Opinions and Unity

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     We believe it will he conceded by most of our readers that many who are of a factious spirit feel they are true defenders of the faith. Some are deluded by a Messiah-complex into thinking the salvation of mankind is dependent upon universal adoption of their personal views. Others consider themselves as indispensable to preservation of truth, therefore issue proclamations with such dogmatic fervor as to make their hearers shudder and tremble. Perhaps the majority are simply confused and ignorant of the true basis of the Christian relationship, and deceived into building their hope of divine approbation upon a foundation of the sand of opinions.

     This is the root of most sectarianism in our age. It is the bane of every restoration movement. It is a noxious weed which, once planted, spreads with such rapidity that it soon chokes out all spiritual life. Every written creed we have examined, which has resulted in the creation of a party or sect, is nothing more nor less than the crystallization into a formal pattern of the opinions of great thinkers and consecrated men. When such a formula is announced as the foundation for fellowship for all who come after, it has started on its route of destruction and disintegration. Seldom will a generation pass without a new division arising in the ranks.

     The reason why schisms always occur in the wake of propagation of opinions as bases for religious unity, is easily determined by the rational student. Such unity must be predicated upon moral and spiritual values. Opinions are neither. An opinion is the result of a purely intellectual process. It is the fruit produced by human and finite rationalization. All human reasoning must be based upon experience, and since the experiences, environments, and backgrounds of men are variant and divergent, their modes of reasoning will differ. We can only reason from the known to the unknown, and since no two persons on earth have exactly the same degree of knowledge in all fields, the inferences drawn or conclusions reached, will be as different from each other as the persons themselves are different. We can no more think alike than we can look alike. Therefore, any arbitrary pronouncement of an opinion, or set of opinions, as a basis of fellowship, will only destroy that state it was intended to create.

     We dare not predicate our hope of eternal life upon opinion, for if it should prove at the judgment that the opinion is in error, it will be too late to rectify our mistake. One of the essentials to happiness and joy is the certainty of our salvation. Without this, man gravitates from exalted rejoicing to utmost despair and dejection. He is on top of the mountains one day and groping in the lowest valley the next. But certainty is not possible on the basis of opinion, for opinion is but speculation erected on probable evidence. He, who on the basis of such evidence, exalts his conclusions to the realm of dogma, and demands conformity by his fellows in order to enjoy spiritual privileges, is unsafe as a religious leader, and detrimental to the peace and harmony of the spiritual domain. It is just this procedure which has created the segments and splinters which presently exist as a shame and disgrace to the Christian way. It can produce nothing else, for disruption must follow the propagation of opinion as a test of fellowship as certainly as the night follows the day.

     Men will have opinions and they will differ in them. There is no way to offset such, nor should one be sought. Such differences are not dangerous in themselves. They provide the stimuli for all research and are responsible for all progress. It is only when men, through pride, exalt their conjectures to the realm of law, and seek to hind them upon others, that harm results. The danger, then, is not in having an opinion, nor in holding one, nor even in expressing it as such. No rational being can keep from having opinions, for it would be ridiculous to

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suppose that the intellect would be interminably employed in the reasoning process, and never reach a conclusion based on the probability of such reasoning. A problem is created only when an opinion is pressed or forced upon another, who recognizes an equal right to have his own. John Wesley stated this in a unique way.

"I have no more right to object to a man holding a different opinion from mine than I have to differ with a man because he wears a wig and I wear my own hair; but if he takes his wig off and shakes the powder in my eyes, I shall consider it my duty to get quit of him as soon as possible."

     In addition to speculation, or opinion, man moves in two other mental realms. These are the realms of knowledge and faith. In each of these a state of certainty may be attained, for the evidence upon which these two are postulated is not probable. Knowledge has to do with personal experience, faith with the experience of others. Both of these are arrived at through testimony. Knowledge is produced by the evidence submitted by one's own sense. He knows that fire produces a sensation called heat, and ice a sensation designated cold. He knows certain roses are possessed of a color called red, and violets a tint called blue. Knowledge is, in its very nature, accumulative. The experiences of the past constitute a foundation upon which to build in the future. No two people have the same degree of knowledge, for no two have had identical experiences, nor are possessed of equal perceptive and retentive faculties. Those who are brought into contact with the world about them, do not have the same ability to grasp the significance of what they hear, see or touch, nor the same power of memory as a basis for future interpretations.

     Any system purposing to secure unity based upon conformity in opinion or equal attainment of knowledge is doomed at its inception. It proposes to accomplish what is, by nature, impossible. Yet it is upon these two postulates virtually every attempt at unity has been made in the past. The wreckage and disunity left in the wake of all such schemes is ample proof of their unreliability. Is unity, then, unobtainable? Not so! Certainly in the realms of knowledge and opinion it must be a unity of diversity, but in the cohesive element which God has ordained as the divine basis for unity of believers, there can be unanimity, for it is faith.

     Faith is the certainty of the experience of others. It is the result of the mind acting upon the evidence presented to it by such witnesses. If one is fully convinced of the credibility of the witnesses, if he has no reason to doubt that they know what they testify, and testify what they know, he must believe. On no other basis can rational men proceed. Since reliable witnesses testify to facts, and since facts are things done and said, the only knowledge required is of the facts to which the witnesses testify. Since no amount of speculation or opinion can alter facts, it is possible to be united on the basis of faith. The richest provision of grace is a system of religion based upon faith. No other is adapted to man in his present state. We will never recapture the unity of the primitive community of saints until we first understand the basis of that unity. All who believed were together.