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Good points from John which I think conclusively answer beliefs some (not myself) Christians may have that moral ideas and equality were absent pre 30-33AD.I've appreciate both standpoints in this Blog! I think the source of Jesus' & Paul's beliefs has to be founded in OT theology due to their context which was most certainly Jewish?

(James Thompson, on "Atheism and the Good Life")

Religious Relativism

Religious relativism is the view that religious claims are not true in any external way, but only within the belief system of the religious adherent. So, for instance, while it is true for Christians that God became a man in Jesus Christ and died on a cross,  it is true for Muslims that Jesus did not die on a cross and was only a human being.  No one is right or wrong in an ultimate sense. Both groups are right about Jesus relative to their own religious framework. Such religious relativism is sometimes called simply ‘pluralism’, the view that religious truth is plural in form, not singular.

A modern version of the Buddhist Elephant Parable is offered by a leading pluralist today, Prof. John Hick of the University of Birmingham (UK). He presents us with a picture first used in early studies of illusion:

   

The sketch, as you can see, shows an ambiguous figure drawn to look like both a duck (facing left) and a rabbit (facing right). Take a moment to see both for yourself. If shown to a culture which knew ducks but not rabbits, says Hick, the picture will be interpreted quite validly as a sketch of a duck. If shown to a culture that knew only rabbits, however, the picture would be interpreted naturally enough as that of a rabbit. No one is right or wrong, says Hick. It is simply a matter of perception. Likewise with religion, Hick argues. Muslims see Allah, Hindus see Vishnu, Krishna and so on, and Christians see Jesus. No one’s belief is true in an ultimate sense; but everyone’s belief is true relative to their cultural framework. Again, Plato would ask if this applies to the pluralism as well?

John Hick’s Duck-Rabbit analogy wonderfully illustrates not just religious relativism but cultural and moral relativism as well. Some Sudanese see female circumcision as a noble practice; Westerners see it as mutilation. Pro-choicers see abortion as a woman’s right; pro-lifer’s see it is as the murder of a voiceless human being. No one is right or wrong; it is just ‘ducks’ and ‘rabbits’. We just see life differently. That’s all.

Or is it?

In Part III of this series, The Limits of relativism, John Dickson challenges relativist thinking as ultimately unsatisfying and unsustainable.


Dr John Dickson
Director of the Centre for Public Christianity
Honorary Associate of the Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University (Australia)



An edited version of this article appears in, Simon Smart (Ed) A Spectator’s Guide to Worldviews, (Blue Bottle Books), 2007.

Further reading:

Sissela Bok, Common Values, Columbia MO: University of Missouri Press, 1995.

Gilbert Harman, Explaining Value: And Other Essays in Moral Philosophy, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000.

John Hick, The Rainbow of the Faiths: Critical Dialogues on Religious Pluralism. London: SCM Press, 1995.

Robert Kirk, Relativism and Reality: A Contemporary Introduction. London: Routledge, 1999.

Hans Kung (ed.), Yes to a Global Ethic: Voices from Religion and Politics, New York: Continuum, 1996.

James Rachels, “Subjectivism,” in A Companion to Ethics (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy), edited by Peter Singer. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993, 432-441.

Mi-Kyoung Lee, Epistemology after Protagoras: Responses to Relativism in Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005.

Michael Walzer, Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad, Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994.

David B. Wong, Moral Relativity, Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 1984.

— “Relativism,” in A Companion to Ethics (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy), edited by Peter Singer. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993, 442-450.

F. L. Woodward, The Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon (Part II). London: The Pali Text Society, 1987.

Online:

‘Relativism,’ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (online): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/

‘Moral Relativism,’ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (online): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/