Sudoku and theology
Maybe you've never tried to work a sudoku puzzle. A couple of months ago I had never even heard of one. As I left the office the last day before our trip to Ukraine, one of the ladies in the office handed me a piece of paper and briefly explained the object of the game and told me it would be something to do on the flight. It was still a few weeks after our return that I saw an article about the puzzle, explaining it in more detail, and began to grasp the logic of it. Then the local paper began to publish a sudoku puzzle every day along with the crossword, and I discovered that USA Today also publishes a daily sudoku. Now I was hooked.
(If you don't know what a sudoku is, check out this link, so you'll get the point I'm about to make.)
I realized immediately that the puzzle is eminently logical, and from the first one I tried, I set about to develop a system for solving it. After working a few, most of which were classified as "easy", I knew how long it ought to take me to complete one. I considered any length of time over "x" minutes as a defeat. I made improvements to my method of attack. This game is a cinch, I told myself.
Then one day, as I was finishing up an "easy" sudoku, the numbers weren't coming out right. I was finding two 7's in the same row; there was no place to fit in a 4. It was impossible to figure out where the initial error was. I knew what had happened: by entering just one wrong number, which obviously fit in the space when I wrote it there, I had set in motion a chain of logic that sooner or later would give an incoherent answer. I found that I could work all but the last row or section with relative ease, but I could not fit the right numbers in at the end. The only solution was to start completely over, but use more care in choosing the numbers I wrote down. My initial "method of attack" proved to be inadequate, for I found there were three or four different puzzles that I failed on the first attempt. Having learned from that, I adapted my approach to correct the "loopholes" in the method.
A couple of things emerged from this experience: 1) To solve the problems, I had to go back to the very beginning and be sure I was starting with the "given" numbers. I had to redo every number I had written in. I had to call in question my reasoning at every point. 2) All it took was one misstep to throw everything else askew. My subsequent logic was solid, but because it was based on a false premise, it led me solidly astray.
After 40 years in the ministry, I see clear parallels in the field of theology (or philosophy, or religion, or any other term we use to describe our world view). When we come to the realization that our beliefs are forcing us to put two 7's in the same row, or we can't find a place to insert a 4 that obviously has to be dealt with, we can tear up the puzzle and blame the author for not giving us the proper numbers to start with (I was tempted to do that with one of the puzzles); we can pretend we have the correct answers and the inconsistencies are not important; or we can go back to square one, in which case we have to re-establish the "given"---the basic, fundamental premises we will not surrender---then work from there.
Personally, I couldn't tear up my puzzle. Life is...the world is... Personally, I don't believe anyone can truthfully claim to have all the answers and be 100% coherent in applying them to the world around us, but some of the inconsistencies I saw were so glaring I could not ignore them. Theologically, I tried going back to square one. But for a number of years, I kept coming up with wrong answers. I may have made advances in one area (I no longer had two 7's in the same row), but it was still not right (probably had two 3's, and I still couldn't insert the 4). Obviously, I had not retreated far enough to reach square one, so at least one of my initial premises was faulty, and needed replacing.
As with all illustrations, one mustn't stretch this one further than necessary. A sudoku puzzle has an answer that can be immediately checked, even if it takes several days to solve it. As for life, we'll be trying to fill in the empty blanks of our understanding of the world until our very last breath, unless of course, we decide to tear up the puzzle and blame the author for giving us insufficient data, or we give up trying to resolve any of the remaining problems we come across.
I purpose, by the grace of God, to continue working on the puzzle.
(If you don't know what a sudoku is, check out this link, so you'll get the point I'm about to make.)
I realized immediately that the puzzle is eminently logical, and from the first one I tried, I set about to develop a system for solving it. After working a few, most of which were classified as "easy", I knew how long it ought to take me to complete one. I considered any length of time over "x" minutes as a defeat. I made improvements to my method of attack. This game is a cinch, I told myself.
Then one day, as I was finishing up an "easy" sudoku, the numbers weren't coming out right. I was finding two 7's in the same row; there was no place to fit in a 4. It was impossible to figure out where the initial error was. I knew what had happened: by entering just one wrong number, which obviously fit in the space when I wrote it there, I had set in motion a chain of logic that sooner or later would give an incoherent answer. I found that I could work all but the last row or section with relative ease, but I could not fit the right numbers in at the end. The only solution was to start completely over, but use more care in choosing the numbers I wrote down. My initial "method of attack" proved to be inadequate, for I found there were three or four different puzzles that I failed on the first attempt. Having learned from that, I adapted my approach to correct the "loopholes" in the method.
A couple of things emerged from this experience: 1) To solve the problems, I had to go back to the very beginning and be sure I was starting with the "given" numbers. I had to redo every number I had written in. I had to call in question my reasoning at every point. 2) All it took was one misstep to throw everything else askew. My subsequent logic was solid, but because it was based on a false premise, it led me solidly astray.
After 40 years in the ministry, I see clear parallels in the field of theology (or philosophy, or religion, or any other term we use to describe our world view). When we come to the realization that our beliefs are forcing us to put two 7's in the same row, or we can't find a place to insert a 4 that obviously has to be dealt with, we can tear up the puzzle and blame the author for not giving us the proper numbers to start with (I was tempted to do that with one of the puzzles); we can pretend we have the correct answers and the inconsistencies are not important; or we can go back to square one, in which case we have to re-establish the "given"---the basic, fundamental premises we will not surrender---then work from there.
Personally, I couldn't tear up my puzzle. Life is...the world is... Personally, I don't believe anyone can truthfully claim to have all the answers and be 100% coherent in applying them to the world around us, but some of the inconsistencies I saw were so glaring I could not ignore them. Theologically, I tried going back to square one. But for a number of years, I kept coming up with wrong answers. I may have made advances in one area (I no longer had two 7's in the same row), but it was still not right (probably had two 3's, and I still couldn't insert the 4). Obviously, I had not retreated far enough to reach square one, so at least one of my initial premises was faulty, and needed replacing.
As with all illustrations, one mustn't stretch this one further than necessary. A sudoku puzzle has an answer that can be immediately checked, even if it takes several days to solve it. As for life, we'll be trying to fill in the empty blanks of our understanding of the world until our very last breath, unless of course, we decide to tear up the puzzle and blame the author for giving us insufficient data, or we give up trying to resolve any of the remaining problems we come across.
I purpose, by the grace of God, to continue working on the puzzle.
posted by EP | 11:46 PM | Permalink
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