The Philosophical Challenge of Religious Diversity

This volume collects some of the best recent work on the philosophical challenge of religious diversity to religion and religious belief. The contributors represent the disciplines of philosophy, religious studies, and theology. The collection is unified by the way in which many of the authors engage in sustained critical examination of one another's positions. One focal point of the discussion is John Hick's pluralism according to which all the major religious traditions make contact with the same Ultimate Reality, encountering it through a variety of culturally shaped forms of thought and experience, and all of them offer apparently equally effective paths to salvation or liberation. Another focal point is William P. Alston's defence of the rationality of engaging in the Christian practice of forming beliefs about manifestations of God in response to experiences the subjects take to be perceptions of divine presence or activity. Articles by Hick and Alston develop their views, and other articles respond to them. The responses include both criticism and defence of various aspects of Hick's and Alston's positions. Positions such as religious skepticism, religious exclusivism, and religious inclusivism are also represented in the collection. In the introduction, the editors suggest connections among the articles and report on further back and forth exchanges amongs the authors of the articles.