Paul, you know I believe and trust everything you tell me about God, but yet there are so many other religions in the world. I’m sure they all think they are correct in their beliefs. How can you know you are the correct one?”
Paul looked across the coffee shop table and put his mug down. “If you’re asking the question, I know you’ve already done your research. Am I correct, or what?”
“Guilty as charged. I made a lot of online comparisons but still have questions. How can I get them answered?”
“How about interviewing people? I could help you set things up interviews with some local ministers of other religions if you would like. We do network a bit, you know. Interested?”
Gabriella sipped her espresso and was silent for a moment. “Sure, sounds good to me. I’m not sure how to interview religious leaders, though. What do I ask?”
Paul’s eyes sparkled with humor. “Gabriella, one thing is universal across clergy of all religions. All you have to do is say you want to know more about their beliefs. Then sit back for a half-hour or so as they go into lecture mode. It’s pretty simple. You may not have noticed, but we all like to talk a lot.”
***
Two weeks later, the rectory doorbell rang. Paul opened the door and welcomed Gabriella with a hug. “You’re right on time, Gabriella. Come in and have a seat. Can I get you some tea or coffee while we talk?”
“I’ll have jasmine green tea for a change, if you have any, please.”
“No problem.” Paul walked into the kitchen, microwaved two cups of tea, and gave one to Gabriella.
“So how did your grand quest to find religious truth come out?”
“Paul, you sound a little sarcastic. Remember, it was your idea to have me check-out what you were telling me about Christianity against the beliefs of other religions. I only did what you told me to do. How would I know what’s true if I didn’t check it out?”
“That was my exact point. So what did you find out?”
“Well, for starters, everyone had their own concept of who and what God is. It was all so fascinating. Everyone was looking for peace and understanding, wisdom if you prefer, but everyone had their own approach or plan to get there.”
Paul smiled. “Very good. What else did you find?”
“To my surprise, I found most of the various religions were very different. I thought they would be very much alike under their various surface traditions. You know, same beliefs but stated differently.”
“And you found that they weren’t,” Paul said. “So, tell me, once you discovered that, how did you evaluate them? What criteria did you use?”
“Ah, the Yale scholar comes out in you. Well, to help sort things out, I looked at their evidence from the point of logical consistency, empirical adequacy, and experiential relevance.”
“What? Wow, how did you settle on weighing them like that? It’s darn impressive.”
There was a moment of silence. Then Gabriella said sheepishly, “I found the process on the internet. You know, not everything you find on the net is junk, only most of it.”
Paul laughed. “Okay. So lay it on me. Tell me about your adventures.”
“To summarize, I talked to ministers from here Christian Science, Jehovah’s Witnesses, various Chinese religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Mormonism, and Judaism. They all failed to score high on the objective ranking categories. Most didn’t do well with logical consistency. There wasn’t unity in the writing of their holy books, if they had any written books. Empirical adequacy for many scored a little better. Many had some historical scientific, or archeological evidence of their claims. Experiential relevance was a tough one for many religions. There wasn’t a clear guideline on how to apply their teachings to daily life consistently.”
“Excellent! It sounds like you conducted quite a study. Will you be publishing a white paper?” Paul quipped with a laugh.
“No, I don’t think such a thing would be very well received,” she answered with a condescending tone.
Gabriella continued, “The thing is, all the people I talked to appeared to be bright and very well educated. How can they believe in so many gods and mythical creatures? It doesn’t seem like what intelligent people would do. I don’t get it.”
“I don’t get it either. Many people say Christians have to park their brain at the door and accept things on blind faith. But then they go and believe in things that don’t have the preponderance of evidence on their side like the Bible and Christianity, or they deny the existence of God entirely, despite scientific evidence of His existence. ‘Billions or trillions of years’ get all the credit for evolving everything in the universe. Such is life, I guess. The bottom line is, do you have any more faith in what I’ve been telling you about the God of the Bible than you did before?”
“Yes, I do. The Christian worldview is the only one in my research which met all of my criteria. The bible is logically consistent because I couldn’t find any logical fallacies or contradictions across the books. I’ve read about contradictions think they have found, but with good research, they all disappear.”
“Yes, Gabriella, people think they find many contradictions, but they all disappear with proper research and understanding the cultures.”
“Anyhow, I found all the historical people and places fact-check as true and verifiable, so there is my empirical adequacy. Most of all, there is experiential relevance because the whole Bible is relevant to my life. I can apply lessons from all of it to my day-to-day life. I can measure truth against it, so I have more confidence now in what you’re telling me. Ah, no offense, right?”
“Okay, so what you’re saying is you initially thought I was a bit shaky on my theology, huh?” Paul teased. “Just for that, the next round of coffee and biscotti are on you.”
“I’ve got you covered for the munchies. So, where do we go from here?”
“Good question, Gabriella. Where do we go from here?” Paul said as he regarded her thoughtfully. “Where do we go from here, indeed?”