UNCERTAINTY
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Uncertainty serves as a safe-place, a refuge against the judgments of others and even those of our conscience. If certainty about moral/spiritual truths is non-existent or at least unknowable, then any indictment of us can be easily swept aside. As a result, we are then free to follow their passions.
This is even true for some pastors. Pastor Brian McLaren claims that we cannot ever be certain about our interpretations of the Scriptures:
∑ How do “I” know the Bible is always right? And if “I” am sophisticated enough to realize that I know nothing of the Bible without my own involvement via interpretation, I’ll also ask how I know which school, method, or technique of biblical interpretation is right. What makes a “good” interpretation good? And if an appeal is made to a written standard (book, doctrinal statement, etc.) or to common sense or to “scholarly principles of interpretation,” the same pesky “I” who liberated us from the authority of the church will ask, “Who sets the standard? Whose common sense? Which scholars and why? Don’t all these appeals to authorities and principles outside the Bible actually undermine the claim of ultimate biblical authority? Aren’t they just the new pope?
McLaren magnifies the problems of interpretation by claiming that we can’t really interpret with any degree of certainty without a proven method of interpretation. However, if this is so, then we would also need a proven method of interpretation to understand what McLaren has written.
Absurd? To the max! Fortunately, we don’t need a proven method of interpretation to understand one another. We can generally communicate in ways that others understand without a proven method.
However, uncertainty has become McLaren’s refuge. Refuge from what? Refuge from God and His Scriptures. In his latest book, “A New Kind of Christianity,” he reveals the real reason for his skepticism towards Scripture. He is offended by the Scriptures:
∑ I need to say again that nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures do I find anything as horrible as Theos [God]. Yes, I find a character named God who sends a flood that destroys all humanity except for Noah’s family, but that’s almost trivial compared to a deity who tortures the greater part of humanity forever in infinite eternal conscious torment.
The idea of a punitive God is utterly distasteful to McLaren. For him, uncertainty is a safe refuge. However, he doesn’t seem to be uncertain about much that he writes.
What does he tell God? “Well, you never gave me a proven method of interpretation! Therefore, you can’t hold me responsible.” However, God does hold His people responsible. On many occasions, He had warned Israel that they had no excuse for their unwillingness to follow Him:
∑ Then the LORD said to Moses: "How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them (Numbers 14:11)?
While Israel had justified their rebellion in many ways, I don’t think that they ever pleaded “the impossibility of certainty.”
Professor of Psychology, Jordan Peterson maintains that uncertainly needs to be addressed in hope of achieving certainty:
∑ …uncertainty presents a fundamental (and unavoidable) challenge to the integrity of any complex organism. (a) Uncertainty poses a critical adaptive challenge for any organism, so individuals are motivated to keep it at a manageable level; (b) uncertainty emerges as a function of the conflict between competing perceptual and behavioral affordances; (c) adopting clear goals and belief structures helps to constrain the experience of uncertainty by reducing the spread of competing affordances; and (d) uncertainty is experienced subjectively as anxiety…
When we are young and it seems that life is full of tantalizing possibilities and pleasures, uncertainty unleashes the freedom to live as we choose. In contrast, according to Peterson, uncertainty is a challenge to overcome.
Why? If we want to get to point “Z,” we need to be confident about the way to get there. We need a good and certain roadmap. Without such a roadmap, our journey is fraught with uncertainty, frustration, and stress.
This same principle pertains to our philosophy of life, another form of roadmap, which identifies our values and goals and how to achieve them. Without such a roadmap, we are thrust into confusion and stress with every decision. We have to know where we stand and where we want to go.
Our roadmap also has to include the fueling stations so that we don’t run out of gas. We need a source of hope to get through the long desert drive. The late psychiatrist, M. Scott Peck, author of “The Road Less Traveled,” wrote about a different kind of certainty. Describing his journey from Zen Buddhism to Christianity, he repeatedly observed that his Christian clients would improve, no matter how serious their psychiatric condition. He concluded:
∑ The quickest way to change your attitude toward pain is to accept the fact that everything that happens to us has been designed for our spiritual growth…We cannot lose once we realize that everything that happens to us has been designed to teach us holiness…We are guaranteed winners! (“Further Along the Road Less Traveled”)
We need the certainty of the hope that we will arrive at our appointed destination. If we have the certainty that God is in control, we can relax. Peck realized that we do not need certainty about everything in our lives, but we do need a certainty about a God who loves us and will provide for us, wherever our car might break down. It is with this certainty that we can begin to love others.
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