At this rate, I’m going to be done with Tim Keller’s The Reason for God in no time at all. Reading today, I came across another excellent thought. But this time, I think I’ll share more of his own words.
In this passage from his book, Keller is responding to the notion that no one religion can claim the corner on the truth market. That all religions, while have some truth, don’t have all of it; in other words, all religions are correct. Not just one. He shares an analogy he hears often about three blind men and an elephant.
An elephant approaches three blind men and allows them to touch him. When asked what they elephant looked like, the first blind man, holding the elephant’s tail, said, “it’s long and thin, like a snake.” The next blind man responded, “no, it’s tall and thick, like a tree,” holding the elephant’s leg. The last blind man argued, “no, it’s large and flat,” touching the elephants side.
Keller response to this analogy by revealing it’s inherent problem.
“This illustration backfires on its users. The story is told from the point of view of someone who is not blind. How could you know that each blind man only sees part of the elephant unless you claim to be able to see the whole elephant?
‘There is an appearance of humility in the protestation that the truth is much greater than any one of us can grasp, but if this is used to invalidate all claims to discern the truth it is in fact an arrogant claim to a kind of knowledge which is superior to [all others]… We have to ask: “What is the [absolute] vantage ground from which you claim to be able to relativize all the absolute claims these different scriptures make?’ [Leslie Newbigin – The Gospel in a Pluralists Society]
How could you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth unless you yourself have the superior, comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality you just claimed that none of the religions have?”
To claim that no one religion has the corner on truth, is in itself a faith based claim and, in a sense, a religious one. The user of this argument is forced to either submit to the analogy themselves and so invalidate it, or accept the hypocrisy of it.
Very interesting, Tim. Very interesting indeed.
