Do All Paths Converge?

Mountain Top

Huston Smith, writing about Hinduism, set forth the concept that, at the mountain-top, all paths converge:

It's hard to think of any concept which is more widely and fervently believed by so many people which is simply and demonstrably not so. The "great religions" of the world are not in any sense aiming at the same goal. Christianity seeks to mend the rift between God and man opened by sin, whereas Buddhism knows nothing of God. Buddhism aims at a psychological goal, the cessation of suffering, which it hopes to achieve through psychic numbing. These two goals are not the same, nor is there any convergence, except only incidentally insofar as sin leads indirectly to mental distress. Buddhism does not aspire to swallow up suffering in joy, but to extinguish consciousness into the vacuity of 'no-mind.'  Buddhism has not failed nor misrepresented itself; it never claimed any revelation or special knowledge of God, nor has it claimed to have found the bridge across the estrangement between mankind and God. Since Buddhism in no way aspires to reconciliation with God, then how it is a path to the same destination as Christianity?

It would be accurate to note that, if the problem is as Christianity diagnoses it, then Buddhism is altogether beside the point. The Stoics of the classical world also noticed that psychic deadening can reduce suffering; indeed there is a natural mechanism that comes into play with traumatic stress disorder that achieves the same goal. If you can make yourself feel nothing, then you feel no pain. People seek healing from this syndrome once they understand it has taken their joy from them along with their sorrows.

Tragically, many of the adherents of this view are school-teachers, and there is a whole 'lost' generation of American youngsters who can only conceptualize the religious toleration upon which this country is founded on the basis of a demonstrably false fact about the world. These ill-taught youngsters can only imagine that government must stay out of the religious arena, as the U.S. Constitution requires, because it is in the end a matter of indifference which of the many almost identical religions one follows. Once these young people pick up a smattering of information on the subject and realize the 'fact' upon which their adherence to religious toleration was based is not factual, will they not end up like atheist Sam Harris, discarding religious toleration altogether? How much more solid would be their commitment to this core American value had they been taught religious toleration on a rational and defensible basis, as Baptists and other non-conformists always held: that government must stay out of religion because it has neither competence nor calling in this area:

Baal

Is there any indication in the Bible that God will willingly dwell in temples built for others, that 'Baal' and 'Jehovah' are just names, and that worshipping either one indifferently leads in the end to the same destination?:

Engulf and Devour

Hinduism, like the monster in the clunky old horror movie 'The Blob,' envelops and incorporates everything it finds in its path, including Christianity. When missionaries travel to India preaching Jesus, they find a ready reception; their hearers happily add a plastic 'Jesus' to their row of religious statuettes. But adding Him to the pantheon is not to serve Him; the living God will not play happily with the other gods, He is "jealous." The monotheistic religions which look back to Abraham as founder do not incorporate foreign matter in this way, rather they spit it out.

One of the early challenges Christianity faced was with the pagans of the world into which the gospel proclamation went out, who were attracted to the figure of Jesus of Nazareth, but did not see any reason why they should disarrange their existing polytheistic pantheons in order to find room for Him:

Those who aspire to true toleration should understand that, while the multitude of Hindu gods can always shoulder over and make room for one more, monotheism is not nor can ever be similarly accommodating.

Circle of Equals

Though he does not believe any of the things that Christians believe, Bishop John Shelby Spong is an idealist after his own fashion. He looks forward to a day when Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists will all sit in a circle and offer each other their treasures:

The scary thing is, none of these people would perceive the slightest grounds to endorse religious liberty unless it were true that the various faiths of the world were 'complementary.' Since it is not true, we Baptists will just have to hope they don't catch on!

It is not true so long as the law of contradiction holds: 'a' is not not-'a.' The pagan philosopher Aristotle formulated this law, and it is right on the money. If the Muslims and Bishop John Shelby Spong say, 'Jesus was just a man,' and the Christians say, 'He is God incarnate,' these are not 'complementary' truths but mutually contradictory assertions. You cannot affirm both at the same time.

Bishop Spong volunteers himself as the Christian representative in the panel, grandly promising "I, as a Christian, must plumb the depths and scale the heights of my own faith system." (Bishop John Shelby Spong, The Sins of Scripture, p. 243.) No doubt he will stand vigilant at the door, to keep out all those homophobic fundamentalists, because no tolerance can be extended in that direction. Indeed everything can be tolerated by Bishop Spong, except difference of opinion. Nevertheless Bishop Spong must give us all lessons in tolerance, although he cannot get along even with the other members of his own denomination, to say nothing of strangers.

A greater handicap: he has appointed himself the Christian representative, though he believes almost nothing of what Christians believe. Let's take an example of what he does believe. In discussing the person and work of Jesus, the Jewish representative, the Muslim, and this 'Christian' would have no reason for dispute, because none of them believes Jesus was any more than a mere man. But the conversation turns to Mary. Bishop Spong enjoys repeating the old slanders of the Talmud against Mary. He offers this "pearl of great price" to the assembled faith representatives. Unfortunately, the Muslim delegate grows red in the face and hollers 'Mary was a virgin!' Either she was a virgin (Muslims, fundamentalist Christians) or she was not not (Talmud, liberal Christians). You cannot both be and not be a virgin. How are these 'truths' 'complementary,' when only one can be true? Mystification cannot resolve this controversy and so, alas, the delegates must go home without holding hands, or perhaps the "new day" will find them still arguing.

It is strange but true that Muslims believe a lot more of the Bible truths about Mary than do nominally Christian liberals like Bishop Spong. Substantial areas of agreement between the two faiths did not prevent the Muslims from aspiring to imperial expansion. The conflict between Christendom and Islam begins with the Near East predominantly Christian; countries like the current Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Tunisia were majority Christian. The tale of how these countries ended up overwhelmingly Muslim is a tale of blood and terror. Bishop Spong, however, is only dimly aware of any of this; in his mind, the dust-up between Christendom and Islam (which was of course Christian aggression since Christianity is evil) was "minor in the scheme of things:"

"This did not constitute a critical issue for anyone but the Jews through most of the centuries of Christianity simply because the world was so large and communications were so slow that generally we lived in great ignorance of other people and other religions. . .The rest of the religions of the world were simply not on our radar screen for most of Christian history. . .So all of our grand religious claims to be the true faith, to have a corner on the market of salvation, never really got tested. . .We assumed the truth of our claims without fear of being contradicted by reality. That luxury lasted until airplanes, radio, television, the Internet and the World Wide Web came along and changed the world." (Bishop John Shelby Spong, The Sins of Scripture, pp. 240-241).

Actually domestication of the camel was sufficient technology. Naivety like this would be charming in a child.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Given the contradictions between the three faiths which claim origin from Abraham, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, subscribing to all three of them demands a proficiency in pretzel logic: that greatly prized ability simultaneously to believe a and not-a. Some people can do it, or so they boast:

"God is the one great truth. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are paths that bring us to Him. One finds God through personal discovery usually directed by the faith in which one is reared, practiced by one's ancestors." (Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, 'The Kosher Jesus,' p. 149).

But the God who made us made also logic, or to speak more precisely, He is the Word. It is best to avoid contradiction. Paths leading off in different directions do not bring the traveller to same destination. And as it turns out, surprise, surprise, Rabbi Boteach's 'Kosher' Jesus will require just a nip and tuck here and there to bring Him into conformity with the good Rabbi's predilections: ". . .worship of a man as deity, or belief in a messiah who did not fulfill the messianic prophecies, is anathema to us Jews, a fact that will never change." (Boteach, Shmuley (2011-12-07). Kosher Jesus (p. 150). Gefen Publishing House. Kindle Edition.). And so the 'Kosher' Jesus, you see, must be scaled down just a bit, to roughly the same contours as the Muslim Jesus, or indeed a bit slimmer. If only we Christians would stop believing what we believe and believe what he tells us, what a world of peace and harmony would be ours. Funny, Mohammed ibn Abdallah took the same tack. And oddly enough, it did not spontaneously lead to peace, harmony, and universal agreement; rather, only after conquering Muslim armies had swept through town, were dissenting tongues silenced. How many times must this same 'discovery' be made?

A Plague on All Your Houses

To the atheist, it is sufficient to point out that religions differ, to establish that they are all false:

Notice, please, that "the impression they [different religious systems] give of mutual exclusiveness and intolerance" itself discredits the entire enterprise of religion. It is certainly true that religions make mutually exclusive claims: for example, Christians adore Jesus Christ as God incarnate, whereas the Koran reports Jesus Himself as denying deity and abhorring such worship. Obviously, both claims cannot be correct. The proper analysis, however, is not:

• These two religions make mutually contradictory claims, therefore, they are both false;

But, rather,

• These two religions make mutually contradictory claims, therefore, either both are false, or one is false and the other true.

In what other field of endeavor is similar atheist 'logic' pursued? No one says, either all scientific theories must be true, including phlogiston and the luminiferous aether, or none of them can be true; no one says, either all political programs are equally valid, or none of them is. It is simply bad logic, and it's a shame so many people allow themselves to be flim-flammed by it. It is as often repeated as if it were a valid argument:

"And as the Pagan, Jewish, Christian and Mahometan countries of the world have been overhwhelmed with a multiplicity of revelations diverse from each other, and which, by their respective promulgators, are said to have been immediately inspired into their souls by the spirit of God, or immediately communicated to them by the intervening agency of angels (as in the instance of the invisible Gabriel to Mahomet) and as those revelations have been received and credited, by afar the greater part of the inhabitants of the several countries of the world (on whom they have been obtruded) as super-naturally revealed by God or angels, and which, in doctrine and discipline, are in most respects repugnant to each other, it fully evinces their imposture, and authorizes us, without a lengthy course of arguing, to determine with certainty, that not one of them had their original from God; as they clash with each other, which is ground of high probability against the authenticity of each of them." (Ethan Allen, Reason the Only Oracle of Man, Chapter XIII, Section II.)

As seems a common theme with this crowd, the relation between the three Abrahamic religions is more complex than this Deist author realizes; all three expect to encounter Abraham in the world to come, the Muslims claiming to follow his religion, the Jews claiming to be his seed, the Christians claiming that Christ is his seed. Neither Christianity nor Islam denies the validity of the revelation to the Hebrew prophets, and Islam does not so much deny the validity of the gospel, as find it necessary to alter it. The testimony of each of these witnesses partially corroborates, partially contradicts that of the others.

Pearl of Great Price

Christianity is a controversial religion with some people because it knows of only one way to heaven:

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6).

There are not 'many paths;' that's it.