The Elephant In The Room

     Often people find truth in Religion, but at the same time, religion just opens a whole new can of worms: Are all religions equally true, or actually equally false? This question has been debated by philosophers for many years. While discussing world religions with a friend of mine last summer, my friend explained the story of the Elephant and the 5 blind men and suggested that this is a good way to view world religions. In his address to Berkley students, Tim Keller explains this argument: “Imagine 5 blind men and they come upon an Elephant. Each one grabs the Elephant from a different place one says ‘oh the elephant is-he’s grabbing the trunk- long and flexible” but another guy has hold of the leg and says ‘he’s not flexible at all, he’s kind of stumpy” so every one of the blind men tends to think that they sense the whole Elephant but they only sense a little part of the Elephant … [Therefore] No religion ought to say it sees the whole thing… etc”. This narrative at first seems very humbling. In fact when I first heard it I thought, yeah, this is the truth! I see a lot of wisdom in all religions and a lot of similarities too. However the response that Newbigin comes up with completely changed my thinking.

     Lesslie Newbigin’s response to this argument is, “In the famous story of the blind men and the elephant… the real point of the story is constantly overlooked.  The story is told from the point of view of the king and his courtiers, who are not blind but can see that the blind men are unable to grasp the full reality of the elephant and are only able to get hold of part of it.  The story is constantly told in order to neutralize the affirmations of the great religions, to suggest that they learn humility and recognize that none of them can have more than one aspect of the truth.  But, of course, the real point of the story is exactly the opposite.  If the King[narrator of this story] were also blind, there would be no story.  What this means then is that there is an appearance of humility and a protestation that the truth is much greater than anyone of us can grasp.  But if this is used to invalidate all claims to discern the truth, it is in fact an arrogant claim with the kind of knowledge which is superior that you have just said no religion has”.

     Ultimately saying that all religions are equal, or equally untrue is a truth claim in and of itself. This got me thinking of my own ignorance to different world religions as well as my own partial agnosticism. I used to say things like, “there can be no way of finding absolute truth”, in order to appear enlightened, progressive and tolerant while at the same time I was really just doing what I didn’t like: I was making another truth claim. I was coming across as though I had it more figured out than religious leaders, when really I just did not take the time to consider what these leaders/ “blind men” were saying. In regard to the blind men and the Elephant, I am also blind and the only difference is, is that I am not trying to grasp the Elephant at all. In order to even know if it is an Elephant, you would have to be more insightful than everyone else. Newbigin’s suggestion has humbled me greatly.

     At the heart of this story is mankind’s desire to explain away the possibility of absolute truth. In our post-modern society we are afraid of truth, because we know that it will challenge us to change. We are afraid of truth because we feel that it will limit our freedom somehow. We suggest that there is no way to find truth, and when others claim to have found truth we “explain it away”. In his piece, The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis suggests, “But you cannot go on ‘explaining away’ for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things forever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too?... a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as to not see”.

     I want to challenge you to get up off your throne of infinite post-modern wisdom, and search for the Elephant in the room. Humble yourself a little. Ask for help. Seek Truth and Knowledge with all your heart, because at the end of the day what could be more important?

-Rachel S.

PS if you have the chance, watch this video. I got most of my information and quotations from it!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiWeohEBdPo