We live in a very strange time. We live in a time where it’s au courant to be religiously agnostic, but a terrible sin to questions whether boys can be girls. We live in the epoch of belief and the epoch of credulity. There are many people who are pushing this age in which we live to be an age of unbridled postmodern doubt. Simultaneously, the same people insist on the truth and reliability of multiculturalism and systemic racism and the rightness of Communism. It seems to me that the people driving the culture are all at once telling us that it’s wrong to have certainty and that it’s wrong to have doubt!
How can this be? Well, it just depends, right? And actually, I think that this may be one of the few things I agree with the culture on – sometimes certainty is good and sometimes doubt is good. And I’m speaking not only about technical and academic things, but some pretty everyday stuff, too.
Because you see, friends, that Wisdom, real wisdom, includes both certainty and doubt[1]. Skepticism isn’t bad, per se, but it can be. Dogmatism isn’t bad, per se, but it can be. And the struggle between Skepticism and Dogmatism is an old one. It goes back a long ways in the History of Philosophy and the History of Theology. These two are powerful poles pulling our professions and practices. But neither is good, in and of itself. Unbridled Skepticism leads to cynicism (not the philosophical kind, but the “I’m a jerk” kind) and to agnosticism and atheism. Flippancy and Destruction are the far branches of the tree of Skepticism. At the same time, unbridled Dogmatism is just as destructive. It leads to Pharisaism and Inquisitions.
The great irony, however, is that there is an insuperable Dogmatism in the most ardent Skeptic. And the most Dogmatic Fundamentalist, is the most skeptical of all.
This tug-of-war between these philosophical extremes has and will continue to carry-on. But they’re both right…ish. We shouldn’t be credulous, in the sense of a rube or naïf, fresh faced and ready to be taken by any ill wind of doctrine. We should be ready, willing, and able to test whether things be true. On the other hand, always doubting everything is just as foolish as doubting nothing. It’s unlivable. At a certain point you have to weigh evidence, and make decisions. Part of being human is living in uncertainty. Some things cannot be proven, we have to put our faith in something! The question is what. No one lives without faith. The blindest man may be the skeptic who thinks he sees clearly!
Thus, the key to Wisdom is not whether we have certainty or whether we have doubt, but rather what are the objects of our certainty and doubt. And the fact of the matter is that Wisdom and Folly, being opposites, place their certainty and their doubt in opposite things!
But how do we know about what to have certainty and what to doubt? Fortunately, the Bible tells us! Solomon says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. In other words, real wisdom does NOT begin ex nihilo. Wisdom doesn’t begin with a tabula rasa that must needs be filled with precepts and principles before we can make sense of it. Wisdom doesn’t begin with being emptied, but being filled!
Solomon says that Wisdom begins – not continues – but BEGINS by making an emotional, affective, behavioral response to a Person. This is not some mere intellectual metaphysical commitment! It involves that – but it isn’t that, it’s more than that. Solomon doesn’t say that the beginning of Wisdom is accepting the worldview that Yahweh is the creator God to whom we owe allegiance. You can have that commitment and be a FOOL! Not until you’re ready to FEAR God can you begin to become wise! Wisdom is not, according to Solomon, a philosophical commitment, but a lifestyle. Wisdom is not about knowing but being! And, this is what we should expect if we understand what Wisdom is, in the Bible. In God’s universe, wisdom is doing right for the right reasons. Wisdom is living in harmony with God’s will. Wisdom doesn’t look the same for everyone, and this frustrates those who can’t get past their own brains, thinking that Wisdom is all about knowledge, when, frankly, knowledge has very little to do with it.
I used to say that Wisdom was applied knowledge. And while I don’t think that’s wrong, it certainly is very inadequate. Wisdom is living in harmony with God’s will. And when we live in harmony with God’s will, sometimes we’re going to be very bold in the face of opposition. Sometimes our beliefs will be attacked from all sides and even from “inside” but we don’t give up our certainty about the orthodox faith because others, even very smart others, have doubts. Wisdom means living in harmony with God’s will and that means having faith in Him and His words which will never pass away.
Wisdom also means doubting those things that the foolish world holds to be self-evident and indubitable. For instance: love is love; gender is non-binary; there are many ways to God; all problems come from racism; the world is Billions of years old; we all came from monkeys who came from pondscum who came from nothing.
I think as our world becomes both more Skeptical and more Dogmatic – or at least as we can witness the objects of Skepticism and Dogmatism changing it’s well to remember, as a general rule, that what the world holds in doubt is probably pretty certain and what the world is certain of is normally worthy of doubt.[2]
Footnotes are the best notes:
[1] It is worth questioning whether “doubt” is an ontological reality or merely the absence of certainty. If all things come from God, at least all things that are actually things, then one wonders how doubt could come from God. Perhaps, like sin, defined by Augustine as “privatio boni”, doubt is “privatio fidei”. How then can doubt be a good? I think it could be good only in the sense that it may be a recognition of our finitude and thus is an economically imposed means of honoring God. Or perhaps if we doubt things that are lies and offensive to God and therefore, sinful, it’s the privation of the privation of the good. It’s a negative of a negative and therefore positive. I’m dubious about this, though, but I’m not certain how it can be wrong. It seems inelegant. I need to do more thought on this.
[2] Expect more from me on this subject, I find it fascinating.