On Certainty and Confidence

Yeah, I saw conclave.

I know I’m late to the Conclave discussion. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see it. On the way to Rome, however, I had some time to kill. In light of my destination, I decided to give it a shot. It wasn’t terrible. Conclave is a movie about political intrigue in the church told through the filter of left-wing Western values. As everyone who writes about this movie points out, it’s visually impressive. For that matter, so is Nosferatu. If you want a visually interesting experience, both movies fit the bill. If you’re looking for meaningful art, look elsewhere.

The thematic center of the movie is a sermon (really more of a speech) that Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (played by Ralph Fiennes) delivers to the assembled conclave. During that speech, Lawrence waxes philosophical:

Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" he cried out in his agony at the ninth hour on the cross. Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore, no need for faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts. And let him grant us a Pope who sins and asks for forgiveness and who carries on.

A few thoughts on this…. First, that’s his greatest hope for the pope? He’s more concerned with a pope who doubts than one who is holy? What about a pope who demonstrates kindness, integrity, or love? What about a pope who can lead the lost into salvation? Lawrence elevates doubt to the highest position among the virtues of a faithful Christian leader. (By the way, please check out Doug Koskela’s excellent piece on doubt in Firebrand.)

Second, what truths is he hopeful that the pope will doubt? Should the pope doubt the church’s call to feed the poor? Should he doubt Christ’s commands to love our neighbors and our enemies? Somehow I don’t think this is what Lawrence has in mind.

Does he hope the pope will doubt the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity? Should we hope for Christian leaders who doubt Jesus’ resurrection? Is he hoping for a twentieth-century liberal Protestant pope? I’ve served with and under such leaders in the church. From my vantage point, their doubt has not edified the body.

I’ve heard preachers who preached out of their doubts. I’ve heard preachers reject from the pulpit basic doctrines of the faith, such as the incarnation and the sinlessness of Christ. They seem not to understand that, when you stand in the pulpit, you do not simply represent yourself. You represent the church that authorized you to preach. In that sense, the preacher’s doubt is irrelevant. The purpose of preaching is to proclaim the gospel. That is its sole function. If you can’t do that with integrity, stop preaching. Skeptics are amply represented across the internet, on YouTube, on podcasts, in bookstores, and in college classrooms. Their place is not the pulpit. The pulpit exists for the proclamation of the gospel—and for no other reason.

Every Christian leader struggles at times with matters of faith. At least, I’ve never met one who doesn’t. But I would hope for leaders who have done the intellectual and spiritual work to have confidence in the teachings of our faith. If they haven’t, they should not be in leadership. They should not lead communities that are based on teachings they neither believe nor understand.

In fact, I suggest that confidence rather than certainty, is the appropriate category for discussion of Christian belief. Lawrence expresses an unfortunate category mistake in his speech. We can’t demonstrate the doctrine of the Trinity in the way we can demonstrate the boiling point of water. Yet we can, with intellectual integrity, have confidence that the church’s teaching about the triune God truthfully represents the nature of God. Likewise, humility is a more helpful category than doubt. We can hope for leaders who have confidence in the teachings of our faith, but who proceed with epistemic humility—humility about their own beliefs and depth of understanding. Thus, though I may believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, I must also recognize that I will never comprehend this doctrine in its fullness. To understand that our faith entails mystery is not to affirm the value of doubt, but to acknowledge that the finite mind cannot fully comprehend the infinite God.

Imagine two pastors. The first is in conversation with a parishioner who asks, “Pastor, are you sure Jesus rose from the dead?” This pastor responds, “Well, not really. I mean, sometimes I believe it, and sometimes I don’t. I have a lot of doubt about the resurrection.” Now imagine another pastor who is asked the same question. That pastor might respond with something like, “I do believe that he rose. I stake my life upon it. There are aspects of this belief that I don’t entirely understand. There’s an element of mystery to our claim that Jesus really died and really rose. But yes, I believe it happened.” Which pastor will serve the church more faithfully? Which is more likely to fulfill the church’s evangelistic mandate?

Perhaps the key phrase here is I stake my life upon it. If you really have confidence in your beliefs, they will affect the way you live. You will make decisions based on those beliefs. Many Christians across the centuries have died for their faith. Even today, Christians across the world suffer and die rather than renounce Christ. They do not suffer and die for their doubts, but because they have confidence in the gospel message of salvation.

“Certainty is the great enemy of unity.” It may be true that broad, unbending dogmatism can lead to disunity. If we are unwilling to listen to one another, if we always insist on our own way, unity will elude us. Yet without some degree of shared confidence in our claims about faith and the Christian life, it’s not clear what Christian unity could mean.

As the movie concludes, we see the real target of its elevation of doubt.

SPOILER ALERT:

The person elected pope is named Cardinal Benitez. Throughout, Benitez is portrayed as the quintessential saint. He acts with absolute integrity and humility. When Benitez becomes pope, he even chooses the name “Innocent.” Now here’s the kicker: Benitez is an intersex person. (Take that, certainty!) I think we’re supposed to be surprised. In 2025, however, the surprising thing would be a Hollywood movie about the Roman Catholic Church that affirmed its traditional values and standards.

Conclave isn’t a bad movie. It isn’t a great movie, either. It is a beautifully filmed vehicle for the values of one group within a deeply divided culture. It is most certainly not an in-depth exploration of matters of faith and doubt in the Christian life. It might spark conversation about these matters, however. It might even lead us to take stock of what it means to have confidence in our faith.