Religious Pluralism Is God’s Will

By Rabbi Allen S. Maller

Individuals, organisations and movements who are fully committed to contributing to a world at peace and who are equally committed to respect both their own religion and their neighbour's need to do all they can to promote interfaith religious respect through the advocacy of religious pluralism as the will of God.

Religious pluralism as the will of God is very different from religious, moral or cultural relativism. Relativism teaches that all values and standards are subjective, and that, therefore, there is no higher spiritual authority available for setting ethical standards or making moral judgments. Thus, issues of justice, truth or human rights are, like beauty, just in the eye of the beholder.

But most people, especially those who believe that One God created all of us, refuse to believe that ethics and human rights are simply a matter of taste. Religious pluralism as the will of God is the opposite of cultural or philosophical relativism. Every major religious tradition I have studied has some statements affirming the philosophy of religious pluralism. Just as humans are now learning the importance of biodiversity for the welfare of all the planet’s plants and animals, so too we must we learn the importance of religious diversity for all of our planet’s human beings.

The fundamental idea supporting religious pluralism is that religious people need to embrace humility in many areas of religion. All religions have always taught an anti-self-centered and anti-personal egoism type of humility, and this is something that resonates with religious pluralism. Religious pluralism also opposes a religious, philosophical, and self-righteous intellectual egoism that promotes a tendency to turn our legitimate love for our own key religious figures and traditions into absolutist claims.

Religious pluralism teaches that finite humans, even the most intelligent and pious of them, cannot fully understand everything the way the infinite One (God) does. This is true, for every human being. When it comes to religious truths, we can see them, but only in part. The part we can see derives from the prophets and the holy scriptures. We are to compete with one another, not by claiming to be in possession of a better or higher truth, but in doing good deeds. This is a test of the commitment and effectiveness of each community’s leaders and the sincerity and devotion of each religion's followers. Competing in doing good deeds is a test for us as believers. It is not a test for determining which religion has the truest truth. This is why God made us into many communities and many religions.

Only at the time of the final Judgment will humans be able to understand the full meaning of their various sacred scriptures and the truths contained in the differences between them. In this world, God has determined that religious humility should rule.

(Allen S. Maller is an ordained Reform Rabbi who retired in 2006 after 39 years as the Rabbi of Temple Akiba in Los Angeles, California. His web site is: www.rabbimaller.com. He blogs on the Times of Israel. Rabbi Maller has published 450+ articles in some two dozen different magazines and websites. He is the author of two recent books: Judaism and Islam as Synergistic Monotheisms and Which Religion Is Right For You? A 21st Century Kuzari)