The Book of Job and the Dangers of Certainty

My idea of God is a not divine idea. It has to be shattered from time to time.
– C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed.

Too often, I come across fellow Christians who exude a sort of theological swagger, a sophomoric arrogance about correct beliefs and proper doctrine. Though they might not say as much, they hold themselves up as self-proclaimed arbiters of the faith. A reasonable conviction, belief, doctrine, or theology, according to the arbiters, is one they can accept. To be right is to be compelling, and failing to convince is akin to being wrong. They boast “reason is on my side” or “the church fathers are on my side,” or (my personal favorite) “the Bible is clear.” But is it? Did not the disciples themselves struggle to understand Christ’s message (i.e. Luke 18:34, 24: 25-32)? Do the literal thousands of denominations not suggest otherwise? If the Bible is so clear, why do we need commentaries and seminaries? Why do we bemoan pastors who lack sufficient theological training? How can individuals as drastically different as Ken Hamm and Peter Enns claim to read the same book? How can an “unassailable steady fortress” manage to provide convincing arguments both for and against slavery?

Go back in history as far as you’d like and you will find two people disagreeing about the meaning of God’s Word, each party “certain” of what they know (i.e. Gen 3:1-5). This is because one never just reads God’s Word; one interprets God’s Word through the lens of his or her own experience. The obvious conclusion, it seems to me, is that the Bible is not a book of indubitables. And even if it were, it does not necessarily follow that we can know these indubitables indubitably, which brings me to the point of this article: hold your beliefs lightly, lest your capacities for love be hindered by your own unwillingness to allow the experience of others to inform your beliefs about the world and about God. This God-given lesson is on full display within the pages of Job.

The Book of Job is, among other things, a poetic call to trust in God rather than in carefully constructed theological systems. Job’s friends were “certain” of his guilt in perhaps many of the same ways you might be “certain” of the preservation of the saints or the sinfulness of homosexuality. Indeed, Job’s friends, despite what some might claim, were not haphazard in their shared conclusion of Job’s sinfulness. They reached their conclusion in much the same way you and I reach conclusions. They appealed to personal experience (Job 4:8), the wisdom of their predecessors (Job 8:8-10), and their own capacities for reason (Job 32:9-10). They even appealed to special revelation (Job 4:12-13). Yet despite all this, they were wrong: Job was not sinful (Job 1:8). How could this be? The self-proclaimed arbiters were certain; all the evidence was on their side.

The Book of Job contains many lessons, but chief among them is the Joban poet’s apparent rebuke of human certainty—or, if not certainty itself, the posture of certainty that leads one to criticize when they instead ought only listen and, perhaps, learn. It is a word of warning against those who would champion their own beliefs as unassailable. It is, as I see it, among other things, a royal decree that certainty is reserved to the divine. Consider the heavenly host who, after patrolling the earth and watching everything that was going on, was “certain” Job had been obeying God only because he believed his good would be repaid with good (Job 1: 7-11). The “certainty” of the Accuser led him to boast a type of knowledge—knowledge that as the story would soon reveal, God alone possessed (Job 42:7).

The friends of Job displayed themselves as the self-proclaimed arbiters of correct belief and the epitomes of wisdom. They appealed to tradition, yet were wrong. They appealed to their personal experience, yet were wrong. They appealed to what they believed to be special revelation, yet were wrong. They did all the “right” things, yet were wrong. They affirmed their echo chamber, and the rigidness of their worldview encouraged them to dismiss the cries and experience of a brother as not only disingenuous but also secondary to their own selfish need to be “correct.” They held to their beliefs with a clenched fist; their “certainty” was an impenetrable fortress built not by God, but by the hands of three fragile men refusing to allow the experience of a brother to penetrate their hardened hearts. They refused to open themselves up to the possibility of being wrong, and God rebuked them for it.

This issue is not unique to the Book of Job. We see echoes of the Joban narrative, for example, every time a Calvinist’s theology stops him from saying—with sincerity and free from equivocation—“God loves you.” The shadows of Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar come to life every time a man denies God’s call on a woman to vocational ministry. The Joban narrative is displayed in every pastor and chaplain who refuses to share with a grieving widow the very real possibility of posthumous opportunities for salvation. Make no mistake, when you express these sentiments, you place yourself in the company of Job’s friends and you share in their rebuke.

Why do we do these things? As I see it, humans are fragile: the possibility of being wrong scares us, and because we, at times, confuse our faith in God with our beliefs about God, we cannot allow ourselves to be anything but certain. We believe our faith depends on it. In this upside-down world, the world of the arbiter, our being wrong somehow makes God’s Word wrong. What a heavy burden that must be.

A challenge to the arbiter in us all: allow the Joban poet to free you from the burden of certainty. You might feel awkward or insecure but do not worry. Your faith has never been about your certainty; faith, rather, has been about your trust.

Trust in the LORD with all of your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.
– Proverbs 3:5

Wesley

January 12, 2017

A few follow up questions/points.

1) How can a finite being begin to understand an infinite being apart from some kind of theological system?

2) If Scripture is overall not clear, Traditions passed down from Christ to the Apostles to the Church not reliable and authoritative, how can one have any knowledge of God beyond generic arguments for his existence?

3) How can one universalize the particular in the story of Job? The logic seems to be: “Job’s friends were certain, they were wrong, therefore no one can be certain.” But the conclusion does not seem to follow from the premises.

4) If you can’t be certain, how can you chide a pastor or chaplain who would feel uncomfortable telling a grieving person about Post-Mortem Salvation? It seems like the unclarity of Scripture and Tradition as depicted in this post would warrant being more cautious than anything. This point feels like a reversal from the overall thesis of the article.

5) “hold your beliefs lightly, lest your capacities for love be hindered by your own unwillingness to allow the experience of others to inform your beliefs about the world and about God.” This leads me to a few follow up questions:
(a) Should the experience of others be subordinate to Scripture or should our reading of Scripture be subordinate to the experience of others? Very often those two things are in conflict.
(b) Are there New Testament examples of the Apostles or early Christians “holding their beliefs lightly?” What exactly does that look like?
(c) Does holding strongly to a belief automatically prevent one from loving someone who might disagree? In my experience (which must be valid, according to the overall thesis), this simply isn’t the case.

Anthony Maynard

January 16, 2017

Questions 1 & 2 confuse certainty with confidence, I think. If so, most emphatically it does not follow from my article that the Christian cannot have confidence in what he or she believes.

Question 3 attempts to place my article into deductive form, which is not how the article Is presented. And if we’re being honest, certainty does not exist outside the dictionary and, perhaps, mathematics.

The theme is merely, “Job’s friends were warranted but wrong.” Therefore, it is not only loving but also prudent for the Christian to allow the experience of others to inform, and when necessary, shape his or her beliefs about the world and about God. Indeed, even when we do all the “right” things, our best most well-intentioned beliefs can still be wrong. And a posture of certainty forces its adherents to become arrogant jerks in the face of opposition. Being “nice” yet refusing to take seriously another person’s experience is still being a jerk, btw.

Ill address the other questions later

Anthony Maynard

January 18, 2017

5a (just kinda responding to these as I think through them): I am not convinced either is an appropriate answer.

The question wrongly assumes a sort of “us” vs “them” mentality by assuming the explicit existence of two groups: those who champion Scripture at the cost of their experience (us) vs. those who champion their experience at the cost of Scripture (them; the right/correct being in the former group, of course *winky face*). First, I am not convinced the former group exists (no one just reads the Bible). Second, I am not convinced allowing the experience of others to inform our interpretations of Scripture is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, the Bible itself asks us to do as much.

Proverbs, for example, teaches its readers not to answer a fool according to his folly, lest they be just like him (26:4) but Proverbs also teaches the exact opposite (in the very next verse no less!): Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes (26:5). While one might confuse these two verses as contradictory teachings, a more robust understanding is not that one verse is true while the other is false but rather both are true within different circumstances. Indeed, some fools need to be ignored while others need to be answered. This is the paradox of wisdom, which requires more than the mere reading of a proverb; it requires the reading of an experience.

The way I see it, the Bible both informs and is informed by our experiences – like a sort of dance.

The human (experience) and the Divine come together to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the world around us and the One who made it – an incarnation, of sorts.

Charles Colton Allen

January 12, 2017

What do you mean by “certain” and “certainty?” It seems that there could be a possible confusion between “epistemic humility” and “relativism.”

Anthony Maynard

January 16, 2017

Is there no possible scenario that would warrant disbelief in X? If so, you have certainty. However, if we’re being honest, there a very few things a person can be unequivocally certain of yet many adopt a posture of certainty (i.e. Job’s friends) in the face of experiences that ought to be informing and, perhaps, shaping their “correct” beliefs (i.e. Job).

I believe many use the word certain when they really only mean confident and if they do, indeed, mean certain, a quick break down of the term will likely result in a changed tune. Adopting certainty is like wearing cement shoes, which leads us to dismiss experiences that run contrary to our own understandings of God and of the world.

Anthony Maynard

January 16, 2017

Also, abandoning certainty is not the same as embracing relativism. No modern foundationalist argues for certainty as a tenable foundation for knowledge (Craig, Plantinga, Wolterstorff, etc).

Anthony Maynard

January 16, 2017

Thank you for the kind words, Ben. Jacob’s article highlights well certainty’s affect on our willingness to be informed and shaped by another’s experience. It cements us not only theologically but socially, too. An uncomfortable concept for many. Amazing article, indeed.

Wesley

January 18, 2017

1-2) Based on your definition of certainty above, in response to Colton, what metric are we using to determine who is certain vs. who is confident? It seems very arbitrary. In fact, to treat someone as if they’re being certain while they’re just confident would just reify the problem you’re trying to solve.

But even more, by telling Christians to “hold your beliefs lightly” aren’t you confusing confidence and certainty? On an issue where there is more reason to be confident, should we still hold to it lightly? There’s a ton of evidence I’m not a brain in a vat…should I still be holding that belief lightly because of the 3% chance (I think that’s being too generous) chance that I am?

3) Your article presents an argument which contains premises and a conclusion. Sure, they’re not in a syllogistic format but you are making a case not to be certain. As such, we can apply logical fallacies to any area where the reasoning to reach the conclusion is unsound. I am still unclear how your use of Job is not a universalization of the particular, or at least a very anachronistic interpretation which foists modern epistemological debates onto a text which is not seeking to answer those questions.

How is certainty found in a dictionary? Words change meaning all the time. Language is fluid and a social construct. And certainly, there are very real constraints on our use of language and this is something postmodern hermeneutics reminds us of. It’s one of the “redeemable” aspects of that movement.

“Being ‘nice’ yet refusing to take seriously another person’s experience is still being a jerk btw.” This is an interesting assertion, though I’m not sure how it’s warranted. How do we quantify data given to us in another’s experience? That said, I’ll raise a few objections later, specifically the ones to your use of Proverbs which will blatantly contradict this point.

4) This question still remains. You’re saying we can’t be certain and that we should hold to our beliefs lightly yet chide pastors/chaplains who don’t talk about post-mortem salvation, men who oppose the ordination of women, and also mention homosexuality as an issue that we can’t be sure about. I’m still confused how this isn’t a reversal of the thesis. Instead of condemning a man who might oppose women’s ordination as automatically being a shadow of Job’s friends, perhaps it would be more consistent to say his belief isn’t certain nor is yours so you should both just listen to each other’s experience?

5)
(a) “Us” vs. “them” is not a dichotomy I created. It’s implicit in the entire article. There is the “us,” those who you encourage to take experience in a way that seriously informs (or controls) their interpretation of scripture and the “them,” those who resemble Job’s friends who don’t use experience to inform their interpretation the way you want them to.

Now on Proverbs 26:4-5, I largely agree with your interpretation. yet the final point, that we can’t have a “mere reading” of the Prover because we need to “read experience” is unclear and unwarranted. The meaning of the two verses is engrained in the author’s use of parallelism. In fact, these verses, in conjunction with Ps 14:1, seem to assume the existence of an objective reality that God is real with voracious certainty, to the point that people who don’t believe in him aren’t to be taken seriously. The “paradox” is in response to these “fools.” Wisdom dictates whether one engages with them or not.

I’m also not arguing that experience is all bad but that it’s not equipped to be a primary arbiter of understanding what a text necessarily says. The hermeneutical hierarchy which has stood the test of time is Scripture as the prime authority, Church Tradition as the clarifier of that authority, then the use of logic to determine answers to questions not explicitly addressed by the previous two, followed by the use of experience to aid logic. Experience must be subordinated to larger structures or else there is no way to differentiate between two mutually exclusive truth claims based solely on experience.

Here’s a thought experiment: say a Christian believes same-sex relationships are inherently immoral because Paul is quite clear in his condemnation of them, they acknowledge a creational pattern throughout Scripture that for a relationship to be Sacramentally valid, it must be between a man and a woman, they deduct from natural law that the end of sexual relationships is reproduction, and they see a unanimous condemnation of same-sex relationships from the Church throughout time and memorial. But say this person is attracted to members of the same-sex. Their experience is telling them that they really love a member of the same-sex. What should they do? Should their experience be a reason to discard an interpretation of Scripture one can be very confident in?

In the end, and in the absence of examples of New Testament examples of early Christians “holding their beliefs lightly,” I find Interpretive Realism to be a much more persuasive approach to the Enn’s style. Lewis said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.” Truth can be found in experience but we have to use revelation, namely Scripture and Tradition to weed it out, lest we conflate the shadow of the truth with the actual truth. Anglican EB Pusey once said, “The shadow of the truth is so attractive precisely because it is its shadow.” Our experience, if we’re not careful, can drag us towards the shadow rather than the actual thing. Ultimately, by validating experience without subordinating it to Scripture, we proliferate the number of “legitimate” (though often mutually exclusive) interpretations. At this point, who can arbitrate between a Feminist, Marxist, multicuralist, etc. “reading” of a text?

Kevin Vanhoozer, who I certainly don’t always agree with, argues, “The issue is whether there is an abiding ‘truth’ about things to which our interpretations correspond. What lends objectivity to an interpretation?” Instead of “meaning” as an accusative (i.e. “words have meaning”), perhaps it should be viewed as a verb, something people do. Instead of being a nebulous concept only given significance by the reader and their experience, perhaps it needs to become a determinate action where individual’s and their experience are held accountable to a larger interpretive community.

Anthony Maynard

January 18, 2017

I can quickly answer one question about finding certainty in the dictionary: a bachelor is an unmarried man.

We can’t imagine what what a married bachelor would look like. In these cases, one has certainty.

I am certain a bachelor is an unmarried man. I cannot doubt it.

Be back later

Wesley

January 18, 2017

But even the definition of marriage has changed in our lifetime….

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Comments

10 responses to “The Book of Job and the Dangers of Certainty”

Wesley

January 12, 2017

A few follow up questions/points.

1) How can a finite being begin to understand an infinite being apart from some kind of theological system?

2) If Scripture is overall not clear, Traditions passed down from Christ to the Apostles to the Church not reliable and authoritative, how can one have any knowledge of God beyond generic arguments for his existence?

3) How can one universalize the particular in the story of Job? The logic seems to be: “Job’s friends were certain, they were wrong, therefore no one can be certain.” But the conclusion does not seem to follow from the premises.

4) If you can’t be certain, how can you chide a pastor or chaplain who would feel uncomfortable telling a grieving person about Post-Mortem Salvation? It seems like the unclarity of Scripture and Tradition as depicted in this post would warrant being more cautious than anything. This point feels like a reversal from the overall thesis of the article.

5) “hold your beliefs lightly, lest your capacities for love be hindered by your own unwillingness to allow the experience of others to inform your beliefs about the world and about God.” This leads me to a few follow up questions:
(a) Should the experience of others be subordinate to Scripture or should our reading of Scripture be subordinate to the experience of others? Very often those two things are in conflict.
(b) Are there New Testament examples of the Apostles or early Christians “holding their beliefs lightly?” What exactly does that look like?
(c) Does holding strongly to a belief automatically prevent one from loving someone who might disagree? In my experience (which must be valid, according to the overall thesis), this simply isn’t the case.

Loading…

1. Anthony Maynard
  
  January 16, 2017
  
  Questions 1 & 2 confuse certainty with confidence, I think. If so, most emphatically it does not follow from my article that the Christian cannot have confidence in what he or she believes.
  
  Question 3 attempts to place my article into deductive form, which is not how the article Is presented. And if we’re being honest, certainty does not exist outside the dictionary and, perhaps, mathematics.
  
  The theme is merely, “Job’s friends were warranted but wrong.” Therefore, it is not only loving but also prudent for the Christian to allow the experience of others to inform, and when necessary, shape his or her beliefs about the world and about God. Indeed, even when we do all the “right” things, our best most well-intentioned beliefs can still be wrong. And a posture of certainty forces its adherents to become arrogant jerks in the face of opposition. Being “nice” yet refusing to take seriously another person’s experience is still being a jerk, btw.
  
  Ill address the other questions later
  
  Loading…
  
2. Anthony Maynard
  
  January 18, 2017
  
  5a (just kinda responding to these as I think through them): I am not convinced either is an appropriate answer.
  
  The question wrongly assumes a sort of “us” vs “them” mentality by assuming the explicit existence of two groups: those who champion Scripture at the cost of their experience (us) vs. those who champion their experience at the cost of Scripture (them; the right/correct being in the former group, of course *winky face*). First, I am not convinced the former group exists (no one just reads the Bible). Second, I am not convinced allowing the experience of others to inform our interpretations of Scripture is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, the Bible itself asks us to do as much.
  
  Proverbs, for example, teaches its readers not to answer a fool according to his folly, lest they be just like him (26:4) but Proverbs also teaches the exact opposite (in the very next verse no less!): Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes (26:5). While one might confuse these two verses as contradictory teachings, a more robust understanding is not that one verse is true while the other is false but rather both are true within different circumstances. Indeed, some fools need to be ignored while others need to be answered. This is the paradox of wisdom, which requires more than the mere reading of a proverb; it requires the reading of an experience.
  
  The way I see it, the Bible both informs and is informed by our experiences – like a sort of dance.
  
  The human (experience) and the Divine come together to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the world around us and the One who made it – an incarnation, of sorts.
  
  Loading…
  
Charles Colton Allen

January 12, 2017

What do you mean by “certain” and “certainty?” It seems that there could be a possible confusion between “epistemic humility” and “relativism.”

Loading…

1. Anthony Maynard
  
  January 16, 2017
  
  Is there no possible scenario that would warrant disbelief in X? If so, you have certainty. However, if we’re being honest, there a very few things a person can be unequivocally certain of yet many adopt a posture of certainty (i.e. Job’s friends) in the face of experiences that ought to be informing and, perhaps, shaping their “correct” beliefs (i.e. Job).
  
  I believe many use the word certain when they really only mean confident and if they do, indeed, mean certain, a quick break down of the term will likely result in a changed tune. Adopting certainty is like wearing cement shoes, which leads us to dismiss experiences that run contrary to our own understandings of God and of the world.
  
  Loading…
  
2. Anthony Maynard
  
  January 16, 2017
  
  Also, abandoning certainty is not the same as embracing relativism. No modern foundationalist argues for certainty as a tenable foundation for knowledge (Craig, Plantinga, Wolterstorff, etc).
  
  Loading…
  
Anthony Maynard

January 16, 2017

Thank you for the kind words, Ben. Jacob’s article highlights well certainty’s affect on our willingness to be informed and shaped by another’s experience. It cements us not only theologically but socially, too. An uncomfortable concept for many. Amazing article, indeed.

Loading…

Wesley

January 18, 2017

1-2) Based on your definition of certainty above, in response to Colton, what metric are we using to determine who is certain vs. who is confident? It seems very arbitrary. In fact, to treat someone as if they’re being certain while they’re just confident would just reify the problem you’re trying to solve.

But even more, by telling Christians to “hold your beliefs lightly” aren’t you confusing confidence and certainty? On an issue where there is more reason to be confident, should we still hold to it lightly? There’s a ton of evidence I’m not a brain in a vat…should I still be holding that belief lightly because of the 3% chance (I think that’s being too generous) chance that I am?

3) Your article presents an argument which contains premises and a conclusion. Sure, they’re not in a syllogistic format but you are making a case not to be certain. As such, we can apply logical fallacies to any area where the reasoning to reach the conclusion is unsound. I am still unclear how your use of Job is not a universalization of the particular, or at least a very anachronistic interpretation which foists modern epistemological debates onto a text which is not seeking to answer those questions.

How is certainty found in a dictionary? Words change meaning all the time. Language is fluid and a social construct. And certainly, there are very real constraints on our use of language and this is something postmodern hermeneutics reminds us of. It’s one of the “redeemable” aspects of that movement.

“Being ‘nice’ yet refusing to take seriously another person’s experience is still being a jerk btw.” This is an interesting assertion, though I’m not sure how it’s warranted. How do we quantify data given to us in another’s experience? That said, I’ll raise a few objections later, specifically the ones to your use of Proverbs which will blatantly contradict this point.

4) This question still remains. You’re saying we can’t be certain and that we should hold to our beliefs lightly yet chide pastors/chaplains who don’t talk about post-mortem salvation, men who oppose the ordination of women, and also mention homosexuality as an issue that we can’t be sure about. I’m still confused how this isn’t a reversal of the thesis. Instead of condemning a man who might oppose women’s ordination as automatically being a shadow of Job’s friends, perhaps it would be more consistent to say his belief isn’t certain nor is yours so you should both just listen to each other’s experience?

5)
(a) “Us” vs. “them” is not a dichotomy I created. It’s implicit in the entire article. There is the “us,” those who you encourage to take experience in a way that seriously informs (or controls) their interpretation of scripture and the “them,” those who resemble Job’s friends who don’t use experience to inform their interpretation the way you want them to.

Now on Proverbs 26:4-5, I largely agree with your interpretation. yet the final point, that we can’t have a “mere reading” of the Prover because we need to “read experience” is unclear and unwarranted. The meaning of the two verses is engrained in the author’s use of parallelism. In fact, these verses, in conjunction with Ps 14:1, seem to assume the existence of an objective reality that God is real with voracious certainty, to the point that people who don’t believe in him aren’t to be taken seriously. The “paradox” is in response to these “fools.” Wisdom dictates whether one engages with them or not.

I’m also not arguing that experience is all bad but that it’s not equipped to be a primary arbiter of understanding what a text necessarily says. The hermeneutical hierarchy which has stood the test of time is Scripture as the prime authority, Church Tradition as the clarifier of that authority, then the use of logic to determine answers to questions not explicitly addressed by the previous two, followed by the use of experience to aid logic. Experience must be subordinated to larger structures or else there is no way to differentiate between two mutually exclusive truth claims based solely on experience.

Here’s a thought experiment: say a Christian believes same-sex relationships are inherently immoral because Paul is quite clear in his condemnation of them, they acknowledge a creational pattern throughout Scripture that for a relationship to be Sacramentally valid, it must be between a man and a woman, they deduct from natural law that the end of sexual relationships is reproduction, and they see a unanimous condemnation of same-sex relationships from the Church throughout time and memorial. But say this person is attracted to members of the same-sex. Their experience is telling them that they really love a member of the same-sex. What should they do? Should their experience be a reason to discard an interpretation of Scripture one can be very confident in?

In the end, and in the absence of examples of New Testament examples of early Christians “holding their beliefs lightly,” I find Interpretive Realism to be a much more persuasive approach to the Enn’s style. Lewis said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.” Truth can be found in experience but we have to use revelation, namely Scripture and Tradition to weed it out, lest we conflate the shadow of the truth with the actual truth. Anglican EB Pusey once said, “The shadow of the truth is so attractive precisely because it is its shadow.” Our experience, if we’re not careful, can drag us towards the shadow rather than the actual thing. Ultimately, by validating experience without subordinating it to Scripture, we proliferate the number of “legitimate” (though often mutually exclusive) interpretations. At this point, who can arbitrate between a Feminist, Marxist, multicuralist, etc. “reading” of a text?

Kevin Vanhoozer, who I certainly don’t always agree with, argues, “The issue is whether there is an abiding ‘truth’ about things to which our interpretations correspond. What lends objectivity to an interpretation?” Instead of “meaning” as an accusative (i.e. “words have meaning”), perhaps it should be viewed as a verb, something people do. Instead of being a nebulous concept only given significance by the reader and their experience, perhaps it needs to become a determinate action where individual’s and their experience are held accountable to a larger interpretive community.

Loading…

1. Anthony Maynard
  
  January 18, 2017
  
  I can quickly answer one question about finding certainty in the dictionary: a bachelor is an unmarried man.
  
  We can’t imagine what what a married bachelor would look like. In these cases, one has certainty.
  
  I am certain a bachelor is an unmarried man. I cannot doubt it.
  
  Be back later
  
  Loading…
  
  1. Wesley
    
    January 18, 2017
    
    But even the definition of marriage has changed in our lifetime….
    
    Loading…

The Book of Job and the Dangers of Certainty

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