Are All Religions the Same?
Do They All Lead to the Same God?
There is a very frequently expressed view among non-Christians that all religions are the same, or, just as all roads lead to Rome, they all lead to the same God. This claim is, of course, diametrically opposed to the Christian claim that restoration to communion with God can only be found through Christ Jesus. Many Christians, firm in their conviction about Jesus Christ, however, find it difficult to provide a meaningful response to friends and critics who take the view that all religions are the same. What may we say to them to suggest otherwise.
Why Are All Religions the Same & Why Are They Not?
Perhaps the most common argument put forward in favour of the view that all religions are the same is the claim that all religions teach us to do good. At first glance they do seem to do that, don't they? But the claim flops flat on even a slightly closer look. Some religionists do insist that, unless you convert to their belief, they have the holy duty to kill you as an "infidel." There are fortunately few of these around, but it does dent the claim somewhat. There is, however, a principle ignored by the claim that once it becomes apparent, demolishes the whole argument. When we think of categories of things, whether they are ideas or real objects, what makes one this and the other that is not their similarities but their differences. Differences are what make one category distinctive from another. One cannot say that Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, etc, are the same just because they "teach us to do good" without at the same time say, ah, but they are different also. This is call honesty. Apples, papayas, bananas, apricots, honey-melons are all fruits, but you cannot go up to the fruiter and pay him the price for an apple and take the honey-melon on the argument that they are all the same; they are all fruits. So when Islam says that the path to God is to submit to the teachings of the Qur'an, to profess the kalima, etc, and when Christianity says that the way to God is to repent of your sins and confess your trust in Jesus Christ who had died on the Cross for our sins, they are obviously saying that—whether there are any other religions that are the same—Islam and Christianity are certainly not the same. Honesty requires us to respect and admit that. And if our consideration of just two religions shows the claim to be flawed, the same can be multiplied many times over by consideration of other religions to kill the claim entirely.
A slightly more sophisticated version of this same claim that all religions are the same is the argument of the elephant and the blind men. We all, I'm sure, know this one: five blind men wanted to know what an elephant is. A kind friend brought them to an elephant sanctuary and there they came up to an elephant and began to feel it over. One took hold of the leg and concluded that an elephant is thin and flat and big. Another got hold of the tail and concluded that an elephant is long and slender and covered with hair. The third one laid his hands on the tusk; an elephant is hard as stone, slender and smooth. And so it went. Like the blind no one religion, it is claimed, ever gets the entire picture of what God is like. They all know only in part, and teach only parts of what God is like. Just as the elephant is one so, ultimately, God is one and the same whatever each of the religions may say.
Nice story. There is just one problem. It is incomplete. The story-teller failed to tell us (so the problem is not with the story, but with the story-teller) that the blind men were also dumb and lame. Or they were not at all intelligent. Any blind man, with the slightest intelligence, with have walked around the elephant, and talked and discussed what he had discovered with the others. That they came to the conclusion about the elephant the way they did can only mean that they were also unable to walk around and explore the other parts of the elephant before they made their conclusions. Or if they were indeed lame, they failed to ask one another what the others had discovered. As a matter of fact, the blind men were not lame; the story is. It does not say or do anything meaningful. Believers of all religions are talking to one another all the time. Would they have only their own feel of one part of the 'elephant' to base their conclusions upon? If God was like the elephant would they not have discovered that through their communication with one another? That is how all the wonderful discoveries about our world was made. If God was/is such an elephant we would have discovered that to be the case. And yet Buddhism says this, Islam says that, Judaism claims this this, and Hinduism that that.
Do All Religions Lead to the Same God?
Do all religions lead to the same God, and how would we know?
The first impression the question makes on us is that we would now have to make an in-depth study of all the religions before we can decide the case. But we don't. Here's why?
If all religions lead to the same God, that god is a liar and, therefore, cannot be God, or he is a liar. Or he is a god whose joy in life is to confuse. Or he is such an asinine he cannot even remember what he says. Whichever it is he is not worth our worship (he has no 'worth-ship'). Suppose Raj comes to me and ask me how much I paid for my new bag, and I tell him, "O, I don't know. It is a birthday present from a friend." A few days later, Wei Ming sees my new bag and asks me the same question and I answer, "Oh, RM 300. It was on sale in One-U." As she leaves me, Sue comes up to me and repeats the same question and I say, "I won it in a lucky-dip at a company dinner." You don't need to have finished primary school to know that I am lying. Or I am deliberately out to confuse everybody. Or I have lost my senses. So it is with a God/god who says through Hinduism that he comes in many manifestations; through this avatar you are to ... and .... and so on, if through that avatar then this, this, and this. He then says through Islam that he has sent Mohammed to be his last prophet and that all men who would find him must do this and that, and then through Christianity that you have no hope of coming to him at all except through putting your trust in Jesus Christ whom he has sent to die on the Cross and so forth and forth. An incorrigible liar, an unkind confuser, or a senile with bad vertigo. Since none of us can imagine a God like this, the argument that all religions lead to the same God has to be false.
Just a little footnote before I close. The Christian faith does not teach us to do good. It does, but that is not its central assertion and where it does, it does on the understanding that we are empowered to do so only by the Holy Spirit. In fact, the Christian faith teaches very clearly that are fallen sinful creatures and God is so holy that the good works we have done as as rags in His sight. Do you know of any other religion that teaches good a God like that?
Low Chai Hok,
©Alberith, 2020