DAY 353
CHALLENGE
“Okay, religion is a human universal—something that’s found in all cultures. That doesn’t mean that it’s true, and it certainly doesn’t mean that Christianity is true.”
DEFENSE
Nobody would argue that because religion is a human universal, Christianity must be true. That would be excessively simplistic.
Instead, the argument is that the fact that religion is a human universal points to there being a religious dimension to the world.
The starting point for this argument is recognizing the universality of religion in human cultures. There have been no cultures without religion, either now or in the past. Even cultures that have tried to stamp out religion have not been able to do so. Further, as we observe elsewhere, children are naturally predisposed to religious belief (see Day 313). Religion is therefore a basic impulse that is rooted in human nature.
Other, similarly basic impulses tell us something about the world. The human impulses to eat and breathe point to the existence of food and oxygen. The impulses to sex and language point to the possibilities of reproduction and of communicating information in symbolic form.
Any basic impulse representing a human universal is rooted in human nature. Therefore, the religious impulse also tells us something about the world—that it has a religious or supernatural dimension.
This does not tell us much about that dimension. It does not tell us, for example, which God or gods are real or what the afterlife is like. But, in the same way, the mere impulse to eat does not tell us much about what kinds of food exist, and the mere impulse toward language does not tell us much about what kinds of information are out there.
If you want to know about the latter subjects, much more detailed studies have to be done, but the existence of the basic impulses tell us that the subjects are real.
In the same way, if you want to find out the details of the supernatural world, more detailed studies must be made and the whole enterprise of apologetics comes into play to prove or disprove particular religious claims. However, the religious impulse does point to the reality of the supernatural realm.
TIP
For more, see C.S. Lewis’s essay “The Weight of Glory.”