By Tin-chee Lo (卢天赐 T.C. Lo); August 27, 2014
Among all religions in the world, why is only Christianity credible?
Many people said, “All religions are fundamentally the same but superficially different (when they come to the matter of outward religious behaviors). But the truth is,” All religions are superficially the same but fundamentally different (when they come to the matter of doctrines). One of the fundamental differences is:
For Christianity, we start with redemption (by grace, not one’s own merit) and then move to morality, and finally move to worship. However, for ALL other religions, the believers start with worship with a sincere heart, then move to good work (such as building bridges and mending roads and showing compassion to people with all kinds of charities) with the hope (i.e., without certainty) that they may go to heaven because they think they deserve it due to their good merits.
Yet another fundamental difference is Divine Revelations (i.e., the Bible) vs. Humanistic Ideas (e.g. Sigmund Freud)
One-day Martha baked a cake and brought it to the office to share with co-workers. Her colleagues were scientists in various fields and every one of them tasted a piece. As usual, they loved to talk shop all the time and everyone wrote a short report about the cake.
- A nutritionist calculated the number of calories and reported on how they would affect the human health.
- A biologist analyzed the cake in terms of protein and fat and their molecular structure.
- A chemist described the cake in terms of basic elements and their locations on the Periodic Table.
- A physicist even went so far to get down to the level of fundamental particles.
- A mathematician came up with a complex equation to describe the quantum state of the atoms.
Up to this point, they could confidently claim that they fully understood and were able to explain every aspect of the cake. Really? Another coworker came, not knowing what had happened, and asked, “Why did Martha bake a cake for you guys today? What was her purpose? Someone’s birthday? Celebrate someone’s promotion?” Every scientist offered his or her own answer to this “stranger” but no one was sure. Was there no reliable answer? Not so! Martha was the one who knew the truth; only she would be able to give the right answer.
On day, a father brought his five years old son to New York City. It was the first time this farm boy saw so many edifices than trees and animals. Full of enthusiasm, this little child shook away from his father’s grip and ran among the crowds. Quickly, his excitement gave way to consternation and the boy lost sight of his father and scrambled to look for him in a frenzy. Now comes the question: Was it easier for the child to find his father? Or Was it easier for the father to find his son? I think everybody knows the answer.
A familiar fable of the ancient Middle East told that an Indian king of Benares brought along five blind men to the presence of an elephant. The first blind man touched the trunk and said, “Elephant is a water hose.” The second blind man touched the leg and said, “Elephant is a building column.” The third one came along, touching the huge mammal’s side and exclaimed with certainty, “Ah, elephant is a great wall.” The fourth blind man stood near the flapping ear and said, “elephant is a fan”. Lastly, the fifth man came in contact with the tail, he was frightened then stepped back and yelled, “Elephant is actually a snake.” The blind men expressed their perceptions based on their past experiences. Their partial understandings were far from reality. But who had the whole truth? Indisputably, is the king having sight.
One more illustration to bring home the point I am about to make. Here we have another seemingly self-evident question but worthy for our reflection: How do you know with certainty that you are indeed the child of your father? The answer is, “You don’t know. Unless your mother told you so, you wouldn’t know for sure.” Even if your father told you, you could only accept his answer by faith; only your mother can offer an answer with certainty. Strictly speaking, I should have asked, “How do you know you are the child of your mother?”
From the above illustrations, we’ve arrived at a very important point: The necessity of revelation—the most reliable way to know the truth is through revelation. What does revelation mean? Revelation means you have no way of knowing the truth unless someone who is cleverer, wiser, mightier, and more insightful and more perceptive than you tell you. Had it not been for his revelation, you would be like one of the blind men who only knows at best the partial truth based on you own speculation.
Religions by and large can be divided into two big categories: Humanistic Religions and Revelatory Religions. In humanistic religions, gods are products of human imagination. As diversified as the human races, their manners of crying for transcendent are naturally variegated. The result is that there would be countless gods invented to suit peoples’ insatiable needs and tastes as we have already observed. People are competing in claiming that their gods are the ultimate ones. With various different gods it results in limitless number of religions. Do you know that in India alone there are 330 millions of deities (Ref.1)? People select what suit them best from this spiritual smorgasbord. Buddhism, for example, is an atheistic philosophy—a thought born from human contemplation and reflection. When it was spread to China, many outlandish deities were created with fashions not unlike the Greek mysticism; these deities are merely products of pure human imagination. Taiwan is a very small island, about the size of New Jersey, yet Buddhist and Taoist temples were everywhere, you have to be blind to have missed them. The registered temples amount to 30 thousands, not counting the folksy “earth gods (土地公)” in virtually all houses and commercial buildings. We can safely say that human based worships are forms of idolatry.
In Revelatory Religions, the epistemology about God is based on what God tells men. Apart from God’s revelation, men can only speculate God, but they cannot know God. Men can sense His existence but by no means know Him. From the aforementioned illustrations comes the deduction that Revelatory Religions are more tenable and reliable thought-systems than do Humanistic Religions. Once this proposition is accepted, a very great variety of religions can be ruled out from considerations: Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Hinduism are religions based on human reflections and musings. The Chinese folk-religions are created from human greed and needs; they are basically self-serving utilitarianism. In China, there are still people today worshiping Mao Zedong as their god. If we rule out these religions from our considerations, what remain are only a handful: Christianity, Islam, Jehovah Witnesses, and Mormonism (Church of Latter Day Saints) whose starting point is divine revelation. Are there any criteria based on which we can test and thus differentiate the truthfulness from falsehood?
In the Revelatory Religions, the infinite God Himself is the revealer, and men are receivers of the divine revelation. Since men are finite, limited, far from having enough capacity for their perceptions and understandings, no single individual is capable of receiving God’s supernatural, transcendent, and timeless revelation in its entirety at one time. Even an individual is qualified to be God’s oracle bearer, the messages received would only be understood by his generation at best and not beyond, and be hardly convinced by his contemporaries that the message he receives will be applicable to all generations after him. It thus stands to reason that the “to-many-people-at-many-times” revelation, known as “Progressive Revelation”, makes more sense than the “to-one-person-at-one-time” revelation which we conveniently call “Abrupt Revelation”. The examples of “Abrupt Revelation” are many:
Mohammad was said that in one specific night angel Gabriel appeared to him and then he rode on a donkey taking a trip to heaven where he purportedly received spiritual revelation. He was confounded and confused, not knowing what was all about until his companion told him that the voices he heard was from Allah in heaven. Out of his absence of self-understanding, Islam was born (Ref. 2).
The head quarter of the Mormons is today in Salt Lake City, Utah. The founder of this religion was Joseph Smith. On September 22, 1823 over the hill of Cumorah near Palmyra, New York, Smith met Angel Moroni who gave him the gold plates on which some Reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics were engraved. With the aid of Urim and Thummim (things that Old Testament religious leaders used to decide on things), Smith was said to have translated the writings into what is known today as the Book of Mormon. The Church of the latter-Day Saints was born (Ref. 3).
Christianity is characterized by Progressive Revelation as told by the Bible and sustained by human history. It is markedly different from the Islam and the Mormon belief-systems which are characterized by Abrupt Revelation purported by their respective founders. The Old Testament of the Bible is a record of how in the past God spoke to Hebrew ancestors through 40 prophets (not just one) at many times (not at one instance) and in various ways (not merely one way). This long string of Progressive Revelations ended at the crescendo when God in the New Testament times spoke to mankind through his Son Jesus Christ whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe (Hebrews 1:1-2). The centrality of the revealed message was that Jesus Christ was God, same in essence as the Father. The process of the biblical Progressive Revelation spanned a period of 1600 year, not one moment, not one day. The prophets recorded what they had received in 66 distinct books. These 66 books are not a collection of individual unrelated writings, they altogether form the Bible with remarkable coherency and consistency. The Greek word for Bible is biblos which means the Book with continuity.
What was the significance of having more than 40 authors of different generations spanning over 1600 years? Let’s look at Hebrews 1:1-2 which reads: “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.” This verse says:
- God spoke to His people through the prophets and apostles—Bible was meant to be written for all peoples. Hence, it was necessary that God’s truth be revealed not just to one person but many agencies of different backgrounds so that different peoples throughout history might perceive God’s time-tested messages in the ways understandable by them. For the Bible, God had spoken to the prophets in the Old Testament times and to the Apostles in the New Testament times.
- God spoke to His people at many times—Had God revealed His Word just to Abraham at one instance, people might have said, “Ah! The Bible is only good for Abraham’s generation! It is nothing to do with me.” But God did reveal His word over a span of 1600 year traversing so many generations, so no one could argue that the Bible is only good for the people of old in one or at most two or three generations. The barriers between successive generations known today as “Generation Gaps” have been repeatedly leveled off by Progressive Revelations in successive manner.
- God spoke to His people in various ways—Men are created by God with great diversities—cultures, races, places, languages. Each one of us has different degrees of spiritual perception. None of us are capable of grasping the whole truth due to our finitude. This was why God needed to disclose His message bit by bit at different times through many generations with very different methods and fashions of communications suitable for peoples of different places and times in history. God spoke to prophets of the Old Testament in riddles, visions, dreams, and through His intervention of ordinary history as shown in the stories of Joseph, Moses, and Esther, etc. This process of Progressive Revelation makes the preponderance of the divine message bearable by spreading over many message-bearers according to their spiritual capacities.
- God completes His revelation by sending His Son Jesus Christ into the world—Throughout history God’s Progressive Revelations were coherent and consistent and with an amazingly unified flow of thought. All these piecemeal revelations were ultimately converged to a Person—Jesus Christ. The product of Progressive Revelation was the Bible which was viewed as the Written Word of God and the introduction of Jesus Christ which was recognized as the Living Word of God—the Incarnation is God. The God-man Jesus was the only one in human history who could fully live out the Written Word. Apostle John says. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind” (John 1: 1-4). The Word mentioned by John is the Living Word, Jesus Christ.
We can conclude that the Progressive Revelation claimed by Christians is far more reasonable than the Abrupt Revelation claimed by Mohammad and Joseph Smith and the rest of them in their Abrupt Revelation category of religions. Now, if the product of the Progressive Revelation was the Bible and the Bible was claimed to be more trustworthy then all other religious tomes, then the Bible must possess certain unique characteristics. What are they? Few uniqueness can be enumerated:
- As it has been said: The internal consistency and coherency of the Bible found in 66 books written by more than 40 authors over the period of 1600 years have been demonstrated.
- The fulfillment of the prophecies—One quarter of the Bible were written in form of prophecy at the time of writing. All prophecies had been fulfilled apart from those concerning the Second Coming of Christ and the End-time events awaiting to be seen in the future.
- No other books have been ever written in as many languages and for as many peoples and cultures as the Bible itself.
- The entire Bible, directly and indirectly, points to one Person who is noble, blameless, and perfect. This Person is Jesus Christ.
- Countless external evidences outside the Bible, including the archaeological evidences, are unmatched by any other books and therefore they sustain the reliability and the historicity of the Bible.
If Jesus is the centerpiece and the consummation of God’s revelation as mentioned earlier, He is expected to exhibit some uniqueness over all other religious leaders. Here are just some examples:
- Jesus is sinless. His purity was testified by His family, His disciples, His enemies–the Jews and the Gentiles alike. No other religious founders could be said of blameless. Jesus’ sinlessness is necessary if He claims to be our Savior.
- If Jesus had to be sinless, He must not possess the sinful human being’s DNA. This means that His birth must be supernatural. Virgin birth is the most reasonable thing to believe. Even Muslims—the enemy of Christianity—agrees with the biblical claim of Virgin Birth in their Koran.
- Jesus had the ability to perform miracles as claimed by the Gospels and sustained by extra biblical records of ordinary history.
- The undeniable resurrection of Christ—Jesus was the origin of Easter. Serious skeptics wanting to disprove Christ’s resurrection ended up believing it after exhaustive investigations.
- Jesus’s self-understanding of His divinity was unprecedented. Mohammad had to be told by his companion that he was the prophet chosen by Allah, but Jesus never doubted His identity.
- Christ was the only one in human history who could described the human depravity that corresponded to reality as we know it. Human sins have either been denied or marginalized by men throughout history, but Jesus pointed out without equivocation the depth of human lostness.
- Not just knowing our malady, Christ provides a unique solution to our malady. Jesus Christ voluntarily and willingly entered into human history to reveal Himself to us and provide salvation to humankind by way of the cross.
Each of the above points of uniqueness (Ref. 4) is a thesis by and in itself. They are listed here to provoke thinking for the readers, so they may pursue further studies.
After we have had the based understanding of the “uniqueness of the Bible” and the “uniqueness of Jesus Christ,” we can now summarize a few key points that we should remember in our hearts:
- The God of the Bible, in His mercy and just, sent His only begotten Son to die for the sins of mankind. No religion in the world has such astonishing claims where love and justice converge at point of the cross.
- Christianity is based on historical facts. As such, it can be studied. For example, we can not only find internal evidences in the Bible for the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but also can use external evidences of history and science to confirm its validity.
- The reliability of the Bible as a historical document sets Christianity apart from other belief systems. The numbers of manuscripts for both OT and NT are enormous.
- The deepest questions about life that define a worldview are:
- Origin: Where did we come from?
- Meaning: What is our ultimate purpose of life?
- Ethics: How should we live?
- Destinate: Where shall we go after death?
Only the Christian worldview can provide coherent and satisfactory answers to these critical questions. Knowing how to test the truthfulness of religions (as we did in this article) is one thing, making personal commitment to a religion is quite another. Finally, I must point out that committing to a wrong belief could have perilous consequences. Men and women who lack a biblical worldview tend to think of religion as the noblest expression of the human character. Popular opinion in the world at large has generally regarded religion as something inherently admirable, honorable, and beneficial. In reality, no other field of the humanities—philosophy, literature, the arts, or whatever—holds quite as much potential for mischief as religion. Nothing is more thoroughly evil than false religions, and the more false-teachers try to cloak themselves in the robes of biblical truth, the more truly Satanic they are (Ref. 5). This was why Jesus oftentimes scathingly condemn the false teachers and cult leaders. Like Jesus, Apostle Paul held the same view toward false religions. Strictly speaking, I personally do not like to call Christianity a “religion”. I like to call it Gospel because all religions are Merit based but the Gospel is Grace based. Jesus did not come to the world to make bad people good; He came to the world to make dead people live. Christianity is NOT one of the religions but all about “relationship”. To be a Christian means to have a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
How am I to be a Christian? Simply put, there are four steps: (1) Recognize that I am a sinner. (2) Acknowledge that I cannot save myself. (3) Believe that Jesus is willing to be my personal Savior. (4) Repent from my heart and commit my soul to Jesus Christ.
Once you confess that Christ is your personal Savior, you will immediately discover that the Holy Spirit who indwells your heart is the ultimate guarantee of Christian faith and truth. We do well to remember this.
References:
- The Grand Weaver” by Ravi Zacharias; p.95
- “The Case for Faith” by Lee Strobel; p.69
- “The Teachings of Mormonism” by John H. Gerstner.
- “歷史的軌跡 The Church in History” by 祁伯爾 (B. K. Kuiper) (李林靜芝譯); p.453.
- “新鐵證待判” by 更新製作小組.
Other related readings:
- https://hocl.org/blogs/tincheelo/?p=779
- https://hocl.org/blogs/tincheelo/?p=469
- https://hocl.org/blogs/tincheelo/?p=284
- https://hocl.org/blogs/tincheelo/?p=59
