Until the appearance of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle in the 1920s everyone believed we were locked into a machine-like cosmos in which effects followed causes in a nice orderly manner. Quantum mechanics changed all of that. Under the Uncertainty Principle you can’t define both the position and the momentum of a particle (such as an electron) at the same time. If one is specified accurately the value of the other becomes uncertain, and vice versa. This uncertainty has made physicists feel somewhat uneasy.

If uncertainty is built into the very structure of the physical universe I believe it is also inherent in any religious analysis we might propose to explain its origin and purpose. Which, if any, of the roughly 300 large religious groups or of the thousands of smaller ones in this world have actually got it right?

For those who hold the Judeo-Christian world-view there is no shortage of uncertainties.

Here are some of them:

There is no prophecy in the Bible that is spelt out so specifically and is fulfilled so precisely at a remote future date that people cannot possibly deny its validity.

The claim that the universe and all it contains have been created is not so compelling (despite the evident complexity) as to forestall claims that it is all the result of a felicitous series of accidents. It should have been a simple matter for a competent creator to ensure that a message something like the following appears (in Hebrew, Greek or Latin) on every leaf of every tree or on the torso of every human: “Made by God & Son, Heaven”.

But you won’t find it. Origins are clouded in uncertainty.

The four records of the life of Jesus, including his resurrection, have enough apparent contradictions to encourage sceptical minds to reject the gospel testimony if they are so inclined. The same applies to any other parts of the Bible. Apparent errors and contradictions (and real ones!) can be found everywhere.

There are a huge number of promises in the Bible for the righteous. At least seven times in the four gospels Jesus is quoted as saying in one way or another that “everything is possible for him who believes”, or told his followers to “ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you”. (Mark 9:23; John 15:7) James reports that “the prayer of faith will make the sick person well”.(5:16) Ancient Israel could likewise expect riches without attendant sorrows, peace in the land, rain in due season, and God’s blessing on the fruit of women’s wombs, — just for starters.

But there is reason to believe it doesn’t always happen, even for the very righteous. Nothing perplexed Job in his troubles so much as the thought that the wicked robbed the poor and innocent, victimized the helpless, and left a trail of sorrow and anguish behind them wherever they went, and yet apparently got away with it unscathed while he was clothed in boils from head to foot. The evidence is all around us today that people can die peacefully in their beds at a ripe old age after ripping people off all their lives.

There is no mystery about all of this when we recognize that man is on probation. There wouldn’t be mega-churches big enough or numerous enough to accommodate all the hypocrites who would flock into churches once it became clear that professed followers of Christ enjoy manifold privileges and blessings in this life while recalcitrant sinners eke out their miserable lives in poverty and poor health. You can’t sort out the sheep from the goats that way.

So what’s the point of all these grandiose promises? Well, I would say that if for any reason saintly Christians appear not to enjoy promised blessings in this life they will still certainly inherit them in the world to come. And if the wicked do not appear to get their just deserts in this life then they will get them eventually in a final judgment. There is no need to argue that the righteous don’t get any promised rewards in this life, or to argue that the wicked won’t often get their comeuppance here too.

It is simply to argue that life here is designedly uncertain. Humans are on probation just as the Israelites were during their desert wanderings. As part of the probationary package sometimes it takes a few misfortunes to help us understand that life is not all beer and skittles.

Some Christians will want to argue, based on the gospel message, that we can have the assurance of salvation. I am sure that is right, at any particular moment, if we are appropriately repentant and confessional. But even St Paul recognized the possibility that he might become a “castaway” (1 Corinthians 9:27 KJV) through apostasy. And it could happen to us, too.

There is no certainty that we will ever (in this life) find out the full truth about the world we live in. Is it likely that teachers in high schools, colleges and universities will be teaching the same physical, chemical, biological and geological science in a hundred years time as is taught now?

There are infinities of time, space and matter that our minds are not capable of comprehending. Scientists speak in mathematical terms of a fourth dimension but we have no way of sensing it. And who knows how many other dimensions exist of which we have no concept whatsoever.

To sum up, if there is an uncertainty principle in physics it should not surprise us if there is uncertainty in religion. It’s even conceivable that the penetrating spiritual insights offered here won’t survive the 100-year test (or maybe not even a 100-day test)! A key theme right through the Bible is that the righteous live by faith, not by sight or by rational analysis.