Catholicism cannot be the only true faith

There exists an idea among many religious believers that the faith tradition they subscribe to is the “one true faith.”

A Catholic, for example, might believe that the teachings of the Church are either the only legitimate path to God, or the most legitimate. 

This belief is not only understandable but possibly even commendable. After all, if one is to call oneself Catholic, shouldn’t one also maintain that Catholicism is true? Evidently so — it would be foolish to do otherwise. And if other faith traditions (Christian or otherwise) directly contradict Church doctrine, then these faith traditions necessarily cannot be true, if one believes that Catholicism is — right? 

The answer would appear affirmative, and yet I find myself unconvinced. Can it really be the case that only one faith tradition is true, and that, moreover, this tradition happens to be my own? I suspect not. The following is an explanation as to why.

Assume you are raised Catholic in America. You grow up attending Sunday Mass, religious education classes and Catholic school. Your family is Catholic, your friends are Catholic, the people you look up to are Catholic, and so naturally, you come to believe that Catholicism is true. Not only that, but you believe with profound conviction — it feels as if your heart were on fire with the spirit of Christ (which, of course, it is). 

One day, you sit next to a stranger on a bus. You strike up a conversation, and soon learn that this stranger is Muslim. This disappoints you, for however cordial this stranger seems, they profess a grave untruth (Islam), and will likely be condemned for eternity, unless, by the grace of God, they are brought into the light. 

That is your conviction, and, as stated, not only is it understandable, it is even commendable. 

But now consider the stranger — a Muslim. Assume they were raised in a devoutly Muslim family, somewhere in Iran. Their family is Muslim, their friends are Muslim, the people they look up to are Muslim, and so naturally, they have come to believe that Islam is true. Not only that, but they believe with profound conviction — they feel as if their heart were on fire with the word of Allah (which, of course, it is). 

That is their conviction, and yet according to you, they are categorically incorrect. They deny Christ — both His resurrection and His divinity — and as such, based on the scripture that you hold sacred, they will be denied a place in heaven. Interestingly enough, the stranger thinks the same of you — you deny Muhammad as the final prophet of Allah, and as such, based on the scripture that they hold sacred, you will be denied a place in paradise. 

There are two explanations here, seemingly. Either one of you is correct, and the other incorrect (which, based on the fact that you are both equally convicted, seems unlikely) — or, far more plausibly, you’re both wrong, and it’s the atheists who have it right. After all, if God and religion are merely human constructs, as the atheists maintain, then it makes perfect sense why different cultures have different stories about God. You’re both making it up! No wonder you contradict one another!

Not only that, but how believable is it, really, that God — who you claim to be both omnipotent and omnibenevolent — revealed Himself only to specific people, and only in a specific part of the world? Moreover, how believable is it, really, that you happened to be born into that specific group of people, in that specific part of the world, that has received the true revelation? And finally, how believable is it, really, that anyone who wasn’t born into that specific group of people and in that specific part of the world has religion completely and utterly wrong — so wrong, in fact, that they will burn for eternity because of it? 

Furthermore, consider this: as a theist, you know what it’s like to be an atheist. After all, you disbelieve every world religion, aside from one — yours. 

But of course, yours is true? 

Admittedly, this sounds harsh, and as I mentioned earlier, it is understandable — even commendable — to believe that your religious tradition is true, even at the expense of another. This is oftentimes what religion asks of us. 

But I’d like to propose a third explanation, which doesn’t maintain that either one of you is correct and the other incorrect, or that neither of you are incorrect and that the atheists are correct (nobody wants that). This explanation, as you might’ve guessed, is as follows: you’re both right. God exists. Since time immemorial, we have perceived as much.

As we’ve perceived God, and as He’s revealed Himself to us (which, I suspect, he does perpetually, and not just on selected, supernatural occasions), we’ve gone about developing traditions which attempt to understand and pay reverence to that which we now refer to as God. This needs to be expanded upon further, but I have not the time, so I’ll close with an analogy, which I cannot take credit for.

Consider a circular room, with God at its center. There are windows lining the walls of the room, so that those on the outside can gaze upon God. But each window offers a slightly different view of God — some are angled towards his face, others his back; some are big, others small; some are round, others geometric — so the onlookers develop different perspectives about God, depending on which window they look through. 

Assuming this analogy approximates the truth (which it very well may not), would it make more sense for the onlookers to condemn one another for untrue belief, or to revel harmoniously in the wondrous things that they’ve glimpsed through each of their respective windows?