The Facts of Life Series: Religion
Religion and politics are the two topics we are so often told to avoid in conversation, as they are two of the most contentious topics there are in life. This cautious counsel has a continuity over time as to be a common cultural maxim, a primary principle of public discourse and personal interaction. And, there is a certain wisdom to these warnings.
These topics are inherently contentious by virtue of their importance and their apparent insolvable nature. And, these topics require a certain skillful sensitivity, patience and sophistication to engage such content substantively without eliciting emotional and aggravated responses from any or all of those involved in such discussions.
On the other hand, these cautions were not equally revered or respected in all cultures. Some regional and ethnic cultures allowed for such discussions and debates more easily than others, particularly if the participants were bound by friendship or familial affiliations. As a New Yorker, I often witnessed and participated in healthy, even heated, discussions about such topics. At times, I would even win such debates and persuade its participants to refine or reform their ideas and opinions.
But nowadays, this cautionary maxim has taken on the force of law. Now, this maxim means something far more insidious, a motive more sinister than a simple concern for polite conversation. Now, the primary motive is tolerant conformity to the idea that any and every idea must be allowed, accepted, even tacitly endorsed. Now, differing ideas and opinions on issues of religion and politics, as well as issues of morality, philosophy, race, sexuality, even gender must not be challenged or discussed. For such differing ideas are no longer differences. Now they are prejudices.
But, this contemporary idea of tolerance as acceptance and endorsement belies the very nature of truth for it presupposes the absence of truth and prevents the possibility that some ideas, some beliefs are actually truer, righter than others. And, it belies the possibility that such truths, such facts are knowable and provable when it comes to these issues.
Take the idea of God, for example. The question of the existence of God is admittedly the biggest question any person can ever ask. Does God exist? This is both a fair and crucial question that can only be answered in one of two ways. Either God does exist. Or, God doesn’t exist. Those are the only available options.
Regardless of the evidence or arguments that can be mounted in addressing this question, in the final analysis one answer will be right and the other answer will be wrong. That is a logical certainty, a practical inevitability. Despite the fact that the right answer might offend someone, only one answer will be factually right, actually true. So much for tolerance in the modern sense. And, so much for its assumption that no truth is possible. So much for the interpretation that differing ideas are prejudices. For truth dispels the illusion of prejudice by disproving the relativistic idea that there are really no truths in any of the above outlined areas.
In fact, the undeniability of right answers, of real truth compels such discussions and debates for truth is always a function of evidence and proof. And, when it comes to God and religion, this topic is the most significant question of life and living, the most crucial question anyone can ever pursue. For religious truth is eminently important and imminently knowable. The nature of religion forces definitive dogmatic assertions that may be analyzed and evaluated.
So, despite our religious relativism and our reflexive tolerance, all religions can’t be true. Only one can be right. Just consider the full range of options about what and who God may be and look at the full range of the major religions arising from those differing views of God. Then, notice how the answers are inherently different from each other, how they cannot really be blended. Because of their innate distinctiveness only one of these religions can be true.
Just look at some of the most basic ideas about God from which we all must choose. The short list is: deism, pantheism, polytheism and monotheism, if we leave out atheism, which denies the existence of any form of divinity, or agnosticism, which is skeptical whether such knowledge of divinity is even possible or certain no such knowledge is possible.
Deism asserts there is a nebulous form of a deity that intangibly exists, though its nature and capacities are indeterminate. Pantheism asserts that everything is God and God is everything, that all things in the end will be part of a universal collective consciousness. This is the basic theological tenet of Buddhism. Polytheism maintains that there are more than one transcendent God. This is the foundational view of the Hindu faith. Then, there is monotheism, the belief in one intangible and eternal, all powerful and all knowing, God.
Clearly, all these options are different, sufficiently different as to prevent any form of compromise or synthesis, though many attempt to do so because of indecision or a change in their preference or a change in their understanding of the evidence for a particular theological conceptualization. But, these categories remain solid and separate. You can’t be a deist and a monotheist at the same time. These are distinctive differences that compel a particular choice one way or the other.
So, any discussion between opposing religious points of view will or should be a function of evidence, not emotion or belief. For truth is a function of fact, not feeling. Truth is a function of rational proof, not personal preference. Truth such as this is a function of the veracity and quantity of evidence. Tangible evidence such as science and its many manifestations. And, intangible evidence such as reason and its many implications.
It is clear religious truth is certain because there is a finite list of possible answers and these discrete answers preclude compromise or synthesis. Should such compromise or synthesis be attempted, these categorical distinctions would remain and would require the press of deeper analysis to dispel the illusion arising from compromise.
In fact, a closer analysis of each religion’s theological and philosophical precepts reveals how each religion substantially differs from each other, despite some broad commonalities. A quick and closer analysis of the four major monotheistic religions’ basic beliefs will illustrate just how clear their differences are and why they can’t all be true.
Judaism, Catholicism, Islam and Protestantism are the four monotheistic religions listed in chronological order based on their founding. On the surface they are all monotheistic faiths, but that is where their basic commonality ends. For they each have differing ideas about the nature of this one God. For example, Islam and Judaism reject the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, while Protestantism and Catholicism embrace the idea of the Triune God. Judaism and Islam also deny the divinity of Jesus and do not see Him as the Incarnation, though they both see Him as a prophet.
Islam differs from Judaism, Protestantism and Catholicism regarding the Sacred Scriptures for it follows the Koran as its prime source of revelation and not the Bible. The sacred text of Judaism is the Hebrew Bible called the Torah. It is the prominent revelatory text of their religion. The Protestant and Catholic religions both recognize the revelatory authority of the New Testament, but the Protestant Old Testament omits seven books from the original canon of the Catholic Bible.
This is an odd difference, particularly because the Protestant religion stresses the importance of the revelation of the Bible as the “sole” source for truth about faith and morals. On the other hand, the Catholic religion appeals to the Scriptural authority of the longer Old Testament and the New Testament, as well as the Church’s oral and written Tradition and its magisterial authority, the authority given it by Jesus from the very inception of the Church. In addition, the Catholic religion incorporates an important role for reason (natural theology) as a primary means to ascertain the truth about God, whereas the Protestant religion’s emphasis on Scripture alone (sola sciptura) denies or diminishes the role of reason in ascertaining theological truth.
Notice how these differences are all basic, crucial components of each of these religions. Notice, how there is no way to reconcile these differences, despite the existence of some commonalities. And, there are many more substantive and subordinate differences between these religions and their many derivative implications and priorities. These differences affect ideas about freedom and justice, sin and morality, politics and culture, love, marriage and parenting, and even ideas about beauty and eternal life.
And, these differences matter. And they matter greatly. Great enough to be significant in their religion’s foundational precepts. So, it is important to understand and to remember, we may all share a certain commonality at times. But, what makes us us is our differences, our important and distinctive differences. For in our quest for truth, we must understand not everyone is or can be right. And, we must understand at our moment in history, our great crisis is a crisis of conviction, not acceptance; a crisis of reason, not faith; a crisis of truth, not tolerance.
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This article is the tenth part in an extended series on the “The Facts of Life” by F. X. Cronin. You can start with part one by clicking here and see previous entries by clicking here.
We also recommend Mr. Cronin’s latest book, The World According to God: The Whole Truth About Life and Living. It is available from your favorite bookstore and through Sophia Institute Press.
Photo by Ágatha Depiné on Unsplash
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