Ten Propositions on Certainty and Theology

As I've been reading Sam Harris among others and my own experience within Fundamentalist Christianity, I see and here the call for certainty. Sam Harris asked Andrew Sullivan, what would it take to prove to you that God doesn't exist? What definitive proof do you need? It may seem so cliche ridden but Hebrews 11 does catch the sense of faith --- "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." There is belief despite -- and yet there is room for doubt, for questions. But the questions aren't ultimate.
Aaron Ghiloni (via Ben Meyers at Faith and Theology) provides a list of 10 propositions that deal with faith, doubt, and theology. He begins his post with this quotation from Friedrich Schleiermacher: “We entirely renounce all attempts to prove the truth or necessity of Christianity…”
And I'll only give you the first of the ten propositions:

1. Theology is not a balm to heal doubt. Only the foolish attempt to treat the untreatable. Doubts existed prior to undertaking theological work and will be present at when the work is finished. The hope that doubt will cease, Schleiermacher warned us, is an empty illusion: “the important misunderstandings are always there…”

I think all of this is worth considering!

Comments

maroonblazer said…
Your reference to Harris seems disconnected from the rest of your post. Harris isn't asking for certainty of belief. He's asking that people provide good reasons for their beliefs. We ask this of every other kind of discourse in the 21st century and there's no reason not to ask for it when the topic is socialism, maoism, fascism, nationalism, religion, any of the various forms of tribalism or for that matter any kind of dogmatism.
Robert Cornwall said…
Nick,

Thanks for the post. I guess you and I are reading Sam differently. There seems to be in my mind, a demand for proof. Where I see it is in his seeming refusal to recognize that one can have faith and still have doubt, that one can believe in the truth of the Bible without taking it literally. That seems to me to be the same kind of dogmatism that he protests, just on the other side of things. The request for evidence is a worthy request. What I read in Andrew Sullivan's response is that there's something about faith that stands beyond evidence (though certainly evidence is required to a degree). I once believed in Santa, but no longer do. To give just one example.

Though I find Sam smug and impertinent, his questions do push us. I'm now reading Philip Kitcher's Living With Darwin and had fun with it up until the end where he starts pushing my buttons. I need that!

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