Ted Jones

Phil 110 Tues.

Instructor: Brian Tapia
17 May, 2005
God is an Elephant
Its official: We are now living in the information age, a.k.a. the Super Information
Highway (SIH). This sounds like an obvious statement, which has been used since its inception,
but ten years ago the question still lingered, Will it last? The 1980s introduced us to the
internet, and the 1990s proved its usefulness. But now, here in the millennium, the SIH is seen
as a mainstay for acquiring a level of presence in society and business. Even religion and
philosophy have acquiesced to its necessity as, He who has a web page first, must be telling the
truth, seems to be the rule of thumb these days. Maybe a school of thought doesnt necessarily
feel the need to broadcast itself to the world, but it will surely be lost in the milieu of other
doctrines that thrive on shouting louder than its neighbor. Regardless, seeking souls no longer
have to sell all their possessions, shave their head ( or grow long hair), commit to poverty, and
aimlessly roam the globe in search for the meaning of life; it now comes to them.
In contrast to 2000 years ago , this is important. Then, religion typically was also the
source of education. Without the constant influx of conflicting ideas, a religion within a specific
culture could develop for thousands of years without interference. Students receiving education
through an inherited religion would never know other ideas until venturing to another land, or
unless they became conquered by another country, thereby adopting a new faith. Today, you can
literally get out of bed, logon to the internet, and decide which religion you want for breakfast no sword fights, no bloody battles, your countries resources stay intact.

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This is not a judgment, good or bad, on the noted phenomena. Its merely to point out that
the human races point of view is changing from multiple, segmented conflicting views, to an
alternate world overview, with a broadness that either leaves one utterly confused, or presses one
to seek a higher truth. Never before in the history of man, have so many people been so widely
exposed to what the world contains in its entirety. This used to be the attribute of well traveled
men, the wiser ones having strengthened their own faith by gleaning universal truth from others,
where the remainder were relegated to resolve religious differences by slaughtering each other.
So what is the devout disciple to think when the questions unanswered by his own faith,
are easily answered by a variety of others? Does he throw away his native faith, trading it for
another, only to find it also has its unanswered questions? Perhaps a disciple is of a faith that
does have all the answers, and there are no questions. By its very definition, wouldnt this
exclude all other religions making them false, thereby causing intrinsic compromise as one is
required to interface with non-believers just to navigate society? These are broad statements, but
I think any questions more specific than that would be contained within those two extremes.
However, I believe there is a third extreme that relieves the SIH Seeker of either of those worn
out paths.
God is an elephant.
There is a Chinese parable of three blind men; never having seen an elephant, they seek
to find out what one is. They each take hold of a different part of the pachyderm and
emphatically claim the elephant to be most like whatever it was they grabbed on to. One claims
its like a snake, the next a tree, and the third a rope (Kou 83-85). There are different versions of
this story, but a favorite of mine is by John Godfrey Saxe, a 19th century lawyer and poet. The
last two portions summarize the lesson :
And so these men of Indostan

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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!
Moral:
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! (Saxe)
Humanity has been arguing for centuries about the existence of God and how best to
worship. All parties express bits of truth that ring true universally, but we cant all be 100%
correct. We can agree what water and the sun are because we experience these fully with our
senses every day, but that god we conceive of as being God has yet to be experienced in such a
way as to end all arguments for good. We keep arguing, searching, re-defining, and flat out
failing to come to a consensus that accommodates both our humanity and Gods existence.
I propose that God is the elephant, and we, the human race, are nothing but foolish blind
men arguing over subjective points of view of who God is. I often imagine that some cosmic
observer, if not God himself, is watching us as we try to define something that we have no means
with which to define. If this is the case, there is nothing to argue. Even if the primary existence
of God still bothers the philosopher, he has only to recognize that either choice still leaves him
with one option common to all- that option is to exercise faith. After clearing away the dross of

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argumentation, we are left with only a few universal truths that allow each of us to return to his
own faith, reassured, and with sword and scabbard unsoiled.
We are lost: We are utterly lost for an ultimate answer. Weve found all there is to find
and put it on websites (so to speak), shouted it from the mountain tops, and gone door to door.
King Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes figured this one out; What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun (NIV Eccl 1:9). All
points of view are now known, yet religion still insists on trying to corner the market on ultimate
truth.
We must accept: We cannot change human nature, for it is this very nature that makes us
human. Raymond M. Smullyan points this out in his humorous, but poignant, selection called Is
God a Taoist? He refers to human nature as natural law, summarizing that it is impossible for
us to rise above this, for humanity and natural law are one in the same (Kessler 433). We argue,
seek, kill, destroy build, and continue to do so over and over, granted we seem to find new ways
of doing this with every generation.
We call it God: We toy with definitions of who God is and what he is like. The very act of
defining God in any rigid manner creates its own paradox, hence more argument. The problem of
evil is one such example. Epicuruss Paradox states, Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is impotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and
willing? Whence then is evil? (535). I dont believe it is heresy to ask these questions, after all
its in our nature. But to define God, insist he conform to the empirical, ethical, and moral
standards we set forth, then reject his existence because he does not, is ludicrous. The very
definition of God insists that he is above all of this. Above good and evil? Yes. Beyond
explanation? Yes. Full of paradox? Why not.

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We call it salvation: What is it that drives humanity towards the spiritual? Why cant we
just leave it alone? After all, its responsible for just as much destruction as it is creation. And
once a religion claims to have the answers, it has to spread the news like grocery store gossip and
take over the world. There is this drive in all our souls that there is something out there beyond
the here and now and that it can be possessed. To embrace the one, is to let go of the other. We
long to rise above our own humanity and be set free. I would imagine even the Atheist
occasionally looks around and feels the need to transcend what we are and be set free from the
limitations of current reality.
Faith is all we have: Soren Kierkegaard wrote how all roads of reasoning end with a leap
of faith (Handout). Gunapala Dharmasiri expounded on Buddhist thought suggesting that using
the fundamental laws of nature to explain what is beyond those laws is unnecessary and wrong
(Voices 515-16). Faith is that part of our humanity that we use to navigate the unknown and the
non-empirical. When we ask why, we are trying to get an empirical explanation for something
we have no means to interpret other than by faith. Kierkegaard and Dharmasiri emphasize the
absurdity of empirically proving Gods existence, but then the opposite must apply also, proving
that God does not exist. In either case we must bend our knee in faith.
An opposition to this argument would be any religion claiming exclusive revelation of
God via a divine prophet. Christianity, for example, has the boldest claim, that Christ not only is
the way to God, but is God incarnate. My rebuttal is not to prove Christs authenticity as true or
false, but to question if it negates the aforementioned universal truths. Do they still apply?
At best, for the Christian, if the dynamic of Christ is true to the very letter, then what it
has to offer is knowledge of the mechanics of salvation and restoration to God. The story of
Christs life, death, and resurrection is very moving and embodies what humanity has been
reaching for all along. But is knowledge of how something works enough to cause one to

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implement faith in it? Didnt Abraham from the Bible simply [have faith] in what God said when
he was promised offspring, and God credited it to him as righteousness (NIV Gen 15:6)? In this
instance, knowledge of Christ is not mentioned, yet God is still providing salvation. In contrast,
Romans 10:10 does express exercising faith in the context of the knowledge of Christ, following
it with, For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that
you confess and are saved (NIV). They each predicate faith with different messages of
knowledge, but both hinge on man trusting in God. It is the faith that God rewards, not the
knowledge of how something works. If indeed, Christ is the vehicle God uses to restore man to
himself, obviously this eternal dynamic was in effect during Abrahams time also. But knowledge
of the dynamic, or how it worked, was not required. Though revelation of the Christ dynamic
came later, the requirement of salvation remained the same; faith. This falls perfectly in line with
universal truth. At the worst, the story of Christ is merely a symbolic fairytale of a really nice
guy that got a raw deal. Even so, the Platonic idea of what Christ symbolizes still conforms to
universal truth: We are still trapped within the confines of a finite reality, we long to transcend it,
and anything that is beyond this reality, requires faith which is initiated by man.
I am not claiming that all religions are equally true or equally false, and therefore it does
not matter which is chosen. As humans, raised in varied cultures, what is a best religion for an
individual is often dictated by where he was raised. This has nothing to do with degrees of truth,
other than the universal truth that we are always subject to the restrictions of humanity. What I
do advocate however, is recognition that the very definition of God intuitively encompasses the
characteristic of God being beyond definition. I do not feel this eliminates direct experience or
access to God, but rather promotes it. For, by being beyond definition, the first requirement of
experience would be faith. Any conscious man can exercise faith. The Muslim, the Jew, the
Christian, and even the radical Jihadist can, at any moment, appeal to universal truth and seek to

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experience God directly. I feel any religion will drive a man to this conclusion if he pursues it to
its logical end.
Man has an innate ability to recognize and respond to universal truth. He should worship
as he wills, and maintain faith that God is as inexhaustible as he is indescribable. He is above our
petty definitions of good and evil, and we do not have the means to fully understand in the here
and now. Each should claim this I know, then be open to others, lest he miss yet another
chance to experience God directly.
So, God is an elephant, and we are but blind men. Take a firm hold of what you know, but
be careful where you reach.

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Works Cited
The Holy Bible, New International Version. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1978.
Kessler, Gary E. Voices of Wisdom. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, fifth ed.
2004. 433, 515-16, 535.
Kierkegaard, Soren. The Leap of Faith and the Limits of Reason. Handout in Philosophy 110,
May 2005.
Kou, Louise and Yuan-His. Three Blind Men and an Elephant: Chinese Folktales. Millbrae, CA:
Celestial Arts, 1976. 83-85. As posted by Duen Hsi Yen.
<http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/blind_men_elephant.html.> Accessed 14 May,
2002.
Saxe, John Godfrey. The Blind Men and the Elephant. Wordfocus.com. Accessed 14 May, 2005.
<http://www.wordfocus.com/word-act-blindmen.html.>