“Get with it. We live in a globalized world with different points of view! Muslims believe one thing and Hindus believe another thing. Why believe only Jesus is the way?” So say our skeptical friends.
To navigate struggles of life we need to know that what we believe about the anchor of our soul is, in fact, true. One of the pillars of the anchor of Jesus, is that he is the savior of mankind. And not just a savior, but the savior. There is no other. Some argue that Christians are arrogant for thinking they have the one true truth.
Well Jesus of Nazareth said “I am the way the truth and the life, no man comes to the father but by me.” (John 14:6)
If you have issue with that, you will have to take that up with Jesus himself.
So how do we address this objection?
i. First: Logically, the person assumes there cannot be only one way. Why not? Why assume that and why assume that there is no one truth claim? Turn the question back on the questioner. If the person claims that there is no truth in the world that is independent of human reasoning, ask him “Is what you just said true? That no one has the truth? If that is true, then you have the truth, and that is what philosophers call a self-refuting statement, like “I can’t speak a word of English”. If it is not true, then why speak it? Either Jesus is right or he is not. He cannot be both.
ii. Second: You cannot, let me repeat; you cannot believe something you know is false. Christians think they have the truth because they believe it is true. All people believe ONLY what they think is true. It is impossible to believe otherwise. This applies to Muslims as much as it does to atheists.
iii. Third: Is it arrogant for a doctor to tell his patient that she has a terminal illness? Is telling bad news honestly, arrogant? Christians are beggars telling other beggars they found food, real food, for the soul. That is not arrogant.
iv. Forth: This objection is a caricature, an ad hominem attack, which is a logical fallacy. Instead of evaluating the claim that Christians make, skeptics are attacking the Christian who made the claim. That is like saying “I don’t trust what my math teacher says about Math because she is rude!” That is a logical fallacy. Even if Christians are rude, that does not negate the truth or false hood of what they claim.
v. Fifth: Christians should NEVER be prideful, but provide a reason or the hope they have with respect and love. Ravi Zacharias said it best “if truth is not undergirded by love, it makes the possessor of that truth obnoxious and the truth repulsive.”
vi. Sixth: Truth by its nature is exclusive. What that means is that if X is true, the opposite of X MUST be false. If God exists, then it follows that the proposition that God does not exist, must be false. If it is true, then by default any other system that contradicts it must be false. Again, Truth by definition is exclusive.
vii. Seventh: Exclusivism is not limited to the Christian faith, every single religious system has a point of exclusion. Muslims, Hindus and even the welcoming Bahai faith excludes those who take a different exclusive position.
viii. Eighth: Most religions do have a great deal of truth to them; otherwise people would not follow them. But only Jesus claims to be the truth that all other truths are shadows of.
I welcome everyone, especially Christians, who grew up being told to believe this, to investigate the unique life, work, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth in contrast with other leaders from the primary sources themselves, the Gospels.
Jesus is just amazing.
I teach classes on world religions, and I have found that religious leaders teach people how to be good and improve their world. Jesus does that too, but he does something none of the others do. They try to make bad people become good people. Jesus takes dead people and makes them alive.
He said “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” John 11: 25-26
