So you’re saying that the business card I was given this morning with a link to a website about a woman who had been tutored by the seven spirits of God should be viewed critically? 😉
I'm currently studying to teach the book of 1 John in a program called SBS to a bunch of missionaries in a few weeks...this is so timely! I think it's so invitational for John to instruct his audience into what discernment (holy skepticism) looks like -- and I appreciate the similar reflective tone you take in addressing your audience (us) here. The comparison of bird watching and having a field guide is so helpful!
I realize now it was Holy skepticism that has saved me a couple of times. I don’t want to be known as a cynic but after a lifelong tendency towards people-pleasing led me down some pretty dark passages, embracing Holy skepticism is healthy and wise. I am a bird watcher so that illustration is helpful. Is discernment a gift of the spirit? Wisdom literature suggests that I can only be wise through God…..
I wonder how closely you’d relate Holy Skepticism to The Cloud of Unknowing. John, as you note, seems to treat the confession of Jesus’ divinity as—at the very least—lip service to belief, but then grounds its authenticity in chapter 4, where the presence and practice of love become the true litmus test of knowing God (1 John 4:7–8). This raises the question of whether knowing Christ is God and acting as though He is are ultimately one and the same—such that confession and belief cannot be separated.
Skepticism is largely understood to be outward unknowing, and doubt inward unknowing, and so allowing the presence of unknowing in a great many things (maybe most things) apart from Christ and Him crucified is the confluence of Holy Doubt and Holy Skepticism meeting in one Holy Unknowing.
In the application of this, when I meet a man who says, “I don’t believe in God,” I tend not to believe that he actually doesn’t believe in God. I don’t truly know either way; all I have to go on are the words coming out of his mouth. More often than not, what he means is that he doesn’t believe in some god he has absorbed through cultural osmosis—a god in whom, as it turns out, I cannot say I believe either, because the caricature he rejects is nothing like the God I know. By meeting him in unknowing, I remain open to hearing anything he has to say while maintaining a kind of suspended disbelief about the categories he is using. I fully believe him when he says he doesn’t believe in that god—the one he is describing—but that very admission leaves open the possibility that even he does not yet know whether he believes or doesn’t believe in God Himself.
So then, the two paired together—doubt and skepticism—allow us to sift through what is not in order to gain clearer access to, and acknowledgement of, what is the case.
Flatly false claims like “all truth rhymes” are, I think, less dangerous in themselves than they are fodder for the gullible. But that is how the young are—eager to fill the void of unknowing, thinking that having any answer is better than having none. Proverbs would probably call your son naive—simple, open, unformed—but not yet a fool.
Just now coming back to this. Great question! I love the apophatic tradition—with boundaries. My piece coming out tomorrow will flesh out some more epistemology stuff that you may find helpful.
Well hello from the vortex (if a vortex could bring you up and down) of theological studies.
First of all, an appreciation is necessary, thank you A.J. for recommending me: 'A little exercise for young Theologians' by Helmut Thielicke. It has been of great help of naming the speedbumps on this road of theological endeavours.
Secondly, I'm looking forward to this series of Holy Skepticism.
Thirldy I'm just chewing on the brilliant awnser of Flannery O’Connor that you mention: 'It always said: wait, don’t bite on this, get a wider picture, continue to read.' Wow. Ties in to me to a different thought, I think it's from you actually: 'It takes faith to believe in an ultimate truth, and humility that we don't posses it.' From both the belief (faith?) that truth is out there, and a endorsement to keep engaging.
For thirty years I had a Christian Counseling Clinic and many of the clients suffered from anxiety that resulted from believing that God was angry and wanted to catch them in some infraction that separated them from Him forever. In most cases their deviations were from some human rule that had nothing to do with scripture or God.
This was especially true of addicts to anger, alcohol, drugs, and sex. (porn and adultery)
I often said to our recovery groups that if I believed in the same Distorted God as they I would also do drugs. Counseling such persons is tricky because the moment they thought I was attacking the truth of the Bible, they would reject everything I said. The best process is to ask them to show me the Bible verses that condemned them to hell and they discovered there was none.
Angry attacks or sloppy teaching fails to help them. Deep listening usually helps.
So you’re saying that the business card I was given this morning with a link to a website about a woman who had been tutored by the seven spirits of God should be viewed critically? 😉
I'm currently studying to teach the book of 1 John in a program called SBS to a bunch of missionaries in a few weeks...this is so timely! I think it's so invitational for John to instruct his audience into what discernment (holy skepticism) looks like -- and I appreciate the similar reflective tone you take in addressing your audience (us) here. The comparison of bird watching and having a field guide is so helpful!
I realize now it was Holy skepticism that has saved me a couple of times. I don’t want to be known as a cynic but after a lifelong tendency towards people-pleasing led me down some pretty dark passages, embracing Holy skepticism is healthy and wise. I am a bird watcher so that illustration is helpful. Is discernment a gift of the spirit? Wisdom literature suggests that I can only be wise through God…..
I wonder how closely you’d relate Holy Skepticism to The Cloud of Unknowing. John, as you note, seems to treat the confession of Jesus’ divinity as—at the very least—lip service to belief, but then grounds its authenticity in chapter 4, where the presence and practice of love become the true litmus test of knowing God (1 John 4:7–8). This raises the question of whether knowing Christ is God and acting as though He is are ultimately one and the same—such that confession and belief cannot be separated.
Skepticism is largely understood to be outward unknowing, and doubt inward unknowing, and so allowing the presence of unknowing in a great many things (maybe most things) apart from Christ and Him crucified is the confluence of Holy Doubt and Holy Skepticism meeting in one Holy Unknowing.
In the application of this, when I meet a man who says, “I don’t believe in God,” I tend not to believe that he actually doesn’t believe in God. I don’t truly know either way; all I have to go on are the words coming out of his mouth. More often than not, what he means is that he doesn’t believe in some god he has absorbed through cultural osmosis—a god in whom, as it turns out, I cannot say I believe either, because the caricature he rejects is nothing like the God I know. By meeting him in unknowing, I remain open to hearing anything he has to say while maintaining a kind of suspended disbelief about the categories he is using. I fully believe him when he says he doesn’t believe in that god—the one he is describing—but that very admission leaves open the possibility that even he does not yet know whether he believes or doesn’t believe in God Himself.
So then, the two paired together—doubt and skepticism—allow us to sift through what is not in order to gain clearer access to, and acknowledgement of, what is the case.
Flatly false claims like “all truth rhymes” are, I think, less dangerous in themselves than they are fodder for the gullible. But that is how the young are—eager to fill the void of unknowing, thinking that having any answer is better than having none. Proverbs would probably call your son naive—simple, open, unformed—but not yet a fool.
Just now coming back to this. Great question! I love the apophatic tradition—with boundaries. My piece coming out tomorrow will flesh out some more epistemology stuff that you may find helpful.
Well hello from the vortex (if a vortex could bring you up and down) of theological studies.
First of all, an appreciation is necessary, thank you A.J. for recommending me: 'A little exercise for young Theologians' by Helmut Thielicke. It has been of great help of naming the speedbumps on this road of theological endeavours.
Secondly, I'm looking forward to this series of Holy Skepticism.
Thirldy I'm just chewing on the brilliant awnser of Flannery O’Connor that you mention: 'It always said: wait, don’t bite on this, get a wider picture, continue to read.' Wow. Ties in to me to a different thought, I think it's from you actually: 'It takes faith to believe in an ultimate truth, and humility that we don't posses it.' From both the belief (faith?) that truth is out there, and a endorsement to keep engaging.
Be quick to see where religion makes sense. Wow, I feel my mind opening as I read this.
For thirty years I had a Christian Counseling Clinic and many of the clients suffered from anxiety that resulted from believing that God was angry and wanted to catch them in some infraction that separated them from Him forever. In most cases their deviations were from some human rule that had nothing to do with scripture or God.
This was especially true of addicts to anger, alcohol, drugs, and sex. (porn and adultery)
I often said to our recovery groups that if I believed in the same Distorted God as they I would also do drugs. Counseling such persons is tricky because the moment they thought I was attacking the truth of the Bible, they would reject everything I said. The best process is to ask them to show me the Bible verses that condemned them to hell and they discovered there was none.
Angry attacks or sloppy teaching fails to help them. Deep listening usually helps.
If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. — Johnny Cochran