This weekend I was at the Northwest Roundup and Exhibition in Swan River MB. One of the first things I saw upon entering the fair grounds was a booth with a sign that asked, "Are you going to heaven? Take our FREE two question survey to find out!" My friends and I kind of chuckled and carried on. Later we were bored so we decided to go and talk to the people at the booth. They asked the question, do you know if you are going to heaven, and of course we all answered yes. The discussion continued on and was both humorous and thought provoking. I spent the better part of the rest of the day thinking about the experience.
It seems that I have many times been asked if I know if I am going to heaven, and the question has never sat right with me. Here is why; I don't think we can ever have 100% epistemic certainty about matters of faith. The very definition of faith is putting your belief in something that you aren't completely certain of. So to claim knowledge in regards to a matter of faith like going to heaven. Basically I reject this question as being ill-conceived and generally ignorant. We cannot know, we can only believe, we can even believe with a high degree of certainty, in fact, it is only smart to believe in things that we have reasonable evidence to believe, but that does not mean we have stumbled upon complete certainty. So for the sake of reasonable faith, let's leave such ignorant guilt-bearing questions behind us.
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