37. Are all religions the same?

One of the errors of our time is to consider that all religions are equally valid to achieve man’s salvation. It follows, among other things, that you can choose the one that is most comfortable. However, the truth is that only one and in only one religion will be found the fullness of truth and, therefore, the fullness of the instruments that guarantee salvation and happiness.

The wisdom in the human decision on religion is not, therefore, to choose a religion that one likes or satisfies one more, but rather the true one, which can only be one. Because one thing is to have an open mind, and another, very different, is to think that everyone can have a religion to their own liking, and not worry too much because they are all going to be true. Chesterton has already stated that to have an open mind is like having your mouth open: is not an end, but a means. And the end, -he said with a sense of humor- is to close your mouth on something solid.
Many religions will have one part that will be truth and another that will contain errors (except the true one, which, of course, will not contain errors). For this reason, the Catholic Church – as the Second Vatican Council recalled – rejects nothing that in other religions is true and holy. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, although they disagree on many points from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men.

And why is the Christian religion going to be the true one? Let’s look at some of the arguments. We can start, for example, by considering how, in the first centuries, the Christian faith found its way into the prodigious Roman Empire. Christianity received tremendously hostile treatment. There was a brutal repression, with bloody persecutions, and with all the weight of the imperial authority against them for a very long time.

It is necessary to think also that the predominant religion then was an amalgam of idolatrous cults, extremely lenient with all human weaknesses. Such was the world that needed to be transformed. A world whose rulers had no interest in that change. And the Christian faith opened, without weapons, without force, without violence of any kind, despite the fact that their morals were far more demanding than that of any other religion of the time. And, despite these objective difficulties, the Christians were increasing in number.

To ensure that the Christian religion takes a risk, is extended and perpetuated; to achieve the conversion of that enormous and powerful empire, and change the face of the earth in that manner, and especially from twelve poor and ignorant preachers, lacking in eloquence and of any social prestige, sent by another man who had been sentenced to die on a cross, which was the most insulting death of those times… Without a doubt, for he who does not believe in the miracles of the gospels, I wonder if this miracle would not be sufficient.

However, the basic question about the identity of the Christian religion focuses in its founder, in who is Jesus of Nazareth. The first characteristic of the figure of Jesus Christ is that he claims to be of divine condition. This is absolutely unique in the history of mankind. He is the only man, who, in his right mind, has claimed to be equal with God. The great founders of religions, such as Confucius, Lao-tse, Buddha and Mohammed, never had similar claims. Muhammad said Prophet of Allah, Buddha said that he had been enlightened, and Confucius and Lao-tse preached wisdom. However, Jesus Christ claimed to be God.

The gestures of Jesus Christ were properly divine. What surprised and delighted the people was the authority with which he spoke, above any other, even of the highest, such as Moses; and spoke with the same authority of God in the Law or the Prophets, without referring to anyone but himself: “You have heard that it was said… but I say…” Through his miracles He sends sickness and death away, gives orders to the wind and the sea, with the authority and power of the Creator himself. However, this man, who uses the I with boldness and the more unsustainable claim of divinity, has at the same time a perfect humility and discretion full of delicacy. A humble claim to divinity which is a singular fact in history and it belongs to the very essence of Christianity.

In any other circumstance – I am thinking back to Buddha, Confucius or Mohammed – the founders of religions launched a spiritual movement that, once put in place, you can develop yourself independently of them. However, Jesus Christ didn’t simply indicate a way, he is not the bearer of a truth, like any other prophet, but that it is He himself who is the end point of Christianity. Therefore, the true Christian faith begins when a believer ceases to take an interest in the ideas or Christian morals, taken in the abstract, and meets Him as true God and true man.

The truth about God is accessible to the man to the extent that he lets himself be carried by God and accepts what God commands. Therefore, it is not fair to say that those who are not Christians do not seek God righteously. There are righteous people that may not come to know God with complete clarity. A blindness that can be inherited from their education, or of the culture in which he or she is born, and in that case, the God who is righteous, will judge each one for the fidelity with which has lived according to his convictions. It is necessary, of course, that throughout his life one has done his best to come to the knowledge of the truth. These can gain eternal salvation.
The encyclical “Dominus Iesus” is quite clear when it says that with the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ, God has established the Church for the salvation of all men. This truth of faith does not alter the fact that the Church considers the religions of the world with sincere respect, but at the same time excludes that indifferentist mentality “characterized by a religious relativism which leads to the belief that one religion is as good as another” (Redemptoris Missio, 36). As a requirement of her love for all men, the Church, as the Council said, “proclaims and is in duty bound to proclaim Christ constantly as, He who is “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (Jn 14, 6), in whom men find the fullness of religious life and in whom God reconciled all things to himself” (Nostra Aetate, 2).