Certain Sins
King Solomon provided the line later made popular by the Beatles, to everything there is a season (turn, turn, turn). Does this apply to beliefs? Is there a season for an open mind? What about a proper time for a closed mind? How can we know the difference between which mindset is appropriate. If truth never changes, why should our beliefs?
It may have been Mark Twain who once said you should not be so open minded that your brains fall out. Chesterton quipped something similar, that an open mind is like an open mouth, intended to close on something solid. We all have convictions that are deeply held and rarely doubted. We’ve also experienced the process of being convinced of another way of seeing a thing that warrants a change of mind.
Certain Things
From a Christian point of view, there are clearly things disciples of Jesus should believe with certainty. The Apostle John said the goal of his writing was so that we might know Jesus is the Christ (John 20:31), and that we might know we have life (1 John 5:13). These are things we should hold with deep conviction as Christians. That’s not to say they are never doubted, as even those who were eye witnesses of the resurrected Christ struggled to believe (just see the disciple Thomas for whom I’m deeply thankful).
Uncertain Things
But there’s a lot in the Bible that can be difficult to understand (just see the disciple Peter for whom I’m also deeply thankful). There’s also a lot in the Bible for which serious followers of Jesus who are devoted students of the Bible disagree with one another regarding how to best interpret and apply. While this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t form opinions, it at least demonstrates that we should hold views on such things with humily if not also with open hands.
Just as it could be sinful to reject certainty regarding things clearly taught in Scripture, would it not be the case that an ironclad certainty over unclear issues is an equal, though opposite, vice? My fear is that we have created a culture in American Christianity where the hot topics of the day are treated as unquestionale standards of orthodoxy, and are rigidly imposed on believers with sensitive consciences. This should not be so.
Gate Keepers of Uncertain Certainties
Instead of tribunals and councils, today we are subject to which Christian leaders have the largest podcast subcriptions, the greatest book sales, or whichever way the wind might be blowing from the most influential theological school of the moment. These distant influences set the parameters for what is acceptable to believe or question for organizations and churches downstream. They control the conversation. But what is upstream from these gate keepers? Is it Scripture? Is it Christ? Or is it something else?
I have my thoughts on this that I’ll mostly keep to myslef (for the moment). I will say this, usually when someone cries “certainty, certainy” over things that have been debated for the last two thousand years, for which there is diversity among believers around the world today, they usually have an agenda. And what better way to advance their agenda than to blame it on the Bible. I’ll stop before I get myself in trouble. Actually, I’m not too worried about that. So, I’ll pick this topic up again in a future post.
For now, I would simply caution readers against uncritically accepting those things which are not clear in Scripture. Challenge certainty when it seems to go far beyond the plain teaching of the Bible. Use your God-given mind to think about what you believe. But for those things that are certain in Scripture, like Jesus and the life he offers us, treasure those things and hold fast to them even in those dark moments when everything else seems uncertain.