The Outsider In Anthony Kenny's A Path From Rome

This is not to say that an outsider cannot value religious truth claims. As discussed, the nature of the outsider can vary greatly, and their background will play a large role in their ability to do so. For example, a person who left a religious tradition, despite technically being an outsider, would have full contextualisation for truth claims, and have experience of the value of truth claims. Anthony Kenny in his book A Path from Rome recounts both his training to become a Catholic Priest, and his gradual withdrawal from Catholicism. Even as a religious outsider, Kenny recognises the emotional value of the religious tradition he used to belong to, and writes that nothing he has ever seen compared to religious ceremonies at the Vatican in ‘dramatic impact’, a feeling that remains true ‘from a secular and agnostic standpoint’ that he now occupies. While he did not remain a priest, he is now a University lecturer, and can be said to have a complex understanding of Catholicism, and of the value of the religious traditions. Although technically now an outsider, the role of

John Hick cites Bahá'u'lláh as an influential religious leader who adopted pluralism. Bahá'u'lláh led Bahaism, a movement in Islam that believes that there is another prophet after Muhammad, and suggests that pluralism ‘has a more familiar and accepted status in India and further east’. Furthermore, being a member of a religious tradition may be beneficial in understanding another’s truth claims, if the traditions have similar concepts, or share some truth claims. For example, for religious traditions such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Bahaism, despite the fact that each tradition claims to supersede the previous one, some concepts and ideas may be shared, and so a religious background may be beneficial when aiming to understand truth