Justified Religious Difference: A Constructive Approach to Religious Diversity

In the Netherlands and other countries, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and adherents of other religions live side by side. Those different religions prescribe different ways of life for their adherents and claim different things to be true. Think for instance of differences between concepts of heaven or paradise as in the three Abrahamic religions and that of a union with the One or Nondual as in some Indian religions.

Given those differences, we need a theoretical framework within which they can be dealt with in a constructive fashion. By ‘constructive fashion’, I mean a fashion which allows for tolerance and respect for religions other than the home religion.

In the following, I will sketch such a framework. I call it ‘justified religious difference’. My claim is that it allows for tolerance and respect and, equally important to me, is philosophically viable: It is based upon one of the most promising viewpoints in current epistemology, epistemology being the theory of knowledge.

Before delving into that, however, let me sketch where I come from: Theologically, I hold a Christian viewpoint, philosophically, a pragmatist one in the broad sense of the term. Most of my work is at the intersection between philosophy and religion. Opposed to much common wisdom, I think that there are good theological reasons for respecting other religions. Yet, I will not delve into theology today but will focus solely on philosophy, in line with this conference’s overall topic.

My exposure to religions other than the Christian, one has predominantly been by way of personal encounters: Many of my friends were and are Muslims and Jews. Although my following contribution will be mostly of a theoretical sort, I think that its roots lie in those personal encounters. I consider it to be the theoretical wrap-up of what happens when believers of different religious traditions encounter each other respectfully and dialogue in an honest fashion.

I will proceed in 10 sections: in Section 1, I discuss one of the best-known approaches to religious tolerance, viz. pluralism, in Section 2–6, I cover the theoretical background upon which ‘justified religious difference’ rests, in Sections 7–10, I bring the theoretical discussion to bear upon the issue of the interreligious dialogue.

1. Religious pluralism

In the following, I mean by ‘classical pluralist paradigm’ or, simply, ‘pluralism’ the approaches in religion which have emerged since the 1960s, such as John Hick’s and Paul Knitter’s. Although they come from a particular, viz. Christian background, their guiding intention is to respect non-Christian religions as well.

The basic tool with which they attempt to achieve their guiding intention is to minimize or neutralize the differences between the divergent religions. To that end, they postulate some kind of unity between the different religions.¹1. See, for example, Heleen Maat’s thesis that pluralists postulate a ‘uniformity in diversity’ (Religious Diversity, 47).View all notes This postulated unity is located either within the empirical religions or beyond them.

An example of the former are Knitter’s later works, in which he emphasizes the concept of ‘eco-human justice’ as the common core of religion, that is, a concept of well-being for humanity, in particular, for the poor, and for our fragile planet.²2. See Knitter, One Earth Many Religions, 122.View all notes

An example of the latter, that is, of postulating a unity beyond the empirical religions, is Hick’s concept of a transcendent ‘Real an sich’. Hick postulates it to lie behind the current empirical world religions. Those religions relate to the ‘Real an sich’ in the same way, in which empirical reality relates to Immanuel Kant’s ‘Ding an sich’: They are adumbrations, in Dutch: ‘afschaduwingen’ of the ‘Real an sich’. But they are not identical with it since it is unfathomable. Being unfathomable, the empirical religions cannot claim to capture it. Given this difference between the ‘Real an sich’ and the empirical religions, they should moderate their claims to absolute religious truth. This moderation is the basis for tolerating other religions.³3. See Hick, An Interpretation of Religion, 233.View all notes

Although I appreciate the pluralists’ attempts to respect other religions, I doubt their success. Attempts to find a unity within or beyond the empirical religions fail in my view. Searching for a common core á la Knitter is a tour de force: Although I have personally some sympathy with his concept of ‘eco-human justice’, intellectual honesty demands to admit that by far not all religions share it.⁴4. See also the critique in Maat, Religious Diversity, 52.View all notes

And attempts to find some unity beyond the empirical religions are highly problematic on theoretical grounds. Hick’s famous postulate of a ‘Real an sich’ has thus been criticized heavily. The reason is that, if the ‘Real an sich’ is truly unfathomable, nothing meaningful can be said about its relation to the empirical religions – certainly not that the current ones relate to it and previous religions did not, as Hick suggests. Hick magnifies the problems which inhere already in Kant’s ‘Ding an sich’ by transferring it into the theorizing on religious diversity.⁵5. See, for example, the more thorough critique in Grube, ‘Die irreduzible Vielfalt der Religionen’, 45.View all notes

Generalizing from those examples, I suggest that pluralism fails. We should thus look for an alternative to it. In order to develop such an alternative, I will look in the following into a presupposition which many pluralists and other people discussing religious diversity share, viz. bivalence. The critique of bivalence will serve then as a springboard for developing the alternative I suggest.

2. Bivalence and the interreligious dialogue

Let me begin by explaining the term: Bivalence is a logical principle which implies that statements have exactly one and not more than one truth value. They are eithertrue or false. A logic satisfying this principle is called a two-value or bivalent logic. For today’s purposes, I subsume the negative formulation of bivalence, the law of excluded middle, under ‘bivalence’.⁶6. For the notion of bivalence, see, for example, Béziau, ‘Bivalence, excluded middle’, 73, and, for a more general background, the introduction by Goble, The Blackwell Guide, 1; for the notion of excluded middle or tertium non datur, see, for example, Dummett, Truth and Other Enigmas, xxviii.View all notes

Bivalence understood in this sense implies a particular way of dealing with that which is genuinely different: It implies that, if position A is true and position B differs from A, B must be false. Please note that B’s falsity is not affirmed after careful scrutiny but by default, viz. simply by virtue of the fact that A is held to be true. Under bivalent parameters, there is no other choice than to consider B to be false. Since only A or B can be true but not both, B must be false if A is true. I summarize this point by suggesting that bivalence implies an equation between difference and falsity.

I suspect that many pluralist and related attempts presuppose this equation. It is the backdrop against which their attempts to minimize or neutralize the differences between the religions are to be understood. They are driven by the anxious desire to downplay difference, since difference is taken to equal falsity. Since they wish to avoid considering other religions to be false, they must demonstrate that they are not that different. Under the auspices of this equation, they have no other choice. The equation between difference and falsity thus breeds the pressure to minimize difference.

Yet, pressures of this sort jeopardize honest communication. An interreligious dialogue being pursued under this pressure is thus suspicious of overemphasizing similarities between the religions at the cost of their dissimilarities.

And a dialogue pursued under this pressure is in jeopardy of losing sight of the religious Other in her Otherness: If I overemphasize the Other’s similarities with myself, I am in danger of making a caricature of her rather than to grasp her authentic being.

Since this is the result of pursuing the interreligious dialogue under the equation between difference and falsity, we should question this equation and the principle of bivalence upon which it rests.

3. Margolis’ criticism of bivalence

One of the most prominent critics of bivalence is Joseph Margolis who rejects bivalence understood as a general logical principle, supposed to hold in all domains of inquiry. He argues that there are certain domains in which this principle does notapply. The prime example of such a domain is the world of culture, for instance literary and art criticism, the interpretation of history, moral, legal, and prudential matters. In this domain, the objects are of such a sort that they cannot be judged to be true or false in a clear-cut fashion.⁷7. See Margolis, The Truth about Relativism, 18.View all notes

Margolis suggests to substitute a two-valued logic with a many-valued logic which relies on values such as ‘indeterminate’: We are at times incapable of deciding effectively whether objects pertaining to the world of culture are true or false but have to leave this question open. There is thus more than only the bivalent pair of truth values, ‘true’ and ‘false’. There is a third one, ‘indeterminate’, and there are probably more.⁸8. Ibid., 20 et al.View all notes

I agree with Margolis’s critique of bivalence. Yet, as far as the lessons to be learnt from this critique, I will explore a somewhat different route today: Rather than suggesting to retreat to a many-valued logic, I suggest to go beyond the realm of logic and truth altogether. My suggestion is to employ the notion of justificationrather than that of truth in cases in which bivalence does not apply.

4. The notion of justification

The term justification can be used in a variety of contexts. For example, the Protestant theologian can propose that the sinner is justified in God’s eyes. Yet, I do not have such a theological use in mind but an epistemological one. An example of this use is to say that an agent is justified in holding a belief because she has acquired it in epistemologically praiseworthy ways.

Let me spell out what I mean by the epistemological sense of justification in three short points:

-First, justification differs from truth: the latter is attributed to beliefs, whereas justification is attributed to agents holding beliefs. An agent can hold a belief on justified or unjustified grounds. The question whether she is justified in holding a belief depends on a number of factors, for instance whether she has carefully mustered the available evidence.

-Second, justification kicks in only where truth is uncertain. Now, I believe that there are many areas in which truth questions are undecidable, ranging from the world of culture, via quantum mechanics and complex geological and medical issues to religion. Yet, there are issues where the truth -question can be decided. In those cases, the question of justification does not arise. For example, if a person asserts that the traffic light is green whereas it is red, I do not ask myself whether she is justified to do so but whether she is color-blind. The same goes for the example of the racist, with the help of which Prof. Wolterstorff challenged my account of justification in his contribution: If the racist bases his beliefs upon obviously false assumptions, say, on the mistaken assumption that a particular race is genetically superior to another race, the question whether he is justified to hold his beliefs does not arise. Even if he was subjectively justified – say, because he is one-sidedly indoctrinated and too dumb to realize it – this would be epistemologically irrelevant – although it may be relevant in other respects, say, juridical ones. My point is that in cases in which the truth question can be decided, truth takes precedence over justification.

-Third, quite like truth, justification is a normative concept. Saying that an agent is justified in holding a belief is to pass a value judgement on her epistemological behavior. Justification can thus not be reduced to some kind of sociological or other descriptive theory since this would deprive it of its normative dimension.

Thus, my suggestion to substitute truth differs from some postmodernist suggestions to substitute it. I think for instance of Richard Rorty’s suggestion that ‘Truth is what your peers will let you get away with’.⁹9. In Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, 176, Rorty describes attempts ‘to make truth something more than what Dewey called ‘warranted assertibility’. In describing this ‘something more’, he explains it with ‘more than what our peers will, ceteris paribus, let us get away with saying’. Although Rorty does not propose this characterization of truth explicitly here, it is commonly associated with his name.View all notes This is a characteristic example of a sociological reduction which deprives the concept of truth of its normative function.

Yet, this normative function is indispensable for what we want an account of truth or its substitute to deliver: We want it to enable us to distinguish epistemologically praiseworthy from epistemologically blameworthy behavior. I think that, if specified along the lines suggested above, justification is capable of enabling us to distinguish between both sorts of behavior.

5. The plurality of justification

Since the beginning of this century, justification is heavily discussed in epistemology.¹⁰10. I think of publications such as BonJour and Sosa, Epistemic Justification, 35 and 219.View all notes This discussion has brought to light that justification differs from truth: it is more strongly context-dependent than truth is. For example, epistemologists like Jonathan Kvanvig suggest that what a person is justified to believe depends on her perspective, say, on what information is available to her at a given moment.¹¹11. See Kvanvig, Propositionalism and the Perspectival, 9.View all notes Thus, whether a person is justified to hold a belief depends to a good extent on the epistemological context, that is, the epistemological circumstances, she happens to be in.

Yet, it would be odd to suggest that the truth of this belief depends on the epistemological circumstances a particular individual is in. Suggesting this would make truth as contingent as those circumstances are – which flatly contradicts all we know about truth.¹²12. Even Rorty acknowledges the existence of a difference between truth and justification (see Rorty, Truth and Progress, 2); see also Stout’s reconstruction of this difference in Stout, Democracy and Tradition, 231.View all notes

Thus, justification is plural in way in which truth isn’t: There are different perspectives, different epistemological contexts which allow to justify different but equally legitimate beliefs.

Let me explain, what I mean with the help of an example taken from the realm of history: Say, person A explains the aggressive attitude Germany took right before the First World War in purely materialistic terms. Maybe she suggests that it wished to expand its overseas colonies. Person B, however, may explain this attitude in non-materialistic terms, say, by suggesting that Germans and particularly their emperor suffered from minority complexes since Germany was not recognized as a peer among the then leading nations in Europe.

My point is that both materialistic and non-materialistic explanations can be justified, although the beliefs implied in them differ. Thus, persons A and B can bothbe justified to hold different beliefs on the same issue. Thus, a plurality of different beliefs can be legitimate.

6. Acknowledging genuine otherness versus claiming intellectual Monopolies á la Dawkins

Let me conclude this theoretical part with a general reflection.

I think that there are two fundamentally different attitudes toward life: The first is to acknowledge that other people hold beliefs which differ from mine but are nevertheless justified or legitimate. This is the attitude which acknowledges genuine Otherness. Obviously, I favor this attitude.

Opposed to, it is the attitude which postulates an intellectual monopoly for a particular viewpoint. This attitude has a long history, defended for instance by parts of the Christian Church. Most recently, however, it is defended not so much by theists but by atheists, the prime example being Richard Dawkins’. Characteristic for monopolists of this sort is the use of a twofold strategy: First, they claim principled cognitive privileges for their own group. For example, naturalists like Dawkins call themselves ‘the brights’.¹³13. See, for example, http://www.the-brights.net/.View all notes Second, they explain the cognitive inferiority of competing views in paternalistic ways. I come back to that below.

For now, however, I would like to remind you that what attitude you hold is not only some idle game but has serious intellectual, cultural, and political consequences. Those of us who acknowledge genuine Otherness will respect persons who hold viewpoints which differ from ours rather than regard them to be cognitively inferior. They work toward creating open-minded intellectual environments, which can deal constructively with different viewpoints, including different religious and related viewpoints. For example, they favor a discourse culture which makes the dialogue between those different viewpoints fruitful rather than one which monopolizes one particular viewpoint at the cost of all alternative ones.

I suggest that those of us who respect genuine Otherness should be prepared to defend the intellectual, cultural, and political settings which allow for it against their current threats. We are proud to have cast out theistic monopolies and do not wish monopolism to sneak back in through the atheist backdoor.

7. ‘Justified religious difference’

Although challenging atheists is a hobby of mine, I will return to the issue of religious diversity now and bring the theoretical discussion to bear upon this issue: My suggestions to abstain from bivalence and to pluralize justification provide the basis for the framework I recommend for dealing with this issue, that is, for ‘justified religious difference’.

The core of ‘justified religious difference’ consists of applying the insight that difference can be justified to religion. In a nutshell: Since different people can be justified in holding different beliefs – given their different perspectives and different epistemological contexts – different religious people can be justified in holding different religious beliefs – given their different perspectives and different epistemological contexts. As little as, we have to condemn all deviant beliefs to be false – if we acknowledge justified difference, we do not have to condemn all deviant religious beliefs to be false – if we acknowledge justified difference in religion.

The upshot of ‘justified religious difference’ is thus that you can be justified in holding your Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Hinduist, etc. beliefs, given your epistemic circumstances, while I can be simultaneously justified in holding my Christian beliefs, given my epistemic circumstances.¹⁴14. This result resembles closely the upshot of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s famous ring-parable in ‘Nathan the Wise’: Lessing argues that the truth of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religious beliefs is indeterminate. Given this indeterminacy, justification kicks in. Yet, justification is intrinsically plural. Thus, adherents of all three religions are justified to hold their religious beliefs – an argument that can easily be extended to other religious beliefs as well (for a more detailed reconstruction of Lessing’s argument, see Grube, ‘Justification rather than Truth’, 357–359.View all notes

Now, what does the interreligious dialogue look like under the auspices of ‘justified religious difference’? I will answer that question in the remaining three sections.

8. ‘Justified religious difference’ and the function of the interreligious dialogue

Let me remind you of the strong pressures under which the interreligious dialogue is pursued under the auspices of bivalence. I mean the pressure to downplay differences between the religions because difference equals falsity under bivalent parameters. People wishing to avoid having to consider other religions to be false are thus under pressure to emphasize the similarities between the religions at the cost of their dissimilarities. This pressure jeopardizes an honest and open-ended interreligious dialogue.

Under the auspices of ‘justified religious difference’, however, the interreligious dialogue is liberated from such pressures. Its results are open. If we find similarities between our religions, let’s celebrate that. When talking to my Muslim and Jewish friends, I am often very happy to discover similarities – say, in the area of what I consider to be valuable resources to resist the ruthlessness and superficiality our Western culture as well as others have maneuvered themselves into.

Yet, I agree with Prof. Wolterstorff’s insistence that finding common ground is not the sole goal of the interreligious dialogue. Let’s not be disappointed if we do notfind similarities between our religions. Above all, let’s resist the temptation to reinterpret differences as similarities with the help of this or that hermeneutical trick. Tolerance and respect for deviating religions do not depend on their similarities to the home religion. Rather, they depend on the knowledge that the religious Other can be justified to hold her deviant religious beliefs coupled with the assurance that this knowledge does not jeopardize the legitimacy of the home religion.

An open dialogue does not prematurely foreclose the possibility that all religions relate to one and the same transcendent reality. I do not wish to be taken to foreclose this possibility. But the difference with Hick is that I leave this question open to investigation rather than to make my account of religious diversity contingent upon a positive answer to it. I suggest that we are better off devoting our energies to deal with religious differences in a constructive fashion, say, provide the proper discourse environments for them, rather than trying desperately to find commonalities between religions.

In sum, ‘justified religious difference’ provides the opportunity to pursue the interreligious dialogue in an open spirit. It stays away from exerting pressure on its outcome. I thus hope that it helps to pursue this dialogue in as honest a fashion as possible.

9. ‘Justified religious difference’ and respecting the other in her otherness

An important consequence of the knowledge that the Other is justified in holding the religious beliefs she holds is respect for her religious Otherness. This is the point which is so strongly emphasized in the French-speaking philosophico-religious tradition, say, when insisting on the notion of ‘absolute hospitability’.¹⁵15. Derrida, Acts of Religion, 230.View all notes I agree with this point – although I would like to add that I part company with French thinkers such as Jacques Derrida where they succumb to philosophical relativism and hold politically irresponsible views which ignore the limits of tolerating Otherness.

Yet, today, my point is not to sketch the limits of tolerance but to make a case for the view that religious differences can be justified and draw out the consequences of this view. One such consequence is to respect the Other in her Otherness. ‘In her Otherness’ is important in so far as it marks the difference with intellectual monopolism: Respecting her this way implies to stay away from postulating principled cognitive privileges and from providing paternalistic explanations for the Other’s Otherness.

By ‘paternalistic explanations’ I mean ‘explanations’ of the Other’s Otherness which imply a principled imbalance in cognitive status. An example is the suggestion that you are not as bright as I am and that that is the reason why you hold the beliefs you hold – whereas, if you were as bright as I am, you would not hold the beliefs you hold.

The effect of using paternalistic explanations is that the challenge of the Other’s Otherness is neutralized: They provide a legitimation for ignoring it. After all, the Other’s viewpoint is inferior to mine. Since I occupy the high grounds, I can afford to ignore her inferior viewpoint.

Few paternalistic explanations are as crude as this one is. Yet, substitute ‘bright’ with ‘Enlightened’ and you get much of the religious history of the West into picture. Religious history indebted to the Enlightenment is full of paternalistic explanations which ‘explain’ the Otherness of other religions by their inferiority.

A justified religious difference approach excludes all kinds of paternalistic explanations, since it excludes principled privileges: Once I have realized that you are justified in believing the religious beliefs you hold, there is no need to explain them. Rather than explaining them, I can accept them as being different or can go even one step further and regard them to be potential challenges to my view.

Obviously, only paternalistic explanations are excluded under the auspices of ‘justified religious difference’. Yet, explanations of Otherness which respect the Other as a peer are still very welcome.

10. ‘Justified religious difference’ and the function of arguments

Given ‘justified religious difference’, should we stop providing arguments for the religious beliefs we hold? Not at all. After all, the beliefs we hold are our beliefs and, being reflective persons, we should be capable of providing arguments for them. Yet, we should be acutely aware of what function those arguments have. Let me clarify this function with the help of an example.

Being a Lutheran Christian living in the Netherlands, I find myself sometimes involved in discussions with Calvinists. In those discussions, I usually provide arguments what Lutheranism consists of and why I endorse it and my discussion partner does the same for Calvinism. The point of those discussions is to come to a better understanding of each other’s religions. An important side effect is to learn more about one’s own religious beliefs by ‘mirroring’ them in light of other religious beliefs.

But the point is not to convert each other. At the end of the discussion, I do not expect my discussion partner to convert to Lutheranism but rather respect her in her Calvinist Otherness – hoping that she respects me in my Lutheran Otherness.

Under the auspices of ‘justified religious difference’, the provision of arguments in the context of the interreligious dialogue is to be reconstructed along similar lines: Its primary function is to ‘mirror’ one’s own beliefs and to understand other people’s beliefs but not to convert them.

Much has been said, yet, much more has been left unsaid. I am painfully aware that today’s emphasis upon the legitimacy of religious differences has the effect that talk about religious differences which are illegitimate has been neglected. Let me thus just say in passing that I consider the framework of ‘justified religious difference’ to be particularly well equipped to deal with illegitimate beliefs – the flip side of talking about religious differences being justified is obviously that some religious differences are unjustified. In order to discriminate at this point, criteria allowing to distinguish between justified and unjustified beliefs need to be developed. I could not do this today but hope to take up this and related issues in the future.¹⁶16. This article is a (slightly) revised version of the inaugural lecture I held on 24 September 2015 at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam and is modified in comparison to the published version of this lecture with the Free University Press (Amsterdam).View all notes