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.”