PROPUESTA DE CERTIFICADO DE ACTIVIDAD ASISTENCIAL (LX)

To avoid having the problems of diminishing the values of religious beliefs,

Heim (1995), as we have seen, has chosen to affirm the ultimacy of the existing

religious beliefs. That is, most religious beliefs or truth-claims are literally true, and

there is nothing more ultimate than the Ultimate Reality the world religions speak of.

Religionists who hold this standpoint include Heim (1995), Dupuis (2002), and

Makransky (2005a), within which Heim’s model of religious pluralism that aims to

“save the greatest referential value for the largest number of religious experiences” is

Christian understanding of ultimate reality capable of recognizing the truth of other

religious traditions within itself” (p.128).

Quite similar to the inclusivistic position, Heim believes that Christianity, which

he spiritually belongs to, represents the fullest understanding of the Ultimate Reality,

while all other world religions have merely shed light on relatively less portion of the

truth37. As Hick (1989a) expresses, this kind of confessional approach would

inevitably construe beliefs and concepts of other religious traditions in its own terms

and fail to solve the puzzle of conflicting trans-historical truth-claims (pp.1-2; 365-71).

Nonetheless, according to Cornille’s (2008) defence, Heim’s model has at least

“recognized the religious particularity from which all of this unfolds and moreover

called for other religions to develop their own theological understanding of the unity

and interconnection of religions within their own particular conceptions of ultimate

truth” (p.129). In other words, Cornille favours Heim’s assumption not because it is

more likely, but because it is believed to be able to let religions remain as they are.

Hick’s theory is also criticised by Heim (1995) for being exclusivistic in nature,

he argues:

The pluralistic perspectives view themselves as more valid than any other

37 _{Heim has actually been inclined to a Christian inclusivistic assumption. In his later work The Depth}

of the Riches (2001), he states, “I am a convinced inclusivist” (p.8). For Hick’s criticism of Heim’s

accounts of religion. This is an appropriate type of conviction (if concretely

incorrect) from an orientational pluralist’s perspective. But pluralists refuse

to recognize any other orientations, from which alternative perspectives

would be reasonable. What the pluralist in this sense maintains is that there

are no legitimate perspectives from which it makes sense to have any other

conviction… Thus pluralism repeats the dynamic of the strong exclusivism

it opposes: those who disagree are not rational or not worthy or both

(p.143).

This implies that if a pluralist does not admit the possibility that his/her model is

mistaken, that model would by definition become exclusivistic. However, even if the

attitude of promoting such a model is strongly exclusivistic, the standpoint of that

particular model can still be pluralistic. Religious pluralism is not about the level of

confidence in one’s own theory, but the confirmation of the authenticity of world

religions. According to this more general definition, then, as long as a model confirms

that there is more than one authentic religions in this world, that model should be

considered a model of religious pluralism. Therefore, the request that a pluralist

should admit the possibility that his/her model is wrong is not only unreasonable, but

ends/fulfilments” model has also rejected the possibility of Hick’s “single, common

end” hypothesis (ibid, pp.144-152).

Nonetheless, Heim has considered Hick’s position exclusivistic not only because

he assumes “a metaphysical dogma that there can be but one religious object,” but

also because of his “soteriological dogma that there can be but one religious end”

(ibid, p.23). Therefore, Heim has proposed a possibility of multiple religious-ends,

which he sees is truly pluralistic (ibid, pp.144-51). As the next Chapter will show,

Buddhist scholars tend to prefer Heim’s model over Hick’s because they also believe

that the religious-end Buddhism speaks of is not identical to the Heaven Christianity

promotes. In other words, the criticism of a common denominator is more of a

concern of possibility rather than functionality – the idea of a common denominator is

unlikely because the Christian and Buddhist teachings are simply too distinctive and

are therefore probably not derived from the same Reality.

However, in order to defend himself from this particular criticism, Hick (2009)

points out that the ‘Real’ he speaks of is neither one nor many, for either concept

(‘one’ or ‘many’) is derived from human concept, and ‘Real’ is beyond any human

concept and thus ineffable38. Eddy (2002) also believes that it is not Hick’s original

38

Hick has also criticised Heim’s so-called ‘multiple religious-ends’ for being too Christian-centred, which is at the very most inclusivistic. For more details, please see Hick (2009).

intention to propose a common denominator for all:

Hick’s common soteriological structure argument has been taken by many

of his critics as evidence that he is working with a questionable ‘common

core’ definition/theory of religion. However, Hick has explicitly stated that

he rejects a “common essence” definition/theory of religion in favour of a

“family resemblance” view, wherein there are “no characteristics that every

member must have” (p.104).

That being mentioned, Hick has indeed suggested that all ‘world great faiths’ he

surveyed promote the exact same ‘Golden Rule’, and that they all teach that to

achieve salvation/liberation is to transform from self-centredness into

Reality-centredness. In addition, no matter what ‘Real’ actually is, Hick’s theory still

implies that all religious beliefs or truth-claims are interpretations or perceptions of

the same Ultimate Reality. In this sense, the ‘Real’ that Hick proposes is at least

singular, if not one. That is, there can be no other ‘Real’ except the one he speaks of,

and all the religious beliefs he considers authentic are related or pointing to this and

only this ‘Real’. Nonetheless, even if Hick did propose a common denominator for all,

the teachings of world religions are distinctive and different, Hick has explained that

it is not so if we do not interpret them literally. This is in fact quite a reasonable

explanation for the existence of conflicting truth-claims – some of them are simply

not true in the literal sense. However, one must not forget that Hick did not allow all

religious claims to be literally false – the ‘Golden Rule’ he promotes is meant to be

understood literally. This is also deeply related to his argument that some literally

false truth-claims can be mythologically true, for ‘mythologically true’ is referred to

the teachings that encourage the ‘Golden Rule’ and are hence soteriologically

effective. However, even if the religions he surveys did consider such principle

literally true, how does Hick know that it is the only religious teaching that must be

true literally?

Regarding the likeliness of Hick’s assumption, this thesis would accept that it is

the best explanation to allow some religious claims to be literally false, thus the

adaptation of Hick’s neutral position. What we will reject, however, is his implication

that the ‘Golden Rule’ must be the sole criterion to judge whether a religious teaching

is valuable. To avoid relativism, Hick has proposed such rather absolutistic

criteriology, but by doing so, he has made his theory vulnerable to many other

criticisms. As Chapter 8 will argue, in order to maintain the strengths or achieve the

appropriate to have a more relativist assumption.