How Can We Be Certain Without Being Arrogant?

It is often thought in our day and age that no one can be certain about anything.  This is an old dilema that philosophers have tried to solve time and time again.  But the "dilema" is not altogether academic is it? We, common-folk, struggle with the "idea" of certainty as well.  We ask questions like, What am I supposed to do with my life?  What should people do about the national budgetary issues?  What is the right way to handle a particular conflict?

It seems that the pendulum swings in both directions in the effort to find answers.  On one side we have the rationalists, who say that our reason alone is sufficient to give us certainty about things.  The decisions that are made must make rational sense.  A person moves to a city because the money is better there.  Another avoids particular relationships because they have been burned before.  Others move to a certain part of town because it would be dangerous to live on the other side of the tracks.  All of these things make "rational" sense.  The decision to do otherwise would, for the rationalist, be unreasonable or irrational.

The Christian rationalist is often marked as Mr. Orthodoxy, who with his superior intellect, has surveyed every systematic point of doctrine and has come to all of the "right" conclusions.

If the pendulum swings to the other side, it will find itself in the postmodern camp where certainty might as well be a four-letter-word.  When the rationalist claims certainty about anything, the postmodernist labels him as arrogant for making such conclusions.  He rightly acknowledges that the reason is, to use theological jargon, fallen.  And a fallen reason cannot be certain about anything.

This is why Mr. Emergent looks at Mr. Orthodoxy with a particular disdain.  This is also why Mr. Orthodoxy looks at Mr. Emergent as intellectually inferior and stupid.

But there is a third way that is completely outside of the clock.  If the clock is the human mind, then certainty must be found elsewhere.  The pendulum, no matter how many times it swings back and forth, will never find true justified belief in anything.  Unless there is another way, rational Evangelicals and irrational Emergents will continue to jab back and forth to no avail.

We must go to the Scriptures which are not oblivious to this "conversation."  Certainty, or "full assurance" is something that the Gospel loves to bring to believers.  Paul struggled in ministry so that people would "reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ..." (Col 2:2).  How can we know things with "full assurance" (or, certainty)? It is not because of our superior intellect and reasoning skills, but because God Himself has given it to us, through revelation.

The mystery revealed brings humility to the rationalist in showing him that certainty has come from Another.  Revelation also corrects the irrationalist in showing him that, while the reason is limited, God is not.  God's revelation is the primary agent of certainty.  Our Maker shows off and is glorified when stupid sinners are certain about Christ - about the Gospel.