on the Arabian peninsula,
but in distant lands as well.
2.6.6 Doctrinal Contradictions:
One of the major problems faced by any form of pluralism-including the form of
pluralism accepted in the Qur'an, according to which various religions were sent
by Allah to His messengers in different times and places- is what to make of the
apparent contradictions among the creeds of the different religions. Various
means to resolve the contradictions are suggested in the Qur'an itself. There is
the claim that adulteration of the original revelations has taken place, both
purposefully and due to forgetfulness. [16] It is also claimed that what was
revealed to the different prophets was the same, so that the contradictions
among creeds must be due to content apart from what was revealed. [17] Religious
differences are generally explained in the Qur'an as having arisen from sin:
from pride in the partial truth each of the different groups has possessed and
from envy. [18] What is not found in the Qur'an is the claim that the
differences in religious creeds and their splitting into sects is a matter of
indifference, or that it is a mere effect of cultural differences like
differences among languages.
The explanation given by Hick for conflicts in doctrinal statements is that they
arise from different ways of reacting to the Ultimate Reality. Contradictions
among these claims are to be minimized through the recognition of their cultural
relativity, and it is only the absolute forms of doctrinal statements that seem
to be in conflict with this relativism which need to be revised. It is for this
reason that Hick is willing to call for a reform of Christianity with the claim
that Christ (`a) should not be identified with God as the Second Person of the
Trinity, who sacrificed his human life so that men may be saved from sin. Hick
is willing to reform such aspects of Christianity because he considers them to
be incompatible with the relativity of religious truth and with the idea that
salvation is possible outside Christianity.
For Nasr, on the other hand, contradictions among different religious doctrines
are explained by the hypothesis that God has revealed Himself in contradictory
ways in different cultural settings. Truth becomes relative, for Nasr, not
according to the measure of man, but according to the variations in the divine
measure.
Contradictions among the doctrinal claims of different religions may occur on
various levels. Sometimes the differences are speculative. Different sects may
associate themselves with different theories of the divine attributes, or human
freedom, or salvation, etc. These sorts of differences can be quite disruptive
and have sometimes led to sectarian splits, such as the split between
Mu'tazilites and Ash`arites over divine justice, or the disagreement between
Lutherans and Calvinists over the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but
reconciliation in such matters, even if precluded by entrenched commitments, are
not inconceivable. Some differences, however, are so fundamental and concern
elements of creed so essential that reconciliation seems impossible. Such is the
difference between Christians and Muslims about the crucifixion. It is a matter
of objective historical fact that Christ did not die on the cross or that he did
die on the cross. For the vast majority of Christian denominations, the
crucifixion is a necessary element of Christianity whose historical reality is
taken to be established way beyond any reasonable doubt. Muslims, on the other
hand, must deny the crucifixion because this denial is directly revealed by God
in the Qur'an.
Dr. Nasr, however, holds out hope for reconciliation even here, although the
price to be paid is a rather extreme form of relativism about the truth. No one
will have any trouble understanding that according to Christians the crucifixion
truly did occur and according to Muslims it did not. This uncontroversial fact
may be expressed in a rather misleading way when one intends to convey this
point by saying that the proposition that the crucifixion occurred is true for
Christians and false for Muslims. Here the expression "true for X' should be
interpreted as meaning "true according to A" or "true in Xs opinion." But what
Nasr intends is something much more controversial. He offers an analogy with
perception. Things look different from different angles. The example he gives is
that of listening to a piece of music by Bach. It will mean different things for
people with different backgrounds. But the question at hand is not how the
events that took place at Calvary are to be interpreted, rather there is
disagreement about the historical events themselves. Sometimes the occurrence of
events may depend upon perspective, as thunder may be said to have crashed
loudly or murmured softly depending on the place from which it is heard.
According to Einstein's theory of relativity, simultaneity is not an objective
fact, but depends on the perspective from which it is described. According to
what Nasr says, religious truth must be something like Einstein's simultaneity.
Given his dismissive attitude toward the historical documentation to which Hick
refers in support of his claim that Jesus (`a) did not believe he was God, Nasr
seems to think that the historical events at Calvary do not determine the truth
of the religious claims about what did or did not happen there. Here Nasr joins
company with the founder of neo-orthodox Christian theology, Karl Barth, who
held that the truth of Christianity is completely independent of the historical
truth of the events described in the Bible.
So, when we ask whether Christ (a) really died on the cross, Nasr will respond
that from his own perspective as a Muslim, the answer is no, but that it is
equally correct that the answer is yes from the perspective of Christianity.
From the perspective of objective history, it is not possible to gather enough
evidence to decide the issue one way or another, but even if it could be shown
definitively exactly what happened at Calvary, what would be shown would be a
mere worldly truth that could in no way nullify either of the religious truths
taught by Christianity or Islam.
This sort of relativism is either implausible or detrimental. If the sole reason
for accepting the account sketched of religious truth is to remove apparent
contradictions among religions, it becomes implausible because it is question
begging. We are to believe that all the religions are saying the same thing in
essence, yet whenever there appears to be evidence to the contrary in the form
of contradictory truth claims, we are told that religious truth is relative.
Even if independent reasons for a Barthian approach to religious truth are
accepted and extended so as to validate all the major religions, the relativism
thus won will be detrimental to religion itself, as the critics of Barth have
pointed out. [19] In order for religion to engage itself with the world, its
truths must be worldly truths as well as divine, and in order for religion to
assert the supremacy of the divine truths in its revelation over human opinion,
the statement of these truths as revelation must weigh more heavily than secular
standards of historical evidence will allow. It is not enough to give divine
statements a lofty position within the religious language game. Engagement with
religion requires that religious truth spill over to re-orient any other game we
might like to play.
If realism about religious truth is abandoned, we seem to be left with nothing
but sacred myths. If religion does not speak the absolute truth, if it is
reduced to a set of collections of edifying and even enlightening stories, the
urgency of the religious call will be lost.
It is important to see exactly where the difficulty in the relativist position
occurs. The naive reaction is to firmly assert that logic prohibits the truth of
contradictories, and hence that the conflicting claims made by Muslims and
Christians cannot all be true. The relativist, however; expects this reaction
and has a ready response: religious claims are not true or false simpliciter,
rather they are true or false only relative to some interpretive religious
framework, just as some succession of sounds may form a true sentence in one
language and a false sentence in another. The proper rejoinder of the
theological realist should not be that such a position is incoherent, but rather
that there is no good reason to accept it, and that it conflicts with religious
self-understanding. When Christians and Muslims disagree about what happened on
Calvary, they do not mean that they merely have different parables in their
respective traditions, but that they have different ideas about a single
historical truth.
Finally, the locus of the relativist position is questionable. The relativist
seems to view all the religions from outside and from that neutral vantage sees
that they are all relatively true. For the proponents of sophia perennis the
neutral vantage point is the esoteric dimension of all religions, which is
unique. However, there is no access to the esoteric dimension independent of the
exoteric aspects of each religion; and this is a point Schuon and Nasr seem
prepared to accept. Now, if we cannot make any authoritative claims about the
esoteric truth of religion in general except relative to an exoteric tradition,
contradictions in doctrine will not cancel out in a neutral interior of the
essence of religion. We cannot say that from the point of view of the esoteric
perennial truth it is neither true nor false that Christ died on the cross, for
we cannot make statements on behalf of the esoteric except through the vehicle
of the exoteric. From the point of view of the interior of Islam, we may be able
to reach an understanding of the spiritual significance within Christianity of
the redemptive suffering of Jesus (`a), but ultimately, the Christian view will
be seen as flawed. God may even guide Christians to Himself through the very
misapprehensions that flaw Christianity, but the perfection of the spiritual
truths which do remain at the esoteric level in Christian faith are to be found
in esoteric Islam rather than in generic esoterica.
When we see that conflicts in exoteric doctrine have reverberations in the
esoteric aspects of the religions, we must also see that doctrinal differences
cannot be as easily discarded as the rind of an orange. Differences in the
nature of the rinds of oranges, lemons and limes are signs that the fruits
inside also differ. Doctrinal conflicts occur precisely because religions are
not each addressed exclusively to a single community. If the differences were
confined to culturally relative matters, there would be no possibility of
contradiction, just as there is no contradiction between the claims that verbs
generally precede their objects in English, and tend to follow them in Persian.
When doctrinal differences take the form of contradiction, this indicates that
the proponents of each term of the contradiction disagree. Each implicitly
claims that the way the other sees things is wrong; and to confine the
differences exhibited by the religions to their exoteric dimensions is to fail
to appreciate that exoteric differences can have esoteric implications.
Allowance should be made that views expressed within the various religious
traditions of the world may, after all, be profound. To relativise all doctrinal
differences to cultural or communal differences is to confine these differences
to a superficiality which is denied by the religions at both esoteric and
exoteric levels.
2.6.7 Practical Contradictions:
No less important than the doctrinal contradictions among religious traditions
are the practical contradictions. One religion orders its followers to abstain
from meat, while another demands ritual animal sacrifice. Islam demands prayer
in the direction of Mecca, while Christianity pays no attention to the issue of
geographical direction. The issue of the direction of prayer is especially
helpful for clarifying the position of Islam with regard to the plurality of
religions. [20] The change in qiblah from Jerusalem to Mecca marks a turning
point in the revelation of Islam at which the Muslims became clearly distinct
from the Jews and Christians of Madinah, who were invited to accept the new
revelation and its prophet (s). At the same time, it is admitted that each
qiblah has had its own validity. Prayers offered by the Muslims facing Jerusalem
prior to the change in qiblah were not in vain, and we are repeatedly reminded
that God is not confined to any particular direction. The East and West belong
to Him, and wherever you turn, there is the face of God. [21] Nevertheless, God
obliges His servants to face Makkah.
The point made here applies not only to the direction of prayer, but to the
practical orientation of the religious life in general. Ways of life other than
those commanded by Islam were previously ordained, and they were valid ways for
reaching God. In another sense, we are led to God no matter what way of life we
follow, for ultimately we are brought before Him to be judged. Different ways of
life, however, have been deemed appropriate at different times and in different
cultures in response to the needs of which
God appointed His various prophets (`a). Islam, however, in the final form in
which it has been revealed, is not to be superseded in the course of time nor
confined to a specific corner of the globe. It is sufficiently flexible to apply
to all peoples. It is the only major religion whose founding revelation remains
intact. Its basic practical commandments are not difficult to understand, and
this path that it prescribes is one to which it invites all humanity.
Practical differences among cultures often are best explained relativistically.
There are many ways in which respect may be shown to others, but these ways
often depend on their being understood as such through social conventions. What
is considered a sign of respect in one culture might cause offense in another.
The practical differences between the prescriptions of Islam and those of other
religions, however, run deeper than this. There are disagreements about the way
we should conduct ourselves in worship and in our relations with others. These
disagreements are not treated in the Qur'an as being of no consequence. Instead
we are told that among the children of Adam some communities are rightly guided
and some have gone astray. [22]
Thus we find that the practical disagreements among religions, no less than
their doctrinal contradictions, indicate that the differences among them are
more than cultural variants. There are substantial differences between the ways
of life allowed by Islam and those condoned in modern Christian societies. If we
were to accept an explanation of these differences in terms of 'differences in
temperament and cultural environment, the law of Islam would lose its moral
force. The prescriptions of shari'ah provide guidance for the best way to live
for all humanity. Other ways may be tolerated within the framework of the
Islamic polity, as dhimmis have been given a large degree of latitude enabling
them to live in accordance with their own laws. But Islam does not proclaim that
it is a matter of indifference as to which law, Jewish, Christian or Muslim, one
is to follow. Islam prescribes tolerance for other ways at the same time that it
proclaims its own way as commanded by God.
Unfortunately, Jews, Christians and Muslims have been-and often continue to
be-intolerant of one another. The remedy to this malady is not to stand back and
claim that it does not matter which way one follows because all have been
divinely ordained, as Nasr seems to suggest; nor can Muslims accept the remedy
offered by Hick of a tolerance based on the idea that all the religions are mere
human responses to the divine. Hick brings up the issue of religious war as a
practical reason to accept religious pluralism, and the response given by Nasr
is that most wars of the twentieth century have arisen from secular rather than
religious ideologies. Granting the point made by Nasr, we cannot deny that
religious intolerance poses the threat of violence. In the face of this danger,
however, it is neither correct nor sufficient to claim that no religious
supremacy is sanctioned by God. It is not correct for the theological reasons
given above, that is, Islam emphatically proclaims its own supremacy to the
other religions as the culmination of the divine guidance previously sent. It is
not sufficient because true religious tolerance will only be achieved when men
learn to respect the religious beliefs of those they consider to be mistaken.
The key to tolerance is not the removal or relativisation of disagreement, but
the willingness to accept genuine disagreement. For Muslims, any effective
remedy to intolerance must be found in Islam itself, that is, the remedy is
submission to the Will of God. We must learn to better appreciate and respect
the tolerance prescribed by Islam if we are to be worthy of calling ourselves
Muslims.
3. Conclusions:
Nasr calls attention to the difference between the modern perspective on
religion and the perspective internal to the religions themselves. It is from
the modern perspective that the relativism of religious claims is enunciated.
Here we find a clash between the modern and the religious viewpoints. Each makes
a claim to ultimacy. The basis for the modern perspective defended by Nasr is
insight into the esoteric dimensions of the religions of the world, but it
remains a human insight and speculation. The basis for the perspective internal
to Islam, on the other hand, is divine revelation. To claim that the answer to
modern questions about the religions is to be found in human speculative thought
rather than in revelation is to weaken the absolute authority of revelation in a
way that threatens the ability of divine guidance to pour forth from revelation.
The Qur'an gives its own reasons for the rejection of Islam: pride, envy,
stubborn attachment to tradition, and deviation from previously revealed truths.
Nowhere do we find the idea that God ordained a refusal to accept Islam in order
to preserve communities separate from the ummah.
The traditional perspective found in Islamic thought that is lauded by Nasr does
not itself provide any reason for the glorification of the traditional qua
traditional. The characterization of a way or creed as traditional satisfies no
criteria for rightness or truth. While much that is correct and true is to be
found in the religious traditions of mankind, it is not in virtue of being
traditional that ways and creeds become right and true, although in the
historical processes through which traditions are formed we should expect the
elimination of much that is wrong, and the achievement of genuine wisdom. If
being traditional is no criterion for what is right and true, what are the
proper criteria? Hick's answer is that there are two standards for grading
religions: first, the religion must be effective in turning its followers from
self-centeredness to reality-centeredness; second, the religion must promote
good morals. Hick finds no reason to think that these criteria should not be
satisfied by a Christianity purged of it traditional doctrines of the
Incarnation and Redemption. The response by Nasr to this proposal is that the
result would be a break with Christian tradition rather than its reform. In this
response, it appears that Nasr wishes to use tradition itself as a standard for
measuring religions. Nasr seems to come closer to the truth when he admits that
there are levels of understanding. Instead of looking for a rigid formulation of
a criterion to be used for assessing religious claims, we might do better to
seek a process by which wisdom is achieved and truth uncovered. To recognize the
divine, we are not to require the divine to conform to our preconceived notions;
rather, we must purify ourselves of all base elements that may cloud our vision.
Although I have expressed grave misgivings about religious pluralism as defended
by Hick and Nasr, I must also admit some misgivings about my own criticisms.
John Hick, of all contemporary Christian theologians, seems to come closest to
the formulation of a Christology consistent with that of Islam. While Christians
have taught that Jesus (`a) gave up his humanity on the cross to save the world,
Hick argues that Christians must give up the divinity of Jesus (`a) in order to
recognize the salvation made possible through the plurality of the world's
religions. So, whatever the failings of the programme of religious pluralism lie
has advanced, Hick deserves some recognition and encouragement for his attempts
to reform Christian teachings.
The root of the failure of Hick's pluralism is that it makes religion into a
purely human response to the divine, or the Ultimate Reality, while Islam
teaches that religion is divinely revealed. This point also lies at the heart of
the criticism Nasr presents to Hick; but Nasr seems to fall short of allowing
revelation the absolute status it must possess if it is really understood as
nothing less than God's direct communication to humanity.
On the other hand, Dr. Nasr is such a brilliant exponent of Islamic thought in
the West that I cannot find fault with his views without feelings of
trepidation. Perhaps I have not understood him correctly, or perhaps the views
he expressed in the interview were not as well considered as those he would have
put in writing himself. Maybe a satisfactory answer to the criticisms I have
raised can be found in the teachings of perennial philosophy. There is an
interesting suggestion in Schuon's The Transcendent Unity of Religions. There he
claims that every Revelation has the function of an esoterism in relation to the
previous religious form.
Christianity, for example, is esoteric relative to the Judaic form and Islam
relatively to the Judaic and Christian forms, though this is, of course, only
valid when regarded from the special point of view that we are here considering
and would be quite false if understood literally. Moreover, insofar as Islam is
distinguished by its form from the other two monotheistic religions, that is,
insofar as it is formally limited, these religions also possess an esoteric
aspect relatively to it, and the same reversibility of relationship applies as
between Christianity and Judaism. However, the relationship to which we referred
first is a more direct one than the second, since it was Islam that, in the name
of the spirit, shattered the forms that preceded it, and Christianity that
shattered the Judaic form, and not the other way around. [23]
Here, at least, some grounds are given for the precedence of Islam over its
predecessors. Islam not only shatters previous forms in the name of the spirit,
however, it also imposes its own form in place of those it has shattered. It is
that form, or exterior, which constitutes the gateway to its spirit, or
interior, which, by virtue of its content and the position of Islam in the line
of succession of revealed religions, is more comprehensive than any other.
Furthermore, Islam does not violate the truths of the previously revealed
religions; rather it confirms them. What Islam shatters is what is false in the
other religions because of corruption and deviation or because of the temporal
limitations of their validity:
Nay, but We hurl the Truth against falsehood so that it shatters its head and it
disappears; and woe unto you for what you attribute [to Him]. (21:18)
Notes:
[1]. Adrian Aslan, The Islamic Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 4, (1996), 266-283.. The
translation of this interview into Persian by Ahmadrida Jalai appeared in
Marifat, No. 23, (Winter 1376/1998) 70-79.
[2]. Muhammad Legenhausen, "Islam and Religious Pluralism," Al-Tawhid, Vol. 14,
No. 3; (Fall 1997), 115-154. The Persian translation of this article by Muhammad
Husaynzadeh and Narjiss Javandel appeared in Nos. 22 and 23 of Marifat (Fall and
Winter 1376/1997-98).
[3]. Nasr also discusses the topic of religious pluralism in his Religion and
Religions: The Challenge of Living in the Multireligious World (Charlotte: The
University of North Carolina Press, 1985); "Principal Knowledge and the
Multiplicity of Sacred Forms," Ch. 9 of Knowledge and the Sacred, (Albany: SUNY
Press, 1991), 280-308; "Islam and the Encounter of Religions," in Sufi Essays,
2nd ed., (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), 123-151; and most recently, "Religion and
Religions," Ch. 1 of Religion and the Order of Nature (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1966), 9-28.
[4]. First published in French as De L'Unite Transcendante Des Religions (Paris:
Editions Gallimard, 1948), a revised edition of the English translation by Peter
Townsend was published in 1975 by Harper and Row. Also worthy of note is
Frithjof Schuon, Christianity/Islam: Essays on Esoteric Ecumenicism
(Bloomington: World Wisdom Books, 1985).
[5]. See Huston Smith's introduction to The Transcendent Unity of Religions,
revised edition, xxi-xdii.
[6]. This point is also made by Roger Trigg, "Theological Realism and
Antirealism," in A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, Philip L. Quinn and
Charles Taliaferro, eds., (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), 219.
[7]. "Religions and the Concept of the Ultimate," 272.
[8]. Religion and the Order of Nature, 14.
[9]. "Religions and the Concept of the Ultimate," 279.
[10]. See, for example, his remarks on how Lutheranism is more appropriate than
Catholicism for the temperaments of many Germanic peoples in his
Christianity/Islam.
[11]. Similar to this are (48:28) and (61:9). Also see (2:193), (8:39), and
(3:19).
[12]. Also see (16:125), (42:15), and (28:87).
[13]. The People of the Book are directly called upon at (3:64), (3:70), (3:98),
(4:47), (4:171), (5:15) and (5:77) and many other verses. The Jews are directly
addressed at (62:6).
[14]. (3:64)
[15]. My translation from Muhammad Hamidullah's collection, Al Watha'iq al
siyasiyyah (Beirut: Dar al-Nafas, 1987), 107-110.
[16]. See (2:75), (3:78), (5:13), (5:41).
[17]. See (2:136), (3:84), (4:150), (42:13-14).
[18]. See (3:18), (23:53), (30:32), (42:14).
[19]. See Hans Urs Von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth (San Francisco:
Ignatius, 1992).
[20]. See (2:142) ff.
[21]. (2:115).
[22]. (7:30).
[23]. Frithjof Schuon, The Transcendent Unity of Religions (New York: Harper &
Row, 1975), 29.
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