Today’s New Reason To Believe

How should a Christian view other religions in terms of truth? Are all religions utterly false in every respect? Can other religions have at least some truth to them?

By affirming the exclusive truth of historic Christianity (this is known as “exclusivism,” the Christian church’s historic position through the centuries), four broad points can be made concerning alternative non-Christian religions and their claims to truth:

1. Because God has revealed himself in the created order and in the human conscience (imago Dei, Genesis 1:26-27; Psalm 19:1-4; Romans 1-2), we should expect to discover authentic traces of God among the beliefs of other religions. And, in fact, most people in the world believe that a spiritual reality exists in or beyond the universe and that a spiritual path in life is valued, if not necessitated.
2. However, because of mankind’s fallen condition (Genesis 3) and Satan’s powerful deceptiveness (2 Corinthians 4:4), we should expect to discover the authentic traces of God mentioned above to be mixed with great distortion and falsity (Romans 1:18-21; Galatians 1:6-9). And, again, the world’s religions indeed affirm many beliefs that are contradictory to the central truths taught in Scripture about God, the world, and mankind.
3. Because salvation from sin comes uniquely and exclusively in and through the person of Jesus Christ (John 14:6; Acts 4:12), the world’s religions cannot lead a person to salvation. People in non-Christian religions are therefore trapped in religious systems that cannot reconcile them to their true Creator and Lord.
4. According to the biblical truths of revelation and man’s fallen condition, historic Christianity will find some common ground with other religions when it comes to secondary issues (for example, ethics), but there will be conflict and irreconcilable differences when it comes to the larger issues of truth, reality, and salvation.

Christian exclusivism then affirms that Christianity is the uniquely true religion, Jesus Christ is the only Savior of mankind, and having conscious faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is necessary for salvation (John 3:36).

For more on the topic of Christian truth-claims and other religions, see Kenneth Richard Samples, Without a Doubt: Answering the 20 Toughest Faith Questions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), chapters 12 and 13.

Continual cosmic expansion under fixed physical laws from an actual beginning of matter, energy, space, and time is the heart and soul of the biblical cosmic creation model. Moreover, the physical constants that govern cosmic expansion, namely dark energy and the cosmic mass density, provide the most spectacular confirmed scientific evidence for the supernatural design of the universe for the benefit of humanity.

One way to measure the properties of dark energy and the cosmic mass density is to measure the expansion history of the universe. This also serves to strengthen the biblical cosmic creation model. However, while astronomers have successfully measured the expansion rate of the universe over the latter half of the universe’s history, they have struggled to gain accurate measures over the first half of cosmic history.

The problem for astronomers is to find objects bright enough at great distances (because of the velocity of light, the greater the distance, the farther back in time astronomers make measurements) that they can measure the necessary properties to determine cosmic expansion. The only objects (besides a handful of supernovae) meeting the specifications are gamma-ray bursts.

As the name implies, gamma-ray bursts are flashes of intense gamma rays—so intense, in fact, that they rank as the brightest events to have ever occurred in the universe since the beginning of the universe itself. The intense nature of the long burst events (up to a few minutes) appear to be well explained by giant stars collapsing into a black hole. The short burst events (as brief as a fraction of a second) seem to be caused by the collision of two neutron stars.

Bradley Schaefer, an astronomer from Louisiana State University, assembled data on 69 different gamma-ray burst events that covered the portion of cosmic history ranging from 1.5 to 12 billion years ago. His study included more than three times as many well-analyzed gamma-ray burst events as any previously published work. He achieved an accuracy (for measuring cosmic expansion) that was just a factor of two worse than the best studies done for epochs covering the past 7 billion years.

Schaefer was able to draw two important conclusions about the expansion of the universe. First, the analysis of events corresponding to 7 to 12 billion years ago was consistent with conclusions drawn from analysis of events corresponding to the past 7 billion years. Second, the analysis favored the "concordance" model of the universe. The concordance model states that the cosmic dark energy density remains at a constant value throughout all of cosmic history. In other words, dark energy is explained by Einstein’s cosmological constant. Another way to word it is that Schaefer’s work shows there cannot be any major anomaly in the physics of the universe that would put aside the most significant conclusions astronomers are drawing about dark energy.

Thanks to Schaefer’s work, scientists and laypeople alike can be even more confident that what the Bible teaches about cosmic creation is correct. They also can celebrate the increasing scientific confirmation for the supernatural design of the density parameters that govern the expansion of the universe for the benefit of humanity.

Creation Explanation

Air date: 6-19-07
Hugh Ross, Fuz Rana, and Kenneth Samples

• Discoveries
  • Rare Milky Way Hypothesis
    • F. Hammer et al., “The Milky Way, An Exceptionally Quiet Galaxy: Implications For The Formation Of Spiral Galaxies”; The Astronomical Journal,662:322 – 334, 2007 June 10
      • Resource:
        • The Creator and the Cosmos, 3rd ed., by Hugh Ross
  • Neanderthals and Division of Labor
    • Steven L. Kuhn and Mary C. Stiner, “What’s A Mother To Do?, The Division of Labor among Neandertals and Modern Humans in Eurasia”; Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 6, December 2006
      • Resource:
        • Who Was Adam?, by Fazale Rana with Hugh Ross
• RTB announcement
  • Bob Stuart reminds listeners that the next term for Reasons Institute begins July 2
    • Reasons Institute
• Call-in questions
  • Doug from Suburban, MD:
    • Michael Behe’s new book, “Common Descent”
  • Terry from Gastonia, NC:
    • Comments on Michael Behe’s new book
  • Kenny from Pensacola, FL asks about:
    • Human Origins and New Testament Manuscripts
  • Roger from Portland, ME:
    • Asks about Genes and Covalent Thermodynamics