Why the Baha'i Faith Is Not Pluralist
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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
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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
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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.
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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:
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“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.
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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
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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)