“I want to seek the company of those who are looking for the truth, but run away from those who say they have found it.”
So said the philosopher Deepak Chopra on Nightline the other night, to rousing applause from the audience. Chopra was one of four panelists in a discussion on the question “Does Satan exist?” and his words echo a sentiment that is attractive to many today in America, that to be a seeker of the truth is a noble thing, and to believe that there are many paths to God or heaven or enlightenment is to be commended, but to stand up and say that there is only one way to God is an arrogant, narrow-minded, and very unenlightened thing to do.
The Nightline panel debating the existence of Satan consisted of two who believed in his reality – Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, and Annie Lobert, founder of the ministry Hookers for Jesus – and two who denied his reality – philosopher Deepak Chopra and Bishop Carlton Pearson, a preacher who became famous for embracing universalism, the notion that all will eventually be saved, and in the process losing most of his megachurch congregation. The debate had many interesting moments (you can watch it in its entirety at http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/faceoff), but I wanted to highlight one aspect in particular, because it is a notion I am sure many of you face regularly and is one that can be disarming in any debate or discussion. It’s the classic “that may be true for you, but it’s not true for me. If you believe Jesus is God, that’s great that it works for you. But it’s not for me.”
Ever heard that one before? It’s classic relativism, the belief that there is no objective standard, that experience is king. If something is true for you then it’s true, and if something is true for me, then it’s also true, even if those two beliefs contradict each other and could never actually both be true. If you believe that Jesus rose from the dead and is Lord, great. It’s just not for me. I’ve got something else that is true for me, that works for me. So leave me alone and stop trying to convert me to your truth.
So how do you respond to statements like those? Let me share three ways to respond:
The first response is what I would call “the Hitler test.” If what works for you is true, and what works for me is true, then do you think that Hitler should have been allowed his beliefs as well? Do you think a child molester should be allowed their belief that it is right to have sex with children? If it’s true for them, then who are you to say their way is wrong? If truth is just relative, then by what authority can you pronounce some things okay and other things not okay? What gives you the right to tell Hitler he was wrong, or to pass judgment on a child molester? The point, of course, is that unless there is an objective standard as to what is right and what is wrong, there is no moral ground on which to stand, and the “whatever works for you” argument in the end will just allow evil to go unchecked, because what is evil to you may be good to someone else.
My second response would be, “Is it true or not?” While I may not be able to speak against someone’s experience, there are objective ways of measuring whether something is true or not. In the case of Christianity, therefore, it’s not just “does it work for you?” but “is it true?” Are the Bible texts reliable or not? When you read the gospels, do they accurately portray what happened in the life of Jesus? Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Was he really divine, or just a really good teacher? When it comes to Christianity, we are not just talking about philosophy but history. We believe that a man named Jesus lived in the Middle East 2000 years ago; that he was not just man but the very Son of God; that he lived a sinless life; that he spoke of salvation and the kingdom of God; and that he died and rose again on the third day before ascending into heaven. The question is not “does that work for you?” but “is it true?” If it’s true, then it doesn’t matter whether or not it works for you – it is just true. Imagine a student telling his teacher that 3+3=6 just doesn’t work for him or a history teacher that Columbus sailing across the Atlantic to America doesn’t work for him, or worse, trying to tell gravity that it doesn’t work for you as you jump off a tall building. Some things are just true, whether or not you believe it or it “works for you” (if you really want to investigate whether or not the claims of Christianity are true, I would recommend reading some of Lee Strobel’s books, like “The Case for Christ” or “The Case for Faith”).
My third response would be that, if we are honest, not every belief or religion or philosophy can be equally true, because they all say irreconcilable things. Some systems believe God is a unity, some believe He is a Trinity, others that God is an impersonal force, others that God is manifest in millions of gods, and still others that there is no god. Some believe God is separate from creation, others that He is one with creation. And when you get down to some of the specifics, there are even more contradictions. Should we care for the lepers in India, as Christians like Mother Teresa have done for generations, because God calls us to care for “the least of these”? Or should we leave them as they are, because due to karma they deserved to be reincarnated that way, as a Hindu would believe? Should we work to free African women who have to undergo female genital mutilation? Or should we respect their culture and let that happen? Different religions and beliefs say irreconcilable things, and it is intellectually shallow and lazy to just proclaim “whatever works for you.”
Relativism, proclaiming that “whatever works for you is good for you, but it’s just not for me” sounds loving and tolerant, but in the end is actually intellectually lazy and opens the door to all kinds of evil. I would encourage you, as Deepak Chopra would say, to be a seeker of the truth, but also challenge you that there was a man who claimed “I am the truth” (John 14:6), and that in the end you will have to be accountable for your decision as to whether or not He is The Truth – even if it didn’t “work for you.”
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