As, say, opposed to Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.
I was just wondering what made this religion anymore valid than the rest. I mean no offense by this, I’m just asking honestly.
Laudetur Iesus Christus.
Dear “AJTheMan:”
There are at least two ways to take your question. This may seem like, “splitting hairs,” if this were a casual conversation, however, when one is talking about the most basic truths, this sort of careful distinction is necessary.
If taken at face value, the answer to this question is: because it corresponds with reality (or actuality).
However, one suspects that this question is rarely meant to be taken at face value, but is meant to ask, “How can one know that this is true?” This is not a question about what is true or what makes a thing true, but rather is a question about how one comes to know things. It is easy to see how this added aspect vastly complicates the answer sought by the question.
Added to these issues is the use of the very problematic word, “Christianity.” This word is used to refer to many different things, most of which simply are not true. Because of this, it is difficult to respond to the question without making careful provision to distinguish what is being affirmed from the things that cannot be sustained in careful discussion.
There is a great deal of force in this observation by Hilaire Belloc:
“. . . There is no such thing as a religion called “Christianity” – there never has been such a religion.
There is and always has been the Church, and various heresies proceeding from a rejection of some of the Church’s doctrines by men who still desire to retain the rest of her teaching and morals. But there never has been and never can be or will be a general Christian religion professed by men who all accept some central, important doctrines, while agreeing to differ about others. There has always been, from the beginning, and will always be, the Church, and sundry heresies either doomed to decay, or, like Mohammedanism, to grow into a separate religion. Of a common Christianity there never has been and never can be a definition, for it has never existed.” (The Great Heresies, (1938).)
So, limiting consideration to the Church and her doctrines, these are true because they conform to reality (or actuality). We know this because of the testimony of Jesus Christ, the founder and head of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
Christ is unique in the history of the world. He is the only founder of a religion who claimed personally to be God. All other religions, as well as secular science and philosophy, are founded on human understanding of human experiences of things outside the person having the experience. Only the Church is based on revelation offered in human terms by a human being who is God. No other religion or system of thought even pretends to this basis of reliability.
Moses spoke to God and related what he understood of his encounters. However, this was a human effort to understand something superhuman. Mohammad is reputed to have spoken to the Angel Gabriel. However, this was a human effort to understand something preternatural. Buddhism is founded on a man’s effort to understand nature through his experiences of it. Etc.
Only the faith of the Church is founded on God speaking as a human being. Thus only the faith of the Church is founded on a source of information which is not limited by the human capacity to understand through the human senses – Jesus, being God, did not have to sense the truths of divinity or reality. Further, Jesus, being man, was able to communicate in human terms the truths which He revealed, so that even in the interpretation of the communication, human limitations did not cloud the communication of the truth.
Thus, one is left with the sole basis of the reliable truth of the faith of the Church being the man Jesus Christ. One must consider, since He claims to personally be God, was He insane, lying, or telling the truth. On reading the four Gospels, one gains a strong impression that Jesus was neither insane nor lying. One is left, therefore, with a basis of knowledge which is communicated through language from a source which does not ultimately rely on the limited capacity of the human senses and mind to grasp reality. Thus, the faith of the Church is more reliable than all other religions and more reliable than all human philosophical approaches, including, “the absurd,” and empirical science.
Thus, the faith of the Church is founded by God and not on any merely human insight. It is communicated by the Holy Roman Catholic Church, which was established by God as a living means of communication and interpretation, to convey and protect the message delivered by Jesus Christ to mankind. This source of reliability, protected by this means of communication, is thus more reliable than any other source of information about reality (or actuality) available to human understanding, including all strains of “interpretation” applied by communities or scholars outside of the Roman Catholic Church.
I hope this is helpful.
Spiritus Sapientiae tecum.
John Hiner
