The one about the blind men and the elephant

Perhaps you've heard this kind of reasoning before:

There can’t be one true religion. Each may have some truth, but no single one of them can be true. To say that one is right and the other is wrong is appalling, narrow-minded and arrogant.
Christianity, by making an exclusive truth claim, is a danger to a tolerant, peace-loving, progressive society.

Or something along those lines anyway...

Let's talk about elephants

There is an elephant in a room, and there are a bunch of blind men around it. Each of them can touch only one part of the elephant. And you are looking on.

The first man touches the tail – ‘ah, it’s like a snake with rough skin’ he says. The second man touches the leg – ‘it’s kind of firm and solid’ he says. The third man touches the side ‘it’s all hard and scaly’ he says. Their descriptions of this elephant are similar, yet different. And they proceed to have an argument about what the elephant is.

Each man grasps a part of the elephant – so in a way, they are all right. But of course, their descriptions are incomplete - so in a way they are all wrong. They can’t all grasp the whole elephant, even though they think they can.

But herein lies the problem. You can only know the blind men can only grasp part of the elephant unless you can see the whole elephant. To say that all religions have part of the truth, that none can have the whole truth (and therefore there can be no true religion) is a big step. To say this, you need to see the whole elephant. The whole truth.  

 

Everyone believes exclusive truth…

Christians are often portrayed as primitive religious people scrabbling around for truth, with the tolerant secularist as the arbiter. An arbiter who calls them to be more humble - just like them in fact - because after all they can only grasp part of the truth.

And yet, what such a person is claiming, is that they can see the whole truth the religions of the world are groping after. How does a secularist get to have such superior knowledge?

In the interests of being inclusive (and I do not deny that often intentions are good) they are saying something very exclusive. That they have this spiritual take on ultimate reality. And it is right and my take is wrong.

To be honest, both the secularist and the Christian think that their take on spiritual reality is superior to the other. Both of us believe that the world would be better off if the other adopted our version of it.

So guess what, we’re both exclusive!

…but not everyone acknowledges it.

The difference is, as a Christian, I acknowledge my exclusivity.

Secularists are being just as exclusive as I am, but they’re not being consistent, claiming ‘tolerance’ and ‘inclusivity’ when it suits.

Because everybody has exclusive views.

Therefore let’s not talk about secularists being inclusive and Christians being exclusive.

The real question is – whose exclusive views most lead you to love and serve others? Which set of exclusive beliefs will lead to peace on this earth?

What we learn from Miss World

Our cultural narrative gives us the aspiration is to be inclusive and tolerant and to work for 'world peace'. But secularism isn’t succeeding.  Secularism leads to disappointment; dreams turning to dust; relationships failing; misery and despair abounding. Emptiness and loneliness are the scourge of our culture which seeks to fill itself with money, sex, entertainment and ‘things’.

When people say that we should all have our own truth, you can ask ‘so how’s that working out for you then?’ You can ask where the certainty and assurance for this profound belief statement comes from.

Only in the gospel will the narrative people long for actually come to fruition. Only the gospel offers the assurance, because we come to a king who sees the whole truth, because he made it. We don’t need to grope around hoping that we find truth. Instead the One who is Truth, Jesus Christ, stepped down into history and died in our place that we might know him and know real peace, real purpose, both in this life and the next.

When truth is revealed, telling others isn't arrogance. It's kindness.

Which exclusive truth do you believe?

A 5 week series at Barton Evangelical Church entitled ‘I don’t know what to say’ begins this Sunday at 6.30pm. See here for details.

This blog is based on a talk given by Tim Keller in 2006 to the Desiring God National Conference.






Elephant image from Google images - Kidney International Himmelfarb, J.; Stenvinkel, P.; Ikizler, T. A.; Kakim, R. M. The Elephant in Urema: Oxidant Stress as a Unifying Concept of Cardiovascular Disease in Uremia, Kidney International, 2002, 62, 1524-1538. Artist - G. Renee Guzlas (2002)