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William Alston represents an even more charitable response to exclusivism. His perspective is based on what he sees as a crucial distinction between two types of epistemic disputes (relating to knoweldge or its validation): those in which “it is clear what would constitute non-circular grounds for supposing one of the contestants to be superior to the others” and those in which it is not. In the former case — in those cases in which there is a commonly accepted “procedure for settling disputes” — it isn’t clear, he acknowledges, that it is rational for a person to continue to maintain that her position is superior (Alston 1988, 442–443).

However, as Alston sees it, there exists no such common ground for settling basic epitemic disputes over religious truth claims, and this, he contends, alters the situation drastically. It still remains true, he grants, that the reality of religious diversity diminishes justification. But the fact that “we are at a loss to specify [common ground]” means, he argues, that with respect to those religious perspectives that are self-consistent, it is not “irrational for one to remain an exclusivist” — not irrational for the proponent of any religious perspective to continue to hold that her perspective is true. That is, as Alston sees it, given the absence of common ground for resolving disputes, the proponent of any self-consistent religious perspective can justifiably continue to believe this perspective to be true “despite not being able to show that it is epistemically superior to the competition” (Alston 1988, 443–446). Or, stated differently yet, Alston grants that objective evidence is necessary for justified belief when the debated issue is one for which such evidence is available. But when objective evidence is not available — as is the case for most important religious contentions — it cannot be required for justified belief.

In fact, at one point he goes even further. Because there exists at present no neutral ground for adjudicating religious epistemic conflicts, it is not only the case, Alston argues, that an exclusivist is justified (rational) in continuing to consider her own perspective superior. Since we do not even know in most cases what a non-circular reason for demonstrating superiority would look like, the “only rational course” for an exclusivist “is to sit tight” with the beliefs “which [have] served so well in guiding [her] activity in the world.” Or, to generalise this point, Alston speaks for those who maintain that, given the absence of common ground for adjudicating disputes concerning self-consistent religious perspectives, it is not rational for an exclusivist to stop maintaining that her system is superior (Alston 1988, 444).

Reference: Alston, W., 1988, “Religious Diversity and the Perceptual Knowledge of God,” Faith and Philosophy, 5: 433–448.