A letter in response to Taylor

Richard,

I very much appreciated your response to my column last week. The following discourse will seek to both clarify points that I did not make sufficiently clear in my initial article and state why I still reject the assertion that Catholicism is the “one true faith.” That said, I’d like to first establish the following: my intention is not to condemn your — nor any other believer’s — conviction that Catholicism is, in fact, the one true faith. It is also not my intention to gain the upper hand in this “debate,” for if that were the case, there would be no point in my writing this at all. My intention is merely to elucidate my perspective on religious exclusivity and its potential shortcomings, hopefully without making the presupposition that I am right because, after all, I may very well not be. 

Let’s discuss. First, I should affirm that I do not believe all religions to be equally true. I am aware that my article suggested otherwise (due mainly to the need to be economical with my words), but I agree with you that the claim that “all religions are equally true” is a rather absurd one. It would, for example, be foolish of me to assert that a religion that worships a flying meatball is as true as a religion that worships a tri-omni creator god. Some may disagree, but you and I certainly will not. 

Second, there is truth to your point that “the falsity of other religions is built into the truth of one religion.” You cite the example of Christianity versus Judaism: Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead; Jews do not — clearly, both can’t be right. I will admit I do not know how to get around this problem logically — it seems to be the case that I must either assert that one is true and the other false or that both are false, and I certainly do not wish to advocate for the latter option (that both are false). What I can do, however, is make an appeal to the heart, which, when speaking on matters of faith, I think is more than warranted.

On April 4, a video depicting the deaths of 15 aid workers surfaced. The aid workers were killed by soldiers who supposedly mistook them for bad actors. (I will refrain from stating the specifics of this incident so as to avoid making this column “political,” but if one wishes to learn more about what I am referencing here, a quick Google search would reveal as much). In the video, the person filming can be heard reciting the Shahada, a common Muslim profession of faith, as the soldiers opened fire on their ambulance. “There is no God but Allah, Muhammed is his messenger,” repeated the paramedic in Arabic. Later in the video, the same paramedic can be heard saying, “Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose — to help people.” A few moments later, this paramedic lost their life.

Here is the problem we are faced with now, Richard (aside from the tragedy that was the killing of these 15 brave, innocent souls): if we are Catholic and believe that our faith is the “one true faith,” we would have to assert that this individual, in reciting the Shahada, professed multiple untruths moments before death. Even if we don’t blame the individual for believing said untruths, we still think their words, however sincere, were a gross misrepresentation of truth. Should we, as faithful Catholics, be willing to hold fast to this assertion? Personally, I struggle profoundly to do so. 

A possible counter-argument to my point might go as follows: God’s powers of salvation are not limited to the Church alone. God is omnipotent; he can save whoever he deems worthy, even if that person hasn’t been exposed to the fullest form of truth (which is, of course, Catholicism). For example, in the tragic case of the aid workers, God would’ve looked upon them with grace because they led virtuous lives, even if they didn’t possess the fullness of the truth like us Catholics do. This would be a fair counter-argument, and it very well may be true — who am I to say it isn’t? That said, to evaluate the credibility of this argument, it seems prudent to ask ourselves the following:

Which sounds most plausible?

1. Inclusivity: All religions are true; everyone will be saved.
2. Exclusivity: Catholicism is true; every other tradition — Christian or otherwise — is false. Catholics will be saved; everyone else will be damned.
3. Exclusivity with exceptions: God reveals the fullness of the truth to Catholics (insofar as the human mind can possess the “fullness of truth”) but still saves those who don’t come to know the fullness of truth through no fault of their own (i.e., being born Muslim), so long as they are sufficiently virtuous. This is the position that the proposed counter-argument would maintain.
4. Inclusivity with exceptions: The fullness of the truth is not exclusive. In fact, the fullness of truth does not exist, at least insofar as we humans are concerned, because our condition is not defined by clarity but by a thorough lack thereof. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc., all represent sincere, albeit insufficient, attempts to approximate the truth and understand God, with some of these traditions (potentially) being more true than others. This is the position that I more or less tried to elucidate in my original column.
5. Atheism: God is dead — or, in other words, religions are merely anthropological phenomena that developed to help humans grapple with the mystery of existence in a pre-scientific age. 

I find the first option seems to be sorely lacking in nuance, and the second option is, in my opinion, not only untrue but utterly absurd. The fifth option, non-belief, is untenable, at least for people like you and me. So we are then left to ask ourselves which of the two remaining options — exclusivity with exceptions or inclusivity with exceptions — is more plausible. I will admit I could be persuaded either way, but when I consider the case of the aid workers delineated above and the fact that millions, if not billions, more cases of a similar nature exist, I cannot bring myself to assert that I, the Catholic, am right, and they, the Muslim (or Jew or Hindu or Buddhist), are wrong. At present, that is my position. 

Sincerely,

Jackson (because this letter is too important to give myself a silly pseudonym)