There is a tendency in religious psychology to confuse doubts with heresy or a lack of faith. Having studied Philosophy of Theology for many years, I can attest that nothing can be further from the truth. The greatest theologians and mystics have become so by exploring their doubts.
If we begin with the John the Evangelist, we see that his gospel is radically different from the Synoptic Gospels. It surpasses historical narrative and dives into Christology, metaphysics, Hellenistic and Judeo literature and logical philosophy. John presents a portrait of Jesus that is like a three-dimensional image that you would see in a CT-Scan. He deals in four cross sections of the mystery of Jesus Christ: hypostatic union, homoousious, signs, and eschatological significance. No other gospel writer treats all four in such depth or in one writing. To produce such profound works as John’s Gospel, his letters and the Book of Revelations one must ask an a priori question. “What does it all mean?”
A fundamentalist mindset may consider such a question a doubt. However, a scholastic mindset would consider such a question as faith seeking understanding. A theological mindset would consider such a question the ground force of true mysticism and the deepest form of contemplation. Doubt that leads to logical questions about faith and proceeds through logical and systematic responses is not doubt, but inquiry. Inquiry rises from man’s natural tendency to aspire to understand the transcendent and to eventually transcend from mere words, rituals and laws to the essence of truth.
For many people this is a rapid process, while for others it is a lifetime journey. It took Francis of Assisi about three years to reach this level of Christological understanding. He went on to become the person whom the Catholic Church calls The Mirror of Perfection. Aquinas, Bonaventure and Teresa of Avila travelled on this journey for more than 20 years. They eventually emerged as Doctors of the Church or Teachers of the Church, which is the meaning of Doctor.
Most Catholics are familiar with Edith Stein, the Jewish Carmelite nun who was executed by the Nazis and know that she converted from Judaism to Catholicism. What many do not realize is that she raised many questions about the nature and existence of God himself, eventually abandoning her Jewish faith and becoming an atheist philosopher. Restless, because her philosophical questions yielded unsatisfactory responses she decided to read The Way of Perfection by Teresa of Avila. Teresa’s logic and no nonsense approach to the faith, without the appeal to this or that authoritative teaching, was so compelling that Edith could not put the book down. She stayed up all night reading it. When she closed the final chapter she said to herself, “This is truth.” This led to her conversion to Catholicism and to following Teresa to Carmel. She eventually became a martyr for both the Jewish and the Catholic faith.
Doubts that lead to questions, questions that lead to search, searches that lead to answers, answers that lead to contemplation, contemplation that leads to union with the Transcendent are part of the same process that the Apostles went through and that has led the Church for two millennia.
Let us be careful not to insinuate that every doubt is evil or leads to evil. A stubborn doubt is different from doubt that leads one through an honest process of search. A stubborn doubt is one which will not allow for questions, much less answers. An honest doubt seeks to formulate the right question and does not rest until it has done so. Only when the question is correctly worded, will the answer satisfy the human soul’s aspiration for truth.
JR
