Religious exclusivity has been touched by many here before, so let me give a bit of a background as to why I have taken up this again. Tim Keller has a website devoted to his book which Ichthus desires to discuss. Haven’t read the book but the website offered recorded lectures by Keller. The first in these recordings is his take on religious exclusivity. Feel free to go there and see the man of flesh and blood whom I am about to attack.
Pope Benedict wrote a book about tolerance in which he went more in detail but pretty much agreed with Keller’s book. At the beginning, Mr Keller characterizes the opposition narrative he has encountered in the story of the elephant and the three blind men. As the story goes, three (maybe four, depending on how many characteristics of the elephant one narrator wishes to accentuate) blind men run into an elephant and described said elephant as completely like the part each has grasped but which the outside observer, who knows it’s an elephant they are touching, knows cannot really describe the animal as a whole. You cannot define an elephant by it’s trunk, or legs or girth etc, etc. Mr Keller points out the arrogance of such argument in that it is intelligible only if the teller thinks he alone can see while the other are blind. But at this point I follow him. It points to the collective blindness of man and the need of faith. In fact he then goes to present the necessity of faith even to criticize religious exclusivity claims. That is fine, an excellent argument…now how are you going from this absolute skepticism towards religious absolutism?
He envisions an experimental approach in which the true religion must lead to peace and sees christianity as such religion because it is humble, because it comes from the fundamental belief that is embodied by Jesus on the cross, a man loving those who do not love him and a core of belief that does not depart from a belief in merit but in mercy. Other religions, his case goes, feel superior because they base their salvation upon works. What they do makes them special, saved. But in Christianity they believe that salvation comes in spite of what we do, that nothing we do earns us salvation but simply God’s grace…this is the calvinist in him talking.
Now, I have to defend proper agnosticism and secular toleration.
I agree that man, any man or woman, is not without some acknowledged or unconscious form of faith. We are finite beings and so when big questions are raised, our answers require a bit of faith in order to form. But, can we, from any position of faith, judge on what IS the case?
Let us look at the blind men, but take away the outside observer that thinks that he has the total view and instead join the gang of blind men. This man says that what the totality (say “God”) is. Now this is either the case or his own personal opinion on the matter. Second man joins in the discussion and says that the totality is not like what the first man said it was but like he now say it is. You could add on blind observers ad infinitum, the only restrain being what is imaginable, but I am going to stop at two. The third man walks up to the two other men. He sees that both are dedicated to their view and that for either there is no shadow of doubt. But whose man should he believe if he himself cannot fanthom the totality? What does the first man has that the second cannot claim? Shall it be peace? It cannot be and here is why:
Mr Keller has produced an argument divorced of history. It would be nice to think that Jesus is love and that Christianity leads to peace, but the fact is that any religion worth it’s salt can lead to peace or so they advertise themselves but are historically poor in providing actual instances and instead point to a future where the real vision comes to fruition. However, it is my contention that regardless of the good-will of Mr Keller, absolute claims, claims to exclusive truth prompts the nagging problem on what to do with the non-compliant, the doubter or the outright rebel, the satan in our mist.
Ahh…here Mr Keller should look at history and the persecutions, inquisitions and wars made in the name of religions which claimed exclusive truth. It is not arrogance that leads one to the argument of the elephant, but humility and most important humanity, the ability to accomodate yourself as blind too in order that there is a chance of communion because there are two scenarios for the blind men:
1- they can agree that the men were talking of different objects since there stories are so varied that they cannot speak of the same reality…or that there are several gods rather than one god…
2- they can disagree, and each claim that what they saw was the totality and that the other only saw a fantasy…this is arrogance at it’s finest…
A third way is to allow that the totality might indeed be wide enough to incorporate both narratives, even if disparate and apparently disconnected. This is the meaning of the elephant. The second alternative is Mr Keller’s but it contradicts his criticism of the outside observer. he calls him imperialistic, but what is more imperialistic than to deny the truth of another witness, another faith based on the same criteria- …faith.