The Root of Uncertainty: Not Can't, Not Don't, But Won't

A few years ago now, Phil Johnson, executive director of Grace to You, told me something that I've now quoted quite a few times, but here goes again:

Virtually everything is clear and certain in your mind. The pomos' pathological uncertainty is in part a reaction to the unwarranted hubris of the rigid fundamentalist perspective you represent.

I got to this quote again because uncertainty is blamed on certainty.  I have read this kind of analysis from Daniel Wallace.   He said in an interview:

When they place more peripheral doctrines such as inerrancy and verbal inspiration at the core, then when belief in these doctrines start to erode, it creates a domino effect: One falls down, they all fall down.

Wallace made a very similar point by calling upon the idea of a pendulum swing from certainty to uncertainty, encouraging a level of uncertainty to stop men from pushing the eject button on all of Christianity.  To him, certainty would lead to uncertainty.

By the way, now Johnson agrees that the explanation for uncertainty is a new form of legalism in which legitimate Christ followers "by the current definition . . . . [are] environmentally conscious pacifists who think justice entails government-mandated redistribution of wealth."  To do this, they must "reinvent [their] understanding of atonement, redefine [their] attitude toward gender, and change or tone down all the classic biblical doctrines that don't fit well with postmodern political correctness."  That doesn't sound like a reaction to certainty, but, oh well, whatever happens to work, even if it is opposite of something else.

No, uncertainty doesn't come from certainty.  If it sounds like a joke (and you hear laughter), it should.  There is obviously zero in the Bible that would make that point.  Stick with me here.  This will be profound.  Uncertainty -- comes from opposition to certainty.  Not actually profound.  More like as obvious as it gets.  When someone looks at certainty and doesn't like it, because he likes the conveniences of uncertainty, certainty hasn't caused that.  He wants it his way.  That's all.  To say that uncertainty comes from certainty is itself rebellion, which brings me to the actual point of my post.

The root of uncertainty isn't that someone can't know.  He can know.  It isn't even that he doesn't know.  He knows.  It is that he won't know.   Churches today allow for doubt, and even teach doubt.  And they act like it is superior.  Well, that's a farce.  Maybe a satire.  It's treating Spam like it's a filet mignon, mainly because of an investment in Hormel Foods.

People foresee deniability in uncertainty.  They see a future where they can use uncertainty as an excuse.  They need uncertainty because it will allow them to take a loose position or stand that conforms to the world.  They won't have to suffer as much, because they'll fit in more.  They'll get bigger because of that, because people don't want to suffer.  They're looking for a convenient brand of Christianity that will kowtow to the culture.  Uncertainty is part of the recipe of a larger coalition that will write a bigger paycheck and bring greater popularity.  A system of celebrity in evangelicalism uses uncertainty.

Everything I've described above is the won't.  It knows the truth and suppresses it.   Evangelicals and fundamentalists embrace an uncertainty of the Words of God.  They won't believe God preserved them without error, even though God said He would.  They embrace the doubt engendered by the "science" of textual criticism.  I put science in quotes, because it isn't actual knowledge.  It's only a theory.  God's Word is truth.  God said it, but men won't believe it.   And since they won't be certain about His Words, who will be certain about what the Words mean?  And if they won't know what they mean, how will they know how they apply?

The root of certainty comes from men, including many, many professing Christians, who are unwilling, not unable, to be certain.