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Grading Religions

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Abstract

This essay develops standards for grading religions including various forms of spiritualism. First, I examine the standards proposed by William James, John Hick, Paul Knitter, Dan Cohn-Sherbok, and Harold Netland. Most of them are useful in grading religions with or without conditions. However, those standards are not enough for refined and piercing evaluation. Thus, I introduce standards used in spiritualism. Although those standards are for grading spirits and their teachings, they are useful in refined and piercing evaluation of religious phenomena. The spiritual standards complement James’s, Hick’s, Knitter’s, and Netland’s standards. Although most of the spiritual standards are rationally unjustifiable, they have practical value.

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Notes

  1. James (1982), 18.

  2. James (1982), 380–381. W. T. Stace divides mystical experiences into two types—extrovertive and introvertive ones—and lists characteristics of each type, many of which are common between the two types. The common characteristics include sense of objectivity or reality, blessedness, peace, holiness, paradoxicality, and ineffability. Stace (1960), 131–132.

  3. James (1982), 426.

  4. James (1982), 381.

  5. Hick (1981), 451.

  6. Hick (1981), 461.

  7. Hick (1981), 462.

  8. Netland (1997), 184.

  9. Cohn-Sherbok (1986), 379.

  10. Cohn-Sherbok (1986), 379.

  11. Hick (1981), 462.

  12. Cohn-Sherbok (1986), 379.

  13. Hick (1981), 463.

  14. Hick (1981), 465.

  15. Cohn-Sherbok (1986), 380.

  16. Hick (1981), 458–459.

  17. Cohn-Sherbok (1986), 380–381.

  18. Hick (1981), 466–467.

  19. Hick (1981), 467.

  20. Hick (1981), 467.

  21. Cohn-Sherbok (1986), 380.

  22. Hick (1981), 463.

  23. Knitter (1985), 231.

  24. Cohn-Sherbok (1986), 381.

  25. Cohn-Sherbok (1986), 381.

  26. I say ‘seeming’ because, as we will see, there may be no real incoherence in belief between religions.

  27. Cohn-Sherbok (1986), 381.

  28. Cohn-Sherbok (1986), 384.

  29. Cohn-Sherbok (1986), 385.

  30. For example, Peoples Temple and Aum Shinrikyo would be such religions.

  31. Hick (1981), 467.

  32. Netland (1997), 160.

  33. Netland (1997), 160.

  34. Netland (1997), 160–162. Netland makes a similar critique against Knitter’s standard of practicality, saying that it ‘is entirely useless apart from first settling the question of truth.’ According to Netland, we first need the answer to the following question: ‘What is the ultimate nature of the human predicament and how can one attain release from it?’ Netland (1997), 164.

  35. Paul Griffiths and Delmas Lewis also assume this when criticizing Hick. Griffiths and Lewis (1983), 79–80. For Hick’s reply to their criticism, see Hick (1983).

  36. Cohn-Sherbok (1986), 379.

  37. I suggest the possibility that Cohn-Sherbok’s remark and the incomplete language thesis may apply to external inconsistency between religions. But, as we saw, I do not apply them to internal inconsistency within a religion when grading the religion.

  38. Netland (1997), 166.

  39. Netland (1997), 192–193.

  40. Netland (1997), 190–191.

  41. Netland (1997), 190.

  42. For Weber’s theory of objective possibility, see Weber (1949), 164–188.

  43. Galloway (1925), 181.

  44. Hick (1981), 467.

  45. Moses (1898), 201.

  46. Austen (1998), 137–138.

  47. Ortzen (2000), 111–112.

  48. Kardec (2007), 335.

  49. Kardec (2007), 337.

  50. Kardec (2007), 337.

  51. Ortzen (2000), 112.

  52. It is impossible to find an ultimate rational ground for a spirit’s teachings because the search for it leads to either infinite regress, circularity, or an arbitrary stopping point (Agrippa’s trilemma). The trilemma originates from the Five Modes of Agrippa in ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism. See Diogenes Laertius (1991), book 9, sections 88–89; Sextus Empiricus (2000), book 1, sections 164–177.

  53. Kardec (2007), 337.

  54. Kardec (2007), 340–341.

  55. Kardec (2007), 338.

  56. Kardec (2007), 338.

  57. Kardec (2007), 337–338.

  58. Kardec (2007), 338.

  59. Kardec (2007), 339.

  60. Kardec (2007), 335.

  61. Kardec (2007), 339.

  62. Kardec (2007), 340.

  63. Kardec (2007), 341.

  64. Kardec (2007), 340.

  65. Kardec (2007), 342.

  66. Kardec (2007), 338–339.

  67. Kardec (2007), 339–340.

  68. Kardec (2007), 340.

  69. Kardec (2007), 338.

  70. Kardec (2007), 341–342.

  71. Kardec (2007), 342.

  72. Hick (1981), 467.

  73. The idea of Bankyo Dokon in Oomoto and similar ideas in its derivative religions are such an example. Also, Hick’s religious pluralism suggests that incompatibility between various religions is more seeming than real. On his religious pluralism, see Hick (2004).

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Peter Byrne and two anonymous reviewers of Sophia for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this essay.

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  1. Independent Philosopher, Yoshinogawa, Tokushima, Japan

    Noriaki Iwasa

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Iwasa, N. Grading Religions. SOPHIA 50, 189–209 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-010-0199-z

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