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globaltheology
Inductive approaches
Society for Inter-religious Dialogue, Indonesia
Here are 10 steps in argument that encourage us to think about the religions as ventures in the movement towards transcendent understanding and human transformation:
1. The ‘transcendent vision and human transformation’ within the great world religions is based on the validity of the religious experience they embody and is counted as trustworthy.
2. This act of trustworthiness can be extended to others on the basis that other religious contexts too provide a framework for ‘transcendent vision and human transformation’;
3. The spiritual fruits of the many faith-traditions seem comparable: all have inspired saints and holy figures who have been active on either individual or sociopolitical levels (or both), and all have demonstrated their share of complicity in support of different kinds of social ills, such as racism, war, sexual prejudice, and so on
4. The distinction occurring in all faith-traditions between the ‘unknowability’ and the ‘knowability’ of Ultimate Reality in terms of its historic symbolic/iconic forms is the key distinction which allows for the hypothesis of the deeper ground of Ultimate Reality to be experienced and conceptualized in different historic symbolic/iconic forms according to cultural and religious history.
5. Theologies and religious philosophies have evolved within particular cultural environments, reflecting the limitations of these environments, but the faith-traditions now need to develop new directions for their theologies and philosophies in order to account for the wider picture encompassed by religious plurality.
6. Criteria for distinguishing between good and bad religion, and between true and false religion need to be developed in order to dispel the relativist caricature that any kind of religious expression is acceptable morally and spiritually.
7. Each tradition has both an adequate and inadequate grasp of the relationship between the particularity of its own origins and the universality of its destiny, creating the impression that different religious worldviews can be complementary.
8. Belief systems are practical means for achieving the religious ends of ‘transcendent vision and human transformation’.
9. Many metaphysical and other disagreements between traditions will remain but this does not invalidate the basic picture of complementarity between them.
10. Patterns of complementarity can be pursued through critical dialogue, in mutual respect and without prejudice.
Perhaps the theologian/philosopher who has pursued this approach the most is the British writer, John Hick. His web site carries numerous articles for you to consult. Here is a quotation from one of them:
So in other words, between ourselves and God as God is in God’s ultimate transcendent being there is a screen of varied and changing human images of God - not graven images but mental images, or pictures, or concepts of God. And our awareness of God is always through and in terms of these human images. We worship God through our own images of God, to which our human ideas and cultural assumptions have inevitably contributed. These mental images not only differ considerably between religions, but also within a given religion. In fact if we could see into one another’s minds now I believe we would find a great range of images or concepts of God in this room.
Inductive approaches remain controversial. Some critics argue that they assume a neutral stand-point among the religions and such a position is not available to us. Some complain that they try to solve the problem of differences between traditions too easily. Others say that they rob religion of the vitality that stems from having a single-minded outlook, an outlook which need not be intolerant of others but which remains firm in its conviction about the ultimate truth of its own religious path.
It is true that inductive approaches require the traditions to dismantle their claims to superiority and finality. And it is this which probably makes them difficult for many believers in many traditions.
Contents / Introduction / Global superiority / All-Inclusive / Momentum / Pressure / Inductive approaches / Initiatives / Summary / Inspiration / Resources
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