Different Paths, Different Summits: A Model for Religious Pluralism

Different Paths, Different Summits: A Model for Religious Pluralism. By Stephen Kaplan. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. xi + 187 pp. $76.00 (cloth); $29.95 (paper).

As his title suggests, Stephen Kaplan's aim in Different Paths, Different Summits is to "attempt to envision how more than one religious tradition can be ultimately true, not penultimately true; ... to conceptualize the logical framework in which ultimate reality . . . may be conceived of as plural, not singular" (pp. ix-x). More specifically, the author elaborates a "holographic model" which he believes indicates that it is theoretically possible for three very different types of ultimate religious fulfillment to be "simultaneously existing" (p. 2): the moksha (liberation) sought by "monistic nondualists" such as Gaudapada, an Advaita Vedantin; the nirvana sought by "process nondualists" such as Vasubandhu, a Yogacara Buddhist; and the salvation sought by "theists," such as Christian mystic Richard of St. Victor.

The authors primary dialogue partner in Different Paths, Different Summits is David Bohm, who had previously constructed a holographic model for use in physics. But before engaging Bohm, Kaplan first introduces aspects of the work of John Hick, llaimon Panikkar, and Steven Katz that bear directly on the feasibility of Kaplan's own project. He argues against Hick's rejection of the possibility of a plurality of ultimate realities, against Panikkars insistence that religious pluraliste cannot have models, and against Katz's assertion that the attempt to categorize mystical experiences according to various types is misguided.

Because of its considerable complexity, the holographic model, as developed by Bohm and subsequently adopted, and adapted, by Kaplan, cannot be adequately summarized within the confines of a brief review. The model entails the exploration of how the process of holography (including such things as how a laser beam is split into reference beam and object beam, interference patterns, superposition, real and virtual images, projection, redundancy, implicate and explicate orders) can provide a framework for conceiving how it might be possible for multiple, seemingly contradictory, "realities" to be simultaneously true. just as by means of the holographic model Bohm believed that he had resolved the seeming incompatibilities "between quantum theory and relativity theory" (p. 103), Kaplan believes that the model may do the same for seemingly incompatible and contradictory notions of ultimate religious fulfillment.

Toward the beginning of his book, Kaplan makes a rather extraordinary admission: "I cannot verify nor do I pretend to know that any of the following is true" (p. 6). There is a similar disclaimer near the end of the book (p. 169). he is to be commended for his honesty and humility. The holographic model is essentially an extended and very complex analogy, and analogies never prove anything; they are only useful insofar as they aid in the process of conceiving how something-the thing that the analogy is designed to help illuminate-might be the case. judging by this criterion, Kaplan's holographic model for religious pluralism is a success.

Different Paths, Different Summits is a strikingly original contribution to the growing body of literature on religious pluralism. It will be useful to scholars interested in religious pluralism and the theology of religions, and for graduate-level courses in those areas.

JOSEPH MOLLEUR

Cornell College

Mount Vernon, Iowa

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