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RELIGIOUS TRUTH and RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY by Nathan S. Hilberg

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RELIGIOUS TRUTH and RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY by Nathan S. Hilberg RELIGIOUS TRUTH AND RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY by Nathan S. Hilberg B.A. in Psychology, Religion, Wabash College, 1988 M.A. in Religion, Miami University, 1992 M.A. in Philosophy, Miami University, 1994 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2006 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by It was defended on March 27, 2006 and approved by Richard Gale, PhD, Department of Philosophy Tom Rockmore, PhD, Department of Philosophy John Wilson, PhD, Cooperative Program in Religion Dissertation Advisor: Tony Edwards, PhD, Cooperative Program in Religion ii Copyright © by Nathan S. Hilberg 2006 iii RELIGIOUS TRUTH AND RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY Nathan S. Hilberg, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2006 When interpreting religion one faces a dilemma. Realist interpretations of religion face the philosophical problem of religious diversity and irrealist interpretations of religion are revisionary. There are two fundamentally different forms of religious irrealism. One, religious anti-realism, describes those who deny that the objective truth conditions by which a given instance of religious language would be true obtain. The other, religious non-realism, describes those who hold that for a given instance of religious language there are no objective truth conditions; that is, a given instance of religious language does not express a proposition. Taking this distinction into account clarifies much of the confusion involved in discussions of religious realism. Providing such clarity with respect to the issues associated with religious realism and religious irrealism is a theme throughout the dissertation. The other goals of the dissertation involve examining the issues raised by the aforementioned dilemma. Realist interpretations of religion are those that maintain for a particular instance of religious language to be true, that which is described by that language must obtain independently of what we do, say or believe. For realism, only that p objectively obtains can make “p” true. It is for this reason that realist interpretations face the philosophical problem of religious diversity. The world’s religious landscape is marked by similarly credible but conflicting truth claims. On a realist conception one religion’s claim to ultimate truth necessarily conflicts with that of another if these claims diverge. An examination of the epistemological issues raised by these similarly credible but conflicting claims to religious truth constitutes the first portion of the dissertation. For religious irrealism, the truth conditions of a given instance of religious language are dependent on what we do, say or believe. On this view, “God exists” can be considered true even if by “God exists” we mean something other than that God exists. The truth of “God exists” thus depends on something other than that God exists and as such exemplifies the revisionary character of religious irrealism. The second portion of the dissertation examines these issues as they concern irrealist interpretations of religion. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................ 1 2.0 OVERVIEW OF RELIGIOUS REALISM ............................................................. 24 3.0 A REALIST INTERPRETATION OF RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY ..................... 38 4.0 RELIGIOUS EXCLUSIVISM: THE PROBLEM OF BEING ARBITRARY .... 64 5.0 OVERVIEW OF RELIGIOUS IRREALISM......................................................... 94 6.0 RELIGIOUS NON-REALISM: NEITHER REALIST NOR ANTI-REALIST 109 7.0 RELIGIOUS NON-REALISM PUSHED BEYOND ITS LIMITS..................... 154 8.0 CONCLUSION......................................................................................................... 194 9.0 APPENDIX ............................................................................................................... 209 BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................................... 229 v 1.0 INTRODUCTION I propose that when interpreting religion we face a dilemma: Realist interpretations of religion give rise to the philosophical problem of religious diversity and irrealist interpretations of religions are revisionary.1 That realism and irrealism are the only two options and that they entail genuine problems will be made clear as we go. As this discussion will show, the advantage of conceiving of the world’s religious landscape in this way is that understanding religion according to the parameters of this dilemma allows one to situate any interpretation of religion within it. For example, when we encounter interpretations of religion which try to avoid the charge of revisionism by offering a realist interpretation we know to be cautioned that such interpretations ultimately will confront the problem of religious diversity: that there are 1 The idea that religious realism gives rise to the philosophical problem of religious diversity is, surprisingly, my own. This is surprising because the overlooking of this crucial idea has caused much of the literature on this topic to suffer from obfuscation. One of the goals of this project is to clarify such confusions. The idea that irrealist interpretations of religion are revisionary is also one for which I take full responsibility. That is, any criticisms for the shortcomings of this idea should be directed squarely at me since I am explicitly making realism a condition of a non-revisionary interpretation of religion. However, any credit that is due must be shared with two sources, the latter source somewhat ironically. I first encountered this idea in William Alston’s “Realism and the Christian Faith,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 38 (1995). I became further convinced that realism is a condition of a non-revisionary interpretation of religion upon reading John Hick’s “Religious Realism and Non- Realism: Defining the Issue” in Is God Real? Joseph Runzo ed. (Houndsmills, et al: Macmillan, 1993). This is interesting because, even though Hick argues compellingly for the idea that realism is a condition of a non- revisionary interpretation of religion, as I will argue in the chapter devoted to my analysis of Hick’s relevant works, the well known case he makes for religious pluralism is essentially revisionary. Though I will focus on the problems posed by religious diversity and revisionism, I should also note that there are other problems facing his interpretation of religion. These involve the metaphysical commitments of religious realism, a topic that I will discuss in the Appendix. This dilemma is most applicable considered within the context of what we might call theoretical reason as opposed to practical considerations, e.g. practical reason and ritual. 1 conflicting claims to religious truth.2 Similarly, we are forearmed by knowing that those who wish to avoid the difficulties facing realism by offering irrealist interpretations of religion must contend with the issue of revisionism; that is, such interpretations of religion are revisionary since they drop essential features of religion and thereby run the risk of no longer being recognizable as interpretations of religion. In this dissertation I will examine each of the horns of this dilemma by analyzing the relevant works of authors who raise the significant issues associated with both sides of this dilemma. We will see that there are two general morals to be learned from applying this dilemma to the interpretation of religious language. First, beware of realist accounts of religion purporting to have solved the problem of religious diversity. Second, beware of irrealist accounts of religion purporting to have offered a religious perspective. Beware because whether one is a realist or an irrealist regarding religion, either comes with its costs; this is why I argue that we face a dilemma when interpreting religion. Upon having examined the costs and benefits of religious realism and religious irrealism, ultimately I will conclude that a certain form of religious realism offers the most attractive interpretation of religion. In the course of describing this dilemma and its implications for the study of religion I will make some refinements regarding the conceptions of religious realism and religious irrealism that appear in the literature on the topic. One of my contributions to the literature will be to clarify confusions that have muddled the discussion of the significance of religious realism. 2 For some intepretations of religion the diversity of conflicting religious truth claims is not a problem per se. For ethnographers, say, the fact that practitioners of religion A affirm X and that practitioners of religion B affirm not-X is not necessarily a problem. This is one reason why I call the phenomenon of conflicting religious truth claims the philosophical problem of religious diversity; another reason is that this is the terminology customarily employed in the philosophical literature. Also, while it may certainly be true that ordinary religious folk could be concerned that others in the world uphold religious doctrines that conflict with their own, for these people, it seems to me, the problem consists in trying to rationalize how their own beliefs are correct and how conflicting beliefs are incorrect. In contrast, what I mean by “the philosophical problem of
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