A former Church of England priest says that the immediacy of
easily-available information in the world today has created an illusion
that we have all the answers and don't want or feel the need to
challenge or doubt our actions and the world around us.
In the first of a two-part BBC series, 'In Doubt We Trust', broadcast last Sunday 6 March 2011 on
BBC Radio 4, and again this coming Sunday, philosopher Mark Vernon shows how
doubt is a positive virtue demonstrating - ironically - faith in the
future.
He came face-to-face with the issues having studied physics, been
ordained in the Church of England, and then found himself questioning
where he was and leaving the priesthood.
Vernon, who contributes to Ekklesia and many other media outlets and
thinktanks, first moved from faith to atheism, but now sees himself as
an "honest agnostic" questioning the growing tides of dogmatism among
self-styled "true believers" (religious fundamentalists) and "true
non-believers" (some of the 'new atheists').
In the two radio programmes Vernon looks at why some people
develop a "lust for certainty" and are losing their important ability to
doubt and question as well as to believe.
"Doubt has become a bad word. It's associated with fear and failure,"
he says. "But how have we arrived at this situation? Why do we feel
uneasy if politicians or religious leaders express doubts in public?"
Among other things, Veron explores how this attitude has affected the
worlds of politics and finance. He also tries to see whether a mistaken
view of science and the way our brains work might give us answers.
Doubt is commonly thought of as a "problem" by modern religious
believers. But in the past it has been seen as a virtue - an
unwillingness to trust unconditionally in anything humanly made, and a
signal of "a greater hope" - as US evangelical author and academic Os
Guinness has suggested in his books Doubt: Faith in Two Minds and God in the Dark.
In the past, Christianity has also been shaped strongly by the via negativa of Thomas Aquinas and classic texts such as The Cloud of Unknowing.
"Both sceptics and believers often wrongly think of modern religious
fundamentalism as the epitome of faith, and dogmatic anti-religion as
the epitome of doubt" comments Simon Barrow, co-director of the religion
and society thinktank Ekklesia.
"In fact, unwavering zealotry of both kinds is the opposite of the
open, questioning and trust-generating attitude that necessarily
characterises the quest for a truth larger than ourselves. It is also
unfaithful to the diverse and questioning nature of foundational texts
in the Bible, for example. Yet the contemporary media stereotype often
suggests that fundamentalism is somehow more 'traditional' and
'authentic' as a religious expression. This couldn't be further from the
truth, when you probe beneath the surface - as Mark Vernon is helpfully
getting us to do," says Barrow.