1. SCRIPTURE – KEY TO THE FUTURE

Chapter 10 Discerning true from false

For the past 100 years, Western societies generally have developed towards a pluralism that accords an equal place, in principle, to all the different religions that have come to make up its society. The mainstream of the Christian church has sought dialogue, not confrontation with other religions, and there has been a remarkable rapprochement between Catholicism and Protestantism. Language of 'true' and 'false' religion has been strongly frowned upon as have any claim to exclusivity of command of the truth. The exception to this general social state has been the fundamentalist communities in Christianity and Islam as well as various other sects and cults. Paradoxically, the major exception to this has come from the secular ideologists, the Richard Dawkins and followers, who in reality belong to the same mental camp as the Christian and Islamic fundamentalists.

Broadly speaking, the advent of social and religious pluralism has been a healthy development for society. Religious dominance and claims to exclusive access to eternal truth always lead to repressive and cruel regimes for the people, and the stark reality is that our societies are multi-cultural and multi-faith.

What is much more deeply significant is that the intellectual foundation of our entire world has changed and it is not simply a fad or fashion but is a lasting, permanent change from which, barring temporary reactions, there can be no going back. The change is that we know now (and there is paradox in this knowing) that we know nothing absolutely and can never know anything finally and certainly. Even if we claim knowledge via divine revelation -- scriptural, papal or charismatic -- the foundations of that knowing rests on an inevitable radical uncertainty because it is a claim made in the face all the evidence which is to the contrary. Those who maintain the certainty may do so with a sense of absolute confidence in faith – but intellectually, unless willfully blinded by the obduracy of fanaticism -- they know that there is and can be no certainty that their dogmatism is 'truth'.

As for Christianity, excluding the sectarian element in both Protestantism and Catholicism, there is a broad acceptance that no 'church' or religion or group has exclusive command of what is true, including what is 'right'. As against the Biblicists who would maintain the scriptures are not only true in every detail but also therefore consistent throughout, there is now a clear consensus across the Christian community that the scriptures are far from consistent across their whole spectrum not only as between the Hebrew and Apostolic Testaments but also within the Testaments themselves. Even Paul shows a considerable degree of development of thought from his first to his late writings: dramatically so if we regard Ephesians and Colossians as genuinely from Paul's hand. The first two synoptic gospels are at complete odds between themselves regarding their understanding of Jesus and his message of salvation. Luke and the writer of the book of Revelation have totally opposite stances towards the Roman Empire. There is a totally and absolutely no 'Biblical teaching' about anything. Far from being a source of confusion to the community of faith, this babble of voices is a charter of liberty and freedom in the Spirit.

Yet, for all its positive contribution to human well-being, this plurality has its dangers: it is ambiguous in itself even as it affirms the inescapability of ambiguity. For one outcome of unbridled plurality is a state where not only does no one know any more 'right' from 'wrong' but -- as has in fact happened -- we reach a state where each individual thinks that they can decide for themselves what is right or wrong and no one has any right or authority to countermand their decision. In this situation, social order breaks down and disintegrates and this, too, we observe.

Christians, therefore, live in a dichotomy, a paradox, and an ambiguity. There is no escape. On the one hand, the community recognises the relativity of all 'truth' and moral stance and the authenticity, rooted in its own tradition, of a multiplicity of voices, frequently saying diametric opposites. On the other hand, it knows 'truth' and proclaims the world that only 'truth' can set people, the world, free. We witness to a path of salvation and declare that humanity's survival rests on making a response to this witness. Put starkly, ‘false’ religion leads to the destruction of humanity: 'true' religion to its survival and renewal as a transformed community, its salvation.

The dilemma is not new. It is exactly the same as that which faced both the Hebrews and the apostolic church in their period of crisis. That these two communities had to face and work through the issues of what was authentic and inauthentic is part of the testimony they have to offer to the world.

The Hebrew prophets, especially Jeremiah and Ezekiel, faced huge challenges to the authenticity of their message and in reality they were not heeded during their lifetime. It was not at all apparent to their contemporaries that they spoke 'truth'. In fact, many of the Hebrew prophets spoke falsely. Naham is a spectacular example of this, but, for all his words that inspire us deeply, the prophet of the return, whose words are in Isaiah from chapters 56 to the end, spoke false hope to his contemporaries and created major problems for them.

Job, Jonah, Esther, Ecclesiastes -- all these writings were part of the struggle that the Hebrew is never resolved for themselves as to what constituted 'true' religion. Even by the time of Jesus there was no resolution, with Judaism divided into many sects -- as it still is today

The apostolic church had no more success trying to gain a single mind, as the conflict between Paul and other parties testifies and, at the end of the century, the writings such as the Revelation to John show the struggle was unresolved. It continued through the next few centuries, intensified by the divergent paths taken, under different cultural conditions, by the Eastern and Western sections of the church.

Then, in the fourth century, came the entry of the Roman Empire into the equation. For Rome, once the Empire had made its choice that Christianity was the 'true' religion, it was a political imperative that there be only one version accepted as true. From this stand came the development of Western Catholicism and its closed mind as to other than officially sanctioned dogmatic 'truth'. That legacy of Imperial Rome still plagues us to day and with it, the whole Christian community. When the Protestant Reformation overthrew the global hegemony of Rome (with regard areas under the control and influence of the Western Church) it was a case of "new presbyter but is but old priest writ large". The mentality did not change -- there was exactly the same frame of reference that there was one 'truth' and salvation depended on believing that truth, truth that was encapsulating, as in Catholicism, in dogmatic propositions. The various strands of continental Protestantism sought to enshrine this one truth in confessional statements.

The intellectual and cultural developments over the last century have effectively ended the reign of monolithicism in religion and the advent of global culture makes any return to it impossibility except as a temporary reaction or imposition. Yet the dilemma remains. False religion is destructive and only authentic religion can bring about human salvation -- an affirmation that leads straight back into the state of trying to discern and know what is true and what is false. And if we 'find' the answer, does this not be right back to a monolithic religious state?

This is even more of a dilemma considering the insight that global culture will generate a single global spiritual centre and without that centre humanity cannot survive because it cannot arrive at a culture that works to sustain it. All these issues will need future books to work them through. All that is noted at this point is the paradox that the age of monolithic religion is over yet only a monolithic religious spirituality will work for human survival in the long term.

Is there a solution to this paradox? No, there is not and that is part of the weakness of the two Testaments. Both the Hebrew and, in reality, the Christian communities have lived out their entire existence in irresolvable paradox, living in and between both polarities of the paradox. It is when the paradox is denied and it is insisted that there is a solution that religion becomes destructive and daemonic. This has been the real tragedy and downfall of the Western Christian Church -- as it is of Islam today.

If there is an even partial resolution, it rests in the discernment that we live in this, as in so many other areas, in irresolvable paradox, affirming both fully even as one affirmation excludes the other. We cannot live in 'balance', nor with the panacea that 'the truth lies somewhere between the extremes’. The 'truth' lives in the extremes and our life consists in moving between them, embracing both fully.

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