The antediluvians had inappropriate desire for knowledge and certainty, which they hoped would give them control over their own lives and power over others. Those who lived after the flood repeated the same mistake with the same results: brokenness, nakedness, curses, and confusion.

Noah, the "just man and perfect in his generations," gets drunk. The power of fruit beguiles him, just as it had done with Eve, and both experience nakedness. The ground is cursed for Adam and Cain before the flood, just as Canaan is cursed afterward. Nimrod, "the mighty hunter," follows in the steps of powerful men who lived before the flood. The Babel builders want to reach heaven, to have nothing held back, to understand the flood’s causes, and to save themselves from catastrophes in the future. So also Eve had wanted her eyes opened as the gods’. The result in both cases, however, was loss of communication and confusion.

We all want predictability and control over our environment, and all of us are attracted to those who provide it. However, real life has few certainties. For many years, I preferred the certainty of math and physics to the uncertainty of geology. However, physics over the past hundred years has come to include relativity, the uncertainty principle, and chaos theory. From the new physics, I have learned that confidence in complete objectivity, determinism, and certainty in our own understanding are misplaced.

So why do we face uncertainty, and how should we respond to it?

1. We aren’t smart enough. No one has all the answers. Humans have limited understanding of the universe, whether present or past, and even less understanding of what God is like. J. B. Phillips’s famous book Your God Is Too Small deals with these limits. Small wonder that the Second Commandment prohibits the worship of representations of God, which are inevitably inadequate (Deut. 4:15–19).

Response: Human limitations require leaps of faith. Abundant evidence exists for a person to believe, but not to have absolute proof. G. K. Chesterton once suggested that one often finds truth with logic only after finding it without logic. Anselm saw as an ideal "faith seeking understanding." Putting his faith into action, astronomer Allan Sandage took a leap in midlife, going from evidence for design in nature to the God of the Bible. In contrast, the builders of Babel wanted certainty without taking that leap.

2. To keep us humble in our witness. "Know-it-alls" are unpleasant to live with. God "does not impart to us power to vindicate ourselves," wrote Ellen White (Desire of Ages, 407). These limitations should stop us from pointing our finger at others, for as Solzhenitsyn said, the "line between good and evil runs through the heart of every individual." Instead, we should find it easier to be sympathetic of others’ weaknesses and share our Christianity with them:

We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it."
—Madeline L’Engle, Walking on Water

Response: We earn others’ respect and trust by being honest with the evidence and avoiding snide remarks, dogmatism, and haughtiness. A humble witness means admitting that we lack complete answers. Ad hoc answers are like the fig tree that had leaves but no fruit (Mark 11:13, 14). Presenting both sides of an issue decreases the risk of later crises in faith, when listeners discover the rest of the story.

3. Reality involves paradoxes. Light is a wave as well as a particle. God knows the end from the beginning, but we still have free will. Jesus was both divine and human—Creator and created. Furthermore, the message he taught is loaded with opposites: those who accept him rest under a yoke (Matt. 11:28–30); become first by being last (Matt. 20:16), are exalted by becoming humble (Matt. 23:12; Luke 9:48); gain life through dying (John 12:24–25; 2 Cor. 4:10,11); obtain strength through weakness (2 Cor. 12:5, 7–10); acquire wisdom by becoming fools for Christ’s sake (1 Cor. 1:20–21); and conquer by yielding (Rom. 6:16–18).

Response: Recognize that all of us have limited perceptions of reality. The six blind men of Hindustan were all touching the same elephant, but each described it in his own way. As for us, we would be wise to look at all of the data; for truth can afford to be fair. Then we can synthesize the best explanations into a unifying whole.

4. We often ask the wrong questions. The Jews did this and they ended up expecting the wrong kind of Messiah. So set were they in their ways that they rejected Jesus even after he had provided overwhelming evidence to support his claims. Today, it may be easy for us to ask the wrong questions in regard to origins and to miss the big issues.

Response: Correct answers to important questions do exist. A sampling of some conclusions follows:

• The nature of God’s character can be found in the Bible.
• Knowledge comes from revelation as well as the senses and reason. Religion and science are both engaged in a search for truth.
• Life is not meaningless; it has purpose. The universe and life were designed, and humans have a unique consciousness.
• Humans have free choice; they are not predestined by cause-and-effect relationships.
• Human are not simply glorified animals. They are made in the image of God and their relations are ideally shaped by their divine creation.
• God considered the earth good at the creation, and he gave humans dominion over it. Humans study their environment to be faithful stewards.
• Absolute good and evil do exist. Whatever good exists in the world came about through some force beyond natural law. Evil can only be recognized in comparison to some universal standard that defines it.
• Judgment, justice, and mercy will eventually prevail.
• The Judeo-Christian view of time is not cyclical but has a beginning and end. History is moving toward a climax and perfect restoration. "How long, O Lord?" asks the Christian.
• The Sabbath symbolizes obedience, rest from human efforts to know everything, and worship for the Creator of all that is—whether the sun, nature, or human wisdom. God is the Lord of time, just as he is Lord of everything else. He is a personal God who wants us to spend time with him voluntarily out of love, rather than out of fear or because he forces us.

5. Life is more than facts. Humans respond to feelings and emotions, as well as to logic and proof. In the play Twelve Angry Men, the jurors became convinced of the defendant’s innocence for a variety of reasons other than logic.

Response: The answers are often personal. Jesus could have argued with doubting Thomas, but instead he chose to reveal himself (Ellen White, Desire of Ages, 808). Even though the Gadarene demoniacs couldn’t answer doctrinal questions, they could tell what Jesus had done in their lives (Mark 5:19; Desire of Ages, 340).

Let us learn from the misplaced confidence of the antediluvians and those who sought certainty after the flood. Let us turn instead to the example of Job, who recognized his creaturely limitations, argued with God, and was willing to live with the uncertainty that surrounded him, confident in God’s power and goodness.

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