It has often been asked, “How can only one religion be right and all the rest wrong?”
Let’s consider an analogy. Imagine Mrs. Smith’s high school math class. On the board at the front of the room is an equation, and Mrs. Smith has invited her students to solve the equation and call out the answer. All of the students are working with the same data – the same numerals and variables, the same problem on the board. Yet, when they begin calling out their answers, each of them confidently asserts a different one.
Can we conclude that all of the answers are correct? Absolutely not! If just any answer will suffice, then the question itself is meaningless. We can never reasonably conclude that 2+2 is 5, 100, or pi just because someone was sure of their incorrect answer.
Then, can we conclude that all of the answers are wrong? We can’t do that either. Perhaps, there is one astute student who deduced the correct answer and called it out among the wrong answers of her peers.
In the same way, one religion can be true and all of the others false. The fact that there are many religions doesn’t make them all true. Since all religions contradict each other on several essential points, they cannot all be true. However, the fact that there are many religions doesn’t make them all false either. Even though all religions attempt to understand and interpret the data of reality – like a classroom of math students attempting to solve an equation – it is possible that some come to the correct conclusion.
So how do we know which one is correct, when there are so many that must be incorrect? We must carefully and objectively look at the data. As it turns out, there is much evidence for Christianity, over and against the competing religions of the world. (1) The best explanation of the beginning of the universe is an all-powerful, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, and personal uncaused Cause. These attributes are in line with the biblical God. (2) There is a wealth of historical data that support the existence, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. This and other data confirm Jesus’ own words in John 14:6 – “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
The claim that Christianity is true and all other religions false is a bold claim and a very unpopular one. However, that does not make it untrue. If the truth claims of Christianity correspond to reality, then it is true regardless of how many other religions exist in the world, or how many good and faithful adherents those other religions have. One religion can be true and all others false, just as 2+2=4, whether or not other people proposed different answers.
Coffee with Kevin 