I’ve always been a box opener. I guess I see faith as a pursuit toward truth. While many may be concerned by my lack of certainty and fear that I will wander too far, that just hasn’t been my experience. God has become bigger to me in my exploration of truth and I’m drawn in by His mystery. However, I’m not convinced that opening the box is the best option for everyone. It seems that the absolutes of a closed box approach can be helpful for certain personality types.
What do you think? Are you a box opener? How important is certainty in your faith?
Updating…
Justin Masterson has a blog called All It Is For What It’s Worth.
Music by Lions The Brave.
Wow. Talk about gasoline on a fire. I would like to believe that I would be willing to see the contents of the box. Do I want to? Well, the concept is intriguing but because of what I believe and how I have experienced my faith, I don’t think it matters if I see inside or not. The whole scenario seems taboo. But playing the game here, I think, for myself, I have enough confidence in what I believe to not be rocked by what’s in the box. I do want truth and holding onto belief for the sheer sake of it is meaningless. But I hold onto what I believe because of how it has become real in my life. I am not scared of what’s in the box.
I don’t think I ever set out to be certain in my faith. Along the way, though, I’ve come to realize that there are things I may never be able to explain. But I’ve also experienced so much that is otherwise unexplained, that I believe with certainty. I don’t think I’m afraid of the contents of the box.
I would like to see a box with incontrovertible proof that Jesus *did* rise from the dead–that’s the one I’d hesitate to open. Hesitate for maybe 5 seconds =). I think I’d be disinclined to buy into the evidence in either box. It’s hard for me to imagine what “incontrovertible proof” one way or the other might look like.
It’s a fun thought experiment. I’ve decided I like Justin. =).
I like Jim’s take on it: “It may or may not be true. I’ve *chosen* to go with it”
Dan,
Why do you say “talk about gasoline on a fire”? I didn’t sense that at all. What do you mean?
This website is a fire and this video is a pint of gasoline.
I’d open the box. The disciples saw Christ after the resurrection (i.e. they opened the box) and I suppose they turned out alright. Ignoring the box, at this time in history, seems a bit too much. I tend to like science and if I ignore the box I think I might have to ignore science as well.
Luke, do you find that your interests in science and your interests in religion conflict with one another? If so, do you tend to agree more with one than the other? why?
I’d open it because I’m curious (just as well I’m not a cat
).
However I still wouldn’t know. Because how do I know what’s in the box is incontrovertible evidence? Maybe it’s fake.
I do think the comments about fear in the video are key. I used to think I was open to evidence that Christianity wasn’t true but I wasn’t really, because I needed it to be true. Since I was afraid of it not being true, how could I really be open to evidence that it wasn’t?
In one sense, to even look in the box is to admit doubt that it’s true – and some might see that doubt as sinful. (But I’m way too far gone to worry about that sort of sin)
Speaking of doubt, I LOVED that movie! How relevant in this conversation!
Helen-could you unpack what you meant by “I needed it to be true”? Why was that such a fear for you? And, what happened when you ended up encountering that fear head on, was it as scary as you thought?
Craig, by “I needed it to be true”, I mean, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to be happy if it wasn’t true – so it was an emotional need.
When I encountered happy atheists it helped me believe it’s possible to be happy whether God exists or not and to find meaning whether he does or not.
That helped me not to be afraid of God not existing. I’m still afraid of many things but not that. The idea that if God was not out there I had no guarantees – of heaven, of being loved – was hard at first but then I became reconciled to it. Really with God there aren’t many guarantees – at least, not in this life, which is where I live and where it hurts when it hurts. Christians don’t seem to be guaranteed health, wealth, safety, happiness (athough I know some Christians believe that they are) – based on my observation of the lives of Christians and also based on the lack of assurance from Jesus that his followers are guaranteed such things in this life.
Interesting. I do think many Christians have a poor understanding of the cost of following Christ. Jesus makes it pretty clear we won’t have it easy.
Guarantee is an interesting choice of words, as though life with Jesus is “free of defect” but since that seems visibly untrue (as seen in the lives of Christians), then you can be and perhaps might as well be just as happy without the belief.
Is that what you’re saying? Or, am I misunderstanding your statements?
I’m saying “I realized it’s possible to be happy without Jesus”. I’m not exactly saying “You may as well be happy without Jesus” because that would sound like I’m pushing people away from faith and that’s not something I’m interested in doing per se. I’m interested in people being kind to each other; if faith gets in the way of that maybe I’d try to push them away from it; if it doesn’t I wouldn’t.
In general I think happiness is only possible to the extent we accept that there are many things in our lives we can’t control. I think that’s true whether we believe in God or not since God cannot be controlled by humans. I’m not saying God is unaffected by humans (if God exists) but rather that they have no guarantees their prayers will be answered the way they desire (for example). And your comments about the cost of following Jesus indicate you understand Jesus’ words similarly to me.
Helen,
Thanks for helping me better understand your point-of-view. I guess the only thing I might add is that many of the biblical promises/assurances (I’m thinking NT here) regard an eternal perspective and not a temporal one. Granted, MANY folks get this mixed up. I think the name-it-and-claim-it crowd took a detour somewhere.
I come from the buckle of the bible belt (Tulsa, Oklahoma). If I listened to everything coming at me from these communities/fellowships I’d have quite a jumble to sort out.
I agree with you that this life is where and when it hurts. If a church/group/preacher/Christian claims it won’t then I don’t think they are very biblically grounded. But I can say from my personal life that I’ve experienced amazing emotional healing within a wonderful Christian community/fellowship at my church. Not that it’s perfect, I’ve had some hurts there, too, and it did take time to separate the hurt from an individual and embrace the practice of Christian love within our fellowship.
Very interesting, Helen. Thanks for sharing this with us!
You’re welcome, Craig!
I struggle with the question because i could open the box but i’m not sure that would stop my belief in God. There’s something in me that has to believe that there is purpose and meaning in life. So even if the picture of God that we see through Christianity is wrong, to me that doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist and what i truly believe from my own experiences is a lie.
Given the hypothetical scenario, I’d open the box. I don’t know what it would do to what’s inside my head, but I don’t think it would change what’s inside my heart. Sounds mushy, but I LIKE who I am because of what Jesus has done in me, even if the hypothetical truth stripped him of divinity.
But beyond that hypothetical the video seems to imply an arrogance in those who feel of the certainty of an absolute truth. Okay, so I’m old, not a post modern, but saying there’s no “absolute truth” sounds sort of absolute. Let’s turn the tables. What if I told you the box held absolute truth, would you open it?
JJ-great comments!
Yeah, I do think that some of us younger folks sense an arrogance with those who are very certain. I don’t think we are bothered by their certainty, but rather by their trying to impose those values on us. For instance, I’m not bothered by Howie (whose left comments on this site) talking about his beliefs and why he believes those things, but I am bothered when I sense that he is telling us that he is right and we are wrong. That comes across arrogant to me.
Excellent point about “no absolute truth sounding absolute”! I totally agree! It’s actually what makes me uncomfortable with the whole emergent crowd, it seems that they are just as absolute in many ways, but just in different ways!
concerning your question about whether or not I would open a box containing absolute truth…I would absolutely open the box! (pardon the pun!). I may put on a good show, but deep down I crave absolutes. For me, life is easier and more efficient when I have guidelines. It doesn’t require as much thought and I don’t have to be as emotionally involved. I feel like my spirituality would be a whole lot simpler if I had those absolutes, so bring it on! I could write all day about why the current set of absolutes in Christianity don’t work for me, but simply put…the God portrayed in modern day Christianity don’t always reflect my experiences with Him, which tells me that this whole faith thing is a little more complicated than that. But I could be wrong.
To me the word absolute is superfluous, given the meaning of the word truth. Truth is truth. That doesn’t mean I DO know, or maybe even CAN know what truth is. I just don’t think there’s a truth for one person and a different truth for someone else. I can certainly see the arrogance in thinking I know the truth and you don’t–and that door swings both ways.
Something somewhere, at some time (maybe even involving a someone) got this ball rolling we call a universe. My believing it one way, and someone else believing it a different way has no effect whatsoever on what actually happened–the truth.
To me it’s a little like, “I think therefore I am.” Without defining that a baseline exists (unknowable-maybe, seekable-certainly) where can rational thought begin–where do we hang our hat, so to speak. Our minds are wired to classify, codify, and quantify. If only it were as easy as opening a box (audible sigh).
jj,
First, I’m really glad to e-meet you. Your comments have really got me thinking; thanks for letting me join your dialogue!
Second, I don’t know if I’m allowed to post in the discussion on my own video… it’s a little like wearing a T-shirt of a band to that band’s concert… but whatever, the discussion is great, and I wanna join.
Third, and certainly more to the point, I’m interested in your belief that truth = truth, and that the word absolute is superfluous. Can you tell me more about that? I’m with you… the standing on a platform of “NO ABSOLUTE TRUTH” is just as absolute as declaring “ABSOLUTE TRUTH IS ALL THERE IS!”
As Craig alluded to, it’s a common mistake in the post-modern and emerging movements… missing the important note that declaring no absolutes is, in and of itself, a declaration of truth.
Where you and I may be in disagreement is on the idea that “I just don’t think there’s a truth for one person and a different truth for someone else.” I tend to take a viewpoint that, while there may only be one central object of reality, there are countless perspectives on that same reality, and all are equally true. You may know the oft-used parable about the five blind men studying an elephant with their hands? In case not, the idea is that each man gives a different, but equally accurate, view of the animal… and none has the whole picture. The one holding the tail says, “an elephant is like a snake… long and thin and wirey.” The one holding the leg says, “an elephant is like a tree…tall, rugged, and wide.” The one holding the ear says, “an elephant is like a leaf… large, leathery, and flexible.” Etc. No man is WRONG, but no man has the whole picture.
For me, so it is with a God so big he/she/it can’t possibly be known in entirety. We each grab a part, identify that part, and try to do the best we can to understand it. And that makes our experience TRUE, if not COMPREHENSIVE. For me, the struggle comes when one blind man claims that his understanding of the elephant makes all the other NOT TRUE.
Justin,
I really like your allusion to the story of the blind men. Does anyone else think, to some extent, that this could be an accurate metaphor of several different “religions?”
Justin,
Nice to e-meet you, too! Actually I agree completely with your parable. Although I stand firm on the idea that truth=truth, I don’t know that I (or anyone) has a complete (dare I say) revelation of that truth. So what we are left with is a bunch of blind men trying to comprehend, define, and catalog an elephant. I put all knowledge in that category, think of what’s added to our understanding everyday (even though sometimes it negates our previous understanding).
Let’s use the metaphor of a crime/criminal investigation. In a crowd of people a man is murdered. Although many were witnesses, the accounts differ widely. Some saw a knife, others a gun. The police were mystified when poison was found in his bloodstream, along with his wounds. Though the police don’t know the answer, there is one–even if the mystery is never solved. The truth is that somebody did kill the man, a true answer exists. Also, just because everyone agrees who the killer is, and that person is tried and convicted, it is not necessarily true.
It MUCH more complex when it’s intangible–perhaps unknowable, definitely unprovable.
I am interested in the “current set of absolutes in Christianity” that don’t work for you. Truly. The older I get (I’m 50) the more I feel liberated by Christianity and more solid/content/joyful/settled/at-peace-with myself and others. Not that I’m professing to have “arrived,” but God’s brought me through a lot of junk that needed to be tossed out. I feel free, not bound by absolutes.
All that aside, as I walked through the last years of my sister’s life with her (she died in 06) I changed. Deep, deep inside I’m different–perhaps like an upgrade to my operating system. My relationship with the Father/Son/Holy Spirit became something new, something seasoned. The word “faith” seemed to step aside for the word “trust”. I can’t explain it, I can only really sort of talk around the edges of it. But within that you feel a “certainty”–an unknowing certainty, as if “I don’t know the answers, but I trust the answerer.” I think it’s these kinds of things that can make others feel like I think I’m special and they are not. Our communications tools are just soooo inadequate.
Actually I think trust and certainty are different from each other, at least in this context.
To me, trust implies there is some faith involved, whereas certainty means no faith is involved because the facts can only point one way. Maybe the trust you’re referring to is a deeper quality of faith than you had before?
I like your comment about what Jesus has done in you, jj. I like many things about the changes that happened in me in my years as a Christian even though I’m not sure anymore if God exists and I believe good changes can happen in people who aren’t Christians also.
And I’m glad your faith helped you when your sister died. People who don’t believe in life after death can’t offer anything like the comfort of believing you will be reunited one day with loved ones.
Helen,
Thanks for your comments. For grins I looked up the definition of certainty and it can be that which is based on fact, or firmness of belief. When I typically use the word I’m using the latter context, which is more closely tied to a word I didn’t really know-CERTITUDE (–noun: freedom from doubt, esp. in matters of faith or opinion; certainty.) Language has both richness and shortcomings as it is influenced by both cultural (broad and local) and family usages. The context in which I’ve used “certainty” clearly communicated my “firmness of belief” within my small world. I think in the future, to more clearly communicate with the broader world I’ll think in terms of the word “certitude”.
Clarity of language helps the conversation, but we’re no closer to either an answer or a concensus. If only we could open the box–alas God’s existence cannot be proven or disproved–no factual certainty for anyone. In the absense of knowable truth, firmness of belief may be all we get in our temporal lifetimes.
I like the comment about “how do you KNOW the evidence is true.” That’s key for me because it seems faith is always at the end of the really big, really important questions. I love what Justin is talking about here, the active pursuit of truth and not letting fear get in the way.
I didnt read all of these comments but I would open the box.
I have chosen to “place a bet” on Jesus
I do this based on a whole series of mostly subjective experiences (which BTW is how most impotant decisions are made by humans, meaning choosing to believe something that is not “rational” but rather “transrational” is no less objective)
I will not know id my bet pays off until I (and everyone else who is betting against me is DEAD) Then we will all know
Regardless- after having assessed the available “stores”. I like Jesus best of all
Jim, I’m guessing you meant ‘available stories‘, not that Jesus was the best thing on sale last time you went shopping
. (Although perhaps that’s metaphorically true)