The Pope's Blunder- A Muslim's Response
Pope Francis recently said that:
"All religions are a path to reach God. They are– I make a comparison – like different languages, different idioms, to get 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 our religions are languages, paths to reach God. Some are Sikh, some are Muslim, some are Hindu, some are Christian, but they are different paths"
Essentially for Pope Francis all religions are the same; they are all ways to reach to the same one God. He likens different religions to different languages. Whether one is Muslim or Christian, these religions are simply different ways of expressing the same one God.
What Pope Francis said is problematic on many front and here we will see how the Pope's likening of different religions to different languages is not an accurate analogy.
Religions=Language?
The Pope made an analogy saying that all religions are like all the different languages that we speak. Essentially, there is one God, and all Religions, like languages, are just different ways to reach or to express that one God. Let us take a look at why this analogy is not a proper analogy.
For starters, language in it of itself does not hold any truth claim in it. For instance, if I simply said 'went' without any context, it would not really make any sense. However, if I said "Petrit went to the store", it does make sense. Why is that? The reason is because I utilized language to tell a fact about the world (that Petrit went to the store). This is a truth claim, a preposition. Language is a tool we can use in order to tell facts about the world, to propose a question and so on.
Now if I were to write this same sentence in Arabic, ذهب بتريت الى الدكان (Dhahab Petrit Ila Al-Dukan), then this sentence does have the same meaning. The language I used is different, but the words, even though they are different, are telling the same truth claim. Now, for instance, if I said in English "Petrit went to the store" but I said in Arabic that "Petrit left the store", the language I wrote it in would not matter because the sentences have two different meanings. What I am trying to get at here is that language is a tool used to express something. Whether that be a question or a declarative statement for instance. If we were to utilize a different language to tell the same truth claim or question, then even though it is a different language, the same 'thing' is being expressed (such as Petrit going to the store). However, if I were to change the words around, such as saying Petrit left the store rather than Petrit went to the store, whether that be with the same language (like English) or another language (like Arabic), then the language that is being utilized would not express the same 'thing' (Petrit going to the store). So language can be seen as a tool of expression in a way.
Now that we have understood this, let us circle back to Religion itself and the analogy the Pope made. In understanding that language is a tool that can convey certain information, then in order for the analogy that the Pope created is to be accurate, all Religions would have to express the same exact truth claims, but say it in different ways. For instance, if Islam says that God is Allah, and another religion uses a different word for God, then it would be true that these Religions are all holding to the same truth claim (one God) but they express it in different ways.
Well, is this the case? Do all Religions express the same truth claim of their being one God but 'how' they express it is different? The answer to that is a resounding no.
To see why it is not the case, let us look at Christianity and Islam for instance. In Christianity, the Christian God is three (a Triune God). The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are all divine entities. For most Christians, in order for one to reach heaven in the afterlife, one must submit to this idea of a God. Islam, on the other hand, vehemently disagrees with this. The Quran for instance states:
Those who say, “Allah is one in a Trinity,” have certainly fallen into disbelief. There is only One God. If they do not stop saying this, those who disbelieve among them will be afflicted with a painful punishment.
For Islam, to say God is three would result in a "painful punishment." This is entirely at odds with that of the Christian view of God.
If 'X' is the trinity and 'Y' is punishment, then we can see that the Christian belief and the Islamic belief are as follows:
For Christians: If you accept X, you are free from Y
For Muslims: If you REJECT X, you are free from Y
Now is it possible for one to both accept X and reject Y while also at the same time with both beliefs be free from Y? If this sounded confusing, it's because it is. It is a logical contradiction. Islam and Christianity are telling DIFFERENT truth claims. These are not simply different ways of expressing the same truth claim. These are fundamentally different. In Islam acceptance of the trinity will grant you hell fire; in Christianity, acceptance of the trinity will grant you paradise. It is impossible to both be accepted into hell fire and accepted into paradise at the same time; therefore, these are expressions of the same thing.
Conclusion
To conclude, we see that the Pope's analogy faulters. If Islam and Christianity both believed in the trinity or both did not believe in the trinity, then the Pope's analogy could be more believable. However, because both Islam and Christianity uphold different truth claims about God, then it is clear that they are not simply expressing the same thing in different ways as different languages do.
Different religions express different truth claims, therefore, there can only be one religion which explains the 'right' truth claim. While this may seem frightening at first considering how many religions are there in the world, in the next blog post I will Inshallah (God willing) explain how we can better narrow our scopes of which religion is telling the correct truth claim.