Hugo Schwyzer

It’s been too long since I’ve had an explicitly Christian post up.

Camassia links to and comments on an interesting trio of posts about doubt. Is doubt a virtue? Is it a sin? Is it neither virtue nor sin, but simply a universal obstacle to be overcome? All of the discussions — and let me add in that Lynn Gazis-Sax also has a fine post on the subject — take slightly different (though often complementary) stances.

When I was actively involved in parish life at All Saints Church here in Pasadena, I often joked that we Episcopalians had raised tortured ambivalence to the status of a cardinal virtue. Anglicans are famous for their great love of “on the one hand x and on the other, y” arguments, and, particularly among the more liberal factions of the communion, the denigration of too much passion and certainty as somehow vulgar. God is to be approached with a sense of awe, a sense of mystery, but also a keen sense that to claim to “know” rather than simply to “hope” for His will and His blessing is to presume too much. Camassia nails this:

Where I come from, if anything, the social pressure runs the other way: the desire for certitude is seen as a somewhat primitive emotion that needs to be overcome on the way to a more sophisticated, mature comfort with uncertainty.

It’s at this point I feel compelled to offer my Uncle Stanley’s favorite quote from Francis Bacon (the philosopher, not the artist):

If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts but if we begin with doubts, and we are patient in them, we shall end in certainties.

That remark, true enough as it is, does indeed suggest that a premature (or even childish) certainty, of the sort that has never known setback or despair or contrary evidence, is indeed an early developmental stage through which a believer ought to be expected to move. But it also suggests that developmentally, doubt is a middle period — a point at which previous certainties have been abandoned, while new certainties have not yet been discovered. Doubt is thus necessary, even essential; it’s like adolescence. Small children rightly revere their parents; teens rightly rebel against their parents in one form or another (not necessarily with any destructive consequence); adults come to see their parents as they really were — imperfect and yet, one hopes, loveable and worthy of gratitude if not always of emulation. In that sense, an ideal never rejected (or at least doubted) is an ideal never fully understood.

Reading through these other posts, it occurs to me that the destructiveness of doubt lies not in the lack of trust in God it reveals but rather in its capacity to paralyse us and prevent us from acting. Episcopalians joke a lot about getting stuck in “analysis paralysis”, where we endlessly debate and study the same issues, always seeing multiple possible actions as having multiple possible consequences, good and bad, and as a consequence, nothing gets done. More immediately, doubt at its worst acts as a brake on our boldest and bravest impulses, the sort which allow us to do what as Christians we are called to do, which is to follow Christ. We need impulsiveness as well as caution on the journey of faith; too much of the former and we get into heaps of trouble — too much of the latter, and nothing much gets done. In the Gospels, Peter is the most impulsive of the Apostles: think of his habit of saying whatever comes into his mind, like his refusal to let Jesus wash his feet or his cocky insistence that he will never deny Christ. Thomas is the doubter — and we know the one on which Jesus chose to build His church. (But Thomas is my confirmation name, though my ENFP Gemini personality leaves me with much more in common with Peter.)

When I was first getting sober in Twelve Step, I was told over and over again to “Do the next right thing.” I was told over and over again that I was in “a program of action, not just reflection.” Most addicts and alcoholics know what it is like to be paralysed by bitter and immobilizing doubt; we doubt above all else our capacity to lead a different life than the one we have led for a very long time. And if we are religiously inclined, we often doubt the power of our faith or of God Herself to transform our condition. Doubt for the addict is often tied in with hubris; for years, especially in the face of repeated slips and multiple divorces and several diagnoses of severe mental illness, I believed that I was “too sick to be saved.” I did not doubt God’s presence in the lives of others; I didn’t doubt God’s existence, but I doubted whether God could or would be able to pull me out of my misery. I learned that God would move towards me when I moved towards Him, but that despite my doubts, I had to move towards Him first.

The proverb “The Lord helps those who help themselves” is a saying that owes more to Aesop than the New Testament. But there’s some evidence that we are called to move towards God if we want our doubts erased. I have often thought about this passage from James:

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

“Come near to God and he will come near to you”. What I like is the emphasis on our taking action first. To be in doubt is, in some sense, to be in need of clarity. But James seems to suggest something that makes good — if on some level, counter-intuitive — sense: clarity cannot be the predicate for right action, it is often the consequence of right action. Faith and certainty come not before the decision is taken, but after the decision is made. God comes near to us after we draw near to him. There are other passages in Scripture that suggest otherwise, but James has always been especially important to me.

“Purify your hearts, you double-minded.” When one first reads it, it sounds as if maybe the fundies are right, and doubt is something from which we need to be purified. But read in the context of the chapter, it seems clear that the problem with the double-mindedness is not that it reveals a lack of faith in God but that it stands as an obstacle to humble, righteous, vital action.

I have a lot of doubts about many things. Do I doubt God exists? Sometimes. Do I doubt whether I am capable of staying sober and faithful? Sometimes. Do I doubt my conversion? Sometimes. Do I doubt that Jesus loves me, or even existed? Yes and yes. Do I doubt that I am doing what God has called me to do? Much less often. One thing I’ve come to understand as my faith journey progresses: I understand what God is calling me to do better than I understand who or what God is.
Jesus told Peter to feed His lambs. He has called me to that as well — and I know it the way I know my name and my social security number and my wife’s love. What God has in store for me I don’t know. Who God is — in the biggest and broadest sense — I don’t know. Whether going to church or reciting certain prayers makes a difference or not, I don’t know. But lamb-feeding? That’s my job.

I do not mean to imply that I think salvation will come from works alone. I’m a universalist, in any case, who hopes and prays for the salvation of all and the reconciliation of all to the divine. God’s love is sufficiently unconditional that even if I resist the call to do as I am supposed to, even if I remain knotted and paralyzed by ambivalence or fear or laziness or selfishness, I will be okay in the end because God’s love is stronger than my weakness. And most of the time, I know that. Sometimes I’m not so sure. But I go ahead and do what I was taught to do in AA all those years ago: the next right thing. And if I keep seeking Him, sooner or later He will draw near to me. But probably not according to my timing, or in the way I expect.