A fair warning, this post may make you feel uncomfortable. If you don’t have any doubts about your faith or Christianity, you may not want to read this.

 

My biggest problem with Christianity is that we’re the only way to heaven. Jesus says in John 14:6 “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to father except through me.” Most Christian theologians maintain that this means what it says: you cannot enter heaven unless you believe in Jesus as your savior.

 

That’s fine for Christians, but what about all the people who will have no chance to choose Jesus. What about all the people born in India who have been raised Hindu? Are they automatically screwed? And tell me this: if you were born in India, can you honestly tell me you would be a Christian when everyone around you lives in a culture of Hinduism? I doubt it. So then what about you? As an Indian, would you by default have no chance at the afterlife even if you lived a morally and ethically sound life?

 

And what about all the people before Jesus lived on earth who had no chance to believe in him because he didn’t exist yet and they had no way to know about Abraham’s god? They are going to hell for something they didn’t know they needed to believe in?

 

I’ve struggled with this problem for a while now, and I don’t know the answer. In my study, I have found some alternatives; but a warning: they may make you feel uncomfortable about your faith. What you’ve always thought to be unchangeable may have other viewpoints. Just a warning. I know it shook me when I first studied things like this.

 

There are three different approaches to dealing with other religions: exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism.

 

Christianity falls under exclusivism, which holds that a person’s own religion is true and all other religions are false. These people claim that the only way to salvation is through an appropriate response to their religion’s means of liberation and if anyone fails to accept it they will not see an afterlife.

 

A softer form is that of inclusivism, which maintains that although one’s own religion may possess the sole means to liberation or salvation, it also includes a way for those who are not able to reach this salvation because they don’t have the opportunity. Although inclusivism denies any other religion’s authority, it permits people of other religions to gain salvation through their religion on the basis of an embedded desire in their heart to do the will of Christianity’s God. This allows people to continue to believe that their religion is still correct and yet guards outsiders from what would be considered unfair treatment.

 

But what interested me was my encounter with the theory of pluralism. Introduced by modern religious philosopher John Hick, pluralism attempts to rationalize the idea that all religions ultimately pursue the same divine reality. Hick believes that divine reality is beyond any one specific god, and that we cannot experience it in any of the world’s gods. Rather he makes a case that the divine reality we experience in our religion is the same divine reality people in other religions experience. The ancient story of the blind man and the elephant illustrates his point. In the tale, each man ran his hand over a different part of the elephant’s body, and each man believed the elephant to be something different. Likewise, each religion has only a partial grasp on the ultimate reality, yet each one grabs onto the same thing.

 

But how could it possibly be that God (or the ultimate reality) has revealed himself in so many different forms? In considering the formation of all the major world religions over the course of human civilization, we see examples of divine revelation through various founders, prophets, or teachers. Each religion experienced these “moments” of divine disclosure. As we contemplate the idea that the ultimate reality is behind all of these revelations, we must also answer a question posed by Hick: is it more feasible to expect God to reveal himself to humanity through a “single, mighty act” or through a number of different, and therefore probably incomplete, revelations at different places and times throughout history?

 

 

So what of our original question? Was Jesus wrong about the path to God? I have always taken issue with what Jesus said (or at least what Christians have claimed about his statement) and have taken a special interest in pluralism because of the solution it offers. For one, John Hick believes that Jesus is not the only way:

“…the idea that Jesus proclaimed himself as God incarnate, and as the sole point of saving contact between God and man, is without adequate historical foundation and represents a doctrine developed by the church. We should therefore not infer, from the Christian experience of redemption through Christ, that salvation cannot be experienced in any other way.”

 

I am still unclear what I should believe, because after all, if the Christian God is all-powerful and supreme, He can do whatever he wants without asking any of us. He can allow some people access to salvation and deny it to others. Jesus may still be correct. But nevertheless, it is a relief to now know that there are other people (and Christians) who have had the same doubts about John 14:6 that I have had.

 

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Excerpts taken from “Is Jesus Not the Only Way?” by Dustin Comm. March 13, 2007.