Keller essentially retells Leslie Newbigin’s criticism of the Blind Men and the Elephant story, where that story has been used to assert that “every religion has a little bit of wisdom, but the fact is that nobody has the truth, nobody can see the whole picture.” Keller states: “You can only tell the story from the standpoint of someone who is not blind.” He challenges the audience: “How dare you? You see, it’s a kind of arrogant thing to say nobody can know the whole truth, because it’s a universal truth claim.” It is perhaps also somewhat of a conceit to take a story intended as allegory and analyze it as if it were a precise analogy. If I may extend such a conceit in a different direction, the blind men could have each moved around the elephant to examine it in its entirety (though the elephant may have gotten a little testy with too intrusive of an examination). Even though each blind man may not have “seen” the entire elephant at once, relying on memory each individual could construct a more complete image in his mind. However–and this is perhaps more in line with the point of the original allegory as applied–each would still not have the full perception afforded to a sighted person (color, sheen, etc.) as each is similarly “impaired”. Furthermore, a sighted person who can see the entire elephant at once would not be able to perceive the nuances the blind men might feel with their heightened senses of touch. When it comes to fully and precisely describing that which exists on a divine plane, if I may, all of us are by definition impaired somewhat in our perceptions, as, after all, we are only human.

I haven’t watched the video clip in its entirety yet, but I did react positively to some of Keller’s other points about the existence of God. But that’s a different question from the one of Christianity’s claim to be the one truth, which is a tougher one for me as I have tended toward the religious pluralism end of the spectrum which Newbigin and Keller criticize. In short, I find Rene Girard’s controversial arguments for the superiority of Christianity over other religions the most persuasive (see his book: “I See Satan Fall Like Lightning”). As I understand Girard’s reasoning, the reversible impairment we have is that perception which we unconsciously conceal from ourselves (“Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World”). A possible conceit that I see in Girard’s writing is that, as he says, everything is there in scripture. It’s just that the central insight he expounds upon he claims is presented in the Bible in an “ultrarapid [sic] but complete” fashion. One might get the impression it’s almost as if he’s conveying: “It’s ultra-rapid, so thank God I came along to be able to slow things down for you”. I remember having a pleasant conversation with an Episcopal priest who sat next to me on a flight. We both got a bit of a chuckle out of that one.

I guess there’s likely to be–perhaps unavoidably so–a bit of intrinsic arrogance in this business of explaining the divine to simpler folk who might not otherwise “get it”. Not that arrogant by necessity means untrue. The stereotypical surgeon may be arrogant, but we are readily forgiving of such behavior, as saving lives is worthy of our unyielding respect. Perhaps saving souls could be placed in the same category?

Thanks to Google Books, I can put a link here to Girard’s “ultrarapid” quote in context on page 41: http://books.google.com/books?id=O2VSLxGpIt8C&pg=PA41. There was a way to also highlight it, but that modified URL seemed much longer, so I’ll simply note that it appears in the 2nd paragraph. I’ll also add a link here to Leslie Newbigin’s critique: http://books.google.com/books?id=q6tEnRYaHI8C&pg=PA9.