This
is probably the most philosophically accomplished of the current
wave of Christian attempts to solve the problem of religious
plurality by appeal to the doctrine of the Trinity. Building
upon his earlier Salvations (1995), Heim wants to move the inclusivist
discussion (I am a convinced inclusivist, 8) beyond
the familiar question whether the other world religions are
or are not, without knowing it, leading people towards an eventual
enjoyment of salvation, which he defines as communion
with God and Gods creatures through Christ Jesus
(19). Instead, he asks whether, in addition to this highest
end, there are different, real religious ends that are
not Christian salvation at all (3), but which are nevertheless
valid on their own level as responses to limited aspects of
the full trinitarian divine reality that is known only to Christians.
What does Heim mean by a religious end? His answer is phenomenological.
A religious end or aim is defined by a set of practices,
images, stories, and concepts which provides material
for a thorough pattern of life, is understood to
be constitutive of final human fulfilment and/or to be the sole
means of achieving that fulfillment, and is in practice
exclusive of at least some alternative options (21). In
this sense there undoubtedly are a variety of religious ends
and Heims description of the religious situation in our
present earthly life is not controversial. For his hypothesis
requires only that the nature of reality be such as to allow
humans to phenomenally realize varied religious ends (24),
i.e. the different this-worldly states indicated in his phenomenological
analysis.
On
this Heim bases a new form of religious inclusivism in which
each religion can regard its own end as the only ultimate one
whilst recognising that the others are pursuing genuine but
only penultimate ends. And as his proposed Christian theology
of religions he proposes that specifically Christian salvation
is the only truly ultimate end, all the others being inferior.
For To realise something other than communion with the
triune God and with other creatures through Christ is to achieve
a lesser good (44). Heim seems to think that this recognition
of other religious ends gives a greater respect and status to
the non-Christian religions that the older inclusivism of Vatican
II etc., which extended the full benefit of Christian salvation
eventually, though in most cases beyond this life, to all humanity
always subject to the possibility of an ultimate self-damning
refusal. But Heims proposal is in fact considerably less
favourable to the people of other faiths, for it leaves them
all finally at a lower level, arriving at lesser ends and forfeiting
the supreme good. Indeed Heim says that, Insofar as alternative
ends lack or rule out real dimensions of communion with the
triune God, they embody some measure of what Christian tradition
regards as loss or damnation (182). For him, a non-Christians
only hope of attaining the highest good is eventually, probably
after death, to come to accept Christ as lord and saviour, with
his or her this-life religion having served as a partial preparation
for this. On this latter scenario Heims proposal is indistinguishable
from the older form of inclusivism. But in so far as he wants
it to be different it offers a bleaker future for most of humanity
than traditional inclusivism.
Heim
is aware of the glaring question that his view provokes, How
can it be an expression of the universal divine love to restrict
the possibility of the highest good to that minority of the
human race who have had access to the Christian gospel? His
answer is novel but at the same time to me at least -
highly unattractive. He proposes a theological principle
of plenitude. Just as there is a rich variety among the
(Christian) saved, so also there is also a rich variety of higher
and lower other religious ends, and this very variety contributes
to the value of the whole. God has endowed the creation with
its own freedom, and values the plenitude that results
when creations freedom is worked out in the realization
of a variety of religious ends (254-5). Thus the existing
situation, in which the contingencies of human history have
produced a plurality of different religious traditions seeking
different religious ends, constitutes a rich and valuable spiritual
tapestry.
This
plenitude theory would perhaps be viable if, as
Heim also asserts, there is a universal accessibility
of salvation (255). He says that religious diversity
honors the freedom of persons to relate to God as they choose,
to value the dimensions of divinity on their own terms, and
to select the human end they wish (255). For Gods
saving will offers all the opportunity for communion in the
triune life through Christ. But that same saving will also brings
to perfection each true relation with God that a person may
freely choose as a final end. And beyond this, God brings the
ensemble of such ends and choices to its own pluralistic perfection,
integrating the chosen relations and goods so as to create the
richest satisfaction of each and all under the terms of their
desired fulfillments (263-4). But is there not something
disturbingly unrealistic here? In the great majority of cases
people have not freely chosen their religion. They have nearly
always inherited it, grown up within it, and been formed by
it, so that it fits them and they fit it. The opportunity to
study the full range of religious options and make a free choice
among them is a recent western development that is open to very
few. Can a Tibetan, Thai, or Burmese Buddhist, or most of the
hundreds of millions of Muslims, or of Hindus, or most Jews
or Jains or Taoists, be said to have deliberately chosen the
religious end available to them in deliberate preference to
the Christian religious end? How then can the highest good of
Christian salvation realistically be said to be accessible to
that large majority of the human race who have lived in all
the centuries (including those before Christ) either in complete
ignorance of the Christian message and/or within other religious
traditions which have formed their relationship to the Ultimate
in other ways? Heims assumption that everyone has freely
chosen either the Christian or some other religious (or secular)
end ignores in an astonishing way the realities of human life
and history.
His
theory of multiple religious ends becomes even harder to sustain
when he takes account of the eschatological element within the
religions. For his hypothesis presumes an open set of
varied religious ends available for realization both within
the historical horizon of human life and beyond it (29).
This is elaborated in his last chapter as a range of options
from eternal hell, through annihilation, through the inferior
ends of the other religions, to the full, true and glorious
heaven of Christianity. For, he says, the religions should be
taken with full seriousness as alternatives, both here and now
and eschatologically (291). According to this theology
of religions, all will find what they seek, and so all will
be finally satisfied; and so The diversity of religious
ends provides an extraordinary picture of the mercy and providential
richness of God! (264).
But
this assignment to Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists
etc of lesser eternal fulfilments is much less favourable to
them than the older inclusivist theology which (e.g., in DiNoia
and others), saw them as destined eventually to heaven through
an encounter with Christ in or after death unless, of
course, like irredeemably sinful Christians also, they condemn
themselves to hell.
Can appeal to the doctrine of the Trinity, whether by Heim or
others, help? Only in a very limited way. It can help by prompting
Christians to see that there may be more to Gods activity
in this world than takes place in the figure of Jesus and his
historical influence. But very many people, both within and
beyond Christianity, need no such prompting. They have concluded
for themselves that, in the words of the 13th century Jalaluldin
Rumi, The lamps are different but the Light is the same:
it comes from Beyond. It is, then, only Christians who
can be helped by the doctrine of the Trinity. But for some this
can indeed be useful, and Heims proposal is certainly
a great advance on the exclusivism which some of his fellow
evangelicals find it so hard to abandon. But (as Heim himself
recognises) religious inclusivism can equally well be formulated
from within each of the world faiths and thus does not require
a trinitarian basis.
Heim is throughout trying to find a better way than has hitherto
been available of avoiding the alternative of religious pluralism,
which he criticises repeatedly. He offers what he regards as
a richer and more generous inclusivism. And his elegantly presented
proposal is indeed richer and more interesting than traditional
inclusivism, and deserves to be widely read. And yet, paradoxically,
it is in the end less generous and less inclusive than the traditional
version! And so the challenge of religious pluralism becomes
even more acute.
Copyright
by Blackwell Publisher 2001, and reprinted with permission from
Reviews in Religion and Theology, Vol. 8, No. 4 (September 2001).