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The Pluralist Paradigm in the Christian Theology of Religions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Gavin D'Costa
Affiliation:
West London Institute of Higher Education, Lancaster House, Borough Road, Isleworth, Middlesex TW7 5DU

Extract

With increasing contact and knowledge of non-Christian religions and in the light of colonialist missionary endeavours, a number of Christians have recently advocated what I shall call a pluralist approach to non-Christian religions. This pluralist paradigm may be characterised as one which maintains that non-Christian religions can be equally salvific paths to the one God, and that Christianity's claim to be the only way (exclusivism), or the fulfilment of all other religions (inclusivism), should be rejected for good theological, phenomenological, and philosophical reasons. This view is shared by Christians from different denominations, and is best expressed in the works of Professors John Hick, Paul Knitter, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, and Mr Alan Race.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1986

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References

page 211 note 1 Hick, J., God and the Universe of Faiths (Collins, Fount Paperback, 1977)Google Scholar, God Has Many Names (Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1982)Google Scholar, Death and Eternal Life (Collins, Fount Paperback, 1976)Google Scholar, The Second Christianity (SCM, London, 1983)Google Scholar, ‘Religious Pluralism’, in ed. Whaling, F., The World's Religious Traditions (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1984) pp. 147164 (subsequently and respectively referred to as GUF, GMN, DEL, TSC, WRT)Google Scholar; Knitter, P., No Other Name? (SCM, London, 1985) (= NON)Google Scholar; Smith, W. C., The Faith of Other Men (Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1972)Google Scholar, The Meaning and End of Religion (SPCK, London, 1978)Google Scholar, Towards a World Theology (Macmillan, London, 1980) (= TFM, MER, TWT)Google Scholar; Race, A., Christians and Religious Pluralism (SCM, London, 1983) (= CRP).Google Scholar

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page 212 note 3 Hick, GUF, ch. 9; Knitter, , NON, p. 147.Google Scholar

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page 220 note 35 I have tried to develop and defend the inclusivist approach to these questions in my forthcoming book, Theology and Religious Pluralism (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1986).Google Scholar

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