In connection with the thread developing from yesterday’s observations on doctrine and emergence, I wanted to add Augustine’s observation from On Genesis (li. 8. de Genes. ad liter. cap. 5.):
Melius est dubitare de occultis quam litigare de incertis.
It is better to make doubt of those things which are secret, than to strive about those things that are uncertain.
(From the English supplied by the translators of the Authorized Version of the Bible)
Is this is another way of stating what you ended with yesterday? Р“unexpectedness” constitutes one of the touchstone features by which we recognize emergent phenomena.
… maybe the willingness to be surprised is one of the requirements of learning.
I’d say so — but it’s got to be more convincing when St. Augustine says it.