A King, an Elephant, and a Few Wise Men

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to spend a couple days in the DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth) area.  Because I had two consecutive events to attend on Monday and Tuesday, a friend and I decided that we would stay the night in town.

While checking into the hotel, I felt compelled to ask the hotel attendant if anyone had ever taken the time to invite him to church.  Immediately, the man opened up like a good book and began to share his thoughts and feelings concerning religion.  Ultimately, his belief was that all religions are foundationally the same.  That is, there is a god, everyone just understands, worships, and believes in him in their own respective ways.  This reminded me of a philosophical illustration that I recently read called "The Elephant and the Blind Wise Men."  It is recorded in the following:

"An elephant is brought to the court of a king who is busy elsewhere in the castle.  The king’s wise men begin to examine the elephant.  The catch is that the wise men are blind, so they must examine the elephant by touch.  One wise man feels the side of the elephant and says, “An elephant is like a wall.”  A second wise man touches the trunk and says, “An elephant is like a snake.”  Another holds the leg and says, “An elephant is like a tree.”  A fourth feels a tusk and says, “An elephant is like a spear.”  Yet another holds the ear and says, “An elephant is like a fan.”  The last wise man touches the tail and thinks the elephant is like a rope.  The blind men then start quarreling about who is right.  The noise bothers the king so much that he goes out to see what the problem is. The king tells them they each only have a part of the picture.  Each of them is right and if they just put all their information together they would see the big picture and understand what an elephant truly is."

The thrust of this illustration is to prove that everyone is only capable of understanding a part of god.  Someone in India may understand god in one way, while someone in Israel may understand him in another.  Moreover, someone in Africa will see god as this while someone in America will see him as that.  The conclusion is that no one is capable of understanding god completely, and since we all come from different walks of life, the best thing to do is to harmonize our understandings in order to come to the full understanding of god.  At first glance, this illustration sounds sagacious, but when you dig a little deeper, some inherent flaws are immediately revealed.

The apologist Doug Powell has written, "The problem with this illustration is that if God is the elephant and we are the blind wise men, there is no one left to be the king who sees the full picture.  No one is distanced enough from the situation to have a clear view."  The irony of this illustration is that it actually suggests the exact opposite of what it is trying to prove, which is that no one has the correct view of god.  The king does, and the question then becomes, "Who is the king?"  To make the claim that everyone misunderstands god, there must be someone on the outside who is able to understand god, and apparently that is impossible.

Thankfully, we are capable of knowing God and can rest assure that the God of Holy Scripture has revealed Himself in such a way that we do not have to rely on human reason alone, or man's perspective to build our understanding of Him.  Since the inception of creation, God has constantly been testifying of His existence, so much so in fact, that Paul has brazenly written, "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:20).