The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our Correct Beliefs

by Peter Enns

  Waiting and hoping for this sort of divine retribution is common in the Psalms and elsewhere in the Bible. No one reading this today, however, should feel like they ought to pray to God like this. For Christians, praying for this sort of divine retribution is completely off the table—Jesus said we are to pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:43–48).

  So we need to focus here less on what the psalmist wants to see happen to the bad guys and more on what he does.

  Even when all the evidence showed that God doesn’t follow through on the rules, the psalmist enters the sanctuary; he moves toward God, not away from God—a movement toward trust when all the evidence is against it. That was the only option open to him.

  When my wife, Sue, has an issue with me (a purely hypothetical situation, since I am a flawless husband), I appreciate when she comes to me with the problem rather than talking about me to a friend, her sisters, or her mother. A relationship based on trust means not walking on eggshells, but talking openly, honestly, with no hint of passive-aggressiveness or any of the other dysfunctional manipulative tactics we tend to impose on family and friends.

  After a period of brooding to himself, entering the sanctuary was the psalmist’s act of trust. That’s the take-home message here for us.

  Our psalmists wouldn’t make very good Christian fundamentalists, who see the Bible as a source of certain knowledge about God, the world, and our place in it. Rather these psalmists are laying it all in front of us, that the Bible is less an instructional manual and more of an internal dialogue, even debate, among people of faith about just who this God is they are dealing with. For them, certainty about God had exploded before their eyes. But even when they had no logical reason to trust God, they pushed through and trusted God anyway. Even when they thought of God as a neglectful parent or liar.

  I’m beginning to understand a bit more, now in my middle-aged years, that trust in God grows best when things are falling apart; or as the seventeenth-century Scottish theologian Samuel Rutherford said, “Grace grows best in winter.” Some pilgrims live in February.

  I think these psalmists and a couple of other miserable characters in the Bible would agree.

  Chapter Four

  Two Miserable People Worth Listening To

  I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast.

  —Psalm 22:14

  Trust God Anyway

  If faith in God makes zero sense to you and reasons for trusting God have fallen off a cliff of despair, you’ve got a friend in the Bible: the book of Ecclesiastes. This book goes even further than the psalms we looked at. Not only can God not be counted on, but life plays out as one cruel joke after another, and then you die.

  And God is to blame.

  It is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

  What is crooked cannot be made straight,

  and what is lacking cannot be counted.

  (Ecclesiastes 1:13–15; see also 7:13)

  These are the words of the main speaker of the book, the otherwise unknown Qohelet—aka the “Teacher” or “Preacher” as some Bible translations have it. No one really knows what the name means, but Teacher or Preacher definitely don’t do justice to his alarming point of view.

  As we can see, Qohelet has serious issues with God. Our lives down here (“under the sun,” as he puts it) are full of “unhappy business” that God has “given” us. Our day-to-day deeds get us nowhere, like “chasing after wind.” God set up the world like that! And we can’t do anything to change it—what God has done is “crooked” and can’t be straightened, “lacking” and can’t be “counted.”

  And this is in the Bible.

  Qohelet is in major faith-crisis mode. All signs indicate to him that God has orchestrated an absurd existence for us humans, as futile as the cycles of nature (1:5–10). Just think of the poor old sun, Qohelet tells us. It rises and sets every day without a rest, again . . . and again . . . and again . . . with nothing to show for it, no progress made, no payday waiting at the end. Or consider the wind. It blows this way and that, round and round in a never-ending, meaningless, futile, tedious cycle. The streams, too, never stop flowing into the sea, yet the sea never fills up. All that effort, but it makes zero difference.

  Just like nature, humans run around in circles, working hard day in and day out, with ultimately nothing to show for it—because at the end, we all die.

  That is Qohelet’s major issue, the hump he can’t get over and what is causing him all his pain. Death neutralizes all our toil. We can spend the years of our lives accomplishing great things, making a truckload of money, and owning half of Manhattan, but we can’t take it with us.

  Of course, we all die, so what’s Qohelet getting all worked up about? Well, it’s just that: we all die. And then we are quickly forgotten as if we never were, just like we’ve forgotten already those who lived and died before us.

  The people of long ago are not remembered,

  nor will there be any remembrance

  of people yet to come

  by those who come after them.

  (1:11)

  Quite the buzzkill, this Qohelet. Not one to try out for the cheerleading squad. But he’s got a point.

  Think of the mass of humanity that has gone before us over the last century. We don’t know who 99.99999 percent of them even were enough to forget them. And those we’ve heard of, like Princess Di, Michael Jackson, and Robin Williams, pass by and slip from our memories as quickly as our Facebook news feeds scroll past us and disappear. We go on living, for all practical purposes, having forgotten them completely unless reminded.

  Old friends, roommates, or coworkers will linger longer and come to mind more often—but how often? Does it not often take some accidental reminder amid our busy lives to recall those who are no longer here—even those closest to us? Are they not also, for all practical purposes, forgotten?

  As this book goes to print, my parents died seven and ten years ago. I have to admit, I don’t think of them every day, and in all likelihood, my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will think of them even less—if at all. Heck, my descendants won’t even think of me, just as I hardly ever remember my grandparents. And I don’t even know my great-grandparents’ names, at least not without doing some digging.

  Qohelet really does have a point. We’re so busy hyperventilating on the go-nowhere hamster wheel that we don’t have space to keep the dead in our active memories. Nor do we take the time to ponder our own mortality. Life is one big hurried distraction to find “meaning,” but in the end, we die regardless, and then we’re forgotten.

  And don’t try telling Qohelet “There, there, my lad. Not to worry. After we die, we go to heaven, and then everything will be okay and everything will make sense.” Qohelet is skeptical,

  For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows whether the human spirit goes upward and the spirit of animals goes downward to the earth? (Ecclesiastes 3:19–21)

  I wonder how many invitations Qohelet would get to speak at fundraisers or funerals. Don’t let anyone tell you the Bible is all happy-clappy.

  Qohelet looked life square in the eye and refused to play the religion game, where everything is working out and God makes sense. I’m drawn to his honesty and the fact that he is saying what we all feel, at least now and then.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that we dive in with Qohelet and try to live lives of despair, glorifying our doubt. I’m not even suggesting that he has the last word. But I am suggesting we pay attention to what this book is saying through Qohelet’s despair—which is where the book ends. There we see a startling lesson of fai
th, a faith that has let go of needing to know.

  After twelve chapters, with hardly a break to lighten up the mood, Qohelet’s voice ends and a narrator takes over (12:9–14; he also introduced Qohelet in the opening verses of the book). Remarkably, he doesn’t reprimand Qohelet for his lack of solid faith or try to get God off the hook. He just leaves it there. In fact, he tells us, despite Qohelet’s Eeyore vibe, that Qohelet is wise and a teacher of knowledge. Qohelet’s words are not brushed aside with a sigh of relief. They are worth hearing, even though they are painful to hear:

  The sayings of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings that are given by one shepherd. (12:11)

  Wise words hurt—like a shepherd’s goad, a long staff with a nail at the end used to prod the sheep. The narrator has no intention of taming the previous twelve chapters. Qohelet’s words hurt. They are supposed to.

  But the narrator continues. Even though Qohelet’s words are wise, we are not to live in that same space perpetually, brooding about life, rehashing it all over and over again:

  Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone. (12:12–13)

  The narrator isn’t telling his audience to stop reading books (as much as my college students would like to hear that). He means obsessing and trying to work it all out is spiritually and emotionally exhausting. And so, “Stop it.” No more words. Nothing more needs to be said.

  What remains is not a plunge off the cliff of despair—even though who could blame anyone at this point?—but the opposite: fear God (revere and respect God) and keep God’s commandments.

  The book of Ecclesiastes doesn’t mask the reality but neither does that reality have the final word. Keep being a faithful Israelite anyway. Continue on fearing and obeying God anyway. Reverence and obedience have always been and still are the mark of a faithful Israelite.

  Nothing changes that, even the belief that all of this God business is futile and senseless. Even when life is absurd and only death waits for us at the other end. Even then we still read, “Yes. I get it. I’ve been there. We all get there sooner or later. And when you do, keep on being an Israelite anyway. Fear God and live obediently before God anyway.”

  Anyway.

  I don’t say that lightly. It’s hard to keep trusting God when you see no reason to. Yet that is a profound paradox of faith in the book of Ecclesiastes. No matter how deep distrust and disillusionment may be, move toward God in trust anyway.

  When we reach that point where things simply make no sense, when our thinking about God and life no longer line up, when any sense of certainty is gone, and when we can find no reason to trust God but we still do, well, that is what trust looks like at its brightest—when all else is dark.

  The book of Ecclesiastes isn’t a drawn-out and sorry tale of weak faith and poor thinking that the truly faithful need to avoid. It is an honest reflection of what people of true faith experience. The author drags his readers through one discouraging scenario after another, where reasonable people might give up. But if we stay around for the end, we may discover some of the more encouraging words in the entire Bible:

  Face it all head on, with complete transparency and unflinching honesty, without making excuses for yourself or God . . . and trust God anyway.

  Ecclesiastes is one of the true gems of the Bible. It paints for us a picture of what faith looks like when all you thought you knew about God and how the world works is ripped from you, when certainty vanishes like a vapor.

  I spent my college summers using jackhammers and digging holes for a public-utilities company. Now and then, I would speak of my faith with a rather gruff foreman. At one point, he said (and I’ll leave out his more colorful “sentence enhancers,” as SpongeBob calls them), “You know, Pete, a guy who really believes all that . . . well . . . you can’t kill a guy like that.”

  So true. When we have stared into the pit of despair over God and his world, and our thoughts about God don’t line up at all, and then we trust God anyway, enough to continue living in the hope that trusting God is worth it—even just the faint hope of having hope—well, you can’t kill someone like that.

  Ecclesiastes never says “You gotta know what you believe,” but rather “Trust God even when you don’t know what you believe, even when all before you is absurd.”

  Don’t Even Try to Understand What God Is Up To

  And then there’s Job, the most miserable person in the Bible. Though it’s not his fault. Like the psalms we looked at, God doesn’t act toward Job as one might expect.

  Job’s life was flowing right along like a country stream (Job 1). He was a family man, a father of ten, and had livestock and riches like no one else, which is biblical shorthand for “blessed by God.” Job was also deeply devout. After family get-togethers, Job would offer some sacrifices to God just on the off chance his children may have sinned. If anyone was doing it right, it was Job.

  So far so good, but we are taken quickly to a heavenly scene where Israel’s God, Yahweh, is holding court while other “heavenly beings” present themselves to him. Just who these heavenly beings are isn’t clear, but elsewhere in the Bible we read of Israel’s God presiding over a council of divine beings (Psalm 82), so that’s the basic idea here, too. One of these divine beings, who presents himself to Yahweh, is called ha-satan (hah-sah-TAHN). Most Bibles give him the name Satan, which is unfortunate because it conjures up the red tights and pitchfork of God’s archenemy, a creation of medieval Christian theology. Ha-satan isn’t “Satan” but a title, “the Accuser”—like a prosecuting attorney.

  The Accuser, a divine being, had just gotten back from doing an inspection run of the earth, and God starts bragging about how no one on Earth is as blameless and upright as his “servant Job.” The Accuser isn’t impressed. He’s dead sure that the only reason Job is so devout is because Yahweh is hovering over him like a helicopter parent, blessing him with family and riches. He accuses Job of worshiping Yahweh because of what’s in it for him. So he bets Yahweh that if he were to remove his blessing from Job, Job’s devotion would fold like a cheap card table and he would be found out for the superficial God worshipper he is.

  Amazingly, Yahweh takes the bet! And with that, the rest of the book unfolds. Yahweh tells the Accuser to have at it, the only stipulation being he needs to stop short of killing Job. But everything up to that is fair game.

  The Accuser can’t wait to get started. In short order, Job’s livestock are stolen or killed along with his servants, and a wind blows a house down on top of his children, killing all ten. After a second audience with Yahweh (Job 2), the Accuser is given permission yet a second time to go back down and smite Job himself with sores from head to toe, all of which prompts Job, understandably, to curse the day his parents conceived him (Job 3). He also wonders what in the world God is doing to him.

  Job’s three friends have been watching all this—and he is such a mess they hardly recognize him. At first, they sit down by his side for seven days and nights without saying a word, tearing their robes and heaping ashes on their heads as signs of mourning. These are good friends to have. After seven days, the three friends (who are later joined by a fourth) begin to talk to Job, which leads to a very long series of speeches where they each take turns trying to get Job to see that he must have done something to deserve this.

  Whether or not Job wants to hear it, his friends—being good, honest, tough-love kinds of friends—tell Job that God must be punishing him for something he did. There can be no other explanation. God is just, after all, and does not punish on a flaky whim (like taking a bet?!). Likewise, Job’s friend, Bildad, says his children must have been killed because they sinned and deserved it (Job 8:4). To make his own suffering stop, Job simply needs to do what everyone knows you have to do in a situation like this: repent of his sin.

  But Job isn’t so s
ure about that. At times, he says, “Yeah, I get your point, but why doesn’t God tell me what I did, because I have no clue?!” But he quickly shifts over to “But I didn’t do anything wrong?!” This back and forth between Job (“I’m innocent”) and his friends (“No you’re not”) carries on for thirty-four chapters, each side of the argument getting plenty of airtime.

  Of course, readers of the book of Job know all about the bet, even though Job and his friends don’t, so we know Job really is innocent. In fact, in light of that bit of knowledge we have, Job’s friends start sounding like annoying spiritual know-it-alls who claim to have God all figured out.

  But let’s not be too hard on Job’s friends. They aren’t aware of the bet. Based on what they do know, they’ve got a good point. “You must have done something to deserve it” is a mainstream biblical idea: actions have consequences.

  In the book of Proverbs, for example, being wise and obedient leads to blessing and a life in harmony with God, but foolishness and disobedience lead to bad consequences. From beginning to end, Proverbs drives home the idea that the choices we make, whether wise or foolish, lead somewhere.

  The LORD’S curse is on the house of the wicked,

  but he blesses the abode of the righteous.

  Toward the scorners he is scornful,

  but to the humble he shows favor.

  The wise will inherit honor,

  but stubborn fools, disgrace.

  (Proverbs 3:33–35)

  Job’s friends are simply trying to get this perfectly normal, biblical idea across to him. Job is obviously cursed, scorned, and disgraced, and so “What did you do?” is a perfectly reasonable question to ask of him.