Shedding Some Light On Certainty

Some way or other, I recently encountered the website, "Religion Dispatches", and became a fan on Facebook. (Here is an explanation of what the website is about: CLICK.) Browsing their homepage today, I noticed an excerpt from a new book, Frank Schaeffer's Patience With God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism). I am a sucker for a provocative title and had recently seen Mr. Schaeffer's name mentioned elsewhere, so I checked this excerpt out and then proceeded to Mr. Schaeffer's website and read a review of the new book.

To say the least, I'm intrigued. I am more and more interested in recent years in discussions of "certainty" on matters where certainty may be impossible and/or potentially dangerous. Particularly, I like to see light shown into corners that are normally permitted to remain dark. It seems to me that far too little time is spent by opinionated people actually pondering epistemology, which can lead to bewilderment when they express something as a certain fact and are then told that their fact is actually a matter of opinion or faith.

The review I mentioned above concludes with this provocative morsel from the reviewer Jordan Richardson, "...our lack of unity on issues of faith and, indeed, anything else can and should be blamed on nothing more than our frail, malicious craving to be right."

In the follow-up comments to the review, Mr. Richardson adds this reply to a fan of certainty, "The fact of the matter is that you accept your worldview by faith, not because you know for sure. We all do, in fact. This book suggests that we understand that the very concept of faith is something we come by with fear and trembling, with uncertainty, and with tolerance for others. Why? Because we're all in the same boat attempting to understand this world of ours."

Here is a link for the book.

Here is a link for the referenced review.