Peter Kreeft. Between One Faith and Another: Engaging Conversations on the World’s Great Religions. IVP Books, 2017. See here to purchase the book.
Peter Kreeft teaches philosophy at Boston College and is the author
of over fifty books. Because Kreeft has written about Christian
apologetics and uses rigorous logic in his presentations that I have
heard, I was expecting this book to be a critique of non-Christian
religions and an argument that Christianity is superior. I was wrong,
and pleasantly surprised.
The book is a fictional dialogue among three people, all of whom
participate in a religion class. First, there is Thomas Keptic, a
student. Thomas is an exclusivist. What that often means in this book
is that Thomas believes that the truth claims of the religions are
mutually irreconcilable: they cannot all be true. Thomas is not a
conservative Christian claiming that Christianity is true, however, but
rather is a skeptic (get it, Thomas Ceptic) and an agnostic about
religious truth claims. He relies heavily on logic, particularly the
law of non-contradiction.
Second, there is Bea Lever, another student. She is an inclusivist,
which means that she maintains that the different religions share
commonalities in their practices and even, on some level, in their truth
claims, and thus they are accessing a common reality. She considers
herself a Christian (her name is Bea Lever, as in “believer”), and
Thomas often nitpicks her about how she can be a Christian while
rejecting the exclusivism (in this case, the claim that one religion is
true while others are false) that is promoted in the Bible. Whereas
Thomas relies on logic, Bea values intuition.
Third, there is Professor Fesser, who teaches the religion class. He
is somewhat of a mediator in the discussions between Thomas and Bea.
He points out the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, and he often
encourages both to consider the aspects of the religions themselves,
rather than continually falling back on the exclusivism-inclusivism
debate. He is called a pluralist.
The book explores the question of the definition of religion and the
religious sense, and it also discusses specific religions: Hinduism,
Buddhism, Zen, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.
The final chapter is about the question of whether contradictory
religions can simultaneously be true. This question recurs throughout
the book, but it is the focus of the final chapter.
All three perspectives get their licks in. That does not mean that
the book is a long, acrimonious debate (though it occasionally does
become heated), but rather that each side boldly defends its beliefs.
Conservative Christianity does not mercilessly mow down the other sides,
in short. Near the end, I thought that the book would go in that
direction, when Professor Fesser encouraged Thomas to seriously consider
Pascal’s Wager and the Lord-Liar-Lunatic argument in light of his
(Thomas’) logical “either-or” perspective. But Professor Fesser does
not dwell on that, and the book ends on an inconclusive note, as if the
journey, not the destination, is what is important. In addition, while
each side holds its beliefs, they also modify them, on some level:
Thomas eventually sees some value in inclusivism, and Bea admits that
she is not an absolute inclusivist but draws the line somewhere.
The book does not just dwell on the exclusivism-inclusivism debate,
but it also delves into the peculiarities of different religions, and
the diversity within them. For example, an intriguing part of the book
is when Professor Fesser explains that the co-existence of
contradictions, in which prominent aspects of Hinduism believe, makes
sense in light of Hindu principles about theology and cosmology.
Although the debate itself does not go in an explicitly conservative
Christian direction, Kreeft, in a thoughtful introduction, explains how
the three approaches fit into his own understanding of Christianity.
Kreeft is an exclusivist in that he believes that Christ is God
incarnate, yet he also holds that the Logos/light enlightens everyone
who comes into the world (a la John 1:9, though the meaning of that
verse has been debated), meaning that non-Christian religions have at
least some access to truth. Kreeft also shares where he identifies with
the three schools of thought that he addresses, and where he has
reservations.
The book is worth reading, particularly on account of its rounded exploration of issues.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. My review is honest!