The Elephant—What is Simple Religious Pluralism?

A group of blind men approach and grasp at an object without knowing the thing was an elephant. One man, feeling across the elephant’s side, believed the object to be a wall. Grabbing a hold of the trunk, another man thought the thing to be a snake. And the man, feeling his way around a leg, figured the item to be a tree, and so on. In their limited abilities, all men failed to realize that what they were feeling upon was an elephant. Although their inferences illuminated certain distinguishable characteristics of the elephant (i.e., the leg is sturdy like a tree, etc.) they ultimately believed wrongly (whether true or false) as to the true form and function of the elephant as a whole. Now, imagine the elephant to represent God and the men to represent various religions.

The Blind Men and The Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe[1] (and I think popularized by the philosopher, John Hick) is a great analogy that expresses the essence of religious pluralism. In this way, religious pluralism seeks to regularize Christianity in comparison to other world religions. Specifically concerning simple religious pluralism, the men in the analogy were sensing something true of the elephant based upon their experiences, that is, “all or most religious views are literally correct”[2], indicating there are several ways in which to pursue God. According to Stand Firm, there are two ways in which to dismantle simple religious pluralism — 1) through logic, and 2) through Scripture.[3]

Simple Religious Pluralism—Illogical & Self-Refuting

Simple religious pluralism upholds that no religion is wrong, that every religion has a grasp on truth. This claim violates Aristotle’s law of noncontradiction which states that a proposition cannot be true and false—an assertion must be either true or false, not both. For example, if Christianity is true then Jesus is the only way to salvation and there is no other god beside Yahweh, rendering other religions null due to their “mutually incompatible claims.”[4] It is on this basis that simple religious pluralism is self-refuting—the fact that all religions are incompatible means they cannot all be true. Therefore, simple religious pluralism is false.

Combatting Religious Pluralism with Scripture

There are many verses to choose from, but a few come to mind for this project. An excerpt that does well in combating the idea that there exists multiple ways to God is a word from Jesus himself—” I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6, English Standard Version). Presupposing an understanding of the trinity, here, Jesus makes it very clear that he is the only way to the Father. Moreover, presupposing the concept of salvation, Jesus’ disciple, Peter, in Acts 4:12 (ESV) echoes in reference to Jesus that “​​there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Another way in which to derive the idea that Christianity is unique, being the sole course of action to pursue God, is through the first commandment and Anslem’s ontological argument. Following that God is the most maximally perfect being, and therefore, must exist in every possible world including our actual world[5], and considering that, very simply, God commands— “have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3, ESV), it appears that even if there were other gods to pursue, they would be inferior, lacking the necessary qualities to satisfy revelation, sanctification, and salvation, and we are meant to forsake those fatuous paths, orienting ourselves to Jesus.

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[1] John Godfrey Saxe, “The Blind Man And The Elephant,” All Poetry, November 20, 2024, https://allpoetry.com/The-Blind-Man-And-The-Elephant

[2]  Paul M. Gould, Travis Dickinson, and R. Keith Loftin, Stand Firm: Apologetics and The Brilliance of The Gospel (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2018), 129.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid, 130.

[5] Benjamin K. Forrest and Joshua D. Chatraw, The History of Apologetics: A Biographical and Methodological Introduction (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2020), 222-226.