Philosophical arguments for religious pluralism – including that of John Hick – are outlined. It is noted, however, that the question of ontology, as explored within the philosophy of science, has not been included in these arguments. The views of ontology in scientific description that are associated with the work of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn are outlined, but a deeper insight, it is argued, may be developed through the work of Mary Hesse and of Rom which suggests insurmountable limitations to our grasp of the ontology of created things. This understanding may be extended, it is argued, to God (or what Hick calls Reality) so that an attitude of ‘apophatic critical realism’ may be applied both to God (as it is in Eastern Orthodoxy) and to created entities. (In relation to God, something comparable can, it is noted, be found in certain Western Christian scholars such as Yves Congar.) This understanding, in its theological component, may be applied to apparent incompatibilities between different faith traditions, such as that between ‘personal’ and ‘non-personal’ and between ‘monotheistic’ and ‘polytheistic’ understandings.

In Chapter 5, we examine the relation between mechanisms and laws/counterfactuals by revisiting the main notions of mechanism found in the literature. We distinguish between two different conceptions of ‘mechanism’: mechanisms-of and mechanisms-for. We argue that for both mechanisms-of and mechanisms-for, counterfactuals and laws are central for understanding within-mechanism interactions. Concerning mechanisms-for, we claim that the existence of irregular mechanisms is compatible with the view that mechanisms operate according to laws. The discussion in this chapter, then, points to an asymmetrical dependence between mechanisms and laws/counterfactuals: while some laws and counterfactuals must be taken as primitive (non-mechanistic) facts of the world, all mechanisms depend on laws/counterfactuals.