Dr. Christopher Kaczor
Stephen Prothero, professor of religion at Boston University, doesn’t think all religions are different paths up the same mountain. In his book God Is Not One, Prothero points out, “The world’s religious rivals do converge when it comes to ethics—no religion tells you it is OK to have sex with your mother or to murder your brother—but they diverge sharply on doctrine, ritual, mythology, experience and law.” Why is there this divergence? Prothero answers that different religions attempt to solve different problems. In Judaism, the problem is exile, and the solution is to return to God. In Buddhism, the problem is suffering, and the solution is awakening. In Confucianism, the problem is chaos, and the solution is order. In Christianity, the problem is sin, and the solution is salvation. In Islam, the problem is pride, and the solution is submission. As Prothero puts it, “If practitioners of the world’s religions are mountain climbers, then they are ascending very different peaks and using very different tools.”
The mountain analogy makes sense if we reduce religion to ethics as followers of Immanuel Kant do. But is religion essentially reducible to ethics? If I tell a Muslim that her religion essentially agrees with Catholicism, and with Buddhism, and with Hinduism, her rightful response to me could be, “How exactly do you know more about my religion than I do? Have you ever visited Mecca? Have you ever read the Quran in Arabic?” It seems presumptuous to tell others what is nonessential about their own religion.
Prothero calls the same mountain analogy into question in another way. He writes:
To claim that all religions are one, therefore, is simply to claim that debates over whether we have souls (yes, say Christians; no, say Buddhists) or whether God has a body (yes, say Mormons; no, say Muslims) do not really matter because, as Hindu teacher Swami Sivananda writes, “The fundamentals or essentials of all religions are the same. There is difference only in the nonessentials.” This claim is as odd as it is intriguing. We accept as self-evident that competing economic systems (capitalist or communist) and clashing political parties (Republican or Democratic) propose very different solutions to our planet’s problems. Yet when it comes to religion we jump eagerly down the rabbit hole into a fantasy world in which, like children in Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, all religions are above average.
If Prothero is right, the view that all religions are the same in essentials is itself an expression of a particular religion. The mountain analogy reflects the Hindu doctrine of Swami Sivananda. Sivananda taught that beneath the perception of difference, all reality is really one: Brahman, the absolute. Rather than reducing religion to ethics, this Hindu view reduces religion, indeed all reality, to a metaphysical monism. For reasons I have written about in another essay, monism is hard to believe.
In his book Telling a Better Story: How to Talk About God in a Skeptical Age, Joshua D. Chatraw points to yet another problem with the mountain analogy.
People who hold to the ‘all religions are basically the same’ perspective under a mantle of inclusivity and tolerance actually engage in a form of progressive colonialism that runs over the views they don’t find palatable. It’s as if they’ve placed themselves on top of the mountain, with truth in hand, looking down on myopic religious adherents scrambling up their intolerant ‘one way.’ The problem isn’t that they think others are wrong and they are right. We all do that. The problem is that this view is often helped because it is thought to be more tolerant than those views that make exclusive claims, all the while making its own exclusive claim.
The person at the top of the mountain is making an exclusive claim about religion just as much as those lower down on the mountain. As Timothy Keller notes, “How could you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth unless you yourself have the superior, comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality you just claimed none of the religions have?”
Some people advocate the mountain analogy because they want to promote toleration among people of different faiths. I share this laudable goal, as does Prothero: “I too hope for a world in which human beings can get along with their religious rivals. I am convinced, however, that we must pursue this goal through more realistic means. Rather than beginning with the sort of Godthink that lumps all religions together into one trash can or treasure chest, we must start with a clear-eyed understanding of the fundamental differences between Judaism and Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, Daoism and Confucianism.” It is a mistake to think we must choose between toleration and truth. In fact, truth is the proper foundation of toleration. If we accept the truth that every human being has unconditional dignity, then we have a sound foundation for toleration of every human being. We ought not pit toleration against truth, or truth against love.
The philosopher and Holocaust victim Edith Stein teaches us, “Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love. Do not accept anything as love which lacks truth.” Thomas Aquinas explains the metaphysical basis for the unity of truth and love. If God is the truth and if God is love, then love and truth must always go together, since they are united in the deepest way in God. Aquinas saw the perfect unity of truth and love in the person of Jesus. Jesus calls us not just to tolerate but to love people of every creed, color, class, and culture. But Jesus did not teach that there are many paths up the mountain. Jesus taught, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
* Dr. Christopher Kaczor is the Honorary Professor for the Renewal of Catholic Intellectual Life at the Word on Fire Institute and Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University. A Fulbright scholar, his eighteen books include Thomas Aquinas on Faith, Hope, and Love and Thomas Aquinas on the Cardinal Virtues. He was appointed a von Humbolt Fellow, a Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, a visiting fellow at the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, and William E. Simon Visiting Fellow at Princeton University. He is President Elect of the American Catholic Philosophical Association and can be found on X at @Prof_Kaczor.
Source: https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/are-all-religions-different-paths-up-the-same-mountain/
