Conviction, Trust, & Humility

Last updated on: March 18, 2016 at 12:37 pm by Gregory Eran Gronbacher

Conviction, Trust, & Humility 2016-03-18T12:37:23-04:00 Gregory Eran Gronbacher

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By Gregory

Anyone who engages in conversations about theology or spirituality has most likely had encounters with people who assert their views with absolute certainty. You know – people who say things like “Only the blood of Jesus saves” or “Muhammad is God’s final prophet” or “the waters of the Red Sea really did part” and who tell anyone who doesn’t agree how wrong they are.

Such assertions don’t bother me; however it’s the manner of the assertions that sometimes rub me the wrong way. There is a problem when people speak about theology like they speak about math. The two disciplines are not the same nor do their mental operations proceed in the same manner.

For starters, we must realize that most theological assertions can’t be proven. If you believe God healed your child, or raised Jesus from the dead, or called Abraham out of Ur, you are entitled to those beliefs. Yet you should also realize that you cannot prove or offer conclusive evidence for such things.

The fact that we can’t strictly prove most things in theology should not deter us from engaging it. Many things in life are uncertain and we carry on fine, just the same.

Theology, like many other ways of understanding the world, relies heavily on a form of reasoning called illative logic. This is a way of thinking that operates by drawing together several variant strands of arguments and evidence, none of which is conclusive on its own, but together offers a reasonable argument.

Many of our core convictions cannot be demonstrated with certainty – yet our ideas can be given defense and support through the accumulated knowledge of daily experience, the accounts of reliable witnesses, information from what we determine to be authoritative sources, and critical reflection on our own experiences aided by ongoing verification and corroboration – none of which on its own is air-tight or convincing, but when put together allows for us to reach tentative, but satisfactory conclusions.

The above is why many people prefer to approach faith in the ancient understanding of the term – trust. We look at our lives, our experiences, our insights, and we listen to others’ experience and we reach tentative conclusions that we trust, but cannot prove. Further, we remain open to revising our views and trusts based on new evidence, discoveries, experiences, and insights.

Let me give you an example. Can anyone prove that God is a trinity of persons? What evidence can be offered to justify such a claim? Offering justification for God’s existence is difficult enough, no less having to then muster arguments as to God’s triune nature.

But does someone who believes in a Trinitarian God have to prove their belief? No. Of course, they should have some rationale for why they hold to such a set of views. Most likely, a person who believes God is a trinity of persons is a Christian. They likely best make sense of their life through a Christian lens. Their experiences and insights lead them to conclude that there is a God. They experience this God in a variety of ways that include finding God in Jesus, in nature, in the Scriptures, in other people, in liturgy, and so on. And it makes sense to them that Divinity reveals its character in three primary ways that they relate to as persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

To hold to such beliefs is not necessarily irrational or absurd. But humility also requires that we realize that such convictions cannot be strictly demonstrated, only argued for, that the Trinity cannot be deduced, but only grasped through insight, and that not everyone will share this insight. Therefore, our assertions about the Trinity should also be colored by humility.

Another example – if a friend has a seriously ill spouse who recovers and they want to attribute the healing to God, I may react with skepticism over such a claim, but I cannot prove them wrong (or right) either. Their experience of this healing has taken on a religious-spiritual dimension and they intuit Divine action and presence in the events. They find meaning in such assertions and while I may not find the same meaning, it’s not my place to say otherwise.

Some people will ask “How do such beliefs in healings, miracles, and Divine beings differ from beliefs in pink elephants, unicorns, and fairies?” And this is a valid question.

In some ways, such convictions don’t differ in that unicorns and Yahweh cannot be proven to exist. For this reason, many people dismiss all such claims. Yet there are important differences, too.

One significant difference is that beliefs about healings, resurrection, and Divine beings are part of traditional mythic systems and worldviews around which large groups of people have coalesced throughout history. And that these mythic systems have helped people make sense of their world and experiences, provided a sense of place and identity, and helped them direct their actions toward humane ends.

Further, these myths have helped shape various cultures and have provided forms of wisdom, that is, knowledge of how to live a good and full life.

Yes, our myths, symbols, and narratives do benefit from updating, rethinking, and revising. We must find ways of engaging iron-aged myths with postmodern thinking. Few people believe that above the firmament (the sky) is water – something that the ancient authors of Genesis believed.

A challenge for anyone seeking to be religious in the 21st century is to learn to speak about their deepest concerns – about ethics, spiritual experience, and human suffering – in ways that are humble and don’t flagrantly contradict solid, human knowledge.

Yet we who live in the secular, literal-minded, post-enlightenment culture must remind ourselves that religious assertions are not strictly speaking irrational – rather, they are a way of mythically engaging the world that is rich in enduring wisdom that we are foolish to simply reject outright.

The next time you are inclined to assert a religious conviction in the same way you assert a mathematical truth, I advise you remember humility. And the next time you are inclined to reject a religious conviction because it doesn’t align with your view of reality, I advise you to pause for a moment and seek the potential wisdom contained within the claim. Cultivating these attitudes will make religious conversation that much easier.

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