Occasionally I meet students who "know" everything. On every subject—no exaggeration—they know for sure. Their minds cannot be changed. No presentation of evidence to the contrary shifts them. If later they are proved wrong, they justify why at the time they were still right! Against such unmovable certainty I simply give in and adopt the mantra, "Yes, of course you're right!" or "You know best!" My hope is that, as the unmovable student matures, they will develop a little humility at the complexity and ambiguity of life, at the unlikelihood of certain knowledge. Full disclosure: I was like that in my early 20s.
It strikes me that while people might kill for certainties, few would do so for ambiguities. If I am not certain that I am right, and you are not certain that you are right, then why fight each other? Better to be cautious and talk it through. Ambiguities save lives!
That doesn't mean we give up on our curiosity. The truth is out there. It's just that our understanding is always provisional, always imperfect, never absolute.
Job, in the Bible book of his name, had been through a lot. He had experienced a financial meltdown. Several of his close family members had died. He was smitten with illness. His life was falling apart. When life's circumstances are against us we ask questions. Job did. So did his friends. And between them they came up with all kinds of answers to the question: "Why?" Some of the answers seemed more convincing than others, but Job was left deeply dissatisfied. Eventually G*d answers Job:
"Then G*d answered Job out of the whirlwind: 'Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?'" (Job 38:1-7)
G*d gives Job a tour of the universe repeatedly asking Job, "Who did all this? Do you get it? How much of this do you really understand?" (My paraphrase)One of the points of Job's story is that whatever circumstances in life we face, however much we think we have a grasp of the situation, there is always more that we do not, cannot see or understand. Our answers are always provisional. In Job's case this realization left him humbled, in awe at the greatness and magnificence of our amazing universe.
For Job, satisfaction was found with the humility of realizing he just did not know, to live in the ambiguity of knowledge not yet. This is where I find myself: a perennial inquirer for the answer to life's questions. The answer seems always to be tantalizingly just beyond my reach.
+Ab. Andy
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