Evidence · Case 05 · Relativism
The self-referential problem in pluralism
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
A further reply is that saying “all paths lead to the same place” is itself a sweeping claim about every religion, one none of them makes about itself. The pluralist is not standing neutrally above the traditions. He is adding a new claim on top that says each tradition is wrong about its own most important teaching.
Sources
Objections & responses
- Hick anticipated this objection and replied that pluralism is a second-order hypothesis about religions, not a religion, so it isn’t competing on the same level.
Hick’s reply should be on the table. The response, from Plantinga and Gavin D’Costa among others, is that a second-order hypothesis which entails that every first-order tradition is wrong about its central claims is not neutral, whatever level it occupies. To say that the Christian’s personal God and the Buddhist’s cessation are both masks on an unknowable Real is to tell both that they have misdescribed what they most care about. That is a rival claim about the summit, and it has to compete like any other.