It may sound paradoxical, but I am an orthodox Christian agnostic:
The orthodox Christian part:
A mainline pastor once said to me, “Evangelicals know they are right. We Presbyterians hope we are right.”
Regarding “knowing,” I resonate with the Presbyterian.
On the one hand, I’m an orthodox Christian. I believe in God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I go to church every Sunday. I read the Bible and pray almost every morning.
The agnostic part:
In the current English usage of the word “agnostic” means nothing can be known about God. The etymology of the word, however, reveals that gnostic comes from the Greek word “gnosis” which means knowledge and “a” which means not. For example the word “asymmetric” means “not symmetric.” The meaning of “apolitical” is “not interested in politics.”
In my use of the word, agnostic means “I don’t know,” and in that sense of the word there are a whole lot of things I don’t know.
Regarding orthodox Christian teaching, I don’t know how to explain the Trinity — one God in three persons. I don’t know how to explain the existence of evil if God is both omnipotent and good. I don’t know how Jesus can be truly human and at the same time truly divine. My list of “I don’t knows” regarding the Bible and religion is very, very long.
Personally, I think that religious folks who “know,” i.e. have an answer for every question, are either smoking something or flat-out lying.
Two of the books on my bookshelves are titled, The Faith to Doubt and The Sin of Certainty. As Hebrews 11:1 declares, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
But my purpose in this column is to talk about “I don’t know” in terms of applying my faith to issues in everyday life.
Abortion for example: Personally, I believe that life begins at conception. Life in some form or another, at least. But the big debate is now about “personhood,” i.e. when does the fetus become human, a person who has constitutional rights.
Is it when there is a detectable heartbeat, or is it when the fetus is “viable,” or is it at birth as some rabbis teach? I don’t know. And that makes determining the point at which an abortion is ethically acceptable an issue, which makes forming a cultural consensus necessary.
Separation of church and state for example: I do know that I do not want a Christian version of sharia law imposed on the citizens of the United States. On the other hand, the term “separation of church and state” is nowhere to be found in the Constitution.
According to the Constitution, the state cannot mess with churches but religious people — and atheists and woke people and MAGAs — have every right to participate in the decision-making process of the state — whether you approve of what they stand for or not. Read the First Amendment.
I don’t know where to draw the line between speech that is acceptable and speech that is not.
I don’t know how big the federal government should be.
I don’t know if Governor Pritzker should have closed schools during the pandemic or not.
I don’t know where to draw the line between which guns are permissible to own by citizens and which are not.
I’ve heard some people say, regarding immigration, that we should have high walls and wide gates. I’ve heard other people offer a version of, “Immigrants, immigrants. I’ve had nothing but trouble with immigrants ever since I came to this country.”
I belong to a Thai congregation in which, as far as I know, everyone who was born in Thailand is here legally, but I also hear how hard it can be to get a visa, let alone a green card, let alone U.S. citizenship.
I don’t know exactly how to regulate the flow of migrants into this country.
I don’t know exactly how to respond to homelessness in this country. I’ve had experiences with many unhoused people. One relationship has lasted five years, and my wife and I have invested a lot of time and money into their struggle to stay off the street. I don’t know if we’ve done the right thing with them or not. I don’t know how much time and money is enough.
From a biblical perspective, not knowing has quite a bit of support. In 1 Corinthians 13:12, for example, Paul says, “For now we see in a mirror [which is fogged up after taking a shower] dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
Personally, I get irritated with people who have simplistic, black-and-white answers for every knotty issue we in society are trying figure out. Personally, I wish people would say, “I don’t know” more often and “these truths are self-evident” less, but that requires the precious gift of humility.