5

The importance of doctrine and the

distinctness of religious traditions

Doctrine

Agreement on the importance of doctrine

I

t is fairly well known that the New Testament contains such passages as
that in which Jesus says “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one
comes to the Father but by me.”^1 One reads that “he who believes in the
Son has eternal life; he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the
wrath of God abides on him.”^2 St Peter asserted “There is salvation in no
one else [but Jesus Christ], for there is no other name under heaven given
among men by which we must be saved.”^3 It is less well known that the
other religious traditions we have discussed have similar emphases. The
Advaita Vedantin Shankara, for example, forthrightly says that “if the soul

... is not considered to possess fundamental unity with Brahman – an
identity to be realized by knowledge – there is not any chance of its
obtaining final release.”^4 A text from the Jaina Sutras bluntly tells us that

Those who do not know all things by kevala [knowledge], but

who being ignorant teach a law [of their own], are lost them-

selves, and work the ruin of others in this dreadful, boundless

Circle of Births. Those who know all things by the full Kevala

knowledge, and who are practicing meditation and teach the

whole law, are themselves saved and save others.

A Buddhist text speaks plainly to this effect:

If one does not proceed in this manner [to “proceed in this man-

ner” is to “develop the understanding which results from the

study of the (Buddhist) teachings”], inasmuch as meditation on