Religious pluralism and theology Flashcards
What is exclusivism?
The view that salvation can only be achieved through Christ/Christianity. Some who hold this view prefer the term particularist
What is Calvin’s view?
- God only elects a small number of Christians with his grace
- Simply belonging to Christianity and adopting Christian beliefs won’t lead to definite salvation
What is narrow exclusivism?
The view that salvation is only available to specific Christian denominations
What do Catholics believe?
- Narrow exclusivism
- Salvation is only for those who have been baptised into the Catholic Church and have received the Eucharist regularly
What is broad exclusivism?
All people who accept Christ through faith will be saved regardless of denomination or worship style
What is Gavin D’Costa’s view?
- Universal-access exclusivist
- Christ’s salvation is offered to all
- There is only one exclusive way to salvation but it’s the will of God that this route should be available to all
Timothy 2:3-6
‘Our saviour, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.’
What is Hendrik Kraemer’s view?
- Non-Christians can’t achieve salvation without converting to Christianity
- Salvation can’t be found in other religions
- It doesn’t make sense to look at other religions and pick out the Christian truths to show they’re somehow linked
What is Karl Barth’s view?
- God chooses to reveal himself through Christ
- You can’t know God through your own efforts
- The Church means that everyone has the chance to hear and read the Gospel and respond
Acts 4:12
‘Salvation is found in no one else’
John 14:6
‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.’
What is inclusivism?
- Middle way between exclusivism and pluralism
- Although only one belief system is the whole truth, aspects of this truth can be found in other religions
- Two forms identified by Gavin D’Costa: Structural and restrictive
What is structural inclusivism?
Religions who have an openness to accept God’s grace may achieve salvation even without the Gospel
What did Karl Rahner believe?
- Structural inclusivism
- People can follow the example of Jesus without knowing if they devote their lives in service to others
- Anonymous Christians are a community of people who follow Christianity without knowing
- However, a previously ignorant person who has been introduced to the Gospel no longer has the excuse to reject it
- Some are inculpably ignorant, meaning they can’t be blamed for not having heard or understood the Gospel
What is restrictive inclusivism
Other religions are preparation for salvation but they aren’t enough
What does Raimon Panikkar believe?
- You should try to find your religious identity by losing it and not clinging onto traditions
- You could find bits you like out of several different religions and combine them into your faith
- Emphasised the mystery of the divine
- Didn’t like being called a pluralist
What are necessary vs sufficient conditions?
- Necessary conditions are required for something to be the case, eg. to be the PM of the UK you have to be a British citizen
- Sufficient conditions are enough for something to be the case, eg. being a British citizen is not enough to be the PM of the UK
- Examples above are given by Julian Baggini and Peter Fosl
What are Gavin D’Costa’s controlling beliefs?
Necessary and sufficient conditions for salvation are determined by the religion’s controlling beliefs
Name some of Gavin D’Costa’s controlling beliefs
- Sola Christus. God’s grace is only possible through belief in Jesus
- Eschatology. God offers either bliss or damnation after death
- God and creation
- Sin and election. Humans are fallen and incapable of knowing God on their own
What did John Hick believe?
- All religions have equal validity in truth claims
- Wanted create a global theology as a framework for greater cooperation and understanding between religions
- Started from a philosophical perspective, not a theological one
What is Kant’s noumenal vs phenomenal world?
- Noumenal = World of things as they really are
- Phenomenal = World as it appears to us
(Like Plato’s word of forms/appearances)
How does Hick use Kant?
- Hick says religion is a human phenomenal attempt to understanding God. This means that all religions are short of the truth, and are really just a representation of culture. God would never condemn someone because of their culture
- Hick also said you can use the categorical imperative to test the validity of a religion. Authentic religions will hold up to this test. Things like satanism won’t
What is Hans Urs von Balthasar’s criticism to pluralism?
- Believed belief in Jesus’ crucifixion/resurrection is central to human salvation
- You shouldn’t water down the Church into secular Christianity
What is the epistomological problem?
To what extent may truth claims of other religions be considered true in Christian theology?
What is the soteriological problem?
Can non-Christians receive God’s grace?
What did Bertrand Russell say relating to pluralism?
“it is evident as a matter of logic that since [religions] disagree, not more than one of them can be true.”
How does William Lane Craig say babies are judged?
- God is omniscient
- His perfect knowledge includes ‘middle knowledge’: he knows what people would’ve done in different circumstances
- If they made it to adulthood, God knows what babies would’ve done
John 3:18
‘whoever does not believe stands condemned already’
What is Acts 10:9-16 about? Why is it relevant to pluralism?
- States one of the biggest differences between Judaism and Christianity
- When God serves Peter up a buffet of animals, Peter says they’re impure and he can’t kill them
- God replies that everything he made is pure
- This shows Christians don’t have to keep kosher laws, and is one of the rules formed in the early Church when people were trying to understand what rules were valid and what weren’t
Acts 10:15
‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean’
