What I Seek Is Only the Certainty of Being Gently Treated

Preface

It has now been half a year since I first went to church. Not long after that first visit, I wrote the article “chURch.” At the time, I was already wondering: after a sufficiently long period, once I had become familiar with it and developed a deeper understanding of the whole experience, what new thoughts would emerge?

Indeed, after attending last week’s worship, I found that some new reflections had taken shape.

Dreams and Visions

the gift of years and wisdom.

This was the theme of last week’s worship.

That morning, as usual, I took my name tag from my mail slot and put it on. I exchanged a brief greeting with an elderly man. He told me that one of his daughters is a professor at Hohai University in Nanjing, and another is a professor at the University of Toronto. After exchanging pleasantries, we prepared to enter the worship service.

At that moment, I did not know his age, nor did I know that he would later step onto the stage as the storyteller of the day and share reflections that left my eyes welling with tears.

Sometimes, younger people share their stories during worship. There is a recurring kind of humor: when they mention that their elders are very old and refer to events from decades ago as something “from a long, long time ago,” laughter often arises from the audience. The reason is simple, people of that same generation are sitting right there. Indeed, the average age in the church must be over sixty, perhaps even seventy.

I enjoy listening to their stories in such an atmosphere. I am immersed in the sense of weight that has been distilled by time.

But during that particular worship, what I felt was not only this weight. I also sensed the density of life.

In a previous article, I constructed a model: the result of a person at a given point equals experience multiplied by reflection multiplied by luck. Yet on that day, I seemed to perceive another dimension of this formula. Experience and reflection became a kind of density. As time flows, this density moves past me like drifting fog, sometimes thin, sometimes thick.

The elderly man concluded his sharing with a simple sentence:
“I welcome death, and I have no fear.”

This is something I have thought about countless times. When I grow old, when I reach the moment of parting with this world, what would I want to say? I never knew the answer. Yet a ninety-year-old man spoke the very answer I had been searching for.

This led me to another question: what allows him to face death without fear? His answer is God. Then what is my answer? What exactly is God? What do people believe when they say they believe in God?

Certainty

I have long believed that a normal individual, regardless of age or circumstance, is always seeking a form of “certainty.” When the pursuit of certainty is accompanied by positive and consistent feedback, it creates a sense of groundedness.

This is why I often say that growing plants is an effective way to resist a sense of emptiness. When you water and fertilize them, you can visibly see growth. It is direct and positive feedback.

I still remember reading Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons more than a decade ago. I was deeply impressed by how the author intertwined science and religion into a compelling narrative. Yet at that time, I did not understand the relationship between science and religion at all. My education had consistently framed religion as superstition, something fundamentally opposed to science.

But now, if I am asked about the relationship between science and religion, I can offer my own answer.

I believe that science and religion share a fundamental similarity: both are pursuing certainty. In fact, humans themselves are pursuing certainty, while science and religion are simply different manifestations of that pursuit in different dimensions.

Mathematicians build the vast structure of mathematics step by step, from basic arithmetic to calculus, from plane geometry to topology. What they seek is certainty within the domain of mathematics. The rules of operations, the derivation and verification of theorems, all articulate this certainty.

Physicists are no different. Whether in classical physics or modern theoretical frameworks, even the uncertainty of Schrödinger’s cat is built upon a form of describable certainty.

This is also why I gradually came to enjoy studying computer science, especially networking. I realized that the flow of information has determinism. TCP requires handshakes and acknowledgments. The blinking lights on a network port indicate data transmission. These are all highly deterministic feedback mechanisms. I am drawn to this kind of certainty.

One might argue that gamblers, adventurers, and venture capitalists are pursuing uncertainty. But in reality, these seemingly uncertain outcomes are embedded within another layer of certainty.

Gamblers pursue the emotional reward of winning. That reward itself is a form of certainty. If winning no longer produces emotional feedback, the gambler would quit.

Adventurers pursue the sense of achievement after a successful risk. Even if success is uncertain, they believe the outcome will generate a predictable emotional response.

The same applies to investors.

From this, I infer that people are always seeking a form of certainty in some domain and direction. Science is one form of certainty. Religion is another.

If science describes and summarizes the rules of the observable world, then religion represents a sense of order that is invisible yet deeply internalized. This unseen but trusted structure is what some call religion and others call faith.

As Erich Fromm noted in Escape from Freedom, when individuals confront the uncertainty brought by freedom, they actively seek certainty to stabilize themselves. This certainty may take the form of religion, a logical framework, or a stable relationship. Viktor Frankl similarly argued that meaning often arises from an internal construction of order.

God, or Allah

When reflecting on this question, I did not begin with any specific religion. I set aside doctrines and denominations and instead asked myself: what is this form of certainty that exists within my own inner world?

My answer is: the positive feedback that arises from collective human kindness.

I seek this kind of feedback. When I offer kindness, I hope to receive kindness in return in a reliable way. That is the certainty I am pursuing.

I do not even care what this certainty is called. It could be Islam, Christianity, Judaism, or anything else. What matters is whether it allows me to genuinely experience this reliable feedback of kindness, rather than merely forming a logically self-consistent, unfalsifiable system of words.

It is like music. I can be deeply moved by a certain style of music without any knowledge of music theory. My lack of theoretical understanding does not prevent me from being immersed in it. Only later did I learn that the sound I loved so much is called “post-rock.” My appreciation came first; the name came later.

At the level of the mind, these nameless elements of belief blend together. I look around, unsure what to choose, so I close my eyes and follow my intuition, moving toward what feels warm. When I open my eyes, I find that others call it “God.”

Carl Jung once said that a person spends a lifetime seeking the “Self,” the true center of the psyche, an integrating archetype. This center may appear in the form of a god, or as a belief, an ideal, or a collective purpose. What I am seeking may be precisely this center, something that unifies my inner world and offers gentle acceptance.

I am not claiming that I now believe in God rather than Allah. What I am describing is the process of seeking certainty at the level of thought, and its connection to religion, at least as I currently perceive it.

When I close my eyes, I do not care what the object of my belief is called. I do not care what others label the experience I feel. I only know that I am drawn to this form of kind, consistent feedback.

Do I believe in God? I do not know. I cannot answer that.

But I believe in the community I am part of, and the certainty it provides through its feedback. That makes me indifferent to whether it is called God.

Perhaps you would call it God.

Conclusion

When I give, I expect a return. What I seek is nothing more than a trustworthy causal loop.

In a world layered with multiple uncertainties, I am willing to believe that there exists a form of order that is warm, perceptible, and responsive.

Perhaps this belief itself comes from a thought I have never abandoned:

The world is not indifferent, and in the end, I will, with certainty, be met with kindness.