Sentilong Ozukum
I’m often challenged by my friends and colleagues because of what I believe and more often because of how I try to make them believe what I believe. I’m often faced with challenges like- “It may be true for you but not for me. Anybody can believe whatever he or she wants. Who are you to judge them? “How can you say that you are right and others are wrong? “There is no such thing as absolute truth. Everything is relative.” “You believe this and I believe that. It’s all the same if we believe sincerely.” “How can you say that Jesus is the only way to God? All religions are same.” Truly we are living in the age of Relativism. Allan Bloom in his book The closing of the American mind opens his book with the words, “There is one thing every professor in a University campus today can be absolutely sure of: that almost every students entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.” Ravi Zacharias in Jesus among other Gods writes, “We are living in a time when sensitivities are at the surface often vented with cutting words. Philosophically, you can believe anything, so long as you don’t claim it to be true. Morally, you can practice anything, so long as you do not claim it to be a better way. Religiously you can hold on to anything so long as you do not bring Jesus into it.”
In this article I want to point out some philosophical and logical difficulties the religious pluralists and the relativists’ faces in their viewpoints.
1.Firstly it is wrong to assert that all religions are same. Many people make the catastrophic error in saying “we come through different routes and end up in the same place”. But God is not place or an experience or a feeling. All religions are not the same and more importantly all religion do not point to God. All religions do not say that all religions are the same. A person who says that all religions are the same betrays not only an ignorance of all religion but also a caricatured view of even the best known ones. Logic says - All religions are not the same. Hinduism is polytheistic or pantheistic. Buddhism is technically non theistic or atheistic. Islam is monotheistic and they hold a Unitarian concept of God while Christians have a Trinitarian concept of God. Logically all these views about God cannot be true at the same time. Milk cannot be white, black, red, blue or yellow at the same time.
2.Secondly it is wrong to assert that Christianity is the only religion, which claims exclusivity. After peeling the layers we find that every religion at its core is exclusive. Muslims for instance claims exclusivity not just theologically but also linguistically. They believe that the sole and sufficient miracle is the Koran. However we do not find the Koran readily in English or any other language except Arabic. This is because they believe that any translation diminishes the primary source. Moreover Mohammed, the founder of Islam rejected the polytheism of his day and believed in monotheism. Buddhism was born when Gautama Buddha rejected two fundamental assertions of Hinduism- the ultimate authority of the Vedas and the caste system. Hinduism itself is uncompromising on more than a couple of issues- the law of Karma, the authority of the Vedas and the reincarnation. Sikhism on the other hand rejects both Hinduism and Buddhism. Lastly Bahaism, which claims to be a cosmic embrace of all religion, ended up excluding the exclusivists. Christianity therefore is not the only religion, which claims exclusivity.
3.Thirdly, how do we respond to people who say that we should not judge others? Suppose if somebody comes along and says, “Anybody can believe whatever they like. You should not judge them.” what would be your response? I think the ideal and the most logical response would be, “Then, why are you judging me?” Making judgments in life is inevitable. If we think we should never judge but then point out that others are judging we ourselves have made a judgment. Jesus says, “Don’t judge by mere appearances but make the right judgment”(John 7:24)
4.Fourthly, what about those people who believe everything is relative? If we study carefully at what the relativist believes, there are some logical difficulties. Relativism is self-contradictory and so it should be rejected. The relativist believes that relativism is true not just for him but also for everyone else. We can ask the relativist, “Is relativism true or false?” He will of course answer that relativism is ‘true’. Then we can ask him further, : “Is it absolutely true for everyone else, or is it just true for yourself?” Now if he says that it is absolutely true for everyone then his view is no longer relative but absolute. And if he says that relativism is not absolutely true but just his view then he is saying nothing that is worthy of being believed by another; he is just giving his opinion. But usually relativist believes they are giving more than their opinion. In fact the famous relativist slogan-“That’ true for you but not for me” presupposes that relativism applies to at least two people. The relativist believes that relativism is true for both parties not just one. And it is at this point that the relativist becomes absolute. Poor relativists.
5. Fifthly there are those who believe that “Truth is what you sincerely believe.” This is interesting. We can be sincerely wrong. Adolf Hitler was sincerely wrong. We can think a lot of things that are false no matter how sincerely one might believe that they are true. 2+2 will always be 4 even if I sincerely believe that it is 5. Things are either true or false whether we believe it or not. Maybe the most logical question we can ask to those who believe in the sincere-belief criterion for truth is, “What if I sincerely believe that believing something sincerely does not make something true?”
6. Sixthly there are those who say, “Anybody can believe anything. You should not try to convert others to your viewpoint.” The ideal response in such a situation would be, “Then, why are you trying to convert me to your view point?” A person, who says that trying to convert others is wrong, is also wrong because he is also trying to convert other to his viewpoint that it is wrong to convert others.
7. Lastly there are people who deny the validity of logic. The irony of holding such belief is that they end up using logic in order to deny the validity of logic.
Sentilong is a BA II student of Fazl Ali College, Mokokchung
