Sapere Audi-Dare to Know
What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? Part I
Dare. To. Know.
When I first read these words in an essay by Emanual Kant (1), I almost fell off my chair. This little Latin phrase named the journey I have been on for the last decade of my life.
Sapere aude is Latin for ‘dare to know’, or ‘Have the courage to use your own reason!’
For my whole life, I have had an unusual obsession with absolute truth and was content that the answers were within the structure/theology of Christianity. As I began to ask harder questions of what I had always assumed to be true, I faced the scary reality that to pull on one thread unraveled many others and at some point, I just closed my eyes and started pulling, still believing I would hit the foundation of absolute truth.
And then I stumbled onto the roots of the story in the great philosophers. I have found an intricate connection between philosophy and theology that has shifted the way I am thinking about the god-human story, and my part in constructing the narrative.
The big ‘aha’ moment was when I realized that these thinkers (philosophers and church fathers who were influenced by them) were just a bunch of dudes who influenced another bunch of dudes. Just as fallible humans constructed bad theology, it can also be reconstructed.
Their theories aren’t sacred, and they’re not God. My fear has given way to freedom as I realize that changing worldviews and shifting theologies are positive and that to live in a dynamic place of growth feels much closer to God than a static, rules-based certainty.
Believing there is a right decision is paralyzing. In an ordered world, absolute truth might be overrated, when compared to mystery and that beautifies the journey.
“You know the sound that a fork makes in the garbage disposal? That’s the sound my brain makes all the time.” — Chidi Anagonye
Join me as I share this journey of discovery and finding my own voice.
