LAUSR

Aldous Huxley’s presentation of this view in The Perennial Philosophy (1945), finds little to recommend it. Instead, Ward squarely acknowledges the radical divergences in belief and corresponding differences in the character of religious experience in different faiths. The sense of awareness of a personal divine presence plays a prominent role in much Judaism and Christianity, but religious experience can also (as in some Eastern religions) involve what G. F. Stout called ‘objectless awareness’, the sense of a timeless, boundless and ineffable reality. Ward argues that there is no need to adjudicate here: ‘I do not see why one needs to address . . . the question ‘‘Which is greater?’’. . .Why cannot both be true . . . [so that] different experiences can be experiences of different facets of the divine’ (p. 35). This may seem reminiscent of the ideas of one of the most famous defenders of pluralism, John Hick, to whom several chapters later on in the book are devoted; but although sympathetic to some parts of his outlook, Ward finds much to criticize, and ends up concluding that the type of pluralism Hick articulates is not a coherent option. What clearly emerges from Ward’s discussion as a whole is the need, in the modern world, for a revised approach to religious understanding – one that abandons claims to absolute truth and accepts that different religions may be ‘reasonable responses to transcendence’ (p. 119) within different cultural and historical traditions. The upshot is a plea for tolerance and for ‘dialectical interaction’, where ‘each set of religious beliefs and practices can seek to reflect in some uniquely creative way its understanding of the other beliefs it encounters’ (p. 204). What is envisaged, at least as an ideal (the reality, alas, may often fall short), is a continual exchange of experience and understanding, which for limited and imperfect minds is in itself a great good. This is an attractive and humane vision, though one may perhaps wonder whether Ward is being a little optimistic when he concludes that once the good of such interaction is seen and appreciated ‘the problem of religious diversity dissolves’ (p. 204).