622 - Is There Only One True Religion or Are There Many?

Is There Only One True Religion or Are There Many?
By Schubert M. Ogden
Dallas, Southern Methodist University Press, 1992. 114 pp. $6.95.

With characteristic clarity of mind and rigor of argument, Schubert Ogden here makes a signal contribution to what has come to be called the "theology of religions," that is, the Christian attempt to reach a theologically appropriate understanding of non-Christian religions and, in particular, of their truth-value. Until now, three positions have held sway in this arena. Two are versions of what Ogden designates "Christian monism," the view that Christianity alone can count as the true religion because it alone was "established by God in the unique saving event of Jesus Christ." The exclusivist version of this position

623 - Is There Only One True Religion or Are There Many?

maintains that only those persons can be saved who are explicitly Christian in their religious belief and practice. In contrast, Christian inclusivism, while also maintaining that Christianity alone can be the true religion, allows that persons may participate in salvation anonymously or unknowingly without explicit Christian belief or practice, thus extending the reach of Christian salvation beyond the visible boundaries of the church. More recently, a new position has arisen that challenges both versions of Christian monism. This pluralist view claims that not only Christianity but also (at least some) other religions are true and thus are to be understood as independent vehicles of salvation in their own right. Ogden's aim is to clarify the issues involved in this debate and to set out a fourth, previously unconsidered, option that breaks with Christian monism but does not fall into the pluralist camp.

Against Christian exclusivism, Ogden argues not only that it has long since ceased to be credible by the standards of common human reason and experience, but also that it is deeply inappropriate to the normative Christian witness to Jesus Christ as the expression of God's primordial love for humanity. Holding that salvation is available only through explicit participation in the Christian religion, exclusivists are stuck with the view that the possibility of salvation has actually been offered only to a relatively small segment of the total human population through time: those who lived after Christ and in the geographical regions that Christianity in fact penetrated. In effect, they are stuck with an intractable version of the traditional problem of evil: Either God is not powerful enough to have extended the possibility of salvation to all people or God is not good enough to have wanted to extend it to all.

Ogden takes a rather different tack with respect to religious pluralism. Here he argues that the case for pluralism has not been made out and that the arguments so far deployed by pluralists will not stand up to scrutiny. Neither an argument against Christian monism nor an argument for interreligious dialogue will suffice (for neither argument requires or entails the pluralist position as its corollary). Nor is it enough to note the formal or structural similarities between religions-for example, as religions involving a transformed understanding of self and world-to which pluralists have called attention. For several religions to be true, they must show material or substantial similarities as well. Otherwise the transformed understandings involved might prove contrary to or contradictory of each other-in which case it would be logically impossible for the contrary or contradictory religions both to be true. But it is a notoriously difficult and delicate task to establish whether or not different religions are saying substantially similar things; and, on this score, the work of the pluralists has scarcely begun. The great difficulty for pluralism, however, is to avoid a descent into mere religious relativism. To do so, it must adopt some norm of religious truth that can be applied across

624 - Is There Only One True Religion or Are There Many?

religions. But there is no such norm that does not stem from some particular religious or philosophical position, and so the pluralists must, in the end-despite their own disclaimers-privilege one position over others as the one whose terms function as the criteria of religious truth. It is not at all clear, therefore, that the pluralist claim for the truth of many religions has been, or even can be, sustained.

Given the objections to exclusivism and the difficulties that beset pluralism, Ogden maps out his own option in the following way. First, he argues for a break with Christian monism not only in its exclusivist, but also in its inclusivist form. Inclusivism differs from exclusivism in granting that Christian salvation is available implicitly or anonymously through other religions which may, in this sense, be the bearers of truth. But it remains firmly in the Christian monist camp in its claim that Christianity alone, as the one religion constituted by God in the saving event of Jesus Christ, can be formally true and, thus, the norm for religious truth in non-Christian religions. It, too, maintains that the event of Jesus Christ is the cause of salvation and that, without implicit or explicit participation in that event, the very possibility of salvation is closed to human beings.

To break with Christian monism, then, requires a crucial christological shift. Instead of supposing that the possibility of salvation is constituted by the event of Jesus Christ (a constitutive christology), we must acknowledge that it is grounded rather in the prior and unbounded love of God for humanity to which Christ gives expression. Thus the possibility of salvation is not constituted, but is rather represented by Christ (a representative christology). In fact, the Christ event "is so far from being the cause of salvation as to be its consequence," since the "only cause of salvation ... is the primordial and everlasting love of God." And, on this ground, we may legitimately grant that both Christianity and other religions, insofar as they represent the primordial love of God and the possibility of salvation that it holds, can be formally as well as materially true. Whether any religion validly represents God's primordial love is, of course, a matter to be determined by the complex procedures through which religious claims to truth are validated. But the great virtue of Ogden's view is that, on its terms, a positive answer in favor of one religion no more excludes than it implies a positive answer in favor of another.

It is important to note that Ogden's argument is not-and is not meant to be-an argument for the truth of other religions, but for the possibility that other religions can be true. On this point, he carefully and explicitly distinguishes his own view from the pluralists' claim that other religions not only can be, but, in fact, are true. It is also important to note that, although Ogden has (as he himself points out) developed his position in a specifically Christian conceptuality and vocabulary, he has not done so in such a way as to preclude the possibility that a Buddhist, for example, or a Hindu might rightly make a similar case using a specifically Buddhist or Hindu conceptuality or

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vocabulary. On this point, he distinguishes himself just as carefully and explicitly from both versions of Christian monism: the Christian way of making the case is privileged only for Christians, not for others. Ogden has, then, marked out a genuinely distinct option-a fourth option-in the contemporary discussion of the "theology of religions." The upshot of his argument can be succinctly stated in his own concluding sentence: "But if the Christian claim to truth is valid, and if the same can be said for the fourth option, there is at least one true religion, and because it is true, there can be many."

William S. Babcock

Perkins School of Theology
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, TX