Certainty in Non-Christian Religions
many ways. No sacrifice was too great, no punishment too severe, no life too valuable. He tried to obtain it by observing laws and rituals, with bloody and unbloody sacrifices, through scourging and killing the flesh, and in wild orgies as well as rigorous asceticism.
The history of religion reveals such profound, awesome struggles and sufferings that natural disasters, social revolutions, and wars pale in comparison. Every page of this inner history tells us of tears, sighs, prayers, pleas, struggles and temptations. Uncertainty, doubt, fear, terror and anxiety eat at the heart and life of every person. The hymns of all nations are filled with moving lamentations. The futility of the world and life has been expressed in the most eloquent tones.
The greatest and noblest of the human race have been subject to the most fearful inner struggles.
Some of the most beautiful poetry also drew its subject matter from this suffering. Philosophy was born from pondering the riddle of death. The origin and goal of the arts and sciences is to make life easier to bear. And religion taken as a whole is one gigantic attempt to support man, with the help of the Deity, in the fearsome struggle against harsh, unrelenting nature. The devotees of pleasure and sensuality as well as artists and scientists often hide their nagging anxiety behind a mask of indifference. Through pleasure and work they seek diversion from the unrest in their souls. These are means to escape the emptiness of their existence and the accusing voice of conscience—in a word, themselves. Blaise Pascal (1623-62) spoke the truth when he said that the sum total of all activity and business, the diversions and pleasures we observe in mankind "arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber" (139).
Certainty in Non-Christian Religions
Although it is a temptation, we cannot possibly examine and judge the various religions from this point of view, however briefly. But one phenomenon does deserve our attention, if only in passing. Certainty regarding one's own state and future is not unique to Christianity; it also occurs in other religions. The basic mood of heathen religion was doubtlessly timid, anxious fear (religio, deisidaimonia). Outside of redemption in Jesus Christ, all men live in fear of death, in servitude, without God and without hope. Nevertheless, the heathen world produces not only voices of fear, but also of trust and repose.
All religious faiths have inspired martyrs, those who testified with their blood. One famous example is Socrates (c. 469-399 B.C.). In 399 B.C. he was charged in Athens for deviating from the state religion, for importing new gods and for perverting the youth with his teachings. In the speech he made in his defense he held that he had seen his whole life as a service to the deity. If the judges wished to pardon him on the condition that he give up his vocation—the teaching of philosophy—he would have to refuse, choosing to obey
God rather than man. He was not afraid of death but of doing something unholy and unrighteous. So he went into death confidently, knowing that he was going to the gods -and was being set free from life's troubles. With imperturbable composure he then drank the cup of hemlock and died as a martyr to his faith.
This example would be easy to support with many others. They all teach that certainty is not the same as truth. Truth always brings certainty, but certainty is no proof of truth. The human spirit can find false rest in an error presumed to be the truth. We like to believe in what we wish were true. Certainty in itself, however, does not set one free. Only the truth can free man from the servitude of sin and death. If the Son has made you free, you shall be free indeed.
Nevertheless, these examples of steadfast trust should shame us Christians who have received a much greater grace and may walk in a much brighter light. Christendom does not always present a more attractive picture in this respect. We are not thinking here of nominal