Scriptural Reasoning and Relativisation

SR's explicit design — to explore difference without resolving it — is its most important defence against the relativisation charge, and exclusivists who argue it undermines the uniqueness of the Christian message misunderstand its stated purpose.

SR was developed in Oxford and practised globally as a method of interfaith encounter in which participants do not seek to agree on a common interpretation or identify a shared religious core — which is precisely what would constitute relativisation. As the Diocese of Salford notes confirm, "SR is not about seeking agreement but rather exploring the texts and their possible interpretations across faith boundaries, and learning to 'disagree better.'" Participants are explicitly not asked to leave their own tradition behind: "people of different faiths come together to read and reflect on their scriptures side-by-side" — the practice preserves the integrity and distinctiveness of each tradition rather than merging them into a common framework. The result, as SR practitioners report, is frequently a deeper understanding of one's own faith: encountering the way another tradition reads a shared theme — creation, justice, prayer — challenges participants to articulate what is specifically and distinctively Christian about their own approach, which strengthens rather than relativises theological identity. The OCR examiners' report confirms that "for those Christians who cannot accept other religions as equally true, there is still much to be discovered in the dialogue of daily life or common social action" — endorsing SR as compatible with non-relativist Christian engagement.

However, exclusivist critics argue that the very act of treating other scriptures with equal respect — reading the Qur'an and the Hadith alongside the Bible, listening to Jewish midrash as a serious interpretation of shared texts — implicitly signals that these scriptures have equal authority and validity. As the Seneca notes confirm: "exclusivists may argue that scriptural reasoning undermines the uniqueness of the Christian message — Christians have an important duty to spread the message that salvation is only possible through Jesus Christ and that other religions are false." The OCR examiner also notes a relevant tension: some candidates understood SR as an opportunity to evangelise, which is incompatible with SR's actual design — suggesting that when SR is practised from an exclusivist starting point, it generates tension rather than resolution.

SR defenders respond that respect is not relativisation: one can engage seriously and respectfully with another tradition's scripture without conceding that it is equally authoritative or true. The practice of respectful disagreement — taking the other's text seriously enough to engage with it carefully and then articulating why one's own tradition responds differently — is not relativisation but the opposite: it requires that participants have and maintain distinctive theological positions, since without genuine difference there is nothing to learn from. Furthermore, SR's social impact — building genuine relationships across faith communities, reducing fear and misunderstanding, contributing to social cohesion in multi-faith cities — demonstrates that respectful engagement with other scriptures produces concrete goods that do not depend on relativising anyone's faith.

The SR defenders' response is substantially persuasive: the design of SR as an exercise in "disagreeing better" is directly contrary to the strong relativisation charge, and the exclusivist objection conflates respectful engagement with agreement. The OCR specification's own language — "whether or not scriptural reasoning relativises religious beliefs" — treats this as an open question rather than a settled verdict, which suggests the examiners do not consider the relativisation charge obviously correct. The strong form of the charge is therefore not fair to SR's actual design and practice.

SR's explicit design preserves theological difference and disagreement — making the strong relativisation charge unfair — but the exclusivist objection correctly identifies that SR's practice of respectful engagement may not be available to those who hold that other religions are actively false.

Hick's pluralist appropriation of SR and the psychological dynamics of sustained interfaith encounter together support a qualified version of the weak relativisation charge — but this is a limitation of SR in practice rather than a condemnation of its design.

John Hick and pluralist thinkers argue that SR, whatever its designers intend, has a relativising logic built into it: when Christians, Jews and Muslims sit together and read each other's scriptures with equal seriousness, the encounter with genuine holiness, wisdom and depth in traditions other than one's own creates a natural epistemic pressure towards recognising that no single tradition has a monopoly on religious truth. As the Seneca notes confirm, "for pluralists such as John Hick, scriptural reasoning enables religious believers to recognise that different religious beliefs and practices are all relative — their differences are merely born out of different cultures." Hick draws on his personal experience of attending mosques, synagogues and temples in multi-faith Birmingham: the encounter with genuine holiness and sincere devotion in other traditions made the exclusivist claim that Christianity alone was true experientially implausible — a process that SR, by design, accelerates. The philosophyalevel.com notes acknowledge this: "critics argue that this practice risks relativising religious beliefs" — and while SR is not designed to produce this outcome, it creates conditions in which it becomes psychologically more available.

However, the weak relativisation charge — that SR creates psychological pressure towards relativisation — does not demonstrate that SR causes relativisation but only that it occurs in a context where relativisation is one possible response to the encounter with difference. Participants who emerge from SR with stronger rather than weaker theological convictions — which SR practitioners report is common — demonstrate that the same encounter can produce the opposite effect. Furthermore, the pluralist appropriation of SR misrepresents SR's actual design: Hick uses SR's encounter with religious diversity to support his pre-existing pluralist framework, but SR explicitly does not ask participants to reach Hick's conclusion — that differences are merely cultural — and many SR participants strongly reject that conclusion while remaining committed to the practice.

Those who maintain the weak relativisation charge can respond that the psychological pressure towards relativisation is not merely accidental but structurally connected to SR's practice: a method that treats all participants' scriptures as equally worthy of serious engagement, that builds strong personal bonds across faith communities, and that actively discourages the conclusion that one's own tradition alone is true — is not neutral but creates conditions significantly more favourable to relativisation than to exclusivism. As the Seneca notes ask: "if all holy scriptures and interpretations offer a valid perspective on reality, how does any religion offer the ultimate truth?" — a question that SR raises without answering, and which some participants will answer by relativising rather than by maintaining theological distinctiveness.

The qualified weak relativisation charge is partially fair: SR operates in the territory where relativisation is a live risk, and its social design — respectful, non-competitive, relationship-building — makes the relativising move more psychologically available than the exclusivist alternative. However, this is a limitation rather than a condemnation: the risk of relativisation in interfaith encounter is inseparable from the benefit of genuine engagement, and the alternative — no engagement at all — produces the social fragmentation and mutual ignorance that SR specifically exists to address. The most defensible verdict is that the strong relativisation charge is not fair to SR's design; the weak relativisation charge is partially fair as a description of its risks; and the appropriate response is not to abandon SR but to engage in it with a theologically well-formed Christian identity that the encounter with difference challenges and strengthens rather than dissolves.

The weak relativisation charge identifies a real risk rather than a design flaw — SR creates conditions where relativisation is possible but not inevitable — which makes the overall claim partially but not fully fair.