Is there a God? If,
so what is his nature? Chances are, if
you were to ask fifty people that question, you’d get fifty different responses
– well, maybe not fifty, but pretty close.
Get them all together in one room and you’d have quite a battle on your
hands. A Christian might say that God is
our Father and is three beings in one. A
Jew might say that God is indeed our Father, but is one, not three. A Muslim might assert that God is neither
Father nor three, he is simply God. A
feminist Christian might contend that God is definitely not a He – indeed, he
might even be a She. An atheist might
reject all these views as mere figments of their proponent’s opinions since God
does not exist. And finally, an agnostic
might declare that the others were all wrong, since it is impossible to know
whether God exists or not.
If there were a neutral listener in the room, once everyone
else had had their say, he might respond, how can you be so sure you are
right? What evidence do you have showing
that your view is the correct one and all the others are wrong? The Christian would say that the Bible says
so. The Jew would say that, in fact, the
original Bible (i.e., minus the New Testament) actually declares that God is
One. The Muslim would show that the
Quran superseded both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament as God’s
word. The feminist would insist that
since the Bible and the Quran were both written by men, their views of God are
clearly biased. The atheist would simply
wave his hand and say, “Look at the world around you. See?
No sign of God.”
Oh, and the agnostic?
Well, the agnostic would probably say that he agreed with the atheist
that there was no sign of God in the world, but he wasn’t willing to conclude
from that one fact that God could not possibly exist. “Besides,” he would add, “just look around
this room. Here we have six intelligent
adults, all of them disagreeing vehemently about God’s existence and his
nature. There’s the proof that it’s
impossible to know who’s right. People
have been arguing about God since the dawn of time, and no one has ever come up
with an objective way of deciding which view is correct. So the sensible thing is simply to throw up
your hands and say, we’ll never know.”
The interesting thing is that, in all likelihood, the
agnostic would be just as adamant in his views as the other five. He would be just as certain that it is
impossible to have any certain knowledge of God as the other five were that
their ideas about God were correct.
The question is, how can any of these people – the agnostic
included – be so certain of their opinions?
Countless wars and rumors of wars have arisen throughout human history because
of adamant, inflexible religious beliefs – and, of course, not only religious
beliefs, but political ideologies and many other things. Why is it that so many people are so certain
that their views are the only right ones and that everyone else who disagrees
with them is obviously wrong? If we stop and think about it for a minute,
the world is a pretty huge place – not only huge, but complex and often
confusing. What makes us so certain that
we understand it better than anyone else?
The famous parable about the blind men and the elephant
demonstrates just how little we all know.
For those that aren’t familiar with it, it tells of three blind men who
came across an elephant for the first time and were curious to know what it
looked like – but of course they couldn’t see it. So one felt of the trunk, another of one of
the legs, and the third felt of one of the ears. They were each so overjoyed that they now
they knew what an elephant was, and they began to discuss it. An elephant, said the first man, is like a
huge, strong snake. No, no! said the second. An elephant is like a huge tree trunk without
any branches. You’re both ridiculous,
said the third. An elephant is like a
huge fan that waves back and forth. I
felt it myself!
The moral, of course, is that they were all equally right –
and all equally wrong. Why? Because they each were familiar with only a
tiny part of the whole animal, yet they immediately jumped to the conclusion
that they because they understood a part, they understood the whole, and so the
others must be wrong.
We are all very much like these blind men. How much do we actually know of the totality
of existence? Practically nothing – no
matter how learned and how smart we are, the totality of our ignorance – what we don’t know – massively outweighs the little bit that we do. Even if we happen to be right about certain things
– like each of the blind men – if we listen to others, recognizing our own
ignorance and acknowledging that we might be wrong and that others, indeed,
might just happen to be right, we might actually learn something. But if we remain closed-minded to everyone
else’s ideas, we will remain just as ignorant as we are now.
In other words, we need to learn to cultivate intellectual humility.
One of my heroes is Socrates. Socrates is commonly
known for the statement that “the only thing I know is that I know
nothing.” That is the ultimate
paradox. If you can’t know anything, how
can you know that you know nothing? The
only problem is that Socrates never actually said it. What he in fact said was that he was not wise – because no human being is wise. For
Socrates, true wisdom is an attribute of the gods, not men.
In
Plato’s Apology, Socrates says
(referring to a conversation he had with a certain well-known Athenian
politician), “I reasoned to myself, ‘I am wiser than that man, for it is
not likely that either of us knows anything
that is fine and good; but while he supposes that he knows something, when
he knows nothing, I, as I do not know anything [i.e., anything fine and good,
which equates with wisdom], do not suppose that I do. In this one small way,
then, I appear to be wiser than he, that I do not suppose that I know what I do
not know.” What Socrates is saying here
is simply that he is fully aware of his massive ignorance and does not pretend
to know more than he knows. It is a
statement of intellectual humility
(as well as a top-notch put-down of arrogant politicians!), not a statement of
a philosophical paradox. But as the
quotation in the text makes clear, the basis of his humility was his awareness
of the massive gap between the knowledge and wisdom of humans and that of God.
I don’t think Socrates was saying that it is impossible for
us to know anything worthwhile at all.
What he meant was twofold: 1) we
have to recognize that, no matter how strongly we hold to an opinion, we might be wrong; and 2) that we need
to recognize that humans are weak things compared to divinity, particularly
with respect to wisdom and goodness.
By all means, let us have our strongly held opinions and let
us argue them with confidence. But at
the same time, let us not suppose that we are inevitably right and that anyone
who disagrees with us is obviously wrong.
A strong dose of intellectual humility is absolutely essential for the
smooth working of society – we must be willing to express our opinions, but we
must be open to the opinions of others, particularly those who disagree with
us. This is particularly true in the
areas of – you guessed it! – politics and religion. If we honestly acknowledge that our views are
based on very limited knowledge and understanding, we have to realize that
other people, with different backgrounds and a different understanding of the
world, might just be a little bit right.
In this New Year’s season of new beginnings, let us resolve
to be a little more humble – intellectually humble. Let us listen to those who disagree with us
and see what we can learn from them. Not
only will the world run more smoothly, but we just might – just possibly – end
up a little bit wiser in 2016 than we were in 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment