My Quaker bedrock
Bob Johnson considers the gap between what we know and reality
Alas,’ said a world expert, disparagingly. ‘Pity we can’t all be Quakers.’ This was over a video link from Massachusetts. He had just told the conference he was addressing that there was now less violence in the world than ever before. So, when a Quaker pressed him on ever-increasing armament expenditure, he groaned, implying you had to be half-cooked to believe that all could be sweetness and light. He dismissed our peace ideal as manifestly childish – not readily believable by those living in the ‘real’ world. Contrariwise, my beliefs now put the boot decidedly on the other foot. Violence is not the only thing that is kindergarten-based – that and ‘science’ now both desperately need Quakerism to thrive; at least they do for me.
‘Science’ fell to bits 100 years ago. Werner Heisenberg concluded that the more you could say where an electron was, the less you could know where it was going. This is the infamous uncertainty principle, often used, never refuted. Probabilities abound. Scientists really should be more true to their science. Sadly, too many aren’t. Scientific uncertainty is at the heart of our understanding – not what was meant to happen at all. There is always a gap – an ineradicable gap – between what we know and what is really happening out there.
The gap between atomic physics and real life is easily shown. The more I know about how fast my child is travelling, the less I can say where she is. It doesn’t wash, does it? Probabilities may suffice for electrons, but they are derelict for parents, and indeed for you and me. We all need certainty – which is where science came from in the first place. Many religions, too, do a brisk trade in certainties. Quakerism, at least in writing, is an exception.
Come with me as I label this the ‘Balby gap’. Those Balby elders in 1656 laid out twenty fearsome rules, but uniquely, in my reading, devolved onto the reader what happened next. They acknowledged a gap between theory and practice, between exhortation and implementation, between ‘science’ and what you then do. This Balby gap applies to everything – the words we use are mostly accurate, but never 100 per cent accurate, however tightly we define them. Quakerism has no written creed – lots of beliefs, nothing defined in writing. The Balby gap leaves room to grow. ‘Seek to know one another in the things which are eternal’ (Advices & queries 18). But you have to decide for yourself exactly what ‘eternal’ means. Let me suggest that you’ll never know 100 per cent. There will always be a Balby gap that you have to fill on your own recognisances, your own responsibilities – that way you can remain alive, grow real, be adult.
How widespread is the Balby gap? It’s ubiquitous. ‘Doctor, I’ve got a chest pain. Will I live?’ You want a ‘scientific’ answer? Think again. We do not live in a clockwork universe, cause and effect are uncertain, and always will be. What to do? In practical, lived reality you rely on trust, on another’s truth. Given scientific uncertainty, that’s all that will ever be available in this unknowable cosmos.
Quaker testimonies concerning truth, peace, simplicity, environment and equality are all, of course and inevitably, subject to the Balby gap. We each see, vary and implement them in our own way, but – and here’s the key – our aim, our ‘intent’ is always identical. Being eighty, I don’t know how long my new-found clarity will last. But I do know that craving universal, absolute, mandatory ‘science’ comes from infancy. We think with utter certainty that our parents know everything – we need them to, but only when we are small. In adulthood, the Balby gap is universal, inexorable – and more realistic. Bridging it requires growing up emotionally.
My favourite nostrum is ‘Truth, trust and consent’. What’s yours?
Comments
Please login to add a comment
