In this thesis I am investigating the religious ideas of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, H. P. Blavatsky and Annie Besant as examples of early approaches to religious pluralism. In this context, the term ‘religious pluralism’ refers to the belief that all religious traditions are paths to genuine religious ends. Thus, religions other than one’s own are considered to be of significance to people of all faiths and even to those who are not believers. I relate the appearance of these early notions of religious pluralism to the historical and ideological setting in which they were proposed, particularly the late nineteenth-century debate about science and religion in the West and its spheres of influence. I argue that theories of evolution, in addition to the emerging field of historical biblical criticism, presented a serious challenge to traditional understandings of religion. Together, these two strands of thought made a strong case for a purely materialistic worldview and for the further development of modern sciences on such a basis. In response to this crisis of religion, the four thinkers proposed religious teachings inspired by their own intense religious experience. They emphasised the experiential aspect of these teachings in order to claim an epistemic status of religious knowledge equal to that of scientific or empirical knowledge. In order to universalise this claim, they appealed to religious experience and religious knowledge originating in all faith traditions. In my assessment of these arguments I suggest that the two main thinkers, i.e. Ramakrishna and Blavatsky, may have been led towards pluralistic ideas of religion through their endorsement of the esoteric traditions of Tantrism and Hermeticism, respectively. Moreover, I trace the impact of the British colonial presence in India on the content, presentation and reception of the teachings of all four thinkers. I conclude that the teachings of Ramakrishna et al. represent early attempts to engage with the fact of religious plurality from a religious perspective. Thus, the four thinkers encouraged people to relate to the beliefs and practices of other faiths and to explore them in relation to their own life. These early efforts in interreligious understanding represented the initial steps towards our current debates about religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:573834 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Hauch, Sofie |
| Publisher | University of Glasgow |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4277/ |
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