It is common in today's world to run into people who believe that all religions are basically the same. In fact, it is even becoming common to run into Catholics who have adopted this viewpoint. It is considered the “tolerant, open-minded” point-of-view.
But in reality, it is just the opposite: to claim that all religions are the same is the most close-minded and intolerant viewpoint someone could have in regards to religion.
Sure, every religion tries to address our basic desire for happiness. Most religions try to answer the great question about life after death, and address the difference between right and wrong, each makes assertions concerning man’s relationship with and understanding of the spiritual realm.
But study the religions for more than 15 minutes and it’s clear that they deal with those ultimate questions in different ways and even come up with vastly different answers.
Atheistic religions say there is no God at all. Pantheistic religions say that everything in the universe is a part of god or identical to god. Polytheistic religions say that the divine realm is full of numerous, competing gods. Monotheistic religions, like Christianity, believe in one, all-powerful, eternal God.
But the differences don't stop there. Inside each of those groups are different explanations of the nature of God, the nature of salvation and happiness, and how eternal life can be achieved.
It is a sign of close-mindedness or laziness to simply say that all religions are the same: it's a refusal to show respect for what religious people really believe.
When a Christian discusses the nature of God with a Muslim, one of the first issues that arises is the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
Muslims, like Jews and Christians, believe there is one God, all-powerful and transcendent. Their concept of God somewhat resembles what is revealed about God in the Old Testament. Mohammed, the founder of Islam lived in the Middle East in the sixth and seventh centuries, grew up among Jews and Christians, and inherited Monotheism from us.
One of the factors in his rejection of the Trinity, that God is Three Person, was that at the time, Christians in the middle east were scandalously seeking to resolve their theological differences in violent ways, and rejecting the authority of Rome. Muhammad was exposed to the Arian, Nestorian, and Monophysite heresies from an early age. And these heresies, denials of Jesus’ divinity, play out in the Koran, which portrays Jesus not as God, not as the Second Person of Trinity incarnate, but simply a man.
So this divided Christianity was the environment in which Mohammed adopted and popularized the Muslim, non-Christian idea of God. He rejected what Jesus and the New Testament revealed about the Holy Trinity, that God is three divine persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
It is true that the Trinity is hard to understand: How can God be both one and three? How can the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be fully God, and yet distinct persons? Our minds cannot grasp this completely.
And yet, that very fact makes the doctrine of the Trinity ring true. It shows that no merely human mind would have been able to come up with it. And it also shows that God, the Creator of the universe, exists in a way that we, mere creatures, cannot fully understand - and that makes perfect sense. God should exceed our ability to understand him; if he didn't, he wouldn't be much of a God.
Saint Augustine, who is one of the most profound Trinitarian Theologians said, “Si comprehendis, non est Deus” which means, “If you understand, it’s not God.” The minute you say, yes, I got it now, I fully understand it: that’s not God, says Augustine. The Trinity is greater than human understanding.
But that doesn’t mean he is totally unknowable or unapproachable. God invites us into a living, vibrant relationship with Himself. He has revealed that he is a Trinity. He has revealed that He is a loving Communion and desires to share His life with us.
He invites us to become the people He made us to be by placing faith in what He has revealed, and to grow in union with Him through His Church—through the practices of our faith, the sacraments, the reading of Scripture, and prayer.
The world claims there are many paths to eternity: Our faith claims there is One: through the One who says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.” Christianity is not simply a religious system among many; it is The Way, it is the relationship that God Himself established that we might become the people he made us to be, for the forgiveness of sins and the granting of eternal life.
No, Catholics don’t believe in some generic idea of God, or the god of the philosophers, some faceless, nameless divine force. No, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are real, and we can know them, and have an intimate relationship with them, and become their instruments in the world.
Just as you get to know someone by spending time with them and doing work with them, so too, we come to know Father, Son, and Holy Spirit spending time with them, by working alongside them, by along them to work in us, by reading what the Scriptures reveal about Them, what the great Church Fathers have written about them, and by spending time in their service.
God has revealed to us that He is Trinity because he wants us to know Him and he wants us to share His love.
Today, as we profess our faith in God, One and Three, may we be ever more transformed into His instruments, that we may spread the True Faith, that he may draw souls to Himself through us, for His glory and the salvation of souls.
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