Is certainty a sin？

Brian YS Wong January 15, 2025 22:18

A few weeks back, I watched one of the most widely anticipated releases of 2024 – Conclave, a riveting political thriller directed by Edward Berger.

Without giving too much away, I would settle for the following as a brief summary of its plot: the Pope has passed. Cardinals must weigh their options and elect the next Pope. In the process, personalistic rivalries and factionalist disputes, as well as deeper ideological divides and debates over the future of the Catholic Church, come to proliferate. The ending is both deeply expectable yet fundamentally implausible.

One of the most memorable scenes from the movie was a rousing homily delivered by Lawrence, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, portrayed by the inimitable Ralph Fiennes.

Lawrence states that, “There is one sin I have come to fear above all else: certainty.”

Why is this the case?

In lieu of delving into more spoilers about the movie, an exegesis of Christian theology, or deeper albeit poignant reflections on the state of the Catholic Church, I would argue – from a secular angle – that certainty can indeed be a highly detrimental and destructive force. That is, there exist conditions and contexts in which certainty is not only deeply unhelpful, but fundamentally stifling.

The first concerns knowledge enquiry and discovery. Certainty gives off an air of finality. When we know something for certain, we are naturally less inclined to see uncovering the fullest extent of its truthfulness, its manifestations and forms, and the nuances surrounding it, as particularly intriguing or exciting. We would correspondingly feel less motivated to overcome the significant knowledge and resource costs, in order to delve more deeply into the “things” we know. This is where the problem begins.

In the real life, there is little that we know conclusively – and there is even less that we can know to be permanently true. Whilst truistic or tautological propositions can indeed be known as such, they are not particularly interesting. Elsewhere, a priori knowledge can of course be known with maximal certainty, yet it cannot feed or come to our rescue at times of great need. What we truly want to know – and often seek to know – as laypersons unexcited by the depths of philosophical propositions and puzzles, changes over time.

Hence what we have here is a false sense of security. We believe it is certain that an economy would rebound from the depths of despair. We hold to be certain that certain laws of physics are perennially infallible. We declare with certainty that particular models of governance are fallacious, cantankerous, and must never be adopted. Yet such certainty only masquerades our hubris, which clouds our judgment and precludes us from seeking truth from facts. We end up creating our own facts with half-truths and mis-truths.

The second worry I have pertains to the silencing effects of certainty. When something is uttered and pronounced with certainty, it is presented as indisputable. It is framed as orthodoxy – gospel, if you will – against which objections should not be entertained.

John Stuart Mill offers a classic defense of enlivening debate. In his eyes, it is imperative that we have dynamic, vivacious, and forthright exchanges of claims and counterclaims in order to preserve the vitality of the truth.

My preoccupations are arguably more grounded. I am more concerned by the rise of “False Prophets” and purportedly authoritative figures who abuse and exploit the emphatic silencing function of certainty, as a means of besmirching and targetting their critics and opponents. We should be most alarmed by those who dismiss challenges and objections as “irrelevant” or “unserious”, for such castigation often disguises ulterior motives for which debate and questions are not welcome. Certainty is wielded as a battering ram, to drive away and repress those who dare inject an element of truthful ambiguity or reveal a piece of the missing jigsaw puzzle and bring it into the light of day.

Finally, certainty is dangerous, for it is ultimately rather boring. Consider a hypothetical world where everyone knows everything there is to know, and that should be known, about the people around them. Suppose the magic of legilimency has become universally available to all (this is a Harry Potter reference).

There would be no need for deep, incisive conversations that fill our lives with suspense and excitement. Nor would there be any value for frank, character-building experiences that transform our personalities and beliefs – for the better or worse: after all, our characters have been laid bare for the world to see, and few would harbour the illusions that motivate moral education and pressures placed upon others in the direction of perfectibility. Courtships would become boring, perfunctory exercises. Education would be undergirded by implicitly deterministic narratives, where teachers would judge their students based on whom they believe their students to “truly” be – without taking heed of the fact that characters and personalities can change over time.

The elimination of ambiguity and indeterminacy is toxic, suffocating, and leaves us all the more bereft of the joys of discovery. Discovering an alleyway that you have never been down before. Discovering a café with coffee that you have never drunk before. Discovering that even in missing a train, you can still watch the snow dance delicately on the train tracks in the wintry hours of a January day in Manchester. Discovering a new city, continent, or idea.

Certainty is a buzzkill.

Brian YS Wong

Assistant Professor, HKU