This is the summary and conclusions for the Comparing Religions blog series. We went through a series of questions about what you should ask to identify if a religion is true and good. In my experience, a lot of skeptics don't even try to answer these questions. They just assume they know what answer they would get if they tried, so they don't bother...
It was only when this series was mostly written that I realized it maps onto the statement in the Nicene Creed about the Christian Church:
I believe in one holy, universal, and apostolic Church...
ONE
Regarding the first term "one", I didn't say much about Unity—disputes about this tend to have more to do, ironically, with all the arguments that Christians have with each other—see my post on Seeking Christian Unity for some thoughts about it. But it is certainly probable that if Christians spent more of their energy on loving each other than fighting each other, as Jesus said we were supposed to do, then Christianity would also look more supernatural to outsiders. I suppose one could check various religions for their degree of internal harmony and unity, but I didn't. Of course this would depend on quite a few contingent historical factors, such as how long the religion has had to splinter into different rival groups...
The whole thing kicked off with this blog post: Theology: Less Speculative than Quantum Gravity, in which I came up with a list of questions (quoted below) that seemed reasonable to ask when comparing the merits of various religions.
Then I had the (perhaps foolish) idea, sometime around 2016, to actually try to give my own answers to these questions! Obviously, I had to start by making various disclaimers:
which at least satisfies the ONE condition by—well read the Roman numeral, it clearly says one on it!
UNIVERSAL
Regarding the universality (also known as catholicity) of the Christian Church, its credibility on this topic could be treated with respect to space:
II. World Evangelism: Has the religion persuaded a significant fraction of the world population, outside a single ethnic group, to believe in it?
or it could be treated with respect to time:
III. Ancient Roots: How does the religion relate to previous and subsequent religions?
APOSTOLIC
The Apostolicity of the Church has to do with its claim to be founded, not primarily on any kind of vague philosophy or mysticism, but on concrete historical events—the teaching, miracles, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ—which were witnessed and reported by a specific group of people, the Apostles.
(Obviously, this principle is in some tension with universality, as the witnessing of a specific historical event, must happen at a specific time and place, even if the testimony later goes out into the whole world. It is this type of tension that keeps life interesting...)
The first question is whether a distinctive claim of supernatural revelation is being made at all—there are lots of things out there that people call religions, which don't have this! (And they might not even claim to. They may be perfectly nice political, philosophical, or spiritual movements nevertheless, but they aren't competing directly with the main Christian claim:
IV. Supernatural Claims: Did the religious founder claim his message came from supernatural revelation, or is it only the reflections of some wise philosopher who didn't claim to have divine sanction for their teaching?
The next questions have to do with whether the supernatural features fall under the category known as myths, that is traditional fun stories people tell about gods and heroes in the distant past, that have no real claim to be based on historical testimony:
V: Historical Accounts: This one was a double feature:
Are the primary texts describing some sort of mythological pre-history, or are they set in historical times?
&
Related, does it sound like fiction, or does it sound like history?
If it does claim to be history, how good is this claim? Too long of a time interval, and the claim is suspect:
VI: Early Sources: How long was it between the time when the supposed supernatural events took place, and when they were first written down (in a document that has had copies of it preserved). Is it early enough to suggest the text is based on testimony rather than later legends?
Finally, even if it is history, who cares? Couldn't it just have been a normal non-supernatural event?
VII: Natural Inexplicability: What are the odds that the purported supernatural events could have occurred for non-supernatural reasons?
Or could it have just been a pack of lies? If so, there might be signs of it in the historical data:
VIII: Honest Messengers: Another double feature:
Did the main witnesses benefit materially from their testimony, or did they suffer for it?
&
Is there significant evidence of fraud among the originators of the religion?
(I also wrote a bonus post IX: Delayed Return on the issue of Christ's prophecy of his Second Coming, because the overall issue of fulfilled or unfulfilled prophecy tends to come up frequently in dialogue between different religions. I'm not really sure this post belongs with the rest, as it doesn't discuss the issue across a broad section of different world religions, but I gave it a number so I can't leave it out!)
HOLY
Obviously, while historical credibility is the main concern here, the question of identifying fraud starts to raise more general questions about what is the moral and spiritual credibility of various religious movements. The Christian Church claims thinks of this function as related to holiness, a certain sort of closeness to God which Jesus enables in those who follow him. Something related to moral goodness, but which goes beyond mere conscientiousness, into something more like sacred presence.
Although the whole point of holiness is that it mixes together goodness and spirituality in a non-separable package deal, in this series we considered the two aspects separately. First we looked at moral profoundness:
X: Moral Depth: What is the general moral character of the religious teaching?
and then at the sense of felt spiritual contact with the divine:
XI: Spiritual Experience: Do people who are serious about this religion generally feel that they are put into an actual relationship with the divine?
Of course, this wraps back around to the question of universality—is this religion actually for everybody? The various topics bleed into each other and can't be fully separated.
Concluding Thoughts
First, I would like to recommend a couple of books. I cannot give credit to all the numerous material I have read about different religions over the years. But one particularly interesting book I read recently about minor religious traditions is Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms, by a former UN and British diplomat who talks about various (mostly persecuted) minor religious groups in the Middle East: the Zoroastrians, Mandaeans, Samaritans, Yidzis, and more! This is not an apologetics book, it is sociology, but if you manged to make it through all of these posts, you'll probably be interested to read about the modern experiences of some of these groups.
More foundationally, in some respects my approach in this series is secretly following St. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man. I owe to him, the idea that most Comparative Religion proceeds on the basis of essentially false parallels. He proposes dividing up the pagan religious world on quite different lines:
In this sketch of religious history, with all decent deference to men much more learned than myself, I propose to cut across and disregard this modern method of classification, which I feel sure has falsified the facts of history. I shall here submit an alternative classification of religion or religions, which I believe would be found to cover all the facts and, what is quite as important here, all the fancies. Instead of dividing religion geographically and as it were vertically, into Christian, Moslem, Brahmin, Buddhist, and so on, I would divide it psychologically and in some sense horizontally; into the strata of spiritual elements and influences that could sometimes exist in the same country, or even in the same man. Putting the Church apart for the moment, I should be disposed to divide the natural religion of the mass of mankind under such headings as these: God; the Gods; the Demons; the Philosophers. I believe some such classification will help us to sort out the spiritual experiences of men much more successfully than the conventional business of comparing religions; and that many famous figures will naturally fall into their place in this way who are only forced into their place in the other.
To be sure, St. Chesterton does not do so as a professional historian but as an early 20th century amateur relying primarily on the work of Wells, and it often shows. But he gets something essential right that a lot of smart people get wrong.
I'm not sure I ever responded anywhere to the inane atheist canard: "We are all atheists about most gods, I just disbelieve in one more than you do." While it should be obvious to anyone who carefully read this series, it is worth emphasizing that this facile dismissal really gets the terrain regarding comparative religion completely and totally backwards.
It is quite false, actually, that religions have to assert that all other religions are 100% wrong. In fact, as a committed Christian I cannot do so, because any time Christianity and another religion X agree on some proposition P, logically I have to think that religion got P right, because my only other option is to think that Christianity is wrong about it. This is not sycnretism, it is just logic.
It is NOT in fact true that there are a large number N of religions, each of which believes in N different gods, and disbelieves in the existence of all the other N-1 gods. Rather, the landscape of comparative religion mainly involves two fundamentally incompatible ideas:
1) Polytheism (worship of multiple gods, usually viewed as beings of limited power and goodness who were born at some finite time in the past), and
2) Monotheism (the belief there is only one God worthy of worship, who is viewed as the Creator of all things and supremely good).
Within each of these two groups, the atheist canard is inapplicable. When educated members of two different monotheistic traditions meet, we do NOT typically assert that the other group's God does not really exist. Rather, we recognize that the term "God" (or "Elohim", "Allah", "The Great Spirit", among some ancient philosophers "Zeus") is a reference to the one actual God who created everything. We may have somewhat divergent beliefs about this God, but we also typically agree on quite a lot, in terms of divine attributes! (When one of my Muslim friends offers to pray for me, I don't say to him "No I don't believe in Allah". Because "Allah" just means "God" in Arabic, and whatever important things we disagree on, we both agree that God exists and answers prayer.)
Somewhat similarly, when two groups of pagan polytheists meet, they seldom assume the other nation's gods are not real. They might identify them, or add them as new members to their pantheon, or claim that "my god can beat up your god". But there is no need to deny their existence. The whole point of poly-theism is that you can worship (and a forteriori, accept the existence of) multiple deities at once!
The only time claims of "nonexistence of deities" come up, between different theistic traditions, is when Monotheists critique Polytheism. In principle Monotheism and Polytheism could be combined in a henotheistic setup (one chief Classical Theist God, and also lots of little-g Homeric-style gods). But the Monotheistic tradition of Judaism and its descendants also adheres to Monolatry, the exclusive worship of one real Deity. Even though no denial that spirits higher than human beings exist (e.g. angels and demons), they are regarded as strictly finite beings, unworthy of being worshipped by free men and women.
This implies that polytheism is, at the very least deeply confused about the spiritual realm. Which is not to say there are no truths in paganism, either. As a Christian I do still see a lot of value in pagan myths at the level of imagination, and even foreshadowing of Christ!
Certainly, no decent pagan would agree that we owe no respect or piety to whatever beings are responsible for our food, rain, and birth. That is in fact an important proposition P that Christianity and Paganism are in agreement about. In other words, I would regard even pagans as being much closer to reality on this point, than atheists are.
For a sympathetic expression of pagan values—and for an understanding of the "agnostic" way that most pagans relate to the divine—it is best to consider an example from somebody who actually understands such a religious tradition from the inside. Miyazaki, the greatest animated film-maker of all time, gives us a glimpse of the psychology of the thing, in his iconic My Neighbor Totoro. (One of the few movies suitable for both 3 year olds and adults.)
I am not referring to the perspective of Mei in the film, who has actually met the big Totoro (there are three), but rather the perspective of the Dad, who I think provides a more typical Japenese attitude towards religion. Earlier in the film, the Dad says he "believes" his little daughter when she claims to have met the forest spirit Totoro. So they all take a bike ride up to the giant tree that Mei fell into earlier...
Father: What a beautiful tree it is. This tree's been here, oh, since before anyone can remember. You know, a long time ago, men and trees were the best of friends. It's actually because of this tree that I decided to buy our house in the first place. And you can bet Mommy'll like it when she sees it. So, what do you say we thank the king of the forest and get back for our lunch?
Satsuki: I have to meet Michiko after lunch to get ready for an exam.
Mei: I'm coming too!
Father: Atten-tion! (to tree) Thank you for all you've done for Mei. Please look after her and protect her forever. (All three bow.)
Mei & Satsuki: Thank you so much. (Father turns and runs)
Father: Last one home's a rotten egg!
Satsuki: Hey, that's not fair. You cheated!
Mei: Wait! Hey! Hey, wait up!
This is neither a creedal statement in the Christian sense, nor is it disbelief in the Atheist sense. It occupies a sort of in-between, uncanny space, of respect to higher and unknown powers, but without any sort of clear dogma about what those powers look like.
As Chesterton explains paganism:
Two facts follow from this psychology of day-dreams, which must be kept in mind throughout their development in mythologies and even religions. First, these imaginative impressions are often strictly local. So far from being abstractions turned into allegories, they are often images almost concentrated into idols. The poet feels the mystery of a particular forest; not of the science of afforestation or the department of woods and forests. He worships the peak of a particular mountain, not the abstract idea of altitude. [...]
The second consequence is this; that in these pagan cults there is every shade of sincerity—and insincerity. In what sense exactly did an Athenian really think he had to sacrifice to Pallas Athena? What scholar is really certain of the answer? In what sense did Dr. Johnson really think that he had to touch all the posts in the street or that he had to collect orange-peel? In what sense does a child really think that he ought to step on every alternate paving-stone? [...]
But he who has most sympathy with myths will most fully realise that they are not and never were a religion, in the sense that Christianity or even Islam is a religion. They satisfy some of the needs satisfied by a religion; and notably the need for doing certain things at certain dates; the need of the twin ideas of festivity and formality. But though they provide a man with a calendar they do not provide him with a creed. A man did not stand up and say 'I believe in Jupiter and Juno and Neptune,' etc., as he stands up and says 'I believe in God the Father Almighty,' and the rest of the Apostles Creed. Many believed in some and not in others, or more in some and less in others, or only in a very vague poetical sense in any. There was no moment when they were all collected into an orthodox order which men would fight and be tortured to keep intact. [...]
The substance of all such paganism may be summarised thus. It is an attempt to reach the divine reality through the imagination alone; in its own field reason does not restrain it at all. It is vital to view of all history that reason is something separate from religion even in the most rational of these civilisations. It is only as an afterthought, when such cults are decadent or on the defensive, that a few Neo-Platonists or a few Brahmins are found trying to rationalise them, and even then only by trying to allegorise them. But in reality the rivers of mythology and philosophy run parallel and do not mingle till they meet in the sea of Christendom. Simple secularists still talk as if the Church had introduced a sort of schism between reason and religion. The truth is that the Church was actually the first thing that ever tried to combine reason and religion. There had never before been any such union of the priests and the philosophers [...]
The crux and crisis is that man found it natural to worship; even natural to worship unnatural things. The posture of the idol might be stiff and strange; but the gesture of the worshipper was generous and beautiful. He not only felt freer when he bent; he actually felt taller when he bowed. Henceforth anything that took away the gesture of worship would stunt and even maim him for ever.
To be absolutely clear, I don't, in fact, have the same dismissive attitude towards paganism that the New Atheists claim I should have towards pagan religions. I just don't think they are revelation in the same sense that the Bible is. Nor do I think that, for the most part, pagans made such claims, even though they did of course mostly believe that the gods were real.
But the amount of religious commonality becomes much greater if you look at the other Abrahmaic religions, which between them share about 50% of the world population. If Christianity is right, then the teachings of Judaism are approximately 100% true (just not complete). And Islam is perhaps 90% true, if you focus on essentials. (Even though obviously Christians can't accept Mohammad's claim to be a true prophet, it's obviously not a big fat coincidence either that so many of his teachings—the ones that agree with previous monotheistic prophets—were correct!)
But, this does not mean that Jews and Muslims—let alone monotheists on purely philsophical grounds—have 100% of the full truths that Christians have. It makes a difference that God came in human flesh.
The doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation and Resurrection and so on, are indeed revolutionary and important and salvific religious truths. But accepting them doesn't at all require saying that everybody else is 100% wrong about everything! In fact, they build on other ideas, that are broadly shared by a wide variety of religious traditions. Which is why, when Christians share the good news, they can and should assume that their audience typically already has some idea of what they mean by "God", and the idea that we need some sort of forgiveness or redemption. These ideas might require correction, but not total repudiation. That's what it looks like when somebody has part of the truth, but is offered even more.
Nor, of course, do Christians claim to know 100% of the truths about God. Far from it! Like everyone else, we only know what was revealed to us, and there is plenty that remains mysterious.
