Originally published at The Catholic Thing
I don’t make any great claim to virtue, but one vice that I’ve (mostly) avoided is the itch to predict the future. Especially around the New Year, when people – even Catholics – despite warnings from Scripture and Jesus Himself (“sufficient to the day”), often offer themselves as prophets, sometimes even something closer to soothsayers. Not only do we make predictions for the next twelve months, lament or exult over what we think is coming, but we recommend new books or diets or exercise programs or spiritual practices. As if human life is – or should be – a rationally manageable, wholly predictable thing.
Life’s a pilgrimage. An adventure. And often, under God, deeply and happily unpredictable.
Item: Practitioners of the dismal science, which is to say economists, often hedge their bets by saying such and such will happen to the economy “all things remaining equal.” Which of course, they never are.
Item: Lately, “The Science” does things like predict that even small amounts of alcohol may give you cancer in some far-off future, unless a meta-analysis this year or the next questions those findings and may even recommend a drink or two.
Uncertainties are a good thing because otherwise
