has it occurred to you that you might be wrong?
Posted on November 13, 2007 by Geoff Matheson
Filed Under Emerging Questions
The above clip is more of your traditional “tell-a-funny-story-that’s-vaguely-related” rather than making a specific point. And the title is taken from a often referred to peanuts cartoon (stole the linked image from pomomusings - hopefully they don’t mind). But here’s what I’ve been pondering. A big part of what the “emerging conversation” and considering “post-modernism” has been doing to my feeble little brain has been to reinforce this notion that there are things I’ve been “certain” of, that might actually be wrong. Some of those things I’m quite sure I was outright wrong about.
Now, if we consider that:
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1)
then I’m a little bit flummoxed about how we ought to act in regard to things we could quite well be wrong about. Because it’s easy to mistake faith for intellectual arrogance. I could try and unpack this a whole lot more but I think the discussion might be better served if I leave it there. How does humility about the things we “know about God”, interplay with wanting to act and live out of a place of faith?
About Geoff Matheson
Geoff is a 23 year old database administrator who has birthed amateurtheology.org from some crazy thoughts he had early one Monday morning. Geoff does his best to sound lots smarter than he actually is. He also runs some youth stuff at Yarra Valley Vineyard, and he is married to the very lovely Rebecca.
Geoff's site: http://www.geoffreport.com/wp/
Comments
2 Responses to “has it occurred to you that you might be wrong?”
Leave a Reply
Geoff, I know I usually turn out to be wrong about a lot of things I thought I was right about, and I’m sometimes right about things I think I’m wrong about…
But there’s nothing wrong with that, right?
There seem to be two popular pathways to resolving those differences people have in belief and conviction. One is reasoned dialogue, and the other is simple acceptance.
I think there’s a place for both, knowing which one to engage in is the challenging part.
For me i think there is a lot we get wrong in our practices, in our attitudes, our character etc. When it comes to faith we probably have a lot of wrong ideas too or incomplete ideas etc.
So we often get somethings wrong and sometime we get them right - it’s probably the best argument for communities of faith that talk to other communities of faith to learn with…