Journey Thinking - No. 53
Perhaps the one greatest barrier to faith is not the things we don’t know but the things we think we know yet we are wrong about. - Rankin Wilbourne
Culturally, we are obsessed with the idea of being right. We want to know that what we believe to be true is actually true. We want the decisions we make to be the right ones. Theology and religion in general seem to be based on one group of people trying to assert their rightness over another. So much of our cultural mental energy is spent trying to discern what is right and what is true.
Some people go all the way to the other end of the spectrum and are convinced that there is no such thing as right. Some parts of modern culture have adopted a view of rightness that is based on people’s individual right to their own truth. Usually, however, most people think that, in order for us to be right, someone else, or maybe almost everyone else, must be wrong. We create an us-versus-them world where only one party can be right, and of course we are convinced it is us.
This kind of thinking severely limits us spiritually and in every part of life. What makes us need to be right? It is our ego. What makes us care to show that others are wrong? Again, it’s Ego. So our broken and limited egos drive groups of people together to assure each other of their collective rightness. This should be laughable, but it’s the reality of every part of our world.
There is an alternative, though, that deserves each of our serious consideration. What if we are all wrong?
I am not here promoting the idea that there is no such thing as truth or right; I am challenging our need to sure that we are right. Do we really love truth or do we love being right? If we really love truth, then we will be ok being wrong. The pursuit of truth, after all, is simply a continuous journey of realizing how wrong we have been. No one masters truth; we are simply transformed by it.
When we think in terms of right and wrong, we are stuck on the level of our logic and understanding. We are playing the judge, and our concern is whether or not we are the ones who are right. That does not serve us well on our journey of transformation. No one is trying to be wrong, but needing to be right keeps us locked in stagnation. After all, transformation is moving from the false self to the true self. Every layer of the journey, we are letting go of some part of us that we at one time thought was right. Each time that happens, it can be jarring; we can once again feel the failure, insecurity, and confusion of realizing we were at least in part wrong. That is why I believe that thinking about life as a journey of transformation invites us to live with the assumption we are in all things at least partially wrong. It is realizing that our understanding will always be incomplete and that our relationship with truth is not to fully comprehend it but to be transformed by it.
When we truly begin to embrace journey thinking, then the purpose of theology is just to help my mind in some small way grasp the infinitude of God. Instead of a container, it becomes a sign pointing the way. Here lies another great mystery: what if all theologies are equally incomplete? Furthermore, what if they are equally pointing us towards God? Then the only way that theology would be “wrong” is if it does not point us toward God. Ultimately, it is not so much about whether the theology is right or wrong but whether I use that theology as a stepping stone deeper into God. The more we know God, the less we need theology.
GK Chesterton said that before Thomas Aquinas could finish his Summa Theologica, he called it all straw. Then Chesterton went on to say that no man can just declare all theology straw until he has actually read it. The point I am trying to make is that even though all our understanding of God is likely a heap of straw, it is not without value. We need something to latch our minds to that can point us deeper into God. Along that journey, the more we know, the more we realize how little we actually know. Eventually, if we are truly blessed, we may hope to become people who can simply live life in relationship with their creator. Instead of looking for defensible ideas about God, we simply look to become more like his Son. Instead of clinging to theology, we cling to the one who can show us the way.
When we embark on a transformation journey, we would do well to let go of our need to be right and embrace the process of discovering how little we have known.
I hope in this note that I have clearly communicated that there is immense value in theology, but its value is not that it is the right theology while all others are wrong. Its value is in its ability to guide us to God. After all, Jesus didn’t come teaching a religion or a theology; he came showing us the way. All our thinking, speaking and writing about God since then should simply be attempts to help each other find that way again.
I also want to make it clear that I do believe there is absolute truth, but that truth is always so much more than an idea or information. Truth is living, so to really understand it we must become the soil and that truth is the seed that grows over time. If we can view Jesus’ teachings as seeds instead of simply facts, then we allow them to move beyond head knowledge and into our hearts, where they grow, and we actually begin to realize what that truth really means.
The last thought that I want to leave you with is that the purpose of all Jesus’ teachings was not to help us change someone else; it was so that we could be changed. Then eventually the transformation in us becomes so magnetic and bright that it starts to point others towards the same path. Whenever we make the teaching of Jesus a message for someone else, then we are just trying once again to be right by showing that others are wrong. I, for one, cannot read the teachings of Jesus without feeling compelled to follow him.
Here is a question to consider: How would it change your relationship with yourself, God, and others if you let go of the need to be right?
- John Walt
