What We Know: Taking Risks but the Right Ones

So I left behind a time when all I knew seemed clear, exact and certain.  I came to learn that even within Scripture, especially within Scripture, there is mystery and there are multiple perspectives.  I came to see that God is love and grace reigns everywhere.

Accordingly, I came to understand certain things about what we know.  I came to doubt universal and abstract truth claims lifted out of all living context that prove to be heartless down on street level where real life is lived.  I came to understand that power corrupts truthfulness as it corrupts everything else – that often what passes for knowledge is what those with power wish to pass for knowledge.  I came to realize, however, that there is a limit to what we can learn from skepticism and doubt.  Western civilization is built upon a hermeneutics (an interpretation) of suspicion.  But doubt is in the end corrosive, and there are deep, deep truths that can only be learned by a hermeneutics of empathy.  In the end, we fully understand only what we love. 

I came to see that every kind of systematic thought – scientific or otherwise – begins with taking some things for granted, with a faith commitment that calls for personal decision, and involves the risk of being wrong.  I came to see, on the basis of both common sense and my faith in God, that there is a trustworthy correspondence between us, those who know or seek to know, and what can be practically known.  Truth can be known.  We are wired to seek and find truth.  Over time and in a free marketplace of ideas truth can be known, though wise people may still speak of it in many ways.  But I also came to see that truths – scientific and otherwise – advance by intuitive and imaginative leaps that answer: How do we best account for life as it is?  What works?  What offers hope?  Down on street level and out in real life what are the real human needs, and how are they best satisfied?  What is wise and compassionate, decent and humane? 

It also dawned on me that if we learn to think for ourselves (which is the Western project), then we cannot be expected to think identically.  For this reason, our central values must be inclusive and pluralistic.  They must be founded upon those traditions in our various heritages, religious and otherwise, that encourage trust, forgiveness and love for one’s neighbor, even for one’s “enemy”; that promote sweet reasonableness in the face of life’s undeniable complexity, ambiguity and paradox; that allow for and learn from multiple perspectives; that ease our fears and teach us kindness and understanding in the response to our differences; and that nurture us to draw strength from historical change and cultural diversity.  Where there is respect, openness and freedom, truth wins through, but now truth that can draw people together including the many, many people who to this point have weighed religion in the scales and found it wanting.