How's this for a quote? "There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns--the ones we don't know we don't know" (Donald Rumsfeld as quoted by Evan Eisenberg and Jeffrey Fisher in Time, January 29, 2007, p.142). Huh?
It may come as a surprize that some pretty significant Bible characters said essentially the same thing. Isaiah quoted God as saying: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Jesus told his disciples: "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear..." Speaking of events they were anticiapting about his kingdom, he also told them matter of factly, "It is not for you to know the times and dates the Father has set by his own authority." St. Paul echoed Isaiah's words and wrote to the Romans, "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!" He also reminded the Corinthians that, "For now we see in a mirror dimly... now I know in part..." And, John agreed, stating, "what we will be has not yet been made known."
The trick is keeping humble enough to remember that "we don't know what we don't know." Our tendency, instead, is to take pride in things on which we think we have certainty. Most of us have constructed sheltering systems of thought and belief in which we hide to shield us from "unknown unknowns" and, in effect, deny their existence. These shelters, be they creeds, systematic theologies, political views, or the traditions that have been passed down to us, tend to make us very suspicious of and closed to anything new. My own formal training as a Bible scholar and pastor was designed to prepare me to defend what we "knew" to be true and ready to win the argument against any suggestions to the contrary. All questions had specific "correct" answers. Historically, people have been literally put to death for suggesting that something everybody "knew" to be true was not true--things like the earth isn't flat or the sun doesn't orbit around the earth.
As a friend of mine stated at breakfast this morning, "Faith is the flower that can only grow out of the soil of doubt." In other words, the faith that connects us with the unknowable (God) is not so much about being certain what we know, but, like the little child, being okay for now with with what we don't or can't know. Study, inquiry, searching, evolving opinion and even doubt can be evidence of blossoming faith. Dogmatism, rigidity and opinionatedness, on the other hand, tend to be counterproductive to faith and can be dangerous. It is people with this mindset that fly airplanes into buildings and burn dissenters at the stake.
Given the contrast, I've decided to be happily uncertain.
3 comments:
Are you sure?
Ok, let me present a sideways slant, as you would naturally expect from me. Here is your key word: to know. You place high value on knowing what is right, whether it's traditional or new or rediscovered truth. And it's only ok to NOT know, as long as you KNOW you don't know. So if zero is a defined constant, it's really not nothing anymore. Whew - that was close.
I take you back to the original Garden dilemma: sin broke the relationship between God and man. Sure, Satan used faulty knowledge to do it, but God didn't fix Adam's understanding of the situation. He fixed the relationship by the most illogical of means. He sacrificed His son.
Maybe we are in fact saying the same thing: knowledge is a faulty foundation, and a fickle mistress. WHAT you know is entirely peripheral to WHO you know. When we make "what" the whole point, we lose "WHO" - we lose God - in the ensuing shuffle.
Only these three remain: faith, hope, and love. By faith, I apprehend God, and am apprehended by Him. This alone is my seed of hope, but what a mighty mustard seed it is. Because the more I believe and hope, the more my relationship with God grows, the more I find how deeply He loves me, and always has.
In a way that is far, far beyond anything I could ever know.
(you have to smile now - I learned to be this way from you, my friend)
Perhaps this is a third rail? My dad, who always worked with his hands and was never known to be a theologian or philosopher, would sometimes comment, "I don't understand everything that I know about..." It is an insight that becomes more profound to me over the years.
Is it not possible to have some things deeply established in your "knower," of more substance than rote or obligatory learning, but of a deeper nature with layered confirmations, including faith, that still defy understanding?
Is it possible to humbly hold to a few such precious "knowings," not arrogantly, but with wonderment while beholding truth that defies comprehension, not afraid to allow them to be tested? Perhaps I am suggesting there is room for some humble "certainty," based on more than ignorance or intellectual captivity, and that it could, perhaps, be preferable to the certainty of not knowing.
Happily uncertain. Wow. You have a knack for stretching the limits of the rational mind. I have always needed to know what I could count on for the basis of my life and faith. I guess I think I know enough to get by—even though it is a small percentage compared to what I do not know or have any desire to know.
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