This post was originally written at an earlier date on another platform.
Recently, a man named Ryan Bell has been showing up in the news. A former Seventh-Day Adventist pastor, Bell began expressing doubts about his faith last March and stepped down from his position. In December of 2013, he announced via the internet that he would live the next year as if God didn’t exist; no prayer, no devotional Bible reading, no seeking divine guidance or assistance. He blogged about his experience, and the story caught on quickly. At the end of 2014, he announced to the world that, as a result of his experiment, he no longer believed in the existence of God.
The results of Mr. Bell’s experiment were predictable; when one lives in a certain fashion for 365 days, day 366 won’t be radically different. His concluding thoughts have mostly focused on the limits of religious/metaphysical certainty (a quick definition of terms: “metaphysics” refers to those things that exist outside the physical world; things that exist but are not composed of matter, such as God or love). As such, he has been reluctant to call himself atheist. While thinking that religious labels are inherently unhelpful, he thinks “agnostic” is a more apt (though baggage-laden) term due to his belief that certainty is unachievable.
Again, claims of certainty seem to be what drove Mr. Bell from both Christianity and from identifying with the atheist community. Bell believes that one can lean one way or another (theism or non-theism), but claims of certainty are impossible to make. To a certain extent, I agree; I think a conversation on the relationship between faith, experience, and certainty is in order in light of the discussions he has provoked.
In 1641, a French philosopher named Rene Descartes published his Meditations on First Philosophy, a philosophic journey that left an indelible mark on western thought. Descartes began his treatise by announcing his intent to cast off absolutely anything that could be doubted, with the intent to discover what could be known with certainty. This turned out to be, initially, one single fact.
Anything known by the senses, Descartes said, had to be doubted and cast off. After all, he had no way to be sure he wasn’t dreaming. Things known solely through logical propositions must also be doubted and removed; an omnipotent God could make the rational irrational, and Descartes had no way of being sure he had not. Furthermore, he wrote, a demon could be committed to completely deceiving him in every way, essentially preventing any acquisition of true knowledge (note that Descartes did not say that this was likely, or that he thought that this was true; only that it was possible, and therefore a cause of doubt within his attempt to set aside anything that could be doubted). In the end, Descartes was left with one thing he could be certain of: that he existed. Even if he was dreaming his entire life, or the malevolent demon was making sure that nothing was what he thought, he must exist in order to be deceived.
A personal anecdote: When I was somewhere around five or six, my parents came back from a weekend spent away with a surprise for me and my sister: a puppy. This was out of character for my parents, and too good to be true. At that point, I wondered: could I be dreaming? The rest of the day went on, and I never woke up. Same with the next few days, the next few weeks, the next few years. Even so, I still wondered if I would wake to find everything since the puppy had been a dream. To this day, I still ponder it: I have no way of being sure that, since that unlikely event, I could be having one long, vivid dream, from which I will wake up as a puppyless six year-old.
The point of Bell’s experience, Descartes’, and mine, is that certainty in most things is not attainable. Descartes would deductively build upon his single fact, all the way up to a proof that God exists. Bell denies this, claiming certainty cannot be reached. Again, I must agree. No argument for or against the existence of God produces certainty; none are airtight, and all can be doubted. If I cannot be absolutely, doubtlessly certain that anyone besides me exists, I cannot be absolutely, doubtlessly certain that God exists either. Beyond this fact, Bell and I diverge.
What do we do when we can’t be certain? We have no choice but to continue living. Anyone who knows me or has followed my writings knows that I am committed to Christianity and to its metaphysical teachings, and would describe my certainty in the God of Christianity as being as close to certain as is possible (as long as I’m not dreaming right now, and that pesky hypothetical demon isn’t making things appear as they aren’t). The possibility that I am wrong does not stop my practicing of what seems to be correct. The claims of Christianity are either true or untrue, and they are claims that have massive implications. Standing on the line between is not an option, and the chance that we are wrong cannot mean dropping the system as a whole.
Please note that I am not expressing serious doubt at my faith or Christianity as a system of belief. My rational calculations, my experiences, and my attempts at seeking divine revelation have all lead me powerfully to the conclusion that Christianity is true in the most wonderful way. Personally, I think those who deny the presence of God or any sort of metaphysic have looked so intently at the proverbial trees that they have denied that a forest exists. What I am saying is that, as Bell learned, absolute, complete, and 100% certainty in religious beliefs in not tenable.
Contra Bell, I believe we must not drop a system because it can be doubted; the same issues arise in non-theism. Examine all possible evidence, weigh the results, and embrace what is most likely to be true. One will never build a system of belief in any kind without some leap of faith at some point. Perhaps someday, when the Kingdom of God has been fully realized and is a present reality in all of its glory, we will have absolute certainty. Until then, let us realize that doubt and inability to be certain are not attacks against the system we hold to be true; they are the natural result of living on this side of Heaven.
Works Referenced:
Bell, Ryan: “Sorting through the categories.” Year Without God. Patheos. Web. Accessed 01 January 2014.
J. E. Raabe 