Criticism of Relativity of Religious Knowledge from the Quranic View

Relativity of religious knowledge can be regarded as one of the most important foundations of religious pluralism. This theory is influenced by hermeneutic method of West which tries to use it to understand and interpret religious texts and show that correct understanding of religious texts is unattainable. Those who believe in the relativity of religious knowledge have referred to such reasons as differentiation between reality and our perception of reality, multi-layeredness and silence of religious texts and universality of religious understanding. The present paper criticizes this theory intra-religiously and challenges its reasons, with the help of Quranic verses and infallible Imam's sayings. It holds that reality is obtainable from a religious point of view and multi-layeredness of religious texts never means plurality of contradictory and heterogeneous understanding and that religious texts are not silent and devoid from meanings; rather, they are light, explanatory and guide man.