5. WISDOM: How Trusting Faith Can Be Reason’s Best Friend

World-Improvers Need This Virtue

Creating a picture of reality is a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle. Those who lack good judgement can put anything together. The result is a distorted view of the world. To put the pieces together, you need the simple realisation that you can be wrong.

We live in a complicated and troubled world. Now more than ever, we need to learn the art of piecing together a true picture of reality.

Many people today want to work for a better future, and that is a good thing! Unfortunately, it is common to combine good intentions with stubborn certainty. The danger is that things will only get worse. The overconfident idealists must learn that good intentions are not enough. Practical wisdom is also a virtue.

In this complicated world, it is rarely possible to be absolutely certain about anything. What you can strive for is good judgement.

The Art of Putting Together a Puzzle

If you have a lack of patience, you can force the puzzle pieces into place. With some willpower you can create any picture you want. To really solve the puzzle, it is important to pay attention to the pieces that do not fit together.

In Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus, Socrates pointed out that it is a special art to be able both to ”cut up every phenomenon” and to ”see widely scattered phenomena with a comprehensive view”. Today we call this analysis and synthesis.

• Analysis: These things are similar, but they don’t really belong together.

• Synthesis: These things seem to be different, but in fact they go well together.

Socrates said: ”I myself am a lover of these things, Phaedrus: of divisions and combinations, which enable me both to speak and to think.”

It is important to be able to see differences between similar things and similarities between different things. Good judgement is about finding a balance between these ways of thinking.

Without analytical thinking, things can easily get out of hand. If you want to, you can connect almost anything. An example of this is conspiracy theories, which associate a certain group of people with all the misery in the world. In the same way, political ideologies can create images of enemies. Manipulative demagogues – the masters of deception – can make people completely stuck in this mental trap.

How to Become a Religious Know-It-All

In many religious contexts, synthesis dominates. There is a strong need for meaning, coherence and confirmation. Everything must fit together: the Bible, history, world events, everyday life. Critical analysis can be perceived as disrespecting the sacred.

Some people think that if everything doesn’t fit together, everything will fall apart. But what are the consequences of trying to harmonise and reconcile the diversity of the Bible at all costs?

Synthetic puzzles provide a sense of affirmation and are stimulating. Analysis can involve a painful questioning of one’s own beliefs. What happens when we follow the path of least resistance? Isn't there a danger that we will create a biblical puzzle coloured by our selfish interests and political values? And that we begin to imagine that God has the same views as we do?

The question is whether this appetite for synthesis has anything to do with real faith. With the help of imaginative associations, it is possible to see connections between all sorts of things and to convince oneself of almost anything. It is not at all difficult to become entangled in false insights.

Real Faith Is Not About Stubborn Certainty

For those who believe in God, there is a surprising way out of the ‘follies trap’. The aim is to find a method of not getting too attached to your ideas, and to open yourself up to the possibility that you might be wrong.

It starts with recognising - rather counter-intuitively - that your capacity to believe is rather weak. It is impossible to make everything fit together. We can rejoice in reading about how Christ performed miracles, like how he turned water into wine in Canaan. At the same time, it may be hard to believe that the laws of nature can be overturned. Would our Creator be offended that we can't always reconcile the one with the other? Surely, as the Creator of our reason, He understands that these things can baffle us.

A Christian may believe with all his heart, but only with part of his head. Instead of relying on our own capacity to believe, we can shift the focus from ourselves to God, who sees and understands all our confusions. “When our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts and understands all things.”

In weakness there is strength, said the Apostle Paul. A weak capacity to believe can mean a greater trusting faith. Many questions remain unanswered, but so what? A trusting faith does not depend on understanding all the mysteries of Christianity.

Martin Luther wrote:

Faith as a Copernican Revolution

Trusting faith creates a new centre that makes it easier to challenge your self-centred ways of thinking. This can be likened to a ‘Copernican revolution’. It replaces the old egocentric worldview and places the divine at the centre. 

Reason can make mistakes and put things together that don’t belong together. Your political and religious beliefs can be based on fear and selfish desires. Total reliance on these things creates a self-centred worldview. Those who turn their hearts to God instead have a new centre. Everything appears in a clearer light.

It is good to have insights and opinions about things, but you should not get too attached to them. Trust in grace is linked to openness to the possibility that you may be wrong. Your ideas may need to be corrected and improved. In this way, faith can become a driving force for truth and education.

To attach one's heart to God means not to fixate too much on one idea or the other. This gives you the important ability to hold two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time (integration). It makes the great puzzle of life easier to solve, because it doesn't matter so much if your worldview is shaken from time to time. Trusting faith is reason's best friend.