Gregory Koukl: The new definition of pluralism is not only indefensible, but it also discourages critical thinking about the real issues.

Religious Pluralism

Some of you remember the caller from yesterday, Lee, who fell into the very same error right before our ears, not eyes. Lee, a Jewish man, was reprimanding me in a very terse way for promoting the Christian idea that Christianity was true and all other religions were false. What was wrong with that? This view spreads hate, he said.

He said, "We shouldn't criticize other people's religions." I said, "Then why are you criticizing mine?" He said, "It's wrong to say other religions are wrong." I said, "Then why are you saying my religion is wrong?" He said, "You're encouraging hate by saying only your view is right and others are mistaken." I said, "Then why are you spreading hate by publicly reprimanding me saying that only your view is right and mine is mistaken?"

Do you see how these arguments are self-defeating? And how this second version of tolerance is just silly? In order to tolerate somebody and be loving you can't assert your point of view as being correct. That's what they are saying. It is hateful. It is spiteful. It is like the guy yesterday who defined homophobia for me as someone who thinks that homosexuality is immoral. That's not a definition, that's just a name. I don't agree with your view, so you call me a name. A homophobe. Now, is that loving? Of course not. You see, these people can't play by their own pluralistic rules.

This is where the bottom falls out of this new definition of pluralism. The only way one can defend it is by violating their own principles of pluralism, which goes to show that this view just doesn't work. People rant and rave about being judgmental--all the time delivering their own judgments. And boy, I wish we could catch this: because they spend their time abrading people for thinking critically about the issues instead of asking the critical question themselves: Which religious view is more worthy of belief? They discourage proper critical thinking about these issues.

Isn't it unusual that this view encourages people never to assess the truth value of their religious claims. It's saying, don't think about those things, don't criticize, don't say somebody is wrong. If you buy that, then you can't criticize even the assessment of your own spiritual claims. Yet at the same time these are the folks who fault Christians who they think are blindly following the Bible. Religious truth claims must be challenged if we're to have any confidence whatsoever that they're true. If the truth claims of Christianity can be challenged--as they constantly are by these same religious pluralism devotees--why can't the truth claims of other religions also be challenged? It seems to me that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Mr. Tabash can only say that any individual who says that others are out of step with God's will--Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, for example--are intolerant and wrong because they claim to know what God's will actually is. But according to Edward Tabash, because Robertson, Falwell, and Buchanan think they know what God's will is, then they don't. But Tabash thinks he knows what God's will is, apparently, because these people are out of step with it. So then he must be out of step with God by his own rules.

Let's get rid of all this silly talk. Let's get down to the more vital questions. What is God's will, after all? How can we know it? How can we be confident of our knowledge? Let's think about those questions instead of throwing stupid arguments at everybody to get people to stop doing the critical thinking on the critical issues.

Amen.

It's not about always being right...on the scale of right and wrong, but striving to do what is morally right. There is a standard. It was set by Christ. It is unattainable by man, but a standard nonetheless.

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