The Loyalty of Religious Disagreement

Chapter 10 addresses how religious disagreement, like disagreement in science, stands to deliver important epistemic benefits. But religious communities typically think believers should be loyal to God; and since engaging with religious disagreement opens oneself to considering negative beliefs about God, doing so is disloyal. The chapter discusses two arguments that aim to show that religious disagreement is typically disloyal. It then argues that religious disagreement is not typically disloyal, and can in fact be loyal. Finally, the chapter argues for a superior form of loyalty that is epistemically oriented: concerned with knowing the other party as she really is.