Are there any religions that do NOT believe they have the "fullness of truth"?

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mercytruth said:
I may be expressing an unorthodox opinion of my Catholic faith, but the apostle Paul in his letter to the church of Corinth writes, “We know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part shall be done away. For now we see as in a glass darkly, but then face to face”.

From this I conclude that the deep things of G-d are not for us to perfectly know or understand at this time.

Peace.
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I don’t think this is an unorthodox view of the Catholic faith (or the Jewish faith, for that matter). We can only know what has been revealed to us; the complete nature of G-d must remain a mystery to our finite minds.
 
meltzerboy said:
I don’t think this is an unorthodox view of the Catholic faith (or the Jewish faith, for that matter). We can only know what has been revealed to us; the complete nature of G-d must remain a mystery to our finite minds.
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Shabbat Shalom, my elder brother of the Abrahamic faith.
 
meltzerboy said:
I don’t think this is an unorthodox view of the Catholic faith (or the Jewish faith, for that matter). We can only know what has been revealed to us; the complete nature of G-d must remain a mystery to our finite minds.
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Absolutely! Not even the human nature of Christ (per our own faith) can grasp God, its hypostatic union with him notwithstanding. The only thing that can truly grasp and contain God is God. 🙂
 
meltzerboy said:
This may seem like an odd question. But I was wondering whether there are any religions so liberal that they believe other religions are just as likely to be true as their own? Unitarianism perhaps. Any others, such as Hinduism, Quakerism, or religious science? And if so, what does that say about the people who follow that religion and about the religion itself?
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Even the most syncretistic of religions condemn all those who don’t believe in syncretism.

Alex
 
I would say many (if not all) Pagan traditions believe that no one religion has a handle on “the Truth” (capital ‘T’) but that there are truths (small ‘t’, plural). This is part of the reason we don’t proselytize, the other reason is that it’s hard to sell an orthopraxic religion to someone if they haven’t experienced it firsthand.
 
Lokabrenna said:
I would say many (if not all) Pagan traditions believe that no one religion has a handle on “the Truth” (capital ‘T’) but that there are truths (small ‘t’, plural). This is part of the reason we don’t proselytize, the other reason is that it’s hard to sell an orthopraxic religion to someone if they haven’t experienced it firsthand.
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Do Pagan faith traditions believe perhaps that they have a somewhat bigger handle?
 
meltzerboy said:
I knew Evangelicals believed in the fallibility of human interpretation, but didn’t realize they would say that no one knows for sure with regard to basic doctrinal issues.
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It’s very common to hear Protestants differentiate between “the essentials” and all the rest. They don’t explain how they decide if a given doctrine is essential or not, it seems to be more a gut instinct. But since you can find self-professed Christians who deny such “essentials” as monotheism, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, it’s hard to know what all of Protestantism really considers essential.
 
meltzerboy said:
Do Pagan faith traditions believe perhaps that they have a somewhat bigger handle?
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No, because there’s no such thing as One Universal Truth when it comes to religious belief. Well, generally speaking, there are some groups and individuals that would like to think they are the “Spokesperson(s) for [insert faith here]” but in practice they’re largely ignored outside of their own group.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Definitely.

Hinduism, for one, is syncretic, with almost no limitations. Some even worship Jesus. Some (unlike Catholics) worship Mary. That’s among many other gods and goddesses, of course.

At the core, most protestants don’t. They believe in personal interpretation, and many, if not most, allow that all others are also valid.

It can be interesting sometimes to look up the “faith statements” of various protestant churches. While some, like Anglicans and Lutherans have fairly lengthy and complex ones, far and away most are no longer or not much longer than a single page. Very little is held in common, all else being just how the individual sees it.

But even Anglicans are highly varied in what they regard as “truth”. I have said it before on here, but I’ll again paraphrase what W.F. Buckley once said. It went like this: “The Anglican Church is so eclectic that no one, from the Pope to Mao Tse-Tung can say with any degree of assurance that he is NOT an Anglican.”
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For Anglicans the only thing that is dogmatic are the decisions of the early ecumenical councils where the Church came together as a whole. The Post 1054 councils and protestant confessions of faith are not binding upon us. Confessionalism is one of the big things that divides Anglicanism from other Reformation traditions. Unlike Lutheran and Reformed churches, Anglicanism has no official confession of faith outside of the creeds. We do not narrow our doctrine down on every last matter but only on those matters where the Holy Spirit has definitively spoken in the Church through the Scriptures and the Fathers. We allow mystery to be, well, mysterious. Christianity is not something you simply believe, but something you do, something you are.Anglicanism is an intentional return to scripture and to the faith and practice of the early Church. Anglicanism holds scripture in the highest place of authority and yet acknowledges that scripture has to be interpreted from within the life of the Church to be properly understood. When we read the words of a confession or listen to a good talk by a learned Christian preacher, we may learn many good things about God, but when we participate in liturgy we actually encounter God. We learn who He is and who we are in relation to Him by worshiping Him, hearing His Word proclaimed, and receiving His grace through the Sacraments.
 
snarflemike said:
Is that a Universal Truth?
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shrugs I don’t know everyone who self-identifies as Pagan so I couldn’t tell you, so perhaps the One Truth that the vast majority of Pagans profess is that there is no One Truth, but in a community that includes polytheists (hard and soft), monotheists (yes, I have heard of some who self-identify as monotheists), pantheists, even atheists, you kind of get used to paradoxical thinking.
 
Publisher said:
God is Holy Mystery. All we know of Him is through the interpretation of our senses and the testimonies of how others have experienced Him in their lives. For those of us who are Christian, God is met in the life and ministery of Jesus of Nazareth.

I do not believe ANY group has “fulness of Truth”…Truth is something we demonstrate on how we live our lives.

It makes no difference whether we believe in a literal resurrection or not IF the Truth of the Resurrection is not reflected in our lives…until it “incarnates” within us, and impacts our lives, it’s just a nice story.

Believing dogmatic statements is not Truth…they are finite expressions of what makes sense to us in our understanding…God is Wholly Other…Infinite…beyond out understanding…His ways as far above our ways as the heavens are above the earth.

Claiming to have “fullness of Truth”…IMO…is a nice tidy way to “keep us warm at night”…Truth is much more diverse and profound than our creedal and doctrinal statements.

We all are on a Journey of Discovery…the Journey is more important than the destination…and how we impact our own personal world by living out that Truth we seek to express is more important than the words we use to express it.

I believe that Quakerism has provided me the framework I need to Encounter God and shape my life as I seek to Incarnate His Life in mine.
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👍 👍 👍 👍 👍
 
Hindus and Sikhs both practice a very open and inclusive spirituality. Hindus do believe in one God. All the various images are facets of that one God. Sikhs have a lot of that, too.

I would disagree that Universalists do not think they know “the truth.” Despite the fact that they have an open, inquiring point of view, I have run into two very outspoken UU ministers on the internet who had this arrogance and stated that they knew more about Christianity than Christians did and could counsel people of various religions about their faiths. I was astounded at the arrogance and the shallowness. I am sure this is NOT an attitude carried by many UU’s, in fact, probably NO UU parishoners, but it exists in their clergy and I was very surprised at that.

Having done my time as a chaplain at a very large public hospital, I can say with absolute confidence that a life lived in a faith, no matter what it is, makes you unique and no one can waltz in and troubleshoot you.
 
Allen2Saint said:
Hindus and Sikhs both practice a very open and inclusive spirituality. Hindus do believe in one God. All the various images are facets of that one God. Sikhs have a lot of that, too.

I would disagree that Universalists do not think they know “the truth.” Despite the fact that they have an open, inquiring point of view, I have run into two very outspoken UU ministers on the internet who had this arrogance and stated that they knew more about Christianity than Christians did and could counsel people of various religions about their faiths. I was astounded at the arrogance and the shallowness. I am sure this is NOT an attitude carried by many UU’s, in fact, probably NO UU parishoners, but it exists in their clergy and I was very surprised at that.

Having done my time as a chaplain at a very large public hospital, I can say with absolute confidence that a life lived in a faith, no matter what it is, makes you unique and no one can waltz in and troubleshoot you.
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Well stated. I had forgotten about Sikhism. Interesting comment regarding some UU ministers.
 
There are hundreds of paths up the mountain,
all leading in the same direction,
so it doesn’t matter which path you take.
The only one wasting time is the one
who runs around and around the mountain,
telling everyone else that their path is wrong." - Hindu Teaching
 
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