{"id":11995,"date":"2024-02-29T17:59:49","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T12:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/29\/only-god-sees-the-whole-elephant\/"},"modified":"2024-02-29T17:59:49","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T12:29:49","slug":"only-god-sees-the-whole-elephant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/29\/only-god-sees-the-whole-elephant\/","title":{"rendered":"Only God Sees the Whole Elephant"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The Question of Differences<\/h2>\n

The story of the blind men and the elephant had always captured Bill\u2019s imagination. He loved it when his pastor wove the story into her sermons. She told it so often as an expression of her attitude about religion that she could simply allude to it and her congregation would nod along agreeably.<\/p>\n

The story probably has its origins in Hinduism, but I\u2019ve heard Christians, Buddhists, and more than a few rabbis claim it fits well with their traditions. In case you\u2019re not familiar with the story, it tells of six blind men coming upon an elephant. They feel their way around the elephant\u2019s tusk, tail, side, and ear, and they draw different conclusions about what an elephant is. The blind man holding the tail says, \u201cAn elephant is like a snake.\u201d The one with the tusk says, \u201cAn elephant is like a spear.\u201d The one by the side says, \u201cAn elephant is like a wall.\u201d And so on.<\/p>\n

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\"Questioning<\/p>\n

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Randy Newman<\/a><\/p>\n

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In these honest stories about spiritual searching, doubt, and belief, apologetics teacher Randy Newman gives sincere inquirers the opportunity to investigate faith and encounter God\u2019s love.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

When the story is told, the teller usually brings the narrative to a climax with lessons like these: <\/p>\n

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No one sees the whole elephant. No one has the full picture. And that\u2019s what the different religions of the world are like. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and all the others only see part of reality; one religion cannot state conclusively what God is like or what life is all about. But if we\u2019d just listen to each other, we could put our partial views together and get a fuller picture. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As you might guess, this parable is a favorite in comparative religions classes. John Godfrey Saxe expressed both the thoughts and sentiments of this story in a poem with these two final stanzas: <\/p>\n

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And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong! <\/p>\n

So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an elephant
Not one of them has seen!1<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The final appeal calls for humility and a turn away from the arrogance that individual religions have when they claim the truth. <\/p>\n

Bill never tired of hearing this story. Until he heard a different take on it. For part of the year, he and his wife, Jana, lived in a condo on the beautiful beach paradise of Treasure Cay in the Bahamas. Away from their home church, they attended a Christian chapel that invited guest preachers from a variety of Christian denominations to lead Sunday morning worship. Bill and Jana loved the mix of perspectives, from liberal, mainline Protestant to evangelical nondenominational. <\/p>\n

One Sunday, the guest preacher told the blind-men-and-the-elephant story but then commented: <\/p>\n

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I was drawn to this story when I first heard it. I liked it until someone challenged me on it. They asked me, \u201cHow can we tell that story?\u201d I didn\u2019t understand their question. They elaborated, \u201cThe only way we can tell that story is if we<\/em> claim to see the whole elephant. How else could we know that none of those blind men saw the whole elephant? In other words, we who tell the story are really the most<\/em> arrogant of all. We\u2019re guilty of the very sin for which we\u2019re judging all those blind men\u2014claiming to know what the whole elephant looks like.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The preacher paused and added: <\/p>\n

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I didn\u2019t like hearing someone critique one of my favorite stories. But I had to admit they had a valid point. Isn\u2019t it a little patronizing to say all those religious men are blind but we, the objective observers telling the story, can see? When we tell that story, are we saying Jesus was blind? That Muhammad was blind? Or Buddha? Are we claiming to be smarter and more enlightened than those religious leaders?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Bill felt his world crumbling. It was the worst worship service he\u2019d experienced and the most disturbing sermon he\u2019d ever heard. Unlike so many other Sundays, this time, as he walked out of the chapel, he did not<\/em> shake the preacher\u2019s hand. But he thought about the sermon for the rest of the day. <\/p>\n

The next morning, he knocked on the door of the apartment the church provided for their guest preachers. He asked for a retelling of that part of the sermon about the blind men and the elephant. The preacher invited him in for some coffee and simply restated what he\u2019d shared the day before, adding: \u201cIt is rather disturbing to have something you\u2019ve held dear for a long time dismantled, isn\u2019t it? It certainly was for me.\u201d Bill nodded and said he needed to think about it more. He acknowledged that if we claim to see the whole elephant, we are in fact guilty of our own kind of religious arrogance. <\/p>\n

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The God who has revealed himself through the Bible is not a God who hides.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I know the details of this encounter between the preacher and Bill because I was that guest preacher. I remember Bill\u2019s face when we chatted over that cup of coffee. I was impressed that he was willing to question something he\u2019d believed for a long time. I was more impressed because he was in his midsixties, and he\u2019d held this view for decades. He told me this was the last year he and his wife would be coming to Treasure Cay. They\u2019d reached the stage of life when they needed to be close to the best medical attention they could find. This tiny island, while stunningly beautiful, lacked the doctors and hospitals they would need in the years ahead. \u201cWe want to have home field advantage for the fourth quarter,\u201d he told me with a smile. I\u2019ve lost touch with him, but I hope he was able to wrestle with how different religions differ.<\/p>\n

Differences Make a Difference<\/h2>\n

Many people are convinced that the different religions of the world are merely \u201croads on the same mountain that all lead to the top.\u201d In fact, that image is presented with approval in one of the most frequently used textbooks for religious studies courses, The Religions of Man<\/em> by Huston Smith. We\u2019re encouraged to find the commonalities of the different religions rather than focus on where they differ. <\/p>\n

Respect for one another, a high value for spirituality, pursuing peace in the world, and other \u201cuniversals\u201d should form the center of everyone\u2019s religious life, according to this framework. But the all-roads-up-the-same-mountain analogy suffers from the same weakness as the blind-men-and-the-elephant story. The only way a person can tell that all these roads make their way to the top of the same mountain is if he, somehow, omnisciently hovers over the mountain and sees the zenith where all the roads meet. <\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve talked to people about their individual faith journeys, this all-roads view resonates with very few. It\u2019s championed only by those who subscribe to no particular religion at all. Sincere adherents of Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, and pretty much every other religion do not<\/em> see themselves on a road up the same mountain as the others. They think they\u2019re on the best (and, in some cases, only) road to make it to the top. When they compare their religion with others, they believe they\u2019ve found the truth and feel bad for people who have not. It seems that the differences<\/em> between religions, not their similarities, are most helpful in propelling people through terrains of doubt.<\/p>\n

Seeing the Whole Elephant<\/h2>\n

Here\u2019s what I wish I\u2019d said to Bill over that cup of coffee as he wrestled with the story of the blind men and the elephant: God sees the whole elephant! And he\u2019s told us what it looks like. To be sure, God hasn\u2019t told us everything there is to know about who he is or what the answers to all of life\u2019s mysteries are. The Bible itself says that there are things God hasn\u2019t revealed anywhere.2<\/sup> But the God who has revealed himself through the Bible is not a God who hides. He eagerly makes himself known so people can know him and enjoy a personal relationship with him. He has told us enough<\/em> about the \u201celephant\u201d that we don\u2019t have to feel like blind men groping in the dark.<\/p>\n

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\n Notes:<\/strong>\n <\/p>\n

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  1. John Godfrey Saxe, \u201cThe Blind Men and the Elephant,\u201d in The Best Loved Poems of the American People<\/em>, ed. Hazel Felleman (New York: Doubleday, 1936), 521\u201322.<\/li>\n
  2. Deuteronomy 29:29.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n

    This article is adapted from<\/em> Questioning Faith: Indirect Journeys of Belief through Terrains of Doubt<\/a> by Randy Newman.<\/em><\/p>\n

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    \"Randy<\/p>\n

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    Randy Newman<\/strong>\u00a0is senior fellow for apologetics and evangelism at the C. S. Lewis Institute. He\u00a0was formerly on staff with Cru,\u00a0ministering in and near Washington, DC. He is the author of several books, including\u00a0Questioning Evangelism<\/em> and\u00a0Bringing the Gospel Home<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

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