Absolute Truth
In my recent explorations about the “parting of the ways” between Judaism and Christianity and in the origins of early Christianity, I discover different truth claims in antiquity. The various groups each claim its own to be absolute, exclusive and universal truth. Each is a sincere conviction believing in faith that God has revealed it to them only. They therefore deny the validity of the other claims to truth. I was struck by the sea of diversity in the early Christian movement.

It was from the fourth century C.E. (common era or after Christ A.D.) when Emperor Constantine embraced Christianity, it became the one true official religion for the State and its people. The Church Fathers like Augustine provided the theological justifications for the Christian Church to claim that it has sole possession of absolute Truth. They formulated the creeds and official teaching The Church through the office of the Pope was given the power to define the dogma of the community.

History further informs us that the Eastern branch of the Church separated from the Rome in the West to form different Orthodox Churches with their center in Constantinople. The Reformation further developed denominational churches and separated themselves from the Roman Catholic Church. Independent Churches now distanced themselves from the orbit of the mainline churches. The unavoidable question even within the Christian movement is whose claim of absolute truth is THE real absolute TRUTH.

Even though we believe in revelation from God there are various receptions and perceptions of divine revelation. This is the human condition and the only valid understanding we have is that it is a claim that each individual or group makes and views it to be absolute, exclusive and universal. Hence the concept of truth-claims. Call it relativistic if you must but what is the alternative. Your perceptions may be shared by some but will be different from others. There is no choice but to admit differences, diversities and pluralities. Otherwise, we will have to enter into conflict and conquer by the sword.

The theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg adopts the position that "every religion is incomplete pointing to a fulfillment in the future beyond itself. That religion which knows this and so interprets itself thus represents an absolute position in its very relativity."

Canon Max Warren of the Anglican Church Missionary Society in the early eighties advanced this classic attitude towards people of other faiths:
“Our first task in approaching another people, another culture, another
religion, is to take off our shoes, for the place we are approaching is holy.
Else we may find ourselves treading on men’s dreams. More serious, we forget that God was here before we our arrival.”