Several people wrote in response to my post on Honest Thomas that they believe certainty to be the opposite of faith. It's an interesting point, particularly as there is a tendency within some streams of Christianity to treat faith precisely as if it is the same as certainty. Certainty, in fact, is almost like an addiction for some people when it comes to faith. I've often wondered why it is that reasonably clever people will go along with theology that is quite unbelievably illogical and unreasonable. If thought systems of similar quality were used in their professional lives they wouldn't put up with it, yet they seem willing to tolerate it when it comes to their faith. I wonder whether, in an uncertain world, a religion that ties up the ends neatly and firmly is just so attractive to people that they don't mind leaving their intellect out of the equation.

By the same token, there are others who believe that unless you can be absolutely, forensically certain of the facts, then belief or faith is ruled out. This is like a return to the Enlightenment, where rational thought wiped out any other ways of knowing. It was this empirical approach to knowledge that the Romantics tried to break out from, not denying that rational thought has its place, but insisting that there are other ways of knowing things too. Coleridge, in particular, showed both in his essays and his poetry that he believed partial and intuitive knowledge was not invalidated by its incompleteness. 

Faith, if it is real, must be honest and must include the whole person – as Jesus himself said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength – emotion, spirit, intellect and body. Not reason alone, nor emotion without intellect. Nothing left out.

Hadge quotes Peter Gabriel (from the song That Voice Again):

"It's only in uncertainty that we are naked and alive!"