Jacek Wojtysiak 
prof. dr. hab. Department of Theory
of Knowledge of the Faculty of Philosophy,
The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin.
Poland, 20‒950 Lublin, Al.Racławickie 14;
e-mail:wojtys@kul.pl

 

In my essay I consider the situation of a person who really believes in the existence oftheUltimate Reality. The person in question should choose one of the historical religions orconstruct his or her own pluralist-sceptical Meta-religion. To do so rationally, he or she mustuse appropriate criteria. I think that the list of these criteria should include the following: in-ternal and external coherence, empirical (mystical) confirmation, credible justification ortestimony, existential usefulness, and universality. A comparison of the great historical reli-gions and skeptical-pluralistic Meta-religion leads to the thesis that all of them similarly ful-fill these criteria. The exception to this is the criterion of credibility, which attributesahigher epistemic value to Christianity, although it is possible to discuss whether this valueis conditioned by a historical coincidence. In addition, Christianity (understood in a particu-larist way) faces the objection that I call ‘Schellenberg-Hick’s pliers’. I suppose that it canbe avoided by advocating Christian pluralism. Its content can be formulated as follows: justas the Eucharistic signs make available the salvific sacrifice of Christ and the love of GodtheFather, so Christian mystery could also be universally made available by the signs ofnon-Christian religions.