Exclusivism

  This essay presents William Wainwright’s conception of religious reasoning. He rejects the view that proper reasoning in religion must be limited to “neutral technical reason” (NTR), modes of reasoning that are neutral and acceptable to all parties in a religious disagreement. He emphasizes that religious reasoning, as seen in outstanding practitioners from different religious traditions, incorporates additional elements, such as appeals to revelation, emphasis on religious reading, rhetoric, acknowledgment of mystery, and especially “passional reason,” in which the arguments presented and the conclusions accepted depend essentially on the state of the reasoner’s heart. The essay goes on to consider how Wainwright deals with issues surrounding religious diversity: he rejects all of the standard methods by which it has been argued that differences in belief between traditions either do not really exist or do not ultimately matter. Special attention is given to religious pluralism, as advocated by John Hick and Peter Byrne. This leads to a consideration of exclusivism, in which it is held that the fundamental doctrines of one religion are true, and those of other religions, insofar as they differ from those of the favored religion, are false. Wainwright finds the standard objections against exclusivism to be ineffective or inconclusive. Finally, the essay addresses a question suggested but not resolved by Wainwright’s work: Does religious diversity have the consequence that truth in religion is not accessible to us?

Human cultural vision in religious rituals and ceremonies of different religions, denominations and sects is of such a difference that this difference sometimes puts them in complete contradiction with each other. Apparently, every religion speaks of the eternal principles that must be followed by that religion’s followers and seeks to raise reasons of the veracity of its own claims as well as the refutation of the claims of other religions in order to prove its own supremacy in the face of the inferiority of the other religions. Today, man needs to have an interpretation and perspective of these diversities and to offer a judgement of their veracity, rightness or deviance may it make the best choice in rational terms. Referring to the ideas of thinkers is one of the methods that can help the humans to identify or mitigate these challenges. Thus, this study aims at assaying the perception of religious other from the point of view of the human scientists. The approach of this research is based on the qualitative method focusing on thematic analysis, data collection through semi-structured interviews as well as the analysis of the findings based on the stages of the thematic analysis. The research field is constituted by the professors of the universities of Tehran city. Sampling process continued in a purposeful manner among the professors of philosophy and sociology up to 8 cases until the theoretical saturation. The results of the research show that religious other within Iranian cultural context includes eight sub themes: Sunni, Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews, Mandaeans, Yarsans, Derwishes and Baha’is.