## 1. The Pervasiveness of Religious Diversity



Most religions are theistic in the sense that they posit the existence
of a personal Supreme Being (God) or set of personal deities, although
within some belief systems normally labeled religions--for
example, Buddhism--there is no belief in such a being.
Monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam agree
that there is a sole God. Polytheistic religions such as Taoism,
Japanese Shinto, and Chinese folk religion hold that there are
multiple deities (gods). While Hinduism typically recognizes many gods
and goddesses, it is not polytheistic. Those varieties of Hinduism
that count these many deities as aspects of a single God can be
considered monotheistic. Other strands of Hinduism are henotheistic,
worshiping one deity but recognizing many others. While much of what
follows is applicable to any theistic religion, the focus will be on
the diversity issues that arise predominately in those religions that
believe in a sole personal Supreme Being (God).



While there is obviously widespread diversity of thought among these
monotheistic religions (theistic systems) on such issues as the
God's nature and character, the relationship between divine control
and human freedom, the extent to which God unilaterally intervenes in
our world, and how God would have us live, it is being increasingly
recognized that widespread diversity of thought on all these issues
also exists just as clearly, and in exactly the same sense, within
basic theistic systems. For example, within Christianity, believers
differ significantly on the nature of God. Some see God as
all-controlling, others as self-limiting, and still others as
incapable of unilaterally controlling any aspect of reality. Some
believe God to have infallible knowledge only of all that has occurred
or is occurring, others claim God also has knowledge of all that will
actually occur, while those who believe God possesses middle knowledge
add that God knows all that would actually occur in any possible
context. Some believe the moral principles stipulated by God for
correct human behavior flow from God's nature or character and thus
that such principles determine God's behavior, while others believe
that God acts in accordance with a different set of moral rules than
those moral rules given to humans; that for God what is right is
simply whatever God does. Some believe that only those who have
consciously "given their lives to Christ" will spend eternity in
God's presence. Others believe that many who have never even heard
the name of Jesus will enter God's presence, while others yet do not
even believe subjective immortality (a conscious afterlife) to be a
reality. Muslims also differ significantly among themselves on these
same divine attributes (Aijaz 2015). Consider, for example, the wide
variety of Muslim perspectives on such issues as the autonomy of the
individual when interpreting the Qur'an, how best to apply core
Islamic values to modern life, and the status of women. We find
equally pervasive, significant intra-system diversity in Hinduism
(Sharma 2011) and Judaism (Shatz 2011).



Moreover, there is also an increasing awareness that the practical
import of intra-theistic diversity is just as significant as is that
of inter-theistic diversity. For most Christians, for instance, the
practical significance of retaining or modifying beliefs about God's
power or knowledge is just as great as retaining or modifying the
belief that Christianity is a better theistic explanatory hypothesis
than Islam. In fact, as Dennis Potter points out, whether there are
actually differing inter-theistic perspectives on a given issues often
depends on which intra-theistic perspectives we are considering
(Potter 2013). So both types of diversity will be given equal
attention in our discussion


## 2. Possible Responses to Religious Diversity



One obvious response to religious diversity of any form is to maintain
that since there exists no divine reality--since the referent in
all religious truth claims related to the divine is
nonexistent--all such claims should be considered false. Another
possible response, sometimes put forth by religious relativists, is
that there is no singular truth when considering mutually incompatible
religious claims about reality; more than one of the conflicting sets
of specific truth-claims can be correct concurrently (Runzo 1988,
351-357). However, most current discussions of religious
diversity presuppose a realist theory of truth--that there is a
truth to the matter.



Unfortunately there is no standard way to categorize responses to the
diversity of perspectives on religious truth claims. Religious
exclusivism and religious pluralism appear in most categorizations,
but not always with the same meanings. Religious inclusivism also
sometime appears, but primarily in discussions about sufficient
conditions for spending eternity with God, as it does in the
discussion below (section 8) on the Eternal Destiny of Humankind.
Accordingly, our general discussion of religious truth claims will
focus on three basic categories: religious exclusivism, religious
non-exclusivism, and religious pluralism. For our purposes,
individuals are religious exclusivists when they believe that their
perspective on some disputed inter-theistic truth claim--for
example, that Allah is the true God--or some disputed
intra-theistic truth claim--for example, that the Christian God
cannot control free human choice--to be the truth or at least
closer to the truth than any other competing religious perspective on
this
 issue.[1]
 Individuals are religious non-exclusivists with respect to a disputed
religious truth claim when they deny that any given religious
perspective on this claim is superior to all other competing religious
perspectives on this issue. Finally, individuals are religious
pluralists with respect to a given inter-theistic or intra-theistic
truth claim when they maintain not only (as non-exclusivists) that no
single religious perspective is superior to all others but also make a
positive claim about the truth of the matter. The nature of this claim
depends on the type of issue in question. If the issue is one on which
it is possible that the perspectives of more than one religion or
variant thereof could be true--for example, the sufficient
conditions for spending eternity in God's presence--pluralists
claim that the religious perspectives of more than one basic theistic
system or variant thereof can justifiably be considered equally close
to the truth (Marbaniang 2010). If the issue is one on which there can
be only one actual truth to the matter, but we have no objective means
of determining exactly what that truth is--for example, the
actual nature of God--pluralists claim that the perspectives of
more than one basic theistic system or variant thereof can justifiably
be considered to reflect some aspect of this truth (Byrne 2011,
 36-7).[2]


## 3. Religious Diversity and Epistemic Obligation



No philosopher denies that the awareness (realization) of seeming
religious diversity sometimes does in fact have an impact on
exclusivists--from causing minor uneasiness to significantly
reducing their level of confidence in the truth of certain beliefs to
precipitating belief abandonment. This is simply an empirical claim
about psychological states and behaviors (Alston 1988, 442-446;
Plantinga 2000, 189).



How should, though, exclusivists coming to an awareness of religious
diversity--the awareness that seemingly sincere, knowledgeable
individuals differ with them on an issue of religious
significance--respond to the reality of such diversity? How
should, for instance, the devout Hindu or Christian who comes to
realize that others who seem as knowledgeable and devout hold
incompatible religious perspectives respond? Or how should Christians
who believe the Bible clearly portrays a God with total control over
all aspects of reality respond to the realization that other seemingly
sincere, devout, "Bible-believing" Christians see the Bible as
clearly portraying a God who has chosen not to control what occurs in
those contexts in which humans have been granted meaningful moral
freedom? Can exclusivists justifiably disregard such diversity? If
not, are exclusivists under some obligation to attempt to resolve such
epistemic conflicts--engage in belief assessment (or
reassessment) with openness to possible revision? Or would it at least
be a good idea to do so?



Within the relevant "epistemology of disagreement
literature," we find significantly different responses. There
are, of course, religious individuals (and groups) who believe it is
inappropriate to subject religious beliefs to assessment of any sort.
Certain individuals (sometimes called fideists) have argued, for
instance, that religious beliefs are not of a type properly subjected
to rational assessment and/or that assessing such beliefs demonstrates
a lack of faith (Peterson et al. 2013, 65-69). But few
philosophers currently hold this position. Most maintain that
exclusivists have at least the right to assess their beliefs in the
face of religious diversity.



There continues, however, to be significant debate on whether
exclusivists are under an obligation to engage in such belief
assessment. Some philosophers agree with Robert McKim that
"disagreement about an issue or area of inquiry provides reason to
think that each side has an obligation to examine beliefs about the
issue" (McKim 2001, 140). The underlying assumption here is that
when perspectives on any issue, be they personal, social, economic,
political, or religious, have important consequences for that person
or others, then individuals are under an obligation to find the truth
of the matter--to maximize truth. Individuals, in this case
religious exclusivists, can only attempt to maximize truth or avoid
error in the face of diverse claims, it is argued, if they attempt to
resolve the conflict.



The contention here, it must be emphasized, is not that such
resolution is always possible or that exclusivists must necessarily
give up their belief if no resolution is forthcoming. Discussion
concerning those issues is yet to come. The claim, rather, is only
that the exclusivist is obligated at the very least to assess the
evidence for and against the beliefs in question and to try to
"get a sense of the appeal and of the concern of those who
advocate them" (McKim 2001, 146).



Others philosophers disagree. For example, Alvin Plantinga
acknowledges that if proponents of a specific religious perspective
have no reason to doubt that those with whom they disagree really are
on equal epistemic footing, then they are under a prima facie
obligation to attempt to resolve the conflict. However, Plantinga
denies that Christian exclusivists need ever acknowledge that they are
facing true epistemic parity--need ever admit that they actually
are differing with true epistemic peers. Although Christian
exclusivists, we are told, may grant that those with whom they are in
disagreement have not violated any epistemic duty and may know of no
arguments that would convince others of their wrongness while
maintaining their rightness, exclusivists are likely to believe that
they "have been epistemically favored in some way." They might
believe, for instance, that they have been graced by 'the Internal
Witness of the Holy Spirit'; or



> ... perhaps he [they] think the Holy Spirit preserves
> the Christian church from serious error, at least with respect to the
> fundamentals of Christian belief; or perhaps [they think] that [they
> have] been converted by divine grace, so that [they] now see what was
> once obscure to [them]--a blessing not so far bestowed upon the
> dissenters (Plantinga 1997, 296).



Moreover, if any beliefs of this type are true, Plantinga contends,
then Christian exclusivists are quite probably "in a better
position, epistemically speaking," than those who reject the
exclusivistic belief in question. Therefore, since it cannot be
demonstrated that Christian belief of this sort is very likely false,
Christian believers remain justified in maintaining that the
proponents of other religious perspectives are not actually on an
equal epistemic footing. The same, Plantinga acknowledges, might well
be true for exclusivists in other religious belief systems (Plantinga
1997, 296).
 [3]



The strength of this line of reasoning depends in part on the
debatable issue of who shoulders the burden of proof on the question
of equal epistemic footing. Those siding with Plantinga argue in
essence that unless exclusivists must acknowledge on epistemic grounds
that are (or should be) accepted by all rational people that those
holding incompatible beliefs are actually on equal footing,
exclusivists can justifiably deny that this is so and thus need not
engage in belief assessment (Kim 2011). Those supporting obligatory
belief assessment argue that exclusivists are the ones who shoulder
the burden of proof. Unless it can be demonstrated on epistemic
grounds that are (or should be) accepted by all rational people that
proponents of the competing perspectives are not actually on equal
epistemic footing, exclusivists must consider their challengers on
equal epistemic footing and are thus obligated to engage in belief
assessment (Basinger 2002, 26-27). Or, to state this important
distinction another way, it is Plantinga's contention that we need
not acknowledge that those with whom we disagree are actually on equal
epistemic footing unless it can be demonstrated objectively that they
are equally knowledgeable and sincere, while his critics maintain that
we must acknowledge that those with whom we disagree are on equal
epistemic footing unless we have an objective means of demonstrating
that we are in fact more knowledgeable and/or sincere than they. Most
philosophers of religion side with the critics in this case and thus
assume that actual peer conflict cannot be denied (Byrne 2011,
30).



Another influential type of challenge to obligatory belief assessment
in the face of religious diversity has been raised by Jerome Gellman.
The focus of his challenge centers on what he identifies as rock
bottom beliefs. Such beliefs, as Gellman defines them, are the
epistemic givens in a religious belief system--the assumed,
foundational truths upon which all else is built. Gellman grants that
if a religious belief affirmed by an exclusivist is not rock bottom
(is not a foundational assumption), then it may well be subject to
obligatory belief assessment in the face of religious diversity.
However, he argues, since belief assessment only makes sense when one
isn't certain that the belief in question is true, and since rock
bottom religious beliefs are among the foundational truths--the
basic, assumed truths--in an exclusivist's epistemic system, no
assessment is necessary. Rather, when exclusivists encounter a
challenge to such a belief--for example, a challenge to their
rock bottom belief in God's ultimate control over all earthly
affairs--they can, utilizing the G. E. Moore switch, justifiably
maintain that because their rock bottom belief is true, the competing
belief can justifiably be rejected (Gellman 1993, 345-364;
Gellman 1998, 229-235).



Furthermore, Gellman has added, even if we grant that rock bottom
beliefs are at times open to belief assessment, exclusivists need not
engage in such assessment in the face of religious diversity unless
they find that the awareness of such diversity is causing them to lose
significant confidence in their own perspective. In the absence of
this type of internal conflict, they "may rationally invoke [their]
unreflective religious belief to defeat opposing religious claims,
without having to consider the question any further" (Gellman 2000,
403).



It would seem, though, that even those who are sympathetic to
Gellman's general line of reasoning would want to limit its scope.
Many religious beliefs held by exclusivists have practical
consequences. That is, exclusivist beliefs are not isolated cognitive
assumptions; they motivate behavior. For instance, there are many
theists worldwide who not only still believe that men have some sort
of God-given, inherent authority over women, or that certain ethnic
groups have God-given superiority, or that certain sexual orientations
are perversions of God's ideal, or that humans have God-given
authority over the rest of nature, or that God desires heretics to be
silenced, they also act on these beliefs. However, it seems safe to
assume that most exclusivists, including Gellman, believe that some of
these actions are morally wrong and ought to be stopped to the extent
possible. In such cases, it is difficult to imagine many exclusivists
maintaining that those who hold the beliefs on which these acts are
based have no need to reassess these beliefs unless they personally
feel a need to do so. It seems, rather, that most exclusivists would
want those holding such beliefs to at the very least engage in
significant belief reassessment, even if they don't at present
personally feel a need to do so.


## 4. Religious Diversity and Justified Belief



Some philosophers/theologians assume that belief assessment, when
conducted properly, can often resolve epistemic peer conflict (Byrne
2011, 31; Aijaz 2017). But what if we assume that while the
consideration of criteria such as self-consistency and
comprehensiveness can rule out certain options, there exists no set of
criteria that will allow us to resolve most religious epistemic
disputes (either between or within religious perspectives) in a
neutral, nonquestion-begging fashion (Peterson et al. 2013,
69-74)? In what epistemic position does this then place the
exclusivist? Or to use the phrasing preferred in the current
"epistemology of disagreement" debates, to what extent, if
any, is it reasonable for exclusivists to retain their exclusivistic
beliefs when it is acknowledged that epistemic peers
 disagree?[4]



The answer, as some see it, is that exclusivists can no longer
justifiably maintain that their exclusivistic beliefs are true. J.L.
Schellenberg, for example, argues that because no more than one among
a set of incompatible truth claims can be true, disputants in a debate
over such claims are justified in continuing to maintain that their
claim is true only if they possess nonquestion-begging justification
-- justification based on assumptions and lines of reasoning
acceptable to both parties -- for believing the incompatible
claim of any competitor to be false. However, since disputants in no
religious conflicts possess such justification, disputants cannot be
justified "in holding their own claim to be true." Or, As
Schellenberg states this conclusion in another context, we must
conclude that in the absence of objective, nonquestion-begging
justification, none of the disputants in religious conflicts "has
justification for supposing the others' claims false"
(Schellenberg 2000, 213). David Silver comes to a similar conclusion:
"[Exclusivists] should provide independent evidence for the claim
that they have a special source of religious knowledge ... or they
should relinquish their exclusivist religious beliefs" (Silver 2001,
11).



In more recent discussions, this perspective is sometimes labeled
"(strong) Conciliationism" (Christensen 2007, 2016; Feldman
2006) or the "Equal Weight View" (Cohen 2013). When exclusivists
and their epistemic peers disagree and exclusivists can offer no
independent reasons that establish their position, then exclusivists
should acknowledge that their perspective has no greater epistemic
weight than those of their epistemic competitors and either suspend
judgment or abandon their exclusivistic position and grant equal
epistemic status to all the self-consistent, comprehensive
perspectives in play.



Others have not gone this far, arguing rather that while exclusivists
need not abandon religious belief in the face of unresolved conflict,
they must, or at least be willing to, hold their exclusive religious
beliefs more tentatively (with less confidence). Philip Quinn argues,
for instance, that acknowledged epistemic parity necessarily has a
negative (epistemically humbling) impact on the level of justification
for any religious belief system. Such parity does not necessarily
reduce justification below a level sufficient for rational
acceptability. But for those proponents of a religion who are
"sufficiently aware of religious diversity, the justification that
the [religion] receives from its sources is a good deal less than
would be the case were there no such diversity" (Quinn 2005a, 137).
James Kraft agrees, arguing that when individuals acknowledge that
those with whom they disagree are equivalently informed and capable
and have made no obvious mistakes in reasoning, their confidence in
their perspective is rightly reduced (Kraft 2007)



The tentativeness this reduction in confidence produces, McKim tells
us, does not entail never-ending inquiry. What it means, rather, is
that in the face of unresolved religious diversity, a person should be
open to the possibility "that one or more of the [alternatives]
may be correct ... that the position one had thought to be
correct may be wrong [while] one of the other positions may be
right" (McKim 2001, 154-55). Joseph Runzo and Gary Gutting
agree. According to Runzo, "all faith commitments must be held
with the humbling recognition that they can be misguided, for our
knowledge is never sure" (Runzo 1993, 236). Gutting argues that
only interim, not decisive assent is justified in the face of
unresolved diversity and that "those who give merely interim
assent must recognize the equal value, as an essential element in the
continuing discussion, of beliefs contrary to theirs" (Gutting
1982, 108). Moreover, argues McKim, such tentativeness in the face of
diversity has an important payoff. It can lead to deep tolerance: the
allowance "that those with whom you disagree are people whom it
is worthwhile to approach with rational arguments" (McKim 2001,
178) And personal tolerance of this sort, we are told, may well lead
to a more tolerant and open society that will permit and even
encourage a diversity of opinion on all issues, including opinions on
religious matters. [Whether this is in fact the case will be
considered in detail in Section 6.]



William Alston represents an even more charitable response to
exclusivism. His perspective is based on what he sees as a crucial
distinction between two types of epistemic disputes: those in which
"it is clear what would constitute non-circular grounds for
supposing one of the contestants to be superior to the others"
and those in which it is not. In the former case--in those cases
in which there is a commonly accepted "procedure for settling
disputes"--it isn't clear, he acknowledges, that it
is rational for individuals to continue to maintain that their
position is superior (Alston 1988, 442-443).



However, as Alston sees it, there exists no such common ground for
settling basic epistemic disputes over religious truth claims, and
this, he contends, alters the situation drastically. It still remains
true, he grants, that the reality of religious diversity diminishes
justification. But the fact that "we are at a loss to specify
[common ground]" means, he argues, that with respect to those
religious perspectives that are self-consistent, it is not
"irrational for one to remain an exclusivist"--not
irrational for proponents of any religious perspective to continue to
hold that their perspective is true. That is, as Alston sees it, given
the absence of common ground for resolving disputes, the proponent of
any self-consistent religious perspective can justifiably continue to
believe this perspective to be true "despite not being able to
show that it is epistemically superior to the competition"
(Alston 1988, 443-446). Stated differently yet, Alston grants
that objective evidence is necessary for justified belief when the
debated issue is one for which such evidence is available. But when
objective evidence is not available--as is the case for most
important religious contentions--it cannot be required for
justified belief.



In fact, at one point he goes even further. Because there exists at
present no neutral ground for adjudicating religious epistemic
conflicts, it is not only the case, Alston argues, that exclusivists
are justified (rational) in continuing to consider their own
perspective superior. Since we do not even know in most cases what a
non-circular reason for demonstrating superiority would look like, the
"only rational course" for exclusivists "is to sit
tight" with the beliefs "which [have] served so well in
guiding [their] activity in the world." Or, to generalize this
point, Alston speaks for those who maintain that, given the absence of
common ground for adjudicating disputes concerning self-consistent
religious perspectives, it is not rational for exclusivists to stop
maintaining that their system is superior (Alston 1988,
 444).[5]



Philip Quinn represents yet another, increasingly popular approach.
While he agrees with Alston that in the face of diversity exclusivists
may well be justified in continuing to "sit
tight"--in continuing to maintain that their religious
perspective is true--he denies that this is the only rational
course of action available (Quinn 2000, 235-246). The basis for
this position is his distinction between a pre-Kantian and a Kantian
understanding of religious belief. To have a pre-Kantian understanding
of religious belief is to assume that we have (or at least can have)
access to the truth as it really is. It is to believe, for instance,
that we do (or at least can in principle) know what God is really
like. To have a Kantian understanding of religious belief is to assume
that although there is a literal noumenal reality, our understanding
of this reality (and thus our truth claims about this reality) will of
necessity be relative to the cultural/social/psychological lenses
through which our conceptualization of this noumenal reality is
processed. It is to believe, for instance, that although there is a
divine reality about which we can make truth claims, our understanding
of (and thus our truth claims about) this divine reality will
necessarily to some extent be conditioned by the ways in which our
environment (our culture in the broadest sense) has shaped our
categories of thought (Quinn 2000, 241-242).



Alston, Quinn contends, is essentially working off of a pre-Kantian
model of religious belief when he encourages religious exclusivists to
sit tight in the face of peer conflict since, in the absence of any
objective basis for determining which perspective is right, the
exclusivist has no sufficient reason not to do so. Quinn does not deny
that this pre-Kantian approach is justifiable and thus does not deny
that someone who follows Alston's advice to sit tight is
rational in doing so. However, Quinn believes that "it should
not be taken for granted that any of the [contending perspectives] in
its present form is correct." Hence, he believes it is equally
justifiable for an exclusivist to adopt a Kantian approach to
religious belief. Specifically, he believes it is equally justifiable
for an exclusivist to assume that whatever any of us can know about
the truth of the matter will never be a description of religious
reality that is free of significant cultural/social/psychological
conditioning. Accordingly, it is also rational, he maintains, for
exclusivists encountering diverse truth claims to "seek a more
inclusivist or pluralistic understanding of their own faith" by
modifying their beliefs to bring them "into line with such an
understanding" (Quinn 2000, 242).



In short, as Quinn sees it, those who hold a position such as
Alston's have left us, at least implicitly, with a false
dilemma: either we find common ground on which we can objectively
determine which religious perspective is the truth or we sit tight
with what we have. However, Quinn holds that, once we realize it is
perfectly reasonable for a person to assume that the proponent of no
religious perspective has (or even could have) an accurate
understanding of divine reality as it really is, another rational
alternative appears. We then see that it is also perfectly rational
for people to begin to revise their own phenomenological perspective
on the truth in a way that will allow for greater overlap with the
phenomenological perspectives of others.



The approach to conflicting religious perspectives Quinn outlines has
in fact become increasingly popular in exclusivistic circles.
Consider, for example, the ongoing debate among Christians over how
God brought the rest of reality into existence. Some still claim the
Bible clearly teaches that God created the "heavens and the
earth" in six twenty-four hour periods about ten thousand years
ago. Others still maintain that the fact that "a day is to the
Lord as a thousand years" (Psalms 90:4) means that while God is
directly responsible for what the Bible says was created each
"day," it is most reasonable to believe that the time
frame for each instance of creative activity could well have been
millions, or even billions, of years. And then there are those who
still hold that God's direct creative activity consisted
primarily of orchestrating the "Big Bang." However, more
recently, many Christians have taken a more Kantian approach. Based on
their assumption that we may well not have access, even through
Scripture, to exactly how God was involved in the creative process,
they have modified what is to be considered essential to Christianity
on this issue. Rather than affirming any of the specific explanations
of how God created all else, they affirm a more general contention
compatible with each of these specific explanations: that God is in
some manner directly responsible for the existence of all else. They
have, in Quinn's terms, thinned their core theologies in a way
that reconciles the divergent perspectives. [We will see in sections
below that this emphasis on working toward common belief is sometimes
cited as a way to minimize differing perspectives on the eternal
destiny of humans (Section 7) and to approach diversity of thought on
controversial issues in education (Section 8).]



Everyone realizes, though, that moving toward a thinner theology can
resolve the epistemic tension produced by religious diversity only to
a certain extent. Let's assume that it is perfectly reasonable, and
possibly even preferable, for exclusivists to thin their theologies in
an attempt to minimize that core of truths that must be accepted to
remain proponents of the specific theological perspectives in
question, to be an exclusivist--even a strongly Kantian
exclusivist--is still to believe that one's religious
perspectives on some religious beliefs are superior in the sense that
they are in some important way closer to the truth than are the
competing perspectives of others. Accordingly, while thinning their
theology may be a rational choice that can minimize conflict for
exclusivists, no one is arguing that a certain amount of epistemic
conflict will not remain.



Finally, we find at the far end of the spectrum those who deny that
acknowledged peer conflict does in fact require exclusivists to
abandon their exclusivism or even reduce confidence in their
exclusivistic perspectives. The key to this position is a distinction
between personal (private) evidence and public evidence (evidence
available to all persons involved in the dispute). It is granted that
individuals will often find themselves in epistemic disputes with
persons who are epistemic peers in the sense that they are (1) equally
intelligent, thoughtful, and free from obvious bias and (2) equally
familiar with all the relevant public evidence. But it is normally
acknowledged that the final judgments made by participants in such
disputes are not made solely on this public evidence. Such judgments
are based also on personal beliefs to which only each participant has
access. Jennifer Lackey notes, for instance, that individuals in an
epistemic dispute have greater access to the reliability of their own
belief-forming faculties than do their epistemic competitors (Lackey
2010). Ernest Sosa talks of a gulf between the private and public
domains (Sosa 2010). Peter van Inwagen speaks of "incommunicable
insight that the others, for all their merits, lack" (van Inwagen
1996). And the weight of this private evidence, it is argued, can make
it reasonable for individuals to retain their beliefs (including
exclusivistic religious beliefs) with the same level of confidence,
even in the face of acknowledged peer disagreement in the public
sense.



Some critics, of course, will maintain that this is primarily a verbal
victory. The question, remember, is whether exclusivists who
acknowledges that epistemic peers hold incompatible perspectives can
continue to justifiably maintain with full confidence that their
perspective is superior. And it will seem to some that to claim that
participants in epistemic disputes have access to relevant personal
evidence not available to their epistemic competitors is in fact
simply to acknowledge that the dispute is really not among true
epistemic peers in the sense originally intended--that is, in the
sense that all parties are assessing the same body of evidence.


## 5. Religious Diversity and Apologetics



Let us assume that exclusivists are justified in retaining their
exclusivistic belief in the face of religious diversity. Ought they
stop there or can they justifiably go further? Can they justifiably
try to convince others of their rightness--can they justifiably
try to convert others to their perspective? And if so, are they in any
sense obligated to do so?



Most who believe that such proselytization is not justified challenge
the moral character of exclusivists who attempts to convince those
with whom they differ to accept their perspective as the sole truth.
For instance, Wilfred Cantwell Smith argues that "except at the
cost of insensitivity or delinquency, it is morally not possible
actually to go out into the world and say to devout, intelligent
fellow human beings [that] we believe that we know God and we are
right; you believe that you know God, and you are totally wrong"
(Smith 1976, 14). And when Runzo claims that exclusivism can be
"highly presumptive" and "morally repugnant"
(Runzo 1988, 348) or John Hick maintains that exclusivists often
manifest a sort of arbitrariness or arrogance (Hick 1989, 235), they
too appear to be challenging the moral character of those who attempt
to convert others to their perspective.



Not surprisingly, most exclusivists deny that it is insensitive or
arrogant or presumptive for exclusivists to attempt to convince others
that the exclusivistic perspective is alone the correct one. Since we
are justified in believing our position to be superior to
others--closer to the truth--it is difficult to see,
exclusivists argue, how our attempts to convince others that they
should agree can be considered arrogant or presumptive or insensitive,
especially if we believe that it is important for the welfare of those
we are attempting to convert that they do so. Moreover, exclusivists
continue, while it is surely true that some conversion is attempted
for what we would all agree are morally inappropriate
reasons--for instance, for financial gain or to gain power over
others--there is little empirical evidence that exclusivists in
general have these motives. It is probably true, rather, that many, if
not most, exclusivists who proselytize do so primarily because they
believe they have what others need and are willing (sometimes at great
personal cost) to share it with them.



Are, though, exclusivists required to proselytize? Many exclusivistic
religious systems do require proselytization, and most philosophers
who believe that exclusivists are justified in retaining their
exclusivistic beliefs in the face of religious diversity believe also
that these exclusivists can justifiably feel obligated to attempt to
"convert" their epistemic competitors. With very few
exceptions, though, philosophers deny that exclusivists are under any
general obligation to proselytize, regardless of whether the
exclusivistic system in question demands or encourages such
 proselytization.[6]


## 6. Religious Diversity and Religious Tolerance



Religious intolerance, defined as the practice of keeping others from
acting in accordance with their religious beliefs, is not new.
However, there is concern world-wide over the increasing amount, and
increasingly violent nature, of such behavior. Accordingly, there is
understandably a renewed interest in fostering religiously tolerant
environments in which individuals with differing religious
perspectives can practice their faiths unencumbered.



A number of philosophers have turned their attention to the
relationship between religious diversity and religious tolerance, with
the main focus on whether acknowledgement of, and subsequent
reflection on, religious diversity might lead to greater religious
tolerance. The main argument supporting the claim that acknowledged
diversity can foster tolerance was proposed by Philip Quinn (Quinn
2001, 57-80; 2002, 533-537; 2005a, 136-139). He
maintained that (1) serious reflection on the undeniable reality of
religious diversity will necessarily weaken people's
justification for believing that their religious perspective is
superior to the perspectives of others and that (2) this weakened
justification can, and hopefully will for some, lead to greater
religious tolerance--for example, will lead to a more accepting,
less confrontational attitude toward others.



Both of Quinn's contentions have been challenged. The claim that
reflection on the acknowledged reality of religious diversity reduces
individuals' justified confidence in the superiority of their
position has been subject to at least two types of criticism. As noted
earlier in our discussion of religious diversity and epistemic
obligation (section 3), some philosophers agree with Alvin Plantinga
that the proponents of a given religious perspective need not grant
that their competitors are actually on an equal epistemic footing and
are thus justified in continuing to maintain that their perspective is
superior without further reflection (Plantinga 1997, 296). 



Other philosophers do not deny that proponents of differing religious
perspectives are on an equal epistemic footing or that reflection on
these diverse perspectives might in some cases actually cause
individuals to become less certain that their perspective is superior.
They do deny, however, that there is any necessary epistemic
connection between acknowledged diversity and a weakening of justified
personal commitment. That is, they argue, proponents of a given
religious perspective can acknowledge both that (1) those holding
perspectives differing from their own are epistemic peers and that (2)
they are not in a position to demonstrate objectively that their
position is superior and yet can justifiably continue to maintain that
(3) their perspective is, in fact, superior (Hasker 2008).



Quinn's second contention--that weakened justification in the
superiority of a perspective has the promising potential for fostering
religious tolerance--has also been challenged. For instance,
William Lane Craig, Robert McKim, and Keith Yandell have all argued
that if individuals weaken their conviction that the specific
teachings of their religion are correct, including the relevant moral
teachings that prohibit intolerance, it might in turn actually make it
more likely that they will engage in intolerant behavior as it may
well deflate the very confidence in the relevant beliefs needed for
inspiring tolerance (Craig 2008; McKim 2008; Yandell 2008).



Others, such as William Hasker, have questioned whether Quinn's
challenge to those who hold firmly to the superiority of their
religious perspectives--that the reality of religious diversity
requires that they hold their perspectives less firmly--will have
the effect Quinn intended. It was his hope that those challenged in
this fashion would "soften" their exclusivistic
convictions and thus be less likely to engage in intolerant behavior.
But might not just the opposite occur? Might not those told that the
reality of religious diversity reduces their justified confidence in
their beliefs feel threatened and thus, in an attempt to "stand
up for the truths" they still firmly believe, become even more
intolerant of those with other perspectives (Hasker 2008)?



Those sympathetic to Quinn's position do not deny that some who find
the justification for their religious beliefs challenged might for
that reason find themselves with a weaker basis for refraining from
intolerant behavior or become even more intolerant in defense of the
beliefs they continue to hold firmly. But those sympathetic to
Quinn's "pathway from diversity to tolerance" maintain that
acknowledged religious diversity can, and often does, foster in
individuals (1) greater respect for their epistemic competitors and
their positions and (2) a more flexible, inclusive understanding of
their own position. And those who respect their competitors and have a
more inclusive understanding of their own perspectives, they add, are
less likely to engage in inappropriate intolerant religious behavior
(Basinger 2008; Dormandy 2020).


## 7. Religious Diversity and the Eternal Destiny of Humankind



The discussion of religious diversity thus far has been framed in
terms of truth claims (in terms of justified belief) because it is
increasingly recognized by philosophers as the best way to access the
most important questions that the reality of such diversity forces
upon us. Historically, however, there has been one specific
"diversity issue" with which philosophers of religion have
been most concerned: the question of the eternal destiny of humankind,
that is, the question of who can spend eternity in God's
presence--who can obtain salvation.



Those who are religious exclusivists on this question claim that
those, and only those, who have met the criteria set forth by one
religious perspective can spend eternity in God's
 presence.[7]
 Adherents of other religious perspectives, it is acknowledged, can
affirm truth related to some or many issues. But with respect to the
question of salvation (one's eternal destiny), a person must
come to understand and adhere to the unique way. Or, to be more
specific, as salvific exclusivists see it, the criteria for salvation
specified by the one correct religious perspective are both
epistemologically necessary in the sense that those seeking salvation
must be aware of these conditions for salvation and ontologically
necessary in the sense that these conditions must really be met
(Peterson et al. 2013,
 322).[8]



It is important to note, though, that not only Christians are salvific
exclusivists. For example, just as Christian salvific exclusivists
maintain that only those who respond appropriately to requirements set
for in Christian belief can spend eternity in God's presence,
Muslim salvific exclusivists maintain that "whether a person is
'saved' or not is principally determined by whether he or
she responded appropriately to Islamic belief" (Aijaz 2014,
194).



Also important to note is that differing, sometimes even conflicting,
exclusivistic claims can exist within the same world religion. For
instance, significant intra-Christian debate has centered historically
on the eternal fate of young children who die. For some, the answer
was (and still is) that all children who die are separated from God
eternally. Others have believed that God "elects" some for
heaven and allows the rest to spend eternity in hell, while still
others have held that only the deceased children of believers are
allowed to enter heaven or that salvation for children who die is tied
to the sacrament of baptism. A more common belief today among
Christians, though, is that all those who die in early childhood (or
die having possessed only the mental capacities of young children)
enter automatically into God's eternal presence (Basinger 1992,
4).



But what of those "adults" who die having never been aware
of the salvific conditions of the one true religion? Is it not clearly
unjust for exclusivists to claim that they cannot spend eternity with
God because they have not met the criteria for salvation stipulated by
this religion? For salvific inclusivists, the answer is yes. Like
exclusivists, inclusivists believe that eternal existence in
God's presence is only possible because of the salvific
provisions noted in the one true religion. However, they do not
maintain "that only the believers or practitioners of that religion,
during their earthly lives, will be redeemed" (Benton 2020).
Religious inclusivists allow that some adherents of other religions
can be saved because of these provisions, even if the individuals in
question haven't made the personal commitments normally
stipulated as necessary to appropriate these salvific provisions. Put
in philosophical language, as inclusivists see it, particular salvific
events may be ontologically necessary for salvation in the sense that
salvation cannot occur without them but not epistemically necessary in
the sense that one need not know about them to be saved or liberated
(Moser 2011; Peterson et al. 2013, 334).



Probably the best known Christian proponent of this inclusivist
perspective is Karl Rahner. Christianity, he argues, cannot recognize
any other religion as providing the way to salvation. However, since
God is love and desires everyone to be saved, God can apply the
results of Jesus's atoning death and resurrection to everyone,
even to those who have never heard of Jesus and his death or have
never acknowledged his lordship. Just as adherents to pre-Christian
Judaism were able, through the redemptive acts of Jesus of which they
were not aware, to enter God's presence, so, too, is it possible
for adherents of other religions to enter God's presence, even
though they are not aware of the necessary redemptive acts of Jesus
that makes this possible (Peterson et al. 2013, 334-335).



Inclusivists, it should be noted, differ on the conditions such
"anonymous Christians" must meet. Some stipulate, for
instance, that those who have never heard "the gospel"
still have both some innate knowledge of God and the freedom to
establish a relationship with God and, therefore, that the eternal
destiny of those in this category is dependent on the extent to which
they commit as much as they know of themselves to as much as they know
of God through, or even apart from, a religion other than
Christianity. Other inclusivists don't want to be as specific,
maintaining only that, because God is just, there will surely be some
adherents of other religions who will be in God's presence
because they have met some set of divine conditions they have it
within their power to meet. But all agree these "anonymous
Christians" are the recipients of supernatural grace.



Murtadha Mutahhari is a respected proponent of Muslim inclusivism. He
maintains that non-Muslims are at a disadvantage because it is the
Islamic Divine Law that leads people to God. Those who fully
understand this law (Islam) but choose not to accept the truth will be
damned. However, in accordance with Islamic jurisprudence, God will be
merciful to those who seek the truth but from whom, through no fault
of their own, the reality of Islam remains hidden. Such people cannot
be called unbelievers; they are rather "dispositional Muslims"
since it is possible to possess the requisite spirit of submission
without being Muslim in name. These individuals will receive the
divine grace necessary to achieve salvation from Hell (Mutahhari
2006; Legenhausen 1997). Others go so far as to question whether
Muslims can justifiably be exclusivists (Aijaz 2014).



Salvific pluralists, however, find such reasoning no more convincing
than that offered by exclusivists. Inclusivists are right, pluralists
grant, to say that individuals need not necessarily know of or fulfill
certain requirements normally specified in a given religion to attain
salvation. But inclusivists, like exclusivists, are wrong to argue
that this salvation is, itself, possible only because of certain
conditions or events described in the one true religion. There is no
one true religion and, therefore, no single path to eternal existence
with God.



Why, though, ought we consider this pluralistic salvific hypothesis
more plausible than that offered by the exclusivist or inclusivist?
According to Hick, the most influential proponent of pluralism, three
factors make a pluralistic perspective the only plausible option.
First, and foremost, he argues, is the reality of transformation
parity. An efficacious salvific process is not just other-world
centered--does not simply give individuals a "ticket"
to eternal existence with God. It begins "the transformation
from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness" in this life
(Hick 1984, 229). That is, an efficacious salvific process changes
lives in the sense that it begins to turn people from thinking about,
and acting only to enhance, their own personal well-being to viewing
themselves as responsible participants in a much greater, more
expansive reality. In short, an efficacious salvific process makes its
participants better people. And all the evidence we have, Hick
maintains, shows that many religions are equally transformational,
given any general standard for positive transformation we might want
to consider (Hick 1989, chapter 3).



There continues to be debate, however, over whether the same basic
personal transformation actually does occur within various
religions--over whether there is real transformational parity.
Few claim that there is a strong experiential basis for denying such
transformational parity or that it can be demonstrated on other
objective, nonquestion-begging grounds that such parity does not
exist. However, proponents of many basic theistic systems claim that
while transformational parity may appear to be the case, this is
actually not so--that is, claim that the transformation within
their systems actually is qualitatively different than that produced
by allegiance to other systems. It is sometimes argued, for instance,
that the transformation within other systems will not last, or at
least that this transformation, while possibly real and even lasting
for a given individual, is not what it could have been for that
individual within the one true theistic system. And some exclusivists
have argued that unless it can be demonstrated in an objective,
nonquestion-begging sense that they are not justified in affirming a
religious perspective that makes such claims (which even Hick does not
attempt to demonstrate), they are justified in denying that such
parity actually exists (Clark 1997, 303-320).



It can also be argued that focusing on transformational parity can be
used as an argument against salvific pluralism. The basis for this
claim is the fact that people making a "secular"
(non-religious) commitment to some goal, value, or metaphysical
perspective--be it concern for the environment or world hunger or
emotional health--often appear to have their lives transformed in
ways quite similar to the ways in which the lives of religious
believers are transformed. They, too, appear to have changed from
self-centeredness to a focus on reality outside of self. If this is
so, however, then might it not be that the religious transformational
parity we observe is simply a sub-set of the general transformational
parity we find among individuals who commit themselves to any
perspective on life that centers reality outside of self, and thus
that it is just as plausible to assume that all religious
transformational parity is the result of some form of internal
conceptual realignment than the result of some form of connection with
an external divine reality? And if this is the case, then
transformational parity is at least weakened as support for any
salvific perspective, whether pluralistic, inclusivistic, or
exclusivistic.



Seeming transformational parity is not, however, Hick's only
reason for believing non-pluralistic salvific perspectives to be
untenable. A credible perspective, he tells us, must account for the
fact, "evident to ordinary people (even though not always taken
into account by theologians) that in the great majority of
cases--say 98 to 99 percent--the religion in which a person
believes and to which he adheres depends upon where he was born"
(Hick 1980, 44). Given this fact--given that "religious
allegiance depends in the great majority of cases on the accident of
birth"--it seems implausible to hold that "being born
in our particular part of the world carries with it the privilege of
knowing the full religious truth" (Hick 1997a, 287).



This contention, though, has also been challenged. No one denies that
the admittedly high correlation between where and when individuals are
born and the religious perspective they affirm is relevant and might
in fact negatively affect an exclusivist's confidence. But many
exclusivists deny that a pluralistic explanation should be seen as the
only plausible option. As they see it, exclusivists need not consider
the high place-time/religious allegiance correlation in question in
isolation from other relevant beliefs. For example, Christian
exclusivists need not consider this correlation in isolation from
their basic belief that the Bible is an authoritative source of truth
and that the Bible teaches that only the Christian perspective
contains a totally accurate view of reality. And it is justifiable,
some maintain, for exclusivists to consider the plausibility of such
relevant background beliefs to outweigh the seeming counterevidence
posed by the correlation in question (Plantinga 2000, 187; Plantinga
1997, 198).



Finally, Hick argues, a credible religious hypothesis must account for
the fact, of which "we have become irreversibly aware in the
present century, as the result of anthropological, sociological, and
psychological studies and the work of philosophy of language,"
that there is no one universal and invariable pattern for the
interpretation of human experience, but rather a range of
significantly different patterns or conceptual schemes "which
have developed within the major cultural streams." When
considered in this light, a "pluralistic theory becomes
inevitable" (Hick 1984, 232).



While no one denies that culture shapes reality to some extent, it can
again be argued that when comparing the plausibility of specific
beliefs, we must consider not only these specific beliefs themselves
but also the basic background beliefs in which they are embedded.
Thus, even if we grant that a pluralistic response to the obvious
shaping power of culture is preferable to any exclusivistic response
when such shaping power is considered in isolation, it isn't
clear that exclusivists must acknowledge that Hick's hypothesis
is so strong that it renders implausible the whole set of basic
background beliefs out of which the exclusivist's response to
the profound shaping influence of culture on religious belief arises.
Hence, it isn't clear that exclusivists can't justifiably
reject Hick's contention that a pluralistic cultural/religious
interpretation of reality must inevitably be considered superior.



Hick argues for salvific pluralism on what might best be called
metaphysical or epistemological grounds. Other philosophers, however,
have attempted to make a moral case for salvific pluralism (or at
least against salvific exclusivism.) For instance, Kenneth Himma has
argued that moral considerations require Christian salvific
exclusivism to be rejected (Himma 2002, 1-33). It follows both
from God's perfection and conceptual truths about punishment,
Himma maintains, that God would not punish individuals who are not
morally culpable for their behavior. But those with non-Christian
beliefs are generally not morally culpable for the fact that they hold
these beliefs. Not only is it not the case that any objective line of
reasoning demonstrates the Christian (or any other religious) path to
salvation to be the correct one, religious traditions are, themselves,
extremely elastic. That is, because of the shaping, foundational
nature of basic religious belief, devout proponents of any given
religion are capable of (in fact, usually simply find themselves)
offering self-consistent responses to almost any challenge to their
salvific perspective, no matter how strong or damaging this challenge
might seem on the surface. Furthermore, sociological, psychological,
and anthropological studies have confirmed that while one's
basic religious beliefs are not inevitable, they are quite often to a
significant extent "beyond the direct volitional control of the
believer" (Himma 2002, 18). So we must conclude, argues Himma,
that it would not be morally just for the Christian God to deny
salvation to devout people of other faiths.



Not surprisingly, many inclusivists and pluralists will find this
basic line of reasoning persuasive. However, some (although not all)
exclusivists reject the basic moral assumption on which Himma's
argument is based: that we are in a position to correctly identify
some of the basic moral principles that guide God's interaction
with us as humans. Specifically, while many Christian exclusivists do
believe that God's behavior is guided by the same basic
principles of justice and fairness that are so fundamental to our
human moral thinking, this is not true for all. There is a strong
Christian tradition that holds that God is under no obligation to
treat any individual in what we would consider a just, fair fashion.
God can do what God wants (including how God responds to those who
haven't affirmed Christian beliefs) for whatever purposes God
has. What God does is right simply because God does
 it.[9]
 Even among those Christian exclusivists who come to acknowledge
Himma's basic point--that a just God cannot condemn those
who aren't culpable for their non-Christian beliefs--the
response has normally not been to reject their overall exclusivistic
perspective. It is often simply assumed, rather, that
"God's ways are above our ways" in some manner
unfathomable to the human mind.



However, even if we were to agree with pluralists that both
exclusivists and inclusivists are wrong to claim that the basis for
true salvation can be found in only one religion, the question of what
type of pluralistic hypothesis we ought to affirm remains. Hick,
himself, favors what might be called a selective pluralism that
centers on the world's great religions. Hick has never denied
that the major world religions--Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism,
Islam--make conflicting truth claims. In fact, he believes that
"the differences of belief between (and within) the traditions
are legion" and has often discussed these conflicts in great
detail (Hick 1983, 487). His basic pluralistic claim, rather, is that
such differences are best seen as differing ways in which differing
cultures have conceived of and experienced the one ultimate divine
Reality. Each major religious perspective "constitutes a valid
context of salvation/liberation; but none constitutes the one and only
such context" (Hick 1984, 229, 231).



Why, however, select only the paths offered by the world's great
religions as ways to salvation? For Hick, the answer lies in the fact
that, unlike "Satanism, Nazism, the Order of the Solar Temple,
etc.," the world's great religions offer paths that lead
us away from "hatred, misery, aggression, unkindness,
impatience, violence, and lack of self-control" to love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and
self-control (Hick 1997b, 164). Some, though, see this sort of ethical
standard for acceptable salvific perspectives to be as arbitrary as
the standard for acceptable paths to salvation set forth by
exclusivists or inclusivists (Meeker 2003, 5). In fact, some have
questioned whether, given this rather specific ethical criterion for
assessing the salvific adequacy of religions, Hick's perspective
should actually be considered pluralistic at all.



S. Mark Heim, for instance, argues that pluralists such as Hick are
really inclusivists in disguise in that they advocate only one path to
salvation--the transformation from self-centeredness to
Reality-centeredness--and thus in essence deny that diverse
religions have real, fundamental salvific differences. A better, more
honest salvific pluralism, we are told, is to acknowledge that each
religion has its own path to salvation that may be either similar to
or different from that of other religions. That is, a more honest
pluralistic perspective is to deny that the seemingly different
salvific paths offered by various religious traditions are all just
culturally distinct manifestations of the same fundamental path and
maintain instead that salvific paths of various religions remain
incompatible, but equally valid ways to achieve salvation. It is
acknowledged that this is not to say, of course, that all the details
of all the salvific paths are actually true since some of the relevant
claims are inconsistent. But the appropriate response to this is not
to claim there is one true path to salvation. It is rather to claim
that many distinct paths, while remaining distinct, can lead to
salvation (Heim 1995).



Critics, however, wonder whether part of this seeming disagreement is
verbal in nature. Heim can appear to be bypassing the question of
whether there is some sort of final, ultimate eschatological salvific
state that the proponents of various religious perspectives will all
experience, emphasizing rather that many distinct religious paths can
liberate people (produce salvation) here and now (Peterson et al.
2013, 333). Hick, on the other hand, seems most concerned with the
nature of salvific reality--with what it means to experience
salvation--while not denying that there exist in this world
distinct ways that remain distinct to access this ultimate
reality.


## 8. Religious Diversity in Public Education



Public education in Western culture has always been to some extent a
"melting pot."[10] But the increasing number of students with
non-Western cultural values and religious traditions is causing public
school educators to grapple in new and sometimes uncomfortable ways
with the challenges such diversity poses. Some of these challenges are
practical--e.g., should Muslim girls be allowed to wear hijabs,
should schools designate only Christian religious holy days as school
holidays? The focus of this section, however, will be a pedagogical
question of increasing interest in the philosophy of education: How
ought the increasing religious diversity to which students are exposed
affect public school curricula?



Most public school educators agree that increasing student
understanding of diverse religious perspectives is important as this
will have positive social outcomes. It is often argued, for instance,
that helping students better understand the increasing diversity,
including religious diversity, they face will better prepare them to
live in a peaceful, productive manner with those with differing
cultural and/or religious values (Kunzman 2006).



Many educators, however, want to go further. It is also important,
they maintain, for students to clarify their feelings about other
religions and their followers. Specifically, they want to foster a
more empathetic understanding of other religious perspectives, an
understanding that encourages students to appreciate the other
religions from the perspective of an adherent of that religion
(Kunzman 2006). While few challenge this as a valid goal, there is,
though, continuing controversy over one common method by which
educators attempt to engender this type of empathy in students. As
some see it, while having students think about diverse religions is an
important step past the mere dissemination of factual information
toward empathetic understanding, having students directly experience
these religions in some way--for instance, having students visit
a local mosque or having a representative from a Hindu Temple share
with students in a class--is also necessary (or at least very
desirable). Not surprisingly, though, while no one denies that these
forms of direct experience might broaden a student's empathetic
understanding of a religion, concerns have been raised.



First, some believe that having students experience a religion, even
as "observers," can test the limits of the separation of church
and state. While the intent of having students attend a mosque or
having a Buddhist talk with students is seldom to "promote" a
religion, the line between "exposure" and intended or unintended
promotion (and even proselytization), they maintain, is a fine one.
This is especially the case given the widely varying communication
skills and deeply embedded values and preconceptions of the teacher
and/or the representatives of a given religion to whom students might
be exposed. Second, there is growing ethical concern that to
experience a religion as an observer might in some cases trivialize or
demean the religion in question. Some Native Americans, for instance,
are becoming increasingly concerned with the growing desire of
"outsiders" to seek understanding of their religion(s) by watching
or experiencing sacred ceremonies since such observation, they
believe, can trivialize these ceremonies (Kasprisin 2003: 422).



Is it justifiable for the public school educator to go even further
than the dissemination of accurate information and the attempted
engendering of empathetic understanding? Specifically, ought an
educator attempt to bring it about that all students affirm a core set
of "appropriate" beliefs about other religions and their
adherents?



It is clearly the case that almost all public school educators
currently do attempt to bring it about that students hold certain
beliefs related to pervasive human characteristics, such as race,
gender, and disabling conditions. Students are encouraged, for
instance, to continue to believe, or come to believe, that engaging in
intolerant or discriminatory behavior is wrong and that they should
affirm, or come to affirm, the inherent worth and rights of the
disabled, those of other racial/ethnic backgrounds, etc. So if the
desire is simply to also encourage students to believe it wrong to
treat those of other religions in intolerant or discriminatory ways
and to believe it right to accept those of other religions as persons
with equal inherent value, few will object.



However, need teachers stop there? Might there not be other beliefs
about religions and their adherents that public school educators can
justifiably attempt to bring it about that all students accept? We can
extrapolate from some work on religious diversity by Robert Wuthnow to
introduce two beliefs that some might propose fit into this category.
As Wuthnow sees it, the most appropriate response to the increasing
religious diversity we face in the United States is what he labels
"reflective pluralism" (Wuthnow 2005: 286-307). To engage
in this sort of reflection, he tells us, is not simply to become
better informed, or to strive to "live peacefully with those with
whom one disagrees" (be tolerant), or even to attempt to develop an
empathetic understanding of diverse religions. It is to engage
intentionally and purposefully with "people and groups whose
religious practices are fundamentally different from one's own"
(Wuthnow 2005: 289). And such engagement, as he understands it,
includes both (1) the recognition that since all of our beliefs,
including our religious beliefs, depend on a point of view "shaped
by the culture in which we live," we should not regard our "own
position[s] as inherently superior" and (2) "a principled
willingness to compromise" in the sense that we must be willing to
move out of our social and emotional comfort levels "in order to
arrive at a workable relationship with another person" (Wuthnow
2005: 292).



The benefit of this form of engagement, we are told, is not only that
it can minimize the likelihood of the sorts of "religious
tensions, conflicts, and violence [that] have been so much a part of
human history" (Wuthnow 2005: 293). Such reflective engagement
also allows us to focus on "the shared concerns for basic human
dignity" found in the teachings of many of the world's
religions, which can furnish a basis for inter-religious cooperation
to combat social ills and meet basic social needs (Wuthnow 2005:
294).



It is important to note that Wuthnow does not explicitly claim or deny
that encouraging students in a public school setting to become
reflective pluralists would be appropriate. But not only does he
highlight two increasingly popular pluralistic claims about
religions--(1) that the beliefs of many religions are equally
valid expressions of faith, expressions that adherents of these
religions should be allowed or even encouraged to maintain and (2)
that religious believers of all faiths should identify and focus on
what these religions have in common--he highlights what such
pluralists often note as the main benefits of widespread affirmation
of these beliefs: a reduction in violent religious conflicts and an
increase in socially beneficial inter-religious cooperation. And these
outcomes are clearly quite compatible with what we have seen to be a
key reason why public school educators want to increase student
understanding of other religions--namely, their desire to better
prepare students to live in a peaceful, productive manner in social
contexts that will increasingly be characterized by religious
diversity. Accordingly, since it seems reasonable to believe that
widespread acceptance of the validity of diverse religious
perspectives and increased focus on the commonalities in diverse
religions might well result in more peaceful, mutually beneficial
interaction among followers of diverse religions, the question of
whether public school teachers can justifiably attempt to bring it
about that students affirm the beliefs in question appears worthy of
exploration.



Let's first consider the contention that many religions contain
equally valid expressions of faith. Even if we make the debatable
assumption that this is true, it won't be clear to many that public
school teachers could justifiably attempt to bring it about that their
students believed this to be so. The problem is that various religions
affirm conflicting doctrinal beliefs on significant issues. For
example, while conservative Christians maintain that one must affirm
certain beliefs about the saving power of Christ to spend eternity in
God's presence, conservative Muslims strongly deny this. Orthodox
Christians and Muslims are taught not only that the sacred scriptures
of other religions contain false beliefs; they are often encouraged to
try to convert those of other religions to their religious
perspective. And while many Muslims and Christians believe in a
personal supernatural creator and personally immortality, some
Buddhists deny both. This, however, means that an educator can
justifiably attempt to convince students that all religions are
equally valid expressions of faith only if she or he can justifiably
attempt to convince conservative proponents of some of these religions
that some of their core doctrinal beliefs need to be modified or
rejected. To attempt to do this in a public school setting will be
seen by many as violating the prohibition against both restricting the
free exercise of religion and promoting a given religion (Basinger
2010)



Might it not, though, at least be justifiable for a public school
educator to encourage students to respect the right of adherents to
other religions to retain their current religious beliefs? If we
interpret this as asking whether an educator can justifiably encourage
students not to attempt to prohibit adherents to other religions from
expressing and acting in accordance with their beliefs, a positive
response is noncontroversial since this is only to say once again that
educators should encourage students to be tolerant. However, to
encourage respect for the religious beliefs of others often carries
with it the explicit or implicit assumption that it is inappropriate,
if not unethical, to attempt to convince adherents of one religion to
convert to another. And for a public school educator to attempt to
convince all students that it is wrong to proselytize will again be
seen by some as placing this educator in the legally and morally
questionable position of attempting to convince some students to
reject or modify what for them is a very fundamental, core religious
belief.



Perhaps, however, there is a different, less controversial option for
those educators who want to do more than simply encourage tolerance of
expression and empathetic understanding. Is it not at least
justifiable for the public school teacher to attempt to point out the
important common values affirmed by most of the world's major
religions, values that we can all accept and should all desire to see
lived out? Is it not justifiable for an educator to point out, for
instance, that most of the world's major religions prohibit such
things as killing, lying, stealing, dehumanizing racism, and sexual
exploitation, and that these same religions encourage such things as
helping those in need and treating adherents of other religions with
respect. To do so, it has been argued, would not simply be of value
within the classroom or community. Since religious convictions clearly
influence social, political, and economic activity on a global scale,
emphasizing the shared common values of religions has the potential to
facilitate better global relationships. And to encourage such
relationships is surely an appropriate goal of public education
(Shingleton 2008).



Some, of course, will see any focus on "positive
commonalities" as yet another thinly veiled attempt to encourage
students to modify their current religious beliefs in ways that make
such beliefs more accommodating of other religious perspectives.
However, most see no legal or ethical reason why a teacher should not
expose students to the "positive commonalities" in diverse
religious perspectives, and many see this as a helpful step.


## 9. Conclusion



As we have seen, discussions of religious diversity lend themselves to
no easy answers. The issues are many, the arguments complex, and the
responses varied. It would be hard, though, to overstate the practical
significance of this topic. While some (many) issues that philosophers
discuss have practical implications for how we view ourselves and
treat others, none is more relevant today than the question of
religious diversity. Religious convictions have not only motivated
impassioned behavior in the past--behavior that has affected
significantly the lives of many--such convictions clearly
continue to do so today. So continuing philosophical discussions of
religious diversity that clarify issues and assess arguments have the
potential to be of great practical value.