{"id":19249,"date":"2013-11-19T07:34:55","date_gmt":"2013-11-19T12:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=19249"},"modified":"2013-11-19T07:34:55","modified_gmt":"2013-11-19T12:34:55","slug":"certainty-seeking-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/11\/certainty-seeking-faith.html","title":{"rendered":"Certainty-Seeking Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thepangeablog\/2013\/11\/18\/confident-enough\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Kurt Willems shared<\/a> the quote below from Greg Boyd\u2019s book <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0801014921\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0801014921&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty<\/a>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" src=\"https:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0801014921\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\"><\/em>(p.149):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One of the most unfortunate consequences of certainty-seeking faith is that, because it rewards people for feeling certain they\u2019re right and discourages people from questioning their perspectives, it conditions people to insist that their maps\u00a0<em>are<\/em>\u00a0the territory. People who embrace this kind of faith will be more inclined to assume that their\u00a0<em>interpretation<\/em>\u00a0of a biblical verse is the\u00a0<em>meaning<\/em>\u00a0of the verse itself. So to disagree with their interpretation is to disagree with\u00a0<em>the verse itself<\/em>. In fact, the mind-set that this model of faith produces inclines people to forget they\u2019re interpreting at all. As an angry man told me in a theological dispute some years ago, \u201cI don\u2019t\u00a0<em>interpret<\/em>\u00a0the Bible. I just\u00a0<em>read<\/em>\u00a0it!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thepangeablog\/2013\/11\/18\/confident-enough\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Click through<\/a> to read the rest of Kurt\u2019s post. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0801014921\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0801014921&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Click here to see Greg\u2019s book on Amazon.com<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" src=\"https:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0801014921\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\">. And see too <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.sciencemusings.com\/2013\/11\/finders-and-seekers.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Chet Raymo\u2019s post contrasting two types of religious people which he labels as \u201cfinders and seekers.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0801014921\/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0801014921&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?_encoding=UTF8&amp;ASIN=0801014921&amp;Format=_SL160_&amp;ID=AsinImage&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;WS=1&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\"><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" src=\"https:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0801014921\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\"><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kurt Willems shared the quote below from Greg Boyd\u2019s book Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty\u00a0(p.149): One of the most unfortunate consequences of certainty-seeking faith is that, because it rewards people for feeling certain they\u2019re right and discourages people from questioning their perspectives, it conditions people to insist that their maps\u00a0are\u00a0the territory. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[1140,1697,2819,3329,5309],"class_list":["post-19249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fundamentalism-religion","tag-bible","tag-certainty","tag-doubt","tag-faith","tag-interpretation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Certainty-Seeking Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kurt Willems shared the quote below from Greg Boyd&#039;s book Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty\u00a0(p.149): One of the most unfortunate\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/11\/certainty-seeking-faith.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Certainty-Seeking Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kurt Willems shared the quote below from Greg Boyd&#039;s book Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty\u00a0(p.149): One of the most unfortunate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/11\/certainty-seeking-faith.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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