Saturday, December 8, 2007

How About Absolute Certainty?

Now, I figure that one of the last things any visitor--as if this blog had any visitors-- wants to read at a blog on which the author hasn't posted in a good while is a post about the fact that the author hasn't posted in a while; and since I have already conceded an entire sentence to that topic (which I insist on limiting to one sentence, regardless of how many clauses and commas it takes), I'm going to leave it at that.

I have some comments about this post by Phil Johnson of Pyromaniacs fame. Mr. Johnson notes the postmodern tendency to make equivocating statements even about those propositional truths being affirmed by the source. Specifically, Mr. Johnson takes issue with the fact that many who identify with the Emerging Church, or Emerging Conversation, etc. decry absolute certainty (or "Excessive Confidence") about any doctrine.

Phil is correct in his assertion that adherents to the Emerging "dialogue" (which is in reality a mere monologue being restated from various sources) are predisposed to extol doctrinal uncertainty as a virtue. Ambiguity means magnanimity in the Land of Emergents, where one is free to join the "conversation" as long as one doesn't claim to know anything.

Even the adjective "excessive" as applied to to being firmly rooted ("excessive confidence", "excessive certainty") indicates the postmodern failure to grasp the kinetic relationship of truth, faith and practice. "Excessive certainty" seems a non sequitur; one is either certain or uncertain. Can certainty be quantified? What does adding the inflammatory adjective do to enhance the "Conversation?" And what is "missional" about cutting into the base of the sapling with the serrated edge of doubt?

If Christians don't have the truth, then we might as well sleep in on Sunday morning. See 1 Corinthians 15: 12-19. Thankfully, we do have the truth. See verses 20-26. Let's proclaim it with certainty.

No comments: