David Cowles
Apr 1, 2025
“We confuse a person’s right to express a hairbrained idea with the notion that that idea should be taken seriously.”
Ecumenicism, say that 10 times, has been the reigning value in Western theology since WWII. We are so proud of our newly discovered religious tolerance that we want to assure everyone that their ideas are heard and recognized as valid, at least for them. We are living in an unprecedented era of moral relativism and hyper-subjectivism, often expressed as, “If you believe it, it’s true for you.” We misunderstand free speech – we confuse a person’s right to express a hairbrained idea with the notion that that idea should be taken seriously.
But this is not all bad. We should allow ourselves to consider ideas that lie outside our comfort zone. Before we reject a person’s train of thought, we should be sure we understand it fully, not just in the context of its language, but in the context of the speaker’s background and life experience. In short, we need to deconstruct! “Are we sure we know what Sarah means by that?” Truth is neither relative nor subjective…but meaning is.
Now, if you’re getting the idea that I’m some sort of ‘woke relativist’, disabuse yourself…or prepare to be very, very disappointed. I believe in objective truth! But I also believe that there are multiple pathways to that truth. On the other hand, not all apparent ‘pathways’ are equally productive. Some meander endlessly; others are circular; many end in cruel cul-de-sacs, the narcissism of self-reflection. Every idea is not equally valid, and all roads do not lead to Rome. Bitter medicine for intellectually pampered millennials!
In matters of religion, this 20th century Relativism expresses itself as Syncretism, the belief that all religions teach the same Truth, just expressing it in different languages and in different cultural contexts. But in my narrow minded view, a religion that practices child sacrifice is always inferior to a religion that abolishes it.
That is not to say that we should ignore the heterodox beliefs of others. Far from it! The creeds and rituals of our various religions do overlap and when they do, their varied perspectives can enrich our understanding of the whole. Where religions truly share common ground, we should celebrate; but when they don’t, we should not shy away from identifying error and proclaiming truth.
Syncretism is based on the notion that human beings were spiritually bereft prior to the emergence of religious beliefs and practices. From that Base Zero, every development in the history of religion is seen as an improvement, at least vis-à-vis the state of nature.
Animism is an advance on naïve materialism, paganism on animism, and the so-called Religions of the Book represent an advance on paganism. The rich and varied spiritual traditions of the East need to be included in this matrix as well…and so on. Bottom line: Anything is better than nothing.
This view is challenged by a number of pre-Reformation Christian theologians, including that Doctor of the Faith, Thomas Aquinas. However, it is nowhere better expressed than in the writings of Fra Savanarolla (d. 1498), the misunderstood and much maligned Florentine preacher who performed his intellectual acrobatics on the razor’s edge of the looming Renaissance:
All (true) religion must proceed either from natural reason, from supernatural light (grace), or from the union of the two.
“All religions founded by men…are based on…the true principles of human reason.
“Christianity…since it is in no wise opposed to that which is natural, can have come from none but God. Thus it can be condemned by no other religion…for truth must be ever in harmony with truth and whatever arises from natural or supernatural light must proceed from God…”
According to Savanarolla, True Religion, in his case Christianity, cannot contradict Natural Law as revealed through observation and experimentation; it can only enhance it. True Religion, by definition, is Natural Law plus.
Judaism is built around a similar concept. God’s law is given twice, once in the created world and then again in the five Books of Moses, elaborated via the other books of the Old Testament (History, Prophesy, and Wisdom). Mystical Judaism labels Nature ‘Oral Torah’ and the Pentateuch ‘Written Torah’. Christianity adds a third source of Truth, ‘Spoken Torah’, i.e. Jesus the Christ, the Word (logos), his life and teachings as recorded by the evangelists and elaborated by the Church.
Savonarola inverted the traditional pyramid. For this Dominican friar, Heresy is the lowest level of human intellectual endeavor; it exists solely and entirely as a refutation of what’s true. Heresy is the absence of Truth just as Evil is the absence of Good. As such, it conflicts not only with the truth of Judeo-Christianity (Revelation) but also with the truth of Science (Natural Law).
According to Christian sociology, the heretic is one who has unrestricted access to the Truth of Nature and the Truth of Revelation and yet willfully rejects both in favor of doctrines that contradict God’s ‘words’ and conflict with Nature’s ‘laws’. One cannot be a heretic out of ignorance. The title Heretic is reserved for those who choose to go through life with ‘eyes wide shut’.
In this model of Truth, Science is not at the base of the pyramid; it is just one rung from the apex. Therefore, every sincere religion is located higher on the pyramid than heresy. Only Religion, to the extent that it is true, ranks above Nature and even so conflicts with nothing revealed about the world by Science. Religion is the star (or angel) on an already well decorated tree.
Truth is neither relative nor subjective. Sorry, Pilate! Truth just is. It’s how things are. It’s what it’s like to be Being, it’s what it is to be God. Along with Beauty and Justice, Truth comes as close as we can come to characterizing God. All religions, to the extent that they are not self-consciously heretical, contribute toward our understanding of that Truth.
Our materialist buddies are right. We have to follow the Science. We have to respect the natural world, for its intrinsic worth and because it is a coded missive, an urgent owl, sent by God for us to read.
Judeo-Christianity cannot, by definition, conflict with Natural Law (aka Science). Because it incorporates all three sources of Wisdom (Natural Law, Written Torah, Logos) it includes the Truth as it manifests in all our religious traditions. It is the metric by which all metaphysical speculation may be appreciated…and none of it judged, save naked heresy, the contradiction of Truth.
To plumb the depths of all three Torahs is the work of 1,000 lifetimes. Fortunately, St. Paul left us a Cliffs Notes version. Embedded in his Letter to the Colossians Hot Link (the congregation at Colossae, east of Ephesus in Asia Minor) we find this very short, very old Christological Hymn (1: 15-20), possibly the earliest liturgical Christology extant today. Yet it constitutes a complete cosmology. Prepare to be astounded:
"He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation,
for in him all things were created…through him and for him.
He is before all things and in him all things hold together…
He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead.
For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile all things for him…"
Can you feel these early faith finders wrestling with the limitations of our techno-skewed Indo-European languages? Yet they have managed to deliver a magnificently non-linear model of reality. In my view, all religious beliefs may be considered ‘constructive’ to the extent that they (1) address these same existential questions at similar depth and (2) state nothing inconsistent with this model. Let’s try to shed some light on this text, knowing that we can never match (or improve on) the original:
God is insensible, but the sensible image of God (e.g. Christ) is immanent in the created world. Creation (e.g. Genesis and/or Big Bang) is the moment of minimal entropy (maximal order). Of course, Christ is that maximal order, the ordering principle (logos), as well as order itself.
Christ is universal and eternal, the origin and the destiny of whatever is (or was or will be). Therefore, Christ conditions everything that comes to be, and because all things (events) share the same common origin (Christ) and destiny (Christ), all things hold together; and because Christ is also the locus of all events (above), all things hold together in him.
Death is the moment of maximal entropy, minimal order; you can’t be any deader than dead! Whatever emerges out of maximal entropy must (by definition) manifest an incremental increase in order; whatever stands out against a state of maximal entropy (death) manifests Christ.
Christ is not just the sensible image of an insensible God; Christ is God. ("In him all the fulness was pleased to dwell.") Entropy in the spatiotemporal world steadily increases due to conflict. Outside of spacetime (i.e. in Christ), reconciliation (through Christ) transmutes (for Christ) order-eroding conflicts into order-enriching contrasts, i.e. harmony.
Today, academia is engaged in a search of TOE – a Theory of Everything. Needless to say, this search is not taking place in the context of Christian theology. However, it would be good to keep in mind that any modern day cosmology claiming to be a successful TOE must at a minimum meet the criteria cited by Paul 2000 years ago in Colossians.
It must account for the diversity of entities (events) amid the solidarity of the Universe and the solidarity of a Universe that consists solely of diverse entities (events). It must explain how and why entities (events) emerge in the first place. It must model entities as unique, holistic events and Universe as a nexus of co-modifying entities. It must explain how things that decay may yet endure. It must allow entities (events) that seem to become and perish in spacetime to be eternal. It must explain how conflict can be resolved into contrast and contrast into harmony. It must account for the Reign of God, Peace.
Why not? A TOE after all is just another religion by another name, a sister (cosmology) from a different mister (science). Why should it not be held to the same Truth standard? All valid religious precepts, including the propositions of Science, reinforce one another. Residual conflict, at this level, is a symptom of error.
Image: Raphael. The School of Athens. 1509–1511. Fresco, 500 cm × 770 cm (200 in × 300 in). Apostolic Palace, Vatican Museums, Vatican City.
David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com.
