T
TIK
Guest
Hello again,
I regularly pray for doubt, but only so that I may grow in faith. Is this dangerous? So far it has led me to the Catholic church (and extremely rapidly too). I find that when anyone says something about anything, I will actively attempt to doubt it and pull it apart from many different angles. (my background is is relativism)
If not for this I don’t think I would be a Catholic today.
This mindset has led me into sincere, honest and humble conversations with all sorts of people from all walks of life, and opened me up to the idea that I should be talking to everyone. No one is trustworthy but God alone: I can’t actually trust the people I’m talking to, but because I trust God I realise there is nothing to fear in talking to them. So the best I can do is meet minds with everyone I come across and then submit both my knowledge and ignorance to God in prayer, and ask that he will guide me to Truth.
This has led me to conversations with Buddhists, Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Athiests, Relativists etc etc etc. I take everything they say seriously and for the sake of argument try to adopt their mindset and philosophy while forgetting about my own. This is very mentally draining but so far it has resulted in a massive boost to my faith every time.
However this means that I regularly, and intentionally find myself doubting things such as the Divinity of Christ, that he even existed at all, the existence of God, all the Marian doctrines, the Trinity… etc
My motivations for striving for this doubt are partly selfish and partly selfless. For one thing, I refuse to believe a lie so if I can doubt something I will. I want God and I want Truth. I refuse to settle into a state of contentment on this issue. If the Muslims are saying that Jesus was just a prophet I’m going to take that very seriously and investigate their claims. If the Athiests are saying God doesn’t exist I’m going to take that seriously and work it out too.
But sometimes it’s more of a selfless thing. When I’m talking with someone, I let them convert me to their way of thinking. I “descend into Hell” by trying to forget about my own Christian beliefs for a second in order to rapidly understand exactly where they are coming from. Ideally I’ll find the flaw in their argument and then coming back up to show them exactly how their worldview culminates in Christ, but often this process takes a few weeks, because cognitive dissonance is very unsettling.
Sometimes this process highlights a flaw in my understanding. For example one time I walked into the main mosque in Sydney and pretty much said “Convert me” and the Imam just completely annihilated the Trinity. I walked away feeling very confused and knew exactly what I needed to read up on for the next few weeks.
In the case of Catholicism, I always just assumed that Catholics were wrong and believed all of the myths and exaggerations about the church. However when I finally met a real Catholic who knew her faith, Instead of mistrusting her and holding on to my prejudices; I instead found out that my understanding of Catholicism was completely wrong!
So in this case, praying for doubt has been extremely productive!
However I was wondering what the official teaching on doubt is? Is there a distinction between good doubt and bad doubt? My motivation for doubting is always to better understand Truth and get closer to God, rather than to ignore Truth and run away from God. But what does the Catholic church say?
For example if I intentionally decide to doubt some of the Marian dogmas, so as to understand where my protestant friends are coming from, is this a sin or a heresy? Obviously their arguments will affect me and shake my understanding and conviction, however afterwards I would pray intensely and consult with other Catholics in order to resolve the dispute in my own mind.
All I’m trying to do is become all things to all people. Maybe I’m taking this too far or the wrong way?
I regularly pray for doubt, but only so that I may grow in faith. Is this dangerous? So far it has led me to the Catholic church (and extremely rapidly too). I find that when anyone says something about anything, I will actively attempt to doubt it and pull it apart from many different angles. (my background is is relativism)
If not for this I don’t think I would be a Catholic today.
This mindset has led me into sincere, honest and humble conversations with all sorts of people from all walks of life, and opened me up to the idea that I should be talking to everyone. No one is trustworthy but God alone: I can’t actually trust the people I’m talking to, but because I trust God I realise there is nothing to fear in talking to them. So the best I can do is meet minds with everyone I come across and then submit both my knowledge and ignorance to God in prayer, and ask that he will guide me to Truth.
This has led me to conversations with Buddhists, Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Athiests, Relativists etc etc etc. I take everything they say seriously and for the sake of argument try to adopt their mindset and philosophy while forgetting about my own. This is very mentally draining but so far it has resulted in a massive boost to my faith every time.
However this means that I regularly, and intentionally find myself doubting things such as the Divinity of Christ, that he even existed at all, the existence of God, all the Marian doctrines, the Trinity… etc
My motivations for striving for this doubt are partly selfish and partly selfless. For one thing, I refuse to believe a lie so if I can doubt something I will. I want God and I want Truth. I refuse to settle into a state of contentment on this issue. If the Muslims are saying that Jesus was just a prophet I’m going to take that very seriously and investigate their claims. If the Athiests are saying God doesn’t exist I’m going to take that seriously and work it out too.
But sometimes it’s more of a selfless thing. When I’m talking with someone, I let them convert me to their way of thinking. I “descend into Hell” by trying to forget about my own Christian beliefs for a second in order to rapidly understand exactly where they are coming from. Ideally I’ll find the flaw in their argument and then coming back up to show them exactly how their worldview culminates in Christ, but often this process takes a few weeks, because cognitive dissonance is very unsettling.
Sometimes this process highlights a flaw in my understanding. For example one time I walked into the main mosque in Sydney and pretty much said “Convert me” and the Imam just completely annihilated the Trinity. I walked away feeling very confused and knew exactly what I needed to read up on for the next few weeks.
In the case of Catholicism, I always just assumed that Catholics were wrong and believed all of the myths and exaggerations about the church. However when I finally met a real Catholic who knew her faith, Instead of mistrusting her and holding on to my prejudices; I instead found out that my understanding of Catholicism was completely wrong!
So in this case, praying for doubt has been extremely productive!
However I was wondering what the official teaching on doubt is? Is there a distinction between good doubt and bad doubt? My motivation for doubting is always to better understand Truth and get closer to God, rather than to ignore Truth and run away from God. But what does the Catholic church say?
For example if I intentionally decide to doubt some of the Marian dogmas, so as to understand where my protestant friends are coming from, is this a sin or a heresy? Obviously their arguments will affect me and shake my understanding and conviction, however afterwards I would pray intensely and consult with other Catholics in order to resolve the dispute in my own mind.
All I’m trying to do is become all things to all people. Maybe I’m taking this too far or the wrong way?