Pope Francis speaking recently to young Catholics in Singapore:
"All the religions are a path to arrive at [or: reach] God. They are – I make a comparison – like different languages, different idioms [or: dialects] to arrive there. But God is God for everyone. And since God is God for everyone, we are all children of God. 'But my God is more important than yours!' Is this true? There is only one God, and we, our religions are languages, paths to arrive at [or: reach] God."*
I have heard this and other variants of the "all streams flow into the same ocean" theory before, and I cannot square them with the Bible.
Neither can Robert Gagnon,
This is an unfortunate pluralistic view that bears no resemblance to the apostolic witness to the gospel in the NT. I hope my FB Catholic friends will agree with this. It is absurd to view all religions as arriving at the same God, with the Christian view of God being "no more important" than any other religious path. There are outright contradictions between the various religions. The God of Jesus is very different from the God of Mohammed, and both of these are even more different than the polytheistic religions of the Sikhs and Hindus.
The primary NT witness is also that people become adopted children of God when they have faith in Christ. All people are children of God only in the diluted sense that all are created by God. But they do not enter into a covenant or kinship relationship with God until they believe in the gospel about Christ.
There are elements of Francis's message that agree with Paul's Areopagus (Athens) speech in Acts 17, making a bridge to pagans. Yet the most important part of Paul's speech there was left out by Francis: The imperative of proclaiming the gospel and the requisite response of faith in Christ. Without these there is no certain hope of salvation.
The New Testament witness has an operating missionary premise, namely that sans faith in Jesus, people perish. Faith in Christ is the only certain means of being saved. Everything else is wishful thinking. "There is salvation in no other one" than Jesus. "For there is not even any other name under heaven that has been given to humans by which it is necessary for us to be saved" (Acts 4:12). Only by calling upon the name of Jesus can anyone be placed on a certain path to God. If God has anything else up his proverbial sleave, he hasn't told us about it. You would be a fool to stake your eternal life on something so insecure as a wish for which there is little or no support in the apostolic testimony to Christ.
The language of the RCC Catechism is better but still deficient:
//The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as "a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life."//
The only assured way of receiving life is through faith in Christ. That was the operating premise of the apostles as they took the gospel around the Mediterranean Basin, always assuming that pagans and non-Christian Jews (like the pre-Christian Paul) needed to believe in the gospel about Christ in order to be saved.
*The original Italian reads:
//Tutte le religioni sono un cammino per arrivare a Dio. Sono – faccio un paragone – come diverse lingue, diversi idiomi, per arrivare lì. Ma Dio è Dio per tutti. E poiché Dio è Dio per tutti, noi siamo tutti figli di Dio. “Ma il mio Dio è più importante del tuo!”. È vero questo? C’è un solo Dio, e noi, le nostre religioni sono lingue, cammini per arrivare a Dio. Qualcuno sikh, qualcuno musulmano, qualcuno indù, qualcuno cristiano, ma sono diversi cammini.//
Yet another reason to not swim the Tiber.
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Pope Frances believes not in Christ but, now is a follower & hoping to be the Cultural Pope of the Cultural Marxist. Pope John would, now be asking God to forgive Francis's ignorance with his display of the Anointed.
ReplyDeleteLet us pray that someone in the Vatican has the guts to offer correction to the Pope and that Francis prays for forgiveness.
DeleteI could agree that all religions are attempts to reach the divine. However, the only true path to the one God is through Christ. I have often heard people say, "All religions teach the same things," but they do not. Look at the fatalism of the religions which teach reincarnation, or the brutality of Islam which teaches that non-Muslims must be subjugated or killed.
ReplyDeleteThe joke used to be whether the Pope was Catholic, but now there seems good reason to think he may not be Christian.
The Pope clearly offends the Muslims and Buddhists with such a statement. I am not sure that Hindus should be offended but Mr. Modi and his followers might.
DeleteThe Hindus I knew and know, in India and in the US, generally agree with the Pope's expressed view that all paths lead to the divine. Their idea of "god" includes all the deities in one combined truth package. They choose which to follow based on family habit, mostly. My husband's Hindu employees could not understand his refusal to participate in pagan ceremonies at the business location. They argued that it was their custom; he replied that his religion forbids him to worship idols.
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