The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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Is agnosticism about religious truth a necessary condition of interreligious dialogue? Must one allow that no claim to truth can be more than precisely that—a human claim, as distinct from the truth as such?

My answer is, No, for the same reason that I do not think one has to allow that all religions are equally true in order to be able to enter into interreligious dialogue. In fact, the two allowances would appear to be two ways of making one and the same mistake; for to allow that all religions are equally true and that no claim to religious truth can be more than that evidently come to much the same thing.

The truth in agnosticism about religious truth is that whether any claim is, in fact, more than a human claim can never be determined in advance of the relevant form of dialogue and inquiry. Otherwise put, any claim to truth needs to be validated. The truth in the other allowance—let us call it, egalitarianism—is that any claim to truth deserves to be validated.

December 1988

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