Robert Audi’s Ontology of Commitment as a Philosophical Foundation for Religious Moderation and Freedom

Abstract

Religious moderation has emerged as a central concept shaping the trajectory of religious freedom, primarily through the lenses of social tolerance and religious tolerance. A failure to distinguish between these two forms of tolerance carefully risks rendering the problem of religious truth both relative and biased. Consequently, efforts to promote religious moderation may inadvertently give rise to a new form of religious pluralism. This study employs a research-based literature review and critical analysis, drawing on Robert Audi’s ontological commitment as its primary philosophical framework. The methodology integrates three systematic elements: first, interpretation is used to identify and articulate the core problems inherent in religious moderation; second, induction is employed to derive general conclusions about the concept of religious moderation; and third, heuristics are applied to explore the concept ontologically, epistemologically, and axiologically. The findings reveal that a nuanced distinction between social tolerance and religious tolerance is essential to prevent the dilution of religious truth claims while still fostering a pluralistic public sphere. Furthermore, the study identifies that without a strong ontological foundation as articulated by Audi religious moderation risks either descending into relativism (if tolerance is overemphasized) or lapsing into exclusivism (if truth claims are overemphasized). Thus, the findings demonstrate that a balanced, ontology-based approach can provide a more fundamental and coherent understanding of the actualization of religious freedom in Indonesia.