On CRC-Voices someone trotted out the narrative of the elephant and the blind reporters in order to explain the existence of religious plurality so I wrote this.
The elephant metaphor is commonly trotted out and worthy of deeper exploration. As described this metaphor asserts that each blind man experiences the elephant differently and in a limited way. The conclusion drawn from this is that it is illegitimate (and closed minded) to make judgments regarding the claims of each blind man because each speaks out of a limitation of experience. Therefore no blind man should claim that their experience is superior to the other but rather we, who in this metaphor as the only seeing observer, not only see multiple blind men, but also receive each report, and ALSO see and comprehend the totality of the picture, blind men, elephant and all.
The metaphor intends to communicate that God is larger that our capacity to perceive him. He is larger than our capacity to imagine him. Our minds are not able to create a mental image or construct worthy of him and therefore all of our articulations about him fall short.
This metaphor in fact communicates a specific assertion about God that is held and espoused my multiple religions. All of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) all make this claim. Some of the eastern religions do as well but their conception of what God is (impersonal, pantheistic or panentheist) is significantly different. All participants in the Abrahamic religions can agree on the statement “our ability to apprehend God is limited by our ability. God’s greatness is larger than our ability to apprehend him.” OK, fine.
It’s important to see, however, that the claim of this little narrative includes another claim beyond simply that of our limitation, embodied in the blindness of each blind man. The second claim in fact denies the first. The second claim is that the observer of the metaphorical narrative in fact sees the blind men and the elephant in their entirety, and can apprehend them mentally and can understand them and their relationship to one another. It denies the claim of the Abrahamic religions and asserts that the observer in fact has a larger view than all of the traditional religions embodied in the blind reporters because it KNOWS that all the blind men are describing the same creature. If one blind man encounters an alligator and another encounters a hippo and gives two reports this imagined observer has the perspective to say “they are describing two different animals.”
If in fact you embrace the claim of all three Abrahamic religions you can’t claim definitively that they are describing the same thing. You can only claim that they are describing the same thing IF you imagine that your implicit “enlightened” assertion that “all religions accurately describe the same animal” is correct but if our capacity to fully know God is limited then you can’t know this either. To use this metaphor in this way essentially states that you have a religion that makes all of these old religions obsolete. You are essentially doing what Christianity said to Judaism through the New Testament, what Islam said to Christianity through the Koran, what the LDS said to Christianity through the book of Mormon. It’s just another turn of the “new and improved revelation” scheme but this group is sneaky about it and doesn’t own their own assertion. That’s both culturally imperialistic (violation of their own tenet) AND dishonest (another violation of their own tenet.)
Another common example of how those who make this move don’t even follow their own rules is in fact how they treat the assertions of the supposed blind men. The Christian blind man days “God will judge the living and the dead and many will be lost in everlasting perdition.” The Muslim blind man seems to say a similar thing. Apparently these two blind men were standing close enough together to touch a bit of that same elephant, maybe a knee or something. Those who trot out the elephant metaphor regularly disagree with elements articulated by the reporting blind men. They in fact assert that the reports of the Christian blind man and the Muslim blind man are wrong and that even in places the Christian and Muslim agree the observer of the elephant says that these blind reporters have it wrong and that in fact the elephant has no knees. In other words, not only doesn’t the observer of the narrative fess up that they assert superior information than the blind reporters BUT they assert that the blind reporters even when they agree aren’t talking about the same animal than the observer sees and is reporting on. In other words, the reporter must be just as blind as the blind reporters they are describing because none of them are agreeing on the anatomy of the animals they are reporting on.
Different religions make contradictory claims. To dress up the assertion that “all religions seek the same thing” as something more than yet another religious isn’t fully honest. It is simply another religious claim in contradiction to other religious claims.
One can simply ask “on what basis do you assert this?” Truer answers to that question would be “because I want religious people to stop fighting” or “because I want to believe in the kind of God who won’t punish people even if they’ve had limited access to knowledge” or “because I want to believe in a God yet I am confused and frustrated by the diversity of religious assertions”. All of these answers speak to fine intentions, but they really don’t make any progress towards asserting that if there is in fact, in reality, an actual God out there worthy of worship, what kind of God might that be or how should one go about relating to this God/ Those, of course, are all the kinds of assertions that traditional religions have been working on throughout human history.
What the current trend to validate a non-specific, altruistic, quasi-religious spirituality much in vogue today seems more to reveal is that people want an experience of religion but they don’t want it to ask too much of them and they’d really rather not do too much hard mental or relational work to get one because it might interfere with all of their other life goals. A good place to start might be to ask which of the traditional religious options best accounts for our anthropology and how might one respond to its observations and assertions regarding this?
The elephant metaphor is commonly trotted out and worthy of deeper exploration. As described this metaphor asserts that each blind man experiences the elephant differently and in a limited way. The conclusion drawn from this is that it is illegitimate (and closed minded) to make judgments regarding the claims of each blind man because each speaks out of a limitation of experience. Therefore no blind man should claim that their experience is superior to the other but rather we, who in this metaphor as the only seeing observer, not only see multiple blind men, but also receive each report, and ALSO see and comprehend the totality of the picture, blind men, elephant and all.
The metaphor intends to communicate that God is larger that our capacity to perceive him. He is larger than our capacity to imagine him. Our minds are not able to create a mental image or construct worthy of him and therefore all of our articulations about him fall short.
This metaphor in fact communicates a specific assertion about God that is held and espoused my multiple religions. All of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) all make this claim. Some of the eastern religions do as well but their conception of what God is (impersonal, pantheistic or panentheist) is significantly different. All participants in the Abrahamic religions can agree on the statement “our ability to apprehend God is limited by our ability. God’s greatness is larger than our ability to apprehend him.” OK, fine.
It’s important to see, however, that the claim of this little narrative includes another claim beyond simply that of our limitation, embodied in the blindness of each blind man. The second claim in fact denies the first. The second claim is that the observer of the metaphorical narrative in fact sees the blind men and the elephant in their entirety, and can apprehend them mentally and can understand them and their relationship to one another. It denies the claim of the Abrahamic religions and asserts that the observer in fact has a larger view than all of the traditional religions embodied in the blind reporters because it KNOWS that all the blind men are describing the same creature. If one blind man encounters an alligator and another encounters a hippo and gives two reports this imagined observer has the perspective to say “they are describing two different animals.”
If in fact you embrace the claim of all three Abrahamic religions you can’t claim definitively that they are describing the same thing. You can only claim that they are describing the same thing IF you imagine that your implicit “enlightened” assertion that “all religions accurately describe the same animal” is correct but if our capacity to fully know God is limited then you can’t know this either. To use this metaphor in this way essentially states that you have a religion that makes all of these old religions obsolete. You are essentially doing what Christianity said to Judaism through the New Testament, what Islam said to Christianity through the Koran, what the LDS said to Christianity through the book of Mormon. It’s just another turn of the “new and improved revelation” scheme but this group is sneaky about it and doesn’t own their own assertion. That’s both culturally imperialistic (violation of their own tenet) AND dishonest (another violation of their own tenet.)
Another common example of how those who make this move don’t even follow their own rules is in fact how they treat the assertions of the supposed blind men. The Christian blind man days “God will judge the living and the dead and many will be lost in everlasting perdition.” The Muslim blind man seems to say a similar thing. Apparently these two blind men were standing close enough together to touch a bit of that same elephant, maybe a knee or something. Those who trot out the elephant metaphor regularly disagree with elements articulated by the reporting blind men. They in fact assert that the reports of the Christian blind man and the Muslim blind man are wrong and that even in places the Christian and Muslim agree the observer of the elephant says that these blind reporters have it wrong and that in fact the elephant has no knees. In other words, not only doesn’t the observer of the narrative fess up that they assert superior information than the blind reporters BUT they assert that the blind reporters even when they agree aren’t talking about the same animal than the observer sees and is reporting on. In other words, the reporter must be just as blind as the blind reporters they are describing because none of them are agreeing on the anatomy of the animals they are reporting on.
Different religions make contradictory claims. To dress up the assertion that “all religions seek the same thing” as something more than yet another religious isn’t fully honest. It is simply another religious claim in contradiction to other religious claims.
One can simply ask “on what basis do you assert this?” Truer answers to that question would be “because I want religious people to stop fighting” or “because I want to believe in the kind of God who won’t punish people even if they’ve had limited access to knowledge” or “because I want to believe in a God yet I am confused and frustrated by the diversity of religious assertions”. All of these answers speak to fine intentions, but they really don’t make any progress towards asserting that if there is in fact, in reality, an actual God out there worthy of worship, what kind of God might that be or how should one go about relating to this God/ Those, of course, are all the kinds of assertions that traditional religions have been working on throughout human history.
What the current trend to validate a non-specific, altruistic, quasi-religious spirituality much in vogue today seems more to reveal is that people want an experience of religion but they don’t want it to ask too much of them and they’d really rather not do too much hard mental or relational work to get one because it might interfere with all of their other life goals. A good place to start might be to ask which of the traditional religious options best accounts for our anthropology and how might one respond to its observations and assertions regarding this?
Leadingchurch.com 
Exploring the elephant and the blind reporters
On CRC-Voices someone trotted out the narrative of the elephant and the blind reporters in order to explain the existence of religious plurality so I wrote this.
The elephant metaphor is commonly trotted out and worthy of deeper exploration. As described this metaphor asserts that each blind man experiences the elephant differently and in a limited way. The conclusion drawn from this is that it is illegitimate (and closed minded) to make judgments regarding the claims of each blind man because each speaks out of a limitation of experience. Therefore no blind man should claim that their experience is superior to the other but rather we, who in this metaphor as the only seeing observer, not only see multiple blind men, but also receive each report, and ALSO see and comprehend the totality of the picture, blind men, elephant and all.
The metaphor intends to communicate that God is larger that our capacity to perceive him. He is larger than our capacity to imagine him. Our minds are not able to create a mental image or construct worthy of him and therefore all of our articulations about him fall short.
This metaphor in fact communicates a specific assertion about God that is held and espoused my multiple religions. All of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) all make this claim. Some of the eastern religions do as well but their conception of what God is (impersonal, pantheistic or panentheist) is significantly different. All participants in the Abrahamic religions can agree on the statement “our ability to apprehend God is limited by our ability. God’s greatness is larger than our ability to apprehend him.” OK, fine.
It’s important to see, however, that the claim of this little narrative includes another claim beyond simply that of our limitation, embodied in the blindness of each blind man. The second claim in fact denies the first. The second claim is that the observer of the metaphorical narrative in fact sees the blind men and the elephant in their entirety, and can apprehend them mentally and can understand them and their relationship to one another. It denies the claim of the Abrahamic religions and asserts that the observer in fact has a larger view than all of the traditional religions embodied in the blind reporters because it KNOWS that all the blind men are describing the same creature. If one blind man encounters an alligator and another encounters a hippo and gives two reports this imagined observer has the perspective to say “they are describing two different animals.”
If in fact you embrace the claim of all three Abrahamic religions you can’t claim definitively that they are describing the same thing. You can only claim that they are describing the same thing IF you imagine that your implicit “enlightened” assertion that “all religions accurately describe the same animal” is correct but if our capacity to fully know God is limited then you can’t know this either. To use this metaphor in this way essentially states that you have a religion that makes all of these old religions obsolete. You are essentially doing what Christianity said to Judaism through the New Testament, what Islam said to Christianity through the Koran, what the LDS said to Christianity through the book of Mormon. It’s just another turn of the “new and improved revelation” scheme but this group is sneaky about it and doesn’t own their own assertion. That’s both culturally imperialistic (violation of their own tenet) AND dishonest (another violation of their own tenet.)
Another common example of how those who make this move don’t even follow their own rules is in fact how they treat the assertions of the supposed blind men. The Christian blind man days “God will judge the living and the dead and many will be lost in everlasting perdition.” The Muslim blind man seems to say a similar thing. Apparently these two blind men were standing close enough together to touch a bit of that same elephant, maybe a knee or something. Those who trot out the elephant metaphor regularly disagree with elements articulated by the reporting blind men. They in fact assert that the reports of the Christian blind man and the Muslim blind man are wrong and that even in places the Christian and Muslim agree the observer of the elephant says that these blind reporters have it wrong and that in fact the elephant has no knees. In other words, not only doesn’t the observer of the narrative fess up that they assert superior information than the blind reporters BUT they assert that the blind reporters even when they agree aren’t talking about the same animal than the observer sees and is reporting on. In other words, the reporter must be just as blind as the blind reporters they are describing because none of them are agreeing on the anatomy of the animals they are reporting on.
Different religions make contradictory claims. To dress up the assertion that “all religions seek the same thing” as something more than yet another religious isn’t fully honest. It is simply another religious claim in contradiction to other religious claims.
One can simply ask “on what basis do you assert this?” Truer answers to that question would be “because I want religious people to stop fighting” or “because I want to believe in the kind of God who won’t punish people even if they’ve had limited access to knowledge” or “because I want to believe in a God yet I am confused and frustrated by the diversity of religious assertions”. All of these answers speak to fine intentions, but they really don’t make any progress towards asserting that if there is in fact, in reality, an actual God out there worthy of worship, what kind of God might that be or how should one go about relating to this God/ Those, of course, are all the kinds of assertions that traditional religions have been working on throughout human history.
What the current trend to validate a non-specific, altruistic, quasi-religious spirituality much in vogue today seems more to reveal is that people want an experience of religion but they don’t want it to ask too much of them and they’d really rather not do too much hard mental or relational work to get one because it might interfere with all of their other life goals. A good place to start might be to ask which of the traditional religious options best accounts for our anthropology and how might one respond to its observations and assertions regarding this?
The elephant metaphor is commonly trotted out and worthy of deeper exploration. As described this metaphor asserts that each blind man experiences the elephant differently and in a limited way. The conclusion drawn from this is that it is illegitimate (and closed minded) to make judgments regarding the claims of each blind man because each speaks out of a limitation of experience. Therefore no blind man should claim that their experience is superior to the other but rather we, who in this metaphor as the only seeing observer, not only see multiple blind men, but also receive each report, and ALSO see and comprehend the totality of the picture, blind men, elephant and all.
The metaphor intends to communicate that God is larger that our capacity to perceive him. He is larger than our capacity to imagine him. Our minds are not able to create a mental image or construct worthy of him and therefore all of our articulations about him fall short.
This metaphor in fact communicates a specific assertion about God that is held and espoused my multiple religions. All of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) all make this claim. Some of the eastern religions do as well but their conception of what God is (impersonal, pantheistic or panentheist) is significantly different. All participants in the Abrahamic religions can agree on the statement “our ability to apprehend God is limited by our ability. God’s greatness is larger than our ability to apprehend him.” OK, fine.
It’s important to see, however, that the claim of this little narrative includes another claim beyond simply that of our limitation, embodied in the blindness of each blind man. The second claim in fact denies the first. The second claim is that the observer of the metaphorical narrative in fact sees the blind men and the elephant in their entirety, and can apprehend them mentally and can understand them and their relationship to one another. It denies the claim of the Abrahamic religions and asserts that the observer in fact has a larger view than all of the traditional religions embodied in the blind reporters because it KNOWS that all the blind men are describing the same creature. If one blind man encounters an alligator and another encounters a hippo and gives two reports this imagined observer has the perspective to say “they are describing two different animals.”
If in fact you embrace the claim of all three Abrahamic religions you can’t claim definitively that they are describing the same thing. You can only claim that they are describing the same thing IF you imagine that your implicit “enlightened” assertion that “all religions accurately describe the same animal” is correct but if our capacity to fully know God is limited then you can’t know this either. To use this metaphor in this way essentially states that you have a religion that makes all of these old religions obsolete. You are essentially doing what Christianity said to Judaism through the New Testament, what Islam said to Christianity through the Koran, what the LDS said to Christianity through the book of Mormon. It’s just another turn of the “new and improved revelation” scheme but this group is sneaky about it and doesn’t own their own assertion. That’s both culturally imperialistic (violation of their own tenet) AND dishonest (another violation of their own tenet.)
Another common example of how those who make this move don’t even follow their own rules is in fact how they treat the assertions of the supposed blind men. The Christian blind man days “God will judge the living and the dead and many will be lost in everlasting perdition.” The Muslim blind man seems to say a similar thing. Apparently these two blind men were standing close enough together to touch a bit of that same elephant, maybe a knee or something. Those who trot out the elephant metaphor regularly disagree with elements articulated by the reporting blind men. They in fact assert that the reports of the Christian blind man and the Muslim blind man are wrong and that even in places the Christian and Muslim agree the observer of the elephant says that these blind reporters have it wrong and that in fact the elephant has no knees. In other words, not only doesn’t the observer of the narrative fess up that they assert superior information than the blind reporters BUT they assert that the blind reporters even when they agree aren’t talking about the same animal than the observer sees and is reporting on. In other words, the reporter must be just as blind as the blind reporters they are describing because none of them are agreeing on the anatomy of the animals they are reporting on.
Different religions make contradictory claims. To dress up the assertion that “all religions seek the same thing” as something more than yet another religious isn’t fully honest. It is simply another religious claim in contradiction to other religious claims.
One can simply ask “on what basis do you assert this?” Truer answers to that question would be “because I want religious people to stop fighting” or “because I want to believe in the kind of God who won’t punish people even if they’ve had limited access to knowledge” or “because I want to believe in a God yet I am confused and frustrated by the diversity of religious assertions”. All of these answers speak to fine intentions, but they really don’t make any progress towards asserting that if there is in fact, in reality, an actual God out there worthy of worship, what kind of God might that be or how should one go about relating to this God/ Those, of course, are all the kinds of assertions that traditional religions have been working on throughout human history.
What the current trend to validate a non-specific, altruistic, quasi-religious spirituality much in vogue today seems more to reveal is that people want an experience of religion but they don’t want it to ask too much of them and they’d really rather not do too much hard mental or relational work to get one because it might interfere with all of their other life goals. A good place to start might be to ask which of the traditional religious options best accounts for our anthropology and how might one respond to its observations and assertions regarding this?
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Husband, Father of 5, Pastor