The Christian faith explains the diversity of religions

The diversity of religions is sometimes used as an argument against the truth of Christianity: "You believe one thing, but other religions believe something else, which proves that they are only human inventions. If religion came from God, it would not be divided". Now, Christian theology, over the last 2,000 years, has given a great deal of thought to the question of the diversity of religions, and has a good answer to this question: the fullness of the truth is to be found in Christ alone, but non-Christian religions may also contain some elements of the truth.

It is possible through reason alone to know that God exist, but not who he is: the intuition of God's existence, before Christ, was therefore expressed in mythological stories mixing the true and the false. While these religions were an effort by man to ascend towards God, Revelation is the opposite movement: God reveals himself to man. Judaism and Islam recognise part of this Revelation (the Old Testament for Judaism, the existence of a Revelation from Abraham to Jesus for Islam), but do not recognise the divinity of Jesus, which explains their similarities and differences with Christianity. The Christian vision of religious history explains this state of things perfectly.

Unsplash / Aaron Burden

Reasons to believe:

From a logical point of view, the diversity of religions is a weak argument because, whichever life-domain is being considered, it cannot prevent there being an objective truth.

Christianity, which grew out of Judaism in the midst of the pagan Roman Empire, has been confronted with the question of the plurality of religions since its origin, and over the last 2,000 years has constantly consolidated its teaching on the subject.

Even today, the Catholic Church is unquestionably the institution with the greatest expertise in the theology of religions and inter-religious dialogue, far ahead of civil universities or other religions.

Christianity is not a national, civic or cultural religion: present on the whole surface of the Earth, expressing itself in every language, through very diverse cultures, it cannot be compared in this respect to any other religion in human history.

The Catholic Church is the only one to have a Magisterium (an authoritative hierarchical tradition for interpreting Revelation), and this claim to truth, which may seem arrogant, is in fact God's plan to preserve the integrity of Revelation.

Summary:

Plurality of religions tends to elicit two types of reaction: relativism (all religions must be equally good, and the truth is equally shared by all) or scepticism (all religions are equally false, and there is no reason to believe one over the other). Neither of these reactions has a rational basis. The diversity of opinions on any given subject does not prove that truth doesn't exist or that one opinion might not be closer to the truth than the rest.

Contrary to what modern relativism would have us believe, it is possible, to a certain extent, to rationally evaluate how much truth there is in a religious doctrine. This is obvious in the ethical sphere: we can agree, for example, that a religion that practises human sacrifice is morally wrong. The same goes with religious beliefs: we can say with certainty, for example, that lightning is not caused by the forge of a celestial deity, or that the rising of the sun does not depend on the fulfilment of certain rites, and so on. It is therefore possible to compare doctrines in order to judge their credibility.

One important aspect of this comparison is the way in which the different religions explain the very diversity of religions, as well as the phenomenon of atheism. A religious doctrine that cannot explain the diversity of religions is clearly insufficient to account for reality.

Thus, if atheism were true, it would have to explain man's religious nature, and also the existence of monotheism and miracles. This has never been convincingly and satisfactorily done, since the atheist argument is often content with an unjustified psychologisation of the believer. On the other hand, the doctrine of original sin, if properly understood, can account for atheism without resorting to a psychologisation of the atheist.

The same comparison can be made between religions themselves. For example, in a certain Muslim vision of history, Christianity is explained by a falsification of the Gospel revealed by God, which is difficult to reconcile with the idea, defended by the same people, that the word of God is unfalsifiable.

The Christian faith, on the other hand, explains the diversity of religions. Thus, if we combine the idea of a natural knowledge of God (Vatican Council I, Constitution Dei Filius; cf.also Wis 13:5 ; Rom 1:20), the doctrine of original sin, and the existence of prevenient graces (the grace of God in a person's life which precedes and prepares to conversion), we can perfectly explains the existence of mythological religions, with their various degree of right intuition (ex: reality is not limited to the visible world; man is a fallen being; there is life after death; objective morality exists, etc.) mixed with error (a magical world populated by multiple deities, etc.). Similarly, the emergence of monotheism can be explained, quite simply, by Revelation. Finally, the diversity of monotheisms can be explained by the differences that arose in the way in which people received or did not receive the totality of this Revelation.

This is why the Second Vatican Council, in its 1965 declaration Nostra Aetate, said: "The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere respect those ways of acting and living, those rules and doctrines which, though differing in many respects from what she herself holds and proposes, nevertheless often reflect a ray of the truth which enlightens all men. Nevertheless, she proclaims, and is bound to proclaim unceasingly, Christ, who is "the way, the truth and the life" (Jn 14:6), in whom men must find the fullness of religious life and in whom God has reconciled all things."

Finally, comparative religion also shows that the most revered figures in non-Christian religious traditions are often the closest to Christianity: Gandhi expressing his admiration for the Beatitudes, the Sufi mystic Mansur al-Hallaj praising the religion of the cross, and so on.

Tristan Rivière

Beyond reasons to believe:

An amusing example of Christianity's expertise in the differing merits of other religions can be seen in the career of Professor Dennis Gira (born 1943): this great specialist in Buddhism has acquired such a mastery of his subject, and speak about it with such competence, that many of his readers thought he was a Buddhist, until he published The Lotus or the Cross: Reasons for a Choice (2003), to explain why he remained faithful to the Christian faith.

Going further:

The Case for Catholicism by Trent Horn, Ignatius Press (October 25, 2017)

More information:

The declaration Nostra Aetate on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions, proclaimed by Pope Paul VI (1965)
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, The Lord Jesus. Declaration "Dominus Iesus" on the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church
International theological commission "Christianity and the world religions" (1997)
The Invisible Father: Approaches to the Mystery of the Divinity by Louis Bouyer, St Bede's Publications, U.S.
The New Relativism: Unmasking the Philosophy of Today's Woke Moralists by Karlo Broussard, Catholic Answers Press (March 27, 2023)
Answering Atheism: How to Make the Case for God with Logic and Charity by Trent Horn, Catholic Answers Press (September 28, 2013)
"But Don't All Religions Lead to God?" by Michael Green, Baker Books (July 15, 2002)