# Certainty Idolatrous?



## CubsIn07 (Aug 21, 2008)

Is is idolatrous to desire certainty, i.e. that Christianity is true? Some say that only God is absolutely certain and to attempt to get what he only has is idolatrous.

The following is common knowledge, documented by magazines like Christianity Today.

I attended Cedarville University from 1999-2001. A year ago or two ago, the school began to undergo some slight theological changes some say stemming from reaction against D.A. Carson's Staley Lectures on postmodernity a few years back. A few of the conservative members of the faculty (1 in philosophy, at least two in theology) were fired. One was fired, a tenured professor, because he opposed Cedarville's change in doctrine from absolute certainty in the truth of Christianity to certainty that we have assurance. The school has tried to say this was not really a change, but it was. This professor is suing the school because he was fired after he already received a contract for the 2007-2008 school year. One student taped (legally) a conversation with the dean where the dean admitted that the professor was only given a contract because the accreditation agency was coming the next week and he didn't want an uproar to occur (the dean didn't know he was being taped). After the accreditation agency left, he was fired a few weeks later for not agreeing with the new statement. The board later admitted that in 16/17 counts, the professor was correct. Now the professor is suing Cedarville. I just read a paper submitted by one philosphy professor, respondint to Carson and R. Scott Clark's critique of the emergent church, where he says that the search for certainty is idolatrous.

Agree or disagree?


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## davidsuggs (Aug 24, 2008)

Disagree. God calls us to know Him with certainty, though not with complete understanding. I know for certain that plants live and grow and die but I am not certain of the individual mechanics of such a life. We are called to know Him for certain, but we simply cannot know Him completely. Why would we have reason to worship something of which we were not certain that it even exists? It is not simply a blind leap in the dark, nor a timid step into semi-darkness; but, rather, a step into clear light but it only reaches a certain distance into the dark room. To what does God open our hearts if not certainty?


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