The Trilemma

                 For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. (I Timothy 2:5-6)

            Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John  14:6)

             Philosophy: the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.

             Today’s verses awaken the logician and, therefore the debater in me. For those who aren’t into such things, the fact that I’m on the road and therefore have very little time to write will likely be a welcome benefit. Some folks, particularly the ones who want an excuse to reject any god (especially Jehovah God,) claim that all religions are the same. In a sense, they’re correct. All religions address the nature of the universe, how it came to be, and mankind’s relationship with it and each other. That’s really the definition of a religion. It’s also the definition of philosophy, though I’ve included the dictionary’s definition above.

            So, since the universe is the universe and people are people, there are some observable truths that religions and philosophies have in common. Since most philosophies are reductionist in that they exclude discussion of the spiritual realm, they may exclude the question of what is necessary to obtain eternal life (by whatever name). Still, the only way that is to their credit is in their admission that they fall short in that regard.

            This means that it’s not surprising that there is some version of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” in most religions and philosophies. It’s also not surprising that there would be some version of “how do you get to heaven?” in those brave enough to consider the existence of heaven. But this is where folks get confused. They look at the Mosaic Law (or perhaps only the Ten Commandments), the five pillars of Islam, and even the Egyptian scales (one’s heart must be as light as a feather) and conclude that man can earn a place in heaven by following rules. They decided that’s what all religions are like. And therefore, they conclude that all religions are equally valid, equally good/bad, etc.

            As C.S. Lewis points out in Mere Christianity, Jesus doesn’t let us do that with Christianity. In fact, God doesn’t let us do that with Judaism, either – because keeping the Mosaic Law didn’t earn someone eternal life. It allowed one a temporal life. If you didn’t obey it, you were excommunicated or executed. Abraham, Isaac, Israel, Moses, Joshua, David, the prophets, and others clarified that something more was available.

            But once Jesus came along, things changed. He took away the “sameness” of the religions. Anyone who claims that Christianity is the same as every other religion has not done sufficient research because today’s passages make it clear that Christianity is (supposed to be) Christ-centered. Jesus said He is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one can come to God except by Him. Later, Paul explains that there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. Quite a few other verses make it clear that true Christianity does not permit the other ways and gods of the other religions.

            And it also makes it clear that what you and I believe doesn’t matter. According to Jesus, “my truth” and “your truth” are only the truth if they correspond with Him and His Word. We are not gods and don’t get to make the rules. The majority of religions understand that not all roads go to Heaven. We wouldn’t want Hitler to get into Heaven based on his beliefs about the universe. We couldn’t live in a Heaven in which he and his friends get to rule. For Heaven to be Heaven, there must be one God, one rule, one reality. There may be significant freedom under that god, rule, or reality, but a Heaven in which some people are forgiven, some people get sent to Purgatory to pay off their debt to the universe, and some people are returned to earth with no knowledge of how they failed in their former lives– with the task of getting it right this time, some people get into heaven by killing other people, or by being killed in battle, and some get to stay because they said they get to stay – sounds more like chaos than Heaven.

            No, as C.S. Lewis put it, Jesus is either the Lord or He is a liar or a lunatic – and those who try to claim that the statements attributed to Jesus were virtually put in His mouth by later writers (Paul or Constantine, for example) don’t help their own cause – because that’s just another way of saying that Jesus is a liar. If we cannot believe that He said that He is the way, the truth, and the life and that no one comes to the Father but by Him, we also can’t believe anything else He said, including that we should love one another. The trilemma remains.