“The days are gone when we can just list the doctrines…mother church can decide and we can just sit there with those as a given. Given is no longer a given. And I think there is an attitude of radical uncertainty and radical doubt. And rather than saying can we integrate doubt and faith, I want to speak of a faith which incorporates the radical doubt, which is the doubting miraculously finding faith within it.”
Clayton articulates an important shift: a faith not built upon persuasive propositions (if you’ve not heard a better argument, you’ve not talked to the right people) but upon wrestling with life’s mystery and paradox. Faith bornof deep probing doubt. Faith that exists in harmony with doubt, not in opposition to it.
Fromont quotes existential psychologist Rollo May,
“…People who claim to be absolutely convinced that their stand is the only right one are dangerous. Such conviction is the essence not only dogmatism, but of its more destructive cousin, fanaticism. It blocks the user from learning new truth, and is a dead giveaway of unconscious doubt…”
Pretty obvious stuff, but so often lost in the passion of religious fervor: absolute certainty as a marker of toxic religion – a posture of certainty that snuffs out the small voice of creation – a rigidity of mental logic that that bounds and gags the transcendent freedoms of Spirit.
May concludes,
“…The person with the courage to believe and at the same time to admit his doubts is flexible and open to new learning, and I’d add, open to new depths of meaning and new vantage points from which to gain new or different perspectives. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt. To believe fully and at the same moment to have doubts is not at all a contradiction: [rather] it presupposes a greater respect for truth, an awareness that truth always goes beyond anything that can be said or done at any given moment…”
When discussing religion and spirituality, I prefer the word “confidence” over certainty. And sometimes “confidence” is too strong a word. Hope, however, is never too strong. A shared hope is always welcome in any community. Hope is a bridge between communities. Hope promotes inclusion and safety. Hope lives on, even in the face of death. Hope is the yeast of faith.
As new generations accelerate and deepen the shift from institution-centric, lay-clergy models of religion to networked sharing and collaboration — what Duke theologian David Morgan calls an extended community of interpretation — theology will change, perhaps radically. And among the major changes will be the way we collectively re-imagine and re-envision our certainties, confidence, hope, and faith.
As this collective re-imagining transforms religion from the inside-out, from the bottom-up, from expert to amateur… may it not coalesce into yet another static propositional confession. May doubt (the posture of honest uncertainty) remain authentic and always new – and not become a religion unto itself. May religion be continually redefined as (re)generative, inclusive, shared experience, offering a depth of freedom not found in ideas, but in what the best ideas always point to. Inertial. Pointing father. Pointing beyond the visible horizon.
One of the 20th century’s greatest scientific thinkers, Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman, talks about faith, doubt, religion, and uncertainty in this engaging four-minute film. Time well spent.
“I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that could be wrong… I don’t have to have an answer; I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things.” – R. Feynman
Author Jeremy Bouma is live blogging Peter Rollins at a conference. This is very inspirational material that elevates Spirit over religious systematics. I find Peter’s manner of questioning and wrestling to be deeply authentic, reflecting the very God-given creativity, curiosity, and wonderment we are all given as children, but so often smother as adults. See also Trent’s heart-felt invitation echoing this same unbridled desire to really be who we were created to be, to move unrestricted in that same natural optimistic flow and stream which created all things – the cry of those painfully aware of how we compromise and commandere (a.k.a., religion, superstition) this perennial Gift.
From Jeremy’s pen (excuse syntax – this is live blogging – ital mine):
christianity is fundamentally violent…against the principalities and powers. Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King ruptured the systems. System is not that which you see, but that which you see through…these people doing something powerful.
Revelation not about revealing. We think revealing…God whispering in the year. A theologian talks about God like a biologist talking about bio-life.The question is not is Christianity true, but what does it mean when it claims to be true…we then just assume its like the truth of biology. Revelation does not mean we have information about God, like a biologist has something on bio-life.
The desire to speak of God is ancient. If you can name God you can have power. But is this idea of NAMING something that God plays along with? Possible to exist in reality and so majestic that it cant exist in the mind. God not anonymous. He is hypernonymous…don’t know something because there isnt access. God is not unknown because he doesn’t exist; he cannot be known because he cannot be grasped because of the excess…like the sun.
The Bible is divine because of the tension and problems and difficulties. Of course you are going to have a breakdown of words when you have the infinite entering into the finite. Of course we are going to blow up and combust.
The unnamable is omninamable…when confronted with the trauma of God not reduced into silence, but into poetry, prophecy, and preaching. As soon as you name God you create him in your image. Theology is like us trying to draw God. Jesus tears up our images of God, not paint them. As soon as we start putting words to God peoples God’s look like them…God is not the patch of meaning on the wind of our unknowing…he is the patch of unknowing we put on our wind of meaning.
Moses…Jacob wanted to know God’s name. But he didnt give it. We dont name God, he names us.
The point of incarnation is not God being revealed and we now understand it…its now the mystery is here and brought among us and lives with it. The mystery is deepened. The mystery touches us.
With a HT to KK, and in continuing the theme of an earlier post in which John Fiesole playfully tackles the notion of meaningful meaninglessness, and the meaningfullnessians who profess such paradox, here’s a book exploring uncaused causes – self-causation – seemingly illogical or nonsensical ideas that, upon deeper reflection, may offer profound truth. From the book:
The superfluous is the most necessary.
Voltaire
Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.
Margaret Mead
I shut my eyes in order to see.
Paul Gauguin
We learn from history that we do not learn from history.
Georg Hegel
We are never prepared for what we expect.
James Michener
To be believed, make the truth unbelievable.
Napoleon Bonaparte
What we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.
Sydney J. Harris
When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.
Henry David Thoreau
Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it.
Harry S. Truman
Man can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable.
Oscar Wilde
War is a series of catastrophes which result in a victory.
Georges Clemenceau
First I dream my painting, then I paint my dream.
Vincent van Gogh
We are confronted by insurmountable opportunities.
Walt Kelly, From Pogo
I want peace and I’m willing to fight for it.
Harry S. Truman
Study the past, if you would divine the future.
Confucius, in Analects
Love is a kind of warfare.
Ovid
All works of art should begin…at the end.
Edgar Allan Poe
and my favorite…
The final delusion is the belief that one has lost all delusions.
Maurice Chapelain
no wait, this is my favorite…
A man chases a woman until she catches him.
Anonymous
