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Making a virtue of doubt It is very modern
to make a virtue of doubt, for doubt is a crucial facet of the modern person.
By doubting everything, Descartes concluded that I think, therefore I am.
Doubt is the means by which humans are able to strip away all presuppositions
about life, to experience Descartes’ solitary certainty—by doubting, I
am conscious that I exist. Doubt affirms the conscious, reasoning self. To doubt may be appealing but to what in us does it appeal—curiosity, hubris
or cynicism? Perhaps it is self-flattering to have a critical technique that can
seemingly demolish the audacity of any aspiration and whittle away any appeal
to sublime wonders of life. Doubt is inadequate to many aspects of human life that depend on faith.
Doubt is a useful tool but a poor guide for developing good ideas, for an idea
becomes a reality through unwavering belief in its worth and relevance to others.
Doubt is a poor theological method if it is not approached
within a context of faith. Finally, is the experience of doubt
willingly sought, for doubt represents abyssal possibilities for cynicism,
pessimism and nothingness? v Doubt is inadequate
to many aspects of human life that depend on faith. Doubt is an inadequate foundation
for any relationship. Love, friendship and community can only exist in a context
of sustained trust. Trust is the basis by which societies exchange goods, services
and social goodwill with confidence. Doubt can erode this, leading to the disintegration
of mutual trust. In the absence of trust, everything hovers over nothing. Mutual
confidence can collapse as quickly as the collapse of confidence on a stock market.
From the intimacy of small communities called families to the fabric of
large societies, trust is the hidden adhesive without which,
things would fall apart. Doubt is hardly a substitute
for trust. Human life is a context of willing belief—sometimes for ill but overwhelmingly
for the good. News is to be believed. Even in its interpretation,
everyone vies for their version of events to be heard, but even more importantly, to be believed. Doubt is unable to convey good news. As doubt, news would
not be affirmed as good, for doubt can only question something, not affirm
it. Doubt cannot be affirmed as news, for any news, even
bad news, is proclaimed or declared with requisite authority, whether as a credible
newspaper employing reliable journalists or a company director announcing dividends
to shareholders. The context of willing belief and willing others to believe is imbued with a desire for trust as an appeal to faith instead
of doubt. Doubt is a useful tool but a poor guide for developing good ideas, for
an idea becomes a reality through unwavering belief in its worth and relevance
to others. Doubt has been a significant factor in making new discoveries in the
natural sciences and developing hypotheses in many disciplines that enhance human
life. Yet discovering new methods and developing hypotheses are contingent on
faith instead of doubt as a primary medium of engagement. Doubt may cross-examine a hypothesis but it requires faith, first to perceive
an idea and then to develop it. Experimentation involves doubt—testing this then
that—but this process is sustained by faith or a belief that a newly conceived
idea, method or project is achievable, valuable to others and worth the investment
of time, energy and resources to give it tangible reality in human life. Doubt is a tool of faith not its guide, even in scientific discovery. A
hypothesis confirmed by ten experiments inducted through doubt is preferable to
a thousand experiments that never terminate doubt. Doubt may
be applied rigorously but not continued endlessly, even in scientific method.
The use of doubt is subservient to a purpose sustained by faith. Doubt is a means
to an end and not the end. v Doubt is a poor theological
method if it is not approached within a context of faith.
Doubt is often lauded as a significant focus of theological
engagement, as if the inculcation of doubt will generate faith. The reality is
precisely the opposite. Doubt is never a substitute for faith. If faith is
strengthened through an experience of doubt, such doubt nevertheless presupposes
faith as its primary focus and context of nurture. Otherwise
doubt, hovering over nothing, can only induce scepticism and cynicism. Doubt may occur in a context of faith through which a person is drawn to a particular purpose. Doubt can be useful for testing
new perceptions along the way; faith is the very impetus to be on the way.
In the absence of faith, this would not be sustained,
especially if there are sacrifices to be made. The focus of Christian faith, which
is ultimately not the self, exceeds the possibilities of doubt. Inductive method, which doubts or suspends received assumptions in order
to make inferences from observation and experience, was significant in the Enlightenment
era. It became the sign of theological virtue during the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Yet inductive method, even when deployed in theology, cannot give the
verities of grace that are disclosed in revelation. God’s disclosure of redemptive grace cannot be discovered
by inductive method. This initiative of self-giving love is vocative as relational
and its disclosure unaccounted for within the various nominations and arrangements
of phenomena, which yield diverse theories and valuations. Christological perspective
of redemptive grace cannot be derived from human self-reflection.
It is given. Recent evaluations of epistemology—how we know what we know—suggest
that we only ever assess fragments of life from a partial and contingent perspective
anyway. If phenomena speak, for Christians, they do so in the light of faith,
for example, through metaphors that gesture to affirmations exceeding phenomena.
These affirmations are given, otherwise than perennial
human ambiguities, as a word from the source of truth that is light without
shadows. v Is the experience of doubt willingly sought, for doubt represents
abyssal possibilities for cynicism, pessimism and nothingness? The modern age may be fermenting with a desire
to question all assumptions about life, but are humans adequate to the challenge
of pervasive scepticism? Humans might assume
they have a panoramic view of their possibilities to the degree they can doubt
everything, but their surveillance of life is always limited and therefore inadequate.
Humans are rational; they are also relational, which opens a reservoir
of possibilities other than distinctly rational responses to life. Humans cannot
survey let alone interrogate everything. For example, conscience can invoke a
variety of emotive responses and actions, some seemingly illogical as inviolable,
yet wholly consistent with relational intentions and perceived responsibilities. The nurture of faith is paramount for meeting the myriad forms and expressions
of doubt that can be encountered. Christians are
influenced by modern hubris when they assume that the diverse challenges
to faith can be mastered through doubt, as if being able to pre-empt them in life.
This is a fiction, for the challenges to faith—from simmering scepticism to direct
hostility—are more subtle, diverse and emotive than might be assumed from hypothetical
scenarios entertained as doubt. In biblical imagery, even Satan masquerades
as an angel of light. It is a mistake to make a virtue of doubt within the context of faith, as if doubt is something that is embraced without trauma and a dark night of the soul. Trauma invariably accompanies significant examples of Christian faith within the ordeal of abyssal doubt. These experiences of doubt were not sought, much less made a virtue; they were the difficult and unsought consequence of courageous, intelligent faith that nevertheless had its focus in Christ, beyond any human capacity to survey and order existence. |
