The Blog

As a Christian apologist, author, and native of India, Ravi Zacharias travels the world giving evidence for the Christian faith. He has an incisive intellect and an engaging personality, which makes him a favorite on college and university campuses.

After a recent presentation on an American campus regarding the uniqueness of Christ, Ravi was charged by one of the university’s professors for not understanding Eastern logic.

The professor charged, “Dr. Zacharias, your presentation about Christ claiming and proving to be the only way to salvation is wrong for people in India because you are using ‘either-or’ logic. In the East, we do not use ‘either-or‘ logic; that is Western. In the East, we use ‘both-and‘ logic. So salvation is not either through Christ or nothing else, but both Christ and other ways.”

Ravi found this very ironic because he grew up in India. Yet here was a Western-born, American professor telling Ravi that he did not understand how things really worked in India!

Ravi was intrigued by his answer and invited the professor to lunch.

The professor kept on insisting that there were two types of logic.

Upon finishing his meal, Ravi decided to use the Road Runner Tactic to rebut the confused-but-insistent professor.

Ravi leaned forward, looking directly at the professor, and asked, “Are you saying that when I am in India, I must use either the ‘both-and’ logic or nothing else?”

The professor was using the ‘either-or’ logic to try to prove the ‘both-and’ logic. He wound up sawing off the very limb upon where he sat!

It would be the same thing as the professor telling Ravi that his math calculations are wrong in India because he is using using Western math instead of Eastern math.

Or suppose he declared that Ravi’s physics calculations were wrong because he used Western gravity instead of Eastern gravity.

The Road Runner tactic uses the undeniable laws of logic to expose that false notions of truth, religion, and morality in culture.

We contradict ourselves in our own peril.

Personal Reflection:

Have you had similar experience to Ravi where people claimed salvation can come from many paths? How did you handle it?