Are You Absolutely Sure?

Have you ever really thought about absolute certainty? People say the words without thinking that, in reality, nothing can be known absolutely by anyone other than God who is an Absolute Being. Check your dictionary and you will see that absolute truth, or absolute certainty is being so sure about something that there is no possibility of being wrong. One would have to be omniscient or omnipresent to know something absolutely. Perhaps in a closed system of calculation as mathematics one can say 2+2=4 because someone has created a system where right and wrong are possibilities because the conclusion to the equation can be checked against a set standard which determines the correctness of the conclusion. The equation 2+2 does equal 4 in this fixed system called addition in the discipline called mathematics.

However, in determining reality it is not possible to determine what is absolutely certain and a person is not being a relativist in a negative sense saying that nothing can be known with any certainty (I will discuss this later). Albert Einstein was a relativist in his first and second theories of relativity. Sir Isaac Newton had written a book in the 17th century, The Principia that became the final word on all matters of physics. The primary topic for which he was best known was the universality of the gravitational force, which changed man's view of the universe and was considered an absolute truth of science, and there was no possibility that he was wrong. This position held until 1915, more than two centuries later, when Albert Einstein published an article called "The General Theory of Relativity," a theory that was confirmed in observation by British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington during a solar eclipse in 1919. The universe was not a fix reality which ran as a clock, rather all things in the universe were relativity affected by other things, even light curved under certain circumstances. Newtonian physics was no longer considered "absolute truth," a theory of relativity was a complete refutation of his theory of the absolute effect of gravity on all other fixtures of the universe.

Now how does all this affect us? One does not have to be "absolutely" certain about a matter in order to have certitude of mind. If there is every good reason to believe something is true and no good reason to doubt it, then one should believe it. The problem is the attitude of absolutism. This concept has led to estrangement among philosophers, scientists, theologians, politicians, and many others. The difficulty people have is the dogmatism one assumes about his view. In science, the rule is that if something can be known as a scientific fact, it must be confirmed by observation, experimentation, and demonstration. Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity was never recognized as a scientific fact by the Nobel Committee because it could not be proven to be an absolute fact, even though it had been accepted by most of the scientific world through Einstein's lifetime. It could not be empirically demonstrated to the committee and he never received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the theory of relativity.

Absolutism is a problem in religion, especially in theology or doctrine. The Catholic Church of the 15th century declared the Earth to be flat. This was a dogma and was considered absolute truth. In 1492 Columbus sailed to South America and didn't fall off the edge of the Earth showing that the Earth must not be flat. Later ships sailed around South America and eventually to India, which was the destination of Columbus. The problem of dogmatism must be fed by something. In so many discussions I've had on interpretations of the Bible I have found the fear of being thought wishy-washy if they do not see a matter of faith as an absolute truth is usually what concerns them most. When ask how they could prove their belief, they always say, "It's there in the Bible!" Well it is his interpretation of what is in the Bible that is under consideration and even saying that what is in the Bible doesn't help him because nothing in the Bible was spoken directly to him and he must take what is there as a matter that was spoken to other people two thousand years ago. How can he say that there is a direct command addressed by God? He does it on the basis of faith, just as anyone in the world does on any matter of history or anything that was done in the past. He accepts it as testimony from a faithful person and that is a relative matter. This is a discussion that must go further. I will give it more attention in other postings.

.