The God Squad: Many paths up the mountain?

Q: How can God have created so many pathways to him that, based upon dogma, exclude so many? It doesn’t make sense that God would do such a thing. Picture a mountain that leads to God. The mountain is marked with hundreds of paths. Each one representing one of the world’s faiths, and each pathway has alternative routes that bring you to roadblocks or down the mountain rather than up.

The mountain being walked on is made up of the Ten Commandments (which, despite differences in dogma, every religion has seemed to adopt or create in some form), as well as tenants from the eastern religions. As you approach the top of the mountain, the Golden Rule becomes clearly visible, which makes clear God’s intended challenge/test for mankind. The meaning of life is a simple test for humanity. Can we give praise and glory to him by serving each other by treating each other as ourselves and be stewards of the earth? Can we create paradise on earth? It is what every religion claims to strive for.

My having been recently diagnosed with cancer on Thanksgiving makes very clear for me that time on earth is limited. That is also by design. If we all realized life is precious, maybe we would act differently. Instead, we spend our time looking for those whom we can hate, marginalize, and disenfranchise. My wish is for humanity to learn this very simple lesson and accept God’s test by believing and practicing the real purpose of religion. -- (From D in North Haven, Connecticut)

A: Dear D, I pray for your speedy healing, and I pray for your courage to face your journey without fear. I chose your note to me because Dr. Tom Hartman and I often used the same metaphor. We spoke of a mountain leading to God at the summit with many paths up the slopes. Each religion was a path and each path led to the top. It is a warm and inviting image that encourages interfaith dialogue as a way of learning from other spiritual climbers.

What did they learn about climbing to God on their path? It also helped us to gain courage and hope that our struggles to find our way to God were not solitary but a part of a basic human need and common human enterprise. However, after all these years of using the mountain metaphor and receiving your heartfelt note, I want to share with you the ways I now believe that the image of the mountain may be too simplistic and, in a way, also misleading. We may need a better metaphor to explain the nature of human piety.

The problem with the mountain metaphor is fundamentalism. To say it simply, some climbers believe and say clearly that the only path up the mountain that leads to God is their path. Fundamentalism is not orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is the belief that one’s path is reliable and true but not necessarily that it is the only reliable and true path. Fundamentalism is the belief that there is only one true path. Orthodox Jews and Hindus both believe that other religions can save people from sin and deliver their souls to Heaven. Judaism teaches that, “The righteous of all nations have a share in the World To Come.” (Tosefta Sanhedrin 13, based on Sanhedrin 105a.)

Christianity is a complicated case. There are Christian verses that affirm the eternal validity of the Jewish covenant with God (Romans 11:26-29), and affirm a plurality of revelations, “There are different gifts but the same Spirit. There are different ministries but the same Lord. There are different works but the same God who accomplishes all of them in everyone ... it is one and the same Spirit who produces all these gifts, distributing them to each as He wills.” (I Corinthians 12:4-11). However, there are also fundamentalist verses like the famous one in John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.”

Islam also has beliefs that honor and affirm the teachings of other monotheistic faiths, Surah Al-Ankabut verse 46, “And do not argue with the People of the Scripture except in a way that is best, except for those who commit injustice among them, and say, "We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you. And our God and your God is one; and we are Muslims [in submission] to Him."

The mountain metaphor is only true for those who believe that God did not give all the truth to one faith. I believe that and I believe in the mountain, but there are those who want to stop other climbers and who forget that all of us are trying to get to the top together.

(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including “Religion for Dummies,” co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman. Also, the new God Squad podcast is now available.)