Our brains are wired to seek certainty. Evolution takes no prisoners – that's either a sabre-tooth tiger waiting to pounce on you from that outcrop, or it isn't. Life has become vastly more complex ever since. As we struggle to understand reality, we need to ask: how do we do so? Assuming of course we have enough curiosity; some folk simply ask why bother?
An intellectual framework. Do we need one? Or just take asking those questions one at a time, as they come? Here's a start. Ontology – the 'what we know', and epistemology – the 'how we know it'. Epistemology? Heuristics is many people's epistemology. Making macro-level deductions from observed patterns. "He's a bad 'un, and that one's also troublemaker. They're both immigrants, therefore by deduction, all immigrants are bad and immigration should therefore be stopped." Bayesian inference – your epistemic confidence rises with frequency of observation. "Trump has lied yet again – I can now confidently assert that he's a liar."
And then there's the question of lumpers or splitters. Are we trying to divide and subdivide aspects of reality into ever-smaller discreet units (splitters)? Or are we trying to manage complexity by grouping commonalities into larger categories for easier assimilation (lumpers)? Or both? Or neither?
But when it comes to spiritual questions, we find ourselves wrestling with inchoate intellectual structures, rather than material quantities. Our intellectual framework has no empirical evidence to go on. A divine presence ordering the Universe? Where's the scientific proof? Life after death? I know many people who have died, none have returned from the dead.
Our certainty-seeking brains look for tidy answers. Solutions rather problems that further investigation. Close the door to that question, declare it solved and move on to the next one, rather than living in a world of ongoing uncertainty. Nuance is uncomfortable. It often requires finding balance between the objective and subjective; holding two seemingly contradictory views at the same time. So it is important to be able to feel comfortable with uncertainty while engaged in the quest for answers. Leaving things to fate, submitting to the flow; like a gibbon flying through the air before grasping the next branch, trusting that the next insight, the next incontrovertible fact, will be solid enough to support you on your further quest.
Your personal ontology is the result of the interface between intellect and intuition; a blend of what you have worked out vs. what has come to you; what you have read vs. what you have experienced.
On the face of it, there seems to be no room for nuance in binary questions such as "Is there a God?" or "is there life after death?" The first one suggests a yes-no answer, rather than a challenge to define 'God'. Similarly 'life after death'. Is this even the right question? 'Does consciousness survive the death of its erstwhile biological container?' is a more nuanced framing.
Ultimately, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and the like are futile questions; approaching theology and metaphysics through logic, using deduction and inference is a dead end. Answers that satisfy you, subjectively, that do not need external validation, come from personal experience. From insights, but above all from intuition.
Feel comfortable in uncertainty.
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