Characters: Two friends, A (an atheist) and B (a believer in God).
A: If God exists and He is one, why are there so many religions?
B: You have an interesting point there, A. To be honest, I’ve often thought—and even agonized—about this. I have to admit that I don’t have any convincing answer to your question. At the same time, I will also say that my present inability to answer that question does not in any way negate or disprove the existence of God, and nor does it weaken my belief that God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, is indeed a reality. There are many things about God that I do not and cannot know, but just because I do not and cannot know them does not mean that God is non-existent. God and God’s existence do not depend on my knowing or not knowing everything about God and His ways.
A: But, B, think of the immense confusion that the multiplicity of truth-claims of the various religions has caused. If God really wanted to guide people to the right path (assuming, for the moment, that there is indeed a single right path), wouldn’t making that one path plain and clear to all of humankind have been a better idea?
B: Well…hmmm…I don’t know. But just as a variety of flowering plants and trees makes a garden beautiful, I suppose one might say that a variety of religions adds to the beauty of the world.
A: I might have accepted this argument of yours if variety in matters of religion had to do simply with some external forms or ways of expressing the same truth-claims. But the fact is that some of the basic doctrines or truth-claims of the various religions seem so different from each other, and are in some cases so mutually contradictory, that it almost inevitably leads to competition and conflict. Human history is littered with bloody wars fought between religionists over religion, or in the name of religion. In many cases, religionists are brainwashed into believing that their particular religion is the best one or the only one acceptable to God, the only way to salvation. This leads to hostility towards other religions, which can easily transform into violent conflict, as has indeed been the case through much of history.
Now, if there is a God, and God truly loved human beings and was concerned about their wellbeing, wouldn’t He have arranged for there to be just one religion in the world so that there would be no conflict in the name of religion, or even in the name of God Himself? Wouldn’t that have been better for humankind? That way, we might have been spared many horrors committed in the name of religion.
B: Your argument presumes that you think you know what is better for human beings than God does. My answer to your objection is that God’s ways are not our ways. God’s ways can sometimes seem mysterious to us, with our limited minds. What a person might think is good for them may not actually be good for them, at that moment or in the long run, because human beings, because of their limitations, cannot understand the whole story.
A: Could you give an example to explain this?
B: Consider the case of a child who thinks that eating a bagful of sweets is a good thing. At the moment he is eating the sweets, he feels at the top of the world. But he doesn’t know the whole story, including the grave long-term implications of obsessive sweet-eating. In the same way, we may not be able to fathom many aspects about God’s activities because we don’t know the whole story. On account of this, a person may raise objections to some things that God has done, saying that if God had arranged for these things to be different, it would have been better for human beings, and then use that as an argument to claim that God is non-existent or that God is not as loving or as powerful or as wise as believers think God is. For instance, someone might say, “Why did God make it necessary for a woman to carry a child in her womb for such a long time? Why did He arrange for the process of giving birth to be accompanied by great pain, in many cases? If God truly existed and if He were truly loving and compassionate as well as all-powerful, couldn’t He have arranged for some other, easier, less cumbersome and lengthy process of giving birth to a child and thereby spared mothers much difficulty? For instance, He could have arranged for a magic pill that automatically produced a baby.”
You can see how silly such an argument would be!
A: I have to admit that you do have a point here. I understand what you say. Such arguments could indeed become very absurd! For instance, someone might say, “If God existed and really loved us and wanted us to be happy always, He could have created us in such a way that no one would ever do anything wrong and we would have a smile on our faces every moment”. Or, they might argue, “If God existed and truly cared for us and wanted us to be in comfort, He could have arranged for food to automatically land on our table without our having to work for it.” Or, they might say, “If God really existed and truly wanted us to be happy, He would have created all people the same colour so that humankind would have been spared the horrors of racism and slavery.” Or, someone might argue, "If God existed and was genuinely concerned about human beings, He could have designed humans without bones, because bones can become brittle or break, which can cause terrible pain to people. Because human beings have bones that can become brittle and that can break, it proves either that God doesn't exist or that if He does exist but is not concerned about human wellbeing."
Now this would be really silly reasoning. I have to admit this sort of argument against the existence of God would descend into sheer absurdity!
B: Well, I agree and am glad that we seem to have some common ground here. My point is that why God does certain things in certain ways—including why He has arranged for or has permitted the existence of multiple religions—is known to God. For my part, I can have no idea why it is so using merely my own reasoning. God alone decides why these things should be the way they are and not some other way—for instance, why grass should be green and not blue, or why crows should be grey or black and not purple, why squirrels should have paws and not wings. Simply on the basis of our own reasoning we cannot understand why God does or chooses to do certain things in certain ways.
A: But not knowing why some things are the way they are, or, to speak the language of believers, why God chooses to do or arrange for certain things to be in certain ways, doesn’t mean that we must give up human initiative if we see that a certain condition the cause of which we do not know is being used to create problems.
B: I agree with you. For instance, we may not know why God has allowed diversity of skin colour to exist among humans. But at the same time, we do know that some people have used this phenomenon to foment racism and discrimination and exploitation on the basis of the colour of people’s skins. Knowing this, we can do what we can to help promote good relations between people from different races. Likewise, we may not know why God has allowed for a multiplicity of religions. But we do know that this situation has been misused by some people and forces to foment conflict. Knowing this, we can do what we can to make a positive difference by helping promote good relations between people who follow, or claim to follow, different religions.
A: Ah, that’s a very good way of putting it! So, maybe we could say that we may not be able to know simply through our own reasoning the why of many things, including the phenomenon of religious or racial diversity, and we must simply accept them as a reality, as something given. And then, instead of wasting our time speculating about the why of such phenomenon that we cannot fathom in our own, we should focus on the ‘what-we-can-do-to- help’ aspect—what, for instance, we can do to help ameliorate a situation caused by conflicts caused in the name of religion or ethnicity.
B: That’s very well put, and I agree with you entirely.
A: Thank you, B! You’ve indicated how atheists and believers, even though they may not share certain basic assumptions, can work for common goals —such as ameliorating human distress caused by certain situations the why of which humans cannot know simply through their own reasoning.
B: Come, come, let’s give us both a much-deserved hug and a cup of tea!
A& B warmly embrace and let out a loud laugh!