Beyond Existentialism and Zen

RUPP IN PERSPECTIVE: AN EXAMINATION OF TWO
TOPICS IN BEYOND EXISTENTIALISM AND ZEN
Daniel R. Alvarez
Department of Religious Studies, Florida International University
Introduction
In Beyond Existentialism and Zen: Religion in a Pluralistic World,1 George Rupp, for-
merly a professor and then dean of Harvard Divinity School in the early 1980s and
currently president of Columbia University, has articulated a model for understand-
ing religious pluralism that has been either unduly neglected or simply dismissed in
the literature. In fact, with a couple of exceptions Rupp's work was uniformly bashed
by reviewers of the book. In this essay I will argue that Rupp's model represents a
powerful and provocative Hegelian alternative to the inclusivist (most prominently,
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan's and John Hick's) or exclusivist (most recently, Mortimer
Adler's and Alvin Plantinga's) models that dominate the contemporary literature, and
that far from being inadequate, confused, or immature (a few of the words evoked by
some of the reviews), it is a coherent and plausible typological approach to the prob-
lems and questions raised by our radically pluralistic situation. Most significantly,
perhaps, is the fact that Rupp's model combines some of the perceived virtues of
the exclusivist approach with a ``critical relativism'' that accommodates the strengths
of inclusivism.
Regardless of any real or perceived failings on his part, I hope that my analysis of
Rupp's model will convince the reader that Rupp's contribution is worth revisiting
and taking seriously. I also hope that it will become evident that, as far as I can see,
nothing like it is to be found in the literature; Rupp's model stands to date as a
unique and distinctive contribution to our understanding of religious pluralism. Al-
though my own approach will in the end reject both the Kantian (Hick's) and the
Hegelian model proffered by Rupp in favor of a more radically relativistic perspec-
tive, I acknowledge in the pages that follow my indebtedness to Rupp's approach
and the stimulus it provided this author in his own efforts to make sense of our cur-
rent religious situation.
Theologians would therefore do well to dust off their copies of Beyond Existen-
tialism and Zen and Christologies and Cultures,2 his major works in theology to date,
and pause before Rupp's intriguing and challenging formulations on their way to
what they suppose, perhaps prematurely, to be the greener pastures of postmodern
theologies. What Rupp has to offer to the serious reader is not necessarily a system-
atic alternative or model for the way we do theology or view religious truth, although
he most assuredly offers that. But he also offersand here is where engaging Rupp's
thought has proved most fecunda point of departure, a summons, and a dare to
Philosophy East & West Volume 55, Number 2 April 2005 153178 153
> 2005 by University of Hawaiì Press
reflect intensely and deeply about issues that come into sharper focus when con-
fronted by a forceful, systematic, audacious, and mature reflection.
What follows is an examination of two topics discussed by Rupp in his Beyond
Existentialism and Zen that I take to be the heart of Rupp's argument. In the first part,
I deal with what Rupp calls at one point ``the truth of Zen''; in the second part, I com-
pare and contrast what I consider to be two very different approaches to the question
of religious pluralism offered by Beyond Existentialism and Zen; the third part devel-
ops and defends in more detail one of the approaches to pluralism discussed in part
2. Part 1 is primarily a critique of Rupp's version of the truth of Zen, followed by the
presentation of a constructive solution, from a self-consciously naturalistic perspec-
tive, to tensions and concerns raised by Rupp's discussion. In a preliminary way I
would say that I put much more emphasis on the role of human action and give a
more negative appraisal of the cosmos than Rupp offers. In part 2 I defend a version
of relativism in principle, which, I will argue, is implicit in Rupp's book, whether
or not Rupp's intended view reflects this interpretation. Although each part is techni-
cally independent of the others, the constructive solution in part 1 anticipates a natu-
ralized theology consistent with and complementary to the approach to pluralism
introduced in part 2 and defended in part 3, although this approach, far from accord-
ing to naturalism a privileged or neutral status, relativizes the naturalistic metaphys-
ics to which this author is committed.
The Truth of Zen
Rupp's book is about God and religious pluralism, perhaps the two most hotly con-
tested issues of our times. It is an attempt to say what we mean by ``God'' from the
perspective of contemporary experience, and to propose criteria by which we can
adjudicate the adequacy or validity of different approaches to ``the God question''
within and across individual religious traditions. The most arresting aspect of Rupp's
book is the casting of his analysis and argument in terms of ideal types or ``systematic
alternatives.'' Although fully aware of its limitations (p. 37), I agree with Rupp's judg-
ment that typological analysis is useful in ferreting out and identifying systematic
commitments and tendencies across religious traditions, facilitating comparisons
among religious worldviews that would otherwise prove impractical or impossible.
In parts 2 and 3 of this essay I focus on the implications of Rupp's typological anal-
ysis for religious pluralism. Part 1 will focus on the type that Rupp believes, first, is
able both to overcome the deficiencies inherent in the others and to incorporate
their strengths and, second, expresses or captures the nature of ultimate reality
(``self's ultimate environment'') more adequately than the other typological alterna-
tives, namely the Third or Hegel type.
On pages 34 and 35 of Beyond Existentialism and Zen Rupp writes:
The equivalent in the ``modern'' situation of the traditional question of God is . . . the
query as to the nature of or character of the self's ultimate environment conceived as
continuous with life in the present rather than as another reality complete and perfect
154 Philosophy East & West

apart from the world. . . . The question of the nature of this ultimate environment becomes
more focused if it is addressed from the perspective of its relation to human activity.
When the question is so formulated, the various responses may be classified with refer-
ence to four systematically distinct positions.3
The first systematic alternative or type is `àn uncompromising nihilism'' (empha-

sis mine). For this type of response, ``the universe is so constituted as utterly to frus-
trate all human action. Not only is there no cosmic support for human efforts, but
those efforts themselves have no hope of realization'' (p. 35).4 The second position
Rupp calls the Zen type. This response, in opposition to nihilism, `àffirms all that is.
Hence human existence is ingredient in a totality which need only be rightly appre-
hended to be appreciated without qualification.'' The third systematic alternative is
the Existentialist type. This response views ``human agents as struggling in a neutral
or indifferent universe, but struggling with the prospect of realizing limited though
still significant goals.'' The fourth alternative initially does not have a label. Later in
the book this position will assume the title of Third or Hegel type. It is a position that
shares with existentialism an emphasis on the creative power of human action, but
it combines this emphasis with an ultimately positive appraisal of the cosmos, an
appraisal that affirms what is, as in the process of becoming good even though that
potential is not yet fully actualized.
At the beginning of chapter 3, Rupp further characterizes the Third type as
[t]he perspective which not only affirms with existentialism that constructive human
action to create meaning and value is possible but also agrees with Zen that the self's ul-
timate environment is hospitable toward and supportive of this activity. . . . [I]t sees value
being realized not only through individual human action but also through ongoing natu-
ral and cultural development. (p. 47; emphasis mine)
My primary concern is not with what Rupp says above about existentialism but
with what he affirms about what he elsewhere calls ``the truth of Zen'' (p. 77). The
essential feature of the Zen perspective that Rupp incorporates in the Third type is its
thesis that the ``self's ultimate environment is hospitable and supportive'' of the activ-
ity of ``human action to create meaning and value.'' By `ùltimate environment'' Rupp
means both the natural and cultural order (as his own gloss indicates), although,
since the cultural order is principally the product of human action, Rupp probably
intends the natural order as the primary meaning of this term. The other expressions
that Rupp uses as synonymous with `ùltimate environment'' (namely, ``structure of
the real'' [p. 63], `ùltimate ontological context'' [p. 86], and ``cosmos'' [p. 54]) cer-
tainly suggest the natural order as the intended and primary referent.
What Rupp means by ``hospitable'' is, perhaps, clear enough. By ``hospitable'' I
presume that he means that the planet Earth contains all the ingredients and condi-
tions necessary for the emergence and survival, from among a rich variety of life
forms, of the human species.5 Furthermore, the cosmos provides an adequate con-
text wherein humankind can fulfill much more than its natural needs, that is, a con-
text that makes possible the realization of characteristically (as far as we can tell)
Daniel R. Alvarez 155

human dispositions and activities: emotional and physical expression and fulfill-
ment, communal bonding, the pursuit of intellectual and spiritual ideals and values,
the transformation of humanity and the context out of which it has emerged and pre-
cariously sustains itself, et cetera. So much seems to be clear and unobjectionable.
What Rupp means by ``supportive'' is more problematic. To say that the cosmos
is ``supportive'' is problematic because he does not say enough about what he means
by this term. From his meagerand rather metaphoricalremarks, it can be conjec-
tured that the cosmos is supportive of human action in that in some sense the cos-
mos itself is ``moving toward'' or ``realizing'' the (unspecified) meaning and value that
human beings endeavor to create.6 The suggestion is that the cosmos, again in some
implicit sense, is collaborating with humanity in bringing about a desired end that,
prior to and independent of human activity, is its own end.7 Also implicit in Rupp's
presentation is the idea that the cosmos' end coincides or converges with the end of
human activity because, as already implied, it has this end as a structural or intrinsic
property (that is, it is the very nature of the cosmos to bring forth, as it were, from
within itself, the state of affairs that has become for the human species an object of
knowledge and value and something to be pursued as an end). It is precisely this
character of the cosmos that constitutes the ground of our assurance that the `ùlti-
mate ontological context of the self is unconditionally accepting and, therefore,
may be trusted and relied on absolutely'' (p. 86).
The theological correlate of the truth of Zen, in Christian terms, is, for Rupp,
Jesus' message of `ùnconditional divine acceptance'' (p. 79) and ``trust in the benev-
olence of God's governance and rule'' (p. 81). The truth of Zen, then, is that the
realization of the rule of God in the universe will not be thwarted indefinitely. This
does not mean, however, that the rule of God is already present (immediately, `àt
hand''); it is not. Nor does it mean that the development of the cosmic drama can
be charted as a steady and inexorable progression toward the summit of perfection.
As Rupp wisely warns us, ``[t]his affirmation of the potential for increased value in
the natural and historical order does not entail a doctrine of inevitable progress''
(p. 90; emphasis mine). Although the truth of Zen implies that the rule of God is
`ìnextricably interrelated with the developing cosmos'' (ibid.), Rupp underscores
that ``[s]uch ascription . . . need not and should not be construed as denying the
increased and constantly increasing potential for destruction as well as for enrich-
ment of life'' (ibid.).
What does Rupp mean when he speaks of the cosmos as ``moving towards'' or
``realizing'' or `ùnconditionally accepting'' or, a fortiori, ``supportive''?8 In the case of
the last metaphor, Rupp's occasional attempts at a genuine explanation miscarry in-
sofar as he resorts to further metaphorssuch as the ones cited abovewhich
themselves stand in need of some antecedent clarification. And how much more
clarification is needed for the ``benevolence of God's governance and rule''! The
problem is compounded by Rupp's reluctanceor unwillingnessto tell us what,
exactly, are the ``meaning,'' ``value,'' and `ènd'' toward which the cosmos is sup-
posed to be moving. If we had some definite concept of what these terms mean we
would be in a position to give some content to the notion of ``supportive.'' 9

Moving now beyond the semantic considerations raised in my first critical re-
mark, I want now to explore the possibility that not all of Rupp's statements concern-
ing the truth of Zen are mutually consistent. The truth of Zen is proposed by Rupp
as the necessary corrective to the error of Existentialism (or the Existentialist type),
namely its failure to see meaning and value being realized in the cosmos, and its
corollary, interpreting the cosmos as neutral or indifferent to the aspirations of hu-
man beings and open to a future that may be ultimately inimical to these aspirations
(pp. 35, 88). The element of historical mediation notwithstanding, the Zen dimen-
sion Rupp incorporates into the Third type appears to preclude the possibility that
the cosmic process is open to a future that is, as I put it, ultimately inimical to
humanity's flourishing and well-being. The Good is being and will be ultimately
realized, because, as Rupp explicitly says, ``the very structure of the real'' (p. 63)
has this good as an end. Furthermore, both the philosophical (Hegelian) and the
theological (Christian) traditions with which Rupp strongly identifies unambiguously
preclude the possibility in question.
However, Rupp also wants to acknowledge a ``double potential'' of the cosmic
process, which strikes me as incompatible with the central feature of the Zen per-
spective emphasized in the foregoing. This double potential is, on the one hand,
``the increased and constantly increasing potential for destruction'' and, on the other,
the same potential ``for enrichment of life'' (p. 90). I submit that to recognize a poten-
tial for destruction is to admit precisely what the truth of Zen excludes: the possibility
of an open future, whose course may not ultimately bring about the realization of the
good. In the face of the cosmos' double potential, Rupp's talk of an `ùltimate onto-
logical context unconditionally accepting'' that may be ``trusted and relied upon ab-
solutely'' (emphasis mine) sounds extremely hollow.
The final critical observation I want to make concerns the kind of evidence one
might adduce to support the claims about the nature of reality put forth by the Zen
perspective. I have already noted how Rupp's abundant metaphors render difficult
the task of ascertaining the connection between the `èvidence,'' however it is to be
understood, and the claims it is intended to support. With regard to the evidence
Rupp believes can be put forth on behalf of the truth of Zen, I discern two types
in Beyond Existentialism and Zen (which for Rupp may amount to the same thing):
(1) ``concrete historical developments'' (or, ``historical demonstration,'' ``judgment of
history'') (p. 17) and (2) `èmpirical confirmation'' (p. 17). Unfortunately, nowhere in
his book does Rupp attempt to show how it is that ``concrete historical develop-
ments'' corroborate that the cosmos is in the process of realizing a particular end
(meaning, value), nor does he mention what these historical developments might be.
Ironically, the developments he does allude tonamely, ``the apparent anoma-
lies and undeniable outrages of historical development, biological evolution, and
cosmic process'' (pp. 8990)would seem to count as evidence against the truth
of Zen. At any rate, Rupp's awareness of these anomalies and outrages of the cosmic
process, together with his recognition of the cosmos' double potentiala recogni-
tion, I suspect, largely derived from this awarenessmake any appeal to evidence,
historical or otherwise, extremely problematic. The fact seems to be that the evi-

dence, however narrowly or broadly construed, is ambiguous at best. In the words of
W. H. Barnes,
[t]he whole process of creation now appears to be nonmoral. There is no evidence to
lead us to infer that variations in the genes are directed towards ends which in our judg-
ment are good. In such variations there seems, in fact, to be no ethical quality whatever.
They have led to odious parasitism, to the carnage of the jungle, to microbic diseases
which cause such suffering to humanity, to those animal appetites which are useful in
the struggle for survival and are the basis of sin in man. This, the immoral, the brutal,
lustful side of creation, is as characteristic as the parental self-sacrifice, the adventurous
curiosity, the instinct for truth, the enthusiasm for righteousness, the beauty of form and
the physical well-being which equally result from our evolving process.10
The ambiguity of the evidence aside, it is remarkable that at least two natural
scientists have written books in which the view of the cosmos as the existentialist
conceives it is argued for.11 I have in mind George Gaylord Simpson and Jacques
Monod.12 I cite these two examples not because I am convinced that the evidence
is decisively on their side but because they present an interpretation of cosmic and
biological evolution for which there is widespread support in the scientific commu-
nity. From their perspective, modern science, while it affirms the ontological conti-
nuity and identity between the human and the natural in one respect (we have
evolved ultimately from inanimate matter), suggests that in another respect there
are radical discontinuities between the natural and the human: the human species,
among others, is the outcome of a process of adaptation to conditions that can only
be described as ``hospitable,'' ``benevolent,'' or ``supportive'' from the perspective of
survivors. To countless forms of life, including former ``versions'' of the human spe-
cies, that have perished in the struggle for survival, having been selected for extinc-
tion (that is, having failed to adapt), the cosmos was most certainly inhospitable and
unsupportive. Science, as currently understood, introduces the kind of wedge or
discontinuity between the human and the natural orders that strikes at the heart of
any appeal to the undeniable ontological continuity between the two orders to sup-
port, however implicitly, some notion of cosmic design or teleology.13
Therefore, unless Rupp and other like-minded theologians are prepared to enlist
the support of the natural and social sciences in the interest of their claims and
assumptions, they should avoid any talk of `èmpirical confirmation'' inter alia. If it
is retorted that Monod's or Simpson's conception of `èmpirical evidence'' is too nar-
row, I can only reply that at least they have given content to their conception, a con-
ception, I reiterate, about which there exists widespread consensus. Rupp clearly has
not. Until Rupp's understanding of empirical evidence is made clear, I must continue
to question his right to the use of the concept and compare his use invidiously with
Monod's and Simpson's.
Ultimately, however, I believe that to put our hopes on what is or will finally
turn out to be the nature of the cosmos, for example at the end of inquiry (when
`àll the evidence is in'' or under `ìdeal epistemic conditions''), is misguided because
it is, despite statements to the contrary, subservient to a realistic metaphysics of
which we must take leave.14 What we can limn about the structure of the real right

now does not bode well for the hope that some future version of the cosmic process
will neatly explain away the anomalies and outrages in that process to date without
importing assumptions and expectations that lie outside the circle of what we can
reasonably infer about the nature and course of the cosmic process.15 That much is
or should be clear. There seems to be a fundamental and intrinsic ambiguity in the
cosmic process that cannot be explained away without remainder. It is this ambigu-
ity that drove Tillich, for example, to a view of God as a reality implicated inor,
more exactly, the ultimate source and ground ofthis process, and hence morally
and ontologically ambiguous. Hence, far from being at the mercy of an irrational ex-
istential choice or leap of faith into one or the other mutually incompatible Weltan-
schauungen, the scientific and the religious, both worldviews preserve and develop
insights into the fundamentally ambiguous nature of the cosmic process that stand in
dialectical tension, insights to which Rupp, despite the foregoing critique, tries to
give their full weight and due.
Although I would grant, despite my own doubts, that in the near or far-off future
modern science may be forced radically to reconceive its current picture of the
cosmoswhich, to reiterate, is the way Darwin, Monod, Simpson, Gould, inter
alia, conceive itso that something like Rupp's view (or some more traditional
Christian conception) may become a bona fide part of scientific theorizing (that is,
our body of informed opinion), it is not a matter of existential choice at the moment
to accept or dismiss our current perspective about the nature of the cosmos and the
intrinsic ambiguity in the cosmic process that this perspective underscores. How-
ever, the matter does not end in settling what our current or a future perspective
may tell us about the nature of the cosmic process. This approach is still too be-
holden to a picture metaphysics that tries to establish what are the ``facts'' or the
``state of affairs'' that the currentor a futureversion of the world ``depicts'' and
does not factor in our role in making and shaping that state of affairs. From a per-
spective free from the prejudices of realism, or at least from its fundamental intuition,
the only issue that remains for those of us who are committed to a version of the
world such as our Judeo-Christian heritage gives expression or, more often, inti-
mates, is the role of human responsibility in realizing that vision or version of the
world, a role made more poignant and urgent by what we have come to learn about
ourselves and our ultimate ontological context, the process that has produced us.
What I propose here in response to Rupp's historicized Zen type is essentially
a radical naturalizing of the Hegelian perspective he so forcefully defends and
enshrines in the Third or Hegel type. As Rupp himself acknowledges, and I could
not agree more, with some qualifications that will soon emerge,
not only human knowing but also the ultimate object of knowledge [God, ultimate real-
ity, the cosmos] are in the process of development. . . . Indeed, the central means through
which the absolute attains its ends is human activity. . . . The actions of finite spirit are, in
short, constitutive of the activity of infinite or absolute spirit. (pp. 5960)
Since the Enlightenment, it has become incredible to us that human beings are
passive spectators in a cosmic-historical drama in which God, as an extra-mundane

entity, is the major and in most cases only character. We are not just simply specta-
tors; on the contrary, we are co-participants in the process from which we have
emerged. It is becoming progressively clear that in the human species the cosmic
process has become conscious of itself, and that we, for good or ill, are the fringe
(as far as we can tell) of the evolutionary process, as this has evolved from inanimate
unconscious matter to self-conscious agents capable of taking charge and redirect-
ing ever-increasing sectors of this process, for good or ill. The question for us is no
longer what we will ``discover'' reality ultimately to be like, but what we make,
shape, reality to becomeand this in a sense that not just Hegel but the very process
itself could not anticipate or determine in advance.
Furthermore, just as we in the West have also become conscious that God is
not a quasi-personal force or telos informing or propelling the cosmos toward a
particular enda remnant of the anthropomorphic language and outworn creed
of our forebearsit is also becoming apparent that ``God'' is a symbolshorthand,
abbreviationfor one particular structural possibility of the cosmos among others,
and a possibility that includes us as integral parts of this structure. All possibilities
are grounded ultimately in the promiscuously creative but blind cosmic process, as
the source and ground of all reality. Within this process, everything exists in relation
to everything else, in varying degrees of complexity and interdependenceand it is
these complex relations that I am calling structures, in which objects stand in rela-
tion to each other. The structural possibility that the Judeo-Christian version calls
``God,'' its concept of God, represents one highly idealized version, anticipation, or
possible development among others of the process out of which we have emerged,
some benign (and perhaps superior to the Christian version) and some much less so.
Although terms such as `ùltimate reality,'' ``ground of all reality,'' and `ùltimate
ontological context'' implicitly but strongly suggest it, whether we can continue to
speak of reality as one has increasingly become more complex and controversial.
From our current perspective, it appears that God, the theological correlate of this
inexorable but blind process, is an emergent, not static, ready-made reality. Second,
not all regions of the cosmic process manifest that reality to the same degree. From
what we can discern, there might be large regions of the cosmos where the reality of
God is (and will remain) present only as a latent possibility, not actuality. Third, that
``ground of all being'' admits developments in different directions, not all necessarily
compatible or benign, and developments that are not foreseeable or predetermined
(e.g., by the ``nature'' of God).
Creativity, self-consciousness, personality, meaning, purpose, and humanity are
(unforeseen) developments of this emergent reality, and to date these developments
are, to the best of our knowledge, realized only in the region of the cosmos that we
inhabit. Not surprisingly, and justifiably so, we attribute and reserve these qualities
almost exclusively to ``God.'' In us, if you will, God has become conscious of God's
self; in us, humanity and personhood have entered the cosmic process; and in us,
diverse as we are, different and still future characteristics or dimensions of God
have yet to be realized. We are implicated in the future of these developments, as
active participants in and contributors to the cosmic drama unfolding in and through

us, and we, like our ultimate ground, participate in all of its ambiguous potential for
good or ill. We have become conscious only recently of our role as world-makers (to
borrow Nelson Goodman's phrase); now is our turn to become conscious of much
more than that: of our role as God-makers.
Insofar as the being of God is inextricably related to ourselves, any alteration that
we bring about in ourselves and our ``world'' is ipso facto an alteration in the very
being of God, in the very fabric of ultimate reality. God is a function of the human
and the world, and conversely.16 Through human action the cosmos is being com-
pleted and brought into conformity with a structural relation or possibility. But there
is also here a reciprocal movement and influence: from the ideal, which enshrines
that possibility, to the human who creates it. The idea of God, a free creation of the
human imagination (Kaufman, on my reading), in turn shapes and determines its cre-
ator. Through the idea of God we lift ourselves and the cosmic process, as it were, by
our bootstraps, into conformity with a possibility, an ideal, which is, strictly speak-
ing, of our making.
The world religions, from my vantage point, are attempts, with varying degrees
of coherence, to disambiguate the cosmic process and project it (traditionally, by
retrojecting) in a particular directionand, in the process, impose on reality a par-
ticular ``nature.'' Therefore, to speak of one underlying structure or reality (which, as
John Hick would say, the world religions are addressing under different names) is
premature insofar as God's very ``nature'' admits radically different and not necessar-
ily compatible developments.17 To speak about what God is is misleading because
God is in process, not a finished reality, and we are implicated in how this reality is
to be completed. Each world religion, according to this view, does not merely de-
scribe but rather inflicts on reality a structure informed by highly particular images,
symbols, ontological commitments, and conceptions that cannot be straightfor-
wardly correlated with or translated into those of the other religions, a fact that ren-
ders suspect, if not entirely meaningless, any talk about what (ultimate) reality really
is or will develop into in the future.
The Judeo-Christian version of God, and the structural possibility for the human
community and the cosmos at large that this version of God represents, cannot be
claimed to be the only version or anticipation (more properly speaking, the develop-
ment or projection) of ``reality'' to which the cosmic process is susceptible. Bud-
dhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism, along with secular worldviews, contain and
develop alternative anticipations of that structural possibility that we in the West
call ``God''or, rather, they contain articulations of structural possibilities that only
by a process of translation into and redescription in theistic language can be called
``God.'' The future of God, the realization of the Kingdom of God, and the responsi-
bility to live in our lives Jesus' God-consciousnessto focus on perhaps the three
most powerful and evocative symbols of my traditionare matters in which I, as a
Christian, am implicated. It is my responsibility to flesh out and actualize these
possibilities, to further disambiguate the cosmic process in the direction of greater
goodness, justice, love, compassion, community, et cetera, and to oppose develop-
ments in the direction of greater evil and destructiveness.

Thus, ``constructive human action'' is possible not because the cosmic process is
`ùnconditionally accepting.'' Rupp's ``positive appraisal'' of the cosmos is out of the
question, and whatever continuities exist between the human and its ultimate onto-
logical context are mitigated by very real discontinuities. Constructive human action
is possible because the potential for goodness, truth, justice, compassion, et cetera,
is as ontologically real and immanent in this process as the potential for evil, destruc-
tion, and further anomalies. For human action to be more than relatively significant
we do not need to affirm with Rupp the truth of Zen. A more modest truth will do,
and one that underscores the crucial and central role that the responsible self plays
in the cosmic drama. Reality is in the making, and we must assume our role, we
can still say, not autonomously but theonomously, in the task of realizing those
God-laden possibilities inherent and intimated in the cosmic process, however
ambiguouslypossibilities that, it is increasingly becoming obvious, will not be
realized independently or in spite of human activity.
The ontological parity between good and evil that I see in the cosmic process
raises the age-old question of what makes the good preferable to evil if both are
grounded in the very structure of reality. Rupp's Zen solution, objected to in the fore-
going, is an attempt to meet the force of this question by positing the good as some-
how more grounded in the structure of the real than evil, or, rather, as claiming that
the structure of the real is more intrinsically good than evil (the weaker claim from
the Zen position to which I see Rupp retreating in his frank acknowledgment of the
``double potential'' of the cosmos).
Therefore, from within my naturalistic perspective, why is the good preferable to
evil? From my point of view, vast chunks of the cosmos are indifferent to questions of
good and evil. Questions of morality and value are human questions, to which the
cosmos at large is quite indifferent. Although qualities we associate with evil are de-
structive or inimical to us, and to our habitat and fellow inhabitants of the earth (both
animate and inanimate), no part of the cosmic machinery would be affected if those
qualities we associate with the good disappear from the cosmos. Maybe some forms
of life and possibilitieshuman life, including human values, and even tendencies
we can discern in the animal realm that prefigure and anticipate our owneither
would cease to be or would never have evolved. But nothing would be missed,
strictly speaking. However, with the appearance of the human on the cosmic land-
scape, those qualities that promote, initially, survival and self-preservation and, at
later stages, well-being, happiness, community, peace, justice, compassion, inter
alia, and those that militate against these ``values'' have become apparent to the
vast majority of the members of the human community. To us, then, it is quite obvi-
ous that ``good'' is preferable to `èvil,'' and what that good, as it is humanly possible
to discern, comprehends.18
A more difficult and real objection to my proposed way out of the Existentialist-
Zentypes impasse is that the double potential of the cosmos is not transcended,
thus leaving open the possibility that God, the good, may not triumph in the end.
Even in my view, not only Rupp's, the potential for destructionat the very least,
the potential for the destruction of a humanly relevant good, including the disap-

pearance of human life from the planetis as much a possible future for the cosmos
as is the potential for goodness. The same criticism that I raised about Rupp's position
on this point seems to apply with equal or greater force to mine. I can only reply that
our present understanding of the cosmic process precludes any talk of one particular
destiny coming inexorably to pass. Here is a bullet I am willing to bite: from our cur-
rent perspective, my Judeo-Christian tradition is wrong on this point, even if I readily
admit that it was sure that God's will would be made on earth as it is in heaven.
In the foregoing developments of Rupp's insights, I have questioned whether
there is one way of fleshing out the structural possibility that I have identified with
God. In my critique of Hick, I have pointed out that talk of ultimate identity would
make sense if we could be assured that the cosmos is either a static, ready-made
reality or a reality that admits only one possible development. On the contrary, I
have contended that this structural possibility admits or is susceptible to a plurality
of developments or forms that are neither determined in advance nor mutually com-
patible. Each world religion, for example, appears to be a development of a potential
for good, justice, truth, love, and community in ways that are not necessarily theo-
retically or conceptually compatible with the possible developments enshrined
in the others. Different conceptions of the good, justice, truth, and reality itself
corresponding to particular structural possibilities in the very fabric of ``reality'' and
into which that ``reality'' is transformableappear in principle to be possible, defy-
ing our intuition that at some ultimate level we are dealing with one reality, at least a
reality that we can meaningfully describe as one. A fundamental and irreducible
ontological relativity (Quine) pervades that to which the great religions point without
being able to reduce that reality to a single conceptual model or global faith, or,
ontologically, to a single structure that is there waiting to be apprehended. These
are the insights that the next two parts develop in greater detail.
Two Approaches to Religious Pluralism19
In the early pages of Beyond Existentialism and Zen Rupp sums up the distinctive
feature of his approach to the question of religious pluralism in the following way:
``The approach . . . which I am proposing is not, then, one which attempts to unify
all possible perspectives. Nor does it simply pronounce them all equally valid''
(p. 15). In the pages that follow I want to argue that Rupp's presentation of his
approach can be read in a way that yields not one but two distinct and incompatible
approaches. One approach I will call Hegelian-Peircian; the other, lacking a satisfac-
tory label, I will provisionally dub Jamesian. Although these two approaches are
coherent in themselves, only the latter is faithful to the conception of religious plu-
ralism implicit in Rupp's summary statement. I will argue further that only the James-
ian approach squares with our intuitions about what a genuine pluralistic stance
ought to entail, intuitions that Rupp's penetrating typological analysis does much to
clarify and confirm.
There are two features of Beyond Existentialism and Zen that need to be consid-
ered first, since they provide the scaffolding that makes possible and intelligible what

I claim is the Jamesian approach of the work. The first feature is the significant shift
in the level of discussion effected by Rupp's adoption of a typological framework.
The second is the impact of the adoption of such a framework on the question of
truth (validity, adequacy).20 By choosing a typological analysis as the framework
within which he will address the problem of religious pluralism, Rupp shifts the
level of discussion: from one focused on the particular claims and received posi-
tions of the various world religions to one concerned with ``generalized'' or `ìdeal''
positionsthat is, typesdeveloped in order to identify systematic commitments or
tendencies within and across religious traditions. The distinctive characteristics of
Rupp's typology, in conjunction with Rupp's evaluative and comparative machinery,
set the stage for the appearance of what I have called the Jamesian approach.
The point of departure for Rupp's typology is, as we saw in part 1, ``the tradi-
tional question of the existence of God'' (p. 34).21 Rupp's understanding of this ques-
tion bears repeating:
Insofar as the experience of the post-Enlightenment West entails the collapse of tradi-
tional metaphysical dualisms, this question cannot, however, refer to the existence or
nonexistence of a being or entity beyond the world. Instead the question of God becomes
. . . a query as to the character of the cosmosthe nature of the self's ultimate environ-
ment. (p. 32)
We have seen in part 1 that the types do not correspond to or correlate with any
world religion. Even in the case of the Zen type, Rupp is quick to point out that `às a
type it certainly is not confined to that particular tradition'' (p. 35). As ideal types,
framed in terms of very general concepts, they do notnor does Rupp intend that
they shoulddo justice to or represent any one religious tradition in all its complex-
ity and diversity. Instead, they are designed to ferret out ``systematic commitments or
tendencies'' (p. 14) that more than one religious tradition have in common.
In the foregoing I have emphasized the descriptive aspect of Rupp's types. But
Rupp makes it clear that he intends his typology to be more than that:
The types which I outline . . . are . . . heuristic constructs which serve to organize empiri-
cal datathough, in contrast to those social scientists who claim to employ only descrip-
tive types, I attempt to develop a classification which I see as in principle exhaustive. . . . I
consider this systematizing of alternatives . . . to be helpful in appraising particular world-
views, including my own . . . [T]he typology . . . also serves as a vehicle for commending
the perspective which I judge to be the most adequate. (p. 37; emphases mine)
For the sake of convenience I will call this aspect of Rupp's typology prescrip-
tive. Rupp does not use this word, but the statement just quoted unambiguously sug-
gests it. This prescriptive aspect is foreshadowed by the discussion of norms for
appraising alternatives in the first part of the book. By prescriptive, or the prescriptive
use of the typology, I mean Rupp's design to use his typology to recommend, as he
puts it, the particular typological alternative that he advocates. This dimension intro-
duces (or, rather, reveals) a further measure of complexity in the types outlined. Al-
though the Zen and the Existentialist types have, Rupp would argue, instances in at
least two religious traditions, the Third or Hegel type, being a synthesis of the fa-

vored features of the two other types, is not obviously realized in any one religious
tradition. In a summary of the argument of the book, Rupp not only gives his ``rea-
sons for considering one of the typological positions more adequate than the others''
but also shows ``how Christian traditions may be interpreted so as to express the
typological alternative'' that he advocates (p. 25; emphasis mine).
The Third type is indeed a position constructed from elements that, it can be
argued, are found in actual religious traditions, but as a position that combines these
elements, it is only a possibility toward which, Rupp argues, not only Christianity but
also the other world religions ought to strive. In the latter part of Beyond Existential-
ism and Zen Rupp offers an interpretation of Christianity that he believes expresses
the virtues of the Third type. That Rupp believes that a similar interpretation of other
world religions is possible and desirable is the key to the whole argument of his
work. One clear indication that this is Rupp's position is given by his statement that
his typology will be ``helpful in appraising particular worldviews, including my own''
(emphasis mine). Clearly, more than the Christian worldview is envisaged. Earlier,
he refers to this process of appraisal as ``directed toward the achievement of
more adequate religious systems'' (p. 22). In his most explicit pronouncement on
this matter, Rupp underscores that ``[t]his capacity of the third type to affirm the truth
of both existentialism and Zen is especially relevant to any religious worldview''
(p. 63; emphasis mine). Although it is not the business of Rupp to do for other
world religions what he has begun to do for Christianity, he does mention actual
resourcestendencies, voiceswithin Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism that ex-
emplify the Third type, undoubtedly sending a message to adherents of those tradi-
tions that the materials for an interpretation of their respective faiths in terms of the
Third type is immediate (see pp. 6468).
It is here that what I am calling the Jamesian approach becomes explicit, as the
impact of the adoption of a typological framework is brought to bear on the question
of truth (validity, adequacy). Putting Rupp's argument in perspective, we can see a
double process of appraisal at work. At the level of types, Rupp argues that the Third
type is the most `àdequate.'' After the task of appraising the types is concluded, Rupp
then turns to the task of appraising his own religious worldview, Christianity, using
the Third type as the standard by which to judge its adequacy. This latter task termi-
nates in an interpretation of some Christian traditions that combines the strengths of
the Zen and Existentialist typesthat is, exhibits the advantages of the Third type.
That Rupp holds that what he has done for Christianity (rather schematically, he
would admit) can and ought to be done for the other religions brings us back to the
heart of what I have called the Jamesian approach.
From the foregoing, it should have become obvious that Rupp's central evalua-
tive term is `àdequacy.'' Worldviews can be made adequate to the degree that they
come to express the characteristics of the Third type. It should also have become
obvious that adequacy is not the exclusive property of any one religious tradition.
Any religious worldview can become adequate by assuming those features recom-
mended by the Third type, and nothing rules out that more than one tradition may
exhibit those features simultaneously. In fact, Beyond Existentialism and Zen not

only suggests this possibility, it actively encourages it. The rather general character-
istics of the Third type should be enough to dissuade the reader from construing the
process of how a tradition becomes adequate as one of convergence of beliefs and
doctrines.22 So much is made clear by Rupp's remarks, with which we began, that
``[t]he approach . . . which I am proposing is not . . . one which attempts to unify all
possible perspectives'' (p. 15).
How a tradition attains adequacy is for Rupp a combination of internal develop-
ment enriched through dialogue with and mutual criticism among the members of
the various world religions. Internal tensions occupy center stage in those times
of isolation; through increased exposure to other, very different, religious currents
and traditions, external stimuli generate an often more radical type of questioning.
However,
in contrast to the product resulting from a process of syncretism, each tradition will con-
tinue to exemplify an integrity of its own because any modifications are reinterpretations
or adaptations of its own images, conceptions and practices. (p. 22; emphasis mine)
Hence, for Rupp, the central issue for reflective believers or devotees is not so
much which tradition they should choose as it is to which of the alternatives within
a given tradition they should commit themselves (p. 18; emphasis mine).
In other words, the point is not deciding which world religion is the ``true'' one,
but, rather, discerning and advancing those elements of the tradition one finds one-
self in that exemplify the characteristics of the Third type. It is important to notice
how this way of reading Rupp's conception of religious truth or validity is not incon-
sistent with his claim that not all perspectives or traditions are `èqually valid.'' In
fact, many traditions may turn out to be false (invalid, inadequate) insofar as they
fail to realize the features of the Third type; but this is entirely compatible with saying
that more than one may turn out to be valid.
Although Rupp would be willing to grant that different perspectives may have to
be considered as equally true, there are hints in Beyond Existentialism and Zen that
for him they are so only provisionally. It is at this point that what I have called the
Hegelian-Peircian view of truth insinuates itself. Truth proper is the property of the
most comprehensive vision or conception of reality. Different perspectives have at
best a partial grasp of reality, and some may be considered more adequate than
others. But it would be a mistake to consider any of them true in the full sense of
this word.
This further dimension of Rupp's understanding of religious truth is suggested by
certain remarks. In an early passage of the book, he writes:
[B]ecause the various partial and incomplete perspectives are attempts at grasping or
comprehending the one reality there is, it is possible to make judgments as to their mea-
sure of validity. . . . [T]he reality towards which claims of truth are directed is not by def-
inition completely inaccessible. . . . (p. 9)
Reflection on Rupp's discussion of the Third type makes one thing obvious: the
features of the Third type by which we are to judge the validity of different traditions

or perspectives leaves radically underdetermined the majority of the truth claims put
forth by them. In other words, even if Buddhism, Christianity, et cetera, were to em-
phasize those elements and sub-traditions that embody the characteristics of the
Third typeand subsequently developed into traditions that fully expressed that
type, as Rupp encouragesa considerable set of truth claims from these traditions
might remain mutually incompatible.
Thus far, we have seen that the Jamesian view of truth bypasses differences of
opinion at the level of specific truth claims; in fact, it acknowledges and respects
these differences.23 But as Rupp goes on to speak of one reality and of the pro-
gressive apprehension of that reality by a more comprehensive conception,24 it
becomes patent that the Jamesian approach will not do. Truth is no longer a matter
of approaching a typological ideal; instead, it is according to this view a matter of
approaching a more comprehensive conception of reality.
The Hegelian-Peircian conception of truth as introduced in the foregoing forces
us to look at the problem of conflicting truth claims in a different light. From this per-
spective the diverse and incompatible claims of the world religions stand to reality in
a relation similar to that of the provisional (and incompatible) claims of our scientific
theories to the natural order that they are supposed to apprehend. Conceptualizing
that one encompassing reality, according to the Hegelian-Peircian view, would be
the aim of the world religions, although they are as yet ``partial and incomplete'' con-
ceptualizations. As more is learned about the nature of reality, and as our partial
``theories'' approach more fully and systematically what that reality is about, it is to
be expected that the incompatibility, partiality, and incompleteness will gradually
wane. Whether or not this ongoing movement toward theoretical refinement and re-
vision will in fact issue in one unique symbolization of reality does not seem as im-
portant to Rupp as the need to preserve the intuition that, in principle,25 the one true
conceptualization of the one reality that it is the aim of the world religions to grasp is
attainablein other words, that the different and often incompatible conceptualiza-
tions, from our point of view, would ultimately converge on the true ``theory'' of the
world at the `ènd of inquiry.''
I have argued that the issue of incompatible truth claims is not a problem for the
Jamesian reading of Rupp's view; it is, however, a vexing problem for the Hegelian-
Peircian reading just sketched. Although Rupp has explicitly repudiated syncretism
and recommended the internal transformation of each tradition into the typological
ideal of the Third or Hegel type, the Hegelian-Peircian conception of truth seems to
suggest either a convergence of truth claims26 or the emergence of one particular
worldview or tradition as the truth.27 Either of these consequences of the second
conception of truth that I have attributed to Rupp is inconsistent with the intentions
of the first, Jamesian conception.
Genuine pluralism does not contemplate, surreptitiously as it were, the eventual
convergence into a more comprehensive perspective of different points of view, or
the emergence of one perspective (worldview, religious tradition) as uniquely true
or determined (e.g., by the ``facts,'' experience). Rather, it sees each religious tradi-
tion as potentially truth-bearing, not just provisionally, but in principle.28 Although

Rupp would not accept the view that truth is `ìnternal'' to a tradition,29 it is clear that
for him any given tradition contains within itself all the elements necessary
to transform it into something that can satisfy, at least, his proffered criteria of
adequacynamely, conformity to the Third type. Furthermore, any transformation
Rupp recommends would not necessarily entail the effacement of particular commit-
ments and truth claims, however eccentric or unintuitive from any other point of
view.
Although I would concede that the Hegelian-Peircian perspective is coherent in
itself, recent philosophical discussion about the concept of truth has cast some
doubts on its plausibility. Further, these doubts seem to strengthen the case for the
Jamesian view as presented in the foregoing. What might be independent reasons
for preferring the Jamesian view will be dealt with in the next part.
The Jamesian Approach
On pages 1618 of Beyond Existentialism and Zen Rupp discusses what appear to
be two criteria of adequacy that every religious perspective must satisfy if, in the lan-
guage of the preceding reflection, it is to be ``valid'': (1) adequacy to tradition and (2)
adequacy to contemporary experience. Rupp adds, however, that ``[t]he last court of
appeal for adjudicating both forms of appeal is the arena . . . of concrete historical
developments.'' `Ìn the end,'' he continues,
whether a position is or is not accepted as a vital expression of the tradition . . . [and is

able] to interpret contemporary experience persuasively and shape it effectively [are]
also a matter of historical demonstration . . . subject to the judgment of history. (p. 17)
The application of these two criteria of adequacy does not happen `ìnternally''
any longer; internal appraisals are what the new status quo has made impossible, at
least for serious theologians. Furthermore, as theologians think about the great ques-
tions and answers posed by their religious traditions in the context of voices and
points of view outside their own particular tradition, and as their contemporary ex-
perience becomes to an increasing degree shaped by transcultural forces and influ-
ences, it is inevitable that theological reflection will be pushed in the direction of
greater and greater comprehensiveness or universality. But this phenomenon in turn
forces reinterpretations of one's tradition that may not have been present or implicit
in it.
At this point the question arises as to where, in Rupp's view, things will lead.
One direction that immediately comes to mind is syncretism, or the development
of a universal religion. As discussed in the previous section, Rupp dismisses syncre-
tism, although, he goes on to say, one can, through dialogue,
assume that alterations in the direction of greater comprehensiveness will increase the
measure of common ground which different traditions share. . . . [I]n contrast to the prod-
uct resulting from a process of syncretism, each tradition will continue to exemplify an

integrity of its own because any modifications are reinterpretations or adaptations of its
own images, conceptions, and practices. The result is not an incongruous combination
of incompatible elements but a new synthesis which is continuous with a living and
therefore developing tradition. (pp. 2122)
Thus far, Rupp's two criteria are entirely consistent with the Jamesian approach
to pluralism described in part 2 of this essay. Even when we add what functions de
facto as a third evaluative criterion, fidelity to the Third or Hegel type (see part 2),
what we can project into the future is not that one religious tradition will be the fittest
survivor (a form of religious Darwinism), but that more than one religious tradition
will be around. That is, there is in principle no reason why the different religious tra-
ditions as we have them today will not be able to perpetuate themselves indefinitely
into the future. Furthermore, there are from this point of view no obvious grounds to
preclude that within a given religious tradition different reinterpretations of that very
same tradition will not be able to coexist, however incompatible. I have argued in
the foregoing section that Rupp would not necessarily subscribe to my ``Jamesian''
interpretation of his book, or of his criteria of adequacy. My sense is that he is far
too Hegelian-Peircian to succumb to this reading of his book, however defensible.
Two thoughts come immediately to mind if my Jamesian reading is wrong: either
the future will indeed result in the process of syncretism that Rupp disavows,
or one religious tradition or interpretation of that tradition will eventually emerge as
the most coherent and comprehensive interpretation of ultimate reality. The neither/
nor to these alternatives is, I want to claim, the Jamesian interpretation proffered in
part 2 of this essay.
Other than the fact that the Jamesian reading can be extruded from Rupp's
pages, are there independent reasons, theological or philosophical, for preferring it
to the Hegelian-Peircian reading most likely intended by Rupp? I believe there are,
and to these reasons I now turn. On the Hegelian-Peircian view of the matter, it is
difficult to proscribe in principle the possibility that the advance of knowledge will
terminate in the convergence of different points of view on the correct point of view,
the truth, to which these (partial) points of view are an anticipation or approxima-
tion. The ``most comprehensive grasp of reality'' is in principle attainable, and any-
thing less than that can hardly claim to be the Truth. As Rupp emphatically reminds
us, truth is not a Ding an sich forever and in principle inaccessible or inscrutable;
there is not an ontological chasm between us and truth, between us and ultimate re-
ality. We are not yet there, but there is nothing to preclude that we will get there
eventually, in principle.
The belief in the convergence of all theories upon the one true theory or picture
of the world, reality, is one that has fecundly guided science for at least four hundred
years.30 Hegel, of course, boldly extended this presumption into the ultimate nature
of things, for he did not acknowledgeindeed repudiatedany ultimate alienation
between reality and ourselves. As poorly as I have been able to state it, this is, I be-
lieve, the intuition informing the Hegelian-Peircian approach that I take to be one
that is possible, and perhaps the intended, reading of Rupp's Beyond Existentialism
and Zen.

What I believe gives weight to the Jamesian approach has been the resurgence
of a version of Kantianism31 in the philosophy of science that has revived doubts that
beings such as ourselves can ever attain to an ultimate version of what reality is like,
whether according to a coherence, correspondence, or verificationist view of truth,
or, more accurately, that has revived the denial that there is such a thing as an `ùlti-
mate'' or `ùnique'' version of that reality. This version of Kantianism was suggested
to me by the work of W. V. Quine, although eminent philosophers like Nelson
Goodman and Hilary Putnam have done much to extend it in directions with which
Quine himself would strongly disagree.32
The fundamental insight of Quine that bears on the point that I want to make is
his reconception of the relation between theory on the one hand and evidence on
the other. The view (or dogma, as Quine called it in his now-famous essay of 1951,
``Two Dogmas of Empiricism'') that Quine is moving against is that as scientists
gather more empirical data about the world, eventually the rival physical theories
or systems of the world that now coexist in science will one day converge into the
one true theory or description of the way things are. In other words, the march of
inquiry and the force of facts will one day uniquely determine which theory of the
universe is the true one. Provisionally we tolerate incompatible versions because we
have not yet reached the end of inquiry (Peirce) or ideal epistemic conditions (Put-
nam) when the right view of things will become transparent. But this day will come.
In 1951 Quine published the first of many challenges to the standard view of
science sketched above. Quine's evolution toward what we can somewhat anach-
ronistically dub ``relativism'' has its roots in his repudiation of Logical Positivism's
two dogmas: verificationism and analyticity. The dream of logical empiricism, partic-
ularly as codified in Carnap's Logical Structure of the World (1928), was to con-
struct the edifice of science on the basis of the data about which we are absolutely
certainsense dataor, conversely, to reduce or translate via logical analysisfor
which Russell's logical and set-theoretical machinery as laid out in Principia pro-
vided the scaffoldingchunks, and, in principle, the whole, of science to reports of
sense data. The advantage of being able to carry out this program consists of this:
namely, that the link between theory and evidence would be so tight as to (1) allow
the verification of the truth of a proffered scientific theory by laying bare the link
between theory and fact (the ``given'' itself) for all to ``see'' (calculate, or deduce/
construct); (2) allow the inquirer to adjudicate between rival scientific theories that
claimed to be the ``true'' explanation of the facts; and (3) weed out ``metaphysical''
nonsense from serious scientific theorizing, by exposing the lack of connection be-
tween a purely metaphysical fantasy and the data, a connection that would obtain,
ex hypothesi, with the empirically significant constructs and postulates.
As Quine and other positivists, such as Carnap himself, thought about how this
was to be done, it soon became apparent, first to Carnap by at least 1934,33 that to
insist on such a strict verificationism would banish considerable chunks of bona fide
scientific theory from science! The link between theory (which is what most of our
talk about reality really is) and evidence was admitted to be in principle indirect and
remote, now and evermore. In sum, the connection between fact and standard sci-

entific theories was too loose and indirect to permit the application of verificationism
as a litmus test for all scientific theories, postulates, and posits.34 Furthermore, the
task of carrying out the ``logical constructions,'' examples of which were carried out
by Carnap, if rather schematically, in Logical Structure, took on such gargantuan
proportions as to discourage any hope that such a task could be carried out even in
principle.
If the link between theory and evidence (facts) is such that there is no way for
facts uniquely to determine which scientific theory (from among a number of rival
or incompatible theories claiming to explain the facts) is the ``true'' theory``fits''
the facts betterthen Quine recommends that science must learn to accept an
irreducible pluralism, not only now, provisionally, but in principle. More than one
scientific theory, or, more recently (1975), ``system of the world,'' 35 may explain
the facts equally well or accord equally well (i.e., be empirically equivalent) with
the evidence, the facts.
When it comes to religious or ethical views, our ability to inhabit multiple
worldviews without moral and existential reservations may be impossible in prac-
tice. We are free to dream or speculate that one day the method by which we will
be able to settle which system of the world is the ``true'' one will arrive. Pannenberg
and Hicks speak about an `èschatological verification'' that will adjudicate between
the rival religious perspectives. But if Quine is right about the rather indirect and
loose connection between theory and empirical evidence, as currently understood
by physics (what Quine calls the `ùnderdetermination of theories by evidence''),
then eschatological verification, or ideal epistemic conditions, or `àt the end of in-
quiry,'' when all of the relevant empirical evidence is totaled, will not be able to
determine which of the rival (incompatible) metaphysical systems is ``the true'' ver-
sion of the reality.36
But let us pause and reflect. If science has arrived at a pluralistic self-
consciousness, a candid acceptance of what I have called the Jamesian approach,
could we hope to do better in religion? If philosophy has crossed over into a radical
pluralism (if not relativism), as the work of Goodman and Putnam, leaving Rorty out
of the picture altogether, has shown, can or should religion be that far behind (as if it
could)?
There are two further features of this version of relativism that must be discussed
before this reflection is concluded. In calling Quine's position ``Kantian'' 37 I am not
intimating that we are back to some thing-in-itself, or the chasm between us and re-
ality against which Hegel, rightly, reacted so forcefully. Saying that multiple concep-
tions or systems of the world are possible does not mean that there is something else,
something additional, that we have failed to grasp as completely or comprehensively
as we could. As Quine says, ``there is no fact of the matter'' between these rival con-
ceptions. There is in principle no chasm between our theory and reality except
the chasm of finite, relative perspectives each striving after a more comprehensive
grasp of that reality. Assume maximum comprehensiveness, grasp of reality, and
there still would be room for a plurality of worldviews. What this advent of relativism
now proclaims is that in principle ultimate reality is subject to a multiplicity of

conceptualizations that are, from the standpoint of present and future experience,
evidence, and historical judgment, logically incompatible and yet empirically equiv-
alent. This is the heart of what I must now call the James-Quine version of relativism.
There is no noumenal realm that we are failing to comprehend by not arriving at one
exclusive or unique system of the world.
Furthermore, as Quine's critique of analyticity implies, the very framework itself
in which we formulate our methodological reflectionssuch as Rupp's two criteria
of adequacy and the typological alternative they favoris not neutral but rather in-
ternal to and an expression of a particular worldview, regardless of how compelling
this worldview may be to its adherents and proponents. Rupp acknowledges this
when he implicitly admits that even his minimalist criteria of adequacy (including
the Third or Hegel type), and the interpretation of Christianity (and other religious
worldviews) that they recommend, which developed in response to the collapse of
metaphysical dualism precipitated by the (Western) Enlightenment, may not be ob-
vious and compelling to everyone, both within his own (Christian) tradition and out-
side (pp. 107108).38 But now we are faced with a paradox: the criteria that allow
Rupp (and us) to ascend to a level of generality and attain what looks like a neutral,
transcultural meta-perspective from which he can abstract from any worldview,
including his own, must be illusory since, if the conclusions to which we have
been driven are correct, these criteria arise from within a particular perspective,
namely the worldview of the post-Enlightenment West. But the paradox is appar-
ent, not real. What Rupp's methodological position, at least as implicit in the
Jamesian approach, represents is one expression of the radical pluralistic self-
consciousnessthat is, awareness of its own intrinsic and inalienable relativityat
which the naturalistic worldview of the post-Enlightenment West has arrived from
within. Hence, even the naturalistic interpretation of the Third type in part 1, in
which religious worldviews are interpreted as projections of structures that are essen-
tially our creations, has to be recognized as tendentious and relative from the per-
spective of the naturalized epistemology of the James-Quine approach.
Notes
1 George Rupp, Beyond Existentialism and Zen: Religion in a Pluralistic World

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1979). All subsequent parenthetical page
references are to this work.
2 George Rupp, Christologies and Cultures: Toward a Typology of Religious
Worldviews (The Hague: Mouton, 1974).
3 Rupp translates talk about God into talk about the nature of the ``self's ultimate
environment'' (elsewhere, `ùltimate ontological context''), not merely in defer-
ence to Buddhism but also because, as he says, the Enlightenment has radically
altered the way we conceive of the nature of ultimate reality, the real referent of
the theistic term ``God.'' He does not defend why we should conceive ``God'' in

terms dictated by the Enlightenment. However, I do not believe this needs a
defense. Whether problems nevertheless remain with Rupp's redescription of
the concept of God will be addressed in the pages that follow.
4 The following types are also described on this page.
5 For example, the right combination and distribution of elements, at one level,
and at another a suitable atmosphere and place in the solar system and enough
natural resources for the support of life for an indefinite period of time. Perhaps
one should add the relatively rapid evolution of the nervous system of the hu-
man animal into a highly complex and sophisticated processing center, crucial
for the survival, maintenance, growth, and, yes, dominance of the species.
6 See Beyond Existentialism and Zen, pp. 54, 63.
7 See ibid., bottom of p. 63.
8 The reader may feel tempted to dismiss my demand for definition as an unwar-
ranted prejudice against metaphor and vagueness. I acknowledge the irredu-
cibility and ineliminability of metaphor and vagueness from vast tracts of lan-
guage, from the most mundane to the most exact (e.g., theoretical physics). But
metaphor and vagueness are tolerable and meaningful to the degree that they
are anchored, however remotely or indirectly, in statements about circum-
stances or states of affairs that are publicly adjudicable. To clarify or give con-
tent to one metaphor by appeal to another is neither illuminating nor informa-
tive; otherwise, we might as well settle, joining the narrative theologians, for
the Biblical metaphors outright, and either assume that somehow their meaning
will become obvious in due time or simply acquiesce in the Biblical language
as the further unanalyzable bedrock through which we choose to redescribe
ourselves and our world (as, e.g., Hans Wilhelm Frei suggests that we should
do).
9 Rupp could reply that my criticism is rooted in the illicit segregation of the cos-
mos or our ultimate ontological context from the human and cultural. It is this
segregation that introduces a false wedge between the natural and the cultural
(human), which then serves as the springboard for my criticism: we can say that
human beings realize ends, but not the cosmos (the natural order). If there is no
sharp divide or chasm between the ``natural'' and the ``cultural'' (the human), as
the remarks quoted at the outset unambiguously suggest, to say that the cosmos
is moving toward or realizing a particular end is really to say that the human
species is moving toward or realizing that end, because the human is as much
a part of the cosmos as the natural order. Humanity and human culture are not
to be isolated from the natural, but rather to be understood as in deeponto-
logicalcontinuity with it, that is, as expressing tendencies already implicit in
the (misleadingly) abstracted ``natural world.'' Insofar as humans are meaning-
and value-creating beings who engage in action that is oriented toward the
realization of ends, Rupp might insist that these characteristics must also be

present in the cosmic process, whose effect we are, for we are inseparable and
ontologically indistinguishable from the cosmic process that has produced us.
10 Bishop W. H. Barnes, Scientific Theory and Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1933), p. 521.
11 As have, more recently, Stephen Jay Gould, Stephen W. Hawking, and Richard
Dawkins.
12 See Simpson's The Meaning of Evolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1949) and Monod's Chance and Necessity (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1971). Stephen Jay Gould's essays, too numerous to mention, are best accessed
through published collections. For Richard Dawkins, see his The Blind Watch-
maker (New York: W. W. Norton, 1986). From the perspective of physics and
cosmology, I have in mind Stephen W. Hawking's A Brief History of Time (New
York: Bantam Books, 1988).
13 Furthermore, it is misleading to use the concept of `èmpirical confirmation'' as
interchangeable with ``historical demonstration,'' as Rupp seems to want to do.
As historical beings, and beings who are capable of purposive activity, we have
this sense in which those ends that we realize in the historico-cultural order, to
the exclusion of those that we do not realize (either because we do not pursue
them or because we vanquish them), can be described as ``historically con-
firmed'' (and this only in hindsight). However, the fate of the ends that are real-
ized or that have failed to be realized in the historical process has nothing to do
with the ``structure of the real'' or ``natural development.'' Nature is indifferent
to those ends that we, qua historical beings, realize or not. Cultural or historical
developments far outstrip our natural context, not only in the sense that that
context is empirically compatible with a variety of these developments (includ-
ing our self-inflicted extinction), but also in the sense that it does not anticipate
or contain implicitly any particular `ènd'' or development, cultural or natural
(cosmic). In order words, the appearance of the historico-cultural order is a dis-
continuous and accidental ``leap'' in cosmic and biological evolution and
therefore cannot be read back into or made continuous with the natural in the
way that Rupp would like.
14 At first blush it is quite surprising that I would be charging Rupp with subservi-
ence to a ``realistic'' metaphysics. What I am charging Rupp with is subservi-
ence to the intuition that underlies and informs much of the metaphysics of
the West, realistic or idealistic, namely that ``reality'' has a particular character
or nature, and that this character or nature is there for us to capture with greater
or lesser degrees of adequacy or conformity. This charge will hopefully become
clearer in parts 2 and 3 of this essay.
15 I have in mind the importation of not only crude, supernaturalistic assumptions
to address, inter alia, the problem of evil, which does, indeed, seem to placate
our qualms about the anomalies and outrages undeniably present in the cosmic

process, although it does this only by appealing to explanations and assump-
tions that are highly questionable from within our current system of the world.
I also have in mind the type of idealistic metaphysics derived from Hegel
``cosmic teleology''to which Rupp is committed, which from within that
same system of the world is only different in degrees, not in kind, from the
kind of supernaturalism from which both Rupp and Hegel would wish to dis-
tance themselves.
16 The structural possibility that, I proffer, God represents is not, as is suggested by
the language of structureor ``structural scaffolding,'' as I have said elsewhere
(see `Òn the Possibility of an Evangelical Theology,'' Theology Today, July
1998)one reality or entity alongside humans and world. ``God'' is a relational
concept, not an object-referring term. Through our evolving conceptions of
God, we humans are not describing something that the cosmos is ultimately,
or a relation in which the cosmos or ourselves actually stand, notwithstanding
the possible although very ambiguous intimations and tendencies anticipative
of that relation already present in the cosmic process before the emergence of
the human; rather, we are imposing on the cosmos a particular structural pos-
sibility or development. Through these conceptions we are saying something
about what the cosmos and ourselves ought to be, in what sort of relation we
and our world and everything else that is in it ought to stand. Again, whether
there is one way of fleshing out or realizing the God-relation or structure is a
more complex question, to which what follows offers one possible answer.
17 Hick et al. anticipate a future possibility that may never become actual:
the convergence of all developments in one direction or structure. More accu-
rately, they are really reflecting upon our ultimate ground either as (1) a ready-
made reality, which we are trying to conceptualize, grasp more completely or
accurately, or, allowing a processive interpretation, (2) a reality that admits
only one ultimate development that will be reached at some future point
(as witnessed by their commitment to eschatological verification). What is in
movement and subject to revision, according to the first reading of Hick et al.,
is our concepts, not the reality that our concepts are trying to grasp. This re-
ality is there complete, awaiting that future conceptualization that will grasp it
`ùniquely.'' On the second, processive reading, reality is unfolding inexorably
toward a particular end, an end determined by its nature and therefore implicit
in it all along. From my point of view, it is not simply that our concepts and the
reality itself are in movement (Rupp), but that through our creative activity we
are in fact altering the nature of ultimate reality in ways not implicit in it
which implies the denial that reality has a particular nature. Hence, despite
the apparent distance between Rupp's considered point of view and that of
Hick et al., Rupp's statement that there is one reality that we are trying to com-
prehend, and his commitment to the idea that a ``totally adequate compre-
hension'' of ultimate reality is in principle (although not necessarily in practice)
attainable (Beyond Existentialism and Zen, p. 9), raises the question as to how

distant Rupp's position really is from that of Hick et al. on either interpretation
of the views of the latter. The force of this question will become apparent in
parts 2 and 3.
18 What recommends the good to humans and the cosmos at large is, positively,
the affirmation, continuance, and expansion of life beyond its ``natural'' boun-
daries, an affirmation that can in principle include the preservation of all forms
of life beyond what the mechanism of natural selection would allow; nega-
tively, it is the arresting, and potentially the elimination, of tendencies that mil-
itate against life, such as disorder, randomness, destructiveness (as manifested
in disease, deformities, and a host of other `ànomalies'' and `òutrages''), and
death. These ``values,'' however, do not become ethical values or moral imper-
atives until the emergence of a highly developed human self-consciousness
that goes on to add to these very preliminary values others of a higher order
(but perhaps not different in kind), such as self-sacrifice, love, compassion, jus-
tice, and truth, which far outstrip the initial ground of and impetus toward value
development better known as our instinct for survival. It is obvious to me that
we humans, initially the product of an insignificant cosmic accident and at the
mercy of this process, have evolved to inject into this process, through our self-
conscious activity, possibilities that are not necessarily or unambiguously im-
plicit in it (including the higher-order values that are so distinctively human).
We are making choices, as it were, for the cosmos that the cosmos itself is not
(and never was) in a position to make prior to the emergence of self-conscious,
value-creating beings; we are imposing on the cosmic process a conception of
the good that is altering its nature in a way that the process itself could not have
anticipated.
19 What follows is the epistemological correlate of the metaphysics enshrined in
part 1. It is, however, neutral with respect to that metaphysics. It proffers an
epistemological approach to pluralism that does not depend on the truth of
the naturalistic metaphysics, the home language, to which the author is com-
mitted; in fact, it relativizes that metaphysics (and worldview), treating it as
one among others, with no privileged access to the nature of ultimate reality.
20 I am assuming throughout my presentation of the Jamesian approach that
``truth,'' ``validity,'' and `àdequacy'' (Rupp's preferred term) are synonymous.
Later on I will consider in what way this implicit identification may have to be
called into question.
21 Why Rupp has picked this question is an interesting issue in itself, but it need
not detain us.
22 One cannot help believing, however, that convergence in action is really what
Rupp is interested in.
23 On my reading of the Jamesian view, even if at the `ènd of inquiry'' serious
differences of opinion at the level of particular truth claims were to remain,

this situation would not affect in any way the question of the adequacy of a
particular worldview or tradition.
24 On my reading of the passage last quoted, the more comprehensive conception
of reality I am alluding to is implicit in Rupp's talk of partial and incomplete
perspectives. On the Jamesian reading, the issue of partiality and incomplete-
ness does not arise; adequacy or truth is a matter of realizing the features of
the Third type, not having the most comprehensive conception or grasp of re-
ality (whatever that may mean). Clearly, then, if I am reading Rupp correctly,
the assumed equivalence between truth and adequacy will have to be aban-
doned henceforth. It is very tempting to see behind this quest for `òne compre-
hensive conception or theory of reality'' a recrudescence of the ``correspon-
dence theory of truth,'' which aims precisely at the sort of match between
theory and reality that Rupp seems to be contemplating.
25 That is, under ideal epistemic conditions.
26 This implies the emergence of one worldview as the true conceptualization of
reality, and, hence, the eventual absorption (or unification) of the other world-
views into this super worldview.
27 This, of course, implies the eventual falsification of all the others.
28 What I mean here is that, as Rupp himself emphasizes, the question of truth is
not ``which religious tradition is the true one,'' but, instead, how do we trans-
form, preserving its integrity, the tradition we find ourselves committed to into
one that exhibits certain characteristics (cf. Beyond Existentialism and Zen,
p. 18). Rupp's attempt to provide criteria of adequacy from what to many might
seem like an illusory Archimedean point is irrelevant to his commitment to a
type of pluralism that respects the validity of more than one religious tradition.
29 A view that implies an unqualified relativism, given that the criteria for
adequacy or truth can vary drastically and uncontrollably from tradition to
tradition.
30 Although below I focus on one view, verificationism (which, as a matter of
record, dispenses with a ``theory'' of truth, as it was worked out by the Logical
Positivists), this view shares with the correspondence and the coherence
theories of truth one feature, with which I take issue in the next pages, namely
the presumption that there is a unique or absolute correlation between theory
and reality, or that there is one theory or ``system of the world'' that fits, corre-
sponds to, or coheres with the facts better than any other. This is what I am
moving against in what follows, although I only focus on one version of abso-
lutism. This absolutist intuition is what I am saying has guided science, and this
intuition is neutral with respect to which view of truth one adopts.
31 I say Kantian because it makes reality radically epistemic, but without invoking
the notion of a Ding an sich or noumenal realm inaccessible to knowledge.

32 See, for example, Nelson Goodman, Ways of World-Making (Indianapolis:
Hackett, 1978); Hilary Putnam, Realism and Reason: Philosophical Papers
Volume III (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Putnam, The Many
Faces of Realism (La Salle: Open Court, 1987); and Putnam's Gifford Lectures,
Renewing Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).
Quine's disagreement with Goodman is unequivocally revealed in his review
of Goodman's aforementioned book (included in Quine, Theories and Things
[Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981]). I am indebted to Putnam's
work in working out the details and the defense of the Jamesian view, although
I see this position, or at least the contours of it, anticipated independently by
Rupp in Beyond Existentialism and Zen.
33 See Rudolf Carnap, The Logical Syntax of Language (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1937), pp. 317322.
34 Quine thinks that the task of sorting out metaphysical babble from real science
is to be done by the kinds of posits and postulates that field scientists invoke
in framing their hypotheses and theories. Quine admits that if in the future
scientists found ``dreams or reveries'' dependable in making predictions about
empirical phenomena, these, too, would be part and parcel of science (see
``Things and Their Place in Theories,'' in Quine, Theories and Things, p. 22).
The point is, then, that no fine line can be drawn in advance between meta-
physics (in the pejorative sense) and ``hard'' science.
35 W. V. Quine, `Òn Empirically Equivalent Systems of the World,'' Erkenntnis 9
(1975): 328.
36 A further, more radical, case of underdetermination is advanced by Quine
that from my point of view seals the fate of eschatological-verificationist
approaches: indeterminacy of translation.
37 Although on my reading (influenced by Putnam) Quine is not committed to a
noumenal realm or Ding an sich, there is a possible reading on which Quine is.
See Quine's remarks about reference being ``free-floating'' (Quine, Theories
and Things, p. 20) and `ìnscrutability of reference'' (see `Òntological Relativ-
ity'' and ``Speaking of Objects,'' both in Ontological Relativity [New York: Co-
lumbia University Press, 1969], and chapters 1 and 2 of Quine, Word and
Object [Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960]).
38 Rupp's recognition that his (minimalist) criteria are compatible with a nonnatur-
alistic interpretation of the Third type is correct (Beyond Existentialism and Zen,
p. 108). But the correctness of this recognition does not reside in any supposed
neutrality of the criteria. It is naturalism itself that says that the naturalism is not
the only way that reality can be parsed.

Beyond Existentialism and Zen

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Beyond Existentialism and Zen

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RUPP IN PERSPECTIVE: AN EXAMINATION OF TWO

TOPICS IN BEYOND EXISTENTIALISM AND ZEN

The Truth of Zen

154 Philosophy East & West

The first systematic alternative or type is ``an uncompromising nihilism'' (empha-

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Two Approaches to Religious Pluralism19

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The Jamesian Approach

whether a position is or is not accepted as a vital expression of the tradition . . . [and is

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1 George Rupp, Beyond Existentialism and Zen: Religion in a Pluralistic World

172 Philosophy East & West

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