What is wrong with exclusivism? Religious exclusivism between epistemic overconfidence and epistemic humility

Dirk Martin Grube*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

    Abstract

    I compare the discussion on exclusivism in religion to the discussion on exclusivism in general. With defenders of religious exclusivism, such as Plantinga, I argue that it is a subset of general exclusivism and is as little blameworthy as the latter is. This explains why defenders of religious exclusivism are right in assuming that the burden of proof is on the shoulders of the critics of exclusivism. Yet, this answer solves only part of the problem. It answers only the first order question of whether it is legitimate to hold exclusivist truth claims in religion. It does not answer the second order question of how, in what spirit, they should be held. I argue that there are contexts in which exclusivist truth claims should be held in a humble fashion, for example contexts in which (cognitive) ambiguity reigns. If they are held in those contexts in an overconfident fashion, they are epistemically and/or morally blameworthy. Since religion is characterized by a measure of (cognitive) ambiguity, exclusivist religious truth claims should be held in a humble fashion. They are thus blameworthy if held in an overconfident fashion. Yet, if held in a modest spirit, there is nothing wrong with religious exclusivism.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)109-123
    Number of pages15
    JournalInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion
    Volume96
    Issue number2
    Early online date15 Jun 2024
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Oct 2024

    Bibliographical note

    Publisher Copyright:
    © The Author(s) 2024.

    Keywords

    • (Cognitive) ambiguity
    • Conciliationism
    • Encroachment
    • Exclusivism
    • Humility
    • Modesty
    • Peer disagreement
    • Plantinga
    • Pragmatic
    • Trigg

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