Saturday 8 January 2011

Craving certainty


How alluring it is to be totally and really sure of something; how difficult it is to admit it when we don't know or even that we're not quite sure!

The commonly used solution to this discomfort is to make up some certainty!  A trivial example  would be the (probably male) driver who doesn't know the route but won't stop and look at a map.  A much more significant historical example: when faced with not knowing our place in the universe, the religious answer was to state with certainty "right in the centre, of course, because God made it that way.  The Sun and everything goes round the Earth".   Over time various constructed arguments by eminent experts bolstered the 'fact' and when it was challenged this led to ever more extreme and hideous measures to defend their certainty from total collapse, because the whole credibility of Christendom was felt to be at stake.

With such a degree of distance, we can all laugh at the absurdity in this example - and it was actually only the credibility of those defending their pride which was at stake!

However, spotting our current and personal equivalents is much more difficult.  Is it our certainty over the correctness of our particular theological position as opposed to whichever our preferred outcasts may be?  Is it our certainty in our position regarding gay Christians? or women in church leadership? or ... (insert the things you feel most strongly about - it is almost certainly something we feel strongly about!)?  Note that we are not looking for areas where we are uncertain, but areas where we are convinced we are right!

Pursue certainty at all costs and we will certainly end up in one of two outcomes.  Either we'll spend a lifetime on a treadmill, attempting to nail down those doubts that just won't go away - with ever more detailed arguments and picky distinctions.  Or we find ourselves building a fake and brittle certainty, which is founded on pride and will one day be shattered and with it all our counterfeit confidence.

Am I advocating blissful ignorance, or that we don't engage with the difficult issues of the day?  No, just humility and honesty, a willingness to accept that we don't know all the answers, that the other side may have a point, and that ultimately we may never know this side of heaven.

Why do you think the Old Testament starts off with the 10 Commandments and becomes chapters and chapters of increasingly detailed rules for everything (Wondering which kinds of flying insects you can eat?  The answer is only the four-legged ones which have jointed legs for hopping; Leviticus 11v20-23), while Jesus, who fulfilled the law, summarised it in two sentences: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all you mind"; and "Love your neighbour as yourself" (Luke 10 v27).  In the light of this, our petty arguments and divisions pale into insignificance.

Let's stay with his clear commands, and not try to tie everything down to our liking, and in so doing find ourselves choosing to be 'right' rather than choosing life.

Though if any of you can tell me whether my 'neighbour' includes those who live 2 doors away from my house, I'd like to know.  And what about those 3 doors away?  But what if they are Catholics?  And what if ...

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