Theophilus Cafe is a place where we can have a running dialogue based on a question or issue that I post. Think of the Cafe as a virtual coffee house where you can gather with your friends and discuss the posted topic or just reflect on it. Please post your thoughts on this topic in the comments. So the question today is actually one I received by email from one of my previous students who is now living in the San Francisco area:
How can one religion claim that it is correct as opposed to another? And what evidence if any exists to support that claim?
Advertisement
Starting with the second question first, I think that God has revealed himself through what we can see in the natural created order and by his supernatural revelations such as what we see in miracles and in the mysteries of our faith and the truths that have been revealed. Even the Romans as well as the eastern religions can be argued to have pointed toward the God of Christianity although it may be argued that they were not able to express it in a manner as provided by the Israelites of the OT and then the ultimate revelation in terms of Jesus Christ and what we have in the Gospels of the NT. For example I particularly like what is said in Acts 17:23 when Paul tells the Romans that their statue to an unknown god is now known to Paul as Jesus Christ. So Christianity has the evidence of the Word of God as expressed in the OT and the NT which is the inspired word of God, and it has the physical presence of Jesus Christ, his bodily resurrection and the church that he established. Everyone has pretty much heard about Jesus Chrsit and because they have their own free will they can make the decision for themselves as to what they may want in terms of their salvation. Also other religions may not even think about the things that Christianity necessarily does so one cannot say that their claims are necessarily wrong, they just don’t conform to what has been revealed to man by God through Jesus Christ in the Christian sense and they have the option to either believe or not to believe. But as John says in his Gospel 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
I picked this up from John’s Catch of the Day from http://www.fischtank.com
Paths by John Fischer
True or false:
All paths lead to God. False.
All paths can lead to God. True.
It all depends on which end of the path you are looking from.
True or false:
All paths that lead to God have to go through Jesus. True.
Therefore, there is only one path to God. False.
There are as many paths to God as there are people who find Jesus.
Everybody’s path is different. Some paths go through fundamentalism and end up with Jesus. Some paths go through Catholicism and end up with Jesus. Some paths go through Islam and end up finding Jesus. Some paths go through Buddhism and end up finding Jesus. Some paths go through atheism and end up with Jesus. Some paths go through Mormonism and end up with Jesus. All paths that get to God go through Jesus, but you can start from anywhere. God is fully capable of drawing those who are His from anywhere. And He does.
It isn’t necessary to convince someone to change paths. We don’t have to carry around WRONG WAY signs to flash in front of people.
There is no such thing as a wrong path; there is only the path you are on, and it is not necessary to get someone off the path they are on, and onto the “right” one. It’s only necessary to point people to Jesus. Anyone should be able to see Jesus from just about anywhere. Especially if they are truly looking for God. The point is to point people in the direction of Christ from wherever they are.
Christians as well as people from other religions, cults, or no religion, who are truly seeking God, will find Jesus. Christians and people from other religions, cults, or no religion, who are not really seeking God, will not find Jesus. They will just be distracted by religion.
i find this question fascinating because such a wide variety of religions exist in the world today and many people who believe in their religion believe it to be true and all others to be false. at least that is my experience with religion. r
regarding the previous posts…miracles and revelaed truths are reasonable evidence to support christianity. however i feel as if these can be debated. phenomena once thought to be miracles are often explained by scientific reasoning and revealed truths are revelations from a higher power that most likely cannot be proven. i am also interested to hear about how eastern religions point to allah (the god of muslims, christians and individuals of the jewish faith). also i am unsure if one can use the bible (both old and new testament to demonstrate christianity as being the central religion that all other faiths point too. i do not believe that all individuals throughout history have heard of jesus and had the chance to believe. one example would be american indians before christopher columbus discovered america. lastly i enjoyed the parragraph how individuals find through jesus through various paths and various religions. the issue is that for those individuals to be saved by christianity, they must be jesus is the sone of god and that he died for there sins…and they are sorry for their sins. this is a much more indepth belief than kindoff sort of finding/hearing about jesus christ.
so how would i approach the issue of demonstrating the validity of one religion over another. this is an extremely convoluted question for a variety of reasons. religions vary as much as there are many of them. also they all have there own teachings written down over the centuries establishing their religion as being correct.
i believe the way to demonsrate that one religion is correct is by showing that its doctrine has existed since the beginning of mankind on earth (even if it changed names and is rooted from past religions of different names) and how it exists today.
i have yet to find the answers to any of these questions.
With regard to the previous post by Charlie miracles are supernatural revelations and are not subject to study through science which can only investigate the natural world. Also although Allah may be used as the word to signify God by Arabic Christians, it is not commonly used as such by Western Christians who prefer to think of the Godhead as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, ie. the Holy Trinity. Ever since Jesus gave His Great Commission at the end of Matthew man has been on a mission to spread the Gospel to everyone. Christians believe that Christ is the mediator between man and God and the only path to salvation. Man enters into the Christian faith through baptism and the acceptance of Jesus Christ as his personal savior. Interestingly the Catholic Church in its Catechism (847) says however that “those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do His will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience – those too may achieve eternal salvation.” In 848 it goes on to say that “the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.” So 847 and 848 would seem to cover those that never encountered Christ but were moved by that internal yearning to discover God.
i do not completely understand how a miracle is only a supernatural revelation. we are natural beings and we experience the miracles, so consequently there must be some natural component of the revelantion or we would not be able to experience it. so if there is a natural component to revelations, human reasoning (or science) should be able to investigate it. you are right catholicism is a very forgiving religion when it comes to individuals who have not had a chance to believe in jesus and will allow them to be saved. this is one of the aspects of catholicism i really like.
so if we assume religion is supernatural (which i believe is what the previoius post was getting at), is it then impossible to prove a religions correctness, since humans only reason in the natural world?
if the above statement is true, then it seems the question that prompted this discussion is irrevelant because it would be impossible for human natural reasoning to prove the existence of a supernatural religion.
all the best and i look forward to others thoughts.
charlie
Charlie, natural revelation is man seeing God’s hand in the created order through the exercise of man’s own reason. This natural revelation is also rooted in man’s faith. For as said in Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” A supernatural revelation is a Divine intervention into the created world resulting in things like miracles which are signs or wonders like healing or the control of nature. Man can witness supernatural revelations so they are of the natural world. Jesus also performed miracles which showed that his powers were derived from the Kingdom of God.Jesus himself is also a supernatural revelation through his incarnation wherein as said in John, “the word became flesh, and dwelt amongst us.” Hence Jesus is both God and man and he is the ultimate revelation, take a look at Phillipians 1:6-11. Well I could keep writing…
Also i’m really finding this Theophilus Monk site to be an awesome place!
Hi Theophilus Monk!!
awesome site but i have a question, on your page:
http://theophilusmonk.wordpress.com/2008/04/12/in-the-news-eric-clapton-in-the-presence-of-the-lord/
you have a picture good old eric clapton. Where did you get the image? I collect clapton pics and havent seen this one about.
thanx
steve
hey steve,
been awhile since i posted this but i found it i believe on google images.
ron
thanx ron, i was wondering about the guitar more than anythoing else, if i could find the venue that pic was taken at, i could probably find out what guitar he was using.
thanx anyway, have a good weekend