Protestant Christianity
This is perhaps the biggest part of the problem (especially in the Western world) since it represents division within Christianity itself which, as we have seen, was intended by Christ to be the definitive witness to the truth throughout the whole world until His return at the end of time.
Indeed, in the generation following the Resurrection of Christ, as the Church was just beginning to set its theological “ducks in a row” (formulating ways to convey the truths of the faith in an ordered and systematic fashion), St. Paul (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) made the astute observation that Christ’s Church had, in a mystical (not just metaphorical) sense, all the essential characteristics of a living human body (cf. 1 Cor 12:4-27). The Church, quite simply, is the Body of Christ on earth (and more besides). Christ’s body, once raised from the dead, cannot die again. And so the Church, established as it is by the eternal Son of God to be His presence and witness in the world and to speak with His full authority until the end of time, is indefectible: the Church cannot be destroyed, either from without or from within (many have tried to do so, all in vain), and will stand forever. This is accomplished not by the resourcefulness, ingenuity or efforts of any of her members, but solely by the power of God maintaining her in existence. (Indeed, it has been observed by many a saint that the Church continues to exist, not because of her human members, but in spite of them.)
Christ Himself prayed to the Father, in what is called his High Priestly Prayer (Gospel of John, Chapter 17), for the unity of the Church (Jn 17:9-23; see especially verse 21). He prayed not for Christians as individuals (so any particular Christian can, by his own choosing (free will), sin and fall away from faith in Christ), but rather for the Church as a body, as an organic whole. And if you read this passage carefully, moreover, you will notice that the kind of unity he intends is not merely a cordial agreement on a few points of doctrine, but the intimate unity of the Trinity Itself. Even as Jesus and the Father are One in the bond of love which is the Holy Spirit, so is the Church called to be One. Indivisible, by Christ’s own word!
Is it possible that Jesus Christ prayed in vain to His Father? Is He incapable of keeping His Church unified in the Truth? Did he not already know the shortcomings of man, their weakness, self-centeredness and pride? Didn’t He know what the future would hold? Is He not God? It is absurd to believe in the divinity of Christ, to believe the words of Sacred Scripture, and at the same time to think that the Church He established could ever be divided or destroyed.
So what are we to think of all the Protestant “churches” that abound today? Are modern day Protestants considered “heretics” by the Catholic Church? No, they are not. While some of their doctrines are objectively heretical [i.e. incompatible with Apostolic Teaching], Protestants themselves are not considered heretics since they never held the fullness of Catholic faith to begin with. Theirs is not a formal denial of something they once professed as true. People who were raised Catholic, on the other hand, and who chose to abandon Catholicism for a Protestant denomination are heretics in this formal sense, but most Protestants never knew the truths of the faith firsthand and so cannot be faulted for their separation and God does not hold them accountable for this kind of ignorance. (For this reason the Church prefers the term “separated brethren.”) Most Protestants learned about Jesus and the Bible as children from their parents and teachers and have grown through their lives in the love of God and have benefited spiritually through their fellowship with other Christians. All this is very good!
But there is a fly in the ointment. Through no fault of their own, they lack the fullness of the truth and the means of grace promised by Christ to the members of His Body the Church.
Can Protestants get to heaven? Absolutely! (But so can a pagan who tries to form his conscience and follow it in accordance with the Natural Law (cf. Rom 2:13-16) through his cooperation with the actual graces God sends to every human being which confirm him in the love of his neighbor and guide him to his final destiny of union with God.) Protestants have much more going for them spiritually than the “good pagan,” since they already know and love God and His Son Jesus Christ, revere His Word in the Bible, and have the sacramental graces that come to them through baptism. But by the same token, they have the greater responsibility to follow the graces they have received out of obedience to God’s will (to whom much is given, much more is expected), even if these lead somewhere they might not want to go.
Can Catholics go to hell? Absolutely! Just because someone lives amid the fullness of truth and grace present in the Church, he may not avail himself of these gifts and wind up neglecting the condition of his soul, choosing instead to pursue the fleeting pleasures offered by the three sources of temptation: the world, the flesh and the devil. If he does not repent before he dies, hell will be his final destination.
Be that as it may, objectively speaking there can be only ONE Church in any Biblical sense. Those entities referred to as individual “churches” in the New Testament (e.g. “the churches of Galatia” (Galatians 1:2)) are what today are called local dioceses under their respective bishops—which even Canon Law today calls “particular churches” (can. 368ff). These New Testament churches were founded in various cities by the Apostles and their collaborators in spreading the gospel, and they were all unified in faith, governance and worship; they were NOT some ancient analogue of today’s Protestant denominations, each believing its own set of doctrines and “doing its own thing.”
The One Church must also be the Original Church, the one that was there at the beginning when Peter spoke to the crowd from the upper room (Acts 2), not one that came into existence at a later time. It is a fact of history that every church that is acknowledged as Christian must eventually trace its origin back to the Catholic Church. At some point in time its founders broke away from communion with the Catholic Church (or from some other church that itself broke from the Catholic Church). (The original Church founded by Jesus was known as “catholic” at least by the beginning of the 2nd Century as indicated by the Letter of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, ca. AD 107.)
But why would anyone who claims to believe in Christ, desires to follow and obey Him, and who believes in the inspired word of the Bible, want to break away from unity with the Church Christ established? (I am not speaking here of those who were brought up as Protestants, only those who originally broke away.) Jesus told his original disciples that they spoke with His own authority, and that those who refused to listen to the Church were to be considered as heathens (i.e. outside of the Church) (cf. Matt 18:17). St. Paul said that “the pillar and foundation of the truth” was, not Scripture, but “the Church” (1 Tim 3:15). The Bible, indeed, comes to us through the Church. So anyone who says, “I can’t trust the Church, I only trust the Bible,” doesn’t really know the Bible. What he is actually doing (probably without realizing it) is setting himself up as a judge of the Church, favoring his own personal interpretation of certain isolated passages of the Bible as alleged evidence of the defection of the Church from the truth given by Christ and the Apostles. But nowhere does the Bible—even remotely—make any provision for anyone to judge the Church. It’s always the visible Church who passes judgment on her members, not the other way around (e.g. Matt 18:17 and Acts 15, especially verses 19, 22 & 28).
Peter himself informs us, “No one can interpret any prophesy of Scripture by himself,” and that the Scriptures “contain some obscure passages which the ignorant and unstable misinterpret to their own ruin” (2 Pet 1:20; 3:16). It is for the Church as a body (under the authority of Peter and his successors, the popes) to interpret the Scriptures and formulate doctrine (cf. Jn 21:15-17). Individual Christians (even priests and bishops) lack this authority and presume upon it “to their own ruin” and that of anyone else who follows their erroneous teachings. To be sure, individual Christians are strongly encouraged to read and understand (interpret) the Bible, but only by the principles and within the bounds or limits set down by the Church’s ordinary teaching authority (magisterium). They are to read and interpret the Bible with the Church, not “by themselves” (formulating their own novel interpretations that are incompatible with what the Church has already laid out).
So what gives; what’s behind it all? Well, certainly the issue of ordinary human pride comes into play. After all, who really wants to submit to the authority of another person if he can avoid it? But that’s just the point, isn’t it? Jesus knew that no one would obey the Church over the long haul unless he knew he was under a divine command to do so. The temptation to say “I’ve got a better idea: I’ll just do it my way” is just too great for us fallen creatures.
Understanding human nature as He does, Jesus also knew that without a single, living, identifiable, “final authority” for settling the inevitable disputes, anarchy and error would soon erupt and destroy His Church. So He set up his Church with an identifiable and unmistakable visible hierarchy (human structure) with a single living head, and endowed the Church with the gift of infallibility (“the Spirit of truth” Jn 14:16-17) so it could not officially proclaim as truth what is actually false, so no one could say “Gee, I didn’t know.”
But sometimes people have been known to give in to the temptation to intellectual pride and the illusion of moral autonomy and say, “I don’t care. I still say I know better than the Church and I’m prepared to suffer the consequences.” And they do suffer eventually, which is fine for them, but what about the other people around them? Such doctrinal mavericks set a bad example for everyone else, saying by their actions that rebellion is OK after all. This is where the seed of confusion is first planted.
Without going over the whole 500 year history of Protestantism, I think it’s fair to say that it engenders a particular attitude and mindset that says, “I’m my own boss, and I don’t have to follow anyone I don’t want to. Heck, I can read the Bible can’t I? If I disagree with my pastor about what it says, I’ll just walk away and find another church I like better, or even start my own church, just like good ol’ Martin Luther did!” Setting aside the fact that that’s not quite how it went down in the 16th Century, I think this fairly describes what’s behind the “Protestant mentality” at the heart of our American experience. You know, that “rugged American individualism”? It’s partly rooted in the fundamental attitude of the Protestant founders and pioneers (etc.) of our country who figured that “just me and my Bible” was a satisfactory basis for discovering the truth.
But even Martin Luther realized by the end of his life that he’d made a catastrophic mistake when it became painfully obvious that “everyone is now his own pope!” But by then it was too late to close the barn door—the horses had escaped. Once the authority of the Church was jettisoned (in favor of “the Bible alone”), Luther discovered that there was no longer anyone to whom the ex-Catholics (fledgling “protestants”) could appeal to settle disputes of doctrine or practice (since not everybody was going to just settle for his personal interpretations any more than they’d settle for the old Catholic ones) and he saw that the inevitable result was the endless splintering off of denominations we see today. No unity, not even agreement as to what things are “essential” and what things are “OK to disagree on.” There’s nothing in the Bible that says anything like that indicating that such an approach is even acceptable (much less desirable), yet they still claim they only believe what’s in the Bible. Curious, no?
So today we have countless denominations and groups of various sizes—and even a few “lone rangers”—all professing faith in and wanting to follow Jesus, and all claiming the “Bible alone” as their final authority, yet each person surely realizing in the back of his mind that “the Spirit of truth” Christ promised to the Apostles could not be leading them all in such divergent directions, revealing to them all contradictory “truth.” It makes no sense!
And these are just the ones who call themselves Protestant. Adding to the confusion, there are also those thousands of “virtual Protestants” who disagree and demur (dissent) on any number of points of Catholic doctrine, and even dogma (i.e. infallibly defined doctrine that every Catholic is required to believe) yet still publicly claim to be Catholic. Today we call these folks “cafeteria Catholics” (because they pick and choose what they will put on their plate of personal belief, and pass on what they don’t like), but they are in fact “Protestant” in their overall attitude because they set themselves up as the final judge in matters of faith and morals, rejecting the divinely established and appointed public authority of the Church and its chief guardian, the pope.
Of course there are people who will say, “Once Catholic, always Catholic,” but that’s true only in the sense that the character of sacramental baptism is indelible. Since there is only “one baptism” (Eph 4:5), everyone who is baptized is baptized into the Catholic Church, whether he realizes it or not (sorry if that upsets anyone). But we don’t say that every baptized Protestant is Catholic, do we? No, because what they profess is not the fullness of the Catholic faith. True, they profess elements of it, but some truths are missing, some truths are categorically denied and some of the things they believe are entirely false. The religion they profess is a different thing, although they are still connected to the Church by virtue of that baptism and the elements of belief that they still hold in common with Catholic teaching. Their communion with Christ’s Church is, in a formal sense, imperfect. (I will discuss this further in Part 5.)
But what’s the big deal about that? So what? Who cares?
Hilaire Belloc explains why it’s such a “big deal” on page 91 of his book The Great Heresies: “Cultures spring from religions; ultimately the vital force which maintains any culture is its philosophy, its attitude toward the universe. The decay of a religion involves the decay of the culture corresponding to it—we see that most clearly in the breakdown of Christendom today [he wrote this sometime between 1936 and 1938]. The bad work begun at the [Protestant] Reformation is bearing its final fruit in the dissolution of our ancestral doctrines—the very structure of our society is dissolving” [emphasis added].
This is an apt description of the process we know as secularization, a ball that was set in motion by the Protestant Reformation. In my view, secularization is simply the internal logic of Protestantism playing itself out. What we commonly refer to as “the Reformation” was in fact nothing of the sort. It would more accurately be called the Protestant Rebellion. A true reformation (such as was accomplished in the Carmelite order by Sts. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross in the late 1500s and in the Church at large by the Council of Trent over the course of many decades after it concluded in 1563) is a return to the foundational principles of the organization in question: a Re-Formation. What the Protestants of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries did (albeit inadvertently) was start a process of rending and fragmenting the Body of Christ. Although Luther never intended to break with the Catholic Church, by refusing to submit to its authority (and I admit that there were most probably serious abuses of that authority on the Catholic side), giving in to pride rather than cultivating humility, he wound up “creating a monster” he was unable to control.
He didn’t do it all on his own, of course. There WAS terrible corruption at work in the members and institutions of both the Church and secular society at the time, and the political situation was a powder keg just waiting for a spark to set it off. The chief civil authority (the emperor) was distracted with fighting the Muslims who were invading Europe through the Balkans and was unable to give the grievances of the German peasants the attention they deserved (etc., etc). Europe was a mess and everybody agreed that something had to be done, but open rebellion never solved a crisis.
Today you have secularists, pagans and all the other non-Christians pointing at (1) the sinful behavior of Christians (always a problem!) and (2) the irreconcilable differences of teaching and belief among the Protestants (both the explicit and virtual types) and saying, “See? If that’s what Christianity is all about, I don’t want any part of it!” Now, it is possible (even likely) that they’d want no part of Christianity even if these problems didn’t exist (and they’re just using it as an excuse not to join), but even so it’s a real good point they make.
Except for one thing: that’s not what Christianity is all about. But with all the conflicting chatter, who can tell, right? It’s a doctrinal “Tower of Babel.” But what should be obvious by now is that Protestantism is conflicting and divisive by its very nature and from its very inception. Catholicism, by contrast, has Unity as one of its four identifying Marks. A Catholic is one who is baptized and acknowledges the pope as the Vicar of Christ, successor of St. Peter, head of the college of bishops, and the visible head of Christ’s One True Church (Christ himself being the invisible head of the Church, His Body). Everyone who is baptized and professes (at least implicitly) the same faith as the pope is a member of the One Catholic Church. That’s not too hard is it?
But if a non-Christian looking at it from the outside is so confused that he can’t tell what real Christianity is, isn’t that just the opposite of what Christ wanted His Church to be? That’s not a “city on a hill that cannot be hidden,” not a “lamp on a lamp-stand that gives light to all in the house” (Matt 5:14-15), but rather an obstacle, a stumbling block, a source of confusion and an invitation for discord, a tacit admission that “if you’re looking for the real truth, you won’t find it here. We’re not even sure ourselves.”
In Europe at the time of Luther the lines between “church” and “state” were much less clearly demarcated than they are in America today. The rejection of the generally recognized authority of the Church led eventually to an erosion of people’s attitudes about authority in general. When legitimate authority is scorned and everyone seizes on an alleged “right” to be his own final judge in all things, the inevitable and unavoidable conclusion is anarchy, where the only “leaders” are the ones with the most guns and the biggest guns (either metaphorical or actual) and the will to use them on anyone and everyone. The only rule anyone understands at the end of this logical trajectory is the rule of force, not the rule of reason, and people get so tired of having the proverbial “gun pointed at their heads” all the time and become so calloused that, at the end of the day, hardly anyone values life or anything else.
Nowadays, road rage is all the rage and juveniles and young adults prowl city streets in gangs looking for someone to beat up, just to amuse themselves. No remorse, no acknowledgement or perhaps even awareness that they’re doing anything wrong; it’s just “fun.” Abortion is considered “normal” and euthanasia is making serious inroads into “mainstream” thinking and attitudes. Death becomes the pat answer to every problem, from financial difficulty and social embarrassment to boredom.
Not that Martin Luther could possibly have predicted this logical trajectory, mind you. It took centuries for it to work itself out, but it did work itself out, and it's not finished yet.
But the One Church established by Christ to be His witness to the truth is always there, still standing like a rock in the storm—the winds of error and the waves of chaos always crashing against it—still telling the same truth it always has, even when no one else is listening or even cares. “Truth? Who can say for sure what is true anymore?” Hmm… How about returning to the One authority established and appointed by God for the express purpose of bearing witness to the truth until the end of the world?
I know it sounds crazy, but it just might work!
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Religion Confusion, Part 3½
Some clarification would be nice, if you please …
It has been brought to my attention that I may have skipped a crucial step (or two) in my rhetorical process back in Part 1 where I started by talking about truth, and then launched into a discussion of religion, without adequately explaining the connection between the two. I made the unwarranted assumption that the connection was obvious. Sorry about that. Permit me to fill in that blank part of the picture by defining a few terms and connecting some of the dots.
“God” is that entity (whoever or whatever it may be) that we choose to revere and honor above all others. I refer to the Creator of the universe as “God” or “the God” (with a capital G) and anyone or anything else one may choose to so honor as “god” or “a god” (with a small g). Since the four religious systems I’m discussing in this series all recognize the Creator-of-the-universe-God, that’s where my focus is at the moment.
“Religion” is one’s belief system, the way one thinks about and worships God, either by oneself or within a group. I personally feel that, since it deals directly with God, religion is (or should be) of paramount importance in our lives.
“Worship,” as I stated in paragraph 2 of Part 1, is that which is due to God as a matter of simple justice. He created us (as well as everything else we could possibly want or need) out of nothing and sustains us in existence moment by moment. We should recognize that He didn’t have to create us at all, but did so out of pure love. Since it is better to exist than not to, we owe Him a specially elevated kind of respect, honor and gratitude: worship.
I also stated in that same paragraph that God is the essence and source of all truth (or reality). Since He created everything that is real (even our mental abilities to imagine things that aren’t real), and in fact had to pre-exist everything else in order to do so, all reality comes from Him and He has reality as one of His own attributes (since one cannot give what one doesn’t already possess). “Truth” is our recognition of or conformity to things as they actually exist.
“Confusion,” on the other hand, is a failure to recognize truth on some level, and I contend that this is not a desirable condition, and that it is worth a considerable effort to overcome one’s confusion and so approach closer to the ascertainable objective truth about God and the universe.
By “the true religion,” I mean those things God (presumably) revealed about Himself, about us and our relationship to Him, coupled with those practices He (presumably) wishes us to follow in learning about Him and in worshiping Him. I am presuming for the sake of discussion that God did in fact reveal such things to mankind, and therefore that a “true” religion does indeed exist.
Since truth comes from God, and our recognition of truth leads us back toward God, and religion is the way we think about God and worship Him, it is my view that the religion we should want to adopt ought to be rooted in truth. If I can identify aspects of a particular religious system that diverge from truth, then perhaps it is reasonable to conclude that such a system might not be the true religion.
I hope that clears things up a bit.
It has been brought to my attention that I may have skipped a crucial step (or two) in my rhetorical process back in Part 1 where I started by talking about truth, and then launched into a discussion of religion, without adequately explaining the connection between the two. I made the unwarranted assumption that the connection was obvious. Sorry about that. Permit me to fill in that blank part of the picture by defining a few terms and connecting some of the dots.
“God” is that entity (whoever or whatever it may be) that we choose to revere and honor above all others. I refer to the Creator of the universe as “God” or “the God” (with a capital G) and anyone or anything else one may choose to so honor as “god” or “a god” (with a small g). Since the four religious systems I’m discussing in this series all recognize the Creator-of-the-universe-God, that’s where my focus is at the moment.
“Religion” is one’s belief system, the way one thinks about and worships God, either by oneself or within a group. I personally feel that, since it deals directly with God, religion is (or should be) of paramount importance in our lives.
“Worship,” as I stated in paragraph 2 of Part 1, is that which is due to God as a matter of simple justice. He created us (as well as everything else we could possibly want or need) out of nothing and sustains us in existence moment by moment. We should recognize that He didn’t have to create us at all, but did so out of pure love. Since it is better to exist than not to, we owe Him a specially elevated kind of respect, honor and gratitude: worship.
I also stated in that same paragraph that God is the essence and source of all truth (or reality). Since He created everything that is real (even our mental abilities to imagine things that aren’t real), and in fact had to pre-exist everything else in order to do so, all reality comes from Him and He has reality as one of His own attributes (since one cannot give what one doesn’t already possess). “Truth” is our recognition of or conformity to things as they actually exist.
“Confusion,” on the other hand, is a failure to recognize truth on some level, and I contend that this is not a desirable condition, and that it is worth a considerable effort to overcome one’s confusion and so approach closer to the ascertainable objective truth about God and the universe.
By “the true religion,” I mean those things God (presumably) revealed about Himself, about us and our relationship to Him, coupled with those practices He (presumably) wishes us to follow in learning about Him and in worshiping Him. I am presuming for the sake of discussion that God did in fact reveal such things to mankind, and therefore that a “true” religion does indeed exist.
Since truth comes from God, and our recognition of truth leads us back toward God, and religion is the way we think about God and worship Him, it is my view that the religion we should want to adopt ought to be rooted in truth. If I can identify aspects of a particular religious system that diverge from truth, then perhaps it is reasonable to conclude that such a system might not be the true religion.
I hope that clears things up a bit.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Religion Confusion, Part 3
Islam
When the visible head of the Catholic Church gives an address at a Catholic university on the subject of the link between faith and reason in which he quotes a Medieval source in an attempt to illustrate the point that recourse to violence for the sake of religion is not rational, the response from the Islamic world is … fire-bombed churches, murdered missionaries and cries of “the pope must die!” Hmm…. What do you suppose that means? Does this make any sense? Is this a good way for Muslims to witness to the truth? My view is that it fairly illustrates that Muslims in general (I am unaware of any substantial condemnation of these violent and aggressive acts coming from other Muslim leaders) are basically unconcerned with the notion of truth or rational discourse.
Violence is man’s usual and typical recourse if he cannot defend his position with reasonable argumentation. If I am looking for the truth about God and man, and Islam is not able to address such things, why should I believe it? Because there is a sword pressing against my throat, or the threat of death by explosion if I do not “submit”? This is not genuine faith, but fear. Truth casts out all fear. (The exact quote is “love casts out all fear” (1 Jn 4:18), but I think it applies to truth as well.) If truth is not one of the objects of Islam, then what is its appeal? Is Islam simply the religion of testosterone?
Writing in the late 1930s, Hilaire Belloc gave an excellent explanation of the history and nature of Islam from a Catholic perspective in the chapter “The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed” of his book The Great Heresies. (I highly recommend this book to everyone.) According to Belloc, Islam was not a new religion. It is in fact a perversion or distortion of true Christian doctrine (that’s what the term “heresy” means). I’ll try to summarize here.
Muhammad was pagan, as was the society in which he lived. He was never a Christian, hence he never had the benefit of the supernatural life of God (Sanctifying Grace) which comes through baptism, nor of experiencing God’s love from inside the Church. (See my posts, Life from the inside (Parts 1 & 2) [Feb. 5 & 14, 2006], and And another thing … [Feb. 19, 2006].) It is also not outside the realm of possibility, given what is known about his early years, that his experience of even natural love was somewhat limited: his father died before he was born and his mother died when he was 6, and it seems he had no older siblings or other close relatives (although reliable documentation is sketchy at best); he was taken in by his grandfather, but he also died when Muhammad was only 8; finally he came under the care of his uncle who was the leader of their clan which was the guardian of the pagan temple in Mecca. It is possible that by his adult years the memory of the warmth and intimacy of love he experienced in childhood may have grown cold and dim. Were this the case, he may have had difficulty relating to the concept of the love of God. Regardless of the reason, love has no part in the relationship between Allah and the Muslim. Islam is divine slavery.
If Muhammad was a prophet, he was a prophet like no other. His actual behavior and circumstances were more like some of the patriarchs and kings of Israel (having political power and many wives) and the judges like Gideon and Samson (waging wars of conquest). In contrast, the actual prophets of Israel and Judah, I think, tended to be unmarried (it’s hard to raise a family on a prophet’s salary!)—I know of only two who were married, Isaiah and Hosea (if I’m wrong here, please correct me). The Old Testament prophets lived under the near-constant threat of persecution and were frequently on the move (on foot, not horseback). Many were killed for their unpopular teachings, calling the people to reform their lives and return to the Lord. According to Muhammad, on the other hand, Prophethood came with “perks”—as Prophet he was entitled to have as many as eleven wives (total) [instead of the maximum of four permitted by the Qur’ân] (most of which were politically motivated to shore up his position by creating family ties with potential rivals), considerable material wealth and absolute political and judicial power.
Muhammad had a reflective turn of mind and an active imagination. He was a merchant and, starting in his teens, traveled far and had dealings with all kinds of people and picked up all kinds of new ideas. He took the Church’s teachings but then adapted them to suit his own sensibilities.
The foundation of his doctrine was the unity and omnipotence of God. The attributes of God, His utter transcendence and personal nature, His creative power, the fact that He is all-good and exists outside of time, the good angels who serve Him, the bad angels who rebelled against Him, the immortality of the soul and its responsibility for its actions in this life, the final judgment—these are all elements of Catholic doctrine that he adopted. But where he departs from it—the central point of his heresy—is an absolute denial of the Incarnation or any possibility of an incarnate God. God is SO transcendent, Muhammad thought, that He couldn’t possibly enter into His creation by taking on a human nature (oh, the shame of it all!). So he eliminated the Trinity altogether (too confusing). Along with the Incarnation went the whole sacramental system, especially the Eucharist and the priesthood. Like every other heresy, Islam starts with the truth and then oversimplifies it. Neither Muhammad nor any of his followers ever developed a detailed theology. He was content to accept all that appealed to him and to reject all that seemed to him too complicated or mysterious to be true.
The root of the problem is that he set himself up as the final arbiter of truth; anything that seemed unreasonable to him, he simply tossed out (or twisted and reshaped into something else more to his liking). Where did he get that kind of authority? He claimed that the angel Gabriel told him it was so. But it couldn’t have been the real Gabriel, because Gabriel knew that Jesus was the Son of God (cf. Lk 1:26, 35), which Muhammad denied. Was Muhammad a fraud, making things up as he went along? That might be a little strong, although it could be the case. Or perhaps he was visited by another angel, a fallen angel (demon), who called himself “Gabriel” in order to deceive him. Or perhaps his “visions” were merely dreams which he misinterpreted and embellished. All three of these possibilities (or any combination, or others besides) might be the case. In any event, in his mind simplicity was the key to everything. And the structure and practice of Islam to this day utterly discourages any deep thought along religious or theological lines.
A large part of Islam’s initial success was its doctrine on social and economic justice. The Graeco-Roman world at that time (7th Century) suffered under ubiquitous slavery, rampant usury and indebtedness, complex and burdensome imperial taxation, the tyranny of lawyers and a meddlesome central government. (Hmm … Sort of like America today.) Muhammad preached a new spirit of freedom and relaxation: upon accepting Islam, slaves were freed, peasant farmers were relieved of their debts and crushing taxation, clerical and imperial discipline were swept away, usury was forbidden, and there was free justice under few and simple new laws that everyone could understand. The intricate tax system was replaced by a simple and straight system of tribute to the Caliph(s) (who succeeded Muhammad’s place of authority after his death). As a result of this arrangement the Caliphs became extremely wealthy and were thus able to carry on the expensive business of war and conquest over an extended period of time. Given the opportunity and probability for success of throwing off such unjust burdens, who wouldn’t want to sign on to such a venture? There was also a certain underlying historical character throughout the whole region of the Middle East of natural conformity, a sort of instinct for obedience to one religious head, which was also the civil head, and a general similarity of social structure. This general character is older than any historical record, and it persists to this day.
Muhammad had the good fortune to marry a wealthy widow (he was around 25 at the time, and she was about 40). From this position of security he was free to work out his visions and enthusiasms and undertook his propaganda. But even as his following grew and his doctrines spread, it was all done in a small and ignorant way; there was never any organization. Everything was undertaken in a haphazard and slipshod manner. The Muslim temperament was never tolerant. It was in the main fanatical and bloodthirsty. It felt no respect for, or even curiosity about, those from whom it differed and was absurdly vain of itself, regarding with contempt the high Christian culture around it. And yet it did not exterminate all those who did not accept the new faith. Why? Because the forces of Islam were still too few to govern by force. In the early centuries, the greater mass of the populations remained Christian, and it was they who preserved the Graeco-Roman civilization which was their heritage, surviving under the surface of Mohammedan government.
Certainly, there are numerous “points of light” (elements of truth) in Islamic teaching (e.g. profound reverence for Mary (Miriam), the mother of Jesus, and the recognition of Jesus’ virginal conception and birth), but, like the laudable passages of the Talmud, we have no problem with these. On those points there is no disagreement, no source of confusion. And, as noted above, these elements were all appropriated from Catholic teaching anyway.) Recent years have shown also how individuals or groups of members of both faiths can certainly agree and work cooperatively on certain issues of mutual concern.
But on the whole, especially in the realm of doctrine, Islam and Christianity are irreconcilable and mutually exclusive on the most fundamental level. These two religions cannot both be true because they flatly contradict one another on the most basic question: Who is Jesus Christ?
When the visible head of the Catholic Church gives an address at a Catholic university on the subject of the link between faith and reason in which he quotes a Medieval source in an attempt to illustrate the point that recourse to violence for the sake of religion is not rational, the response from the Islamic world is … fire-bombed churches, murdered missionaries and cries of “the pope must die!” Hmm…. What do you suppose that means? Does this make any sense? Is this a good way for Muslims to witness to the truth? My view is that it fairly illustrates that Muslims in general (I am unaware of any substantial condemnation of these violent and aggressive acts coming from other Muslim leaders) are basically unconcerned with the notion of truth or rational discourse.
Violence is man’s usual and typical recourse if he cannot defend his position with reasonable argumentation. If I am looking for the truth about God and man, and Islam is not able to address such things, why should I believe it? Because there is a sword pressing against my throat, or the threat of death by explosion if I do not “submit”? This is not genuine faith, but fear. Truth casts out all fear. (The exact quote is “love casts out all fear” (1 Jn 4:18), but I think it applies to truth as well.) If truth is not one of the objects of Islam, then what is its appeal? Is Islam simply the religion of testosterone?
Writing in the late 1930s, Hilaire Belloc gave an excellent explanation of the history and nature of Islam from a Catholic perspective in the chapter “The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed” of his book The Great Heresies. (I highly recommend this book to everyone.) According to Belloc, Islam was not a new religion. It is in fact a perversion or distortion of true Christian doctrine (that’s what the term “heresy” means). I’ll try to summarize here.
Muhammad was pagan, as was the society in which he lived. He was never a Christian, hence he never had the benefit of the supernatural life of God (Sanctifying Grace) which comes through baptism, nor of experiencing God’s love from inside the Church. (See my posts, Life from the inside (Parts 1 & 2) [Feb. 5 & 14, 2006], and And another thing … [Feb. 19, 2006].) It is also not outside the realm of possibility, given what is known about his early years, that his experience of even natural love was somewhat limited: his father died before he was born and his mother died when he was 6, and it seems he had no older siblings or other close relatives (although reliable documentation is sketchy at best); he was taken in by his grandfather, but he also died when Muhammad was only 8; finally he came under the care of his uncle who was the leader of their clan which was the guardian of the pagan temple in Mecca. It is possible that by his adult years the memory of the warmth and intimacy of love he experienced in childhood may have grown cold and dim. Were this the case, he may have had difficulty relating to the concept of the love of God. Regardless of the reason, love has no part in the relationship between Allah and the Muslim. Islam is divine slavery.
If Muhammad was a prophet, he was a prophet like no other. His actual behavior and circumstances were more like some of the patriarchs and kings of Israel (having political power and many wives) and the judges like Gideon and Samson (waging wars of conquest). In contrast, the actual prophets of Israel and Judah, I think, tended to be unmarried (it’s hard to raise a family on a prophet’s salary!)—I know of only two who were married, Isaiah and Hosea (if I’m wrong here, please correct me). The Old Testament prophets lived under the near-constant threat of persecution and were frequently on the move (on foot, not horseback). Many were killed for their unpopular teachings, calling the people to reform their lives and return to the Lord. According to Muhammad, on the other hand, Prophethood came with “perks”—as Prophet he was entitled to have as many as eleven wives (total) [instead of the maximum of four permitted by the Qur’ân] (most of which were politically motivated to shore up his position by creating family ties with potential rivals), considerable material wealth and absolute political and judicial power.
Muhammad had a reflective turn of mind and an active imagination. He was a merchant and, starting in his teens, traveled far and had dealings with all kinds of people and picked up all kinds of new ideas. He took the Church’s teachings but then adapted them to suit his own sensibilities.
The foundation of his doctrine was the unity and omnipotence of God. The attributes of God, His utter transcendence and personal nature, His creative power, the fact that He is all-good and exists outside of time, the good angels who serve Him, the bad angels who rebelled against Him, the immortality of the soul and its responsibility for its actions in this life, the final judgment—these are all elements of Catholic doctrine that he adopted. But where he departs from it—the central point of his heresy—is an absolute denial of the Incarnation or any possibility of an incarnate God. God is SO transcendent, Muhammad thought, that He couldn’t possibly enter into His creation by taking on a human nature (oh, the shame of it all!). So he eliminated the Trinity altogether (too confusing). Along with the Incarnation went the whole sacramental system, especially the Eucharist and the priesthood. Like every other heresy, Islam starts with the truth and then oversimplifies it. Neither Muhammad nor any of his followers ever developed a detailed theology. He was content to accept all that appealed to him and to reject all that seemed to him too complicated or mysterious to be true.
The root of the problem is that he set himself up as the final arbiter of truth; anything that seemed unreasonable to him, he simply tossed out (or twisted and reshaped into something else more to his liking). Where did he get that kind of authority? He claimed that the angel Gabriel told him it was so. But it couldn’t have been the real Gabriel, because Gabriel knew that Jesus was the Son of God (cf. Lk 1:26, 35), which Muhammad denied. Was Muhammad a fraud, making things up as he went along? That might be a little strong, although it could be the case. Or perhaps he was visited by another angel, a fallen angel (demon), who called himself “Gabriel” in order to deceive him. Or perhaps his “visions” were merely dreams which he misinterpreted and embellished. All three of these possibilities (or any combination, or others besides) might be the case. In any event, in his mind simplicity was the key to everything. And the structure and practice of Islam to this day utterly discourages any deep thought along religious or theological lines.
A large part of Islam’s initial success was its doctrine on social and economic justice. The Graeco-Roman world at that time (7th Century) suffered under ubiquitous slavery, rampant usury and indebtedness, complex and burdensome imperial taxation, the tyranny of lawyers and a meddlesome central government. (Hmm … Sort of like America today.) Muhammad preached a new spirit of freedom and relaxation: upon accepting Islam, slaves were freed, peasant farmers were relieved of their debts and crushing taxation, clerical and imperial discipline were swept away, usury was forbidden, and there was free justice under few and simple new laws that everyone could understand. The intricate tax system was replaced by a simple and straight system of tribute to the Caliph(s) (who succeeded Muhammad’s place of authority after his death). As a result of this arrangement the Caliphs became extremely wealthy and were thus able to carry on the expensive business of war and conquest over an extended period of time. Given the opportunity and probability for success of throwing off such unjust burdens, who wouldn’t want to sign on to such a venture? There was also a certain underlying historical character throughout the whole region of the Middle East of natural conformity, a sort of instinct for obedience to one religious head, which was also the civil head, and a general similarity of social structure. This general character is older than any historical record, and it persists to this day.
Muhammad had the good fortune to marry a wealthy widow (he was around 25 at the time, and she was about 40). From this position of security he was free to work out his visions and enthusiasms and undertook his propaganda. But even as his following grew and his doctrines spread, it was all done in a small and ignorant way; there was never any organization. Everything was undertaken in a haphazard and slipshod manner. The Muslim temperament was never tolerant. It was in the main fanatical and bloodthirsty. It felt no respect for, or even curiosity about, those from whom it differed and was absurdly vain of itself, regarding with contempt the high Christian culture around it. And yet it did not exterminate all those who did not accept the new faith. Why? Because the forces of Islam were still too few to govern by force. In the early centuries, the greater mass of the populations remained Christian, and it was they who preserved the Graeco-Roman civilization which was their heritage, surviving under the surface of Mohammedan government.
Certainly, there are numerous “points of light” (elements of truth) in Islamic teaching (e.g. profound reverence for Mary (Miriam), the mother of Jesus, and the recognition of Jesus’ virginal conception and birth), but, like the laudable passages of the Talmud, we have no problem with these. On those points there is no disagreement, no source of confusion. And, as noted above, these elements were all appropriated from Catholic teaching anyway.) Recent years have shown also how individuals or groups of members of both faiths can certainly agree and work cooperatively on certain issues of mutual concern.
But on the whole, especially in the realm of doctrine, Islam and Christianity are irreconcilable and mutually exclusive on the most fundamental level. These two religions cannot both be true because they flatly contradict one another on the most basic question: Who is Jesus Christ?
Monday, October 09, 2006
Religion Confusion, Part 2
Judaism
Modern Judaism is a particularly difficult nut to crack. It must be understood that ancient Judaism (the Judaism of the Bible) no longer exists either in its religious or racial aspect. This is a fact of historical record. The Judaism of the Old and New Testaments was a hierarchical religion based on the Law of Moses and the priesthood of Aaron with its performance of various animal sacrifices which could only be consummated in the Temple in Jerusalem. This was the “true religion” up until the day that most of the Jewish hierarchy rejected their promised Messiah, Jesus Christ, around the year AD 30. For the next 40 years, Judaism was a walking corpse. When the Roman Legion razed the Jewish Temple and exterminated the entire priestly class in AD 70, Biblical Judaism simply ceased to exist.
From that time on, what we have is Rabbinical or Talmudic Judaism, a religion based on the commentaries and doctrines of rabbis (non-priestly theologian-types who teach and otherwise lead their congregations in the synagogues), which over the next several hundred years were written down and codified in the Talmud. I am not an expert on the Talmud (and there is actually more than one version, the most commonly used being the Babylonian Talmud), but those who are experts have said that many of its passages flatly contradict the Mosaic Law as given in the Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible), which Jews today claim to reverence. And wherever there is a conflict or contradiction, the Talmud always trumps the Torah. (This is basically what Jesus condemned about the teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees in Mark 7:1-13.) Jewish teaching in the synagogues today is from the Talmud, not the Torah. There are, to be sure, many good and exemplary rules and teachings in the Talmud, but those are not the things that concern us here. What we find problematic are the other teachings, the ones that require the violation of the Mosaic Law and the words of the Prophets (those teachings that “nullify the word of God” (cf. Matt 15:6-9; Mk 7: 1-13)). The Talmud also makes numerous vile and, from the Christian perspective, blasphemous statements about the person of Jesus (Yeshu), perhaps as a way to “inoculate” Jews against conversion to Christianity. (When confronted with these passages during medieval public debates on the Talmud’s contents, the pat answer (if they answered at all) was, “Oh, we don’t mean that Jesus. It’s some other [unspecified] guy named Jesus.” Yeah, right.)
So the Jewish religion we see being practiced today (established ca. AD 70, although its spiritual antecedents go back much farther) is actually of more recent origin than Christianity (established ca. AD 30, although its spiritual antecedents go back much farther), and is based principally on the definitive rejection of Jesus Christ (as if to say, “whoever the Messiah might be, it wasn’t him!”) and any notion of a suffering Messiah who would die in order to free mankind from our slavery to sin. The modern Jewish concept of “Messiah” is strictly and exclusively political, not spiritual, and most (if not all) political revolutions throughout history (e.g. France 1789 and Russia 1917) can be traced in some way to the advancement of this Talmudic Jewish idea of establishing the (political) “Kingdom of God” here on earth through force of arms and under Jewish hegemony. (Perhaps this is what was percolating through Mel Gibson’s mind as he ranted recently while in a drunken stupor.)
What is called the “Jewish race” today is also something entirely different than that which lived in Ancient Israel or Roman Palestine. That ancient race was scattered (deported and resettled) throughout the Roman world after the sack of Jerusalem and the defeat of the Jewish resistance at Masada a few years later. The Jews who survived subsequently (over the course of centuries) either converted to Christianity (at which point they relinquished their identity as Jews), intermarried with the various local tribes among which they found themselves, or were persecuted and killed for their perceived antisocial behaviors. (This last item is not a practice I would endorse or condone; I’m simply saying what happened.) The Jewish race of antiquity was thus “diluted” over time to the point where it essentially disappeared. However there were always pockets of “religious” Jews (i.e. people who kept the rabbinical laws of the Pharisees as given in the Talmud) scattered throughout the Roman and Byzantine Empires and they became disproportionately influential for their numbers in certain localities (chiefly through the use of finance). Although the Jewish “race” no longer existed as such, and the Jewish sacrificial religion of antiquity was no more, still there persisted a group of people that lived a distinct tradition (as codified in the Talmud) in more or less closely-knit communities throughout Europe, Northern Africa and Western Asia that were known universally as “Jews.” [Incidentally, that “race” which today has its political center in the modern state of Israel, its economic center in New York and its cultural center in Hollywood, is actually of Slavic not Semitic extraction (which explains why contemporary Jews/Israelis are generally fairer and look more like Russians, Czechs and Poles than their Eastern Mediterranean neighbors).]
Needless to say, (modern) Judaism and Christianity cannot both be true. I do not hesitate to affirm here that there are many good people who are professed and practicing Jews (Rabbi Daniel Lapin comes immediately to mind), and I do not mean to sound as if I condemn any of them in any way. I also affirm that Christianity is the fulfillment of the ancient Jewish religion. But the modern Jewish religion is an explicit renunciation of the Christian faith. So if we are looking for the one true religion (assuming for the moment that there is one), we cannot have it both ways. If one is true, the other must be false. We owe it to ourselves—and to our fellow man—to find the truth. If we are satisfied to accept the status quo (which seems to amount to an indifference to the truth) then only confusion can result, and that’s not good.
Modern Judaism is a particularly difficult nut to crack. It must be understood that ancient Judaism (the Judaism of the Bible) no longer exists either in its religious or racial aspect. This is a fact of historical record. The Judaism of the Old and New Testaments was a hierarchical religion based on the Law of Moses and the priesthood of Aaron with its performance of various animal sacrifices which could only be consummated in the Temple in Jerusalem. This was the “true religion” up until the day that most of the Jewish hierarchy rejected their promised Messiah, Jesus Christ, around the year AD 30. For the next 40 years, Judaism was a walking corpse. When the Roman Legion razed the Jewish Temple and exterminated the entire priestly class in AD 70, Biblical Judaism simply ceased to exist.
From that time on, what we have is Rabbinical or Talmudic Judaism, a religion based on the commentaries and doctrines of rabbis (non-priestly theologian-types who teach and otherwise lead their congregations in the synagogues), which over the next several hundred years were written down and codified in the Talmud. I am not an expert on the Talmud (and there is actually more than one version, the most commonly used being the Babylonian Talmud), but those who are experts have said that many of its passages flatly contradict the Mosaic Law as given in the Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible), which Jews today claim to reverence. And wherever there is a conflict or contradiction, the Talmud always trumps the Torah. (This is basically what Jesus condemned about the teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees in Mark 7:1-13.) Jewish teaching in the synagogues today is from the Talmud, not the Torah. There are, to be sure, many good and exemplary rules and teachings in the Talmud, but those are not the things that concern us here. What we find problematic are the other teachings, the ones that require the violation of the Mosaic Law and the words of the Prophets (those teachings that “nullify the word of God” (cf. Matt 15:6-9; Mk 7: 1-13)). The Talmud also makes numerous vile and, from the Christian perspective, blasphemous statements about the person of Jesus (Yeshu), perhaps as a way to “inoculate” Jews against conversion to Christianity. (When confronted with these passages during medieval public debates on the Talmud’s contents, the pat answer (if they answered at all) was, “Oh, we don’t mean that Jesus. It’s some other [unspecified] guy named Jesus.” Yeah, right.)
So the Jewish religion we see being practiced today (established ca. AD 70, although its spiritual antecedents go back much farther) is actually of more recent origin than Christianity (established ca. AD 30, although its spiritual antecedents go back much farther), and is based principally on the definitive rejection of Jesus Christ (as if to say, “whoever the Messiah might be, it wasn’t him!”) and any notion of a suffering Messiah who would die in order to free mankind from our slavery to sin. The modern Jewish concept of “Messiah” is strictly and exclusively political, not spiritual, and most (if not all) political revolutions throughout history (e.g. France 1789 and Russia 1917) can be traced in some way to the advancement of this Talmudic Jewish idea of establishing the (political) “Kingdom of God” here on earth through force of arms and under Jewish hegemony. (Perhaps this is what was percolating through Mel Gibson’s mind as he ranted recently while in a drunken stupor.)
What is called the “Jewish race” today is also something entirely different than that which lived in Ancient Israel or Roman Palestine. That ancient race was scattered (deported and resettled) throughout the Roman world after the sack of Jerusalem and the defeat of the Jewish resistance at Masada a few years later. The Jews who survived subsequently (over the course of centuries) either converted to Christianity (at which point they relinquished their identity as Jews), intermarried with the various local tribes among which they found themselves, or were persecuted and killed for their perceived antisocial behaviors. (This last item is not a practice I would endorse or condone; I’m simply saying what happened.) The Jewish race of antiquity was thus “diluted” over time to the point where it essentially disappeared. However there were always pockets of “religious” Jews (i.e. people who kept the rabbinical laws of the Pharisees as given in the Talmud) scattered throughout the Roman and Byzantine Empires and they became disproportionately influential for their numbers in certain localities (chiefly through the use of finance). Although the Jewish “race” no longer existed as such, and the Jewish sacrificial religion of antiquity was no more, still there persisted a group of people that lived a distinct tradition (as codified in the Talmud) in more or less closely-knit communities throughout Europe, Northern Africa and Western Asia that were known universally as “Jews.” [Incidentally, that “race” which today has its political center in the modern state of Israel, its economic center in New York and its cultural center in Hollywood, is actually of Slavic not Semitic extraction (which explains why contemporary Jews/Israelis are generally fairer and look more like Russians, Czechs and Poles than their Eastern Mediterranean neighbors).]
Needless to say, (modern) Judaism and Christianity cannot both be true. I do not hesitate to affirm here that there are many good people who are professed and practicing Jews (Rabbi Daniel Lapin comes immediately to mind), and I do not mean to sound as if I condemn any of them in any way. I also affirm that Christianity is the fulfillment of the ancient Jewish religion. But the modern Jewish religion is an explicit renunciation of the Christian faith. So if we are looking for the one true religion (assuming for the moment that there is one), we cannot have it both ways. If one is true, the other must be false. We owe it to ourselves—and to our fellow man—to find the truth. If we are satisfied to accept the status quo (which seems to amount to an indifference to the truth) then only confusion can result, and that’s not good.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Religion Confusion, Part 1
Introduction and general remarks
This topic is intimately connected to the nature of truth. Truth is—and must be—objective (something outside of ourselves) and is something that can be ascertained with a fair degree of reliability by human beings. By way of illustration, everyone uses the terms Right (or good) and Wrong (bad or evil)—although they don’t always agree on what ideas, words or actions should fall into those two basic categories. Without some sense of the objective character of truth, without some anchor outside of ourselves by which to judge the veracity of an idea or the rectitude of an action, the terms right and wrong become utterly meaningless. If “true” and “false” are merely subjective preferences (as in “What’s true for you might not be true for me”) then no one has any reason to complain about anyone else’s words or actions. If you claim that “truth” can somehow be different for each person, then who are you to say that I’m “wrong,” no matter what I say or do? What is your standard for saying that I shouldn’t say or do anything (implying that your “truth” is somehow superior to my truth)? This is the root dilemma of moral relativism. If moral relativism is true … (oh wait, can’t say “true”) … Hmm … Well, maybe there are no objectively truthful statements except the statement that “morality” is merely conventional, subjective or relative and can change from one time to another, from place to place, or from one person to the next. Well, how can you claim that that statement is true, but that other statements are not? What qualifies you to make such a definitive judgment? Of course you see the internal contradiction. Since it can thus be demonstrated that truth must be objective, we should at least agree that it would be helpful to find out the objective truth (to the extent we are humanly capable), and be humble enough to submit and subordinate our individual personal feelings, desires or preferences to that truth.
The point I want to drive home in this series of posts [I anticipate 5 parts in all] is this: the mere fact that there is a plethora of conflicting and competing religious systems throughout the world (each claiming to be true) is a grave disservice both to mankind and to God. The more of these conflicting doctrinal systems there are, the greater the likelihood people will be confused into thinking that it doesn’t really matter what we believe, if anything, since it seems impossible to sort it all out. Thus religion confusion (or perhaps truth frustration). God, the very essence and source of all truth, never intended it to be like this, and He gives each of us the means to overcome the confusion. He requests—and deserves—to be worshipped by everyone “in spirit and in truth” (cf. Jn 4:23-24) (worship is simply that which is due in justice to God, our Creator, just as respect is the bare minimum due our parents who gave us life). By the same token, all human beings have an innate desire—and deserve—to know the full truth about God and their relationship to Him. Since truth cannot contradict itself, and is a basic goal of human existence, is it not reasonable to conclude that it is both conceivable and desirable for all people to search for, approach, recognize, and finally accept and adhere to that unified, uncompromised truth? After all, there is nothing intrinsic to human nature that says we cannot agree if we all happen to arrive at the same place. (The goal of course is not the agreement as such. Agreement is merely coincidental to the common recognition and acceptance of the truth.)
I saw a bumper sticker a few weeks ago that said “God is too big for any one religion.” The implication (or suggestion), of course, is that no single religion is entirely true. This ignores the facts that (1) God made us and understands us thoroughly and absolutely, (2) God chose to reveal Himself to us in stages throughout our history in ways that we are capable of understanding, and (3) God did in fact come down to earth, assume a human nature and establish one religion for the salvation of all mankind (cf. Lk 10:16; Matt 28:18-20) and to lead us to the truth (cf. Jn 8:32; 14:6; 15:26; 16:13; 1 Tim 3:15). So while God, being infinite, is indeed “too big” for one religion, the fact remains that there is (at least conceivably) one religion which is big enough for all people. But which one might it be?
Well, what are our choices? The main “contenders” are: Judaism; Islam; Protestant [non-Catholic] Christianity (both explicit and virtual, too many forms to count); and Catholicism. (I will not here be discussing in any depth Eastern Orthodoxy, the various Asian philosophical systems and religions or any other sect, but they all have particular problems which effectively rule them out. Feel free to leave a comment below if you have the need to discuss this further.)
There are also those kinds of people who have a real problem with anything that smacks of “organized religion”: apostates (who believed in God at some time in the past, but have since disavowed all faith in Him); pagans (who worship or otherwise venerate one or more beings or concepts other than (and to the exclusion of) the God of the Old and New Testaments); atheists (who state more or less emphatically, “There IS no God”); agnostics (who in effect say, “Hmm … not sure”); and secularists (who rarely, if ever, give God a passing thought). These are not hard and fast categories and a given person may fall into more than one of them at any time. Besides, these “freethinking” types frequently refuse to be pinned down or pigeonholed in any way, even for the sake of discussion. Like the other minor religions I mentioned, these positions also suffer under the burden of serious logical difficulties. No doubt these folks will likely claim that they have no “innate desire” to know anything about God, because to them God is non-existent or unimportant. But if you inquire deep enough (and they are honest enough) you generally find out that they made a conscious decision somewhere along the way to reject the notion of a personal Creator-God, generally because of the possibility or likelihood of some sort of moral demands He might place on them which they were unwilling to accept. For them, life is more “fun” (fun being the ultimate goal of their lives) when you remove God from the picture; and so they do. This is of course not a proof that God does not exist, only a demonstration that they don’t want Him to exist so they can have their own way.
Naturally, it must be admitted that no one person understands another guy’s perspective or approach to religion completely or absolutely, since religious faith is the most personal of all human activities. One would have to get inside the other’s psychic experience to see and feel things exactly the way he does, which is of course impossible. However it is possible to (1) gather and study the written and spoken tenets of a given faith, (2) observe the practices of its adherents and (3) understand the religious institution in its historical context. It is then possible to make certain judgments about it through the use of reason and sound philosophical principles.
In the remainder of this series I will examine in turn each of the four contenders for the title of “The True Religion.”
This topic is intimately connected to the nature of truth. Truth is—and must be—objective (something outside of ourselves) and is something that can be ascertained with a fair degree of reliability by human beings. By way of illustration, everyone uses the terms Right (or good) and Wrong (bad or evil)—although they don’t always agree on what ideas, words or actions should fall into those two basic categories. Without some sense of the objective character of truth, without some anchor outside of ourselves by which to judge the veracity of an idea or the rectitude of an action, the terms right and wrong become utterly meaningless. If “true” and “false” are merely subjective preferences (as in “What’s true for you might not be true for me”) then no one has any reason to complain about anyone else’s words or actions. If you claim that “truth” can somehow be different for each person, then who are you to say that I’m “wrong,” no matter what I say or do? What is your standard for saying that I shouldn’t say or do anything (implying that your “truth” is somehow superior to my truth)? This is the root dilemma of moral relativism. If moral relativism is true … (oh wait, can’t say “true”) … Hmm … Well, maybe there are no objectively truthful statements except the statement that “morality” is merely conventional, subjective or relative and can change from one time to another, from place to place, or from one person to the next. Well, how can you claim that that statement is true, but that other statements are not? What qualifies you to make such a definitive judgment? Of course you see the internal contradiction. Since it can thus be demonstrated that truth must be objective, we should at least agree that it would be helpful to find out the objective truth (to the extent we are humanly capable), and be humble enough to submit and subordinate our individual personal feelings, desires or preferences to that truth.
The point I want to drive home in this series of posts [I anticipate 5 parts in all] is this: the mere fact that there is a plethora of conflicting and competing religious systems throughout the world (each claiming to be true) is a grave disservice both to mankind and to God. The more of these conflicting doctrinal systems there are, the greater the likelihood people will be confused into thinking that it doesn’t really matter what we believe, if anything, since it seems impossible to sort it all out. Thus religion confusion (or perhaps truth frustration). God, the very essence and source of all truth, never intended it to be like this, and He gives each of us the means to overcome the confusion. He requests—and deserves—to be worshipped by everyone “in spirit and in truth” (cf. Jn 4:23-24) (worship is simply that which is due in justice to God, our Creator, just as respect is the bare minimum due our parents who gave us life). By the same token, all human beings have an innate desire—and deserve—to know the full truth about God and their relationship to Him. Since truth cannot contradict itself, and is a basic goal of human existence, is it not reasonable to conclude that it is both conceivable and desirable for all people to search for, approach, recognize, and finally accept and adhere to that unified, uncompromised truth? After all, there is nothing intrinsic to human nature that says we cannot agree if we all happen to arrive at the same place. (The goal of course is not the agreement as such. Agreement is merely coincidental to the common recognition and acceptance of the truth.)
I saw a bumper sticker a few weeks ago that said “God is too big for any one religion.” The implication (or suggestion), of course, is that no single religion is entirely true. This ignores the facts that (1) God made us and understands us thoroughly and absolutely, (2) God chose to reveal Himself to us in stages throughout our history in ways that we are capable of understanding, and (3) God did in fact come down to earth, assume a human nature and establish one religion for the salvation of all mankind (cf. Lk 10:16; Matt 28:18-20) and to lead us to the truth (cf. Jn 8:32; 14:6; 15:26; 16:13; 1 Tim 3:15). So while God, being infinite, is indeed “too big” for one religion, the fact remains that there is (at least conceivably) one religion which is big enough for all people. But which one might it be?
Well, what are our choices? The main “contenders” are: Judaism; Islam; Protestant [non-Catholic] Christianity (both explicit and virtual, too many forms to count); and Catholicism. (I will not here be discussing in any depth Eastern Orthodoxy, the various Asian philosophical systems and religions or any other sect, but they all have particular problems which effectively rule them out. Feel free to leave a comment below if you have the need to discuss this further.)
There are also those kinds of people who have a real problem with anything that smacks of “organized religion”: apostates (who believed in God at some time in the past, but have since disavowed all faith in Him); pagans (who worship or otherwise venerate one or more beings or concepts other than (and to the exclusion of) the God of the Old and New Testaments); atheists (who state more or less emphatically, “There IS no God”); agnostics (who in effect say, “Hmm … not sure”); and secularists (who rarely, if ever, give God a passing thought). These are not hard and fast categories and a given person may fall into more than one of them at any time. Besides, these “freethinking” types frequently refuse to be pinned down or pigeonholed in any way, even for the sake of discussion. Like the other minor religions I mentioned, these positions also suffer under the burden of serious logical difficulties. No doubt these folks will likely claim that they have no “innate desire” to know anything about God, because to them God is non-existent or unimportant. But if you inquire deep enough (and they are honest enough) you generally find out that they made a conscious decision somewhere along the way to reject the notion of a personal Creator-God, generally because of the possibility or likelihood of some sort of moral demands He might place on them which they were unwilling to accept. For them, life is more “fun” (fun being the ultimate goal of their lives) when you remove God from the picture; and so they do. This is of course not a proof that God does not exist, only a demonstration that they don’t want Him to exist so they can have their own way.
Naturally, it must be admitted that no one person understands another guy’s perspective or approach to religion completely or absolutely, since religious faith is the most personal of all human activities. One would have to get inside the other’s psychic experience to see and feel things exactly the way he does, which is of course impossible. However it is possible to (1) gather and study the written and spoken tenets of a given faith, (2) observe the practices of its adherents and (3) understand the religious institution in its historical context. It is then possible to make certain judgments about it through the use of reason and sound philosophical principles.
In the remainder of this series I will examine in turn each of the four contenders for the title of “The True Religion.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)