# Why the Baha'i Faith Is Not Pluralist

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-20 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Grant S. Martin, Why the Baha'i Faith Is Not Pluralist, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Wh y T he Bah á’í Faith I s N o t Plur alis t
> 
> Grant S. Martin
> 
> I nt r oduct ion
> In his article “The Bahá’í Faith and Religious Pluralism,”
> Seena Fazel — a Bahá’í, and psychologist by professional —
> argues that the Bahá’í response to religious diversity is a form
> of religious pluralism. 1 In this article, I will argue that the
> Bahá’í Faith is not pluralist. My argument will take the form of
> (1) a review and critique of Fazel’s argument, and (2) an
> independent evaluation of the Bahá’í response to religious
> diversity in light of a concept of religious pluralism developed
> by, philosopher of religion, Paul Griffiths. 2 Both arguments
> will lead to the conclusion that the Bahá’í Faith is not pluralist.
> However, before proceeding to my main arguments I will
> provide some historical context to the debate on religious
> pluralism/diversity that has been taking place amongst western
> academics — mostly Christians — for the past twenty years or
> so. This may help us to understand, on one hand, why Fazel
> characterizes the Bahá’í Faith pluralist and, on the other, why
> Griffiths reinterprets the concept of religious pluralism.
> 
> A B r ie f His t or y of t he Div e rs it y/Plura lis m
> De ba t e
> The contemporary academic debate on religious diversity
> has largely revolved around the question of whether or not non-
> Christians can be saved — and if so how? 3 Moreover, a
> dominant model, for organizing responses to this question, has
> emerged in the form of a threefold typology that includes
> exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist responses. 4 This typology
> was initially conceived by Alan Race in 1983, but has since been
> popularized through the work or John Hick, Gavin D’Costa,
> Dianna Eck and others.5 From a Christian point of view
> 180                             Why the Bahá’í Faith is Not Pluralist
> 
> exclusivists maintain that being a Christian is necessary for
> salvation, inclusivists maintain that non-Christian religions
> may function as implicit channels for salvation that is,
> nonetheless, most adequately available in Christianity, and
> pluralists maintain that non-Christian religions can (like
> Christianity) lead their members to salvation. This typology,
> though developed within the Christian theology of religions,
> has been applied analogously to other traditions.6 Thus, for
> example, a Buddhist exclusivist will maintain that being a
> Buddhist is necessary for “salvation,” and so on.
> Although the threefold typology of exclusivism, inclusivism,
> and pluralism has been used, primarily, to categorize responses
> to the question of salvation it has not been limited to this;
> indeed, it has also been used — less precisely — as a general
> typology for classifying responses to religious diversity
> altogether. 7 Accordingly, exclusivists have been characterized
> not only as those who maintain that their religion alone leads
> to salvation, but also as those who maintain that their religion
> alone is true, as those who are zealously committed to the
> absoluteness of their religion, and as those who are primarily
> concerned with aggressively converting others. 8 Most
> differently, pluralists have been characterized not only as those
> who maintain that many religions lead to salvation, but also as
> those who maintain that many religions are true, as those who
> are not fully committed to their religion (because they see truth
> in other religions), and as those who are tolerant of, and open
> to, other religions. Inclusivism is somewhere between these two
> positions, but pluralists and non-pluralists, alike, usually see
> inclusivism as a position that eventually collapses into
> exclusivism. 9 Consequently, the debate has polarized into two
> camps — with the advocates of the “pluralist paradigm” on one
> side and the advocates of the “exclusivist/inclusivist
> paradigm” on the other.
> In the West — again, predominantly among those who
> identify themselves as Christians — the pluralist paradigm has
> become increasingly influential.10 One plausible reason for this
> is that it is most compatible with the predominant world-view
> of western democracies, wherein religion is increasingly viewed
> as a private affair and tolerance is an unsurpassable value.11 In
> this cultural circumstance, it is intolerable to identify with a
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Eight                                 181
> 
> point of view that seems to support religious intolerance, and
> presumes that a particular religion has broad relevance for the
> generality of humankind; consequently, pluralism has become a
> more socially acceptable position than either exclusivism or
> inclusivism. And, of course, pluralists have contributed to this
> situation by frequently caricaturizing so-called exclusivists
> and inclusivists as closed-minded, proselytizing bigots who are
> convinced that everyone else is destined for eternal
> damnation. 12
> Arguably, Fazel’s attempt to identify the Bahá’í Faith with
> pluralism has more to do with wanting to save it from the
> perception that it is religiously intolerant — since religious
> tolerance is a virtue in the Bahá’í Faith 13 — than with any deep
> compatibility between religious pluralism and the Bahá’í
> response to religious diversity. And, no doubt, Griffiths’ work
> on religious diversity is motivated by his desire to change the
> increasingly high profile of religious pluralism by showing what
> it really stands for (in his eyes). Nonetheless, I will now make
> my two arguments for why the Bahá’í Faith is not pluralist.
> 
> F a ze l’s Ar gume nt t hat t he Ba há’ í F a it h is
> Plur a lis t
> In his article, “Religious Pluralism and the Bahá’í Faith,”
> Seena Fazel attempts to characterize the Bahá’í approach to
> religious diversity using the influential threefold typology
> discussed above.
> According to Fazel’s reading of this typology, pluralism
> affirms that all of the world’s religious traditions constitute
> varying perceptions and conceptions of, and responses to, one
> ultimate and mysterious Divine reality. In sharpest contrast to
> this perspective, exclusivism affirms that one particular
> tradition alone teaches the truth and provides the way to
> salvation or liberation. Finally, inclusivism affirms that while
> one particular tradition does present the final truth, other
> traditions may be seen as reflecting aspects of this truth or
> constituting approaches to it. Fazel argues that even though
> there are statements in the Bahá’í writings suggestive of an
> exclusivist or inclusivist approach, the Bahá’í response to
> religious diversity is most characteristically pluralist.
> 182                              Why the Bahá’í Faith is Not Pluralist
> 
> To rebut the idea that the Bahá’í Faith is exclusivist Fazel
> introduces two quotations by Shoghi Effendi, one stating that
> peoples of whatever religion derive their inspiration from one
> heavenly source and the other stating that it is not possible to
> call one world faith superior to another.
> To rebut the idea that Bahá’ís are inclusivists Fazel discusses
> Bahá’u’lláh’s critique of the Shi`i position that Mu˙ammad
> delivered the final revelation, from God, in human history, and
> states that Bahá’ís do not claim finality for their own religion
> or revelation. He also deals with Shoghi Effendi’s, seemingly
> inclusivist, claim that the Bahá’í social programme represents
> the “furthermost limits in the organization of society”14 by
> qualifying this with a further statement by Shoghi Effendi’s
> wherein he says that this superiority should not be attributed
> to the inherent superiority of the Bahá’í Faith but to the fact
> that it appears in a time when human beings are more advanced
> and more receptive to Divine guidance than in previous ages.
> Having minimally disqualified the Bahá’í Faith as either
> exclusivist or inclusivist, Fazel then tries to identify it with the
> pluralist perspective, which involves some additional efforts to
> distance it from exclusivism and inclusivism. At this point,
> Fazel defines pluralism a little more fully by saying that it
> affirms that the different world faiths embody different
> perceptions and conceptions of “the Real” and that within each
> tradition salvation occurs. This position mirrors very closely
> the position of John Hick, a Christian and philosopher of
> religion, who has been one of the dominant leaders of the
> “pluralist movement” for over twenty years. 15
> Fazel begins his argument that the Bahá’í Faith is pluralist by
> trying to disassociate a number of statements made by both
> Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá claiming that the world will
> eventually see one common faith from their exclusivist or
> inclusivist implications. He does this by saying that we must
> temper the face value of such statements with Shoghi Effendi’s
> insight that from our present vantage point we can only get a
> glimpse of what the future religious landscape might look like.
> He adds to this that such statements about “one religion”
> might be better understood as symbolical affirmations of the
> belief that all religions come from God and, thus, there is only
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Eight                                    183
> 
> one religion — the religion of God. Fazel is suggesting here that
> statements in the Bahá’í writings claiming that all the peoples
> of the world will embrace one common faith (i.e. the Bahá’í
> Faith) might simply be saying that in the future all the peoples
> of the world will realize that that there is, in a sense, one
> common faith since they all come from God.
> Fazel continues his argument by claiming that the Bahá’í
> Faith will never become “imperialist” because it does not
> prejudice, or impose social sanctions, against non-Bahá’ís, and
> it encourages freedom of choice in religious matters. (Fazel is
> accepting, here, the conventional position that “imperialist”
> behaviour is characteristic of exclusivism and inclusivism.)
> He then asks what unifies the various religious traditions
> and says that according to the Bahá’í view they are unified
> insofar as they are all “centred on the spiritual transformation
> of human beings.” 16 (Again, Fazel is closely following Hick who
> defines religion as the transformation of human beings from
> self-centeredness to God centeredness.) In making this claim,
> Fazel is trying to root the commonality of religion in
> soteriology rather than theology — apparently because he thinks
> it is less prone to dispute. Fazel then tries to flesh out this
> common soteriology by claiming that the focus of spiritual
> transformation in all traditions is “the adoption of spiritual
> and ethical values common to religious traditions, such as
> moderation, trustworthiness, justice, and compassion. ”17 And
> while he adds that there are other uniting features among
> religions — such as similarities in the lives of different religious
> founders, an apophatic (or negative) theology, and their
> “civilizing power” — he clearly stresses (as does John Hick) an
> ethics-based soteriology as the common feature of all religions.
> At this point in his argument, Fazel moves in the direction
> of trying to construct a “Bahá’í theory of religious pluralism,”
> and he bases this theory on the Bahá’í principle that “religious
> truth is relative.” This theory is grounded in the claim that
> absolute knowledge of God by human beings is impossible, and
> Fazel draws on the following quotation from the founder of the
> Bahá’í Faith that clearly seems to support it: “Exalted,
> immeasurably exalted, art thou above the strivings of mortal
> 184                              Why the Bahá’í Faith is Not Pluralist
> 
> man to unravel Thy mystery, to describe Thy glory, or even hint
> at the nature of Thine Essence. ”18
> Continuing to develop his Bahá’í theory of religious
> pluralism, Fazel discusses two (closely related) concepts in the
> Bahá’í writings that help to explain religious diversity, and are
> also based on “relativity.” One concept accounts for religious
> differences in terms of social evolution: Different social laws
> and ordinances are revealed by God at different times in
> keeping with the needs of human beings in different ages. The
> second concept accounts for religious differences in terms of
> the spiritual maturity and receptivity of humanity: As
> humanity becomes more spiritually mature and receptive to
> Divine revelation it is able to receive a more “intense”
> revelation.
> Finally, Fazel argues that cognitive relativism (i.e. the
> relativism stating that human beings cannot know the
> Absolute) resolves the problem of the “seemingly contradictory
> ontological statement of monism and dualism. ” 19 His basic
> argument here is that these conceptions, to the extent they are
> meaningful, are about human beings and not an “exterior
> Absolute.”
> I will now critique Fazel’s characterization of the Bahá’í
> Faith as pluralist and, so, argue that it is not pluralist.
> 
> A Cr it ique of F a ze l’ s Ar gume nt
> I will begin this critique by showing where I think Fazel has
> either selectively or wrongly read Bahá’í sources in order to
> make his point that the Bahá’í Faith is pluralist. Following this I
> will briefly present John Hick’s concept of religious pluralism
> (which is, more or less, the concept of pluralism adopted by
> Fazel) in order to broaden the base for my general argument
> that the Bahá’í Faith is not pluralist. And, finally, I will present
> this general argument or critique against the idea that the
> Bahá’í Faith is pluralist.
> In his initial efforts to distance the Bahá’í Faith from
> exclusivism, Fazel quotes Shoghi Effendi saying that “One
> cannot call one World Faith superior to another, as they all
> come from God. 20 The rest of this sentence reads as follows:
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Eight                                   185
> 
> “they are progressive, each suited to certain needs of the
> time. ”21 The relevant point here is that the Bahá’í position never
> claims that the different religious traditions of the world are
> without qualification equal as Fazel’s selective quotation seems
> to suggest. The Bahá’í concept that religion is one is very
> strong but so is its correlated concept that religion or
> revelation is progressive meaning that more recent religions are
> more appropriate for humanity in the “present age.”
> In discussing inclusivism Fazel focuses primarily on finality,
> and rightly claims that Bahá’ís reject the concept that religious
> revelation can come to an end; thus, Bahá’ís believe that there
> will be further revelation from God in the future that will
> supersede even Bahá’u’lláh’s revelation. What Fazel does not
> mention is that Bahá’ís also believe that there will be no further
> revelation from God for at lest one thousand years from the
> start of Bahá’u’lláh’s revelation (dated from 1852). 22 Thus,
> Bahá’ís do not claim that Bahá’u’lláh’s revelation represents the
> final revelation that humanity will ever see, but they do claim
> that it is the final revelation humanity will see for a relatively
> long period of time. Consequently, Bahá’ís reject a priori the
> religious legitimacy of any new religious movement such as
> Scientology or the Unification Church — in the Bahá’í view
> religious unity can only be seen concretely in the past .
> Fazel quotes Shoghi Effendi in an effort to show that we
> can’t really know what the future holds and so Bahá’í forecasts
> that the entire world will eventually become Bahá’í needs to be
> taken with a “grain of salt”: “all we can reasonably venture to
> attempt is to strive to obtain a glimpse of the first streaks of
> the promised Dawn that must, in the fullness of time, chase
> away the gloom that has encircled humanity.”23 Again, Fazel is
> being so selective here that I think he is distorting Shoghi
> Effendi’s point of view. Shoghi Effendi often expressed
> reservation about “our” capacity to envision the exact details
> of the Bahá’í commonwealth that, he believed, will emerge in the
> fullness of time, but he never expressed doubt that a Bahá’í
> world-commonwealth will, in fact, emerge when the masses of
> humanity embrace the Bahá’í Faith in the distant future. 24
> As mentioned above, in support of the idea that human
> beings can never claim absolute knowledge about God, Fazel
> 186                            Why the Bahá’í Faith is Not Pluralist
> 
> quotes a passage from Bahá’u’lláh stating that God is beyond
> the grasp of mortals. There is, however, another very important
> part to the Bahá’í concept of God; namely, the concept of the
> Manifestation of God . Bahá’í doctrine does affirm that the
> Essence of God is entirely beyond the capacity of human beings
> to comprehend, but it also asserts that human beings have the
> capacity to know God by knowing God’s Manifestation or the
> Manifestation of God’s Names and Attributes. The
> Manifestation of God can be understood on two different
> levels — one pertaining to the Godhead and the other pertaining
> to the various worlds of created being. With respect to the
> Godhead, the Manifestation of God is the qualitative or
> manifest aspect of the Godhead which is also responsible for
> generating created being; with respect to the world of created
> being the Manifestation of God is a being who Manifests all of
> the Names and Attributes or God to the extent it is possible in
> any given realm of being. Thus, Bahá’ís believe that Bahá’u’lláh
> is, on one level, a Manifestation of God who reveals all of the
> Names and Attributes of God that can possibly be manifested
> in human form and, most ultimately, He is identified with the
> Manifest aspect of the Godhead.25 So, from the Bahá’í point of
> view one cannot ultimately know God, but one can know God
> by knowing God’s Manifestation — and Bahá’ís believe that
> knowing and loving God by knowing and loving God’s
> Manifestation is their primary purpose in life. In other words,
> the “ignorance” about the Absolute is not so complete, in the
> Bahá’í Faith, as Fazel makes it out to be.
> The last point I will make before moving on to my brief
> presentation of Hick’s pluralism and general argument against
> the view that the Bahá’í Faith is pluralist pertains to Fazel’s
> reading that the statements in the Bahá’í writings, suggesting
> that the peoples of the world will embrace one common faith
> (i.e. the Bahá’í Faith), are better understood as symbolic ones
> “denoting the religion of God. ” Fazel suggests that religious
> harmony will be achieved when the various religions of the
> world come to the realization that there is in fact only one
> religion, since all religions come from God. I think Fazel’s
> position is incongruent because it ignores the progressive
> element in the Bahá’í concept of revelation which is always tied
> to its concept of religious unity.
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Eight                                 187
> 
> According to Bahá’í doctrine, God has established a great
> covenant with all of humanity. In this covenant humanity has
> an obligation to recognize and obey God’s Manifestation when
> He or She appears on earth, and to the extant that humanity
> fulfills its end of the bargain God will perpetually send
> guidance to humanity through further Manifestations of God.
> Implicit in this is an obligation for humanity to recognize and
> obey God’s most recent Manifestation. In other words, Bahá’ís
> do believe that it is desirable for all human beings to recognize
> and obey God’s most recent Manifestation. In fact, Bahá’í
> doctrine could probably be used to argue that it is not possible
> to recognize that there is “ultimately only one religion” without
> recognizing God’s most recent Manifestation — unless from
> ignorance. 26 Let us now take a closer look at John Hick’s
> pluralism.
> John Hick was trained as a Presbyterian minister, but
> achieved prominence for his work in the philosophy of religion,
> particularly on the topic of religious diversity. Hick’s theory
> of religious diversity is rooted in his philosophical theology.
> According to Hick, all of the world’s great faiths distinguish
> between God as unknowable and God as knowable.27 And, he
> concludes from this that God, or the Real, is single and
> unknowable in essence, but conditionally known in many
> different forms on account of many different human attempts
> to grasp It. Hick argues that in the course of human history
> two major, culturally determined, concepts of the Real have
> emerged: One that conceives of the Real theistically, as a
> personal God, and the other that conceives of the Real non-
> theistically, as an impersonal Absolute. Of course, neither of
> these concepts is equated with perfect knowledge of the Real,
> and both remain on the level of human effort to know that
> which is essentially unknowable. Nonetheless, Hick claims that
> all of the world’s great faiths provide an equally effective
> context for achieving salvation regardless of which concept of
> God they adhere to. In other words, Hick reduces religion to an
> effective context for achieving salvation — which he defines
> substantively (rather than formally) as the capacity to turn
> individuals from self-centeredness to God-centeredness. Hick
> argues that we can judge religions to be contexts for salvation
> insofar as we can is we can see in them “fruits of the spirit” —
> love, justice, happiness, and so forth — and his argument that
> 188                             Why the Bahá’í Faith is Not Pluralist
> 
> all of the world’s great religions are on par, with respect to
> salvific efficacy, is based on his observation that “saintliness”
> or the “fruits of the spirit” seem to be, more or less, evenly
> distributed in all of these traditions.
> I will now proceed to my general argument that the Bahá’í
> Faith is not pluralist, either by Fazel’s standard or Hick’s.
> According to Fazel’s definition of pluralism, pluralism
> affirms that the different world faiths are different
> perceptions and conceptions of, and different responses to,
> “the Real” and that salvation — understood as ethical
> development — occurs in all religions. And, on the basis of
> what Fazel has argued we might also include that his version of
> pluralism affirms that no one religion’s conceptions and
> perceptions of “the Real” are ultimately true or universally
> valid.
> Even with respect to this most generic aspect of pluralist
> theory — the affirmation that different religions represent
> different conceptions and perceptions of “the Real” — the
> Bahá’í Faith is not clearly pluralist. From the Bahá’í perspective,
> religion is most fundamentally revelation from God and
> religious differences can be accounted for in terms of the
> differing spiritual capacities and differing social requirements
> of the people that receive God’s revelation. Moreover, if we
> compare the Bahá’í understanding of religion with the
> understanding of religion in Hick’s pluralist theory — that
> religion is only a human response to the Divine — then it is even
> less pluralist.
> As for the claim made by both Fazel and Hick that salvation
> or spiritual/moral growth occurs in all religions, the Bahá’í
> teachings would concur — but not without qualification. As
> discussed above, Bahá’ís believe that there is only one religion
> and that the purposes of the seemingly different religions are
> fundamentally the same:
> …all the great religions of the world are divine in
> origin, that their basic principles are in complete
> harmony, that their aims and purposes are one and the
> same, that their teachings are but facets of one truth,
> that their functions are complementary, that they
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Eight                                    189
> 
> differ only in the non-essential aspects of their
> doctrines and that their missions represent successive
> stages in the spiritual evolution of human society. 28
> Thus, we can say that “salvation” or moral development occurs
> in all religions. However, Bahá’ís do believe that it is better to
> recognize God’s most recent Manifestation and, therefore,
> would have to qualify, in some way, any claim that “salvation”
> or moral development is equally effective in all religions. Again,
> the idea of progressive revelation implies that it would be more
> advantageous to one’s spiritual development to align oneself
> with God’s most recent Manifestation opposed to, for
> example, a Manifestation of God whose teachings were more
> appropriate for human beings living 2000 years ago. This is
> quite different from what Hick’s (and, perhaps, Fazel’s)
> pluralist theory suggests.
> Finally, Fazel’s pluralist theory implicitly claims that no one
> religion’s conceptions and perceptions of “the Real” are
> ultimately true. It is true that from the Bahá’í perspective it is
> impossible to know the Essence of God but, as discussed
> above, this does not mean that Bahá’ís accept the “relative”
> truth of all concepts of God. Again, Bahá’ís believe that God
> can be known though God’s Manifestation, and that God’s
> Manifestation reveals laws and ordinances that constitute
> normative behaviour for all human beings. Moreover, they
> believe that the teachings of each Manifestation of God are
> valid for a specific duration of time, or “dispensation,” during
> which time there can be no further revelation from God. The
> concept of relativity in pluralist theory is tied to the idea that
> religion is human and therefore not universally relevant, the
> way Divine revelation is typically supposed to be. The Bahá’í
> concept of relativity as articulated by Shoghi Effendi is very
> different from this; it does not claim that religious truth is not
> Divine or not absolutely binding on humanity for a specific
> period of time, only that it is eventually subject to change as a
> result of a further revelation from God. Once again, pluralist
> theory and Bahá’í theory are out of step.
> In conclusion, the Bahá’í teachings are too incompatible
> with either Fazel’s or Hick’s concept of religion pluralism to
> characterize it as pluralist; in other words, it is not pluralist. I
> 190                             Why the Bahá’í Faith is Not Pluralist
> 
> will now try to make the same point, more positively, by
> arguing that when evaluated against the concept of religious
> pluralism developed by Paul Griffiths, the Bahá’í Faith is, again,
> not pluralist.
> 
> Pa ul Gr iffit hs ’ Conce pt of Re ligious Plur a lis m
> Paul Griffiths is a philosopher of religion or philosophical
> theologian, and Schmitt Chair of Catholic Studies at the
> University of Illinois at Chicago. Griffith’s book Problems of
> Religious Diversity is, on one level, an attempt to introduce the
> dominant questions that arise in the face of religious diversity,
> along with the dominant answers to these questions. However,
> on another level, his book is an attempt to reinterpret the
> exclusivist/inclusivist paradigm and the pluralist paradigm
> and, indeed, to defend exclusivism and inclusivism against
> pluralism.
> In Problems of Religious Diversity, Griffiths makes the
> uncommon move of addressing the various problems, or
> questions, that arise in the face of religious diversity
> separately. This allows him to address each question with a high
> degree of precision and, therefore, create a relatively realistic
> picture of the pluralist and exclusivist/inclusivist paradigms,
> insofar as these exist. Most generally, Griffiths addresses sets
> of questions related to the following four topics: (1) truth, (2)
> epistemic confidence, (3) the religious other, and (4) salvation
> — the last of which he sees (in part) as a combination of
> elements from the first three sets of questions. As said,
> Griffiths’ work is somewhat apologetic, and this apology
> usually takes the form of him trying to show what he thinks the
> pluralist position on various issues really is, and what the
> exclusivist/inclusivist position on these same issues really is —
> in contrast to how they are conventionally understood within
> the popular threefold typology previously discussed.
> On the issue of truth, it is conventionally understood that
> exclusivists maintain that truth is only found in their religion,
> inclusivists maintain that ultimate truth is found in their
> religion even though other religions may contain partial truth,
> and pluralists maintain that truth is to be found in all or many
> religions. In contrast, Griffiths begins his analysis of the
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Eight                                   191
> 
> question of truth by distinguishing two types of response: (1)
> those that claim parity with respect to truth and (2) those that
> claim difference. As for making a parity response, Griffiths
> surveys three different perspectives: a Kantian, a
> Wittgensteinean, and a non-religious. Very basically, the
> Kantian view achieves parity with respect to truth by claiming
> that there is a single religious claim that defines religion as
> such, and that all religions make this same claim (even if they
> also make many false claims — and, amongst themselves, many
> contradictory claims). The Wittgensteinean view achieves
> parity by seeing that all religious claims are coherent within
> their own “form of life” and, so, all are true in this qualified
> sense. Finally, the non-religious view of parity, which is most
> commonly held by those involved with legislation in religiously
> neutral states, is achieved by limiting the scope of religious
> truth, for example, by saying that all religious claims are equally
> true insofar as they do not conflict with an overriding interest,
> or law, of the state.
> As for responses that say religious claims are different with
> respect to truth, Griffiths identifies two: exclusivism and
> inclusivism. In discussing exclusivism Griffiths insightfully
> points out that no actual religious communities maintain this
> position because it amounts to saying that no religious
> community, except one’s own, makes claims that are true.
> (Most religions are open to the possibility that their rivals may
> have gotten a few things right and, so, are inclusivist with
> respect to truth.) Griffiths goes further by identifying
> different forms of inclusivism: “necessary inclusivism” that
> says other religions must make at least some true claims;
> “possibilist inclusivism” that says other religions may make
> religious claims that are true; “closed inclusivism” that says all
> true claims made by other religions are already explicitly made
> by one’s own religion; and, “open inclusivism” that says other
> religions may teach and understand truths not explicitly taught
> and understood by one’s own religion. Griffiths own view is
> that possibilist, open inclusivism is the best response to the
> truth claims of other religions. (Necessary inclusivism and
> possibilist inclusivism can be held together with either open or
> closed inclusivism.) Nonetheless, Griffiths’ main points here
> are (1) that exclusivism, with respect to truth, is a very
> uncommon view amongst religious people, and (2) that a parity
> 192                             Why the Bahá’í Faith is Not Pluralist
> 
> claim with respect to truth necessitates a circumscription (or
> limitation) of what truth means in one way of another.
> Griffiths next question deals with what he calls “epistemic
> confidence” and here he asks whether one’s epistemic
> confidence in their religious beliefs (or to use Griffiths’ words
> “the religious assents they find themselves making”29) is, or
> should be, reduced or removed as a result coming to know
> about religious diversity.
> Conventionally, it is believed that knowledge of diversity has
> virtually no effect on exclusivists and inclusivists because they
> are so dogmatically convinced about the absolute validity of
> their own religion. In contrast, pluralists characteristically
> recognize the non-absoluteness of their own religion when they
> encounter religious others who strike them as being highly
> religious.
> Griffiths discusses this issue in terms of how it is dealt with
> by the religious and the non-religious. With respect to the
> religious he says that there are three factors that come into
> play: (1) the original degree of certainty that one has in their
> religious beliefs or the confidence one has in the religious
> claims they assents to and accept — this is the most important
> point; (2) the perceived trustworthiness or authority of those
> making religious claims incompatible with one’s own; and (3)
> the resources within one’s one religion to explain the existence
> of others.
> Griffiths argues that religious diversity does not, usually,
> present a significant problem for religious people because their
> assents and acceptances of religious claims are made with a
> very high degree of epistemic confidence. Indeed, this
> circumstance is built into the very fabric of religion which
> Griffiths defines as “a form of life that seems to those who
> belong to it to be comprehensive, incapable of abandonment,
> and of central importance.”30 Thus, the very level of
> commitment with which religious beliefs are held usually
> prevents religious people from losing confidence in them in the
> face of incompatible beliefs. However, Griffiths also argues
> that one’s epistemic confidence may be weakened, or even
> completely destroyed, if one encounters others who are making
> incompatible claims and still seem to be highly religious,
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Eight                                  193
> 
> and/or if one’s one religion lacks resources for making sense of
> these claims. But, again, he maintains that this scenario is
> relatively anomalous for religious persons because they usually
> are able to find resources within their own tradition to explain
> the incompatible claims of other traditions or, possibly, to
> impugn the credibility of those teaching them.
> As for the typical non-religious response to the question of
> whether an awareness of religious diversity should decrease the
> epistemic confidence that persons have in their religious
> claims, this is also a negative one — albeit of a very different
> kind. The non-religious view of religion maintains that religion
> belongs entirely to the private sphere, and that any religion
> admitted to this sphere is on par with any other religion
> admitted to it. Thus, on this account, religious differences are
> simply matters of personal preference of no particular
> consequence, similar to choosing a strawberry ice cream cone
> instead of a chocolate one.
> Griffith’s own view is that an awareness of religious
> diversity should not cause religious persons to lose confidence
> in the truth of their own religious claims; however, he also does
> not advocate a simple and arrogant dismissal of the
> incompatible claims of others — or, of course, the solution
> offered by a privatized understanding of religion. Instead, he
> suggests that an awareness of diversity should create an
> “epistemic uneasiness” that will serve as a launch pad for
> creative conceptual developments within one’s own tradition.
> In other words, he believes that an awareness of diversity
> should lead to creative attempts to explain this diversity within
> the framework of one’s specific tradition. And, although he
> does not explicitly say it, Griffiths must clearly see the loss of
> epistemic confidence that characterizes pluralism, as a failure
> to maintain an authentic religious perspective.
> Griffiths’ next question about the proper attitude towards,
> and the proper treatment of, the religious other (Griffiths uses
> the word “alien”) is a natural follow up to his discussion about
> epistemic confidence. This is because the maintenance or lose
> of epistemic confidence in one’s religious assents and
> acceptances will certainly influence one’s religious state of
> being and, therefore, one’s relations with other beings —
> 194                             Why the Bahá’í Faith is Not Pluralist
> 
> religious or otherwise. Conventionally, it is understood that
> epistemic confidence in the claims of one’s own religion — or
> belief in the truth of one’s own religion — necessarily translates
> into an imperialistic and aggressive missionary impulse
> towards other religions. In contrast, it is believed that the
> weaker epistemic confidence of pluralists is conducive to a
> more open, tolerant, and dialogical approach to other
> religions.
> Griffiths identifies three patterns of response to the
> religious other: (1) toleration or “enduring the religious alien”;
> (2) separation or “isolating the religious alien”; and (3)
> conversion or “domesticating the religious alien. 31
> The principle idea of toleration is to simply let the religious
> alien be. In discussing toleration, Griffith’s tries to make the
> point that toleration really means putting up with, or not
> interfering with, something that one does not really like or
> value — such as one’s allergies (Griffiths’ example). Presumably,
> he does this to undermine the idea that tolerance is a noble
> value. However, the more important point he makes is that
> pure tolerance is practically impossible to effect politically. In
> other words, as much as a state may claim that it is tolerant of
> all religions it will, in reality, always support and permit
> certain religious proposals and discourage and prevent others.
> For example, in Ontario, the United Church of Canada (like
> other Churches) is permitted to marry gay and lesbian couples,
> but neither Muslims nor Mormons are allowed to practice
> polygamy.
> As for isolation, Griffiths sees this as an extreme form of
> toleration, wherein one tries to let religious others be by
> staying away from them. Griffith’s main point, in connection
> with isolation, is that it is almost impossible to achieve in the
> modern world.
> The principle idea of conversion is not to endure religious
> otherness, but to remove it by making the religious alien a
> religious kin. In his discussion of conversion Griffiths points
> out that attempts to make others more like ourselves is a not a
> unique religious phenomenon, but a phenomenon that is
> commonplace in all spheres of life — non-smokers try to
> convert smokers, liberals try to convert conservatives, and so
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Eight                                  195
> 
> on. But, more importantly, he makes the point that a religion’s
> teachings about the necessity of converting others is typically
> an integral part of a complex set of that religion’s teachings,
> and that to reject the former would necessitate rejecting the
> latter. So, here again, Griffiths is suggesting that embracing the
> pluralist idea that missionary work should be abandoned is
> tantamount to rejecting one’s religion. Griffiths, also makes
> another important point in this connection; namely, that one’s
> treatment of others (be they religious or not) is not exclusively
> conditioned by attitudes developed in the face of religious
> diversity. In fact, it is normative for religions to inculcate an
> ethical and loving response to other human beings irrespective
> of their religious convictions. (The “golden rule” would be an
> example of this.) Moreover, it might even be argued that those
> with the highest degree of confidence in the truth of their
> religion would take these inculcations to treat others ethically
> most seriously.
> Finally, Griffiths discusses the question of salvation. As
> already talked about, salvation has conventionally been
> discussed in terms of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism.
> In his discussion of salvation Griffiths notes that there are two
> related, but separate, questions that can be addressed. The first
> asks how one is saved and the second asks who is saved , and it
> is this first question that he says can be coherently answered
> with the responses of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism.
> Griffiths presents the exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist
> responses to the question of how one is saved with
> representatives of the three positions — Karl Barth, Karl
> Rahner, and John Hick respectively — but he is also very
> vigorous in distilling the formal responses. According to
> Griffiths, exclusivism boils down to claiming that belonging to
> the “home religion” is necessary for salvation (albeit not
> necessarily sufficient for it). In other words, if one wants to be
> saved one must belong to the home religion (even if belonging
> to the home religion won’t necessarily guarantee one’s
> salvation). Inclusivism is only a variation on this position
> because it is based on this same assumption that if one wants
> to be saved one must belong to the home religion; however, it is
> different from exclusivism in that it employs a looser sense of
> what it means to belong to the home religion. This view brings
> 196                             Why the Bahá’í Faith is Not Pluralist
> 
> into play the notion that one might be participating in the
> home religion while not aware of this fact, and seemingly
> participating in another religion. Pluralism, in marked
> contrast, rejects the basic premise of exclusivism and
> inclusivism — that one must belong to the home religion to be
> saved — in order to assert the basic truth of pluralism that all
> religions are able to deliver salvation in and of themselves. But
> in rejecting the basic premise of exclusivism and inclusivism,
> pluralism finds itself bound to a problematic position;
> specifically, that belonging to the home religion is not
> necessary for salvation. Griffiths calls this form of pluralism,
> which cuts the connection between salvation and membership
> in a religion, negative pluralism and notes that it is rare for
> religious persons to hold this position. Instead, religious
> persons are more likely to adopt a positive form of pluralism
> that claims a positive connection between religious
> membership and salvation, and maintains that this
> connection, whatever it is, is equally present in all religions —
> despite the fact that this usually undermines the diversity that
> pluralism seeks to honour. More, specifically, the positive form
> of pluralism must define what is meant by religion and
> therefore must necessarily exclude some things from the
> category of religion. Consequently, Griffiths says that the sort
> or pluralism advanced by Hick is only quasi-pluralistic.
> The other question, related to salvation, that Griffiths
> addresses is that of who is saved, and he identifies two
> responses: “restrictivism” and “universalism.” Restrictivism
> says all will not be saved which can be expressed differently as
> some will not be saved . Universalism, on the other hand, says
> that all will be saved or, expressed differently, that there is no
> one who will not be saved . Griffiths also discusses these two
> positions in the mode of necessity and the mode of possibility
> (where they merge into the same position); nonetheless, what I
> think is most valuable in this discussion is his point that
> exclusivism is not necessarily tied to restrictivism. In other
> worlds, it is possible to hold that belonging to the home
> religion is necessary for salvation, without holding that this
> means some or all people will suffer eternal damnation. Or, it is
> coherent to be an exclusivist, who says that all must belong to
> the home religion to be saved, while being a universalist, who
> says that all will be saved. This is significant because
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Eight                                     197
> 
> exclusivism (in its Christian form) is often rejected on the
> ethical grounds that a loving God could not consign to hell
> human beings who had no chance of becoming Christian.
> I will now end this discussion of Griffiths’ work by
> summarizing the main points in his critique of the pluralist
> paradigm, and then by summarizing the main points in his
> defence of the exclusivist/inclusivist paradigm.
> Griffiths, makes four main points in his critique of the
> pluralism paradigm. First, he argues that parity claims with
> respect to religious truth require a circumscription of truth
> that denudes it of its usual meaning. Second, he argues that the
> loss of epistemic confidence, characteristic of pluralists who
> encounter religious diversity, entails abandonment of one’s
> religion — or of the central claims of one’s religion. Third, he
> argues that the broad religious tolerance advocated by
> pluralists, is largely idealistic, insofar as it is almost impossible
> to effect politically. Fourth, and finally, he argues that
> pluralism is usually only quasi-pluralistic because it necessarily
> circumscribes the category of religion.
> Griffiths also makes four main points in his defence of the
> exclusivism/inclusivism paradigm. First, he argues that no
> religions are actually exclusivist with respect to truth. Second,
> he argues knowledge of religious diversity need not lead to
> epistemic arrogance or a loss of epistemic confidence, but can
> lead to epistemic uneasiness that can serve as a basis for
> creative tradition-specific thought about religious diversity.
> Third, he argues that mission or teaching is in integral part of
> religion, which can’t be rejected with the hope that the rest of it
> can be accepted. Fourth, and finally, he argues that exclusivism
> with respect to salvation does not necessarily entail a
> commitment to restrictivism — or it is possible to hold the
> position that it is necessary to belong to a particular religion
> in order to be saved and the position that all human beings will
> be saved.
> 
> Why t he B a há’ í F a it h is Not Plur a lis t — Aga in
> Now, if we understand the pluralist paradigm and
> exclusivist/inclusivist paradigm in Griffiths’ terms, I think the
> 198                              Why the Bahá’í Faith is Not Pluralist
> 
> Bahá’í approach to           religious     diversity     is    clearly
> exclusivist/inclusivist.
> On the question of truth the Bahá’í teachings seem to
> promote a Kantian parity in claiming that all religions teach
> the same essential truths. However, unlike the Kantian view,
> Bahá’ís don’t dismiss non-essential truth claims (or those that
> are emendable to change) as irrelevant with respect to being
> true. For example, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (the Bahá’í equivalent of
> the Qur’án or Bible) contains a number of social laws that are
> seen as “non-essential” insofar as it is believed that these will be
> abrogated, in the future, on account of subsequent Divine
> revelation; however, Bahá’ís also believe that obedience to these
> laws is one of their highest religious duties,32 and so non-
> essential truths do not mean inconsequential truths as they do
> in the Kantian view.
> Thus, I would classify the Bahá’í Faith as some form of
> inclusivism on the question of truth.
> On the question of epistemic confidence, I would contend
> that Bahá’ís have a very high level of epistemic confidence in the
> religious claims they assent to and accept — because they
> believe these are grounded in Divine revelation. Moreover, this
> confidence is not significantly eroded by an awareness of
> religious diversity because Bahá’ís have excellent resources for
> explaining religious diversity within their religious tradition.
> Indeed, the Bahá’í explanation of religious diversity is one of
> the central doctrines of the Bahá’í Faith — and Bahá’ís have
> unparalleled confidence in this doctrine because (as above) they
> believe it has been Divinely revealed.33 In this respect they are
> not similar to pluralists who, according to Griffiths, typically
> lose confidence in the truth of their own tradition when they
> encounter religious diversity.
> On the question of how to deal with the religious other I
> would say that Bahá’ís follow the conversion model. Bahá’ís
> believe that teaching their faith to others is, on one hand, a
> prime requisite for their own spiritual growth and, on the
> other, the most vital activity for bringing about the collective
> or social salvation of humanity. 34 This obligation to teach is,
> however, accompanied by a prohibition on conversion by
> violence or even aggressive proselytizing,35 and ethical
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Eight                                  199
> 
> exhortations to relate to religious “aliens” in friendly and
> respectful ways. 36 The Bahá’í Faith, obviously, does not fit the
> isolation model but neither does it fit the toleration model; the
> Bahá’í Faith is not tolerant in the sense of holding what is, in
> Griffiths’ view, an unrealistic ideal that society ought to
> tolerate all socio-religious practices and behaviours because, in
> principle, there can be no socio-religious norms. Once again,
> the Bahá’í Faith is most in line with the exclusivist/inclusivist
> paradigm.
> On the question of salvation, Bahá’ís certainly believe that
> being a Bahá’í is advantageous to one’s salvation, but they also
> believe that the soul’s progress does not stop with death, and
> that the potential for spiritual growth in the afterlife is
> infinite. 37 Bahá’u’lláh also says that one of the bounties of the
> Bahá’í “dispensation” is that the kin of Bahá’ís, even though
> they may outwardly be non-believers, will be granted divine
> forgiveness and mercy 38 — suggesting that they may be in as
> good a shape as believers with respect to salvation in the
> afterlife. On this basis I would classify the Bahá’í Faith as
> inclusivist and universalist, again placing it in the
> exclusivism/inclusivism paradigm. It might also be noted that
> the question of salvation is relatively moot from a Bahá’í
> perspective because Bahá’ís deny the possibility of knowing
> one’s own, or another’s, spiritual status and destiny.
> Nonetheless, with respect to each of Griffiths’ four
> questions, the Bahá’í Faith belongs in the exclusivist/inclusivist
> paradigm and, so, it can once again be concluded that the
> Bahá’í Faith is not pluralist.
> 
> Conclus ion
> I have now argued in two different ways that the Bahá’í Faith
> is not pluralist, which is not to say that it is any of the things
> that have frequently been ascribed to non-pluralists —
> religiously intolerant, imperialistic, aggressively oriented to
> mission, and so on. And this fact, despite Griffiths’ attempts
> to defend exclusivism and inclusivism emphasizes the need for
> better theorizing about responses to religious diversity that are
> not pluralist, and even those that are.
> 200                                  Why the Bahá’í Faith is Not Pluralist
> 
> NOTES
> Seena Fazel, “Religious Pluralism and the Bahá’í Faith” Interreligious
> Insight 1, no.3 (2003): 42-49. For an argument similar to Fazel’s see
> Dann J. May, “The Bahá’í Principle of Religious Unity: A Dynamic
> Perspectivism,” in Revisioning the Sacred: New Perspectives on a Bahá’í
> Theology, ed. Jack McLean (Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1997), 1-36.
> Paul J. Griffiths, Problems of Religious Diversity (Oxford: Blackwell
> Publishers, 2001).
> S. Mark Heim, The Depth of the Riches: A Trinitarian Theology of
> Religious Ends (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
> Company, 2001), 3.
> Gavin D’Costa, The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity (Maryknoll,
> N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2000), 1.
> Alan Race, Christians and Religious Pluralism: Patterns in the Christian
> Theology of Religions (London: SCM Press, 1983); John Hick, Problems
> of Religious Pluralism (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985), 28-45;
> Gavin D’Costa, Theology and Religious Pluralism (Oxford, Basil
> Blackwell, 1986); Dianna Eck, Encountering God (Boston: Beacon Press,
> 1993), 166-199.
> Heim, The Depth of the Riches, 3; Eck, Encountering God, 169.
> For a good account of how exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism have
> been constructed as paradigmatic, and somewhat “cartoonish,”
> responses to religious diversity altogether, see Kate McCarthy.
> “Reckoning with Religious Difference: Models of Iterreligious Moral
> Dialogue,” in Explorations in Global Ethics, eds. Sumner B. Twiss and
> Bruce Grelle. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1998), 73-117.
> For one example of this, see John Hick, “The Non-Absoluteness of
> Christianity,” in The Myth of Christian Uniqueness, eds. John Hick and
> Paul F. Knitter (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1987), 16-36.
> For a representative pluralist, see Hick, Problems of Religious Pluralism,
> 28-45; for a representative non-pluralist, see Griffith, Problems of
> Religious Diversity, 138-169.
> D’Costa, The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity, 1.
> Griffiths, Problems of Religious Diversity, 101-11.
> It should also be noted that non-pluralized have been involved in
> caricaturizing pluralists — typically as non-committed “relativists.”
> Again, see McCarthy, Reckoning with Religious Difference , 73-117.
> Bahá’u’lláh. Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh, 36.
> Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, 163.
> For the fullest expression of Hick’s philosophy of religious pluralism
> see, John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the
> Transcendent (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Eight                                              201
> 
> Fazel, “Religious Pluralism and the Bahá’í Faith,” 3
> Fazel, “Religious Pluralism and the Bahá’í Faith,” 4
> Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, 3.
> Fazel, “Religious Pluralism and the Bahá’í Faith,” 5.
> Lights of Guidance: A Bahá’í Reference File , 494.
> Lights of Guidance, 494.
> Bahá’u’lláh. The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, 195-196.
> Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, 35.
> See, Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, 202-206.
> Juan Cole, “The Concept of Manifestation in the Bahá’í Writings.”
> Bahá’í Studies 9 (1982): 1-38; Bahá’u’lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, 233-234.
> Bahá’u’lláh’s primary doctrinal text, the Kitáb-i-ˆqán, arguably makes
> this point.
> Hick is reluctant on this point to recognize that many religions who
> distinguish God as Unknowable and God as knowable also claim that it
> is possible to become perfectly identified with the Unknowable aspect
> of God, and that others religions transfer absoluteness to the knowable
> aspect of God which, as far as I can tell, is never thought of as a limited
> human understanding of the Unknowable Essence.
> Shoghi Effendi, “The Faith of Bahá’u’lláh: A World Religion,” 1947
> http://bahai-library.com/?file=shoghieffendi_faith_bahaullah
> Griffiths, Problems of Religious Diversity, 17.
> Griffiths, Problems of Religious Diversity, XIV.
> Griffiths, Problems of Religious Diversity, 101; 111; 119.
> Bahá’u’lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, 19.
> See Bahá’u’lláh, The Kitáb-i- ˆqán.
> Shoghi Effendi, Bahá’í Administration , 88.
> Shoghi Effendi, Advent of Divine Justice , 66.
> Bahá’u’lláh, Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh, 22.
> Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, “Memorandum:
> The Condition of Non-Bahá’ís After Death, 1991” on The Bahá’í
> Research      Library     (Downloaded    from      http://www.bahai-
> education.org/ocean/), 4
> Research Department of the Universal House of Justice,
> “Memorandum,” 1
>
> — *Why the Baha'i Faith Is Not Pluralist (Used by permission of the curator)*