Jesus Christ and Religious Diversity
by Harold A. Netland
Nathan the Wise, the last play written by the eighteenth-century philosopher and dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, contains a fascinating reworking of the classic parable of the three rings. The parable first appears in the fourteenth century in Boccaccio’s Decameron, but Lessing modifies it slightly so that it expresses nicely the Enlightenment call for religious toleration and condemnation of religious dogmatism.1 If it were updated slightly, it could be taken as an expression of early twenty-first century views as well.
Lessing’s version of the story is set in Jerusalem in the twelfth century during the Third Crusade. The play revolves around the complex relationships of three characters, each representative of one of the three great monotheistic religions: Nathan, a Jew; Saladin, the Muslim sultan; and a Christian Templar Knight.
Nathan finds himself in the great Saladin’s palace. The sultan tests Nathan by asking him which of the three monotheistic religions is the best. “You are so wise,” he says to Nathan, “now tell me, I entreat, what human faith, what theological law hath struck you as the truest and the best?”2 Nathan prudently avoids a direct response and instead tells the parable of the three rings.
There was a man, says Nathan, who had an opal ring of supreme beauty and unusual powers. Whoever wore the ring was beloved by God and man. This ring had been passed down from generation to generation and now was the possession of this man who had three sons, each of whom he loved equally. At one time or another, the man had promised the ring to each of his sons. Sensing that he was about to die and realizing that he could not give the one ring to each of the three sons, the man secretly asked a master jeweller to make two perfect copies of the ring. The jeweller did such a good job that the man himself could not tell which was the original. At his deathbed, the man called each of his sons and gave him a ring and a blessing. After the father’s death, the sons discovered that each one had a ring, and they began to argue among themselves as to which one possessed the original ring.
Commenting on their bickering, Nathan links their inability to identify the original ring to our inability to judge which is the one true religion:
[The brothers] investigate, recriminate, and wrangle—all in vain—
Which was the true original genuine ring
Was undemonstrable—
Almost as much as now by us is undemonstrable
The one true faith.3
The brothers then approach a wise judge to settle the dispute, but the judge responds by saying,
If each of you in truth received his ring
Straight from his father’s hand, let each believe
His own to be the true and genuine ring.4
After admonishing the brothers to quit trying to determine which is the original, the judge exhorts each son to accept his ring as if it were the true one and live a life of moral goodness, thereby bringing honor both to their father and to God.
Lessing’s parable of the rings is an eloquent expression of eighteenth-century Enlightenment sentiment about monotheistic religion. Organized religion—especially the institutional Christian church—was dismissed as corrupt and blamed for the bloody wars of the previous century. Deep skepticism greeted claims of any particular religion being the one true faith. Weariness with religious in-fighting resulted in a kind of tolerance that regarded religions as worthy of acceptance only as long as they promote goodness and virtue and avoid dogmatism, which fuels religious strife.
Lessing’s parable sounds remarkably contemporary. Today, as then, there is widespread skepticism about claims to exclusive truth in religion. Religions are assessed pragmatically on their capacity to produce morally respectable people. But there are also differences between Lessing’s day and our own. We are today much more aware of the enormous religious diversity in our world, so that if we were to update the parable, we would need several dozen rings to symbolize the many available religious options, both monotheistic and non-theistic. In place of Saladin, we would have the beaming face of the Dalai Lama!
1. Religious Diversity and Christian Faith
Despite the predictions of some in the nineteenth century that religion would eventually wither away under the onslaught of modernization and science, the world today remains vigorously religious. Eighty percent of people worldwide profess some religious affiliation.5 There are today roughly 2.1 billion Christians, 1.3 billion Muslims, 860 million Hindus, 380 million Buddhists, 25 million Sikhs, and 15 million Jews.6 A complete picture of religion today would also include the many millions who follow one of the thousands of new religious movements.7
Traditional Christianity: Religious Exclusivism
Until the modern era, Christians largely took it for granted that Christianity is the one true religion for all humankind. Allowing for minor modifications for Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant distinctives, the common understanding went something like this: God has revealed himself in a special manner to the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets, and his self-revelation culminates in the incarnation of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:1–4). The written Scriptures—the Old and New Testaments—are the divinely inspired written revelation of God and thus are unlike any other sacred writings. Salvation is a gift of God’s grace and is possible only because of the unique person and work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Sinful human beings are saved by God’s grace through repentance of sin and faith. Thus, Jesus Christ is the one Savior and Lord for all people at all times.
On this view there is an inescapable particularity concerning Jesus Christ. While God’s love and mercy are extended to all, salvation is limited to those who repent and accept by faith God’s provision in Jesus Christ. Numerous biblical texts could be cited in support of this particularity: Peter declares, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12); Jesus responds to a question from Thomas by stating, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6); the apostle Paul claims, “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5); and so on.
The particularity of the Christian gospel has always been a stumbling block to many. It was widely accepted in the ancient Mediterranean world that the same deity could take on various forms and be called by different names in different cultures. According to historian Robert Wilken, “The oldest and most enduring criticism of Christianity is an appeal to religious pluralism. . . . All the ancient critics of Christianity were united in affirming that there is no one way to the divine.”8 Significantly, it was within this context of religious syncretism and relativism that we find the New Testament putting forward Jesus Christ as the one Savior for all people.
After the seventeenth century, the broad consensus among Christians concerning Christianity as the one true religion began to fragment, although it was not until the twentieth century that the full effects of this became evident. Many factors were involved in the erosion of confidence in traditional Christianity: widespread disillusionment at the rampant corruption of the institutional church; ongoing fighting among various “Christian” factions; the growing awareness of other peoples, cultures, and religions as a result of the European voyages of “discovery”; increased skepticism about our ability to know religious truth; and the effects of higher critical views of Scripture that treated the Bible as just one among many sacred texts. While Jesus was still revered as a great moral teacher, many openly questioned orthodox teachings about his deity, and suggesting that Jesus was just one of many great religious figures through whom we might relate to God.
By the mid-twentieth century, the subject of the relation of Christian faith to other religions was a central concern of Christian theologians and missiologists with a surprising variety of perspectives.9 Many, to be sure, remained firmly committed to the orthodox position. However, more liberal Protestants and post-Vatican II Roman Catholics adopted far more accommodating views of other religions and modified their views of Jesus Christ and salvation.