Can insights from other faiths being us closer to ‘the Truth’?
This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1992.
Truth is not simply a collection of propositions or doctrines. Truth is ultimately a Person; and certainly none of us yet understands that glorious Person in all the infinite wonder of his reality. To me, it is a glorious anticipation that, even in eternity, God will always be our inexhaustible fountain of new and unexpected revelations of his grace, purposes and plans. Eternity will never bore us with its sameness. Indeed, so great is God, that we will need every jewel in the eternal city to refract with its own particular colour the light of the infinite character of God.
However, some believe that we as Christians only have truths about the Truth, and that even the revelation of God which we have in Christ is still only a collection of truths about the Truth; and that, therefore, we need the insights of Hinduism and Buddhism to be added to the revelation given us through Christ, so that we may approximate more closely to the Truth. And further, that when Christ said 'I am the truth' (John 14:6), he was not claiming to be the absolute truth, but only one road of approach to the ultimate truth.
When the recently retired Archbishop Runcie returned the other year from a visit to India, and gave the Younghusband lecture for that year, he openly said that he had been overwhelmed by the spirituality of India on his recent visit to that country, and that we Christians needed in all humility to join with Hindus and other great religions to search for the truth; thus implying that in Jesus Christ we do not have the complete objective revelation of God, but only some truths which need to be supplemented by the insights of Hinduism. That, of course, is a very dangerous illusion; but it is becoming ever more rampant in religious circles in Britain these days, and its advocates ever more frequently publicly rebuke those who, like myself, say, with reference to our Lord, that 'there is no other name under heaven, given amongst men, whereby we must be saved' (Acts 4:12).
Yours sincerely in Christ,
