Reason for God: How Can You Say “There Is Only One Way to God”?

One of the guys in DVD said something like: Whatever you believe, you must be willing
to abandon it and let it be scrutinized. Otherwise it won’t be a strong belief because you
are afraid that it will be challenged.

Do you agree with him? (Difference between a pilgrim and a drifter)

Logically, the mutual exclusiveness of religious claims is evident to some of the

participants. How do we get right with God? (Through good works or by grace) Where
do we go after death? When a person dies, he can’t reincarnate, go to heaven or hell, end
up in purgatory and cease to exist all at the same time. They can’t all be true. At least,
one view must be wrong.

Response: Doctrinal dogmas may be different but the spiritual experience or moral
teaching/practice is the same. Different religions are just fighting over words when
they are experiencing essentially the same thing (Story of ten blind men
encountering the elephant for the first time).

In reality, although it sounds humble, pluralism says, “All religions are mistaken or
partially correct like the blind men. All of them did not get the whole picture. But now I
got the truth of what the elephant is like!” The only way you can know everyone else is
blind is if you are the one who can see the elephant. Despite their mistaken beliefs, they
are all in some way responding to God. It is just that they are not doing so in the manner
in which the believers themselves think they are. But it is hard to see why this way of
rejecting other’s beliefs as ‘blind’ is any more tolerant than the non-pluralist.

Do all religions teach us to do good? They do share much ethical insights but differ on
moral issues also. Is it good to have many wives or just one? Is it good to eat meat or
sacrifice animals? Is homosexual behavior acceptable?

What is the common subjective spiritual experience that all religions share? (John Hicks:
a move from self centeredness to Reality-centeredness) But if the Real is absolutely
beyond knowing, how can we know it exists? If no truth claim can describe it, how can
one say anything of it?

Zen Buddhism claims mystical, direct, unmediated access to the ultimate nature of reality
(satori – enlightenment). It is not just a human response to the Real. If true, then one
religion has direct privileged access to truth contrary to pluralist claim. What does it
mean to be ‘self centered’ or ‘Reality centered’? (Realize you are one with Brahman?
Recognize that nirvana is ultimate. Center your life on Jesus?). It’s too vague and
reductionistic in a way not acceptable to what other faiths claim about themselves...

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Is belief in ‘one way to God’ narrow-minded as it shuts you off from new insights
that come from other religions?

It is common to confuse ‘narrow-mindedness’ with holding a particular view with strong

conviction. Gregory Boyd: “Narrow-mindedness does not attach to what you believe, but
how you believe it. If I refused to consider any perspective, any religious book, and any
philosophy which disagreed with my own, that would be narrow-minded. But just
because I hold to a belief that disagrees with other perspectives, other religious books and
other philosophies doesn’t itself make me narrow.”

Can we learn insights from other religions? Sure, but it doesn’t mean we cannot be
critical as well. “Merely having an open mind is nothing; the object of opening the mind,
as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” – G.K. Chesterton

Isn’t it unfair that God revealed Himself to only some people and not to others?
What about those who have never heard of the good news? Where is the justice in
that? It should be more open to all.

What does Romans chapter 1 say about ‘not enough evidence for God’? Actually, people
are suppressing the universal knowledge of God they do have because of sin. People are
without excuse for God’s moral character, power and wisdom have been evident to all
since creation of the world. They are still accountable for how they live by the moral law
within their hearts. So it’s still fair because they won’t be judged by what they don’t
know. But the bad news is we have all violated even our own moral standards and
deserve just punishment. That is why we need a Savior (Christ) who died for our sins.

There are different theories to reconcile God’s justice with the necessity of the gospel for
salvation. See for example Terrance Tiessen’s “Who Can be Saved? Reassessing
Salvation in Christ and World Religions”

Ecclesiocentrists: Access to salvation is only available to those who hear and receive the
gospel at least in the case of competent adults.
Agnosticism: It’s a mystery that God has not revealed to us since Scripture is silent.
Accessibilists:. Salvation is through Christ alone but accessible to the unevangelised
beyond the boundaries of the church. Non-Christian religions are not salvific.
Religious instrumentalists: Salvation is through Christ but accepts that non-Christian
religions are means of salvation.

“[My] position is exclusivist in the sense that it affirms the unique truth of the revelation
in Jesus Christ, but it is not exclusivist in the sense of denying the possibility of the
salvation of the non-Christian. It is inclusivist in the sense that it refuses to limit the
saving grace of God to the members of the Christian church, but it rejects the inclusivism
which regards the non-Christian religions as vehicles of salvation. It is pluralist in the
sense of acknowledging the gracious work of God in the lives of all human beings, but it

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rejects a pluralism which denies the uniqueness and decisiveness of what God has done in
Jesus Christ.” (Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society)

Pluralism promotes peace and tolerance in a world of religious conflict. When you
have exclusive hold on truth, it will lead to problems. Take religions less seriously or
literally i.e. Jesus is God.

But everybody brings their essential faith commitments (which cannot be proven by
science). Everyone has their worldview (about where we come from, who we are, the
purpose of life and our destiny) and all have their exclusive views.

For example, even pluralism will exclude other beliefs like the incarnation of God in
Christ. It works only if followers of all faiths water down their conflicting truth claims in
favor of pluralism. In the end, the only way humanity could attain unity is when they
exclusively agree on a ‘faith’ different than their own.

The real question, then, is “Which fundamental belief leads their believers to be the most
loving and honor those with whom they differ?” (See: Reason for God, page 18 – 21)

Peace may be achieved not at the cost of truth or dismissal of genuine differences. In fact,
tolerance itself implies disagreement. We do not ‘tolerate’ people who agree with us.
They are on our side! If every religious person is a pluralist, what room is there for
tolerance? Instead, genuine tolerance recognizes conflicting truth claims and does not
press for artificial common denominator. Despite our differences, we respect and honor
one another as persons who have the God-given right to believe, practice and propagate
our faiths. We should avoid what Alister McGrath called ‘a repressive enforcement of a
predetermined notion of what something or someone should be, rather than a willingness
to accept them for what they actually are.’

OK – Only one religion is true or all are false. But how can you tell? How do you
choose your ‘home’ or belief (worldview)?

What are some criteria that you think ‘the true religion’ ought to have? There are some
tests of truth that can help us measure different religious claims (moral criterion,
coherence, empirical/historical claims, trustworthy authority). We can know whether
these claims are true or false, rather than wishful thinking.

Greg Koukl: For example, if I told you that out in my car, in my glove box, I have a
square circle, how many of you would want to take a peek? There are no square circles
because a square circle is a contradiction in terms.

It's like a person who said, "I met a woman who was ten years younger than her son."
Now, no empirical search is necessary for you to reject this claim. By definition, mothers
are older than their children. That is why there can't be a woman ten years younger than
her son. Even if the most brilliant person said this to you, you could immediately reject it.

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The point I am making is this. There are some particular things you can judge as false
without ever leaving the room because a moment's reflection tells you there is something
wrong. These things can't be true because they violate the test of coherence. In other
words, it doesn't make sense; it's contradictory.

What about this “all religions are the same” view? What it fails to take into consideration
is that much of religious truth is actually competing and not complimentary. Religions
have contradictory claims. For example, God in the Christian tradition is personal and in
the eastern religion is impersonal. God can't be personal and not personal at the same
time. One view must be wrong.

The point is, we can use this test of coherence to disqualify certain views as being false
on their face. The religious pluralism view--the idea that all religions lead to God, that all
roads lead to Rome--is false on its face because all religions can't be true at the same
time.