We are limited beings! As we live on this Earth in human form, we are restricted by time, we are going to die, and any viewpoints we hold about anything will always be incomplete.
Yet many of our difficulties in life arise from something we might call certainty inflation.
What’s that, you might ask?
A few years ago, while riding on the train with a friend of mine, we got into a conversation about what God is like, or what He is not like. He shared an experience in which the creator of all things, God, directly spoke to him, reassuring him that he is loved beyond measure. It was God’s voice, he claimed, that he heard inside his innermost being, and this unmistakable voice of God instantly flooded his whole body with a feeling of bliss and a “peace that passeth all understanding.”
At this particular time in my life, I was leaning more towards the perspective that such an idea was akin to a young child believing in the existence of Santa Claus. I started wriggling in my seat, feeling more and more agitated as he talked on about this loving God who spoke to him as a human father would speak to his children. I challenged him, and with arms flailing about, insisted that what he was saying about God was a figment of his imagination. My attitude was: How can you believe something so stupid? You fool!
Certainty inflation is what happens when confidence becomes identity, and disagreement feels like a threat.
You see, I once held the same notion about God that my friend was still holding: that God is like a loving father who wants to have a personal relationship with me. I can talk with Him, and He can talk with me. I can pray to Him, and if I try hard enough, God can answer my prayers. I lived in this identity for decades, and was convinced I knew what I was talking about! In fact, I told myself the trouble in the world was a direct result of human beings not holding the same view I held about this God.
As for my friend, we were close enough not to let this disagreement about God create a wedge in our relationship. Over the years of our growing friendship, we built up enough social currency to acknowledge that each of us was bigger than any particular strongly held viewpoint, which could potentially result in a serious friendship rupture.
Looking back on this scene, I can laugh as I see in my mind’s eye the cocky, self-assured attitude I held, as if I could possess the correct or true viewpoint on what God is and is not, or on any other topic, for that matter. Unfortunately, this is not always the case in human relationships or between unlike groups, cultures, or countries. Today I can see that what I carried that day was my own version of inflation certainty.
Whether it’s about politics, religion, environment, cultures, or whatever, the seeming need to be right or on the right side is not going to go away anytime soon. But what happens when we reduce life to stances of right versus wrong, good versus bad, truth versus lies? Do these attitudes and postures foster understanding and cooperation, or something else?
When we are so certain, beyond a reasonable doubt, are we expanding or contracting? Do we get bigger or smaller? If we feel the need to take a stance of “I’m right on this, and that’s it!” toward anything going on in the world, does this create more stability or fragmentation in ourselves or in relation to others?
What happens to curiosity, humility, surprise, and the capacity to be changed when we rush to explain and feel the urge to win?
Is there dignity in admitting to not knowing the answer?
In our current climate of social media platforming for clicks and likes, and the availability of instant information through AI, are we able to admit, with a calm, non-hurried presence, that as limited beings, we will never fully know or understand everything about anything?
What if our deepest strength lies in not knowing?
What if certainty is not what holds us together but keeps us apart from one another?
It seems the older we get, the less we know. Your articles are always thought-provoking. Something I often pondered is that people like to think of themselves as open-minded, but that's a rare thing in actuality.