Lausanne World Pulse – Themed Articles – What Makes Christianity Fundamentally Different from Other Great World Religions?

By Jerry Root

Distinguishing Characteristics of Christianity

1. The Doctrine of the Trinity
It is at this point that Christianity stands apart in distinction from the religions of the world. The Christian faith asserts that human beings cannot fix what is broken in themselves; only God, in his mercy, can do such a thing and reconcile estranged human beings back into proper relationship with the divine. Christians believe that God is one, but he is a Trinity of persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is fundamentally a being who exists in relationship; in other words, that is he is a relational being. This sets Christianity apart from all other religious monotheisms at that very place where the theology of the other religions becomes illogical and flawed due to a contradiction embedded in their doctrine of God. No amount of appeal to divine mysteries can fix this flaw.

The Christian faith asserts that human beings cannot fix what is broken in themselves; only God can do such a thing and reconcile estranged human beings back into proper relationship with the divine.

Only Christians assert with confidence that relational attributes in a non-contingent being presupposes that relationship is necessary in that being. On the other hand, non-Trinitarian monotheisms are quick to claim that God is a non-contingent being; in other words, he is uncaused and self-existent. Furthermore, most non-Trinitarians would assert that God is a God of love; however, the question these people must ask is, “Who is the object of God’s love?” As soon as someone answers, “Creation,” they have denied God’s capacity to love except by means of his creation, thus suggesting that he must be contingent upon his creation to fulfill his nature. Therein lies the contradiction embedded in this particular false notion of God; God cannot be both contingent and non-contingent at the same time.

2. The Incarnation of Christ
Christians must also distinguish themselves by virtue of the fact that they believe that the second person of the Godhead, God the Son, became a man and walked on this earth to communicate God’s love and forgiveness to his creatures. Before his conversion from atheism to Christianity, Lewis speculated that if there was a personal God, he could no more know God personally than Hamlet could know Shakespeare. Two years later when Lewis finally became a Christian he revisited his Hamlet-Shakespeare analogy. Certainly Hamlet, the character of the play, could never break out of the play to get to know Shakespeare, the author of the play. Nevertheless, Lewis speculated that it could be possible for Shakespeare the author of the play to write himself into the play as a character, and this way an introduction between Hamlet and Shakespeare could be possible. Lewis also believed that something like this actually did occur when God the Son became a man in the Incarnation. And it is this coming of God the Son into the world to mend what was broken in humanity. He died sacrificially for humanity’s sin, reconciling men and women to himself.

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Dr. Jerry Root is associate director of the Institute for Strategic Evangelism at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, USA. He has taught in the evangelism masters program for the past eleven years. Root has invested nineteen years in student ministry, evangelism, and discipleship.