Pluralist paradigm: looking ahead

Abstract

The author presents, in the first place, the paradoxical situation of both stagnation and urgency, which the theology of religious pluralism is going through. From an open perspective of the sciences of religion, he first shows (to SEE) the situation of religious pluralism, cultural and religious, in western society, in Islam, and in the Catholic Church. Then, in the second part (to JUDGE), situations are evaluated taking into account the difficulty they represent to start on a new step to pluralism. Such difficulties are those inherent in changes of paradigm in general, those of a change in religious paradigms, and the specific difficulty of a pluralistic paradigm, stating as well, that in terms of a change of paradigm, it is not possible to advance straightly, but only simultaneously relying on multiple arguments, from different disciplinary or paradigmatic approaches. In the third part (to ACT), analyzing the global situation in light of these difficulties, he tries to show possible previous steps to take so as to plunge into the pluralistic paradigm, steps he groups in two, epistemological and theological, without abandoning the perspective of the sciences of religion on which he stands at all times.