Is there a touchstone by which all religions may be compared to determine their truth and value? Many have thought there is. Before the modern era, it was common to seek this basis of comparison in the doctrine of God, or of man, or of salvation, or some other central doctrine. But within this century other touchstones have been sought. Schweitzer sought to find it in either their affirmation or their denial of reality to the world, life, and morality. Tillich says it is in their explanation of the meaning of purpose of existence. Toynbee says it is their handling of the problem of suffering. Radhakrishnan says it is their common unity and tolerance found in common symbols and inner certitude of the same truth in all.
Two of these with a Christian orientation, Schweitzer and Tillich, go on to conclude that Christianity is superior to other religions when judged by the touchstone they regard as best. The other with a Christian orientation, Toynbee, ends up about equally divided between Christianity and Mahayanian Buddhism. The fourth, Radhakrishnan, with a Hindu orientation, concludes that ultimately all religions will find their fulfillment in something resembling Hinduism.
All efforts to analyze religions and the history of religions merit study. Each of the four just mentioned is in its own way meaningful. And just as in Christian theology the many theories of the atonement add to our understanding of that mystery, so in the history of religions the many theories of their relations help us to understand more of that mystery. But just as in any theory of the atonement the preeminence must always be given to the Person, Jesus Christ, so in the history of religions the preeminence must always be given to the person or persons around whom each religion is built. And that, it seems to me, is the clue to the supreme touchstone by which all religions may be most properly compared.
In his book Why Christianity of All Religions?, Hendrik Kraemer has pointed to the uniqueness of the personality of Jesus Christ as being the thing above all others that proves Christianity to be the only religion that can claim to be a revelation from God. This is in line with what has been his major premise ever since the publication of his first great work in 1938, that Christianity is “discontinuous” from all other religions.
The proposal I am making approaches the problem from another angle. This proposal gets strength from our experience with the Old Testament as well as the New. The exact relation between the Gilgamesh Epic, including the account of the Creation and the Deluge, and the biblical record of those events, the exact relation between the Code of Hammurabi and the Hebrew Book of the Covenant, is not clear; there are both similarities and differences between them. But the real difference is on the personal level, in the concept of the God who was behind all these events and who gave all these laws.
So when we compare Christianity with other religions, we may expect the touchstone of comparison to be that of the personal founder of each religion, the person in whom each religion centers. We have a right to expect this because we are persons and our problems are personal problems. Truth is not something abstract. Ethics is not something abstract. Both truth and ethics ultimately have a personal foundation. Brunner’s statement, “Schemes of ethics will differ as metaphysics differ,” is nowhere more apt than in the comparison between Hinduism and Christianity. What a religion thinks about distinctions between good and evil depends on what it thinks about the person in whom it centers. And we have a right to expect that the founder of a religion, or the person around whom a religion is developed, will in himself, by his acts, his teaching, and his manner of life, collectively or separately, provide an answer to our problems.
All the great religions are centered in some person or persons. Yet if we removed from each its founder, all except Christianity would still go on. If we removed Jesus Christ from Christianity, however, there would be no Christianity. At first glance, this seems to be a weakness of Christianity and a strength of other religions. It seems to show that other religions have an inner strength, an inner truth, an inherent reason for existence, apart from the founder, that sustains them; that they depend for their following, not on the attractiveness of their founder, not on the strength of their founder, but on their appeal to the reason and conscience of their followers.
But we need to look deeper. We are persons. Our problems are personal problems. And ultimately we need a religion with a personal founder who has given more than a speculative answer to our questions, more than a dogmatic solution to our problems, one who has personally exemplified for us what is involved in his teaching. We cannot be sure of the ultimate truth or value of the religion we follow until we see its teaching proven in a person. It is at this point that the proposals of Schweitzer and Tillich and Toynbee and Radhakrishnan are inadequate for proving the comparative truth or value of religions. These proposals are based too much on speculation.
The reality or non-reality of the world, of life, and of morality—these are profound speculative problems with which all religions have dealt. The solutions to these problems must be found preeminently in a person, and the point where the solutions meet will be personal. Tillich is essentially Greek in his constant reiteration of the meaning of existence as our basic problem, and his assertion that God is the Ground of Existence. To him, our problems are basically philosophical. So his approach to the truth and value of all religions is philosophical. But the more basic question will be: What light does the founder of each religion in his own person give us regarding the meaning of existence?
Krishna’s self-consciousness led him to claim that he came into existence again and again from age to age by his own power of Maya. “Many of my births have passed away,” he says: “Though unborn, though My Self is eternal, though Lord of Beings, resorting to my own material nature, I come into being by my own mysterious power” (Gita 4:5, 6). To Buddha, the whole world seemed filled with suffering, and he became the Enlightened One when he realized the truth that escape from the wheel of suffering could be achieved by the cessation of desire. The teachings of both Krishna and Buddha were based on the doctrine of transmigration and reincarnation. And their claims are antithetical to the claim Jesus Christ makes when he speaks of the glory that he had with the Father before the foundation of the world (John 17:5, 24). With Christ there is no mention of a previous birth or of a previous incarnation. Jesus Christ is set forth as the incarnation of God in full reality, full of grace and truth, once and for all—the Word become flesh, who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin (John 1:1, 14; Heb. 4:15; 9:28). The personal claims of the founders, then, are different, and become the points at which the basic differences of the religions may be tested.
For a further example, note how the doctrine of salvation is made personal in the personal claims of Krishna and Christ. Each claims to be a saviour; each claims to be easily accessible; each claims that knowledge of and faith in him is necessary to salvation; each claims that he will come and abide in the one who believes in him. But when we ask what kind of salvation each provides, a great difference appears. Krishna offers salvation from the round of rebirths to identification of the Individual Self with the Supreme Self. Christ offers salvation from sin to righteousness, from Satan to God. The chief antithesis is in the Person, not the claim made by the Person. Christ is an atoner; Krishna is not. Krishna is a saviour who saves without cost to himself; Christ is a saviour who suffers the agony of a cross in order to redeem.
We may find some common metaphysical grounds for all religions, many common ethical ideals, and many common symbols of faith. But this does not justify the conclusion that all roads ultimately lead to God. Some lead to a dead end. Some wander around aimlessly and never get anywhere. And on the road that leads to God, one can go two ways, toward God and away from God. It is not only the power of the person who was lifted up on the cross to draw all men unto him that is important here. It is the assurance that he himself by his death and resurrection has become the Way, the Truth, the Life, and the Resurrection, and that he will draw us along the right road. For no founder of a religion except Jesus Christ has ever claimed—to say nothing of proving his claim—that he himself is the one sure road that leads to God.
Truth and love and life and resurrection are more than abstractions. They are personal. And it is at this personal level that all religions can most properly be compared to determine their truth and value. If the reality of the world and of morality is to be affirmed or denied, it must be at the personal level. If the meaning of existence is to be found, it must be at the personal level. If the meaning of suffering is to be found, it must be at the personal level. If there is anything common to various forms of religious faith and symbols and experience, it must be at this personal level. And it is preeminently here that all other religions fail. The persons in whom they center or from whom they originate do not bear either the holiness or the love, either the authority or the submission, either the majesty or the humility, of the Person of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and our Lord. Yet it is by this touchstone of the person that the real gold in each religion may be found.
Jesus in his Person was Truth. He exemplified Truth. He personified Truth. He did more than teach truth; he was Truth. He exemplified Love. He personified Love. Others have exhorted their followers to love one another. But Jesus could point to himself, to his example, and add the dynamic: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, as I have loved you.” The new thing was not love for one another but “as I have loved you.” Jesus did more than teach love; he was Love.
The problem of suffering is probed deeply by the Hindus in their doctrine of karma and retribution, based upon transmigration and reincarnation. But even they recognized their need for some other explanation when their Great-Souled One, (Mahatma) Gandhi, was assassinated in 1948. His death contradicted their laws of karma and retribution. The theories and speculations were not enough, and they turned to the cruel death of another person, Jesus Christ, for an explanation of the sufferings of their great leader. But that was as far as they could go. They could not go on to the resurrection of their Mahatma. Jesus did more than teach about resurrection. He was and is the Resurrection.
Jesus did not speculate on how temptation entered the world, nor why it should be there. He met it head-on, conquered it, and returned from the conquest filled with the power of the Spirit. He did not lecture men on sinlessness. He lived a life of complete holiness and love, and silenced his critics with the challenge, “Which of you can convict me of sin?” He did not argue that God answers prayer. He prayed, sometimes all night, and when he met men in the morning the power of the Lord was with him to heal. He did not attempt to argue how pain and sorrow in the universe can be compatible with the love of God; but he took on himself at the cross the very extremity of the pain and tragedy and wickedness of man, and thereby revealed the love of God. As E. Stanley Jones once said:
Many teachers of the world have tried to explain everything; they changed little or nothing. Jesus explained little and changed everything. Many teachers have tried to diagnose the disease of humanity; Jesus cures it. Many teachers have told us why the patient is suffering and that he should bear it with fortitude; Jesus tells him to take up his bed and walk. Many, like Socrates, have argued the immortality of the soul. Jesus did not argue. He raised the dead.
One who has been a devotee of one religion and then converted to another can see their comparative truth and value better than one who has remained loyal to his own religion while studying others from the outside. And the experience of Sadhu Sundar Singh rings true and valid in that light. He came to Christianity from the Sikh religion, a reform movement that grew out of Hinduism and condemned its idolatry. He exemplified religious devoutness; his name, Sadhu, means “holy one.” After his conversion he was approached at a youth conference by some young people who wanted to get his answers to some of their questions. They began by asking, “Sadhu, why did you feel it necessary to leave the Sikh religion and join the Christian religion? Was it the higher moral code of the Bible? Was it the belief that the Christians are right in claiming that the Bible is the inspired Word of God? What was it that made you change?” The Sadhu did not have to spend much time in thought before he gave the answer: “My reason for changing was Jesus Christ.” The students pressed further. “Sadhu, what did Christianity offer you that your mother’s religion did not offer you? You say your mother was your example of devoutness. What did you find here that you didn’t find there?” And he answered slowly with only two words, “Jesus Christ.” Then they tried another direction and asked what the central doctrine of Christianity was. Again came his reply, “Jesus Christ.” Finally they asked, “Sadhu, what reward does Christianity offer you that no other religion offers you?” He solemnly replied: “Jesus Christ.”
The touchstone of truth and value in religion is the personal founder in which the religion centers. We are standing on bedrock when we point to the Person, Jesus Christ, as the center of our faith and the center of our proclamation.
Maurice Blanchard, pastor of Austin-Second Baptist Church, Chicago, was for twenty-five years an American Baptist missionary in India, serving 1951–66 as a seminary president and New Testament professor. He has the Th.D. (Northern Baptist Seminary), and has written twelve books in the Telugu language of South India.
