I have been discussing this with Bob somewhere else, and with Soldout to a degree, but I wish that all christians on this religious board will tell me more about what they believe. I believe, as I told Bob, that you have at least two trends within Christianity nowdays. One that agrees with Christianity’e claims to exclusivity and another, more spiritual side that more humbly would agree that their religion is not the only path, not the exclusive path, towards the Father. Of course, I have more affinity towards these later "christians but I have always found them wanting in scriptural backing from the mouth of Jesus. So, give me your opinion folks: Is Jesus the exclusive path towards God or not?
First of all, I don’t agree with your assumption that a more “humble” approach is to deny exclusivity. If I ate cheerios for breakfast would it be more humble to agree with you that I actually had bacon and eggs? Or would it simply be dishonest?
Actually, I’m convinced that those who deny exclusivity do so from a position of pride rather than humility. If I tell you that my beliefs are equal in value to yours, I may be doing so because I am recognizing the value of different opinions (and I suppose that this could be seen as humility). Alternatively, I could make the same argument purely because to do so prevents any direct challenge to my own position (basically if every view is correct, then it stands to reason that my own view is correct, right?). I think this is what is going on among those who deny exclusivity. It’s a simply a means to encourage mutual backscratching. The alternative requires a defense of your exclusive position and some analysis of the competing positions. And for most folks thats just too much like hard work…
Anyway, as you probably know, I believe that Jesus is the exclusive way to God
What does that mean? Does it mean following his teachings?
In my opinion, we should not refer to Jesus when we talk about the Way or Salvation but Christ. In my opinion, what is referred to as ‘the Way’ is the attaining of what New Wavers call Christ consciousness and this consciousness has been called by different names already long before Christianity.
Hello Ned:
— First of all, I don’t agree with your assumption that a more “humble” approach is to deny exclusivity. If I ate cheerios for breakfast would it be more humble to agree with you that I actually had bacon and eggs? Or would it simply be dishonest?
O- Not the same. The same would be that you tell me that you nor anyone should eat Bacon and Eggs, but eat, exclusively, cheerios.
— Actually, I’m convinced that those who deny exclusivity do so from a position of pride rather than humility. If I tell you that my beliefs are equal in value to yours, I may be doing so because I am recognizing the value of different opinions (and I suppose that this could be seen as humility).
O- A master of suspicion aren’t you?
— Alternatively, I could make the same argument purely because to do so prevents any direct challenge to my own position (basically if every view is correct, then it stands to reason that my own view is correct, right?).
O- Another conclusion from the premises is that if all reasons are correct then none of them is or could claim to be correct. If every-thing is correct, then no-single-thing is correct. A quote I read as of late said that the danger of atheism was not the loss of belief in any given thing, but the adquisition of belief in just about everything. Religion, in my opinion Ned, has a virtue in it’s very atheism…I mean exclusivism. I know that you’re not alone Ned. But do you realize the immoral conclusions that can be drawn from your beliefs?
— I think this is what is going on among those who deny exclusivity. It’s a simply a means to encourage mutual backscratching. The alternative requires a defense of your exclusive position and some analysis of the competing positions. And for most folks thats just too much like hard work…
O- Maybe you could be more sympathetic. Maybe they are exhausted of contention which led to nothing. Maybe they found that flaw in the whole thing…that is that the defense of one exclusive position inadvertedly defends all other exclusive positions and the reasons for condemnations of other exclusive religions condemns the same condemnator.
I take it that for you there are different paths nominally, but all paths are One Path, i.e. The Way towards the Christ Consciousness?
These questions are largely made irrelevant, I think, by a proper understanding of the implications of God being a Person.
From the story of Mary of Egypt, from copticchurch.net/topics/syne … fegypt.htm
You didn’t understand my point. If the denial of exclusivity is to be the preferred and “humble” position among us, then what’s the person to do who honestly believes that their holy scriptures explicitly teach exclusivity. It seems you are asking them either to lie about their beliefs, or to admit that they are not “humble”. You seem to have prejudged the discussion before it began.
Possibly. But didn’t Jesus say something about that?
I fail to see any attraction in that position, if it can actually be described as a position. If all reasons are correct, then I’m a circus fire-eater. But I’m also bored…
Actually, I’m alone right now 
I think we’ve been over that ground before if I’m not mistaken and your basis for deciding what is moral and immoral is a little different from mine.
Maybe you simply have a more optimistic view of human nature than I do. In my opinion, people who deny exclusivity do so because it’s easy and provides a nice peaceful shelter from any attack on their position, including anything from within their own cranium. It’s a lazy man’s excuse for actually making a decision and being held accountable.
I think you are on the right track. The question is on what basis or what authority anyones opinion is based on. Since none of us are eyewitnesses to Jesus, we are getting our authority from some other source, or we are just making it up on our own authority. If you want to know what Jesus taught, you are going to have to determine what represents the eyewitness testimony. You need to establish by historical evidence what authority you are going to rely on. I would strongly recommend that you do some historical research. Beware, do not do your research on the internet, web search does not equal research. Start by reading the New Testament if you haven’t already. After that, stick to information from those who are recognized New Testment historical scholars who back up any claims they make with historical evidence. Read books that both affirm and deny the reliability of the New Testment. Beware of those that make claims but provide no evidence to back it up, there are plenty of them. Their interest isn’t in historical accuracy but in selling books, or pushing some philosophical position, and they pick and choose what evidence they use.
Uccissore, I am sorry to say but I did not really understand how the story here points to God as a Person. I would like to know what you mean by “Person”, because one of the attributes granted to God is that of a Being a Spirit and one of the accusation made against believers is that of anthropomorphising God as a person. Maybe a spirit is a person, but this is not clearly tradition. I think that the allegorical value of some passages where Israel is the unfaithful wife and God the patient husband do invite one to consider God as if He was a person. Even the use of the pronoun “He” further objectifies what is most likely sexless and without a body as if it did. But I think that such understandings are a way of understandings and not necessarly the “proper” way. But I’ll grant you this:
It is when God is most regarded as a Person that God becomes mostly the God of exclusivity, the jealous God, the Husband of one woman and not all women. Understanding God so mythically does eliminate most conflict with a claimed exclusivity but I don’t know if the pious are as simple as the scriptures. We live in a world that screams in horror at any perceived form of slavery. They lived amidst slavery and inequality of every kind. The lived in a time of death sentences for the most slight of infractions. We live in an age that is trying to outlaw the death penalty. When this age sets itself to reinterpret the Bible, is it any surprise that everything is allegorized because the probable original idea, such as an actual Hell, strikes our moral coil? We are more aware, after the last age of humanism, of the common brotherhood of humanity and so even exclusive claims against people like you and me, have made exclusive claims more difficult. We are now living in the time of postmodernism, or just emerging from it, but the situation is similar to that Plato encountered in Athens, plagued with sophists. The Christian God, that Person filled with wrath, jealousy, vengance, is being replaced by an Aristotle-like Mover, empty in all the right ways to allow for the maximum projection effect. Synmachus would be right at home in a world that challenges the Pope left and right.
If there is a problem with exclusivity it is because we live in an inclusive society.
If you take the story of Mary of Egypt on face value, nobody evangelized to her, and her salvation was not contingent on her acceptance of any teachings of propositions. As far as I can tell, the acceptance of propositions was a result of her salvation.
Because God is a person, we are saved by Him, period. What does exclusivism mean in the face of that? Will your mother still love you if you get struck on the head and come to believe that she is a goat, or that she doesn’t exist at all? Yes, I reckon so. Does that love mean those beliefs are equally desireable and acceptable to the truth? No, I suppose not. If a person opposes exclusivism because they want the freedom to make God in their own image and follow a religion that offers concessions to their personal conceits, then they aren’t following Christ or loving God even if they chose the right religion. If a person understands the importance of approaching this with humility and love, and strive to work out the truth, then they are heading in the right general direction even if they screw up and choose a false path.
I can see how a person can come to eventually know Christ through a religion other than Christianity, but I cannot see how a person can embrace pluralism except out of ego, which is anathema.
Hello Uccissore:
I can appreciate better your point and I would defend it, but it is less than christian. A jew would definetly agree, but not the writer of John, for example, or the Christian, so-called, Fathers.
A lot of times the story goes that someone accepted God as their personal saviour on their own. The story you told me does not specify, but if today’s society is exemplary of all societies, then religious awareness is not something that we can be sheltered from. I think that it is possible to conclude that the woman was not a practicing christian, just as Paul was not a christian, but perhaps both were dealing with a religious society, much like our own, in which one was unable not to consider the claims of others. I get proselitizers at home, I see them preaching on the Plaza in Puerto Rico (pick any town), no different than Jesus’s ministry or The Baptist’s. I simply cannot conceived of a blank slate at this point and believe that the woman, if she was real, was probably holding an internal discourse, just as much as some of our atheists and agnostics on this board who are imbued with the Christian God, and that she already had perceived from her companions a set of common taboos to be accepted prior to acceptance.
Now you ask some valid questions that had been asked before by a Roman pagan and later by enlightened philosophers. If you do what is right, regadless of your religion, will the same Father who is in Heaven not regard you with favor? But I am not talking about “screwing” up and following the wrong path and being forgiven for your error because that in effect is what I mean by exclusivism. You hold that there is a right way and a wrong way to regard what is God and that one can still find his way towards God because forgives our error (Forgive us for we know not what we do). A child may say that 2+2=5, although 2+2=4 exclusively. But will his mother love him any less? Will she not battle to eventually show him that exclusive truth she knows? That is exclusivism. bening, but still exclusive.
Your position is similar to Ratzinger’s. Any other path has value, if at all, as preparatory for catholicism, as a path towards Christ. That, exclusively, is a man’s only chance for salvation. Apart from the Church, a man, or child is saved by the mercy of God. But Woe, still, to that child if he refuses to believe the instruction that his mother is not a goat, that resists the Truth revealed to him, that insists that his error is the truth, that 2+2=5, being shown full well that this is impossible. What will that Mother do to him?
Hello Ned:
— You didn’t understand my point. If the denial of exclusivity is to be the preferred and “humble” position among us, then what’s the person to do who honestly believes that their holy scriptures explicitly teach exclusivity.
O- Can’t a person be “honestly” arrogant?
— It seems you are asking them either to lie about their beliefs, or to admit that they are not “humble”. You seem to have prejudged the discussion before it began.
O- All right. I am not going to force you to admit that you’re arrogant by claiming exclusive knowledge of the truth. But answer me this: How do you know that you know what is the truth? You believe that there is a single path to God, right? Well then tell me, how do you know that you have found the right path amidst all the possible errors?
Some things to consider:
1- Many use their personal experience as proof, but as everyone claims the same means of demonstration and still end up with different paths than yours, it seems that experience alone cannot be the cause of your correct decision.
2- Further, if you insist to claim their error then you claim a superior perspective (a greater sensation) of that of your fellow humans, not very humbly, that has allowed you to grasp with your senses what the senses of everyone else could not or failed to do.
3- Many claim the same superiority but differ in their path so how can I tell who of you all is actually in possession of the truth? All things are pretty much equal. Same aspirations, same limitations, or same claims of infallibility. Only different paths. You tell me that only one is telling the truth…they all agree, but they all, including you, believe that they have the truth, though that “truth” is an error in the eyes of the rest.
— Maybe you simply have a more optimistic view of human nature than I do. In my opinion, people who deny exclusivity do so because it’s easy and provides a nice peaceful shelter from any attack on their position,
O- I find people who claim exclusivity as equally shelttered from having to test the contents of what they prejudge as “error”. In their mind you do not have to try every combination of 2+2 to observe the clear fact that the product is actually 4. It is a comforting thought that it is all so simple…
— including anything from within their own cranium. It’s a lazy man’s excuse for actually making a decision and being held accountable.
O- I doubt that the inclusivist has not made a decision in his belief in the equality of the paths. I can certainly bring up several arguments that would support that conclusion, that decision if ever someone held that person accountable for his conviction.
Omar:
Everything I’m saying here I’m getting from the Church and the Church Fathers, so please don’t mistake me for a wingnut theologian, those days are behind me.
Also, it’s not quite as simple as ‘doing what is right’- remember the Good Thief. If you want to make it about doing the right thing, then be aware that a conscious, devoted awareness of and relationship with God is on the top of that list, and is more important than whether or not you were a liar or a murderer. I know that probably sounds like exclusivity again, and to an extent it is, but still remember that God is a conscious, acting force in the world, capable of meeting us where we are, and is not a set of abstract principles to be agreed with or else not.
Yes, just as God will hopefully forgive the piles and piles of errors I make in my life, theological and otherwise.
I mostly agree with that, at least, as much as a non-Catholic can, I suppose. I don’t think God is limited to only acting in the lives of people who have been baptized, for example, but I do think the Church is His Church.
Woah, No no no no. Even within the Church, especially within the church, a man or child is saved only by the mercy of God, as well. It’s important not to see participating in the Church as a sort of salvation-inducing magic spell.
Well, you’re talking to someone who doesn’t believe in Hell as an actively discrete place from Heaven. But, somebody who hasn’t been tempered in this life can experience the presence of God painfully, it seems.
Uccissore:
— Everything I’m saying here I’m getting from the Church and the Church Fathers, so please don’t mistake me for a wingnut theologian, those days are behind me.
O- We shall test your orthodoxy. I do see you more in line…I even compared your opinions to the Pope’s.
— Woah, No no no no. Even within the Church, especially within the church, a man or child is saved only by the mercy of God, as well. It’s important not to see participating in the Church as a sort of salvation-inducing magic spell.
O- I meant “Church” in the highest of sense. “Church” as His Body, “Church” as the vehicle, the carrier and deliverer of Truth. Many are invited to the Church, but few are chosen to be His Church, His Body. I don’t think that Ratzinger believes that everyone who is at the plaza is saved, but they have a better chance than those at the synagogue or the conference for Scientology etc… The congreagation is like a student and the Church is school, the Pope of course is the teacher. Now there are mathematical truths that are grasped even without instruction (intuited)…as if by the mercy of a mathematical God, but mathematical intuitions in themselves do not make one a mathematician. The school teacher has to step in to explain to them what they have so far intuited (Paul in Athens).
— Well, you’re talking to someone who doesn’t believe in Hell as an actively discrete place from Heaven. But, somebody who hasn’t been tempered in this life can experience the presence of God painfully, it seems.
O- So much for your orthodoxy…there is still a bit of a wingnut in you my friend.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_in_Ch … _Orthodoxy
Not saying anything Gregory the Theologian or Church Fathers haven’t always asserted to be the case, and if I am, I take it back. : )
I don’t know, but like I said, your prejudice in the matter was clear from the beginning.
Alrighty then.
It’s a good question, and one that relativists or atheists ask all the time. But you probably already know that I can only provide a subjective answer. I believe simply because I have faith, or some other variation on this circular theme. I don’t claim to have any evidence that can convince anyone of anything. But it convinces me and obviously that’s enough for me. The Christian gospel makes startling claims about reality that are absurd and unprovable but when I first heard it, I knew it was the truth. And I’ve heard many other competing claims in my time. But every time I hear the gospel it never fails to resonate. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I obviously have experience, but I do not claim that it is proof of anything.
I don’t see it in those terms at all. I don’t claim to have grasped or claimed anything. I claim to have been given something, namely faith. And I make no apology for having it, even if it upsets you. If that makes me arrogant then fine. As I said, I’m not going to lie to you.
Well, it’s an interesting question, but this is your problem, not mine. I don’t really have much to say on the topic.
I agree that not all Christians have thought these issues through, or considered other claims. But some have. And the position that you are advocating encourages people not to, at least as far as I can see. As I’ve said to Felix recently, the central issue in all this is whether truth is quantifiable, i.e. can some people have or experience more truth than others. If not, then you might as well settle down and watch re-runs of Seinfeld till your heart gives out and give up on the whole spiritual quest. But if so, then you have a job to do, to discover what is true and what is not true. The exclusive argument therefore should lead to seeking and more seeking. The relativist argument should lead to laziness and possibly a little pride in the fact that you already have everything you need. The fact that there are exceptions to this rule doesn’t mean that this is generally how it works.
My opinion is Orthodox, stick to the Old Testament teachings Jews will be with God when they die. For the gentiles, Jesus is the path to salvation and God.
That is one of the virtues but also a danger of Catholicism. Along comes an enlightened Pope who modifies touchy doctrines, but another can come later and return the doctrine back to it’s original trend.
John Paul was such an enlightened man. Now how much backing did he get from the Bible? Not much. From the same article you linked you see the assertion that the traditional view is Hell as punishment and the souls are consigned there by God. Now, Catholicism has Purgatory which is a temporary Hell for the rehabilitation of souls and it is a comforting idea that the thirsty man in Hell will eventually, in fact if all the souls of Creation, will eventually be rehabilitated and Hell will be, so to speak, closed for lack of inmates…however as the story is told by Luke offered no firm ground for this belief so that Protestants still cling to their eternal torture chamber.
Hello Ned:
— It’s a good question, and one that relativists or atheists ask all the time. But you probably already know that I can only provide a subjective answer.
O- Same as every other pious man, even those who are of a different faith, a different path.
— I believe simply because I have faith, or some other variation on this circular theme.
O- Just as they do. But I can believe, with a lot of faith, what in fact is false. A muslim takes on faith what Muhammed wrote as the revelation of God’s will. The Christian believes by faith and so does the muslim. Different paths. What gives either the certainty that their belief is the Truth, or that their belief is correct as opposed to another’s beliefs?
— I don’t claim to have any evidence that can convince anyone of anything.
O- Then I take it that you have not taken Jesus’ request seriously to go out into the world and preach the good news so that more will be saved?
— But it convinces me and obviously that’s enough for me.
O- But enough for Jesus? Jesus could have simply said to himself: I am convinced that I am presonally saved and that is enough for me; but instead he goes on to preach and preach, making fishers of men of his apostoles and then dying on the cross for the sake of others.
But I guess you are not one of those who I refer to. The people, ladies usually, that come to my door on Sundays are convinced that they have the truth and wish to correct the world’s errors, much as the apostoles once did in obeying their master’s wishes.
— The Christian gospel makes startling claims about reality that are absurd and unprovable but when I first heard it, I knew it was the truth. And I’ve heard many other competing claims in my time. But every time I hear the gospel it never fails to resonate. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
O- I guess your faith is a matter of taste. It taste good for you but not necessarly must it taste good for everyone else. Not everyone likes spicy food, but those who like it, well, they like it. Is that a fair assesment?
— I obviously have experience, but I do not claim that it is proof of anything.
O- On what grounds, if any are left, would you preach Christianity over another religion out there? And if not you, then help me understand and tell me in your opinion why people go door to door trying to make converts.
— I don’t see it in those terms at all. I don’t claim to have grasped or claimed anything. I claim to have been given something, namely faith. And I make no apology for having it, even if it upsets you. If that makes me arrogant then fine. As I said, I’m not going to lie to you.
O- Oh, I understand what you say but my original post had to do with exclusive claims of salvation based on unprovable subjective belief, which in the end all claim as well. Everyone has faith and I don’t fault them for that but I do for the audacity to claim that their faith, their cup of tea, their particular preferrence, because nothing you’ve added here proves otherwise, has claim to be the exclusive path to God so that when they ask me if I am sure of my salvation I almost want to ask them how come they are so sure about theirs? Arrogance is not in having faith, but in making the claim that only your faith is effective towards everyone’s salvation. That if others share their faith-- and I am talking here again of the general community of Christianity, as well as every other monotheist religion-- then all is well, but that if others do not believe their faith, that Jesus Christ for example is the only sole way to achieve salvation, then “they are apart from God”, to put it mildly. That is not a humble thing to say at all. You can say from error or from faith but it does not make it a humble thing to say.
— Well, it’s an interesting question, but this is your problem, not mine. I don’t really have much to say on the topic.
O- Well then, enjoy your day…
— I agree that not all Christians have thought these issues through, or considered other claims. But some have. And the position that you are advocating encourages people not to, at least as far as I can see.
O- Paul did much worse than me.
— As I’ve said to Felix recently, the central issue in all this is whether truth is quantifiable, i.e. can some people have or experience more truth than others.
O- My guess is that truth is One. It has no parts, no quantity where you can say greater or lesser amount. Truth is truth. 2+2=4 is not partially true but either totally true or totally false. Anything other than 4 is false. People do have more experience than others. You might have a personal supernatural experience that I do not possess, but the experience itself is not the measurable quantity of truth, rather the interpretation accords to it the position as true. Some people saw lights flashing across the sky in Texas recently. They are convinced they saw UFOs. That is what they say is the truth, but the experience itself contained nothing that said ‘UFO’, there was no label attached in their inner sight to accompany the vision. Rather it was an interpretation of the vision that could well be wrong, as it is so often proved, often to everyone but the person who has had the experience.
Now certainty has been quantified, so that people may say that they feel 75% certain of what they saw was in fact what they saw. But certainty is subjectuive and the percentage report on that level of faith, not on the quantity of truth. I don’t require to a scale to know that 2+2=4 and that I am 100%, now, yesterday and tomorrow. People alter they certainty with time and further information.
— But if so, then you have a job to do, to discover what is true and what is not true. The exclusive argument therefore should lead to seeking and more seeking.
O- Seeking until they are convinced that they have found the truth and that usually means a very short search indeed.
— The relativist argument should lead to laziness and possibly a little pride in the fact that you already have everything you need.
O- The exclusivist is as guilty if not more of the same laziness. The inclusivist has many things in his plate to organize and harmonize while the exclusivist has only one he is convinced is the truth. The inclusivist has to negotiate with the different demands made from different religions to maintain his tolerance, while the exclusivist who is convinced that he is in possession of the truth is intolerable of disent and simply coerces, as a schoolmaster would, those in error to learn the truth. There is no compromise because as you say (wrongly) of the inclusivist, they take “pride in the fact that (they) already have everything you need.”(my additions).