A Random Faith

For most people my age, middle Boomer, we think of the dramatic changes during our lifetime as primarily social. We look back at the social revolution of the 1960's as a pivotal point in Western history.  I'm beginning to seriously doubt whether the social revolution that we've experienced is as impactful as the intellectual revolution that is now taking place.

Western culture to a large part emerged on the back of the church, especially the Protestant church.  If you step back and think about the theology of the past 500 years, it is marked by a couple things. One is the value of the individual and consequently, the freedom that the individual has to pursue his or her own course in life.  The second impact was just as significant, and was dependent on Western individualism for a fertile social context for it to grow. That second development is broadly the impact of the Western Enlightenment. Now I don't want to go into a long description of the philosophy of the enlightenment. That isn't my point in the post.

Rather, what I believe is a significant result of the Reformation and Enlightenment is confidence and certainty in our understanding of God's purpose and how the world works.  After reading Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness while on vacation, I'm convinced that the result of our confidence is an increasing retreat from reality into a world of abstract theory masked as an absolutist theology.

Taleb's book is about his study of probabilities in financial markets and the random events that led very successful people to "blow up" and lose everything that had accumulated.  He writes about the random events that take place without explanation.  In fact, it is through our intellectual hubris that we in retrospect rationalize the ability to predict events that he calls Black Swans.  This comes from the experience of Europeans who believed that all swans were white until they ventured below the equator to Australia and found black swans.  Black swans are unexpected, inexplicable rare events.  Rare events are like 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and stock market crashes.  Impossible to predict and revolutionary in their effects.

His thesis confirms what I have felt for a long time, but didn't have the right theoretical context to understand what I saw.  What I realized was our human inadequacy to know anything absolutely.  This means that whatever decision we make, we make with incomplete knowledge. As a result, our confidence in predicting the future is an illusion.  This has been translated into my planning work by developing plans that provide more flexibility and a wider range of options for the future.

In the church, we describe rare events with words like providence or serendipity.  In doing so, we are admitting that we lack a complete sense of what is happening around us.  We throw the randomness of life back on God so that we can rest assured in the confidence that we have a God who is sovereign over all things.  I know that is a biblical concept that gets wide use in the Scripture. However, it isn't the scriptural use of the idea that is the problem, but our absolute confidence in our grasp of what this means.

Because we find absolute ideas easy to hold, we also find ambiguity difficult to accept.  Randomness is another way of understanding the ambiguity of life.  Taleb makes a strong case for the random nature of life. I see that my life experience fits far more a random pattern than a logical, sequential pattern that I could have identified three decades ago.  The meaning of life comes in reflection upon the past that we want to extrapolate into the future. But in my experience, all that I can predict is how I will respond to situations that I encounter. 

As I read Fooled by Randomness, it occurred to me that it makes sense that God would create a world of randomness, rather than one of predictability.  What randomness requires of us is choice. We must make decisions as to how we will respond to the rare and not-so-rare events as they occur.  That choice occurs everyday, and at the heart of that choice is the choice to love God or not in the situations that confront us at every turn.  That choice is our freedom, endowed to us by a God who created a world for free beings to live in free fellowship with their creator God.

This doesn't mean all creation is not connected and contingent, but simply, that it is impossible for any person to see it fully.  Our security isn't in our understanding and control of a contingent world, but rather our faith in the God who created a world greater than our minds can manage.

If life were predictable, then our faith would be in the meaning that is derived from predictability.  In reality, I believe this is exactly where the American church has ended up. We want security, low risk and no change. So, we resist ambiguity, and want an absolutist faith that is unchanging and dependable.  We want a safe God who we trust because he is predictable and unchanging.  In reality, God is inscrutable, not always doing what we expect.  Sounds like Lewis' good and dangerous Aslan.

Taleb discusses evolutionary theory in his book and shows that evolution isn't sequential, but random with jumps of development that are inexplicable.  So, an absolutist faith in evolution is no better an answer than an absolutist faith in a sovereign God who is in absolute control of everything.  This type of absolutist faith cannot help but make God the author of evil.

I find Taleb's perspective a greater challenge to traditional Protestant theology than any atheist's rant.  It is a challenge because it forces us out of the intellectual ghetto of the church where we all basically think alike.  Because we are in general agreement, we are secure in the knowledge that our theology holds up under scrutiny, as long as we don't venture out of the enclave of the church.

So, what are Christians and their pastors to do with randomness as outlined by Nassim Taleb in Fooled by Randomness?  Two suggestions, apart from reading his book.

First, understand that resistance to randomness is futile.  We are not in control of it. We can only respond to it. We can respond negatively, or we can see it as an opportunity.  I think this ultimately is what it means to live in the moment.

Without using this language, I realize that for twenty five years or more that I have lived a random life.  What I thought I was doing was living in response to God's leading by the Spirit. When some random individual would walk into my life, I'd ask the question, "What does God want me to do with this person?"  I know this came from the belief that every person is God's child, no matter what the course of life that they have traveled.  I've had a very interesting life as a result, and my life has lacked the secure continuity that others have had. So in reading Taleb's book, I found validation for my life of faith.

So, welcome the randomness of life as a friend that brings new opportunities. 

Second, realize that there is less continuity in life than we think. One of the prevailing notions that I encounter in churches is the belief that the future will be the same as the past as long as we avoid change. From this perspective, risk is seen as change, and not changing is how we manage risk in the church and life. The reality is much different. There is as much risk in not changing as there is in changing too aggressively.  This is very hard for churches to understand because so much of our life as the church is predicated upon an absolutist theology and an unchanging sovereign God.

So, be open to change, respond to what God places before you today.

One last thought ... you may think that I'm abandoning a traditional faith in Jesus Christ. I am not. What I am addressing is our human tendency to create false securities because it relieves us of having to live in the moment with Christ.  Defending my or our tradition's interpretation of the Gospel is far easier than living an authentic life of faith in the midst of a changing, random world.  What I am doing is making a distinction between the Scripture's Gospel message and our theological interpretation of the Bible.  Our human interpretation of the Bible's message is the source of this absolutist theology.  The Bible in its simple testimony is far more universal in character and therefore a better source for our handling a random world.

In the end, it is not the intellectual content of what I believe that matters most, but rather my attitude toward what I believe, and how I live with integrity in my life with Christ.  I find God in the random happenings that provide the church the opportunity to be the people of God during rare events that are both good and bad. That I believe is God's intention in the creation that he made.

Comments

[Ed Brenegar]

The whole "confidence in certainty" mode is really deceptive. What happens is that the church ends up over-promising what it can deliver. I think this is part of the reason that so many people become disenchanted with the church.

[Pastor M]

Thank you for this post. I see so many people wanting churches that give absolutist answers with no room for ambiguity. Like you, I have come to see that ambiguity is so much a part of all life. We cannot speak or act with much certainty at all. We really don't know if we are or are not doing God's will or following Jesus' way in much of our lives. We only choose to act and respond, as you noted. I have problems with people who seem so certain in offering what you call absolutist answers. Yet so many people seem to follow those who do, and the churches that do so seem to grow and grow. As I see it, ambiguity keeps us humble.