Belief and certainty

Belief can be shared, but certainty is private.

What do I mean by that? And why do I think it’s worth saying?

There are two separate points to be made. 1. Language–or for that matter, any form of communication–does not carry conviction, it only carries communication of content (which may be information, feelings, opinions, facts, stories, etc.). Hence belief–our ideas, opinions, the content of our convictions–can be shared, but certainty develops in each of us internally, based on one’s own experience and one’s own thought processes. My certainty cannot simply become your certainty.

2. Under some circumstances, certain kinds of language is intended to result in conviction on the part of the listener/reader. When basic assumptions and definitions are clear and shared, then logically valid arguments founded on those assumptions and definitions will be persuasive in that way. The paradigm case is a mathematical proof. Science is also full of such cases, to a lesser degree. However, the qualifier–“When basic assumptions and definitions are clear and shared”–is critical. If one or more of these is not shared, all bets are off. Often we have no such common basis for our arguments. Our assumptions may differ, or our understanding of basic words are not the same. Or the argument we are able to mount is not conclusive.

We may nonetheless be very sure of our own conclusions, and this is not necessarily unreasonable–if we had to be logically sure of all matters, based on good evidence and good argumentation, before proceeding, we’d hardly be able to get out the door in the morning.

I’m talking of all those cases which are simply not susceptible to mathematical or scientific proof. Just because we can’t conclusively prove something, doesn’t mean we have no basis or reason behind our beliefs. But what we find sufficiently convincing, may or may not be so for someone else. The important point is understanding that just because something convinces you, is conclusive for you, doesn’t mean it will be, or even should be, for everyone. Go ahead and share your reasons–just don’t expect them to necessarily work as someone else’s reasons.

For example: Suppose a person believes in Heaven and God because of a near-death experience. This person is fully convinced, is certain, of the extistence, and perhaps even the nature, of Heaven and God. S/he shares this belief with others; let’s say s/he shares it directly with me, including describing the experience that resulted in her/his conviction. I would respect that person’s belief. Furthermore, if I had a similar experience myself, I would probably also believe in God and Heaven. But the fact remains that I have not had such an experience, and this other person’s experience is not sufficient for me to be convinced. Neither of us is being unreasonable or irrational. Belief can be shared; certainty is private.

There’s a bumper sticker out there that illustrates this perfectly. It goes something like “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” Except of course it doesn’t settle anything at all, except for the person sporting the bumper sticker. It expresses that person’s belief–shares that belief with the rest of us–but pretty much does not communicate the person’s certainty to anyone else (in the sense of transfering that certainty to another person.) In fact, I would be truly astonished to learn that even one person on the face of the planet had become a Christian simply because of having seen this bumper sticker. (Even though the “it” isn’t specified, we know the bumper sticker is sported by Christians, usually fundamentalist Christians.)

This distinction is important to keep in mind when engaging in discourse about the fundamental questions of life, death, and meaning. The sharing of both what we believe, and our reasons for believing it, is very valuable. It’s how we learn, how we progress in our thinking, one way anyway. But we shouldn’t expect our reasons for any given belief to be fully convincing to others, or to change others’ thinking with our sharing, discussions, or even argumentation. At least not often. And we should remember this doesn’t necessarily imply that those others are stupid, wrongheaded, evil, or irrational. It may just they are different from ourselves–have a different worldview, have had different life experiences, have different values or priorities, etc.

Some people seem to have a hard time dealing with the fact that other people may be quite different from themselves. They seem to think that if someone else doesn’t agree with them–doesn’t see the world as they see it– that other person must be either lying about what they think, or evil, stupid (“they just aren’t seeing the crystal-clear logic of my argument”), crazy–or at best, misinformed (“deceived”). For such a person, the distinction between sharing belief and sharing conviction isn’t there. The logic is that since other people–real people– are just like them, the line of reasoning that convinces them, will necessarily convince other people as well, unless there is something wrong with the other person. Such people often have a hard time seeing things from another person’s point of view, or imagining how the world might seem for persons with radically different backgrounds from themselves. I see this as a limitation of thinking, a failure of imagination. It’s a phenomenon that puzzles me, intrigues me, and sometimes (in extreme cases, especially if I am the “other person” in that persons’ sights) scares me.