An Invitation to Peace

present or future, must correspond with fact, otherwise it can’t be true.
Any prophesies that it makes must not be ultimately contradicted. A
book that gives the age of the earth as some thousands of years old, for
instance, when we know it to be in the millions, or one that says that
there was day and night before there was a sun, or the earth had been
made before the heavens even started could not therefore be from
God. Divine revelation must also not contradict itself by containing
two or more statements which can’t all be true, like quoting someone’s
genealogy twice with different ancestors in each account.
8) The revelation should contain some sign or proof that it is
from God.
As well as meeting all the above standards, divine revelation ought to
have some distinguishing features showing that it can’t be the work of
man. This may be in the form of prophecies or information which
could not have been known at the time of its revelation and has since
been discovered, or something else that is beyond human ability.
The very first point mentioned above is probably the easiest one to
identify; you can nearly always determine what the central-most
theme of a religion, its greatest teaching and the axis around which it
revolves is even without studying it too deeply. In fact, the very name of
the religion often gives this away. If it’s anything but God and our
relationship with God, rest assured it’s not from God.
Of all the religions that exist today, most do not meet all of these
criteria. Which is not surprising really, since only one can be true. It’s
not possible here to go through every single religion individually to
demonstrate this; you are invited to apply these criteria to any religion
of your choice to see for yourself whether or not it stands up to the test.
However, God must have preserved divine guidance in its
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An Invitation to Peace