Is Theological Pluralism Possible
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Can Jews maintain meaningful theological discourse while truly respecting diverse religious views? The tension between these imperatives has led some scholars to advocate abandoning theology entirely in favor of viewing Judaism as merely a "way of life." Drawing upon Isaiah Berlin's concept of objective value-pluralism and medieval Jewish mystical texts like Sefer Yetzirah, a novel metaphorical framework emerges based on multi-dimensional mapping. Different theological positions can be understood as various attempts to map God's five-dimensional reality (including dimensions of good and evil) into our four-dimensional world. This cartographic metaphor demonstrates how one can reasonably affirm the superiority of one's own theological mapping while recognizing that others' mappings are not unreasonable. When applied to contemporary theological problems, including post-Holocaust theodicy, the framework reveals important parallels between the destruction of the Second Temple and the Shoah. The analysis shows that theological pluralism is both possible and necessary, allowing Jews to maintain distinctive theological commitments while respecting other religious traditions. This approach preserves the meaningfulness of Jewish theological discourse without falling into relativism, offering a middle path between exclusivism and the abandonment of theology altogether.

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Published 2013
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