re certainty and arrogance responding to the moderator in article apr athos rutgers edu alvin spot colorado edu kenneth alvin writes choosing what to believe and rely on are important areas of personal sovereignty what bothers me is when others suggest that in these matters of faith their specific beliefs are not only true to them but are absolute and should be binding on others it follows from this that god must give everyone the same revelation of truth and thus anyone who comes to a different conclusion is intentionally choosing the wrong path this is the arrogance i see a lack of respect for the honest conclusions of others on matters which are between them and god it is certainly reasonable to ask for some humility about our own ability to know the truth there are also different paths in some areas of practice but i d like to see more clarification about what you mean when you reject the idea of saying their specific beliefs are not only true to them but are absolute and should be binding on others if something is true it is true for everyone assuming that the belief is something about god history etc yes i agree what i m trying to point out is that in matters of faith i e tenets which are not logically persuasive one may be convinced of the truth of certain things through for instance personal revelation and its certainly fine to share that revelation or those beliefs with others and i don t think that its arrogant persay to accepts matters of pure faith as truth for oneself where i think the conflict arises is in assuming that where disagreements on beliefs arise all others must have been given the same truth and that god must reveal his truth to everyone in such a way that all would honestly agree i think this can lead to the conclusion that anyone who disagrees with you are being sinful or dishonest that they are rejecting something they know to be truth because it is inconvenient for them or because they wish to spurn god i would say that this is equivalent to assuming that all truths one holds are universal and absolute and the problem i see with this is that it negates the individuality of humans and their relationships with god this does not mean there is no absolute truth just that some areas of doctrinal disagreement may be areas where god has not established or revealed that truth comments criticism welcome ken alvin ucsu colorado edu i agree with you clh
