How Certain Do We Need to Be in Our Faith?

This is an interesting question to reflect on. You could say that I’m not certain how to respond. A good place to begin might be my own nature.

I am a skeptic by nature. It was skepticism that caused me first to walk away from the church. It was skepticism that later caused me to give up on atheism. Once I came to a personal faith in my early 20s, I still had much doubt.

In that point of my faith journey, certainty was extremely important to me. I saw certainty to be the antidote to doubt. I needed to know the details about both the beginning and the end of the world. I needed a clear theology that provided all the answers. I found one and it was satisfy. For a while.

The problem was that as I spent more time in the “Wesleyan quadrilateral”: Scripture, reason, tradition, and experience, the lines between certainty and uncertainty became fuzzy.

At this moment, I have four seminary degrees. I joke that I “know” less now than before I went to seminary. Except it is not a joke. Yes I have more knowledge in that I have read more books and have listened to more lectures. But many areas have shifted from certainty to uncertainty.

Is that a bad thing? Has my faith been weakened?

Actually it is the opposite. Although I am now much less certain about some areas of theology, I would say I am more certain about my faith when it comes to Jesus. I am more certain that Jesus was the revelation of God’s love, the Word made flesh. I am more certain that Jesus’ death changed everything, even if I am much less uncertain about a specific atonement theory. I am more certain that Jesus bodily rose from the dead and that we will one day share in that resurrection.

This does not stop me from asking other theological questions. I don’t just shrug my shoulders and dismiss everything else as mystery. But I have become much more comfortable with not having all the answers. I am okay with uncertainty and this has strengthened my faith.

How certain does a Christian have to be? I don’t think it is necessary for a Christian to have an answer to every theological question. Much more important is a confidence in Jesus Christ.

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