oa Christelijk exclusivisme en religieus pluralisme

It is widely held that religious pluralism poses a problem for believers who are Christians. In the first section it is argued that the problem at hand emerges from truth claims which Christians make: Christians make truth claims that are contested by adherents of other religions. Section 2 discusses John Hick’s proposal to interpret religious truth claims in a Kantian way and argues that Hick’s position is self-referentially incoherent. Section 3 inquires whether it is true, as many claim, that Christian exclusivism (the view that what Christians believe is true and what is incompatible with it false) has to be rejected on moral grounds (exclusivism is thought to express arrogance, oppression, insensitivity, delinquincy etc.). It is being argued it has not. The final section offers an interpretation of J.H. Bavink’s and J. Verkuyl’s Calvinian theology of religions; it is argued that their theology is ontologically exclusivistic and soteriologically inclusivistic and that it is eminently sensible.