Pub Theology 4/30/24 — Certainty and a boat in the fog

The topic of doubt has come up over and over again in our conversations. That’s not really a surprise given that we’ve been having these discussions for 11 years now. But I’m not sure we’ve ever really talked about the idea of certainty.

Generally speaking, when we talk about certainty we think about it as the state of being free from doubt, of being completely confident about something. There’s often an element of objective proof in the mix as well. So what kind of things are you certain about? More interestingly, are there things you were once certain of but you’ve had a change of mind about? In other words, how certain are you about the very concept of certainty?

Since this is Pub Theology, let’s turn the conversation to questions of faith. In his 2000 novel Jayber Crow , the author Wendell Berry has this to say: “But faith is not necessarily, or not soon, a resting place. Faith puts you out on a wide river in a boat, in the fog, in the dark.” As a way of thinking about faith, this is a far cry from a faith system based on certainty. Certainty of salvation, certainty that there is but one path to the sacred, certainty about doctrine, and so on.

What does Berry’s metaphor mean to you? How do you understand what he is saying with this sentence? And how does this conception of faith compare to a certainty-based faith? For some, certainty and faith are opposite ends of a spectrum.

Former United Methodist pastor Martin Thielen argues that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. “I hold many strong beliefs about the life of Jesus Christ, the love of God, and other crucial Christian affirmations. But when religious people are uncompromisingly absolute about all their beliefs, when they cannot see beyond black and white, especially on secondary issues, they are practicing unhealthy religion. The fact is, we are not God. We do not know everything.”

But as Thielen notes, a lot of Christians have a problem accepting ambiguity. “They want their belief system to be certain, beyond question; and they often punish those who disagree with their pronouncements.” But there are hazards lurking in such faith systems. “One of the many problems with arrogant and closed-minded, absolutist religion is that it makes people intolerant of anyone who disagrees with their rigid positions.”

With this as our starting point, our conversation this week will focus on the concept of certainty and absolutism in our faith lives and in our lives more generally. Join us Tuesday, April 30 for the discussion starting at 7pm at Casa Real in downtown Oxford.