It is very fashionable today to adhere to some version of universalism. A very popular idea that I see many, if not most embracing is that the Christian God and the gods of other religions are all basically the same God. It is concerning to me that so many well-meaning and sincere Christians even embrace this idea. It's perhaps the quickest way to gloss over real differences and create a sense and very illusory sense of peace in the world between people of supposedly different belief systems.
Let me assert a few points:
- Probably all belief systems, philosophies, ideologies and religions have partial truth as their primary assertions.
Having studied different religions and philosophies, I believe that all of them hold some truths that we can learn from. I believe that enough experience and history will testify that Siddhartha Guatama (the Buddha) probably did experience some type of illumination and enlightenment. I think it's very likely that some of the miracles stories that mark the life of Mohammed actually happened. I concur with Taoism that experience seems to demonstrate the principle of the Yin-Yang and what can seem like a "balance" between good and evil. I respect the traditions of ancestral veneration from the Far East in one sense: though I can never endorse the "worship" of ancestors (if it can be called that), I suspect the intention is a respect for those who've gone before. Christianity shares a facet of this with the ancestral traditions of the far east. Animism in many third world cultures rightly recognizes the real presence and activity of the spiritual realm in everyday life and I agree with this premise.
Every system of belief adheres to facets of truth.
- There is a difference between facets of truth and total truth.
I don't believe that any ideology, belief system or religion has total truth. Anything with it's origin in us as people can only hope to be partial at best. No matter how we wish to be the source and fountainhead of total truth, it cannot be, because we are not God. To claim that status for any human system is to create a god made in our own image (stemming from our ideas, reflections, and philosophies, however reasonable and educated) and thus an
idol.
- Wherever partial truth may be, it is an asset to the total truth seeker and an enemy to the one distracted by it from the pursuit for total truth.
In the garden of Eden in Genesis, the serpent famously seduced Adam and Eve into rebellion against God. How? He fed them partial truth, but not total truth (Genesis 3:1-5). He focused on what God said in his seduction, but changed small details. What he spoke to Adam and Eve was partial truth that distracted them from what God, the source of total truth had told them. The Fall resulted in and always results in exchanging total truth (which is it's own light and illumination by which to understand all of reality) or a partial truth. The partial truth then becomes the light by which one sees the world rather than the total truth, and it results in a worldview that is distorted because it's illuminating point of understanding is only a partial truth, not the total truth.
- Religions: Partial Truth or Total Truth?
For example, I conceded above that the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) probably experienced some type of enlightenment or illumination that has since become a guide to many millions of people. The Buddha may have provided an enlightening path to people, but he did not change the fact of the Fall that happened in Genesis (as the Bible unfolds). He was not God become man, like Jesus is. He did not die for the sin of abandoning total truth, nor did he physically resurrect to showcase his victory over death. Buddha then, nor his way is a total truth or total answer to the problem in the universe. The same can be said of the ancestral veneration in the Far East. Taoism may put us in touch with spiritual realities and universal principles, but does not provide the total answer. Animism, while drawing our attention to the reality of the spiritual and spirits in everyday life is even more pointed. It assumes the reality of spirits, much like the Bible does. It does not give people the one and true God who saves people from their sin and gives them the delegated authority of the one true God over those spirits and that spiritual realm. This leads to the next point.
- We can and must be possessed by total, not partial Truth.
If every human system is at best partial truth that lacks permeating essence of total truth, then at worst every human belief system is also far more nefarious.
Discerning between truth and lie cannot be glossed over and generalized with the idea: "everyone has a belief system in a higher power [and that's good enough]." While the presence of many religions may well testify to the reality of spirituality, does that mean that every spirit/spirituality is good and on equal footing? No. The clue is above in the garden of Eden episode. Who stands behind partial truth that claims in itself to be total truth, but actually is not? Satan. The Devil. To take something less that total truth/God and to claim that it is total truth or to posit it as such can only lead to Hell. At best, partial truth is incomplete and searching for a final piece to the puzzle. At worst, partial truth is demonically inspired as an end in itself and this converts the partial truth to a total lie.
Let me assert: the true and living God and the gods of other religions are not the same God. Buddha could only be good if he leads people to the one he's missing: Jesus. If he doesn't point to Jesus as total truth personified, and the only hope of the human race, then he is "anti-Christ." If Animism doesn't point to the true God, who stands above every spirit, Jesus Christ, then the animistic system is "anti-Christ." Maybe Islam seems closer, but Allah has a very different caricature of God than the true God that Scripture presents. Islam can never claim that God became human and died for sins, defeating death by resurrection. Islam provides no solution for the Fall in Eden where we exchanged total truth for partial truth as an end in itself. While the Christian system at it's best proclaims the true God most closely - Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), to the degree that we trade this total truth God in theory for idolatry in practice, we're doomed. Even the Christian system falls short if it doesn't proclaim and place active faith in the true and living God. Anything less than total truth that doesn't lead one to total truth is "anti-Christ" and therefore demonic. To the degree that that partial truth becomes a stepping stone to total truth, God redeems it (Titus 1:15, Eph. 1:10), for he will sum up all partial truth in the earth one day in Jesus, thereby converting it to total truth, for all will be in submission to him, Jesus, the one true God.
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