There is nothing wrong with moral certainty, certainly! Mere certainty is normally merely: a convincedness. A person with certainty has become convinced that such-and-such is true. Whatever begat it, this certainty becomes a feeling which itself compels belief. Yet such certainty, such convincedness carries within it, or ought to carry within it, the ability to become unconvinced. Not easily, maybe! Not willy-nilly. An open mind does not entail dropping one's hard-got convincedness, one's earned confidence, one's certainty, at every slight challenge, at any perplexing or vexing question. But still, one's certainty ought to carry with it an ability to hold one's certainty open to question - to one's own question. One's certainty ought to carry within it the ability to see one's certainty undermined - by one's own reason, given first-hand sufficient evidence to the contrary.
Example 1: if God's Son and a flight of angels descended in ranks and settled about you on a wide-woken Wednesday morning, in front of all of your friends and family, and declared: "Dipshits! You are all evolved from apes. That's just how God chose to do it; to make you feel a bit more at home in this burg, whilst you shape your self and soul amidst similarly DNA'd and habituated creatures." This would, to some, present compelling first-hand evidence. Would it be sufficient evidence? Possibly not. Skeptics witnessing such a visitation might posit some sham show, aided by cutting-edge high-tech stagecraft; or a mass-hypnosis or mass-hallucination event; or they might question the reliability of the testimony of these messengers, perhaps suggesting for them a diabolical rather than a heavenly origin. For sheer creativity of skepticism, it's hard to beat someone in the grip of a persistent moral certainty.
The question of whether a given evidence is "sufficient," or merely "compelling," or "interesting," can only be decided by the one in whom a given certainty rests. Note that, as in the above example, "moral certainty" need not be about anything moral - anything remotely to do with morality, anything to do with how humans should act. Many people hold it a moral certainty that only certain approved, specific views on biology, cosmology, or other fields of natural history, research and study are moral. That all contrary views are immoral to believe, immoral even to investigate with an open mind, immoral even to credit with the possibility of being true. This, regardless of any and all supporting evidence for such contrary views.
To persist in a certainty without any regard whatsoever for contrary evidence may be obstinacy, or it may be apathy, but it is certainly not faith.
Or at least, it is not certainly faith. It is no requirement of faith, to willfully make one's self blind. Faith may come garbed in obstinacy or apathy - garbed in, and garbled by. But such is not faith's natural or necessary attire. "Blind faith" is not demanded of us, or even requested of us - we are told to seek and find, encouraged to question, and given promise of an answer. Blind faith is demanded only by certain powers on earth, high priests and visionaries whose need is for a blind flock to prop their power and feed their coffers. Their pride, joy, and desire is a flock willfully and obstinately certain of the substitute truth these high priests wean them on and feed them with, a flock apathetically disinterested in questioning it, or opposing to it truth from any other source but their own creed, calculated and constructed to keep any and all contrary truths at bay. A flock that huddles ready to disregard all entreaties to the contrary - even entreaties of their own compassion, even of their own conscience. A prized flock, ready to be used as soldiers and weapons by the favored and impassioned high priests who shape for them their limits, and set for them their enmities. Such sheep are trained up most unnaturally, with slavering fangs, reared and bred with hatreds to tear into and rend God's proper flock - which is far larger than their false shepherds would have them believe.
Those in the grip of such certainty live eager to spread its poison, proud in their status as elect and chosen, eager to harm and hurl down anyone with a contrary gospel, no matter what reason or reasons should arise to oppose them from without or within - and especially including the word of God.
What fangs, you say, what poison? How shall we know the damaging certainty from the undamaging certainty? How shall we tell the true shepherds and vicars of Christ from the false pharisees and high priests?
We will need a simple faith, but not a blind one. Faith may be strong, but this strength can be misused as soon as we allow ourselves to be dupes, fools and tools of others. To discover those who would blind our faith to misdirect our strength, to thwart those who would deceive the faithful, and misuse their faith as a power base for worldly pride and position - we must not be blind. We must have open eyes. Only if we are wise as serpents, can we be harmless as doves.
So we must have a questioning faith - but what shall we question? What questions shall we ask? When someone presents you with a claim they say is a moral certainty, if the claim seems inconsequential to you, why then - ponder on it as you wish. No urgency to come to a conclusion in an inconsequential matter. But if the claim seems dubious, or just plain wrong, even harmful - ask yourself:
Is it God's job or mine, to know such-and-such thing to a certainty? Am I called to know all things? Or am I called to know God, and to trust in God's love and mercy - to say nothing of trusting in God's competency to have managed, by whatever means, all the infinitely vast minutiae of the universe?
Is it Christ's job or mine, to judge humanity? Is it Christ's job or mine, to say who Christ has saved? Do I accept Christ's redeeming gift of salvation, rendered two thousand years ago once and for all humanity? Or do I presume to usurp Christ's work of judgment - a task for which I am not competent? Do I take judgment onto myself? Does Christ call me to take judgment onto myself?
For those who have a strong yet questioning faith, for those who are willing to confront questionable moral certainty and test its foundations with well-founded moral confidence, those two basic questions will serve to strike at, undermine, and demolish much of the bad, false teaching that tries to pass itself off as good news these days (and honestly, in all days). The question of "What is mine to know, to determine?" and the question of "Who is to judge?" can both be answered with humility, and trust in God. Or, they can be answered with a haughty pride, one that puts one's own certainty above one's faith.
Faith is of God, certainty is ours. To question one's certainty is humility. Faith trusts that God has answers, if we humble ourselves to seek and to ask. Unquestioned and unquestionable "blind faith" can come to an acceptance of all manner of abominable justifications for cruelty and murder. An ill-founded, persistent moral certainty glories in setting up as less "believers" than gods ourselves - Righteous! Capable of knowing the cosmic and primordial truths of how God has accomplished all things! Capable of judging humankind!
This is where simple, humble moral confidence, founded in the true good news of Jesus Christ, can help bring us back to earth - and so, that much closer to heaven. When faced with certainty that seems wrong, that seems against Christ, we can question, possibly remonstrate, maybe even find a way, together, gently out of the bondage of false pride that teaches us to raise ourselves contemptuously above the least of our brethren. In questioning such false certainty, humility can lead us away from astray, and towards a confident embrace of Christ's true call to each of us: to human mercy, human charity, and human forgiveness in what is ours to live and to perform; and to abide in a simple faith and trust in God, in all that is God's to know and to bring to pass.
