Is Religious Pluralism the will of Allah?

Most Jews think that Judaism is the best religion for them because it teaches that it is good to ask questions, it is the oldest of the three Abrahamic religions and has produced believers who were able to survive many oppressions and exiles, and it has inspired the birth of the two largest worldwide religions: Christianity and Islam.

Most Christians think that Christianity is the best religion for them because it teaches that the life, death and resurrection of Prophet Jesus, the Son of God, offers all of them who are true believers, God’s love and salvation from Hell.

Most Muslims think that Islam is the best religion for them because Islam is the last and best corrected of God’s three Abrahamic religions.

It is true that the Hebrew-Jews (Genesis 14:13) were able to survive as an ongoing monotheistic religion for about 15 centuries, when none of the hundreds of other pre-Abrahamic prophets monotheistic religions could. But while the Jews accepted converts they did not send out missionaries to any great extent so monotheism did not spread worldwide.

But a 2020 Pew Research Center survey, shows American Jews are becoming more diverse. Compared to 8% of all Jewish adults, 15% of those ages 18 to 29 identified with a nonwhite category. Most of these non-white Jews are converts to Judaism; and according to a very recent PhD thesis survey of 55 converts in the Los Angeles area by Dr. Stephanie Cubba: 2% were Asian, 7% were African American and 16% were Latino.

It is true that Jesus reduced ritual details for Jews while the other rabbis were adding ritual rules. But while Christianity made it easier for believers to do the rituals, it made redemption harder by requiring pure belief in the Trinity which created many dozens of Heretical sects.

Also Islam and Judaism demanded an unitarian, imageless God, while the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches did not.

For almost all of the 20th century issues of nationalism and socialism engaged the hearts, minds and activities of large numbers of people throughout the world in ways that were both positive and negative. In the last three decades the rivalry and conflicts of these two ideologies have been in decline, and a world wide extremist religious narrow-mindedness is rising. These political-religious ideologies and movements can and will be both liberating and destructive for many societies as well as many millions of individuals.

People, organizations and movements who are fully committed to contributing to a world at peace, and who are equally committed to respect both our own religion and our neighbor’s, will need to do all we 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 therefore there is no higher spiritual authority available for setting ethical standards or making moral judgements.

Thus, issues of justice, truth or human rights are, like beauty, just in the eye of the beholder. 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.

The fundamental idea supporting religious pluralism is that religious people need to embrace humility in many areas of religion. All religions have always taught a traditional anti self centered personal egoism type of humility.

Religious pluralism also opposes a religious, philosophical, and self righteous intellectual egoism that promotes a tendency to turn our legitimate love for our own prophet and Divine revelation into universal truths that we fully understand and know how to apply.

Religious pluralism teaches that finite humans, even the most intelligent and pious of them, can not fully understand everything the way the infinite One does. This is true, for every human being, even for God’s messengers themselves. When prophet Moses.“who God spoke with face to face, as a person speaks with a friend” (Exodus 33:11) asks to see God face to face, he is told, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see My face and live.” (33:20)

Similarly, in the Qur’an prophet Jesus admits to God, “You know everything that is within myself, whereas I do not know what is within Yourself”. (7:116) In the New testament when prophet Jesus is asked, in private, by his disciples, “What will be the sign for your coming (back) and the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3) Jesus warns his disciples about all kinds of upheavals and false Messiahs that will come. Then Jesus concludes by saying, “But about that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, not even the son: only the Father”. (24:36)

A similar statement was made by prophet Muhammad when he was asked, “Tell me about the Hour”. Muhammad replied: “The one questioned about it, knows no better than the questioner.” (Muslim book 1:1&4) Prophet Muhammad taught the general principle of epistemological humility to his followers when he said, “I am no novelty among the messengers. I do not know what will be done to me, or to you.” (Qur’an 46:9)

If, even the messengers of God humbly admit that they do not know the answers to many questions, how much more should we ordinary believers refuse to claim to know it all. 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 that Jews, Christians and Muslims have been blessed with.

As the Qur’an declares, “Every people has a direction towards which they turn; so compete together wherever you may be as if in a race towards all that is good. Surely Allah will bring you all together.” (2:148) Religions are to compete with one another, but not by claiming to be in possession of a better or higher truth.

Religions should compete in doing good deeds. This is a test of the commitment and effectiveness of each communities leaders, and the sincerity and devotion of each religion’s followers. Competing in doing good 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 nations, and many religions. “For each We have appointed a clear way of life and a comprehensive system. If Allah had so willed He would surely have made you a single community: but (didn’t) in order to test you by what (Scripture) He granted you. So compete together as if competing in good works. All of you will (ultimately) return to Allah and then He will make you understand what you have differed about.” (5:48)

Only after resurrection, at the time of final judgements, 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 must rule.

Large scale immigration, the ubiquity of modern media, and the Internet have transformed our world, and now require religious leaders to spend much more time and effort studying their own tradition to find and publicize ideas of religious pluralism. I firmly believe that throughout human history, prophets and holy men have appeared in every nation and every tribe to speak God’s words.

“Assuredly We have raised up within every community a Messenger (proclaiming) worship God alone, and keep away from false Gods and the powers of evil. Among them (each religious community) were people whom God guided, just as there were among them those for whom straying was their just due. (Qur’an 16:36).

Thus, I am not surprised to find that every major religious tradition I have studied has some statements affirming the philosophy of religious pluralism. These texts were only theory in pre-modern times, when contact between different major religious communities was very limited, and so were not accorded the emphasis and significance that they now deserve. That needs to change.

Christians and Jews have the words of the prophet Micah, who declared that until the end of history, and into the Messianic Age, religious pluralism will continue to be the norm even among polytheists. “Though all peoples/nations walk, each in the name of its Gods, we will walk in the name of YHVH our God forever.” (Micah 4:5)

Micah, lived 2,700 years ago, in the same generation as the more famous prophet Isaiah. Micah is the first explicit proponent of religious pluralism in the west. Micah, like all prophets sent to Israel, and all the other prophets sent to other peoples, believed that there was only one God. Yet he was inspired by that one God to proclaim that the many peoples and nations on the earth would never have only one religion.

Even polytheism would survive until the end of days. However, it might be that what we would call polytheism and idol worship today will someday be understood by the polytheists as monotheism.

In India, about three or four centuries prior to prophet Micah, the Rig-veda, the oldest scripture in Hinduism, stated (Book 1, hymn 164, verse 46): “Sages/Priests call the one God by many names.” But the word translated as God really means ultimate reality/truth and the usual translation of “Ekam Sat, Viprah Bahudha Vadanti” is, “Truth is one but learned men describe it differently”.

As a Rabbi, I would interpret this to mean that ‘God/Ultimate Reality is one, but Hindu sages declare-define-discuss-differentiate it as many.’ A Hindu philosopher would say that when Hindus enter a temple and see perhaps a dozen different statues of Deities, in their mind, they see just one Divinity. The many religious streams making up Hinduism: the Vaishnava worship of Krishna, the Shaiva worship of Shiva and the Shakta worship of Durga are unified through the power of this simple verse.

To a Rabbi this verse is really not a statement about the one unique Divine personality who created the universe, and who should not be associated with any of the gods of polytheism. The verse expresses a philosophy of universal metaphysical truth called monism (the denial of meaningful fundamental distinctions) or as this philosophy is usually call by Buddhists; non dualism.

By religious pluralism I mean a conscious acceptance that there can be, and are, legitimate alternate values and views, that contain different truths for other peoples and religions. This is what the Qur’an teaches about the Abrahamic religions and in at least one passage the Qur’an anticipated that traditional polytheism could be turned into a kind of monotheism if its adherents understood it that way, as many of today’s Hindus and Zoroastrians do.

“Those who believe (Muslims), those who declare Judaism, Christians and Sabaeans: whoever believes in God and the last day (of Judgment) and does good, righteous deeds, surely their reward is with their Lord, and they shall have no fear, nor will they grieve”. (2:62) The traditional commentaries have suggested that the Sabaeans could be many different religious groups among them Zoroastrians and Hindus. Only God knows.

About the same time as the Rig Veda spoke of many truths/gods/realities fundamentally being one and the same, a Jewish leader named Jephthah offered a different approach. He tried to avoid a war by appealing to an invading king as follows.” Do you not hold what Chemosh, your God, has given you? So we will hold on to all that YHVH, our God, has given us.” (Judges11:24)

Jephthah does not believe in Chemosh nor does he think that Chemosh is just another name for the Holy One of Israel. He knows that the One God of Israel does not allow Jews to have any other god. But Jephthah recognizes the king’s religious beliefs, and wants the king to equally recognize Israel’s. Thus, YHVH the One God of Israel is the only God for Jews but others can have one God that they submit to.

As the Qur’an declares, “For every community We have appointed a whole system of worship which they are to observe. So do not let them draw you into disputes concerning the matter, but continue to call people to your Lord…God will judge between (all of) you on the Day of Resurrection about what you used to differ.” (22:67&69)

To use a simple example; there are many ways to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Some people fly, others take the train or the bus, most drive by car and a few even sail or ride a bike. Each way has its pros and cons. Flying is fast but you do not see the scenery. Driving is less expensive but you can’t read or sleep on the way.

What is important to understand is that you can’t take the different ways and combine them to get the best of all ways. A combination of a boat, a car, a bike and a train will not produce something that will take you anywhere.

Indeed, the Qur’an asserts that although the prophets all bring the same basic message of ethical monotheism the details vary according to the time and situation of each people, and prophets vary in their roles, activities, and personality. Qur’an, 2:253, states: “We made some of these messengers excel others; to some Allah spoke (directly), others He exalted in rank; and to Jesus son of Mary We gave clear miracles and strengthened him with the holy spirit.

“If Allah had pleased, those after them would not have fought one with another after clear arguments had come to them, but they disagreed; so there were some of them who believed and others who denied. If Allah had pleased they would not have fought one with another, but Allah brings about what He intends.”

Also,Qur’an 17:55 which reads: “And your Lord best knows those who are in the heavens and the earth; and certainly We have made some of the prophets to excel others, and to David We gave a scripture.”

The Prophet himself taught that even in the world to come it will not be clear if Moses or Muhammad is the supreme Prophet. Narrated Abu Huraira: Two persons, a Muslim and a Jew, quarreled. The Muslim said, “By Him Who gave Muhammad superiority over all the people! The Jew said, “By Him Who gave Moses superiority over all the people!” At that the Muslim raised his hand and slapped the Jew on the face. The Jew went to the Prophet and informed him of what had happened.

“The Prophet sent for the Muslim and asked him about it. The Muslim informed him of the event. The Prophet said, “Do not give me superiority over Moses, for on the Day of Resurrection all the people will fall unconscious and I will be one of them. I will be the first to gain consciousness, and I will see Moses standing and holding the side of the Throne (of Allah). I will not know whether (Moses) had also fallen unconscious and got up before me, or Allah has exempted him from that stroke.” (Bukhari book 76 #524)

Both Jews and Muslims should learn humility from this teaching of Prophet Muhammad and followers of all religions should always repeat this teaching: “Prophets are brothers in faith, having different mothers. Their religion is, however, one.” (Muslim, book #030, Hadith #5836)