Dear people of Grace,

As we continue to look at church from the perspective of those outside its walls, I wrote last week about the dangers of relativism, the modern cultural claim that there is no absolute truth and that, particularly in the religious context, no one group can claim the definitive truth of God.

Considering that I think relativism is wrong, I came to a surprising conclusion last week: that we cannot ever truly know God. The language of our connection with the divine is called faith precisely because it is not built upon verifiable proof, but upon personal experience, collective experience (tradition) and the interpretation of holy scripture. I stated that, even though I cannot absolutely know God, I can still have such faith that I am willing to stake my life on the cross of Christ, and pattern my life according to Christian ideas, rejecting worldly pursuits where they contradict my sense of God’s will.

But what are we supposed to make of other religions, and their claims to God’s truth? Are we “right” and they “wrong?” Do only Christians go to heaven? Last week I quoted Jesus in John’s gospel: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14.6). How do we apply this to other religions? What about “The Ghandi Question?” Ghandi, a Hindu, was an amazing, devout human being but, because he rejected Christianity, can he be granted eternal life?

Roman Catholic priest and theologian Karl Rahner (1904-1984) introduced a concept he called “accidental Christianity” which tackles this issue. In trying to explain how non-Christians might be saved, Rahner proposed that there are non-Christian people in the world who sincerely seek God and do good deeds motivated by an innate understanding of the love of God for his creation. These people, Rahner claims, are unconsciously behaving as Christians and could therefore be saved by the grace of God, even though they had never professed faith in Jesus Christ. As with most things theological, it’s a little more complex than I’ve laid out here, but this is the core claim.

I think Rahner’s argument is along the right lines but falls slightly short (and before you think I’m crazy, I’m not the only one who feels this way). Why?

We have already discussed that we can never claim to truly know God. To borrow another of Rahner’s phrases, God is “absolute mystery.” If I cannot know God, except in the ways in which he has been revealed to me, there must also be many attributes or facets which have also not been revealed to me.

Picture a more mundane example. I can try to describe my childhood best friend Smith to you, but the mental picture that you develop will not be a perfect representation of Smith. I could even try to have an artist’s impression made of Smith, but it won’t be absolutely lifelike, because I have limited recall abilities, even though I know him very well, and the artist will also have limited abilities in drawing. Other people who know Smith will also be able to tell you things about him, perhaps even things which I don’t know, because their interaction with him was different from mine.

Where I believe Rahner is correct is in the way he looks at the moral and spiritual life of other religions and maps them onto Christianity. How do the five pillars of Islam look, for instance, when viewed through the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ? (we call this thinking Christologically.) What fits with our understanding of God when examined Christologically, and what doesn’t?

Where I disagree with Rahner is in his claim that it is the specifically Christian God which saves people. I think this is a little too arrogant a claim. It is God who saves – and God doesn’t have a prefix – he doesn’t belong to any one group; rather, we all belong to God. Even though I think Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and I believe the gospel, how can I say that others’ experience of God is wholly wrong? I cannot say that my God is the right one, because he is not my God, but our God. This would be like saying that other people’s experiences of my friend Smith are wrong because he was my best friend.

There are facets of other religions from which we Christians have learned a great deal. For example, Buddhism has taught us much about the inner life and contemplation. Islam has great moral teachings about family, finance and humility. Hinduism can teach us about inclusiveness and moderation. When we look at these elements of other faiths, they often harmonize with the teachings of Jesus. I can interpret, say, riba (the Sharia prohibition on earning interest on loans) in light of Jesus’ teaching on money. When I consider riba, my comprehension of God actually increases.

All of this may sound relativist: “you believe what you believe, and I believe what I believe; there’s no right answer.” However, there’s an important difference. Relativists will insist that my belief contains partial truth, and your belief contains partial truth. Putting them together gets a bigger truth (although, for a relativist, never the truth). What I am suggesting here is that I can analyze your understanding of God through what I know from my own faith. Where it fits with my concept of God, I learn something. Even where it differs, I can often learn something about God, or at least humanity.

Likewise, when I contemplate Smith, I don’t take your version of Smith and my version of Smith and split the difference. I take your version of Smith and see how that fits with what I already know about Smith. If what you say fits with the Smith I know, I’ll take your knowledge to reinforce my own image of Smith. If your impression of Smith differs from mine, I will either have to question your image – maybe you don’t know him that well, or maybe we aren’t describing the same person – or I have to question my image of Smith and start to build a new one. Maybe it was me who didn’t really know Smith that well.

There is so much I don’t understand about the “absolute mystery” of God. The teachings of Jesus fit with how I experience the world, and this is why I call myself a Christian. However, I cannot reject others’ religious experiences outright, because they may also teach me about the God which I seek. This does not mean I reject my image of God; there is much I disagree with in other religions, which do not fit with my Christological understanding of God, and so my Christian worldview remains steady.

“Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” (1John 4.7). I have seen love working through Christians, people of other religions and those of no religion. God works through anyone, because we belong to God, not God to a specific people group. I believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true, and that gospel leads me to love all people, even those who differ from me. I hope you join me in this belief.

Blessings and peace,
Deacon Nick