The Arrogance of Certainty

This week’s gospel reading is Matthew 25:31-46.  There will be plenty of sermons preached on serving one’s neighbor and how this is serving Christ himself.  There will also be quite a number preached on the judgment and how we will stand in it.  I have already written a bit about how the texts today would work well in a sermon on judgment.

But there’s another angle on this story that I think is worth thinking about, especially for intellectually inclined people like myself.  Not only am I more driven by ideas than people, but I often tend to be quite sure of myself, even dangerously so.

The vision of the sheep and the goats presents us with a reversal of fortune. The folks who think they have it made find out they haven’t been doing nearly as well as they thought.  The king, whom they believe they have served constantly, tells them that he never knew them.

But then there are the folks who believe they’ve never really done anything to talk about.  They don’t have great confidence.  They want to know when it was that they served the king.  But the king has been noticing and he says they have been doing it all the time.

The folks who think they have it made, really don’t.  It’s one of those kind of distressing logical puzzles.  If I do everything in my power to serve my fellow man, can I believe that I’ve made it?  I would say that the idea that you can work enough to make it is a non-starter.  It’s not the work that gets you there.  But at the same time, you’re being judged by it.  It’s like a dog chasing its tail.  Wherever you turn, there’s another logical problem.

Paul does something very similar in 1 Corinthians 8:2–“Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge.”  OK Paul, but can I believe that I’ve understood you and claim to have understood you?  If I do, maybe I haven’t.  It’s tough!

I think it’s supposed to be.  Just like the trinity can keep theologians going forever, and can remind all of us that whenever we think we have God nailed down he’s going to go do something incomprehensible again, so we need to always be on guard against the arrogance of knowledge, the assumption that we have it nailed down.

I once was speaking to a youth group, answering questions on the Bible.  Well, some questions I answered, others I raised! When the young people were done asking me where Cain got his wife and so on, their leader had a question.  He said he’d been studying the Bible for about five years, and he thought he had it down pretty well.  What should he do now?

I was stunned.  Five years and he thinks he pretty much has it down pat?

Beware of that attitude.  When you think you have it covered, you’re in the greatest danger.  The knowledge isn’t going to destroy you but the pride of knowledge just might.  I don’t think it’s about pretending you don’t know.  Paul and Jesus, after all, both knew many things.  Jesus knew he was doing his father’s will.  But they both, in their own ways, have warned us against becoming arrogant about our own knowledge.

The arrogance of certainty is a dangerous thing.