Meg Giordano

It seems to me that most of us aim to have a relatively good grasp on truth, and to carry that truth with us into our daily lives. It also seems to me that there are two different ways of doing that, two different kinds of “grasp” we can have on truth: confidence and certainty. While the words themselves are basically just synonyms of each other, what is of interest to me is how they can signal for us two very different stances toward truth, particularly in terms of a life of faith.

Confidence, the first of our two stances under consideration, seems to indicate strength—the strength with which we have hold of something we understand to be true. The word describes strength that is personal, that is felt—a security that arises from our own experience with the truth of the matter. We might say “I have confidence that I can do a good job with X.” The confident person can be thought of as someone who knows what’s important, what’s true, and has the resources they need to act accordingly.

By contrast, certainty indicates precision. It doesn’t really have much to do with us and our experiences with truth. Rather, certainty is the attitude at play when we communicate whether something is or is not the case. We might say: “You have the tickets, right?” “Yes.” “Are you sure?” “Yes, I’m certain.”

In terms of faith, confidence can indicate a strong sense of what can’t be taken from you: God’s love for you, your love for God, a sense of the Holy Spirit with you, giving you courage, etc. Confidence seems to arise from an awareness of what knowing and loving God has to do with your own flourishing as a person, and a belief that you have that.

Examples from scripture (somewhat informally gathered, though I have made effort to read and compare responsibly—and I’ve used just one translation, the 2011 NIV, to avoid the temptation of picking and choosing the wording that fits my claim best) where we see the English word “confidence” as the preferred translation of the author’s thought seem readily to show personal connection to a life of faith:

Phil 1:6 “… being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (NIV)

Romans 8:38 “I am convinced [same word] that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creations, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (NIV)

Psalm 27:3 “Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.” (NIV)

Note: there are many, many cases where the same word is translated “trust”: Psalm 91:2 “I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’” (NIV)

Certainty, in terms of faith, may be a bit trickier. At first glance it seems to indicate unshakeable belief that something said about God is indeed so—and we do see the opening of the gospel of Luke communicating that very idea:

Luke 1:4 “… so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” (NIV)

Is the precision of certainty, however, the best way to understand what scripture is saying about a life of faith? The author’s word translated there as “certainty” is used only twice more in the New Testament, mainly in the sense of security—and one of those two is simply a confirmation that a prison door is indeed firmly fastened (Acts 5:23). In the Old Testament, one of the words translated as “certain” tends to be used for affirming that what has been said is true. The term only appears in Daniel, actually, and is mostly used in this way:

Daniel 2:45: “The dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.” (NIV)

Daniel 3:24: “They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.” (NIV)

Daniel 6:12: “So they went to the king and spoke to him about his royal decree: ‘Did you not publish a decree … ?’ The king answered, ‘The decree stands [i.e., ‘Yes, I did’].” (NIV)

Another Hebrew word that we might see translated as “certain” is the very frequently used word for “know” (yada), but translated every now and then with added emphasis along the lines of “make sure you understand”:

Genesis 15:13: “Then the Lord said to him, ‘Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own …” (NIV)

Jeremiah 42:19: “The Lord has told you, ‘Do not go to Egypt.’ Be sure of this: I warn you today.” (NIV)

We can notice that in these scriptural examples, the point of certainty is rather pragmatic—i.e., whether or not something is so, and clarifying whether or not a speaker’s audience has understood something clearly. More to the point, the thing being clarified with certainty tends to be not something we might think of as an article of faith, but rather a message to a specific person.

So, what can we make of this notion of certainty in the life of faith? Even though in a general sense it can indicate a strong stance we might have toward things that are true, it might not be the best way to envision our relationship to the truths we ground our lives on. Certainty seems to have a vulnerability toward viewing human knowledge as if it were divine. We might describe certainty as the infelicitous attitude that a person can explain everything. It can be the mark of the know it all. Certainty seems to be at work when a person claims that “this” is right and everyone else is wrong. Of course, there are important differences between varying claims of truth, and on some level we want to be able to understand, and talk about, those differences, but an air of certainty tends to be unwinsome, and make other people want to leave rather than join the conversation.

Even beyond the unfortunate tendency to be annoying, the problem with certainty is that it has a tendency to be reductive. In order to speak in that “This is what’s right and I can explain it to you” way, certainty tends to leave out the messy parts—the parts of a life of faith, including understanding scripture, that might be confusing, or painful, or that you’re not quite sure what you think about yet. The allure of certainty might press a person to reframe those difficult things, to clean them up, to reduce them so that they can be explained—to another person, or even to oneself.

Most of us know how deeply unsatisfying, and ultimately unhelpful, such reductiveness can be. If you’ve ever tried to tell someone a story about something you’re upset about, or struggling with, and they rush to say “I can explain that,” or “You’re just overthinking it”—i.e., they reduce what you’re trying to say—well, that doesn’t feel good. It can feel like the most important parts of the story, the parts that make it your story, have been left out. Being reductive won’t help you hold on to what is important in your life, including faith, because life is messy.

By contrast, confidence embraces the messy, without losing any of the strength.

Think about the scriptures we looked at for examples of confidence—it sure seems like there’s quite a bit of messy backstory there. Regarding Philippians 1:16, if a person feels the need to clarify that some good thing that was started will indeed end well, that sure sounds like there’s a lot of messy “not going very well” moments in the middle. And Romans 8:38 sure seems to know a lot about things that make you feel very much that you are separated from the love of God. And the psalmists fully embrace that to know the love of God at all seems to entail at certain times knowing it in the midst of fear and failure.

It very much seems to me that scriptural witness encourages confidence, rather than certainty, as the grasp with which we hold onto the truths of faith, and as the better manner in which to carry those truths with us into our daily worlds. The very opposite of reductive, confidence is expansive—ever desiring to make room for more faith, more hope, more love.