Dear Friends,
“I don’t understand how you can think you have a monopoly on the truth. How dare you claim that? It’s sheer arrogance!” Have you heard something like that? Maybe you’ve been accused in similar terms? The thought is that it is arrogant to be sure of what we believe, and even more arrogant to suggest that someone else is wrong in what they believe.
There is of course some force to the accusation. If the best each of us can do is to make our own assessment of what is true, then we are bound to have at best a partial grasp of the truth, and at worst a hugely distorted version of it. Either way, we can have no real certainty, and then it is indeed arrogant to assert that ‘we know’ while others don’t know.
If however there is a God who created the world and us, and this God has revealed himself to us, then that changes everything. That is precisely the Christian claim, for example in Hebrews 1:1-2, that “In the past God spoke … at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son”. If the best we have is human investigation, then it is arrogant to claim that my investigation is better than yours. But if there is divine revelation it changes everything. Who is now arrogant? Surely it is those who ignore what God has said and dare to think they know better?
Yours warmly, in Christ,
Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister/Vicar)