Man yearns for certainty. This yearning is likely exacerbated by the lingering feeling that there is so much of life that is changing, transient, guessed, and uncertain. Why can we not nail things down? We start at this corner of life, and a neighbor starts at another corner. There follows considerable sauntering around in the hope that we can settle. Instead we find that the complications are even larger than we thought when we discover there are many others starting at other points, and the milling about becomes even greater than we thought sincerity, search and work would permit. We settle assuming that there may be some relief, agreement and assurance. For reality implications that mix of matters becomes common context of life.
Francis Bacon, highly regarded as a true seeker of knowledge and leading scientist of his age, stated that: If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; but if we begin with doubts, and are patient with them, we shall end with certainties. That is quite a statement. We might wish that it could be more fully tested both to illustrate the point and to address the paradoxes we sense in our own experiences and relationships with others. Some felt certainties, especially related to every-day life, may create an acceptable context for us – certainties that take a lifetime to verify in the sense that Bacon seems to have projected. The certainties we feel about God are not provable to the humanist. They are not subject to nature, and it appears that faith, related to hope, cannot be effective if held in perpetual uncertainty. Do we apply Bacon’s statement only to science? Then we must say so, or we are wandering about in a world of options, looking only for one context that is in nature – therefore limited. Reading scholarly materials one may expect to find contradictions, omissions, guesses, observations that are at odds with other researchers of reputation. Life is not meant to be hostage to the limitations of mankind’s progress for the accumulation of knowledge. Ignorance humbles me, and some human certainties fall to doubts, with evidence that seems contrary.
Some doubts must remain doubts even with formidable evidence begging for certainty. Contexts are sometimes too complex for our confidence in any direction. The wise person works along with the variables to find a balance that makes a full life. The way out for the Christian is faith. God made clear there are mysteries in which he is shrouded. There is weakness in human performance: there is too much to absorb and not enough known to offer full satisfaction. All this makes faith sensible if the faith offers comfort, peace, love, meaning, and understanding within the boundaries of what is known and in service to mankind. Christian faith means that persons of faith trust God. Trust may be hard to come by since it is so often broken in our human culture. One rightly wonders – how did Judas find it in himself to betray Jesus? He had seen Jesus do nothing but good, and he betrayed him. That informs me that if Jesus can be betrayed I can be betrayed. Worse yet – I may become a betrayer. Worst of all, I may betray myself.
Each individual must accept the meaning of the evidence he or she finds. For example, I don’t see some of the conclusions even scholars make from some statistics. The figures are there, and when explained in the proper collection of the evidence tells us with some integrity what the sample represents. Limited samples may not truly represent the real situation in the larger context. The context in which the figures are offered may be entirely different than the one in which I function, so the truth for one person is not the truth for me. All this is heady business, especially so since God tells us to look for truth, to stand for truth and truth shall make us free. That sounds attractive and objective, and is a factor in the redemption of God for those he has included in the citizenship of his kingdom. This tension in life drives the Christian to Scripture. There we find the range and design for a life acceptable to God, and love with mercy from God that covers what may be missed. Scripture is replete with the lessons and illustrations of right and wrong, of God at work among the nations, of what must be done if God is to offer blessing (his imprimatur) to our beliefs and actions. He permits us to couch our ignorance, uncertainties, even our doubts in our faith. To include these aggravations within faith, which absorbs our paradoxes, is a gift we seem to know so little about. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020