Douglas Pratt

In our age of heightened awareness of religious plurality as the lived context for more and more peoples, and with it an enhanced appreciation of attendant tensions and issues, the question of interreligious dialogue—or more broadly the promotion of interfaith relations—is not simply a theoretical nicety. People of different religious allegiances are neighbours who must talk with each other and, together, address concerns held in common. And today, of course, the need for cross-religious communication is increasingly vital as it is religion—or more accurately religious ideologies and ideals—that figures as the prime context of many current situations of geo-political concern. The idea of the world waging war against terrorism, for instance, is a figment of the spin-doctors’ imaginations. In reality it is terrorists who today wage war against the world—and the world struggles to understand, let alone cope with and combat, this ubiquitous scourge. For arguably, today’s terrorists are mostly, if not entirely, driven by a specific religious ideology. The religiously driven terrorist holds a negative valorisation of the world that arises out of deeply held moral judgements and metaphysical perspectives which both express, and are impelled by, the fundamentals of the relevant religious viewpoint. God’s Will has been transgressed; God’s wrath is invoked; God’s army is but the agency of divine action. The terrorists’ bombs may capture our attention—that is what they are designed to do, after all—but it is the terrorists’ bombastic rhetoric that gives the clue as to underlying perspective and motivation. It is only as religious rhetoric is challenged and ameliorated through inter-religious dialogical engagement that there will be any hope of neutralising the profoundly negative motifs and values driving contemporary nihilistic-oriented religion-based terrorism.

So, the promotion of interfaith relations is a vital challenge for our age. Interfaith engagement, including intentional inter-religious dialogue, is a contemporary imperative, especially between the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Our present focus is on the Christian-Muslim nexus with, of course, special reference to Indonesia.

The ecumenical theologian, Stanley Samartha, once stated that dialogue ‘is part of the living relationship between people of different faiths and ideologies as they share in the life of the community’.i In this regard, interreligious dialogue is understood to occur in at least four modalities: the dialogue of life, the dialogue of action, the dialogue of experience, and the intellectual level of dialogue—the dialogue of discourse. If the first three involve relatively indirect forms of conversation around or about religion, or even directly involve religious engagement of some sort, the modality of discursive dialogue is certainly no mere ‘conversation’ tangential to deeply held religious sensibilities. Rather it is an exercise in mutual understanding that involves critical self-reflection as well as careful analysis and empathetic apprehension of the position of the dialogical partner. Raimundo Panikkar once made the following challenging statement. It remains fresh in its contemporary applicability.

Dialogue, to begin with, has to be duo-logue. There have to be two logoi, two languages encountering each other, so as to overcome the danger of double monologue. One has to know the language of the other, even if one has to learn it precisely from the other, and often in the very exercise of dialogue. Dialogue engages the intellect, the logosii.

Interfaith dialogue, to be authentic, necessarily involves dialogical partners who are committed to their own religion and to the cause of dialogue. But, such dialogical engagement is rejected by some—indeed possibly many, if the global resurgence of religious fundamentalisms is anything to go by—as too threatening to their religion’s fundamentals, or too potentially disruptive of a secure religious identity.

The conditions for interreligious engagement, especially interreligious dialogue, are set by the cognitive paradigms that pertain to the understanding of the nature of religious diversity as such. These in turn govern the nature and extent of interreligious engagement as lived reality. The intellectual context of such engagement involves the application, generally speaking, of one or other of the three paradigms for interreligious dialogue, viz., exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. Broadly speaking, these are the contextual paradigms for interfaith relations and may be viewed as denoting various means of cognitively coping with religious diversity. However, on closer inspection each is a category within which several variant paradigms can be detected. It is these paradigms which form the background to Christian-Muslim and interreligious dialogue.

Exclusivism
The paradigm of exclusivism has to do with the material identification of a particular religion (or form of that religion) with the essence and substance of true universal religion as such, thereby excluding all other possibilities to that claim. From this viewpoint, the exclusivist’s religion is the ‘Only Right One’. By its very nature exclusivism is hostile to dialogue proper, but it nevertheless impinges on dialogue, most often contributing to the undermining of efforts toward it.

The exclusivist affirms identity in a complex world of plurality by a return to the firm foundations of his or her own tradition and an emphasis on the distinctive identity provided by that tradition….Exclusivism is more than simply a conviction about the transformative power of the particular vision one has; it is a conviction about its finality and its absolute priority over competing views.iii

For the exclusivist the mere co-existence of religions is not possible–the natural tendency to an exclusive self-assertion predominates.iv

The paradigm of exclusivism may itself be viewed as having two variants, which we may call ‘closed’ and ‘open’. A closed exclusivism simply rejects any religious ‘other’ out of hand. An open exclusivism, while maintaining cognitive and salvific superiority, may at least be amenably disposed toward the other, if only to allow for—even encourage—the capitulation (Christian conversion, or Islamic reversion, for instance) of the other. Hendrik Kraemer, for many years a missionary in Indonesia, is a representative of a Christian open exclusivism. Although he upheld the validity of cultural plurality, the open exclusivism he espoused asserted a triumphant Christocentric salvific imperialism: Christianity stands apart, holding a position of exclusive privilege. ‘Christianity understands itself not as one of several religions, but as the adequate and definitive revelation of God in history’.v On the one hand a hard-line or ‘closed’ exclusivist will spurn interaction with another religious viewpoint altogether: imperialist assertion is the only mode of communication admissible. On the other hand, a more soft-line ‘open’ approach may yet entertain a dialogue of sorts—more a conversational interaction—if only with a view to understanding the perspective of the other in order, then, better to refute it and so proclaim the ‘Only Right One’ religion.

Inclusivism
In general terms I define religious inclusivism as the effective identity of a particular religion with the universal, with some allowance made for others. This paradigm suggests the ‘other’ is included surreptitiously, by being understood as already ‘anonymously’ and indirectly within the fold of the ‘true religion’ identified, of course, as being the religion of the proponent—the Only Fully Right One. Within Christianity it has been embraced formally by the Roman Catholic Church since Vatican II, and it reflects most official contemporary Protestant Church positions. But inclusivism, I suggest, comes in at least three variant forms: Gatekeeper, Incognito Ubiquity, and Imperialist.

Gatekeeper Inclusivism allows for limited particular/universal connections in respect of other religions, but the validity of such connections is found only through one religion—‘mine’—as being the point of entrance into the realm of the Fully Right Religion. A measure of generosity of heart can be extended to the religiously other as not completely beyond the pale; other religions may enjoy a measure of veracity, or limited representation, of the Universal Truth. However, even these religions must, in some sense, go through the ‘gate’ of the inclusive religion to obtain full religious or salvific validity. But the governing context is clear and unequivocal. The inclusivist’s religion is the only fully right way to salvation and the only valid bearer of religious truth as such. It constitutes the gatekeeper wherein, at best, others may be admitted to the pen.

By contrast, what may be termed Incognito Ubiquity Inclusivism allows for partial validity (truth value) as well as partial efficacy (salvific value) in respect of other religions. This is more than a matter of gate-keeping with a generous heart. There is a hint of pluralism inasmuch as some theological value is accorded to other religions, but there is no doubt as to how that is contextualised. Others are viewed as variant and limited expressions of the universal or religious truth that is yet best expressed by our Right One. The ‘our’, of course, is important: any religion could theoretically, if not actually, take this view. Each can view itself as possessing in full that which others lack or have but partially.

The third variant, Imperialist Inclusivism, allows for the partial truth validity and salvific efficacy in respect of others (but only those deemed ‘authentic’) in that such others are viewed as legitimate variant out-workings of the only comprehensive Right One. That is to say, as a sort of advance over the notion that other religions, in some incognito fashion, express in part what the inclusive religion has in full, there is in this variant of inclusivism an allowance that certain other religions may, indeed, be living out, in an authentic way, that which is nevertheless to be found fully in the one comprehensively true or right religion. Other religions, at least under certain conditions, are already and ‘anonymously’ included within the purview of the dominant religion in this schema. They enjoy a partial measure of being right, relative to that religion which is, of course, fully right. An illustration of this paradigm may be found in Islam with its view of Judaism and Christianity as ‘religions of the book’. Islam has, knows, and lives fully that which has been given to these others, but which they now express in only a limited, if not corrupted, fashion. From the Christian perspective, Diogenes Allen expresses this paradigm when he asserts ‘a Christian theology of other faiths reaches out toward other faiths, retaining the conviction that Christ is the Savior of the world, and bringing another faith or aspects of it into a vital relation to Christ’.vi In the end the generic inclusivist stance is modified by an imperialist assertion of non-negotiable or superior perspective. Imperialist inclusivism highlights the basic assumption inherited from the exclusivist stance: the total identification of a universal value, such as religious truth or salvation, with the particulars of but one religion.

Pluralism
The essential idea of pluralism, as an ideological or hermeneutical response to the fact of plurality, is to posit a multiplicity of particular expressions of that which is deemed to be universal, in opposition to the idea that there can only be but one valid, or fully valid, expression of the universal. This means that different religions are equally valid expres-sions of some universal ‘religious reality’. Specific religions are co-equally valid expressions of some universal notion of ‘true religion’. Thus both difference and equality are affirmed. Religions are not all the ‘same’—their differences are important; yet religions are no better or worse than each other as equally valid expressions of the universal. On this basis, no one religion can lay claim to an objective superiority, or superlative congruence with the universal religious reality, in respect to other religions.

However, pluralism itself is no one thing. Indeed, I suggest there are a number of paradigms of pluralism. Some are more obvious and well-known; others are somewhat novel.

The first variant, Common Ground Pluralism, views religious differences, or the variety of religions, as Contextualised Variable Expressions of/from a Universal Source. The fundamental idea is clear—there is a ‘common ground’ of religious ‘reality’ from which the different religions of the world derive. John Hick, a leading representative of this view, argues that since the middle of the twentieth century a new consciousness of human existence set in one world with many world religions has arisen. New conditions and contexts demand new thinking. If our neighbour is someone with whom one can engage in conversation and dialogue and, in so engaging, make discoveries about the relativity of values in respect of religious identities, then, Hick asks, are members of one religion, Christianity for example, demonstrably any better (morally or behaviourally) than members of other religions? He draws the conclusion that ‘it is not possible to establish the unique moral superiority of any one of the great world faiths’.vii All religions contain examples of great good and of great evil. Says Hick: ‘We need to compare apples with apples.’

Hick views his own work as a kind of “Copernican revolution” for it “involves a shift from the dogma that Christianity is at the centre to the realisation that it is God who is at the centre ...”viii Indeed, Hick argues that “...the different encounters with the transcendent within the different religious traditions may all be encounters with the one infinite reality, though with partially different and overlapping aspects of that reality.”ix And he reminds us that the great world religions, seen in historical context as movements of faith, “are not essentially rivals. They begin at different times and in different places, and each expanded outwards into the surrounding world of primitive natural religion until most of the world was drawn up into one or other of the great revealed faiths.”x Hick’s approach is essentially one of reconciling the aspectival relativism that embraces complementary diversity. The variant expressions of divine reality contained within the different religions are not necessarily or automatically mutually exclusive, but rather necessarily limited, yet complementary, images or manifestations of the divine Reality “each expressing some aspect or range of aspects and yet none by itself fully and exhaustively corresponding to the infinite nature of the ultimate reality.” xi

The second variant paradigm of pluralism, closely allied to the first, is Common Goal Pluralism which holds that religious differences reflect the Variety of Salvific Paths leading, or drawn to, the Universal Goal. On this view the key idea is that there is a transformative goal that is the end-point of all religions, even though it may be differingly expressed (in concert with the narrative tradition within which each religion dwells uniquely) and differently attained (again in keeping with the unique transformative or salvific narrative of each religion). As Hick remarks, “different religions have their different names for God acting savingly towards mankind.”xii Hick further suggests that the variant salvific paths of religion indicate that religions themselves may be regarded as

… different manifestations to humanity of a yet more ultimate ground of all salvific transformation. ... the possibility that an infinite transcendent reality is being differently conceived, and therefore differently ex-perienced, and therefore differently responded to from within our several religio-cultural ways of being human.xiii

Ground and goal, though complementarily linked, are nevertheless two variant paradigms of the pluralist hypothesis.

A third variant is the more distinctively different Complementarity Holistic Pluralism for it holds that religious differences may be discerned as Complementary Particular Expressions which Together Comprise the Universal Whole. The American Catholic scholar, Paul Knitter, exemplifies this category in that he proposes an idea of “unitive pluralism”.xiv He argues that “in the contemporary pluralistic world there cannot be just one religion, but neither can there be many that exist in ‘indifferent tolerance’.”xv Knitter holds a relational view of truth wherein the differences and particularities of religions are reconciled, but not materially equivalent. The plurality of religions is not so much a matter of non-competing variant out-workings of a common ground or goal, but rather the mutual complementarity of different parts together comprising a complex whole. The world’s religions together comprise the whole of what religion is as such. The divine reality encountered and expressed variegatedly in and through different religions is not the One Reality behind religions, as it were, but the One Reality that is comprised by them all.

In similar fashion, the fourth paradigm, Dynamic Parallel Pluralism, holds that religious differences are perceived as reflecting a parallelism of religious phenomena. This paradigmatic perspective may be gleaned from the phenomenological study of religion espoused by Ninian Smart and others. The affirmation of pluralism asserts authenticity of phenomena without commenting on matters of validity or veracity. What is observed as a result of analysis of presented data—the phenomena that together comprise any given religion—is the presence of dynamic parallels rather than substantive sameness. The question of commonness of goal or ground, let alone the notion of religions as parts that collectively comprise a whole, is not the focus. Rather, from the observation and concomitant analysis of religions can be discerned a number of dynamic parallels that are operative in and through the various narrative traditions of the religions of the world. For example, all major religions contain a narrative account of an inherent less-than-satisfactory state of affairs for human existence, howsoever arrived at in terms of specific narratives. In all cases, however, this state of affairs requires some transformative action to overcome and so enable the attainment of an ultimate outcome or destiny. The stories expressing this vary, as do the doctrines and teachings relating thereto. But the dynamic contained within the differing narratives redounds with parallel similarities. Religious plurality may be interpreted in terms of dynamic parallels of religious intuition and response. This is the point of commonality that yet preserves the integrity of difference. Religions are not variants of the same thing, but they are variant expressions of parallel processes.

The fifth paradigm I call Radically Differentiated Pluralism. It is a more extreme view than so far considered, for this variant holds that religious differences signal Irreconcilable Differentiation of Religious Identities. That is to say, there is no reasonable ground to assume a link across religions: their individual, or particular, identities militate against any such linkage as inferred by the foregoing paradigms of pluralism. The difference between them is of such a nature that, strictly speaking, it is illicit even to consider that there is any point of meaningful conceptual contact among the religions. The leading exponent of this variant is the American theologian and philosopher John Cobb.xvi He may be identified as a “pure pluralist” for whom religions are not mere variant expressions of the one divine reality, but are genuinely plural in respect of the realities they represent. Thus, for example, the outcome of dialogical encounter may well be mutual transformation as opposed to mutual reinforcement.xvii Cobb shows himself to be an open-ended, non-common-ground pluralist who is suspicious of any organising or categorial terms that might prejudge or limit dialogic conversation. He raises objections to the notion of “universal theology of religion” and sketches difficulties that he sees with the term ‘religion’ as a denominating label.

Cobb asserts the need for all traditions, including the Christian, to affirm their unique centres of meaning. He protests “that the pretense to stand beyond all traditions and build neutrally out of all of them is a delusion” and clearly asserts the uniqueness of his own religious tradition–Christianity–but eschews any suggestion that this implies any necessary superiority: he argues for “the Christian the rejection of all arrogance, exclusivism, and dogmatism in relation to other ways”.xviii The attractiveness of this paradigm lies in its clear assertion of the individual identity and integrity of the religions: none can be adequately interpreted in the terms of another; none can be viewed as in any sense subsumed within another. To that extent there is no confusion of dialogical motive. But it still rather begs the question that there are some religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam, for instance—where historical, if not theological or ideological, linkages militate against this paradigm as the most apposite context for the conduct of dialogue.

Conclusion
As we have seen, the paradigms of exclusivism and inclusivism are premised on the notion that there is but one universal truth or religion whereby the relationship between the universal and specific religions is problematic. Either way it is taken as a sine qua non of ‘universal’ that there can be only one valid expression of it in terms of particular form. Thus the religious exclusivist makes an assumption that his or her religion is, in fact, the only universally true one. All others are necessarily false. The inclusivist holds views that allow for a measure of universal religious truth being found in more than one particular religion, but that, nonetheless, it is his or her religion that fully contains, or is the full expression of, the universal truth. So the paradigms of both exclusivism and inclusivism are problematic as adequate contexts for interreligious engagement. Does this mean pluralism as such offers a way forward? Perhaps, but the paradigms of pluralism are no less problematic.

The notion of dialogical engagement being based on a context of a preconceived common ground Reality, or a common salvific goal, seems now to be somewhat presumptuous as well as cognitively constraining. It requires the dialogical interlocuters to commence from a supposed third position and reconcile the two they represent to that. In the end, these two seem increasingly to be variants of the inclusivist paradigm, which, as with exclusivism, tends more to curtail genuine dialogue than facilitate it. By contrast, the paradigm of radically differentiated pluralism, premised on irreconcilable differentiation of religious identities, would seem to signal little point in pursuing dialogic engagement.

Perhaps a context for interreligious engagement shaped by the paradigms of complementary holistic pluralism, or dynamic parallel pluralism, may offer a more realistic basis for dialogue. The aim of dialogical engagement is not to reconcile perspectives and theologies across any two or more religions, but to grow in mutual understanding and also deeper self-understanding. Because actual religions are very different in many respects, neither has an inherent upper hand, so to speak, and therefore there is no a priori limit to the dialogical conversation. Genuine difference and distinctiveness can be affirmed, but there is scope for real advance in mutually beneficial and challenging discursive dialogue as well as scope to actively pursue other dialogical modalities. Given the history of mutual misinformation and even outbreak of hostilities that has marked much interreligious engagement, and given in particular the contemporary climate of suspicion of things Islamic and corresponding Islamic antipathies to many aspects of the secularized West, if not Christianity as such, then further work on teasing out an apposite paradigm to give shape to the intellectual context for interreligious engagement would seem no bad thing.

i. Stanley Samartha, ‘Dialogue as a Continuing Christian Concern’, in John Hick & Brian Hebblethwaite, eds, Christianity and Other Religions, London: Collins, 1980, 151.
ii. Raimundo Panikkar in Harold Coward ed., Hindu-Christian Dialogue: Perspectives and Encounters, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989, xiii.
iii. Diana L. Eck. Encountering God. A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banares. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993, 174.
iv. cf. Raymond Panikkar. ‘The Unknown Christ of Hinduism’ in J. Hick & Hebblethwaite, op. cit., 122-150.
v. ibid, 95.
vi. Diogenes Allen, Christian Belief in a Postmodern World, Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989, 187.
vii. John Hick, The Rainbow of Faiths, London: SCM Press, 1995, 15.
viii. John Hick, God and the Universe of Faiths, 131
ix. ibid, 139
x. ibid, 137.
xi. John Hick, The Metaphor of God Incarnate, London: SCM Press, 1993, 140.
xii. John Hick, The Myth of God Incarnate, London: SCM Press, 1977, 181.
xiii. Hick, Metaphor, 140
xiv. See Paul F. Knitter, No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Toward the World Religions, Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1985; One Earth Many Religions: Multifaith Dialogue & Global Responsibility, xiv. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1995.
xv. S. Wesley Ariarajah, Hindus and Christians: A Century of Protestant Ecumenical Thought. Vol 5 of Currents of Encounter: Studies on the Contact between Christianity and Other Religions, Beliefs and Cultures. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi; and Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm B. Eerdmns, 1991, 177
xvi. See for example, John Cobb, Beyond Dialogue. See also Leonard Swidler, John Cobb, et. al, Death or Dialogue? London: SCM Press, 1990.
xvii. cf. S. Wesley Ariarajah, Hindus and Christians, 178.
xviii. Ibid

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