The Five Blind Men and the Elephant

"In the famous story of the blind men and the elephant, so often quoted in the interest of religious agnosticism, the real point of the story is constantly overlooked. The story is told from the point of view of the king and his courtiers, who are not blind but can see that the blind men are unable to grasp the full reality of the elephant and are only able to get hold of part of the truth. The story is constantly told in order to neutralize the affirmation of the great religions, to suggest that they learn humility and recognize that none of them can have more than one aspect of the truth. But, of course, the real point of the story is exactly the opposite. If the king were also blind, there would be no story. The story is told by the king, and it is the immensely arrogant claim of one who sees the full truth which all the world’s religions are only groping after."

The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Lesslie Newbigin (Pages 9-10)
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1989.

Explaining Away the Explanations

"You cannot go on `seeing through things' for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to `see through' first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To `see through' all things is the same as not to see."

- The Abolition of Man by CS Lewis
Chapter 3; http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/lewis/abolition3.htm