Frank Viola is a best-selling author, blogger, speaker, and consultant to authors and writers. His mission is to help serious followers of Jesus know their Lord more deeply so they can experience real transformation and make a lasting impact. To learn more about Frank and his work, go to 15+ Years of Projects. To invite Frank to speak at your event, go to his Speaking Page. Frank’s assistant moderates comments.
The disciples were certain of something that they experienced. Since then the Christian faith has become less rooted in experience and more on the embracing of orthodox creeds and post-Christ theological constructs. People today are being asked to accept such even those those asking can barely articulate it what these creeds even mean. And so, Christians fall back to pithy expressions like, “you just have to believe.” Why should I believe something just because someone in the second or third century decided that this was what Christians should believe? Especially since there was never, ever a consensus – not then, not now.
we live in an information age–we have the disease of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in us–we have the bible that has 40,000 different interpretations–we have thousands of denominations–a multitude of translations and theologies–i know jesus christ by experience–i never was religious–when i met christ i was a first class heathen and after knowing him for 37 years i see the difference in my life and all of the change has been him living his life in and thru me–not my effort–im dead and he is living in me–im just an instrument–this is the certainity.
Yeah, I like being sure of God, but I dislike fundamentalism. I think certainty is a good thing, as long as you are not just running from your fear of deconstructionism etc, in which case it is more about your lack of faith than your real faith. I think real faith can hold tensions, and can at times have doubts, but it always comes back to trust in God. I blogged about those who are really struggling with their faith and it seemed to touch a nerve. I think trendy deconstructionism is not good for your spiritual health. It is better to feed your faith than feed your doubts which is what much of deconstructionism is. It can be cynical and lead to a bad place. However I don’t think we should touch fundamentalism, which is about a disdain for those not in your little box, and a faith that is more built on pride than humility IMHO! Thanks for your writings Frank.
All things point to Christ, empiricism, rationalism, philosophy, history, linguistics, nature, all things point to Christ… but Christ is the only one to fulfill them all and Christ is the only one who can make Himself known
@NonCharon
I’m not saying we are certain of everything and all things. I also understand what it means to have questions, to have doubts, to have uncertainties. Those are all understandable and I have my share of incertitudes.
But what I see as a serious problem is professing uncertainty as a governing rule, going so far that we start doubting Christ and even God Himself. We end up with some humanistic invention on how to deal with life and God, something that is clearly not Christ. I really doubt that someone who professes uncertainty as a way of life actually belongs to Christ. I do not judge individuals because I don’t know someone’s heart and only God knows what exactly is in there, but I’m talking generally about someone who might show such behavior. As for you, I see you trust Christ and seem to be certain of Him. I too see things dimly, I too look forward to see what this adventure with Him will bring, I too don’t have all parts of the equation, actually it seems to me that I have only a few, but His certainty has made its abode in me and I do not want to deny it but rather let it grow.
With your permission I’d like to add a few more thoughts on faith.
I believe God deserves our faith in Him without having to prove Himself with wonders and miracles. The whole universe is a miracle if we have eyes to see it. We are the greatest miracle in this universe. We don’t need more.
Jesus was astonished seeing that people had no faith in Him. He expected them to have little faith, but not no faith. Even though He could demand complete faith because after all He was sent by His Father and creator of everything, He had compassion on people’s weaknesses and manifested many miracles to help them believe, but He also added to Thomas: “Blesses are those who have not seen Me, and yet have believed.” It seems natural to Him to believe in a Christ we have not seen with our fleshly eyes.
The truth is we cannot truly enter into His kingdom, in His presence without a faith that is purely from above and has the power to trust the unseen One. We are dealing with a spiritual God, and we need spiritual tools. If we rely on fleshly means like human eyesight, we have not got too far. We need to learn His ways, trusting against all contrary evidences, and being certain in the midst of uncertainties.
On a different note, those who profess an all encompassing uncertainty as a solution for world’s peace, providing as argument that various religious certainties are the root of wars, are actually opposing Christ. One can be certain of Christ and have nothing against another, even against one who does not believe in Him. Wars do not come from having certainties, they come from the evilness of our human heart. Christ is the only peace this world can truly have, anything else is a chimera.
Let us rejoice in our faith in Christ and certainty that He is our Creator and our Life! And let us be deaf to all the voices in the world that do not worship Him!
The trouble with Christian deconstrucuionism is its continued adherence to modern notions of ‘knowledge’ and ‘certainty’ that go back to Descartes. It was he who sais “I will doubt everything that can be doubted” and ended up with the one thing thay cannot be doubted as the existence of the doubting subject. ‘Postmodern’ Christians follow in Descartes wake when they ground faith in the uncertain experiences of the subject. Since such experiences are open to doubt, they seem to reason, faith cannot qualify as knowledge.
To begin with this sort of individual subject is the mythicizing of a social construction. The actually existing subject is already living and acting in the midst of a world that she already knows in terms of the construals of a world that are built into the life forms that actually order her life. She’s not an abstract substantive subject that stands apart from the world and calmly formulates explanations of all existence. She’s already enmeshed in ways of costruing the world that can be changes only through the painful and often legthy process of undergoing one or more conversions. As Rowan Williams so rightly tells us, God is not unknowable because we can say nothing about him; he is not reducible to any system because there is no end to what we can say about him. We do not simply abandod speaking about God; we grow beyond our present certainties into larger and more awesome certainties about him. And this never ends. We may ay any point find ourselves challenges to radically fuller appreciations of God not because our previous or present formulations are simply wrong but because there is always so much more to know and to say.
The Chalcedonian doctrine of the person of Christ as fully divine and fully human is not the beginning of a rigid theological description it is rather the statement of the paradoxical reality on which faith rests which always manges to break up the simple systematic thelogical dactrines of such heretics as the Arians. Kierkegaard called this reality the “absolute paradox” and said that faith holds with real subjective certainty to this paradox in the face of the most complete objective uncertainty. Mike, that sounds to me a lot like what Frank was saying in his post.
I suppose I see wisdom in Anne Lamott’s statement “The opposite of faith is not doubt – it’s certainty.” I think that doubt and faith are often pitted against each other, unfairly. Anyone with faith is prone to deep and profound doubt; certainty can often be so much machismo marshaled to squelch the inner voices of profound wondering.
How differently did Jesus treat Thomas who, though a doubter, was still welcome in the inner circle. I’m not sure if feeling our Lord’s wounds fed his certainty, but it did feed his faith.
To me, faith -as in ‘radical fideism,’ the Pascalian or Kieerkegaardian kind – is an appropriate response to an existential encounter with God – or to a consistent void created that we interpret as a hunger for God. This kind of faith can produce a kind of confidence that lovers know – the same kind of faith that tells me that my wife will be faith-full to me.
Can I know this for certain? No? But will I stake the course of my life on it nonetheless? You bet?
To me, this is that the journey of faith in Christ is like. Periodically engaging our doubts, though – even encouraging an open, honest, public venturing of them, much as is done in some quarterly or bi-monthly gatherings in both the UK and US these days – is a very healthy thing, in my opinion. This does not undermine faith, but instead provides an outlet for faith to flourish amid our God-wrestlings and questionings…kind of like what the Architect and the Oracle were discussing in (was it the second of third?) Matrix film…the Neo program, the Resistance program, do not undermine the overall programme of the Matrix, but in fact are vital for its healthy functioning and survival. Otherwise, suppressed, the voices of dissent bubble over into a cauldron that threatens the whole.
In short: I like your post. I would just substitute ‘faith’ for ‘certainty,’ as the former comes to me much more readily than the latter.
So, in Heb 11:1 does the Greek word used denote a ‘knowing’ that represents a 1 to 1 correspondence of what is occurring the the mind of the knower and what is actually occurring outside the knower? (what seems to be the operational definition of what is being described by most of those above) Or does it rather primarily reflect a psychological state of confidence (which I would argue is appropriate at times) that one arrives at based upon their experience and inference (which are both fallible)? The distinction is subtle, but significant. Could the focus on certainty (over against an interpersonal knowing of Truth, who is a person) be an attempt to domesticate the text and subject it to Greek philosophical categories?
My issue with certainty is rooted in anthropology. I believe man is fallible and occasionally believes what he is doing is right (he is *certain* and would say he “knows”, in that his view exactly corresponds with what is true.) but in the end it can be error and lead to death. The problem does not lie in the nature of truth, it lies in the nature of man.
The question of certainties is only a problem in contexts where others may disagree. We have invented ratiocentric argumentation (and also war) as ways of dealing with disagreement. Postmodernism merely points out the insufficiencies of our dearest inventions. Thus, we problematize disputes when we allow our private certainties to lead us to positions where “I am certain I am right and you are wrong.” Let’s call this the abuse of certainty, of convictions.
Your stated certainties are prefaced by “I believe.” All knowledge begins with faith acts. Without belief knowledge itself is impossible. This pretty much pulls the rug out from under the faith/knowledge debate. I think we will get farther by examining the bases of our beliefs than the bases of our certainties. I think that questions of certainty are a lot less important than questions of belief.
Properly conceived, faith is not mental assent. Nor is it arrogant presumption. It’s another sense, if you please. By faith “we know.” But in a way that transcends the physical senses. Hebrews 11:1 gives us insight into what faith is.
this conversation seems to be mixing several things that are actually distinct from one another.
Knowing a person (interpersonal knowing) is different than knowing an abstract concept. I know my wife in a different way than I know that 2+2=4 (numbers are abstractions that don’t really exist in real space and time). I would argue I know Jesus as a person, and Truth is a person I know as well. I don’t know Jesus as a discreet object of which I can apprehend all the boundaries.
Having confidence in an abstraction is different than knowing. I can have confidence and be right, or be wrong. I have confidence that my car will start this morning, but I don’t “know” that it will. There are things about my car’s engine that I quite frankly don’t know and can’t know given my lack of omniscience. I might have confidence in what Jesus wants as a specific action in my life, but I can’t really know because I don’t have exhaustive knowledge about Jesus and his intentions in my life and the life of those around me.
I know Jesus as a person, as my Savior. I do not know Jesus as a known quantity that I can use in equations to work out the physics of life. Jesus doesn’t limit himself to our cognitive boxes.
I personally, see as in a glass darkly, but do hope to one day know as I am known (1 Corn 13:12) I don’t “know” because to do so would be not to “know” as I should know (1 Cor 8:2) but rather I wish to be known.
And Abel… does disagreeing with you on certainty really put me outside Jesus’ flock? 🙂
I believe in absolute truth….and His Name is Jesus Christ. And He is risen indeed! He is richer than i will ever be able to comprehend but I look forward to eternal ages of coming to know Him who is certainty. The Lord Jesus! Absolute truth is not intellectualism or precise doctrine. It is the limitless God Himself.
amen! Was thinking the same. Think Paul’s use of the word “confidence” gives the same sense. Can’t get much more than that – being certain and confident about Christ!
Paul was certain because his experience of Christ’s resurrected life in him was as real as if we were sitting across the table from each other right now.
It is easy to doubt a choice, but difficult to doubt an experience.
I agree with you, Frank.
I am certain that He is the keeper of my soul and the source of my certainties.
Christ divides the world as a sword, separating those within Him from those without Him. Those who would like us to have no certainties actually are not of His flock.
Is believing that certainty is an unnecessary evil not the kind of saying that comes out of the certainty of living in a relatively secure environment of the Western nations? I cannot imagine that those living in war torn lands feel that certainty is unnecessary. I don’t think that those living with hunger and not knowing where their next meal is coming from are going to be singing the praises of uncertainty.
Of one thing I am certain, that Jesus came so that his Kingdom will be established on earth and that the certainty of his peace will reign through it. I think I am going to fight for some certainties in life 🙂
Hilary
Frank,
This is great. Such a testament to those who say there can be no certainty.. Keep it up, I am always very encouraged by your blog!
Omotola Omogbolahan
Brother Frank,
Your Greatest Article Ever.
Just Saying…
Anthony Mathenia
The disciples were certain of something that they experienced. Since then the Christian faith has become less rooted in experience and more on the embracing of orthodox creeds and post-Christ theological constructs. People today are being asked to accept such even those those asking can barely articulate it what these creeds even mean. And so, Christians fall back to pithy expressions like, “you just have to believe.” Why should I believe something just because someone in the second or third century decided that this was what Christians should believe? Especially since there was never, ever a consensus – not then, not now.
kenneth dawson
we live in an information age–we have the disease of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in us–we have the bible that has 40,000 different interpretations–we have thousands of denominations–a multitude of translations and theologies–i know jesus christ by experience–i never was religious–when i met christ i was a first class heathen and after knowing him for 37 years i see the difference in my life and all of the change has been him living his life in and thru me–not my effort–im dead and he is living in me–im just an instrument–this is the certainity.
Jim Puntney
I know that my Redeemer lives, and that He lives within me…
Jonny Clark
Yeah, I like being sure of God, but I dislike fundamentalism. I think certainty is a good thing, as long as you are not just running from your fear of deconstructionism etc, in which case it is more about your lack of faith than your real faith. I think real faith can hold tensions, and can at times have doubts, but it always comes back to trust in God. I blogged about those who are really struggling with their faith and it seemed to touch a nerve. I think trendy deconstructionism is not good for your spiritual health. It is better to feed your faith than feed your doubts which is what much of deconstructionism is. It can be cynical and lead to a bad place. However I don’t think we should touch fundamentalism, which is about a disdain for those not in your little box, and a faith that is more built on pride than humility IMHO! Thanks for your writings Frank.
Alex
All things point to Christ, empiricism, rationalism, philosophy, history, linguistics, nature, all things point to Christ… but Christ is the only one to fulfill them all and Christ is the only one who can make Himself known
erindvr
amen brother!
Abel Avram
@NonCharon
I’m not saying we are certain of everything and all things. I also understand what it means to have questions, to have doubts, to have uncertainties. Those are all understandable and I have my share of incertitudes.
But what I see as a serious problem is professing uncertainty as a governing rule, going so far that we start doubting Christ and even God Himself. We end up with some humanistic invention on how to deal with life and God, something that is clearly not Christ. I really doubt that someone who professes uncertainty as a way of life actually belongs to Christ. I do not judge individuals because I don’t know someone’s heart and only God knows what exactly is in there, but I’m talking generally about someone who might show such behavior. As for you, I see you trust Christ and seem to be certain of Him. I too see things dimly, I too look forward to see what this adventure with Him will bring, I too don’t have all parts of the equation, actually it seems to me that I have only a few, but His certainty has made its abode in me and I do not want to deny it but rather let it grow.
Abel Avram
With your permission I’d like to add a few more thoughts on faith.
I believe God deserves our faith in Him without having to prove Himself with wonders and miracles. The whole universe is a miracle if we have eyes to see it. We are the greatest miracle in this universe. We don’t need more.
Jesus was astonished seeing that people had no faith in Him. He expected them to have little faith, but not no faith. Even though He could demand complete faith because after all He was sent by His Father and creator of everything, He had compassion on people’s weaknesses and manifested many miracles to help them believe, but He also added to Thomas: “Blesses are those who have not seen Me, and yet have believed.” It seems natural to Him to believe in a Christ we have not seen with our fleshly eyes.
The truth is we cannot truly enter into His kingdom, in His presence without a faith that is purely from above and has the power to trust the unseen One. We are dealing with a spiritual God, and we need spiritual tools. If we rely on fleshly means like human eyesight, we have not got too far. We need to learn His ways, trusting against all contrary evidences, and being certain in the midst of uncertainties.
On a different note, those who profess an all encompassing uncertainty as a solution for world’s peace, providing as argument that various religious certainties are the root of wars, are actually opposing Christ. One can be certain of Christ and have nothing against another, even against one who does not believe in Him. Wars do not come from having certainties, they come from the evilness of our human heart. Christ is the only peace this world can truly have, anything else is a chimera.
Let us rejoice in our faith in Christ and certainty that He is our Creator and our Life! And let us be deaf to all the voices in the world that do not worship Him!
Frank Valdez
The trouble with Christian deconstrucuionism is its continued adherence to modern notions of ‘knowledge’ and ‘certainty’ that go back to Descartes. It was he who sais “I will doubt everything that can be doubted” and ended up with the one thing thay cannot be doubted as the existence of the doubting subject. ‘Postmodern’ Christians follow in Descartes wake when they ground faith in the uncertain experiences of the subject. Since such experiences are open to doubt, they seem to reason, faith cannot qualify as knowledge.
To begin with this sort of individual subject is the mythicizing of a social construction. The actually existing subject is already living and acting in the midst of a world that she already knows in terms of the construals of a world that are built into the life forms that actually order her life. She’s not an abstract substantive subject that stands apart from the world and calmly formulates explanations of all existence. She’s already enmeshed in ways of costruing the world that can be changes only through the painful and often legthy process of undergoing one or more conversions. As Rowan Williams so rightly tells us, God is not unknowable because we can say nothing about him; he is not reducible to any system because there is no end to what we can say about him. We do not simply abandod speaking about God; we grow beyond our present certainties into larger and more awesome certainties about him. And this never ends. We may ay any point find ourselves challenges to radically fuller appreciations of God not because our previous or present formulations are simply wrong but because there is always so much more to know and to say.
The Chalcedonian doctrine of the person of Christ as fully divine and fully human is not the beginning of a rigid theological description it is rather the statement of the paradoxical reality on which faith rests which always manges to break up the simple systematic thelogical dactrines of such heretics as the Arians. Kierkegaard called this reality the “absolute paradox” and said that faith holds with real subjective certainty to this paradox in the face of the most complete objective uncertainty. Mike, that sounds to me a lot like what Frank was saying in his post.
Frank Valdez
Mike Morrell
I suppose I see wisdom in Anne Lamott’s statement “The opposite of faith is not doubt – it’s certainty.” I think that doubt and faith are often pitted against each other, unfairly. Anyone with faith is prone to deep and profound doubt; certainty can often be so much machismo marshaled to squelch the inner voices of profound wondering.
How differently did Jesus treat Thomas who, though a doubter, was still welcome in the inner circle. I’m not sure if feeling our Lord’s wounds fed his certainty, but it did feed his faith.
To me, faith -as in ‘radical fideism,’ the Pascalian or Kieerkegaardian kind – is an appropriate response to an existential encounter with God – or to a consistent void created that we interpret as a hunger for God. This kind of faith can produce a kind of confidence that lovers know – the same kind of faith that tells me that my wife will be faith-full to me.
Can I know this for certain? No? But will I stake the course of my life on it nonetheless? You bet?
To me, this is that the journey of faith in Christ is like. Periodically engaging our doubts, though – even encouraging an open, honest, public venturing of them, much as is done in some quarterly or bi-monthly gatherings in both the UK and US these days – is a very healthy thing, in my opinion. This does not undermine faith, but instead provides an outlet for faith to flourish amid our God-wrestlings and questionings…kind of like what the Architect and the Oracle were discussing in (was it the second of third?) Matrix film…the Neo program, the Resistance program, do not undermine the overall programme of the Matrix, but in fact are vital for its healthy functioning and survival. Otherwise, suppressed, the voices of dissent bubble over into a cauldron that threatens the whole.
In short: I like your post. I would just substitute ‘faith’ for ‘certainty,’ as the former comes to me much more readily than the latter.
NonCharon
So, in Heb 11:1 does the Greek word used denote a ‘knowing’ that represents a 1 to 1 correspondence of what is occurring the the mind of the knower and what is actually occurring outside the knower? (what seems to be the operational definition of what is being described by most of those above) Or does it rather primarily reflect a psychological state of confidence (which I would argue is appropriate at times) that one arrives at based upon their experience and inference (which are both fallible)? The distinction is subtle, but significant. Could the focus on certainty (over against an interpersonal knowing of Truth, who is a person) be an attempt to domesticate the text and subject it to Greek philosophical categories?
My issue with certainty is rooted in anthropology. I believe man is fallible and occasionally believes what he is doing is right (he is *certain* and would say he “knows”, in that his view exactly corresponds with what is true.) but in the end it can be error and lead to death. The problem does not lie in the nature of truth, it lies in the nature of man.
Mark N Taylor
The question of certainties is only a problem in contexts where others may disagree. We have invented ratiocentric argumentation (and also war) as ways of dealing with disagreement. Postmodernism merely points out the insufficiencies of our dearest inventions. Thus, we problematize disputes when we allow our private certainties to lead us to positions where “I am certain I am right and you are wrong.” Let’s call this the abuse of certainty, of convictions.
Your stated certainties are prefaced by “I believe.” All knowledge begins with faith acts. Without belief knowledge itself is impossible. This pretty much pulls the rug out from under the faith/knowledge debate. I think we will get farther by examining the bases of our beliefs than the bases of our certainties. I think that questions of certainty are a lot less important than questions of belief.
frankaviola
Properly conceived, faith is not mental assent. Nor is it arrogant presumption. It’s another sense, if you please. By faith “we know.” But in a way that transcends the physical senses. Hebrews 11:1 gives us insight into what faith is.
NonCharon
this conversation seems to be mixing several things that are actually distinct from one another.
Knowing a person (interpersonal knowing) is different than knowing an abstract concept. I know my wife in a different way than I know that 2+2=4 (numbers are abstractions that don’t really exist in real space and time). I would argue I know Jesus as a person, and Truth is a person I know as well. I don’t know Jesus as a discreet object of which I can apprehend all the boundaries.
Having confidence in an abstraction is different than knowing. I can have confidence and be right, or be wrong. I have confidence that my car will start this morning, but I don’t “know” that it will. There are things about my car’s engine that I quite frankly don’t know and can’t know given my lack of omniscience. I might have confidence in what Jesus wants as a specific action in my life, but I can’t really know because I don’t have exhaustive knowledge about Jesus and his intentions in my life and the life of those around me.
I know Jesus as a person, as my Savior. I do not know Jesus as a known quantity that I can use in equations to work out the physics of life. Jesus doesn’t limit himself to our cognitive boxes.
I personally, see as in a glass darkly, but do hope to one day know as I am known (1 Corn 13:12) I don’t “know” because to do so would be not to “know” as I should know (1 Cor 8:2) but rather I wish to be known.
And Abel… does disagreeing with you on certainty really put me outside Jesus’ flock? 🙂
Andrew Wehrheim
I believe in absolute truth….and His Name is Jesus Christ. And He is risen indeed! He is richer than i will ever be able to comprehend but I look forward to eternal ages of coming to know Him who is certainty. The Lord Jesus! Absolute truth is not intellectualism or precise doctrine. It is the limitless God Himself.
lawdawg23
Brother, thank you for posting this. What a breath of fresh air.
Alan
‘This one thing I KNOW (I have encountered Messiah Jesus) once I was blind, now I see’. No discussion. No debate. No doubt. No deliberation. He KNEW!
John Wilson
amen! Was thinking the same. Think Paul’s use of the word “confidence” gives the same sense. Can’t get much more than that – being certain and confident about Christ!
Peter Banks
Good post… but does this mean you actually no longer have faith? (genuine question) PB
frankaviola
Peter. No, it doesn’t mean that at all. It’s a response to deconstructionism.
mark
“I know whom I have believed.”
Paul was certain because his experience of Christ’s resurrected life in him was as real as if we were sitting across the table from each other right now.
It is easy to doubt a choice, but difficult to doubt an experience.
Thanks for the thought provoking post, Frank!
Abel Avram
I agree with you, Frank.
I am certain that He is the keeper of my soul and the source of my certainties.
Christ divides the world as a sword, separating those within Him from those without Him. Those who would like us to have no certainties actually are not of His flock.
leonard beharry
this is Awesome, thanks Frank…
joanna
Is believing that certainty is an unnecessary evil not the kind of saying that comes out of the certainty of living in a relatively secure environment of the Western nations? I cannot imagine that those living in war torn lands feel that certainty is unnecessary. I don’t think that those living with hunger and not knowing where their next meal is coming from are going to be singing the praises of uncertainty.
Of one thing I am certain, that Jesus came so that his Kingdom will be established on earth and that the certainty of his peace will reign through it. I think I am going to fight for some certainties in life 🙂
frankaviola
Walking the road … appreciate the link up and getting the paradox I sought to present.