Allan R. Bevere called my attention to this post from James K. A. Smith, professor of philosophy at Calvin College, where he notes that doubt has always had an honored place in orthodox forms of Christianity.
It seems that those who think permission to doubt is some radically new possibility for Christians are the same people who think that a concern for justice is some “secret message” of Jesus heretofore hidden from Christianity–when, in fact, it just means that it was hidden from them in the pietistic enclaves of their early formation. In a similar way, doubt is as old as faith…But there is also an important difference between emergent skeptics and catholic doubters: The new kind of skeptics want the faith to be cut down to the size of their doubt, to conform to their suspicions. Doubt is taken to be sufficient warrant for jettisoning what occasions our disbelief and discomfort, cutting a scandalizing God down to the size of our believing. For the new doubters, if I can’t believe it, it can’t be true. If orthodoxy is unbelievable, then let’s come up with a rendition we can believe in. But for catholic doubters, God is not subject to my doubts. Rather, like the movements of a lament psalm, all of the scandalizing, unbelievable aspects of an inscrutable God are the target of my doubts–but the catholic doubter would never dream that this is occasion for revising the faith, cutting it down to the measure of what I can live with.
Re: “an important difference between emergent skeptics and catholic doubters: The new kind of skeptics want the faith to be cut down to the size of their doubt, to conform to their suspicions. Doubt is taken to be sufficient warrant for jettisoning what occasions our disbelief and discomfort, cutting a scandalizing God down to the size of our believing.”
I think this is accurate, although I imagine “emergent skeptics” might protest this characterization. They are a defensive tribe.
As for me, child of the enlightenment, I think skepticism is valuable even while it does appear to impede something also desirable: belief in God. In the enlightenment, skepticism was sometimes called “indifference.” That was a virtue, even though the word has a somewhat different connotation today. To the extent that theological claims involve assertions of power, which is mostly what they are, I think, skepticism or indifference towards them is good. Skepticism is prerequisite of freedom, in a sense.
I think Rob Bell is a great example of one who is “cutting a scandalizing God down to the size of our believing.” At the same time, he is fighting his elders, fighting the power assertions of his elders. With that I sympathize. I just think he is a fool to imagine that he knows where to stop with this, to think that he has figured out God, to think that his own power assertions have more virtue than that of his elders in theology.
As for me, I don’t want to relinquish any skepticism. Though I do wish I could yet believe in God. I would, if I could, believe in the way of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in the way of Isaiah.
In addition, I think that Christianity, in the name of its own messiah, has cut down a scandalizing God. It is a pity. The old God has lost his vitality in the theology of the church.
“To the extent that theological claims involve assertions of power, which is mostly what they are, I think, skepticism or indifference towards them is good. Skepticism is prerequisite of freedom, in a sense.”
Theological claims merely assertions of power? That sounds dismissive and postmodern. I’d say instead that theological claims are faith in search of understanding, in the classical sense. I think doubt has an important part to play in that search too.
Skepticism and indifference do not seem the same to me, by the way. A skeptic may be very interested in the subject, therefore not indifferent.
“Indifferent” had a different meaning in the enlightenment writings than its meaning to you. It meant objective, unbiased or skeptical, not uninterested.
It is true that I do not see theology in classical terms. I approach theology with suspicion. It is also true that my thinking has been formed to some extent by postmodernism, by which I mean the linguistic turn. My thinking is not classical at all.
Most of the time my “doubts” (a euphemism for the atheism of evangelicals and vain affectation of liberals) overwhelm my faith.
Actually, as I think about it, I think the common enlightenment term was “disinterested” rather than indifference, but the meaning is as I explained above.