HOW DO YOU KNOW?

I feel both honored and flattered to be selected as the opening speaker for the year, not to mention pressured.   Of course we have a larger crowd than usual because it is opening day.  Then we have a large number of visitors.  I’d better not mess up, eh?.   (looking up) You’re going to help me, aren’t you?  (Nod head)  All right.  Good.

 Last winter when I gave a presentation on excitement there was very little dissent to my opinions and no real questions.  Everyone just wanted to share their own experiences of different kinds of excitement.  I stood up here just smiling and nodding through the talk back.  This presentation should get a somewhat different reaction, unless I have you so confused by the end that no longer care what the truth is.  If I don’t step on your toes today, its probably because you don’t have any.

 Each week when we attend our UU services, we recite our Spoken Affirmation.  It starts with the words, “Love is the doctrine of this congregation and the quest for truth its sacrament.”  Judging by the presentations and discussions I hear here, I think that is a very true statement.  We come here for a variety of reasons, for fellowship and inspiration among others.  But you can get those things elsewhere.  Something that sets Unitarian-Universalist congregations apart from others is that we do not assume any particular creed or dogma is totally correct and without question.  Our dogma is that we don’t have one.  Therefore, the search for truth becomes quite important to us.

 As seekers of the truth, we must have some means to know the truth when we find it, or our search becomes meaningless.  As we begin another year of searching, it is appropriate to ask ourselves how we decide what is true and real.

 Have you ever asked yourself about how you will know the truth when you find it?  Are you just going to “know?”  Will it be so obvious that you blurt out, “Oh, Yeah.  that’s it.  I should have known that all along.”

 Well, you might do that but then you find 50 other people in the room looking at you and wondering how you can possibly believe anything so ridiculous.  Being a room full of Unitarian-Universalists, of course, they find all sorts of points to dispute with you.

 So how do we know what to believe?  We actually have quite a few ways in which we decide what to believe but they all are open to scrutiny of their own validity.  And, if you use invalid or ineffective criteria to decide what is true, you cannot depend on your conclusions being correct.  Let’s look at the means we use for deciding what is true and then make some comparisons and see how they relate to each other.

Please bear in mind as we do this that I bring you questions rather than answers.  Typical Unitarian, huh? The purpose of this presentation is to encourage you to take a critical look at how you determine what is true.  It is not to tell you how to do it.  I am not that foolish.

So let’s start by looking at a variety of ways in which we determine what is true or correct and then relate them to theological questions, such as:

·        How do we reconcile contradictory beliefs?

·        How do we deal with conflicting validity assessments from different knowledge systems or criteria?

 ·        How do we assess the validity of the criteria we use for determining truth?

 ·        Should we use different standards for different types of questions? OR
Is there an ultimate standard for determining all truth?

 I am going to start with something you may not have expected to have included in this talk, but I am doing so because it is far more pervasive that most of us want to believe, wishful thinking.  Wishful thinking is a very popular way of determining what we believe.  Often, we simply believe what we want to believe.  The human mind has an uncanny ability to shut out all sorts of evidence to the contrary so we can ignore it and believe whatever we darn well feel like believing.

 Along with wishful thinking goes rationalization.  Rationalization gives us excuses to believe the things we wanted to believe anyway.  We may think we are using logic or empirical evidence but we also may be very selective about the “facts” we invoke to prove our point.  Given exactly the same input information, other people may arrive at totally different conclusions.

 Intuition often gets the call at times like that.  Intuition can fill in where rationalization fails.  If you can’t come up with a reason to believe something, you can just go with your gut feeling and believe it anyway.  Many people believe that true intuition is like a sixth sense that can tell you things that the other five senses can’t.  I think there is also another side to intuition that frequently is not recognized.  Intuition also may be based on subliminal observation and subconscious evaluation of information.  This may happen when dealing with people in particular.  You may find yourself thinking, “There is something shifty about this guy but I just can’t put my finger on it.” (Point to John R.)  Maybe you don’t notice it but he may really be sending you signals that give him away.  He may be giving you subtle clues with his tone of voice, body language, attitude, or even questionable statements. You may have that feeling in your gut because of things that you are seeing or hearing and don’t realize it.   Intuition has a major pitfall though. 

On the other hand, what you perceive as intuition may be neither from a sixth sense or from obeservation but rather wishful thinking or rationalization.  You have to be careful about that.  It may be difficult at times to discern what causes your intuitive judgments.  You have to ask yourself if there is some good reason for that gut feeling or are just going with what you want to believe.

Then there is superstition.  Superstition has many facets and degrees.  These range from wearing your lucky hat when you go fishing to revered traditions that have been passed down for generations.  I think the luck superstitions are kind of like agnosticism.  You don’t really know if it matters but you are going to do it just in case, like the St. Christopher medal I carry.  St. Christopher is the patron saint of travelers.  My mother gave me this medal 30 years ago and it has been on my key rings ever since.  I don’t really believe in it, of course, but you won’t catch me traveling without it.

Sometimes our  beliefs come to us through revelation, a sudden new understanding or awareness or message from a deity.  We may have been meditating, sleeping or facing death when this happens.  Perhaps it is divine intervention.  Maybe it comes from within us.  Whatever it is, it changes our lives and affects our perception and interpretation of both past and future events.

Some revered traditions that have been passed along for generations and even some brand new ideas may become doctrine, dogma, or ideology which you are taught by an authority figure to believe is absolute truth.  At times, this “truth” not appear to may agree with what you observe around you but you know it is unquestionable and you believe it anyway because you have faith.  Faith is very powerful.  If you have enough faith, you will use the doctrine you have learned as a criterion for determining the truth of other ideas.  If the other ideas do not agree with the doctrine, they cannot be true, regardless of what apparent evidence may appear to suggest otherwise.  We are familiar with this type of circumstance in the creationism versus evolution debate.

That brings us to the Scientific method and its components.  In recent centuries logic and empiricism have gained many followers and have become part of a larger system called the scientific method which has produced impressive research and technological achievements.

Logic provides standards by which valid reasoning can be tested.  It clarifies the reasoning process and provides a means for analyzing the consistency of basic concepts.  Logic can give absolute answers insofar as its processes are concerned.  A statement either meets a logical test or it does not.  However, although logic tests the validity of its own processes and the consistency of externally derived information.  It does not necessarily test the truth of the input information.  The results of valid logical reasoning still depend on the validity of the basic premises.

Having realized both the power and the shortcomings of logic, one can then contend that the results of logical processes can be made more dependably accurate by improving the input information.  That sounds logical! This leads us to a partnership between empiricism and logic. 

Empiricism tests the validity of statements about reality through observation and experimentation.  Empiricism is different from logic in that it does not yield absolute answers.  Empiricism by itself cannot guaranty that an experiment that has yielded the same result on a thousand consecutive occasions will do the same on the thousand and first.  It can be part of a greater system, i.e. the scientific method, that can come close to that but still cannot make guaranties.

The combination of logic and empiricism along with the incorporation of theory and natural laws make up the scientific method.   The scientific method can give us functional truths, if not true absolutes.  It is rather ironic that an approach that does not avow to produce absolute truths has been so effective at producing useful information.  We have built great technologies on the functional truths which come from the scientific method with full knowledge that they are suseptable to being disproven by the same method.

Before we go on to other criteria for determining the truth, I would like to be sure that everyone understands what the scientific method is.   Many people equate the scientific method simply with empiricism but it really is much more than that.  I have already said that logic is included in the process but even the combination of logic and empiricism still produces only disconnected bits of information.  Theories and laws are what pull all the information together and make the scientific method useful.  The word “theory” often is confused with hypothesis but it really represents much, much more.  A hypothesis is a simple statement that can be tested for being right or wrong.  A theory is a statement that explains how myriad pieces of information relate to each other.  A theory is developed as the result of many experiments, observations, and logical conclusions.  A well substantiated theory is a very strong statement and may be the basis for understanding how natural laws relate to each other.

But neither theory nor natural law is inviolate.  As our body of empirical and logical knowledge grows we may learn new things which cause us to modify or abandon old theories and laws in favor of new ones.  We have gone through a number of theories of how the earth formed into what it is today, including "Neptunist," "Vulcanist," “catastrophism,” and "uniformitarianism."  We now look to “plate tectonics” to explain how their surface of the earth became as it is today.  We also have gone from the geocentric universe of Ptolemy, to the heliocentric universe of Copernicus, to the modern view that the center of the universe is nowhere near either the earth or the sun.  Regardless of how thoroughly a theory is demonstrated to be correct, the possibility of new information relegating the theory to obsolescence always remains. 

The uncertainties of science are clearly recognized by its trained practitioners.  In many branches of science we now depend on statistics to give us probabilities for things being true instead of knowing whether something is indeed definitely true or not.

Quantum physics provides a great example of the uncertainty of experimental science.  Inexactness is a basic feature of quantum physics because the very act of observing a sub-molecular particle alters its behavior.  Also, attempts to achieve greater accuracy in determining the location of a particle results in decreasing accuracy in measuring its velocity and vice versa.  You can get a precise measurement of where it is or how fast it is moving but not both.

Numerical approaches for determining what to believe are not the exclusive province of experimental science.  Many of you will remember Ron Mazur telling us about the Jesus Seminar which decides what is probably true about the historical Jesus by voting.  So now we can add the democratic process to our list of ways to know the truth.

Regardless of which criteria we use to determine what is true, from wishful thinking to the scientific method, we must be careful of mind set.  Mind set is the tendency to see, hear, or otherwise experience what we expect to happen rather than what really happens.  In reacting to mind set we may eliminate all or part of what our senses otherwise would have perceived to only notice what we expected to notice.  Mind set decides what is true regardless of the available information. 

That gets us through my catalog of ways to determine what is true.  Now, let’s look at some of the implications of using those different criteria.  In order to simplify this discussion and fit it into the available time, I think we can group the different criteria or systems of knowledge that I have just talked about into three broad categories. 

First, we have truth that is revealed from within.  This group includes wishful thinking, rationalization, intuition, certain types of superstitions, and could include revelation, depending on one’s perspective of what revelation is and how it is generated.

Next comes truth given to us by authority, including doctrine, dogma, ideology, and again certain types of superstitions, and revelation, depending on one’s perspective.  Faith often is associated with these but is not in itself a criterion for truth. Faith is a commitment to a particular version of the truth. 

The last group contains those criteria which determine truth by external means.  These are logic, empiricism,  the scientific method, statistics, and voting.

Given these alternatives to work with, how can a Unitarian-Universalist determine what is true?  Can a Unitarian-Universalist determine what is true?  ;-) Or do we become something else once we figure that out?  ;-)

We have a doctrine that we don’t go by doctrine or authority.  The anti-doctrine position of this church is quite strong.  So, as UUs, we can’t use doctrines, dogmas, or the like with a clear conscience.  But suppose you were not committed to this Unitarian-Universalist position?  To many other people, it makes good sense to take what their church leaders tell them is the word of God.  Since we claim to be open to all possibilities, maybe we could consider that, even though we supposedly have written it off.  Let’s keep that in the back of our minds for a while and we will see how authority and doctrine show up for us as UUs in another context later.

Some people here are disposed to Eastern religious practice, wherein truth that is revealed from within.  The ultimate problem I see with this approach is determining which criterion you are really using.  The mind can play tricks on us.  What seems like revelation may be wishful thinking or rationalization, or even hallucination.  You have to face the question of how you really came to the conclusion to believe something and realize that it might not be how you thought it was.

For most us who have who are steeped in the scientific method, wishful thinking and rationalization have bad connotations.  Intuition fares better but is still not really acceptable.  Does that mean these that are necessarily poor choices for guiding you to the truth?  If you apply the standards of the logician or empiricist, it does mean that.  But is it fair to do that?  Wouldn’t you be prejudicing the outcome of the test if you judge the validity of one system of knowledge by the standards of another?

So, how can we assess the validity of the criteria we use for determining truth.  

I don’t know that there is a way and will be grateful for input from the audience later on this question.  If we test a particular criterion by its own standards, it will appear to be valid.  If we test it by the standards of a competitor, it will appear to be invalid. When we choose one knowledge system over another, we may be justifying our choice in this way.  Although I have been doing that most of my life, using the scientific method to pass judgment on its competitors, I now question the legitimacy of that approach.

I personally tend to focus on logic and empiricism to answer all types of questions, including theological ones.  But I know people right here in this congregation who will use those criteria for most types of questions but not for theological ones.  One has to wonder which approach is better.  Is there an ultimate single standard for determining the truth or should we use different standards for spiritual type questions  And what do we do when we get conflicting validity assessments of the same quaestion from different knowledge systems or criteria?

In order to shed some light on those questions, let’s see what happens if we take a couple of examples of applying some logic and empiricism to theological questions.

We had a speaker here about a year and a half ago who pointed out to us that logically, God cannot be all three, omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent because evil exists.  If God allows evil to happen, then he or she either does not know it is happening, can’t do anything about it or doesn’t care.  However, many people choose to believe that God has all of these qualities in spite of that logic.  They may say that God’s ways are beyond our comprehension.  In doing so, they may be making a choice to discard logic as a means of answering that type of question simply because it does not give them the answer they want.

People do this with the question of the existence of God as well.  Using the existence of a supreme being to explain the existence of the universe has a fatal logical flaw.  It begs the question.  If you say, “God created all of heaven and earth and all the living creatures,”  I can say, “But how did God get here.”   The standard view is that God was always here and had no cause or creation of his or her own.  The problem with that answer is that if this God can exist without a creative cause, then so can the universe.   You may say that the universe could not have happened randomly but had to have a guiding force behind it.   If it really takes the super power and perfect knowledge of a God to create the universe, then it must take something even more to create an entity that is capable of creating the universe.  That line of reasoning can be used to go on and on, presuming and infinite number of creative entities which would never be enough to explain the ultimate cause of the universe and add nothing to our knowledge of how it was formed.

Part of the scientific method includes the principle off always taking the simplest explanation, known as Occam’s razor.  If you don’t need it, don’t use it.  Including an extra step that does not make any difference in the process is pointless and, therefore, gets discarded.  As a result, one should form a working assumption that God either does not exist or adds nothing to the explanation and therefore may as well not exist.

What happens it we apply empiricism to religious questions?  If you adhere strictly to empiricism as the best way to determine truth, then you should apply it to religious questions just as you would any other type of question.  You would formulate one or more hypotheses, test them either experimentally or logically and treat the results just as you would treat the results of testing any other hypothesis.  You may say that, “If a supreme being exists or if that being has certain qualities, then certain phenomena should exist or occur.” 

Let’s say you did that and found mixed results.  Sometimes what should happen does and sometimes it doesn’t. You then arrive at the conclusion that the experiment produced random results and therefore your hypothesis is either invalid or irrelevant because you cannot dependably attribute any outcome as a result of the existence of God.  For practical purposes, that amounts to a negative outcome as it did with our logical example a moment ago. 

If something has no cause and produces no effects, its existence does not matter to us.  If its existence does not matter to us, it is not performing godly or spiritual functions and the hypothesis that there is God can be discarded as either wrong or useless.

But you want to believe in God anyway.  You have faith.  So, you say that logic and empiricism are not valid means for determining the nature of God.  You choose to use different criteria to answer theological questions.  Many scientists actually do that.  They write up the result of the their experiment one day and go to church on another.  We apparently have the option of selecting the criteria that give us the answers we want.  If you want to believe in God in the Judeo / Christian / Islamic tradition, you simply discard logic and empiricism as being appropriate for answering questions about God.

We use the same mechanism to justify having conflicting or mutually exclusive beliefs.  Just pick the criterion that gives you the answer you want.

Is that appropriate?  Should we use different criteria to answer theological questions?  If we do that, we may be using those criteria because they give me the answers we want or an answer with which we can be comfortable and, therefore, avoid challenging our own beliefs, a rather significant pitfall in my opinion.

An alternative to using different criteria to answer theological questions is to simply say that they cannot be answered.  You can say that the essence of God cannot be known because it is beyond our comprehension.  That seems like a pretty reasonable statement.  Anything capable of creating the entire universe is certainly beyond me.

On the other hand, are some things unknowable simply because there is nothing there to know? Is the reason that you cannot understand the nature of God because there isn’t any?

Am I espousing the scientific method as the THE WAY to the truth even for theological questions?  Not necessarily.  I don’t make that claim because I realize some hidden sides to even this approach.  Yes, I am a firm believer in the scientific method and I think many of you share that commitment.  Let’s ask ourselves why do we have so much respect for this set of procedures.  Is it because they work so well?  Science has compiled tremendous accomplishments and given us the knowledge to develop powerful technologies.  But is that the real reason we have such a commitment to this particular system of knowledge?  Might it possibly be something quite different? Is our commitment to the scientific method in fact based on the authority and doctrine of academic teaching that tells us this was THE WAY to knowledge? 

Of course we think the scientific method is good.  That is what we have been taught throughout our entire formal educations.  It would be very difficult for us to think otherwise.  But now we face the possibility that our commitment to logic and empiricism is based on authority and doctrine and that we have ldeveloped faith in the correctness of this path so we cannot accept anything to the contray.  If that is true, then we also can be unwittingly yielding to wishful thinking and rationalization to justify our faith. 

So now we start to realize how intermingled all of these different paths to knowledge are.  And, although none of them really can be used to validate or invalidate another, we do that with them anyway.  So, let’s not be too smug about our objectivity and use of logical process for determining the truth.  We cannot possibly be as pure in that regard as we like to think we are.  The gap between rationality and rationalization may be much narrower than we think.

Before I began preparing this presentation, I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to say.  As I thought more and more about it and discussed various ideas with Dottie, I became more aware of how complex of an issue I was confronting and how unclear the answers were becoming to me.  This realization prompted me to remember several bumper stickers and witty sayings.  I think these several little sayings provide succinct and simple ways of summarizing the content of this presentation.

Many of you probably remember seeing bumper stickers that told us to “Question authority.”  On the heals of that one came another that said, “Question reality.”  I’m not sure where I came across the saying, “If you are sure of something, question it!!!”  Then there is one of my favorites from the 1960s which says, “Sacred cows make the best hamburger.”

Having discussed a wide variety of knowledge systems and found fault with all of them, I suppose that some of you are wondering what do I believe beyond what is expressed in those bumper sticker sayings.  My thoughts on this topic have evolved since I began working on this presentation.  But being thoroughly steeped in the scientific method, I have developed a working hypothesis which I am going to proceed to test.  That working hypothesis states that,

Truth, like beauty and love, is where you find it.