Saving Grace

In an earlier post, I sketched what I meant when I stated that I am a Christian. As part of that discussion, I acknowledged that I would need to articulate my view about other faiths, but deferred doing so to another time. That time has now arrived.

Until recently, my view could essentially be summed up in the saying, All roads lead to Rome. That is, I believed all faiths were variations of the human experience of God, and as such, were ultimately different paths to the same outcome. In holding this view, I wanted to reject the notion that any one faith held an absolute monopoly on truth, or a complete understanding of God. I still abhor absolutism, and I still reject any suggestion that any one person or faith has the inside running on God. But my view about other faiths has changed. Or, more correctly, it has become more nuanced.

This change is largely due to having read, as part of my theological studies, a book entitled Salvations: Truth and Difference in Religions (Orbit Books, Maryknoll, New York, 1995) by the American theologian S. Mark Heim. Heim’s thesis is very simple: it is not a question of which faith saves? but what is salvation? Heim argues that different faiths cannot be qualitatively compared because the outcome toward which each faith is oriented is both different and unique. Moreover, what these differences, and the uniqueness underlying them, points to is the fact that there is more than one realisable religious aim, each of which represents a salvation available to the adherents of that faith. This may not be “salvation” as it is understood by Christians, but it is nonetheless real and providential.

Further, Heim argues that this “multiplicity of religious ends” is in fact reflective of the loving plenitude of God. The salvations available through other faiths represent the workings of God’s love across time and human society; God has extended to humanity the freedom to respond in a number of different ways to the invitation to realise the fullness of God‘s love. The religious end of each faith represents a unique and providential way in which humans can respond to that invitation.

In short, what Heim is arguing is not that all roads lead to Rome, but that all roads lead to different Romes. Each “Rome” represents the “salvation” available to the adherents of that faith; they are all unique and different, but they are also reflective of God’s love for humanity, and representative of the many ways in which humans can participate in the fullness of God’s love.

I think this is a powerful and deeply insightful analysis, not least because it enables Christians to perceive that Christianity, as a faith, is not “in competition” with other faiths; it is not a question of “survival of the strongest” or a “race” to make converts. Rather, Christians can assert the truth and uniqueness of Christian belief and practice, while at the same time neither arrogantly dismissing, nor superficially endorsing, the claims of other faiths. The context for understanding other faiths - and our own - becomes not conflictual or competitive, but relational.

Not that I agree with Heim on every point. Heim asserts that the “salvations” available in other faiths represent “lesser goods” because they are not full communion with God as this is understood by Christians; that while they represent the “dearest desire” of the adherents of that faith, the salvation available in Christianity is nonetheless the “most ultimate” of all the religious ends. In making this claim, I believe Heim has stumbled into a logical contradiction: if the different religious ends are each unique and incapable of qualitative comparison, then there are simply no grounds for asserting either that the “salvations” available through other faiths are “lesser goods”, or that the salvation of Christianity is the “most ultimate” of the realisable religious ends. Moreover, in this respect, I also think Heim strays perilously close to the kind of religious imperialism which his hypothesis of multiple religious ends is actually trying to avoid.

Ultimately, however, and influenced by my reading of Heim, I believe that all faiths offer their adherents the opportunity for salvation - not by providing different paths to the same door, but by providing a multiplicity of salvations that are unique to each faith, and which are not amenable to qualitative comparison. The salvation offered by each faith reflects the working of God’s love throughout history and across human society, as well as the freedom which God has given humanity to respond in different ways to the invitation to communion with God. I do not believe that the salvation offered by a particular faith can be said to be either a “lesser good” or the “most ultimate”; indeed, it is not a question of ascribing value to each religious end, or asserting that different faiths are of equal, lesser, or superior merit. Rather, it is simply a matter of recognising the unique and providential difference of each faith.

I appreciate that some may find this position confronting, disturbing, possibly even offensive. But I also believe that it is a position which, on the one hand, does not dilute my convictions as a Christian, while on the other, acknowledges and honours the presence and working of God in other faiths by recognising the valid religious end - the different and unique salvation - available to the adherents of other faiths.

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: There was a time when I used to reject those who were not of my faith; now my heart has grown capable of taking on all forms...Whichever the route love's caravan shall take, that path shall be the path of my faith. (Muhammad Ibn' Arabi)