Plurality and Relativity: Whitehead, Jainism, and the Reconstruction of Religious Pluralism (2000) (original) (raw)
This dissertation attempts to construct a pluralistic approach to religion in the tradition of Raimon Panikkar and John Hick, but with a significant difference. Unlike their theories, my approach is based on a synthesis of Whitehead’s process metaphysics and the Jain “philosophy of relativity.” I claim that a form of religious pluralism can be developed on the basis of this synthesis that expresses the understanding of the relativity of truth central to current versions of this position, without rejecting altogether the notion of an absolute truth as the logical foundation for the relativity of religious claims. The traditional Jain approach to religious and philosophical plurality is the model I use for developing a pluralistic system for the interpretation and evaluation of particular religious claims as relatively true, but I do so on the basis of Whitehead’s metaphysical theism. I claim that this approach improves upon previous theories while yet advancing the same basic position that many religions can be conceived as, in various senses, true.
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