Do all religions lead to God?

1. All Religions Contradict

Even a quick glance at the big questions shows that major world faiths simply cannot be reconciled as “different paths to the same peak”:

1. What is God like?

   • Buddhism: No supreme being at all—many practitioners see it as a non-theistic philosophy.

   • Hinduism: Polytheistic (up to 33 million gods!), or for some monotheistic/agnostic/atheist—vastly different conceptions of deity.

   • Islam: One impersonal, unknowable Allah who dispenses both mercy and wrath “as He wills.”

   • Christianity: One God in three Persons (Father, Son, Spirit), loving, personal, self-revealed, infinitely holy yet intimately involved with His people.

    

2. What happens after death?

   • Buddhism: Reincarnation on the wheel of suffering until final nirvana (loss of self in the universe).

   • Hinduism: Reincarnation by “karma” until released from the cycle into merger with ultimate reality.

   • Islam: Deeds weighed on a cosmic scale—if good > evil, eternal bliss; if evil > good, eternal torment.

   • Christianity: One life, then resurrection and judgment; eternal fellowship with God through faith in Jesus Christ, or eternal separation.

    

No two of these can all be true at once.  To insist “they’re just different ways to the same goal” flattens out their real, fundamental—and often irreconcilable—differences.

2. Christianity’s Two Uniquely Gospel-Shaping Claims

A. We Can’t Earn Our Way Up—God Must Reach Down

• All other religions demand that we climb to God by our own efforts: meditation, moral works, ritual, good karma, law-keeping.

• Christianity alone says we have utterly failed, are powerless to bridge the gap, and must be rescued by God Himself.  Jesus came to live perfectly in our place, died to pay our penalty, and rose to secure our reconciliation.

This “you can’t save yourself” message had to come from outside human pride—pointing to a God who loves, reaches down, and saves wounded humanity.

B. Only Jesus Claimed—and Proved—Divine Lordship

• Buddha, Muhammad, and countless founders: all remained mere mortals in their own eyes (or were deified by followers).

• Jesus alone claimed to be God incarnate (“I and the Father are one,” “Before Abraham was, I am”) and backed it up by miracles (healing incurables, control over nature, raising the dead) and—supremely—by rising from the grave on the third day.

The empty tomb and the transformed disciples (from fearful deserters to bold proclaimers, even unto death) point to one best explanation: Christ really was raised by God.

So… Which Path Is True?

They can’t all be true—but one could be.  Only Christianity:

1. Concedes our moral bankruptcy and inability to save ourselves.

2. Offers a divine Savior who alone rose from the grave and brings us to God.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life,” said Jesus.  “No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

If you haven’t yet placed your trust in Him—no other path can meet your deepest need or assure you of heaven.  “Salvation is found in no one else,” Peter said, “for there is no other name under heaven…by which we must be saved.”