I have a question about our faith that has really been a problem for me for a very long time and haven’t found anyone or anything that could answer it . . . I mean no disrespect and I am not trying to doubt this is just something that I really don’t understand. In this situation I can’t seem to put the pieces together.
And sorry if the philosophy forum wasn’t the best place for this question, but I couldn’t think of any place else. But from what I’ve seen there are plenty of intelligent and knowledgeable Catholics posting here
Figured this would be the best place to ask
This is a very good question, and I want to encourage you to keep striving onward, even if you occasionally get only superficial, inadequate answers - like the one in the second reply. Many others have already said what I was going to, so let me just make two points, one specific and one more general:
I believe we did, but a Hindu or Buddhist would totally disagree. How do Christianity’s Truths counteract/disprove other religion’s perceived truths? A Hindu would say Christians got “it” wrong just as fast as I would say Hinduism is not true.
I think you are mistaken in this particular example, and it underlies an important principle that you must realize as you sort through this issue: namely, the truth that
not all religions claim to be the one true faith. It’s important not to put religion in a box, when the worldviews behind different ones can often be mind-blowingly alien to those outside their culture.
In fact, of the world’s
major religions, only Christianity and Islam actively proselytize and dare to claim to be exclusively, absolutely correct. Perhaps this is why there has been so much conflict between them throughout history.
With other religions, this is simply
not the case. An orthodox Hindu probably would
not say that “Christianity gets it wrong” - Hinduism is extraordinarly flexible in a way that orthodox Christianity could never be; it is like a sponge that absorbs and amalgamates many different beliefs and rituals.
Thus, I would bet you that for every Hindu who would say, “No,
we’ve got it right,” you’d find ten more who would simply shrug and say that Christianity is a perfectly valid manifestation of the
bhakti yoga path toward God.
A Buddhist - your other example - would give you even weirder answers, especially if they’re Theravada or some kind of Zen.
So, not to make your questioning more difficult, but remember that this is even
more complicated than, “Every religion claims that
they’re the right one.” That is definitely an oversimplification.
My other point was simply this: know that reason can get you very far, but it cannot take the final step for you. It was Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard who coined the term “leap of faith,” and I think he’s right that such a leap is necessary. Peter Kreeft says that truth is like the sea and reason is like a car. It can get you
all the way to the beach, but once you get there, you still have to get out and leap into the sea.
Of course, it is entirely pertinent to ask,
But why does Christianity merit such a leap if other faiths do not? This is a difficult question, but one well-worth answering.
I think a good place to start would be to remember my first point, and to ask yourself just what each religion
does ask of its followers. They are often far from the same.
The truth claims of Christ and Buddha, for example, are very different. Likewise, what Hinduism asks of its followers is totally different than what Islam does. If you really want to answer the question in bold above, then you must do justice to these differences. I think a major clue involves the following fact:
For one thing, Christianity is historical.
This makes it far easier to assess than a dense and heavily esoteric religion like Hinduism (which in its true forms really is quite alien to the western mind). Christianity depends on the historical realities of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. I frankly am convinced of Christianity principally because I believe the historical evidence is incontrovertible that Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be divine in the
Jewish sense (!) and then physically rose from the dead.
(It would be far less radical, bizarre, and overwhelming if Jesus had simply claimed to be divine in a more Hindu sense. But that’s out of the question, since he was a practicing Jew)
Well, first, I would drop any religion from consideration that doesn’t claim to be the One True Faith, which takes out everything except Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Christianity, certain forms of Islam, and the Catholic Church.
I respectfully disagree.
I do think that it is useful to separate these more absolutist, western religions from their esoteric, eastern counterparts, but the latter cannot simply be ruled out. Their general approach much be assessed too, although I certainly agree that it’s far more fruitful to compare religions
within these categories than
across them. For example, comparing Christianity and Islam in an attempt to decide between them is way easier than to compare Christianity and Hinduism in that way.
Still, one must eventually cross that divide. When C.S. Lewis knew he was no longer an atheist, he began to investigate the world’s religions. He eventually narrowed his choices down to Christianity or Hinduism before finally converting to Christ.
I think he was on to something the entire time.
