On the Other Hand: The Unity of Contraries in a World of Conflict

Last fall, I got to attend Dordt University’s theater production of Fiddler on the Roof and enjoyed the passionate monologues of Tevye (played by Jakob Kamp), punctuated by the phrase, “On the other hand . . . On the other hand . . .”

Tevye’s “on the other hand” signals an interruption in thought, a dialectical pause, consideration of a road not taken—a chance to escape idolatry.

Christianity inherits an Old Testament conception of idolatry from the opening words of Exodus 20. The Lord says that he is our God, the one who delivered us from slavery, and we are to have no other gods before him. The New Testament builds on this foundation with the apostle John’s closing warning, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21), and the reality that idolatry will continue to flourish in the last days (Revelation 9:20).

The Reformed tradition carries forward these biblical warnings against idolatry with particular indebtedness to Augustine and Calvin. Augustine saw sin as disordered love, rendering idolatry as any worship the soul gives to anyone or anything but God. Calvin’s Institutes portrays the human heart as a factory of idols, showing that the power of idol-crafting rests not with demons but with ordinary people.

The Heidelberg Catechism goes one step further, noting that idolatry encompasses anything “in which one trusts in place of or alongside the only true God, who has revealed himself in his Word.”[1]

Idolatry perverts the consolation and assurance that should rest in God, placing it instead in a created thing—which is why the catechism paraphrases the petition “Give us this day our daily bread” as “May we withdraw our trust from all creatures and place it in you alone.”[2]

Thus, idolatry is first and foremost an indoor sin, a human disposition that can feel as natural and comfortable as the clothes we wear. Ironically, idols are lifeless, yet not static; they shift and evolve like viruses. Anything we devote our attention to, set our love upon, or endow with our trust at the wrong time or in the wrong measure can become an idol.

“How does the study of communication help us both recognize and escape idolatry?”

I think that question has something to do with the conflicted yet determined way in which Tevye leads his own difficult life. Through communication with God and others, he wrestles through competing goods of tradition, freedom, family, religion, money, and love. His fidelity to his Jewish heritage seems irreconcilable with the idea of welcoming a Christian son-in-law. On the other hand . . . on the other hand . . . somehow, in a painful, partial, tentative way, Tevye moves forward.

How different are our everyday lives and relationships? One person exalts their career, leaving no room to attend to their spouse and children. Another person repeatedly neglects work expectations in order to prioritize family time, eventually being fired. One family devotes weekends to hiking and outdoor recreation, missing the chance to participate in a faith community, while another family spends so much time in pursuit of the perfect church that they eventually grow disillusioned. The point is not that a particular life choice is right or wrong for all time but, rather, that any one of these scenarios may signal idolatry in action—that idolatry can flourish anywhere and anytime we forget to say, “on the other hand . . .”

Philosophical approaches to communication warn of reification—a mixing up of abstract and concrete. The term “good communication skills” holds both promise and the potential for reification. On the one hand, knowledge of a language and culture, attentiveness to nonverbal cues, and proper speaking techniques are practical skills that can assist any communicator. On the other hand, the illusion is that “good communication” can act as a magic key that opens up any challenge in life. Ironically, good communication itself can become an idol (Prov. 10:19). We seek the concrete of “real” skills and end up in abstraction, preoccupied with our own perceived talents while missing the genuine concreteness of responding to life as it unfolds before us.

Skilled communication, like good musicianship or excellence on a sports team, rests in the need to attend to multiple things simultaneously. Public speaking instructors teach students to attend to their audiences, recognizing that every situation is different: a speech that shines in one setting may miss the mark entirely in another. An education in communication prepares people to examine presuppositions, critique one another’s speeches, and argue contrary positions in pursuit of greater understanding. Studying communication may not offer the perfect techniques to fix any relationship or ace any job interview. More modestly, it can play a role in our development as robust, zealous followers of Christ who can carefully consider and reconsider life’s questions as we communicate with humility, grace, and confidence.

The fifteenth-century philosopher Nicholas of Cusa wrote about the coincidentia oppositorum, the unity of contraries. In De docta ignorantia, he argued that a healthy faith requires both the “theology of negation” (what God is not) and the “theology of affirmation” (what God has revealed about himself in creation and his Word—note how affirmation and negation are both present in Article 1 of the Belgic Confession). Without these dialectical pulls, Cusa said, “God would not be worshiped as the Infinite God but, rather, as a creature. And such worship is idolatry; it ascribes to the image that which befits only the reality itself.”[3]

The worship of God is the highest aim of human life—Moses, the apostle John, Augustine, Cusa, and Calvin would all agree. How difficult will it be to keep our eyes set on God, not idols, in a world of generative AI, political polarization, rampant individualism, and anxiety about the future? No less difficult but no less possible than it has always been—for Jesus Christ is the coincidentia oppositorum par excellence. How precious it is to confess a God who is wholly Other, whose being is totally incomprehensible to us, and yet who takes on flesh, speaks to us, and calls us to respond.

Footnotes:

[1] Lord’s Day 34, Question & Answer 95.

[2] Lord’s Day 50, Question & Answer 125.

[3] Nicholas of Cusa, De docta ignorantia (1440), in Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises of Nicholas of Cusa, rev. ed., translated by Jasper Hopkins (Minneapolis: Arthur J. Banning Press, 2001), 45.