Certainty may come later. Till then, we have faith.
“I know this to be true, because I have faith.” I’ve heard more than one Christian say such a thing. It’s ’cause they don’t realize that’s a self-contradictory statement.
Hebrews 11.1 KWL - Faith is the solid basis of hope,
- the proof of actions we’ve not seen.
Faith isn’t the solid basis of knowledge, but the solid basis of hope. Properly we hope certain things are true because we have faith. We don’t know yet. Gonna know eventually. But not yet.
So when I read in the scriptures God’s gonna resurrect me someday, I gotta admit: I don’t know he will. Because the basis of knowledge is experience, and I haven’t had the experience of being resurrected. Yet.
Now, Jesus did have the experience of being resurrected. He taught on, and believed in, the resurrection.
To some Christians, that’s not good enough. Hope isn’t sufficient. Uncertainty isn’t acceptable. They wanna know. And they claim they do know. How? Well, they trust Jesus. That’s how they know.
Well wait: I trust Jesus too. Yet I recognize trusting Jesus doesn’t grant me knowledge; only hope. How’d they get knowledge?
They actually didn’t. But they think they have knowledge. They think they have certainty. They think a lot of things which have no basis in the scriptures. Namely that
Yeah, you realize what they’re doing: They wanna demonstrate their zealousness for God, their absolute trust in him, and in order to do this they’re gonna leapfrog hope and claim they know. That way the rest of us look like unbelievers in comparison. (In fact some of ’em even claim we are unbelievers. ’Cause we only hope. Whereas they know.)
Nah, they don’t really know. But boy, they sure think they do. So much so, they’ll even be self-righteous