“Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance… If there was only certainty and no doubt [sic], there would be no mystery and therefore no need for faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope that doubts.”
So implores Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, compellingly played by Ralph Fiennes, at a pivotal moment in the movie, Conclave. In so doing, he contributes to a growing contemporary chorus of voices that laud uncertainty and doubt.
There’s a lot of talk these days about the evils and dangers of certainty, where what is meant by “certainty” is a judgment that one’s own belief is very probably true, together with a strong feeling of confidence that you’ve got things right. The more probable you take your belief to be and the stronger your feeling of confidence, the greater is your certainty.
I wonder if the time is right for a reminder that certainty is good. When the stakes are high, certainty is exactly what you should want.
If you’re getting ready to detonate explosives on a planned building demolition, you’ll want to be as certain as can be managed that there isn’t anyone in the building. There’s nothing wrong with the attempt to increase your certainty. And if you have to detonate while relatively uncertain about whether or not anyone is in the building, you should be bothered. When the stakes are high, certainty is what we want. And it’s what we should want.
If certainty is what we should want when the stakes are high, why are so many people tempted to denigrate certainty as concerns matters of faith? What explains the growing sentiment that certainty is the enemy of faith, unity, and tolerance? I think it’s often because so many of us have had bad experiences with the following lamentable realities:
- Failed attempts to increase our certainty concerning matters of faith: There are plenty of people who, at some point in their faith journey, really wanted to achieve increased certainty concerning the central tenets of their faith, who tried to increase their certainty, but who came up short. And their failed attempts to achieve certainty left them with a sour taste in their mouth for certainty and the impulse to attain it.
- Unwarranted feelings of certainty: It’s dangerous to feel very confident when your confidence is not a good fit with your evidence. That’s a recipe for expensive mistakes. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with feeling certain when your evidence is strong or decisive. But too many of us have had bad experiences with folks who felt certain when they shouldn’t have.
- Arrogance and closed-minded stubborn belief: It’s an ugly thing when someone, in part because of the certainty they experience, closes their mind to additional evidence or has an overly exalted view of themselves. Even if you have warranted confidence — even if you feel quite certain indeed — that there isn’t anyone in the building, you should have the intellectual humility to listen if someone comes forward with new and credible evidence to the contrary. Confidence (even very high degrees of confidence), humility, and open-mindedness can coexist. And when the stakes are high, intellectual humility is all the more important. But all too often, we find that folks with high degrees of confidence are arrogant, closed-minded, and stubborn.
- Shaming, belittling, blaming or excluding people who experience uncertainty (often for non-culpable reasons): This is like shaming, belittling, blaming, or excluding someone because they have an illness. Being sick is not the ideal. And the goal should be less sickness. But it’d be ridiculous to treat sick people as though their sickness was always their own fault. Being uncertain is not the ideal — especially when the stakes are high. The goal should be less uncertainty. But it’d be ridiculous to treat people who are uncertain as though their uncertainty was always their own fault.
It’s easy to find folks who chased certainty and came up short. It’s easy to find folks for whom unwarranted certainty, arrogance, and closed-mindedness have been disastrous. And it’s not hard to find church environments where people are shamed, belittled, blamed, or excluded because of their uncertainty. But it’s a mistake to identify certainty — or the impulse to seek increasing certainty when the stakes are high — as the culprit.
In fact, central to the Christian way has always been the ideal of warranted and confident assurance (certainty) that God is good, that God loves us, and that Jesus is the rescue. When we laud uncertainty or talk as though certainty (warranted or not) is somehow incompatible with faith, we risk moving people further from the ideal of warranted and confident assurance that God is good and Jesus is the rescue.
If you’re not certain that God is good or that Jesus is the rescue, you shouldn’t pretend or try to convince yourself that you are. Your Christian community should not pressure you into acting or talking as though you’re confident about those things. And you should not be shamed, belittled, blamed, or excluded for your uncertainty. For the honest inquirer in the modern world (perhaps for the honest inquirer at any time), warranted and confident assurance that God is good and that Jesus is the rescue may not be easily attained.
But neither should we hold up uncertainty as a mark of mature faith (or as a precondition for having faith at all). That simply is not the picture of faith on display in the scriptures. It certainly did not characterize the faith of Jesus Christ in his Heavenly Father. Nor did it characterize the faith of Abraham, Gideon, Peter, Paul, or so many of the heroes of faith who were so confident — so certain — that they were right about Jesus and God that they were ready to bet their lives (and the lives of their loved ones) on it.
If the stakes are high and the best we can do is relative uncertainty, that is cause for lament. If I have to blow up the building and I can’t be certain whether or not anyone is inside, I shouldn’t try to comfort myself with the idea that uncertainty is better— that the folks who blow up buildings feeling certain that nobody’s inside are immature, arrogant, closed-minded, or always unwarranted in their certainty. I should lament. And maybe I should see if there is a path available to me that leads in the direction of greater (and warranted) certainty.
If I am betting my life on the goodness of God and Jesus as the rescue and the best I can do is relative uncertainty about those things, I shouldn’t try to comfort myself with the idea that uncertainty is better — that the folks who feel certain about these things are immature, arrogant, closed-minded, lacking faith altogether, or always unwarranted in their certainty. I should lament. Or maybe I should see if there is a path available to me that leads in the direction of greater (and warranted) certainty.
And for those of us charged with educating and helping others into virtue, we should not confuse the elimination of conditions necessary for the manifestation of vice with the inculcation of a virtue. It takes no particular virtue to resist hoarding when you don’t have any stuff. If I take all your stuff away, I can be sure that you won’t hoard anything. Will I have helped you with the virtue of generosity? Maybe. But maybe not. It’s easy not to hoard when you’ve got nothing to hoard. The real test for the virtue of generosity occurs as you accumulate stuff. Will you be able to give much of it away?
Likewise, it takes no particular virtue to resist arrogance and stubborn, closed-minded belief when you’re full of uncertainty and doubt. If I can undermine your certainty and sow seeds of doubt, you might be open, as a consequence, to new ideas. Will I have helped you with the virtues of open-mindedness and intellectual humility? Maybe. But maybe not. It’s easy to be open to new perspectives when you’ve got no confidently held perspective of your own. The real test for the virtues of humility and open-mindedness will occur as you approach certainty and find your way free of doubt. Can you still, despite your high degree of certainty, consider other perspectives with an open mind and with generous curiosity?
Maybe we don’t need a Pope who doubts — one who experiences uncertainty. Maybe what we need is a mature, humble, open-minded Pope who, though certain and free of doubt, has not lost his ability to consider new evidence and diverse perspectives with a generous and curious spirit — a Pope who extends himself with gracious acceptance to those who disagree or who do find themselves with doubt and uncertainty.
You are quite right to remind us that doubt is not, in and of itself, a virtue. Nevertheless, I think you are misrepresenting what at least some of us mean when we express an appreciation for doubt. Properly, this is an appreciation for the ability (or capacity) to acknowledge and accept that some of our knowing is–and will remain (at least in this life)–unverifiable. Not all human knowing is the same. Some of our knowing is verifiable by means of mathematical reasoning or scientifically controlled experimentation. This is the category of knowing that I would associate with “certainty.” But a great deal of our human knowing is not verifiable in these ways. We know because our parents told us so, or because our experience confirms us in our impressions, or because of the testimony of others, including the testimony of the Holy Spirit. These kinds of knowing are not the same as knowing that has been verified by logic or experimentation. This is the category of knowing that I would call “confidence.” We may have very high degrees of confidence about such matters, but our confidence is distinct from certainty. To appreciate doubt (at least as I appreciate doubt) is to appreciate the humility that is able to acknowledge our human finitude–as well as our fallibility and fallenness. It is to appreciate the charity that can listen to others because one knows that those others may provide correction or enlightenment that one lacks. To say all this is not to valorize doubt as doubt; nor is it to deny the desirability of certainty wherever certainty is possible. It is, rather, to assess candidly the human condition.
(It may be obvious that my thinking has been shaped by the works of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Michael Polanyi, and Lesslie Newbigin, though also by Alvin Plantinga, etc.)
I appreciate this post. The list of “lamentable realities” that make certainty unsavory has its complement in an equal and opposite set of vices: 1. Failure to attempt to increase one’s certainty concerning matters of faith (i.e. sloth). 2. Unwarranted feelings of uncertainty. 3. Arrogance and closed-minded disbelief. 4. Shaming, belittling, blaming or excluding people who experience certainty. My point in mentioning this second list is not to dismiss honest, humble-minded skepticism or uncertainty; it’s only to note that as we stare in disgust at Scylla and steer as far from her as we can, we’re apt to sail straight into Charybdis.
I appreciate the post as well, and I think I’m very much in agreement with its overall intent. I think that one of the themes that it and the comments reflect is a common confusion between humility and uncertainty: people sometimes discuss these matters as though one can’t be both humble and certain. Along the lines of William Tate’s comment, my immediate thought as I began to read the article is that it would be useful to distinguish between “certainty” and “confidence.” My understanding of “certainty” is that it is an absolute–so, for example, one can’t increase certainty about a matter, while one can increase confidence. (One can perhaps increase certainty in the sense of becoming certain about more things, but I think one can’t become more certain about a single thing.) A similar phenomenon is seen in some people’s use of the word “proof”: they will sometimes say that a particular fact is “further proof” of a conclusion, when they mean that it is additional evidence (in instances in which that fact alone does not establish certainty for the conclusion. However, I would not limit “certainty,” as Tate does, to things that can be verifiable by mathematical reasoning or scientifically controlled experimentation; for example, in the realm of history, I am certain that George Washington is dead and that I drove to work this morning in a Honda CRV (two things based on different kinds of evidence, at least from my perspective), and, in what’s probably a different realm, I’m also certain that D is commonly considered to be the fifth scale degree in a G major scale. I’m also certain that there are people in the world who are better pianists than I am and who speak German better than I do–I’m not sure whether one could make an argument that these things are verifiable by scientifically controlled experimentation; I think that such experimentation would ultimately depend, for example, on the scientists’ trusting me to provide accurate information about my own abilities.
And, to clarify, my first post didn’t adequately acknowledge that William Tate mentions historical knowing, I think including it in the category of things that we know based on the testimony of others and saying that we can therefore only say that we’re “confident” in this realm and not “certain.” Again, I would definitely distinguish (as I believe he does) certainty, as an absolute, from confidence, as something that falls short of being absolute, and I think that’s the most helpful point with respect to the discussion that Dr. Ten Elshof pursues. But I don’t think that my certainty about some historical and other facts falls short of certainty yielded by scientifically controlled experimentation, which of course is also subject to error (and most of which we know through others’ testimony, rather than having conducted the experiments ourselves–apart from relatively simple things that we observe). I’m not sure exactly what the definition is of “mathematical reasoning”–for example, does it apply to the assessment of historical evidence?)
Gregg, as always, thank you for your thoughtful comments! As one who has written on the need for civility, I found your last line to be timely in today’s argument culture. “A Pope who extends himself with gracious acceptance to those who disagree or who do find themselves with doubt and uncertainty.” Amen.