This lecture is based on the book “Truth in Religion” by famous philosopher Mortimer J. Adler. At the time of writing the book, he was not a Christian, but there is still a lot of value in the book for Christians who are trying to understand what religion is about. In one sense, the material on this lecture should be the first thing that Christians learn about Christianity before they ever open the Bible. And I mean before even knowing about the existence of the Bible. The most important question when it comes to religion is this: “IS RELIGION CONCERNED WITH TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT REALITY”? That is the first question to answer.

About the speaker

Dr. Walter L. Bradley (C.V. here) is the Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Baylor.

Here’s a bio from his faculty page at Baylor University:

Walter Bradley (B.S., Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin) is Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Baylor. He comes to Baylor from Texas A&M University where he helped develop a nationally recognized program in polymeric composite materials. At Texas A&M, he served as director of the Polymer Technology Center for 10 years and as Department Head of Mechanical Engineering, a department of 67 professors that was ranked as high as 12th nationally during his tenure. Bradley has authored over 150 refereed research publications including book chapters, articles in archival journals such as the Journal of Material Science, Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites, Mechanics of Time-Dependent Materials, Journal of Composites Technology and Research, Composite Science and Technology, Journal of Metals, Polymer Engineering and Science, and Journal of Materials Science, and refereed conference proceedings.

Dr. Bradley has secured over $5.0 million in research funding from NSF grants (15 yrs.), AFOSR (10 years), NASA grants (10 years), and DOE (3 years). He has also received research grants or contracts from many Fortune 500 companies, including Alcoa, Dow Chemical, DuPont, 3M, Shell, Exxon, Boeing, and Phillips.

He co-authored The Mystery of Life Origin: Reassessing Current Theories and has written 10 book chapters dealing with various faith science issues, a topic on which he speaks widely.

He has received 5 research awards at Texas A&M University and 1 national research award. He has also received two teaching awards. He is an Elected Fellow of the American Society for Materials and the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), the largest organization of Christians in Science and Technology in the world. He is President elect of the ASA and will serve his term in 2008.

You can read more about his recent research on how to use coconuts to make car parts in this article from Science Daily.

The MP3 file is here. (31 minutes + Q&A)

Topics:

• what is pluralism?
• what is multiculturalism?
• what is relativism?
• some propositions are true culturally – just for certain groups in certain times (cultures)
• some proposition are true trans-culturally – true independently of what anyone wants or feels
• Mathematical truth is trans-cultural – it is true regardless of cultural fashions
• Scientific truth is trans-cultural – it is true regardless of cultural fashions
• Some truths are not like this – cooking traditions, clothing traditions and greeting traditions
• These kinds of truths are NOT trans-cultural, they vary by culture
• The question is – is religion true like math and science, or true depending on the culture
• Some people think that your religion depends on where you were born or what your family believes
• Religions make conflicting claims about the way the world really is, so they can’t all be true
• And these conflicts are at the core of the religions – who God is, how can we be related to him, etc.
• So if religions convey trans-cultural truth, then either one is true or none are true
• If they are not trying to convey trans-cultural truth, then they are not like math and science
• Let’s assume that religion is the same as trans-cultural truth
• How can we know which religion is true? 1) the laws of logic, 2) empirical testing against reality
• Logical consistency is needed to make the first cut – self-contradictory claims cannot be true
• To be true trans-culturally, a proposition must at least NOT break the law of non-contradiction
• According to Mortimer Adler’s book, only Christianity, Judaism and Islam are not self-contradictory
• All the others can be excluded on the basis of overt internal contradictions on fundamental questions
• The others that are self-contradictory can be true culturally, but not trans-culturally
• The way to proceed forward is to test the three non-contradictory religions against science and history
• One of these three may be true, or they could all be false
• We can test the three by evaluating their conflicting truth claims about the historical Jesus
• Famous skeptics have undertaken studies to undermine the historical Jesus presented in the Bible
• Lew Wallace, Simon Greenleaf and Frank Morrison assessed the evidence as atheists and became Christians
• There is a lot of opposition in culture to the idea that one religion might be true
• But if you take the claims of Jesus at face value, he claims to be the unique revelation of God to mankind
• Either he was telling the truth about that, or he was lying, or he was crazy
• So which is it?

Why don’t religious people ask if their religion is true?

Truth claims are necessarily divisive. If God wants people to know him as he is, and I tell them a lie that they can invent their own view of him, then that is sinning against God. And the only reason I would lie about that is because I can’t be bothered studying these things and taking the heat for standing up for God’s real personality and goals for his creatures to his creatures. Nowhere in Bible does it say that our goal is to tell people that they can believe anything they want about God and he really doesn’t care since he just wants us to be nice to each other and be happy and have fun and believe whatever we want about him whether it’s true or not.

People who think that all religions are true are doing it for three reasons: 1) they don’t want to study and be bound to one view through study, 2) they want to use religion to be comforted, but to leave it when it makes demands, 3) they want other people to like them so they want to say that all views of God are true. But this pluralism is not a view that is consistent with the plain meaning of the Bible – the people who embrace the idea that all religions are true based on personal preferences or cultures reject the plain meaning of the gospel, which makes exclusive claims. It is NOT TRUE that you can believe whatever you want as long as you are sincere – sincerity doesn’t mean that you can’t be mistaken. Not wanting to know whether Christianity is true is really just another way of saying that you don’t think God’s existence and character matters that much to you. Is that a good relationship? Is that the right way to be God’s friend?

I think that God’s existence and character can be assessed and known based on logic and evidence. I think that God exists independently of whether I want him to or not, and I think that his character and desires are not the same as my character and desires. And I don’t really care what my neighbors think of my disagreeing with them, my goal is not to keep silent and to just get along with them and be happier in my community. God’s first commandment to us is not to love our neighbor – that’s number two. Number one is to love him. And how can we love him, if we don’t want to know him. And how can we love him, if we don’t tell people the truth about him, (when asked to, and within the context of a respectful relationship, as in 1 Pet 3:15).

1 Cor 15:13-19:

¹³If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

¹⁴And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

¹⁵More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.

¹⁶For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.

¹⁷And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.

¹⁸Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.

¹⁹If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

You can read papers from Dr. Bradley here.