The Big Questions About God Sýnishorn

Do All Religions Point to the Same God?

It's quite common to hear people say that all religions are the same; they're just different ways of pointing to the same God. You may have heard some common analogies used to illustrate this.

One analogy is four blind men who encounter an elephant for the first time. One grabs its trunk and concludes the elephant is like a snake. The other feels a leg and concludes the elephant is like a tree. The third blind man stumbles onto the elephant's side and says it's like a wall, and the fourth blind man finds the elephant's tail and announces the elephant is like a rope. They're all describing the same thing but experiencing it in very different ways.

According to some, the story's moral is that this is like the world's different religions. They're all describing the same thing differently. Accordingly, no one religion is better than any other, and they should all be viewed as equally valid.

However, in the analogy of the blind men and the elephant, all their opinions are, in fact, wrong. That is because the elephant is, in fact, an elephant, not a snake, a tree, a wall, or a rope. In matters of fact, there is right, and there is wrong. If God does exist, you can't say he is whatever your opinion of God might be.

The other issue is that it's quite easy to say all religions are the same if you don't understand what the various religions believe. Some religions believe there is only one God, while others believe in many gods. Some religions believe Jesus is God, while others don't. Some religions believe in reincarnation, while others believe in life after death in other ways. Some religions teach that you have to be good to be saved, while others teach that your good works don't count for salvation. Do you see what I mean? It is simply not possible for all religions to be essentially the same because they are different in really fundamental ways. It's just a matter of fact.

What if a fifth man, who can actually see, comes on the scene of the four blind men and the elephant? Wouldn't he be able to describe the elephant accurately to the blind men?

The way I see it, we are the four blind men, and Jesus Christ, uniquely among all the religious leaders of history, claimed to be the "fifth man," the definitive revelation of God. That's a unique teaching of Christianity.

Jesus said he came to show humanity what God is like and the way to God. Jesus taught not that there are many ways to salvation, but only one, which is through him. I thank God that because of Jesus, I am no longer blind.

– Eliezer Gonzalez