Dan Rather retired last Wednesday, after 24 years as anchorman of the CBS Evening News. That milestone event marks more than one man’s transition. It heralds an unknown era for journalism. Cable news and Internet web sites have eroded both the audience share and the monopoly of network news. CBS also damaged the trust so necessary to journalism, when it reported last fall false information about President Bush’s Air National Guard service.

There was a time when the majority of Americans would have said that good journalism was objective. “Just the facts, ma’am; that’s all we care about.” But that is exactly what journalism can never give us: just the facts. Instead, journalism and preaching and even the natural sciences always (no exceptions) give us an interpretation of facts.

A good way to prove this for yourself is to read headlines about a major national event, as they appear in different newspapers or as they are reported on different television news shows. Here are a half dozen examples from newspapers following the election of President Bush last November; first, from other countries. (The following quotes came from http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/1965.cfm.)

Aljazeera.net said, “Middle East Concern Over Bush Victory.” The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz in Tel Aviv said, “Bush May Press Israel Next. Why Is Sharon Smiling?” An on-line daily paper in Moscow said, “Putin Says Bush Win Means US Not Scared of Terror.”

Here are three examples from American newspapers. (The following quotes came from http://www.ruggedelegantliving.com/a/003231.html.) The San Francisco Chronicle headline read: “Bush Reaches Out.” The Chicago Tribune said, “Bush rides moral issues, terror fears to 2^nd term.” The Atlanta Journal Constitution said, “America Speaks, Bush Leads Sweep.”

You will say to me, “Well, none of them lied.” That’s right and thank God, but that’s not my point. Each of them printed accurate information, but every one of them did so from a different point of view. And that’s my point: All truth is accurate, but being accurate is not all there is to truth.

If you movie buffs would like a classic expression of this idea, I’d recommend one starring Sally Fields and Paul Newman called Absence of Malice. It is a story of journalistic accuracy that caused a great evil.

“And what,” you ask impatiently, “does all this have to do with the Christian doctrine of creation?” The answer takes us back to the second foundational statement of that doctrine. Do you remember?

The Mind of God and the Mind of Man
The heavens and the earth are the setting in which God seeks to united in covenant love with mankind. Given what we know about the size of the universe, someone might find that confession to be small-minded and selfish. Within our galaxy our solar system is a speck. Within deep space our galaxy is a speck. To treat that magnificence as nothing more than the setting for the human drama seems like a retreat into pre-scientific arrogance and ignorance. What could possibly make man that special?  Genesis 1:26 gives the answer. God said, “Let us make man in our image. Humans hold their unique and exalted place in creation, because God made them in His image.

For example, He made us in His image by creating us to participate in a small way in His divine mind. If the universe and everything in it came out of His mind, then we can understand why the Psalmist said in Psalm 139:17-18.

How precious to me are your thoughts,
     O God! How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
     they would outnumber the grains of sand.

He implanted in us a small capacity to think with Him about the universe He created. If His thoughts are subtle, our thoughts reflect His subtlety in miniature. If He is capable of complexity, so are we, though on a tiny scale. If He is wise, we have a capacity to share His wisdom, albeit in bits and pieces. Wisdom is what we need if we want to know truth.

Incompleteness: The Human Lot
The premier biblical writing on practical wisdom is the book of Proverbs. Let’s take a few of its passages and allow them to teach us something about the wisdom God makes available to us. Let’s begin with Proverbs 18:17.

The first to present his case seems right,
     till another comes forward and questions him.

If you’ve ever served on a jury or listened to a domestic argument, you know how persuasive one side can be, until you have heard the other side of the story. And of course neither side ever presents “just the facts,” does it? Both put their cases in the best possible light. Sorting through their conflicting claims takes more than knowledge. It takes wisdom, which is made up of knowledge and experience and hunches and communal values and (we Christians would say) the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Just how challenging this can be finds classic expression in one of my favorite texts in the book of Proverbs. Let’s read these two verses, beginning with Proverbs 26:4.

Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
     or you will be like him yourself.

The second verse, which is the very next verse, reads:

Answer a fool according to his folly,
     or he will be wise in his own eyes – Proverbs 26:5.

So, which is it? Shall we answer a fool according to his folly or not? Back to back verses give opposite answers. The only resolution to this is to say, “It depends on the circumstances.” Wisdom is the ability to exercise good judgment in circumstances where the right course of action is unclear, and where you may have to make a decision without knowing until later what the right course of action was. Such uncertainty is difficult for people who want life to be cut-and-dried, crystal clear, unambiguous.

Sometimes, you may get the impression that only politics and theology experience this uncertainty. It is not so. At the heart of quantum physics there are at least two seemingly incompatible explanations, one articulated by David Bohm, an American-born physicist, and the other by Niels Bohr, the Nobel Prize winning, Danish physicist. Both offer mathematical justification for their theories, but their theories are as different as Republicans and Democrats. A famous poem captures the ambiguity of reality.

There were six men of Hindustan,
to learning much inclined,
Who went to see an elephant,
though all of them were blind,
That each by observation
might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the elephant,
and happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
at once began to bawl,
"This mystery of an elephant
is very like a wall."

And the second felt the tusk and thought it was like a spear. The third took his truck and thought it was like a snake. The fourth felt above is knee and was sure it was a tree. The fifth touched his ear and concluded it was like a fan. The sixth seized his tail and thought he had a rope.

So six blind men of Hindustan
disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
exceeding stiff and strong;
Though each was partly in the right,
they all were in the wrong!

It seems that all reality can be understood in a variety of ways. The question from a Christian perspective asks: are these ambiguities the results of human sin, or did God build them into creation? Sin makes understanding harder for us, because it affects our will and judgment; but at bottom I believe the Lord God created the world with this uncertainty built in.

Is Truth Relative?
This leads to two different conclusions about our knowledge of reality. First, the uncertainty that attends every human endeavor can lead to the conclusion that truth is relative. That in turn can lead to cynicism of a particularly bitter kind. For example, the fourth blind man of Hindustan might listen to the vigorous debate and disagreement within the fraternity of the blind and say, “My brothers, listen to me. There is no elephant. There may be snakes and fans, but our inability to agree on what we are talking about and our ludicrously incompatible conclusions prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is no such thing as an elephant. There is only our feelings about something we call ‘elephants.’”

You can hear this skepticism in some university circles and among some of the cultural elite. It is skepticism about God or truth or morality or, believe it or not, even about the findings of the natural sciences. We can’t have any real knowledge of God or truth, etc., and they may not even exist.

The second conclusion is that all human knowledge is partial. Every effort to explain God is partial. Every effort to interpret scripture is partial. Every scientific explanation is partial. Neither natural scientist nor theologian escapes ignorance. We want to know the truth, but knowing the whole truth is more like a hunt than like a capture, and along the way we capture part of the truth, and it illuminates our lives.

Because our knowledge will always be partial and need correction, we need to learn humility about our knowledge. There is always room to question our conclusions. If we can go about our lives with such humility, maybe it can help us to discover more truth. If the six blind men of Hindustan had pooled their observations, they might have at least learned that knowledge puffs up, but love builds up – 1 Corinthians 8:2.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
Now, let me apply all this to a matter of increasing relevance. There are many, conflicting ideas about God. Look at all the denominations within Christianity. Beyond Christianity, look at all the religions of the world. They are not saying the same thing. They may all be wrong, but they can’t all be right. What right do we have to say we are right, and they are wrong? How are we supposed to figure all that out? Let me offer some answers to that, which I find helpful.

First, let it be said at once: we believe that Jesus Christ, Holy Scripture, and the Church have given to the human family the decisive revelation of God and His purpose for the world. We say this, because we believe Christ rose from the dead. Mohammed, Buddha, and Moses did not. Christ has conquered death and promises that conquest to His followers. However much Christianity and other religions have in common, this unique claim separates Christianity from the rest.

Second, turn with me to the sixth book of the Bible, Joshua 24. Joshua had led the nation Israel in its initial conquest of the ancient land of Canaan. Now, nearing the end of his life, Joshua assembles the leaders of Israel at the holy site of Shechem. Through verse 13, Joshua recounts the story of God’s dealings with Abraham and his descendants up to that very moment.

In verses 14-15 Joshua delivers the punch line. “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Verse 16 gives the community’s faithful response. Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods!”

In the face of many, conflicting beliefs about God, we have to choose a community of faith to call our home. We accept that community’s story of God as our story. That doesn’t mean we stop asking questions. It means that we ask and answer them within a community of faith and a tradition that we accept as binding and which has become our vantage point on the world. So, I say: choose Christ.

We don’t have to ridicule anyone else’s faith. We don’t have to prove that Islam, Buddhism, or Judaism is wrong. Our task to bear witness to what we have chosen to believe, and God will justify Himself. That’s what it means to live by faith.

Standing within the Christian community and holding by faith to Jesus Christ do not shelter us from the ambiguities of life. It gives us firm footing for the arduous challenge of being wise.

He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD. (Psalm 40:2-3)