RELIGIONS: DON'T THEY ALL LEAD TO GOD?
Can Christianity be faulted for unabashed arrogance in claiming to offer the only way to God? After all, don't all religions lead to God?
A number of people equate religious tolerance with religious truth. Many assume that all religions are basically the same and that all beliefs are therefore equally valid. They picture each religion as having identical faces hidden behind different masks.
Sound reasoning tells us, however, that all religions are not essentially the same merely because they contain some similarities. A brief survey of a few religions would quickly reveal that every single one of them has competing claims which contradict other religions. How, for example, can someone logically square the Hindu teaching that the universe is God with the Muslim belief that Allah, the God of Islam, is distinct from the universe? Any honest investigator would have to admit that religions harbor irreconcilable differences, demonstrating that they cannot all possibly lead to the same God. Logically speaking, they can all be wrong, but they cannot all be right.
We, therefore, need to ask which religion points to the right God, and consider how certain its claims really are. Regarding these questions, Christianity towers above the religions of the world. For instance, while every religion would have man try to reach up to God, Christianity says that it's God who reached down to man -- that only through God's grace and mercy, and never by mere human effort, can we ever hope to obtain God's favor.
Furthermore, the Lord Jesus, who declared this message, claimed to be God and backed His pronouncements with His own bodily resurrection. No other religious figure throughout history has ever justified any claim with such power and authority. And precisely because Jesus pointed to Himself as the only way to God does His message need to be heard by everyone, everywhere, regardless of their religious beliefs.
THE BIBLE AND THE RELIGIOUS WRITINGS OF THE WORLD
Many people agree that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, but is it exclusively inspired? What about the Upanishads? Or the Koran?
If the Bible is truly inspired by God, then it follows that it is trustworthy and authoritative in every area it covers (including matters of history and theology). It simply doesn't make any sense to acknowledge that the Bible is God's revelation to mankind and at the same time hold that its message is unreliable.
However, if we're to take the Bible very seriously, we also need to realize that its claims conflict with other works that many people deem to be inspired as well. For example, the Upanishads -- which are part of the Hindu scriptures -- teach that the world is God; of course the Bible says exactly the opposite. Also, while the Tripitaka -- the sacred writings of Buddhism -- prescribes morality, meditation, and wisdom as solutions to suffering, the Bible points to Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross as the only real answer to man's deepest problems, including suffering. And while the Bible centers on Christ's death on the cross and resurrection, the Koran for example -- Islam's holy book -- denies Christ's crucifixion.
As it stands, the Bible is clearly at odds with the sacred writings of the world's religions. And while, of course, it's logically acceptable for someone to believe that one of the writings is inspired, it makes absolutely no sense at all to believe that they're all inspired, since their claims and statements are, in many cases, mutually exclusive. If we are to regard the Bible as being truly inspired by God, we can only conclude that He had no hand whatsoever in these other writings. To profess otherwise is to mischaracterize God as Someone who Himself is full of contradictions and inconsistencies. Now, I want to make it absolutely clear that the Bible alone gives us the answer for living successfully in this life and the life to come. In fact the Bible says, "These things are written that you may know that you have eternal life." The Bible is the only answer, and the Bible alone is the inspired Word of God.
