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/ 17
Taylor, D. (0486) The Wiyth of Certeinty
areell word Bocks
WHAT IS A REFLECTIVE CHRISTIAN, and why does it
matter? Two very reasonable questions which I will attempt
to answer soon, But first, let me ask you a few questions.
Consider this a survey, a form of inquiry that has great appeal
in our narcissistic and quasi-scientific age. (People are flattered
to be asked what they think, and impressed with anything
that can be turned into numbers.)
1. Are you, even after years of being a Christian, ever struck
by the unlikelihood of the whole thing? Does one minute it
seem perfectly natural and unquestionable that God exists and
cares for the world, and the next moment uncommonly naive?
2. Do you ever think, “Those close to me would be shocked
if they knew some of the doubts I have about my faith?”
To you ever scare even yourself with your doubts?
3. Have you sometimes felt like walking out of a church
service because it seemed contrived and empty?
4, Have you ever felt intellectually embarrassed to admit
that you were a Christian?
'5, Do you ever feel somewhat schizophrenic about the rela~
tionship of your faith to the rest of your life? Do you find
yourself compartmentalizing different aspects so that tensions
detween them are minimized?
6. If given a choice between sharing an island with Jerry
Falwell and Phyllis Schlafly on the one hand, or Phil Donahue
and Bella Abzug on the other, does one upset your stomach
less than the other?
7, How often do- you find yourself at odds with your sur-
roundings— intellectually, socially, spiritually? Is there part of
you which feels out of place no matter where you are?
8. On a controversial issue are you most likely to agree
totally with one side, find all sides partially persuasive and
attractive, or find yourself saying, “A plague on all your
houses”?
4
The Nature of Reflection 15
9, Someone at work says, “Christians check their brains
at the door of the church every Sunday, and most of them
don’t even bother to pick them up on the way out.” Do you
find yourself objecting or agreeing?
10. Someone at church says, ““The humanists are destroying -~
our country. We have got to elect Christian politicians and
get this country back to God like it used to be.” Are you
more likely to say “Amen” or “Baloney”—or to grunt and
change the subject?
11. How important is it for you to be certain about some-
thing before you act on it? Would you only invest money if
there were no possibility for failure? Would you say “I love
you” to someone before they had said it to you?
12. Do you consider yourself reasonable? Are you willing
to take risks? Do you think of the two as contradictory?
13. Do you personally find a high degree of paradox in
matters of faith, or does it seem primarily reasonable and
logical?
14. How confident are you that you know God's desires
regarding the specific political, social, and moral issues which
face our society?
15. Would it bother you more to be thought a hypocrite
or a cynic? Why?
16. Is it more immoral to act incorrectly in a significant
situation or not to act at all?
There are, of course, no right or wrong answers to most
of these questions. The pattern of your responses, however,
may indicate the degree to which you are a reflective Christian.
The term reflective Christian brings to my mind a knot of
related but quite different images. The first is very positive,
evoking the simple wonder that among the things it means
to be created in God's image is the ability to carry on a mental
dialogue with reality—that is, to think.
It evokes also, in this regard, that long tradition of people
of faith who have valued and participated in the life of the
mind and who have brought their God-given intelligence and
imagination to bear on the society in which they have lived. 16 ‘THe Myra oF CERTAINTY
‘These believers have been involved thoughtfully in their cul-
tures, sometimes as shapers, sometimes as critics, but always
‘as people who thought the human endeavor worthwhile,
But there is also more troublesome aspect fo being reflec
ive. ‘as many have discovered, can be dangero
re San get tsi trouble-—with thers, but also wih ourselves
‘And the suspicion lingers in religious circles that it can also,
if we are not very careful, get us in trouble with God.
Ttis on these different notions of the term reflective Christian
that I wish to focus. What are the perils and opportunities
of being a thinking Christian in the late twentieth century?
How does one survive as a thinker in the church and as a
believer in the larger world? And can one do any more than
“survive”; can one be the arms and eyes and voice of God
to our society in the same way that earlier reflective Christians
were to theirs?
A Discussion oF TERMS
‘The reflective person is, first and foremost, a_question
‘cer-—one who finds in every experience and assertion some-
thing that requires further investigation. He or she is a stone
turner, attracted to the creepy-crawly things that live under
rocks and behind human pronouncements. The writer of Eccle-
Shastes was such a person: “I directed my mind to know, to
investigate, and to seek wisdom and an explanation . . ” (Ee-
2 2).
cas i to be sensitive to and fascinated by the
_-> complexity of things. It entails an_openness to the nuances
and grace notes of life, and it implies an eye for hidden beauties
fand white-washed sepulchers. The reflective person seeks de-
maration inthe invisible and finds unity in diversity, discov-
fikeness in seemingly unlike things.
ee ‘reflection leads one, like the writer of Ecclesiastes,
toward ultimate questions. A person with endless curiosity
> about the physical workings of the world, or of political an
The Nature of Reflection 7
social structures, or of human psychology, who does not ask
with any urgency, “Why am I here?” is not, to my mind,
genuinely reflective. Reflection often leads one to the questions
traditionally addressed by religion, though it will not necessar-
ily be satisfied with religion’s varying answers.
Reflectiveness should not be confused with the amassing
of information, nor with intelligence. Many with great stores
of knowledge, intellect, and unquestionable expertise are not
particularly reflective. Some who are very reflective, on the
other hand, are ill-informed, not strongly logical, perhaps not
even especially bright.
Clearly it is a matter of degree. Everyone reflects to some
extent, including many who are mentally retarded. For some,
however, reflection sets the tone for their lives in ways that
bring both pleasure and pain. Looking under rocks has its
disadvantages.
T remember well my own early struggles with faith and
doubt as a college student. What stands out most clearly
the paradoxical combination of constant motion and paralysis.
‘My mind was constantly moving, but my will was paralyzed.
A great sense of the wonder and complexity and challenge
of being human was the gift of my growing refleetiveness (and
the priceless legacy passed on to me by my teachers). The
cost was an ever diminishing ability to say, “This is true, that
is not; this is good, that is evil; this I will do, that should
not be done.”
Reflection counseled me never to commit. It said, “This
may seem true to you now, but what about tomorrow? Don’t
you think you should know more? Is there something you
aren't considering? Hadn't we better wait on this? There are
others who see things differently, you know.” This line of ques-
tioning is, of course, the orthodoxy of our day, not least because
it has a genuine basis in truth, (But what, the voice says, is
twuth anyway?)
Because my mind sought answers ceaselessly to the impor-
tant questions in life but at the same time rejected all answers
to those questions, and almost even the possibility of answers, 18 ‘THe MYTH OF CERTAINTY
was a prime candidate for misery and cynicism. And superfi-
cially cynical I was, and miserable 1 might have been, but
for my congenitally easy-going attitude toward life.
Refiectiveness, then, is a character trait, deeply rooted in
what one essentially is. It helps define one’s fundamental experi-
ence of reality. The life of a Teflective person is more likely
to be interesting, less likely to be serene; more likely to be
contemplative, less likely to be active; more likely to be marked
by the pursuit of answers, less by the finding of them, The
result is a high potential for creativity, curiosity, and discovery,
but also for paralyzing ambivalence, alienation, and melan-
choly.
T see this doubleness frequently in the experience of my
students, not to mention in myself. Oh, how alive the thinking
and feeling ones are! Alive to the new-found pleasures of the
mind, of ideas contemplated, poked at, then swallowed whole
to become in some unique way part of them—sometimes for
fifteen minutes, sometimes forever. But they are alive also to
\eliededthe pain of thought, to the sometimes agonizing attempt to
ae pain_of thought
anger Tevoncle the inner world with the outer one.
‘One bright young woman expressed to me a whirasical desire
for the simple, naive view of life she once had as an active
member of her church’s high school youth group. But with
1a quiet earnestness she observed, “I can’t unlearn what I've
learned since then.” No, she can’t, though she may learn
enough in the future to discover that while a little learning
30 alienates, much learning often reconciles.
Rex “Hing feflective is both a blessing and a curse, a potential
®r for strength and for weakness. It can lead equally well toward
("truth or error. Life can be richer, more textured, more challeng-
ing, more meaningful. Likewise, it can become more barren,
more threatening, more overwhelming.
Reflection can awaken one to the possibilities of life and
the need for involvement. More typically, however, it leads
away from whole-hearted engagement. Awareness of the mul-
tiplicity of choices, the infinitude of implications, the tension
‘of competing claims, the constant possibility for error, all
The Nature of Reflection 9
coupled with the desire to act correctly, militates against the
“T choose this” of commitment.
Hamlet is the archetype of this aspect of the reflective person-
ality. Act he must; act he cannot. For him, as for many like
him, “the native hue of resolution / Is sicklied o'er with the
pale cast of thought.” His many modern literary counterparts
are found in the works of writers like T. S. Eliot and Samuel
Beckett, compulsively introspective characters whose minds
srind on endlessly but whose wills are frozen.
Reflection in this sense is the nearest human realization of |;
perpetual motion. It is insatiable. It is hostile to the notion \°>
of conclusion. The questioning mind is a dictator satisfied with i,”
nothing less than a thousand-year reign. Why should it stop?
Why relinquish its hold? It is inherent in the very nature of
reflection to resist limitation, The more one tries to restrict
it, the more power one gives it; for reflection is suspicious of
nothing so much as attempts to quell it. It may lie low for a
tie, bt wl laze back al the ferer fr having been su
The ceaselessness of reflection works both for good and for
ill, but in either case itis often exhausting. Everyone needs
relief from the potentially endless cycle of assertion, analysis,
counterassertion, qualification, redefinition, exceptions, extent.
ations, complications, hidden presuppositions, emotional color-
ing stmmatons, ad infitum
jerard Manley Hopkins fel i
we Gzrrd Manley Hopkins ft something ofthis when he
My own heart let me more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
Soul, self; come poor Jackself, I do advise
‘You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile. . . 1
Who has not felt at times the overwhelming desire to “call
off thoughts awhile”? Our reflective powers, one of our greatest 20 ‘THe MYTH oF CERTAINTY
gifts, can become our greatest curse. No dripping faucet was
ever as maddening as the steady beat of a mind going in circles,
chained to a problem which admitted neither solution nor ca~
pitulation,
I find all around me wounded people of all ages and varied
backgrounds—friends, acquaintances, a few who tell me of
their struggles, more about whom I conjecture. Some struggle
‘over the possibilities of faith in a faithless world, others with
their relationship to the church and their own distorted up-
bringings, still others with their place in the secular market-
place. Many of these people drift in limbo, often confused,
sometimes discouraged, frequently hurt.
Fe seme make the best of it, chalk it up to “the way life is,”
‘push ahead with plucky resolve, find a way to survive, make
(do, get along. . . . Others cope less well. For them there is
‘no middle ground. At times they are more honest than the
rest of us, other times only more confused. They break up,
often quietly, and drop away. Sometimes they lash out; some-
times they settle into a kind of subdued schizophrenia.
‘Usually in my experience these are the reflective ones—not
that this is a necessary result of being reflective, but that reflec
tion is a quality which makes one more susceptible to certain
Prinds ‘of wounds. I believe that something can be done. I am
no fan of quick fixes, spiritual or otherwise, but I do believe
we are at a historically crucial time in the life of the Christian
church and human society. Reflective Christians are, as they
have always been, a great gift from God with important tasks
ee ,, todo. They cannot do them if mired in endless cycles of reflec-
oe tion without action. They also cannot do them, however, if
y forfeit the life of the mind for mindless parroting of sim-
plistic, culturally determined socio-religious agendas.
‘My hope is that better understanding the subcultures in
ee and seeing clearly
cone view of faith to which some Christians are called, will
make more possible a commitment to a life of faith and risk
and action that both the church and the world greatly need.
‘The Nature of Reflection 2
SUBCULTURES AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BELIEF
Every person, whether reflective or not, has a way of making
sense out of the world. It is as fundamental a need as eating
and breathing (and comes far ahead of sex). We have a compul-
sion for ordering and_explaining.our_experiences,.even if we
‘ecide that the governing principle of life is disorder. (Asserting
that life is chaotic or absurd is simply one way of explaining—
giving order to—one’s experiences.)
But we do not make sense out of the world all by ourselves.
We do so in the context of other people trying to do the same
thing. This is one way of defining subcultures, those smaller
groupings of people sharing something in common. Each of
us participates in a variety of different subcultures at the same
‘time, some of which can be defined broadly—caucasian, middle
class, American. Others are defined very narrowly—antique
collectors, Kia Klux Klannes, detective novel devotees,
fe belong to communities of helief which help sha
wigan mmunities of belief which help shape,
and our actions in it. We both draw fr commi
and contribute to them, the reccieand then Sestak
