Hindu Views of Religious Others: Implications for Christian Theology

Abstract

[Classical Hindu thinkers perfected their orthodoxy and orthopraxis in part by critiquing alternatives. Relying on hierarchies in knowledge, education, morality, and even human nature, they judged other positions defective versions of their own. Theists additionally found God implicitly present in other incomplete, misguided beliefs providentially permitted by God for a time. Likewise, Hindu theorists of the 20th century, in the light of colonialism and missionary critique, ranked Hinduism's spiritual practice above externalist, historicist, and doctrine-oriented Western religiosity. While none of these Hindu views is identical to dominant Catholic ones, a comparison illumines what is and what is not unique in similar Christian claims.]