A Hindu Vaishnava Perspective on Religious Diversity

Philosophical responses to the problem of religious diversity

Philosophers have responded to the problem of religious diversity in various ways. Such responses are usually grouped into one of the following trichotomous categories: exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. One of the most contested areas in discussions of religious diversity concerns the treatment by religions of the salvific[1] prospects of outsiders; in other words, what is the proper way religious traditions should think of the soteriological fate of people who do not belong to such traditions. In terms of the exclusivist-inclusivist-pluralist trichotomy referred to above, several sorts of responses to the problem of outsiders’ salvific prospects can be anticipated:

·        An exclusivist would argue that salvation is only possible through his or her own religion and that outsiders are destined to soteriologically inferior ends (i.e. hell);

·       An inclusivist would argue that while salvation may be possible for outsiders, the inclusvist’s religion has the most religious value and soteriological efficacy.

·       Finally, a pluralistic response to the problem of religious diversity and more specifically, the question of outsiders’ salvific prospects, is to say that all religions are equally valid and effective.

Thus far, I have framed the problem of religious diversity in soteriological terms, i.e. as regards the question of salvation for outsiders. There is no reason to delimit the discussion in this way, however. For example, one can deploy the exclusivist-inclusivist-pluralist trichotomy to anticipate philosophical responses to another issue at the forefront in discussions of religious diversity: the question of whether outsider religious traditions contain any religious truth (both sets of issue are, of course, closely connected)[2]. Just as you can be an exclusivist as regards the question of outsiders’ salvific prospects, you can also be an exclusivist in connection with the question of religious truth; an exclusivist would hold that only his or her own religious tradition contains religious truth. Inclusivist and pluralist responses can also be developed. In this blog post, I will try to deal with both issues.

John Hick’s approach to the problem of religious diversity

The renowned 20th century British philosopher of religion, John Hick, famously argued that the most important indicator that a religious tradition is not just a creation of the human imagination but is instead in part a product of input from ultimate reality[3] is that it facilitates the transformation of people from self-centerdness to reality-centerdness[4]. The idea that the major world religions serve as soteriological vehicles that transform persons existentially from self-centeredness to reality-centeredness is, I believe, a tremendously useful, accurate and insightful way to conceptualize the function of religious traditions. It is an insight that I feel is consistent with and expressive of the Hindu Vaishnava view and so I will often return to it throughout the course of this post.

An additional insight of Hick’s that readers should be aware of, but one that I have strong reservations about, is his distinctly Kantian emphasis on ultimate reality’s utter ineffability. Hick argued that ‘the Real’, i.e. God, is ineffable and not directly experienced by anyone; religious believers only interact with it indirectly through personal and impersonal appearances of the ultimate reality. Hick’s view was that ultimate reality belongs to the noumenal realm, an area to which we have absolutely no access. All that we can experience are phenomenal appearances of the ultimate.

While there is much that is insightful in Hick’s argument, undue stress on the ineffability of the divine reality impoverishes religion of some of its most attractive and enduring features, i.e. the effectiveness of worship and prayer, the powerful and emotional intensity of religious experience, etc. I will return to this issue later when we survey Hindu Vedantic views on ineffability.

Hindu Vaishnava perspective on religious diversity

Historically, Hindu theologians have responded in diverse ways to the question of whether members of other religious traditions can achieve salvation or liberation (howsoever conceived) at the end of their spiritual journeys. Such responses tend to be pluralist or inclusive in nature. There is, of course, a very important nuance that must be borne in mind when considering and reflecting on Hindu views in this context: the Indic belief in reincarnation means that Hindus believe that the soteriological process occurs over and across multiple lifetimes. In the context of the present discussion, this means that when I speak of the salvific power of other traditions, what I am referring to is not their ability to deliver salvation to their members at the end of this lifetime but rather their capacity to contribute and advance the soteriological and existential transformation of believers in Hickean ways (i.e. by making them less self-centered and more reality-centered).

Indeed, in the Hindu context, the question, can non-Hindus achieve moksha or salvation?, is (as the Buddha would say) an unprofitable question. Why? The vast majority of Hindus will not achieve moksha during their present lifetimes; that being the case, and given that most Hindus would accord pride of place to their own tradition in the economy of salvation, it goes without saying that most non-Hindus will not likely achieve moksha in their current life.

The sheer diversity and heterogeneity that characterize Hindu traditions means that there is no one, single Hindu perspective on the question of outsiders’ salvific prospects. To delimit the scope of this discussion, however, I want to think theologically from a particular Hindu perspective: that of the Hindu Vaishnava tradition.[5] Vaishnavism sets itself apart from other traditions in Hinduism by its monotheistic and exclusive focus on Vishnu (in any one of his forms) as Supreme Lord and by its advocacy of devotion as an important path to liberation. Preliminaries now aside, let us think more deeply about how Hindu Vaishnavas can think about the soteriological fate of outsiders.

Hindu traditions have long recognized the myriad ways in which ultimate reality can be experienced and apprehended. Indeed, the Rig Veda famously remarks that: “the truth is one, the wise call it by different names”.  Differences in nomenclature aside, Hindu religious traditions also recognize that different facets of the ultimate reality appeal to aspirants depending on their own inclinations and theological predispositions. For example, while Vaishnava traditions choose to focus on the personal and theistic aspect of ultimate reality, they do not deny the validity of impersonal experiences of the divine. Impersonal traditions tend to focus on the ultimate as the ground of all being and/or as pure consciousness rather than as a personal and omnibenevolent supreme deity. While privileging their own conception of the divine, Vaishnavas would argue that God’s infinite nature lends itself to be experienced in myriad ways by religious aspirants. Further, for Vaishnava’s, God’s willingness to reciprocate with believers in a manner suitable to their religious aspirations is but a particular illustration of divine compassion and mercy.

An important scriptural verse in the Vaishnava canon that informs Vaishnava views on this subject comes from the Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 4, Verse 11): “According to the manner in which they approach Me, I favour them in that very manner. Men experience Me alone in different ways, O Arjuna”[6] In my reading, this verse brings out quite beautifully the all-embracing nature of divine love. Krishna makes clear here that he “meets every aspirant with favour and grants to each his heart’s desire”[7] It seems quite obvious to me that this reading of the text precludes Hindu Vaishnavas from adopting exclusivist approaches to the question of outsiders’ salvific prospects. God responds with favour to religious aspirants regardless of the way in which they worship or approach him. To link this discussion back to Hick’s understanding of religion’s function, I want to suggest that this verse opens up interpretive possibilities for Hindu Vaishnavas to think about other world religions as representing important  soteriological vehicles that transform persons existentially from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness.

Given the many-lifetimes approach that Hinduism takes to the question of liberation, my response to the problem of religious diversity is to suggest that religious aspirants from all major world traditions can and do make soteriological progress when they practice their religion. This means that, contrary to what some religious traditions argue, there is no reason to think that believers from other world religions are destined for everlasting punishment just for choosing to conceive of the divine in different ways. Of course, an important qualification here is in order. The Hindu Vaishnava view does not require that one hold all religions to be equally salvific. All major world religions, allow their adherents to get a keener insight into the nature of reality or God and to adopt dispositional attitudes towards that reality that are life-transforming and soteriologically effective. My view is that this position still creates sufficient room for one to argue that a particular religion or tradition is more effective (vis-à-vis others) in bringing about the sorts of existential transformations that make believers more reality-centered. In sum, the view I have been articulating above does not require believers to hold all religions to be equally true; it does however require that we see all religions as valid (for the reasons described above).

The fact that God’s nature is infinite and that he has the capacity to assume multiple manifestations according to the wishes of his devotees, does not mean that all religious approaches or paths are equally valid. In an important part of the Gita, Krishna speaks of some religious paths as being avidhi purvakam, i.e. contrary to regulative religious principles. However, far from delegitimizing such religious practices and rejecting the worship offered, Krishna makes clear that even in such cases he strengthens the devotees faith in their chosen deity and dispenses himself the gift or material goods sought. This is a striking example of Krishna’s universal benevolence and love for all people.[8]

I decided to frame this discussion early on in the context of Hinduism’s reincarnation thesis: that human beings’ spiritual journey occurs across multiple lifetimes and in the contexts of different successive bodily existences. Without losing sight of this larger context, let us think of a slightly different question: can believers of other religious traditions attain moksha or liberation in their present lifetime?

Most classical Hindu theologians, I think, would respond in the negative to this question: they would suggest that while religious progress is possible in other traditions, the culmination of the soteriological process would require birth in a particular Hindu tradition. On this view, Hinduism must be accorded pride of place in the economy of salvation and so moksha is only possible for Hindus. This is a view with which I agree and one that, in my understanding, best reflects what the Hindu Vaishnava scriptural canon has to say on the subject.

Tying this all together, my view is that while non-Hindu traditions do not likely provide distinct full-fledged routes to salvation, they are not lacking in usefulness in this area, and they can play a contributing role by, for example, removing obstacles to salvation, providing preliminary or preparatory training or useful encouragement. Importantly, I must emphasize that there are no grounds to dogmatize here for indeed a Hindu cannot be certain that members of other religions cannot achieve moksha or salvation at the end of their present lifetime. In any event, all that I have said above demonstrates, I think, that it only requires a bit of imagination and constructive theology to see how it is entirely possible for Hindus to hold that other religious traditions hold important, divinely inspired insights into the nature of ultimate reality. 

The Value of Interreligious Dialogue

One of the biggest problems with exclusivist responses to the issue of religious diversity, is that it renders interreligious dialogue obsolete. If you truly believe that your own tradition represents the only valid way of approaching and worshipping the divine then what need is there to engage in interreligious dialogue. My view therefore is that for interreligious dialogue to be a truly meaningful enterprise, the discourse it generates must be rooted in the following premises: a) a belief that no one religion has a monopoly on religious truth; and b) the primary objective of interreligious dialogue is to allow interlocutors to learn from other religious traditions and not just about such traditions. In other words, both premises require that a participant in interreligious dialogue not be an exclusivist as regards matters of truth; he or she must hold that other traditions hold truths of their own and that we can learn something from them. 

My view is that Hindu Vaishnavas can argue, without contradiction or inconsistency, that their particular tradition is more effective than others in bringing about the sorts of existential transformations that make believers more reality-centered while continuing to believe in the value of interreligious dialogue as a means by which to learn from (and not just about) other traditions. I can see how my argument may be perceived to be vulnerable to the criticism that it doesn’t really permit for genuine interreligious dialogue since a Vaishnava Hindu, on this account, would have little to gain or learn from other traditions given that his or her own tradition represents a soteriologically more effective approach to the divine reality. I’ll leave it for readers to consider the extent to which this criticism holds but I would like to argue that in my own experience, at least, the perceived inconsistency is apparent only. To experience the divine in all its glory and richness, if such a thing is indeed possible, dialogue across religions is not only desirable but necessary. The point is to learn from others facets of the divine nature that one’s own tradition or understanding may not have emphasized.

I should add that my vision of ‘learning from others’ does not necessarily require that we be open to acquiring new or additional beliefs from other traditions but rather that we, at least, be open to deriving from other traditions a fresh perspective or a deeper insight into beliefs that we already hold.

My study of Hinduism leads me to believe that there are sufficient conceptual resources within Hindu Vaishnavism that justify an approach that treats other religious traditions as valid. One such resource is of course the verse from the Bhagavad Gita to which I have already made reference. Other resources include: (i) the Vedantic insistence on the ineffability of the ultimate; and (ii) the notion of divine revelation.

The ineffable nature of the divine is a natural corollary of God’s infinite and transcendent nature. The Vedanta tradition within Hinduism cautions students that our sensorial and cognitive capacities, including the language we use and study and that of the Vedas, cannot provide us with unmediated and complete access to the divine reality, howsoever conceptualized. In the context of this discussion, this means that religious traditions, by implication, are but provisional attempts at conceptualizing ultimate reality in ways understandable to religious believers. It seems to me that this recognition of God’s ineffable nature provides a promising basis upon which theological dialogue across and between religions can take place. It requires a degree of theological humility on the part of believers across traditions as they recognize that no one tradition can claim a monopoly on conceptualizations of the divine.

I argued earlier that undue stress on the ineffability of the divine reality impoverishes religion of some of its most attractive and enduring features. I want to argue also that ineffability is also a problem for interreligious dialogue. The reason that I don’t want to stress God’s utter inaccessibility to the believer’s imagination is because it would render unintelligible and meaningless any dialogue between religious traditions; after all what exactly is it we would be talking about? If God is so beyond human discourse then all we are really doing is grasping, in the dark, at an unknown realm, to which we have no access and from which we receive no illumination. While some traditions do stress the entirely noumenal nature of ultimate reality, most religious believers would not conceive of their relationship with and understanding of ultimate reality in such religiously unsatisfying ways. Central, therefore, to the coherence of my account is the view that we can speak meaningfully about ultimate reality and that the ineffability of ultimate reality does not preclude soteriologically valuable reflection and meditation on God.

To nuance this discussion further, while religious traditions accept that God exceeds human understanding, most traditions believe that God aids human understanding of his nature by intervening in human history either through the form of his written revelation (i.e. the Qu’ran or the Bible) or through the medium of divine incarnation (i.e. Krishna or Jesus). Divine disclosure as understood in these different traditions enables believers from different traditions to ‘compare notes’, as it were, and to learn from each other the various ways in which God has chosen to manifest or disclose himself. My view is that this still allows us to privilege certain forms of divine revelation over others (in the sense that some can be more complete than others) but at least it forces us to take seriously the claims of other believers as regards their understanding of God through his manifestation in their traditions.

There seems nothing within Hindu Vaishnavism that precludes Vaishnavas from accepting the validity of divine revelation in other religious traditions. From all that we know of God’s omnipotence and omnibenovelence, why must we insist that it was not possible for God to reveal himself (through various mediums) to human communities in other parts of the world. Indeed, I would argue that the richness of God’s nature requires that we accept revelation as pluriform in nature. We can argue that the same divine reality has always been active towards mankind and the differences in religious traditions are, in part, a result of or related to differences in human circumstances. Our differing ethnic, geographical, economic, sociological and historical circumstances have resulted in existing differentiations in religion and culture more generally.

From a theological perspective, all that we need to do to accept this picture of divine revelation is to accept that the ultimate reality is infinite in nature. Different religious traditions are all encountering the same reality but end up expressing the experience of that reality using the idiom and cultural imagination to which they are accustomed. Christians understand themselves to worship a triune God, Muslims understand themselves to worship Allah, some Hindus understand themselves to worship Krishna or Vishnu; other Hindus believe there to be a nonpersonal religious reality. In each case, members of these religions are dealing, in my view, with the same religious reality, variously understood or interpreted.

I should repeat that this remains consistent with an approach that privileges certain forms of divine revelation over others. On this view, a Hindu Vaishnava would argue that: Vishnu’s self-communication extends to all people; the fact that he has tempered his message in line with the historical and cultural contexts of other people does not undermine the argument of universal revelation.

To conclude this discussion, let us reflect briefly on how a Hindu Vaishnava can engage in interreligious discussion. I have tried to emphasize that the point here is not merely to learn about other religious traditions. On this view, questions of religious ultimacy are not paramount: by way of example, the question for a Vaishnava Hindu is not whether the doctrine of the Trinity is supported in the Bible but whether there is value in us thinking about the Divine as triune in nature. What sort of religious possibilities would such an understanding open up for us and in what ways could it be used to deepen our experience of God’s mystery and interpersonal attributes. Similarly, a Hindu Vaishnava can reflect on the Islamic understanding of tawhid and the ways in which the understanding of divine unicity reflect fundamental aspects of the divine reality.

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[1]            I.e. relating to salvation.

[2]           If you are an exclusivist as regards the question of religious truth, then you are more likely to be sceptical of the salvific prospects of outsiders to your religious tradition. However, this relationship need not invariably obtain. You could, possibly but implausibly, argue that while your own religious tradition is true and that of others false, outsiders can still attain salvation by somehow availing themselves of the soteriologically effective spirit of your tradition.

[3]           In this post, ultimate reality, divine reality, God, the Real, should all be treated as synonyms. Some religious traditions (i.e. Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, and Jainism) do not conceive of the ultimate reality in theistic terms and so the term ‘God’ for such traditions is inapposite.

[4]           I.e. God centred.

[5]           I appreciate that, in reality, no such thing exists. Vaishnavism comprises many traditions, all of which offer diverse theological approaches to important religious concepts. However, given the tentative nature of this post and the disutility in too narrow an approach, I would like to suggest that there is a sense in which we can think theologically through the Hindu Vaishnava prism in ways that are conceptually coherent and clear and productive.

[6]           Ye Yatha Mam Prapadyante, Tams Tathaiva Bhajamy Aham,  Mama Vartmanuvartante, Manusyah Partha Sarvasah

[7]           Radhakrishnan’s commentary on the Bhagavad Gita.

[8]           A recognition of the provisional legitimacy of religious practices that are expressly inferior and not recommended can be found in the Old Testament. For example, Deuteronomy represents the religions of non-Jews as divinely approved, even if inferior to the religion of Israel. Deuteronomy 4:19 reads as follows: “when you look up to the heavens and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, do not be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples everywhere under heaven” (emphasis mine). Commenting on this passage, S. R. Driver wrote: “The God of Israel [assigns] to every nation its objects of worship; and the veneration of the heavenly bodies by the nations (other than Israel) forms part of his providential order of the world.”[8] Further, in his Anchor Bible commentary, M. Weinfeld endorses the same explanation of the verse: “The heavenly bodies as objects of worship were assigned to the nations by God himself”[8].