Pete Enns: The Sin of Certainty

Summary

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Faith Matters Podcast: Pete Enns – The Sin of Certainty

Release Date: July 19, 2026
Host: Faith Matters Foundation (Aubrey Chavez, Tim, and co-interviewers)
Guest: Pete Enns, Bible scholar and author

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Overview

This episode features a thought-provoking conversation with Pete Enns, renowned Bible scholar and author of The Sin of Certainty. Enns dives deep into the tension between faith as unquestioning certainty and faith as trust, vulnerability, and openness. He draws from his own journey and scholarship to encourage listeners—particularly those within the Latter-day Saint tradition, but relevant to all people of faith—to reconsider the role of doubt, the meaning of sin, and the dangers of idolizing correct beliefs. Throughout, Enns and the hosts explore how letting go of certainty can lead to a more authentic, resilient spiritual life.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Reframing Certainty and Faith

Timestamps: 02:31 – 04:48

• Certainty as Comfort, Yet Limiting:
  Pete distinguishes between the natural desire for certainty and the danger when it becomes an unchangeable idol:

  "There's really not a problem per se, with feeling certain as long as we hold that lightly, because then that could become its own immovable thing." (02:31, Pete Enns)

• Sin of Certainty Defined:
  Enns proposes that the real "sin" is when the quest for certainty shuts down growth and genuine trust in God.

  "You have a faith that essentially never changes... God is always out ahead of us. The sin of certainty is when people... feel doubts or questions... and their only job is to get it back." (02:45, Pete Enns)

• Burden of Certainty in Religious Communities:
  Forcing others to maintain certainty is described as “putting millstones over people's necks.” (03:44)

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2. A Fresh Look at the Concept of Sin

Timestamps: 04:48 – 10:33

• Evolving Notions:
  Pete acknowledges the traditional understanding of sin (as breaking divine law), but offers a more therapeutic, growth-oriented perspective.

  “Thomas Keating... would talk about God as the divine therapist... what God is interested in doing is healing us from the inside out.” (05:47, Pete Enns)

• Sin as Hindrance to Growth:
  Tim adds: “Sin is what stops us from getting [to growth]... Certainty is something that is... once you're certain, like you’re kind of done.” (08:40, Tim)

• Facing Fear and Growth:
  Pete shares:

  "I think I'm holding back from the potential for growth and change... I don't equate that with the hammer of Thor coming down on my head any minute because I got something wrong. It's just I am afraid." (09:19, Pete Enns)

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3. Doubt, Integrity, and the “Shelf” Metaphor

Timestamps: 10:33 – 14:14

• The ‘Shelf’ Tradition:
  Doubts and hard questions are often “put on the shelf,” creating spiritual dissonance and fear.

• Doubt as Healthy Spiritual Movement:
  Pete reframes disruptive "oh moments" as necessary for honest faith, rooted in integrity:

  “To look at [doubt] as not an attack on the faith... but actually something you’re intuiting on the inside... It’s a matter of integrity to explore it.” (11:35, Pete Enns)

• Risks of Rigidity:
  All-or-nothing systems that can't accommodate doubt lead to burnout or abandonment of faith.

  "There’s no built-in flexibility... it’s all or nothing." (13:54, Pete Enns)

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4. Faith as Trust, Not Unquestioning Belief

Timestamps: 14:34 – 17:30

• Central Quote from Pete’s Book:

  “Doubt is not the enemy of faith... Doubt is only the enemy of faith when we equate faith with certainty in our thinking.” (14:34, Pete Enns, quoting his book, p. 157)

• Trust Over Certainty:
  The hosts and Pete affirm that true faith is not fragile perfection in doctrine but deep trust—even in the presence of doubt.

  “What if faith is actually just deep, deep trust and then there's so much flexibility… doubt actually feels like an invitation to relationship with God.” (14:52, Unidentified Host)

• The Bible’s Complexity:
  Pete challenges belief-list faith: “The Bible gives us... a quilt of beliefs or... just a diverse set of religious expressions... To suggest that we’re going to derive from that certainty is... setting us up for a big fall.” (15:24, Pete Enns)

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5. Doubt in the Bible: Old & New Testament

Timestamps: 17:30 – 24:10

• Old vs. New Testament Approaches:
  The Old Testament accommodates and even honors doubt (Job, Ecclesiastes, Lament Psalms), while New Testament urgency often equates doubt with failure.

  “You have Psalmists openly challenging God... Job is actually vindicated for holding his ground at the end.” (18:12, Pete Enns)

• Diversity within Scripture:
  Pete argues we can’t get “the whole Bible on the same page on a given topic,” highlighting the impossibility of uniform certainty.

  "There are different contexts, there are different reasons why James was writing what he wrote. And we have to be thoughtful.” (23:10, Pete Enns)

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6. Transitioning from Belief-Based Faith to Trust-Based Faith

Timestamps: 24:10 – 28:39

• Journey Out of Intellectualized Faith:
  Pete shares his own disorienting journey of letting go of certainty, and the long, often painful, process of renewal:

  “I remember just thinking to myself, yeah, I’ll never sing a Christmas carol again... I just found myself in a different place, being interested in how other people have processed the Christian faith.” (26:44–27:35, Pete Enns)

• Mother Teresa’s Clarity Story:

  “He [John Kavanaugh] says, 'Pray that I have clarity.' And she [Mother Teresa] said, 'I will not pray for that. Clarity is the last thing you're clinging to and must let go of.' ... She just laughed and said, 'I've never had clarity a day in my life, but I've had trust, so I will pray that you trust.'" (29:45–31:03, Pete Enns)

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7. Danger of Creating God in Our Image & Fear of Relativism

Timestamps: 31:11 – 35:24

• Inevitable Subjectivity:
  Pete asserts everyone, even biblicists, interprets God through their own lens:

  "We're always creating God in our own image anyway... We're always meshing together... the essentially incomprehensive God, steeped in mystery, with our own limited human experience.” (31:45–32:36, Pete Enns)

• Certainty as Limiting God:

  “A preoccupation with correct beliefs is that you... hold God captive to what you’re capable of comprehending.” (35:05, Pete Enns, paraphrased by host)

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8. Navigating Deep Doubt, Agnosticism, and the Value of Community

Timestamps: 35:26 – 39:24

• Living with Doubt and Openness:
  Sometimes trust means both leaning into what little you can hold, and the uncertainties themselves.

  "It may be leaning into what you have some connection with, but then also leaning into the doubt itself. The opposite would be to flee from that moment...” (35:57, Pete Enns)

• Need for Community:
  Pete underscores the importance of not journeying alone:

  "We're not meant to do faith alone. We're meant to do faith in a loving, nurturing context." (36:19, Pete Enns)

• Liturgy and Ritual:
  Reciting creeds and being part of rituals keeps people grounded, even amid personal doubt:

  "Liturgy... can help give some sort of an anchor to your life, even if you’re not sure about how it all works." (37:34, Pete Enns)

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9. Dark Nights of the Soul and Spiritual Absence

Timestamps: 41:01 – 43:48

• When God Seems Gone:
  Experiences of divine absence are both common and profoundly challenging, e.g., Mother Teresa’s decades-long darkness.

• Transformation via Loss of Certainty:

  "When you feel abandoned by God... you're not losing God. What you're losing is the God of your mind. And sometimes it takes... resetting to discover something else." (41:30, Pete Enns)

• Leaving Faith May be Necessary:
  Pete notes for some, spiritual reset means leaving faith entirely, “and I would say, hopefully coming to see that their reasons for rejecting their faith are probably good ones. But God is beyond all of that.” (43:20, Pete Enns)

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10. Final Encouragement: Normalize Doubt and Growth

Timestamps: 43:59 – 45:13

• Doubt is Not Failure:

  "Try to accept [down periods] as a normal part of the life of faith and not an aberration... Don't think of God as being mad at you. Because I don’t think God is mad at you." (43:59–45:13, Pete Enns)

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Notable Quotes

• On faith and trust:
  “Seeking to be certain is not an act of trust or faith. And trust and faith don’t always have a clarity to it. They have sometimes a lot of unclarity.” (31:03, Pete Enns)

• On scripture:
  “The Bible doesn’t give us certainty. I think it gives us... a diverse set of religious expressions... But to suggest that we’re going to derive from that certainty is... setting us up for a big fall.” (15:24, Pete Enns)

• On doubt:
  "Doubt is only the enemy of faith when we equate faith with certainty in our thinking." (14:34, Pete Enns, quoting his book)

• On community:
  “We’re not meant to do faith alone. We’re meant to do faith in a loving, nurturing context.” (36:19, Pete Enns)

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Memorable Moments

• Mother Teresa’s wisdom about clarity and trust (29:45–31:03)
• Pete’s candid description of his personal faith crisis and leaving/returning to ritual (26:44–27:35)
• Discussion of dark nights of the soul and embracing the loss of “the God of your mind” (41:01–43:48)

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Suggested Listening Points (Timestamps)

• Problems with certainty as a spiritual ideal: 02:31 – 04:48
• Therapeutic vs. punitive understandings of sin: 05:14 – 10:33
• Reframing doubt as part of integrity: 11:35 – 14:14
• Mother Teresa story on trust vs. clarity: 29:44 – 31:03
• How to grow and find trust when certainty crumbles: 24:47 – 28:39
• The role of community, liturgy, and experience amid doubt: 36:19 – 39:24
• Facing the absence of God and spiritual reset: 41:01 – 43:48
• Encouragement to normalize doubts and spiritual evolution: 43:59 – 45:13

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Conclusion

This episode challenges the conventional equation of faith with certainty, urging listeners to embrace doubt, vulnerability, and the unpredictable journey of spiritual growth. Pete Enns’s compassionate, scholarly, and deeply personal approach makes a compelling case for a faith rooted in trust rather than in rigid, immovable beliefs—a message especially resonant for those navigating doubt, loss of certainty, or the pain of spiritual reconstruction.

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Transcript

[Aubrey Chavez]

Hey everybody. We're thrilled to announce that Restore tickets are on sale now. And we're so excited to tell you about the new format for this year. We're calling it Restore Connect. It's designed to make your experience more interactive, more embodied and more communal than ever before. This year it's September 24th through 26th at the Nordisk center at UVU. We'll have an opening social on Thursday evening with two days of smaller, more intimate sessions so that you can choose the topics that are most important to you and have lots of time to connect with other attendees. And the presenters space is limited, so you're going to want to get your tickets fast. You can go to faithmatters.org restore today. We can't wait to see you in September. Hey everybody, this is Aubrey Chavez from Faith Matters. Today we're pulling one of our favorite episodes from the archives. Our guest is Pete Enns, a well known Bible scholar and the Abram S. Clemens professor of Bible Studies at Eastern University in Pennsylvania. In recent years, Pete has become well known for several highly popular books, including how the Bible Actually Works, the Bible Tells Me so, and the book that we discuss with him in this episode, the Sin of Certainty. In addition to his writing, Pete co hosts the podcast the Bible for Normal People. In the Sin of Certainty, Pete opens up about his own faith journey, including what he calls oh moments, those moments that wreak havoc with our neatly arranged thoughts of God, the world and our place in it. He makes the argument that a faith that's preoccupied with correct thinking can quickly become exhausting as we try to force disruptive experiences into our existing frameworks. Pete insists that there's a different way, the way of listening to those moments and learning from them, even letting them change us, and discovering a faith that shifts from rigid certainty about God to a more open, resilient trust in God. This conversation has really stayed with us over the years and we're so excited to share it with you again. Now here's Pete Enns.

[Tim]

Well, Pete, thank you so much for being here. And one place that we thought would be really good to start would be to talk about the title of this book that we're here to talk about. The Sin of Certainty. One thing especially in our religion, but I think across, you know, all religious perspectives is or not all, but many religious perspectives is there is a real championing of certainty, a real value around, around knowing. And when you see a lot of people of deep faith, it seems that they might describe what they, what they're feeling as something Very close to knowing. So this, the title of this book is very provocative when you look at it in that sense. And we would just wonder if you dissect it a little bit. First of all, certainty. What's the problem with certainty? And why would you describe it even as a. As a sin? Could you get into that a little bit?

[Pete Enns]

Sure, yeah. Well, I mean, there's really not a problem per se, with feeling certain as long as we hold that lightly, because then that could become its own immovable thing. Right. And if that happens, I think what I. What I've seen happen has happened with me. It happens with many people. And is that then you have a faith that essentially never changes. And I think the problem with not a faith that doesn't develop or move or evolve, if you'll allow that term, is that, you know, God is bigger than us. God is bigger than our minds. God's bigger than our experiences. And I think God is always out ahead of us. So when people feel a sense of certitude, I'm convinced about X, Y and Z, about Jesus, that's just religious faith. The sin of certainty is when people feel maybe some doubts or some questions coming up that hurt their sense of certainty. And then their only job is to get it back. I have to get back to the way it was. And the metaphor that's often used is a brick wall. The wall is crumbling and you need to build it back up again. And I think when we do that, we're actually missing an opportunity to live into the fact that God is never captured by our theological language. That's. That's my belief. So I think that's important. And it's. And it's even more of a sin, I think, when leaders insist on that in their people to their own detriment. And I think that's really just basically putting millstones over people's necks and having them carry that around. It's a burden rather than, listen, I don't know everything. And with things I used to know, I'm not so sure about. And I've wanted to normalize that for people of faith that this is. It's normal to not have certainty about things because we're just human beings.

[Tim]

Yeah. And the word sin itself, have you had some evolution in your life in. In terms of how you think about that word? I think the. The stereotypical version is, you know, breaking of some arbitrary rule that, that God has ordained. And thus, you know, you're bringing on God's wrath. And, and there's a need to Sort of get back in line. Is that. Is that what you're saying when you. When you use that. That word in this. In this book?

[Pete Enns]

No, not really. I mean, because I think that's one way of thinking of the nature of sin, which has. It has some biblical backing. You know, let's not kid ourselves. But from my point of view, it reflects the antiquity of the text and the context in which those stories were written. So I want to take those seriously, but it's not all that there is. Yeah, this is a big question here, Tim and Aubrey, and I want to sort of, like, be careful how I phrase this, because it may be misunderstood, but I think we've actually learned some things about the human condition over the past few hundred years that I think not everyone would have known back, you know, a thousand years ago or 2,000 years ago. And I like the language of Thomas Keating. Thomas Keating was a Roman Catholic contemplative leader who just died a few years ago. There's a retreat center in Colorado called Snowmass, which is the name of the town that it's in. And Thomas Keating would talk about God as the divine therapist. The orthodox think of God as more of a healer than as a legal entity like a judge, which is very common in evangelicalism to think of God that way. So. But Thomas Keating, God is a divine therapist. And what God is interested in doing is healing us from the inside out. To me, that's not a sinfulness that elicits God's anger, but it's an act of God's love for God's creation. And so I do think about sin differently than I might have articulated, say, 20, 30 years ago. And it's a lot because of experiences that I've had and things that I've just come across and things that I've read, which I know is not the most traditional Christian thing to say about sin, but you ask anybody that question, what does sin mean? And all of a sudden we're off and running in the race at the races, because there are different, you know, biblical metaphors for sin. It's a weight that you bear. It's a stain that has to be, you know, washed off or something. It's a debt that has to be paid. And those are all cultural metaphors that are trying to wrap their heads around this notion of what does it mean to be not aligned with God properly, I guess, you know, and. And so the question of sin, I think, is. Is a. Is an interesting theological question. Just what is it? And, and. And then, you know, how do we live in response to that?

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah, I really like that.

[Tim]

And just to follow up really quickly, the more I thought about this title, the more I. The more I loved it because one of the ways that I've begun to think about sin in recent years is as sort of a. Anything that stops our progression. If you think of God taking on this parental role in. In one way or another and desiring nothing more than for us to progress and. And learn and. And be better than we were yesterday, more. More loving, you know, more whole. That. And sin is what stops us from getting there. Certainty is something that is. Can really, like, once you're certain, like you're. You're kind of done, you know, you feel like you don't have anything else to. To do. And so in that sense, it really. It does seem like it can be a real sin that stops us from.

[Pete Enns]

Well, I mean, just an example. I agree with that. I think an example would be something like you feel a sense, whatever it is, but you feel a sense I need to change something here in my life. But you don't do it because you're afraid. You're afraid of the uncertainty that it brings. I think that's sin. I don't think God's mad at me.

[Tim]

Right.

[Pete Enns]

That's the big difference. I think I'm holding back from the potential for growth and for change, which is what I think God wants for us to be continually developing or evolving or whatever word we want to use. And yeah, so I think that that is an example to me of sin. But I don't equate that with the hammer of Thor coming down on my head any minute because I got something wrong. It's just I am afraid. I'm afraid right now, and that's holding me back. And the question then is not don't be afraid, but why are you afraid? What are you actually afraid of? And that's where wise people coming alongside you who know a thing or two. In our day, we call them therapists or spiritual advisors. They can help us understand what are you really afraid of here? And how can you explore what makes you tick and maybe then look for what. What is. Where is the divine healing? Where can that come from in the midst of this? Right. So I don't mind calling that sin. I just want to not have all the baggage with it, I guess.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, totally. One. One metaphor that we hear and. And use often in our tradition is this idea of a shelf that anytime something comes up in your faith that is really hard to explain or that feels especially. That's causing a lot of dissonance. You're going to put it on the shelf and. And stick with what you know. Right. And I think that's what I'm hearing, like that. That maybe is really coming from this place of fear, if we're really honest about it. And. But I think that. I think that this book really helps to sort of reorient how we talk about doubt like that. Like, a lot of times, I think we. I think we've really learned to associate doubt with some sort of morality. Like if. If we're having doubts, if we're having questions that need to go on the shelf, by entertaining those and holding them, we're actually choosing sin. We're choosing something. We're choosing to make ourselves vulnerable to some sort of. It's some sort of spiritual weakness that is going to make our whole faith vulnerable. So how would you reframe these, like, oh, moments. These, like, moments where we really, if we're being totally honest, are experiencing real questions that we didn't choose but that were. That we have.

[Pete Enns]

Yes, and I think that's really well put. I would say this, that those, oh, moments where, you know, everything's going along rather nicely and then something happens. It doesn't matter what it is. It's just you could be watching something, streaming something on tv, or you could be reading a book or just talking to a new neighbor who's like an atheist and is the nicest person you ever met in your life or something like that. You know, where the paradigm we have, the narrative of faith that we have gets very much disrupted. And I think when that happens, to look at it as not an attack on the faith from, like, some outside source, but actually something that you're intuiting on the inside. And it's not because you're caving into unbelief. It's. You don't necessarily want to go in this direction, but there it is. And it's a matter of integrity to explore it. And, And I think. I just think God has to be okay with that because, you know, God knows us and, And God is infinite and we're not. And we are finite people. And all of us have theological problems. All of us have things that we're just not seeing. And we probably, in every area of our theology, there are things we have blind spots because of where we live and when we live and our, you know, our race and our gender and our socioeconomic status and whether we're rural or in the city or living in Finland or, you know, in Taiwan, it just, it makes a difference. And, and we're going to have different. Oh, moments in our lives. And all of them, I think, can be understood as that, that time to, it's time to get up and move a little bit here and stretch your legs because, you know, your, your faith in the infinite God of love is on autopilot. Well, that's ridiculous if you think about it, you know, like, like, like I've got it down now and nothing can touch this. I get it. And if you disagree with me, you're now the enemy. You're a heretic because you disagree with me on this one thing. But you know, when people go through their own, I guess, you know, we call them say deconstruction moments. That's when they have, they're not prepared for that. They have no, there's no built in flexibility to their system. It's all or nothing.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Pete Enns]

And very often what happens is people like that just double down and they become less yielding or they just leave their faith entirely, which I don't blame them for, quite frankly.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, that's another way to like relieve the dissonance. I, I get that. Can you do. There's a reading on page 1 57. This feels like a great time for that.

[Pete Enns]

Okay, okay, okay. But doubt is not the enemy of faith. A solely destructive force that rips us away from God. A dark cloud that blocks the bright warm sun of faith. Doubt is only the enemy of faith. When we equate faith with certainty in our thinking.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

This to me felt like kind of the thesis of the whole book. Like this is where everything sort of hinges. Like if we, if we are expressing our faith as a list of perfect beliefs, then that feels very rigid and fragile. Right. And I love that the book sort of moved me into this idea that what if faith is actually just deep, deep trust and then there's so much flexibility and doubt actually feels like an invitation to relationship with God instead of like this, this big spiritual weakness that is separating me from God.

[Pete Enns]

Yeah. And it's again, sort of, it's easier to think this way if we don't have an image of God whose sort of default mode is anger, which a lot of Christians do have. I mean, I think. And if you prod them a little bit, they might not think that, they might not say that, but if you prod them a bit, it's. They're really afraid of God being angry with them. And then when they die, sending them to hell because they don't have the Certainty and everything they should be certain about. And I think once that is taken off the table, I think it's easier to just look at it and say, I am truly trying my best. I struggle with these things, but I'm going to try to trust God anyway, which is not an easy thing to do. This is not an easy solution because trusting God is for many people, exactly the problem. But the alternative that faith is equated with a list of beliefs that you're certain about and you do not waver from them. That's a very unrealistic expectation to have from careful Bible readers because the Bible is so diverse anyway and it has different opinions on different things. And you can ask of the Bible, you know, what's the biblical teaching on X? And it's like, well, it depends on where you're reading. And these authors clearly disagree with each other. So, you know, this biblically based sense of certainty. I don't think the Bible gives us certainty. I think it gives us a sort of a quilt of beliefs or, you know, just a diverse set of, of religious expressions that span over a thousand years and we get to enter into that. But to suggest that we're going to derive from that certainty is, is, I think, setting us up for a big fall.

[Tim]

So I've been in situations before where I've tried to, you know, in a church setting, you know, give a little bit of room for doubt. And that's not been received well, typically. And it's very easy for Bible readers and, you know, more broadly in our tradition, other readers of other scripture to point two verses and say, it's very clear that God doesn't like doubt. I mean, you could, you could look at, you know, Peter trying to walk on the water and Jesus rebuking and saying, oh, ye of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? You know, how do I. And I. So I guess I've been wanting to ask a Bible scholar this for a long time. How do you deal with doubt when you're looking at it biblically and people are saying it's, it's never, it's never a good thing here?

[Pete Enns]

Well, I would say, I think, I think there's a difference between the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament and the New Testament and how this is handled? And again, I don't know if the explanation is going to make people feel any better, but the, the, my outlook is this. The New Testament was written over a pretty narrow period of time. And just for argument's sake, I'll say something like maybe about 45 to maybe about 100 of the Common Era ad and there's a sense of urgency in the New Testament. The New Testament writers, those who talk about it, clearly felt they were living in the last days, that this is going to come to an end fairly soon. And so the rhetoric of the New Testament is the urgency of the moment. In the Hebrew Bible you have books like Ecclesiastes and Job and Lament Psalms, and you have the Hebrew Bible that was written over about roughly a thousand year period of time, most scholars say from about 1200 to about 200 BCE and during different times, different political moments, different historical epochs by different people for different circumstances, different reasons, and plenty of time during that thousand year period to reflect on, you know, things aren't going very well here. You know, you don't have this sense of urgency in an anthology of literature that spans so much time. And so you have psalmists openly challenging God and where are you when we need you? Kind of thing. And Ecclesiastes saying the whole thing doesn't make sense. And Job casting serious doubt on what, you know, biblical scholars called Deuteronomistic theology. Theology of the book of Deuteronomy and of like Samuel and Kings, where things are pretty black and white. You obey and you're blessed, you disobey and you're cursed. You know, read the blessings and curses at the end of Deuteronomy you have in, in the Hebrew Bible you have these moments of, of uncompromising fidelity to God and don't waver. Walter Brueggemann, the Old Testament scholar, calls this Israel's main testimony. This is their main story. God saved you, here's the law, keep it. If you don't, there are consequences. If you do, there's blessing. But then you have these other portions of the Hebrew Bible that are what Brueggemann calls the counter testimony. It's like in a court of law where they come up and say, excuse me, I've done what I need to do my whole life and I'm suffering. And there are rich people over there who hate God and have all the blessings, right? Or why isn't God here helping us when he helped the ancestors of the past? Or you know, Ecclesiastes saying like, nothing really makes any sense. This is absurd the way God set up the world. It just doesn't make any sense. And Job refusing to believe in the orthodox theology of his friends. His friends were actually very orthodox by some standards that, you know, listen, suffering is a result of disobedience of sin. You're suffering. Clearly you must have done something to elicit this from God. And Job insists from beginning to end, I didn't do anything. And his friends say, yeah, you did. And Job says, no, I didn't. And his friends say, yeah, you did. And Job says, no, I didn't. And his friends say, yeah, you did. It goes on for 30 chapters like that. But the point of the book at the end is that Job is actually vindicated for holding his ground at the end. God appears to Job and his friends out of the whirlwind, which is freaky enough, but it'd be nice if God shows up and solves all our theological disputes. But he shows up here and he looks at one of Job's friends and he says, you have not spoken well of me as my servant. Job has. Even though they're the ones doing the straight theological line from, like, Deuteronomy of blessings and curses, Job maintained his innocence throughout. And God is vindicating him for not giving in. You know, and so I would put people who go to James, for example, you know, don't waver in unbelief. I would counter that and say, but there's a whole tradition in the Hebrew Bible that does something very different, and we need to take that seriously, too. And this is just an example of how you can't necessarily get the whole Bible on the same page on a given topic, because there are different contexts, there are different reasons why James was writing what he wrote. And we have to be thoughtful as we engage this and not just take it on a proof text level, but say, how does this fit into the rhetoric of James as a whole? And what is James trying to say as a letter? Right. But it takes a lot of patience to do that. And I understand that not everyone is excited about that prospect of having to dig in. It's much easier just to take verses. But for every James, I have a psalm, right? For every First Peter, I have Job, you know, and it's like, this is. I think this is why the Old Testament is, you know, worth reading for Christians. And part for that reason. It does things that the New Testament doesn't do. And we've been around for 2,000 years now. We have a lot in common with the long stretches of time where the doubts start coming in.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Tim]

Wow.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

This is. This is kind of a pastoral question. But I think a lot of times our faith really is built on this bedrock of intellectual argument. Like maybe I think it's an accident. You know, I don't think that we need to approach faith that way. But sometimes we're presented faith in a way that is like someone sets up dominoes for us, you know, and so it, when those start to fall and those correct beliefs start to become a little bit destabilized, then how do you hang on to trust? Like, how do you transition from this idea that faith looks like correct beliefs to something that feels a lot more fluid if you, if you don't have that foundation yet.

[Pete Enns]

Right. And I think it's very difficult. And that's part of the problem with, and I think you put it well, Aubrey. It really is. Evangelicalism and fundamentalism are different, but still it's about believing the right things. And if you do that, you're going to be on solid ground. If you doubt those things, you're going to waver and you're going to fall away. And the next thing you know, you might drink coffee or whatever you guys have a problem with over there in the morning. By the way, side issue here. I went to BYU about seven, eight, nine years ago and I spoke with a couple of other scholars, had a great time talking with the theologians there and also the biblical scholars there. But I just woke up in the morning and I should have googled it, but I'm like, where's the coffee? And it's like. And I, it just, I was, okay, I made it, I made it through,

[Tim]

you know, back in that era. And when I, I went to college at byu, there was actually no, there was no caffeine, like official caffeine of any kind on campus. You couldn't, you couldn't find a Diet Coke that wasn't caffeine free. That has since changed. You'd still, it would still be pretty hard to come buy some coffee.

[Pete Enns]

I will say this is such a, like historic Jewish question. Like, like no caffeine. But what is caffeine? How do you define caffeine? And is it at certain times of day? It's like, it's a very legal argument. I don't mean, I don't mean that a negative sense, more of an observation. Christians do the same thing about, yeah, can I miss church? Or something like that. Well, why are you missing church? Well, you know, anyway, I think when you're born and raised in an intellectualizing kind of what I would call a biblicistic and apologetically oriented faith, I think that transition doesn't happen very easily. I think the transition almost has to be very strong because that's the only way to press reset. There's no other option.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

Wow.

[Pete Enns]

For for, for maintaining some sort of Christian faith or faith or whatever religion you have. So I, I think it's difficult. There's no, like, well, here's how you do it. I think it's more hopefully as you live and breathe and engage other people and let the clouds settle, let the dust settle. And for many people, that means I have to get out of here. You know, I. I need to leave. I need to not look at my Bible for a while because it's been very toxic, right? And I think it just, it takes time. There's no. When I think of my own path, for example, and how I left my own model of certainty because all of a sudden none of it made any sense. And this is like back in 2009. And I remember just thinking to myself, yeah, I'll never sing a Christmas carol again, or nothing. I don't see any way back from where I am right now because none of that stuff makes sense. And all I can say is that over the course of the next few months, six months, a year, I just found myself in a different place, being interested in how other people have processed the Christian faith. And that got me involved in, at least interested in things like the orthodox tradition or contemplative kind of Christianity, which is its own diverse thing. It's not just one thing. And I saw models for me, that made a lot of sense, you know, and. Can I tell a story here? Do you mind? It's one of my favorite stories. It deals with Mother Teresa. And I know a lot of people don't like her, and there are probably reasons not to like Mother Teresa. I have no idea.

[Tim]

But those would be.

[Pete Enns]

Well, she's been accused of, like, keeping people in poverty so that they can suffer and God can have grace on them or something. And, and I, I'm, I'm. I can't verify that at all. I've read her letters and it's very interesting stuff to read, but. But anyway, there was this day I was in front of my computer and this was. I was in the middle of all this stuff, right? And I wasn't really teaching on a full time basis. And it was a little bit of a weird time. And I came across a story between Mother Teresa and John Kavanaugh, who was a, I think, a moral philosopher at St. Louis University. He just died several years ago, and in the mid-70s, he was having his own crisis of faith, his own crisis of certainty and things like that. And so he thought he'd take his sabbatical time visiting Mother Teresa because she'll know the answers, right? So he shows up and, you know, he meets her and she says, what can I do for you? He says, you can pray for me. And she says, what can I pray for? And he said, pray that I have. I forgot the word that he used.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

Clarity.

[Pete Enns]

Clarity. I pray that I have clarity. Not certainty, but clarity. And she said, I will not pray for that. He goes, well, why not? Because clarity is the last thing you're clinging to. Should use that word, clinging, and must let go of. And I remember just reading that story and the impact it had on me because I just thought of that and I said, I think I've been doing this wrong, you know, because I've left a certainty system, and now I don't know where I am. And my whole thinking is all oriented around getting that certainty system back. It may be a different certainty system, but it's a certainty system nonetheless. And that really challenged me about clinging to that sort of thing. And I think it's really funny is when John Kavanaugh said, well, you seem to have tons of clarity. And then she just laughed and said, I've never had clarity a day in my life, but I've had trust, so I will pray that you trust. And it hit me that I've been doing this wrong. It really. It struck me. It was almost like an epiphany, like, I don't know the implications of all this, but seeking to be certain is not an act of trust or faith.

[Tim]

Yeah.

[Pete Enns]

And trust and faith don't always have a clarity to it. They have sometimes a lot of unclarity.

[Tim]

Yeah. Wow.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Tim]

If I could ask you. Excuse me. Sort of from a societal level. So the book, you know, centers around moving away from an emphasis on. On correct beliefs. And I'm. I'm wondering if we aren't. I actually don't. Don't believe this. But I'm going to try to articulate an argument that I can imagine being made. If we aren't focused on correct thinking, then isn't there a possibility that we're all. We all just sort of end up creating God in our own image and there's just utter relativism and chaos, Nothing to center a society around. How would you. How would you deal with that type of.

[Pete Enns]

Yeah, it depends on my mood and attitude at the moment. One thing I might say is that we're always creating God in our own image anyway. Even if you're going to go strictly biblically, who you are as a subjective person affects what you read and how you Read it. Whether you're reading it in English or in some other ancient language or. It's hard to escape the subjectivity of it all. And there's this great line I use all the time with my students. It might have been Mark Twain, it might have been Rousseau, one of the two. But in the beginning, God created man in his own image. And like gentlemen, we've been returning the favor ever since. Right? And that's true. See, I think this is theology. We do that. We're always meshing together the essentially incomprehensive God, steeped in mystery with our own limited human experience. That is the task of religious faith. That's a task of theology. No one escapes that. Right? So even the most ardent biblicist proof texter does not escape that because they're assuming, first of all, that's the right way to get to God, which I would contend is not the right way. But you're not getting certainty from a text that clearly seems designed not to give us that kind of epistemic, you know, intellectual history, certainty that we want, you know, So I would just, basically, I wouldn't give that person the high ground. I'd say we're all actually on the same shaky place, and the task of faith really has a journey element into the mystery of God. Along the way. What we do is we formulate our thoughts, we systematize our thoughts, and we say, this is what I believe about God, or this is what my tribe believes about God and all, that's great, and it's actually inevitable. Everyone's going to have that. But the issue is, do we hold to it? Maybe gently, with conviction, that's fine, as I really believe this. But then to be open to maybe adjustments to that or even wholesale changes in rejection to that, if your experience is calling you to think through that, you know, and, and that's not to go on and on about this, but I, you know, a lot of my younger years in the church has been about vilifying human experience. Like, that's subjective. We want objective truth, but that's subjective. And plus, you're a sinner, so your experience means nothing. Just your experience is the problem, not the thing we have to account for. And again, I want to say who, who transcends their own experience on this planet? Nobody does. Right? We're always, Our experience is always feeding into our experience of God. How we talk about God, the words we use to formulate our understanding of God, all that, it just, it can't be escaped. And so I just, I Reject the whole premise, actually, of that kind of discussion.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

Wow, I love how you put it in the book. Somewhere you say that the problem is that the preoccupation with correct beliefs is that you. It holds God captive to what you are capable of comprehending. And which makes so much sense to me. Like, I. In that sense, I can see how no matter where you are, you're creating God in your image because that's all you're capable of, really.

[Tim]

Right.

[Aubrey Chavez]

But.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, but I.

[Aubrey Chavez]

But I.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

So I wonder, like, when you talk about agnosticism, are you just saying, like, you're finally at a place where you really stop resisting letting God show you something new? Like, is it just, like, this place of such extreme openness that you can be taught? Or. I guess my real question is, like, when you are in this place of deep doubt, like, what is the next step? Is it just. Is it to lean into doubt or to lean into whatever you can hold on to? Or, you know, what. What do you. What do you actually do in those moments where you feel like you have nothing? You have nothing, you have.

[Pete Enns]

No, it may be both of those things, Aubrey. It may be leaning into what you have some connection with, but then also leaning into the doubt itself. Because the. The opposite would be to flee from that moment and, you know, to,

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

you

[Pete Enns]

know, go back into the fortress and close the door tight and lock it behind you. Whereas that may be the thing that changes you the most, if you're willing to sit with it, but it's not always easy to sit with. And I think to retreat a little bit and just catch your breath is fine. You know, I think having people around you that can relate to that experience or at least are open to understand that this is a part of the journey of faith. I think that's very, very helpful, too. The problem. See, the thing is when we think we have to do this on our own, because I felt this, too. I started having a thought on something that I would never have thought 20 years earlier, and it came out of nowhere. And I'm like, I think this is right. But then it's like, I can't let anybody find out. Yeah, right. And that's the hard part. I mean, we're not meant to do faith alone. I think we're meant to do faith in a loving, nurturing context. And I know churches. I've never been to one like this, but I know churches that have, like, lament Sundays, where all they do is talk about the crap that makes it hard to believe, or if you believe at all right.

[Tim]

Wow.

[Pete Enns]

That's why I like liturgical settings where you recite things like creeds and whatnot. And even though half the people in the congregation are saying, yep, yep, yep, I don't know about that. I don't know about that. You're in a context where there's still belief happening all around you. And, okay, I'm part of this, even though I have my doubts. I mean, some people say. I think Rachel Held Evans said something like, it's people. They. They can help. Help believe for you at those times. Right. John Levinson, who is one of my professors in graduate school, wrote a book about this as well, where he says that the. The thing about liturgy is that when other things go away, that liturgy can remain with you, and it can help give some sort of an anchor to your life, even if you're not sure about how it all works. Right. So I think, you know, there's no easy solution to it, but I think the way conservatism has been wired, you're setting yourself up for a major crisis. If you ever doubt anything, you're not supposed to do it, and you can't even talk to people about it.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, I really like that, too. This idea that liturgy can be an anchor. And also, maybe your past experiences with the divine can still be valuable even if you lose those. Correct that correct thinking. Because I think if. If it has to be an intellectual argument, then it's. Then the. The sad thing is that, like, you deconstruct those experiences, too, because you. Because they're not connected back to something logical. And so I like this way of looking at faith because it means that you can still not be able to explain it and value it, and you can still find value in the liturgy without being able to connect every dot, because this is a experience of trust.

[Pete Enns]

I think that's very well put. And when. That's why experience is so important. And I've told many people who, you know, hey, Pete, I had this experience of God 10 years ago, but now everything I'm learning about the Bible undermines that experience. And I always say the same thing. The experience was real, but you're just learning stuff, you know, that doesn't mean the experience wasn't real. The experience doesn't depend on you having the right view of the Bible or the right systematic theology. The experience relies on God who, you know, the wind blows where it wishes. Right. That's in John chapter three. We have to remember that this is out of our control. And that's so encouraging, quite frankly, like I don't have to have it. All right? And when experience is just undervalued or dismissed as actually literally satanic, you listen to your experience, listening to that sinful heart of yours. You know, I just. I don't know how people can recover from that, because what are we if we're not our experiences? This conglomeration of perceptions and false perceptions and, you know, imperfections and limitations. That's who we are. And you have to believe, at least, you know, in the Christian faith, you have to believe in a God who understands that and is not waiting to, you know, give us a D minus on a theology exam because we didn't hold to this thing somebody said 500 years ago.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

You know, conversely, like, what about when God really feels just completely absent? Like, maybe you're also having these questions, but, like, what happens when you're just not having any experiences? And it feels like. I think the dark night of the soul is the word that speak, the phrase that speaks to everybody. It just feels like he's or she or they. Like God is gone. There is no God. How can that still be part of this journey of faith?

[Pete Enns]

Well, I mean, I don't want to give cheap advice because I think that is a real painful place to be where everything is just dark. And, you know, back to Mother Teresa. Her. Her dark night of the soul, in her own words, lasted, I think, 47 years. And it was towards the end of her life when she started having more clarity. And I'd like to think that the good that she did might have happened sort of in concert with that dark night of the soul, because it maybe drove her to experience God in charity toward others, which is a very bit. That's, you know, First John, chapter four. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, right, then God is in our midst kind of thing. And so I think, you know, things can still come from that period of, like, total God abandonment. What I think, at least what my experience was, I felt like I had to have that prolonged period of thinking that because the. The. The reset that had to be pressed was big. And I think, I mean, you know, this is what St. John of the Cross and others say. It's that when you feel abandoned by God, you're not you. It feels like it. But, you know, you're not losing God. What you're losing is the God of your mind. And sometimes it takes a lot of just resetting to discover something else. And I think for some people. And I want to say this, you know, because I've seen it many times. For some people, that period of reset means leaving faith entirely and processing things, you know, and, and I would say, hopefully coming to see that their reasons for rejecting their faith are probably good ones. But God is beyond all of that and is still something where I think God approaches us primarily in our daily lives and our experiences.

[Tim]

That's beautiful.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Tim]

Is there any. Is there anything else you'd like to leave us with or leave our audience with? Pete?

[Pete Enns]

Yeah, I guess if people are in that place where they're not sure what. And believe me, I see this all the time, mainly because we have a TikTok now and it's like that's all you see. And I understand, you know, atheist channels, agnostic channels, and people coming over to our channel and talking about stuff and we see it and I, and I get it and I honor it. But I think to take this, the down periods and try to accept them as a normal part of the life of faith and not an aberration that only the wicked or the bad or the lazy or the unconvinced or those who are listening to, you know, like to have their itching ears tickled or something like that. That's. Don't think that way. Just think that this is what, what do you expect to think anyway, at some point in your lives when you've been taught a fairly rigorous way of believing and then your experience simply. It makes no sense of your experience at all. That's going to happen. That is going to happen. And just try to take it in stride and not think of God as being mad at you. Because I don't think God is mad at you.

[Unidentified Host/Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah. It's all part of the journey. I really appreciate that. And we're just so grateful for both. For all of your books, but most especially sin of certainty. And then. And we've found so much value in how the Bible actually works this year too, while we've been studying the Hebrew Bible. So thank you so much. Thank you.

[Tim]

Yeah, thank you, Pete.

[Pete Enns]

Thanks, Aubrey. And thanks, Tim. I appreciate it. Thanks for your time.

[Aubrey Chavez]

All right, thanks so much for listening. We really hope that you enjoyed this conversation with Pete Ends. You can find all of Pete's book, including the sin of certainty on Amazon and make sure to check out his podcast, the Bible for Normal People. And Pete also joined us at RESTORE after this conversation was originally recorded, so you can find that session on The Faith Matters YouTube channel. Thanks again for listening. And remember, you can check out [e-mail].