God like an Elephant? I don't think so!

There is a story supposedly told by Buddha that has no doubt been floating around for centuries. It is an analogy that claims to explain the truth about all religions. It is the story of The Blind Men and the Elephant.

"Once upon a time there was a certain raja who called to his servant and said, 'Go and gather together all the men in this city who were born blind, and show them an elephant.' The servant did as he was told. He said to the blind men assembled there, 'Here is an elephant,' and to one man he presented the head of the elephant, to another its ears, to another a tusk, to another the trunk, the leg, tail, and tuft of the tail, saying to each one that that was the elephant. "When the blind men had felt the elephant, the raja went to each of them and said to each, 'Well, blind man, tell me, what sort of thing is an elephant?' "Thereupon the men who were presented with the head answered, 'Sire, an elephant is like a great rock.' And the men who had observed the ear replied, 'An elephant is like a fan.' Those who had been presented with a tusk said it was a spear. Those who knew only the trunk said it was a snake; others said the body was a wall; the leg, a tree; the tail, a rope, the tuft of the tail, a brush. "Then they began to quarrel, shouting, 'Yes it is!' 'No, it is not!' 'An elephant is not that!' and so on, till they came to blows. "Brethren, the raja was delighted with the scene. "Just so are these preachers and scholars holding various views blind and unseeing. . . . In their ignorance they are by nature quarrelsome, wrangling, and disputatious, each maintaining reality is thus and thus."

How sweet. I suppose that all religions are really just different interpretations of the same basic God-aura. We can call it "religious pluralism." WRONG! The interesting thing is that those who quote this story always place themselves in the position of the raja. We, the dirty argumentative "preachers", are relegated to the position of blind men, groping around for something we supposedly know nothing of. They say that all religions are the same. Fine. They can believe that if they want to. But promoting religious pluralism is no different than promoting any other religion. They are in the same boat, "just as blind" if you will, as we are! Besides, the position that all religions are the same is fundamentally absurd. Why? God is not something subjective, like my favorite flavor of ice cream. If God or a god actually exists as a fact, then His supposed characteristics cannot be both contradictory and true! It is a logical impossibility. Mutually exclusive facts do not exist. Jesus said that "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can get to heaven apart from Me." Islam says that "There is no god but Allah and Muhummad is his Prophet." Get it straight: if Christianity is true, nothing else is. The same goes for Islam, Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, and a host of others. But let's give the religious pluralists the benefit of the doubt (without allowing them the position of all-knowing raja). In this case, we are all blind men arguing about something we have never seen. What we need is a man who is not blind. Someone who can see the thing that we argue about so fiercely. A Man did exist who claimed to be this "seeing man". His Name was Jesus Christ. He could see . . . because He was the very thing that we argue about. He is God. But what is so special about Him? Other men have claimed to "see" what no one else can see. Buhhda himself, with the analogy I just quoted, was such a man. Muhummad claimed to have visions of an angel who told him about God. Hundreds of men, like David Koresh (Branch Davidians) and Joseph Smith (Mormons) were supposed vessels of knowledge about God. What makes Jesus different? Today, we can visit Muhummad's grave. And Joseph Smith's grave. Mary and a myriad of saints, the Roman Catholic objects of worship, lie moldering in their coffins. Every other man who claimed to be God's vessel of truth is dead and gone. The grave of the Lord Jesus Christ is empty. In Him, David S. MacMillan III