In Barack Obama's impressive speech at Notre Dame on Sunday (my opinion of it matches up quite closely with Ed Kilgore's), the president had some interesting things to say in defense of doubt, especially as it relates to religious faith.
But remember too that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. It is the belief in things not seen. It is beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what He asks of us, and those of us who believe must trust that His wisdom is greater than our own. This doubt should not push us away from our faith. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, and cause us to be wary of self-righteousness.
This strikes me as indisputably true, albeit with an important caveat to which I'll return in a minute. But perhaps more interesting to me than the speech itself has been observing how certain religiously orthodox intellectuals have responded to this passage. Here, for example, is Daniel Larison (via Patrick Appel, who's sitting in for Andrew Sullivan):
Everyone is stricken with doubt at times, but it has to be understood that doubt, like an illness, is something from which one may suffer but which is something that needs to be remedied rather than perpetuated or celebrated. Physical illness can have a humbling effect, but a proper understanding of theological anthropology tells us that illness, like death, is part of our fallen state. Doubt is a function of a mind clouded by the passions -- it is the result of confusion. It does not teach us anything, but rather prevents us from learning.
E.D. Kain offers a mild rebuke to Larison here, but I would go quite a bit further than Kain's statement that doubt "plays a much more nuanced role in our lives (politically and spiritually) than merely as an agent of personal obfuscation and confusion." Far from being an intellectual illness from which we sometimes suffer and which we should work to overcome, as Larison would have it, I'd say that doubt arises from the ever-present sense that, short of analytic statements (if there are such things), all our statements about the world are opinions about which we can be relatively but never absolutely certain. And how could this not be doubly (or infinitely) true when our statements concern God -- an agent whose purposes and intentions transcend the world itself?
Doubt does not arise because our minds are "clouded by passions," as if we could conceivably attain a state of such dispassionate clarity that our statements about the world would become absolutely certain. That's a fantasy -- the epistemology of the willfully credulous. I say "willfully" because Larison is smart enough to know better, as he shows when he traces doubt to our "fallen state." That sounds to me like Larison is saying that doubt can be traced to the human condition as it exists in the here and now. I agree. By all means, believe if you wish that it once was and one day will be otherwise. But that's then and this is now -- and for now can we please agree that doubt is (and should be) the destiny of thoughtful human beings?
Unless, of course, one has had a divine revelation -- a direct experience of the absolute, nonrelativizable presence of God in one's own life, right here, right now. In that case, all bets are off, and doubt becomes superfluous. (Given how many Americans believe they have had divine experiences, from being born again to speaking in tongues to visions of the Blessed Virgin and beyond, I wonder how many will take Obama's paean to doubt as an expression of secular humanism rather than as a sincere defense of liberal Protestantism.)
Someone who's experienced a divine revelation possesses the absolute certainty the rest of us lack. Has Larison had such a revelation? If so, good for him. As for the rest of us, surrounded by the silence of infinite spaces, we'll have to make do with our doubts and relative certainties.
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COMMENTS (11)
I did not hear or read Obama’s speech; and I don’t know about Ed Kilgore’s reaction to it.
So just reading what you have here written, I say you have mangled the relation between doubt and faith.
One, like Kierkegaard, all fear and trembling, may start from doubt, but faith-- a readiness, say, with Abraham to slay Isaac-- resolves doubt. Where doubt arises, faith descends and inclines to attenuation. That is not an ironic relation.
Faith is suppression of the ironic. Irony and doubt loosened from the shackles of faith vitiate faith. Irony and faith are sworn enemies just as doubt and faith are sworn enemies. The devout by definition are self righteous. Those, as you, who comm ... view full comment
I did not hear or read Obama’s speech; and I don’t know about Ed Kilgore’s reaction to it.
So just reading what you have here written, I say you have mangled the relation between doubt and faith.
One, like Kierkegaard, all fear and trembling, may start from doubt, but faith-- a readiness, say, with Abraham to slay Isaac-- resolves doubt. Where doubt arises, faith descends and inclines to attenuation. That is not an ironic relation.
Faith is suppression of the ironic. Irony and doubt loosened from the shackles of faith vitiate faith. Irony and faith are sworn enemies just as doubt and faith are sworn enemies. The devout by definition are self righteous. Those, as you, who commingle faith and doubt and irony are not devout and their religion is a sop to their irrational quest for totalitarian meaning, even as they understand their own absurd position but cannot confront it and stare it down. Better, I say, they jettison faith and live ironically with their doubts. Better they embody negative capability. It was, after al,l good enough for Shakespeare and for Keats.
The nod to doubt, as in the post, nay the embrace of doubt, is ultimately an incoherent gesture, the quite self -romanticizing clothing of one’s self with intellectual respectability, making a veritable Hamlet of one’s self—so brooding, so complex, so that one can separate one’ self from the vulgarity of, for an instance, the know nothing evangelicals, who, at least, have the courage of their convictions, the courage of their faith.
He, like you, who professes his faith in tandem with his doubt professes, perhaps unwittingly, both his own incoherence and his own posing self aggrandizement.
I am a disabled atheist Catholic who has some degree of discomfort with identity politics, sitting here reading the best American Jewish intellectualism has to offer, reading Linker being wowed by President Obama doing Lincoln on Doubt being used to keep mainline Protestantism tempered and secular, at the podium of an American (Irish?) Catholic cultural icon. Is there an ironic essay in this for me somewhere? I don't know. I am beginning to wonder if I'd actually enjoy making fun of Martin Peretz or if it wouldn't be fair because he's old and looks like an extra walk-in gang banger for the latest version of Eliot Ness and The Untouchables.
Perhaps it is time for me to take a bit of a break an ... view full comment
I am a disabled atheist Catholic who has some degree of discomfort with identity politics, sitting here reading the best American Jewish intellectualism has to offer, reading Linker being wowed by President Obama doing Lincoln on Doubt being used to keep mainline Protestantism tempered and secular, at the podium of an American (Irish?) Catholic cultural icon. Is there an ironic essay in this for me somewhere? I don't know. I am beginning to wonder if I'd actually enjoy making fun of Martin Peretz or if it wouldn't be fair because he's old and looks like an extra walk-in gang banger for the latest version of Eliot Ness and The Untouchables.
Perhaps it is time for me to take a bit of a break and get on with my oeuvre. Wise idea, but what I have faith in isn't what makes me happy about brewing a fine pot of expresso at 5:30 in the morning, which I should get to in about 30 minutes.
I don't mind looking at religion with a wary eye to understand its latest social dynamics, but I can care less about the internal struggles of its angels and demons. I assume, Damon, that your creditials must be awesome, in order to blog for TNR, but for such a finely educated mind to stick *the Unexplainable God* outside of any rational proof of its existence is pretty lame.
Basman: Yeah, well said.
Basman: Yeah, well said.
Cont'd: I too noticed Obama's clever misuse of "irony." We are told that "the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt." How's that? Because it is "belief in things not seen." In other words, it is belief absent the presence of ordinary belief conditions. This is not so much an irony as a problem. So, Obama in summary: "The ultimate problem of faith is that it is belief absent typically required belief conditions." Well, I agree with *that*. Further, according to Obama, the fact that these typically required belief conditions aren't present should lead us to doubt that ... view full comment
Cont'd: I too noticed Obama's clever misuse of "irony." We are told that "the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt." How's that? Because it is "belief in things not seen." In other words, it is belief absent the presence of ordinary belief conditions. This is not so much an irony as a problem. So, Obama in summary: "The ultimate problem of faith is that it is belief absent typically required belief conditions." Well, I agree with *that*. Further, according to Obama, the fact that these typically required belief conditions aren't present should lead us to doubt that the propositions are true, as is ordinarily the case. I agree with that too! So, Obama concludes, doubt is inherent in faith. Whoa. Not so fast. Faith and doubt are opposing concepts, bald assertions to the contrary notwithstanding. Doubt is an obstacle to faith, and faith is a resolution of doubt, as Basman points out. Thus, when Obama says that faith is ironic -- by which he really means problematic -- because it consists of belief without the usual belief conditions and that this absence should lead us to doubt, he is actually making a tidy, potent, and decidedly un-ironic argument against faith.
But, that's not his intention, so he is quick to step back and say that our doubt should not lead us to abandon our faith. That's going too far. Rather, we should conceive of our doubt as an example of humble reverence: *Of course* we couldn't know what God wants. He's God, and we're only human! Skeptics will notice another problem at this point: God and, implicitly, His fundamental characteristics, is assumed to exist. A basic concept of God upon which Obama's audience more-or-less agrees is *arbitrarily* excepted from the supposed duty to doubt in the absence of ordinary belief conditions. Obama and Linker both say, *of course* we can't know what God wants. Why don't they also say, *of course* we can't know whether there is a God? Because that would lead to the result that neither wants -- an abandonment of religious faith. With the Obama-Linker formula, we can believe with little trouble that there's a benevolent, perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful creator and master of the universe who, in some way or another, wants us to be good and/or has a gothic, impenetrable plan that includes much suffering but ultimate redemption. However, believing something more specific than that -- that, say, an embryo is a sacred life in God's eyes, such that an abortion is quite a serious offense against God -- well, remember our old friend doubt? Let's bring him into the picture, so as not to get too unpleasant.
It should be clear by now that this reasoning, while expedient, is not very serious. There is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to get along, and, of course, we *should* try to get along. But we should not be surprised that there are a great many people who will not be *persuaded* by the Obama-Linker approach. Believers are urged to avoid taking seriously some of their important beliefs on the ground that they don't actually know that those beliefs are true. And yet, acknowledging as much logically defeats faith altogether, such that believers are left scratching their heads: Well, which beliefs do I not stick to because I don't know them, and which beliefs do I stick to *despite* the fact that I don't know them? The implicit answer is, don't stick to the nasty ones and/or disagreeable ones -- the others are fine. But then aren't Obama and Linker basically just saying, "Don't be nasty or disagreeable"? That can't be what they mean, so what *do* they mean?
Maybe it's something like the following: Look, we all know that nobody knows that any of this stuff is true, so nobody can have the *confidence* or *certainty* that could justify actually hurting somebody based on it. I don't think Obama and Linker state this outright, because, once again, it defeats faith. Note that this idea depends on an extra-religious moral reckoning, implicitly conceding that religion is to be measured against moral standards of which it is not the source. Its relationship to truth is likewise dealt a huge blow, the skeptics' basic point having been conceded. Without claims on truth or morality, what does religion have left? This approach doesn't take religion seriously. Perhaps this is the lurking danger believers see when they hear Obama-Linker-style anodyne faux-reconciliations of faith and reason.
Linker says that "all our statements about the world are opinions about which we can be relatively but never absolutely certain. And how could this not be doubly (or infinitely) true when our statements concern God -- an agent whose purposes and intentions transcend the world itself?" Okay, I think this unnecessarily puts statements like "I am a hundred percent certain that Tokyo exists" on shaky ground. I also don't need this use of the word "opinion," as if our statements about objective fact -- such as Tokyo's existence -- are typically regarded as matters of "opinion." But whatever, let's concede the trivial reality that we are capable of coming up with stories that cannot be disproved that deny our common sense of reality. What I hear Linker saying is that we should be somewhere between doubly and infinitely less certain of what God wants than of Tokyo's existence. The idea, I suppose, is that there are degrees of certainty. True enough, but that doesn't tell us anything important. The question is, how certain should we be that God wants us to be our brothers' keepers? That He disapproves of abortion? That He exists? On the middle one, Obama says, a bit less certain than the pro-life crowd. One and three are okay. But on what consistent basis does Obama rank them thus? I see none.
“Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?” And what kind might that be?
Quick Itz, you take faith to the limits of the infinite. jhildner, you take doubt to the same. See anything familiar? You guys want magic tricks just like those you accuse.
“Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?” And what kind might that be?
Quick Itz, you take faith to the limits of the infinite. jhildner, you take doubt to the same. See anything familiar? You guys want magic tricks just like those you accuse.
I'm sorry, boxo, and nothing personal, but you're not saying anything. To the extent you are, it's wrong. I find this refusal to engage the point frustrating. What "magic trick" do I want, exactly? I assure you that if you can point it out, I will respond to the substance of your argument. But you have to make an argument first. If you can't do that, why not just withhold your condescending bullshit? I'm testy not only because you've vaguely dismissed my views on this subject as the mirror image of religious fundamentalism before without any support or evident thought -- and with a haughty tone besides (however unintentional) -- but because ... view full comment
I'm sorry, boxo, and nothing personal, but you're not saying anything. To the extent you are, it's wrong. I find this refusal to engage the point frustrating. What "magic trick" do I want, exactly? I assure you that if you can point it out, I will respond to the substance of your argument. But you have to make an argument first. If you can't do that, why not just withhold your condescending bullshit? I'm testy not only because you've vaguely dismissed my views on this subject as the mirror image of religious fundamentalism before without any support or evident thought -- and with a haughty tone besides (however unintentional) -- but because such dismissal is typical.
Let me explain to you briefly the intellectual plight of a religious skeptic: We make what we think are pretty good arguments, arguments that are based not on assertion but rather on shared premises and that have a serious moral dimension and some urgency. We seek to explain, among other things, why faith doesn't jibe with what we all believe on a basic level. We make these arguments because we value truth, because we are worried about the practical and moral dangers of a faith-based way of thinking, and because we enjoy it. Some of us, perhaps, are a little rude or crude in our presentation. I try not to be. Regardless, we are sincerely committed to reason such that we are vulnerable to reasoned argument. Indeed, we crave it. Like the scientist who is psychologically or otherwise committed to a hypothesis, we would prefer not to be proved wrong but we can't and won't deny the evidence and *want* the hypothesis to be tested, because the commitment to go where reason leads trumps those other commitments and we would like to be sure ourselves that the hypothesis is correct. We've freely -- even ostentatiously -- shown everyone the field on which to take us down. And yet, so few want to walk on it. Some of us might take this as proof enough that we're right, and it's true that the unwillingness to get into it supports our suspicion that most potential comers are sure they'd lose. But I actually want to understand the best opposing view -- if there is a serious one -- if for no other reason than that it is more validating to win the game on the merits than by technical default, and I have some doubt -- that word again -- that I've engaged the best opposing view. (My guess is that I have, but I'm not certain.) Who knows? Maybe the best opposing view would get better if it were subjected to *our* test. In any case, if you want to talk about it seriously, I would like nothing more. If not, then I could do without the coy, dubious, and vaguely sanctimonious put-downs.
p.s. I think basman and I are saying roughly the same thing -- though he says it artfully and I say it ploddingly -- so I don't understand the distinction you're drawing between our views here.
jhildner: First of all allow that I regard you and Itz as earnest and admirable. Both of are you are fine representatives of devotion to intellectual honesty. I value sincerity as the cornerstone of any fruitful endeavor. Secondly allow that I come to represent my side of the argument much against my basic disposition and nature. If I were to self categorize a familiarity I suppose one would have to put me in the Hitchens camp of sensibility. But time, as it is want, has by virtue of experiences, changed my view. View. What an utterly inadequate word. Inadequate because 'it' is so much more than an intellectual position.
Not that 'it' is anything like a moral trump card per our discussion. Ag ... view full comment
jhildner: First of all allow that I regard you and Itz as earnest and admirable. Both of are you are fine representatives of devotion to intellectual honesty. I value sincerity as the cornerstone of any fruitful endeavor. Secondly allow that I come to represent my side of the argument much against my basic disposition and nature. If I were to self categorize a familiarity I suppose one would have to put me in the Hitchens camp of sensibility. But time, as it is want, has by virtue of experiences, changed my view. View. What an utterly inadequate word. Inadequate because 'it' is so much more than an intellectual position.
Not that 'it' is anything like a moral trump card per our discussion. Again, I believe your sincerity in all of these things. I honor the better angels of such intentions.
Now correct me if I am wrong but it seems to me by virtue of your own parameters of discussion possibilities have confirmed to a degree that faith and doubt are one. How many degrees being the distinction which you hang your hat upon. I submit those degrees to be ultimately irrelevant in the intellectual sense and very relevant in the here and now spiritual sense. Providing one can get beyond the pejorative baggage 'spiritual' brings to your understandings.
I will make an argument upon the playing field of your choosing. It is based upon a synthesis of Jungian, Jaynesian model of consciousness salted with my own proviso's. I am under no illusions that it will provide an adequate apologia or anything approaching a complete picture which might satisfy. There will always be another, " Yes, but...." This clearly is not the place I will labor thus. Nonetheless, I will be an entrant before your court and its admissibility requirements.
Until then, be well. I most always enjoy your company.
Jack, I did not understand your first post here and I don't understand your second one.
I may have some vague sense of what you are trying to say--but I'd be guessing-- and you seem not be advancing any arguments so much as putting high sounding words together, the meaning of which it's difficult to distill. And worse, argument or not it's mostly unclear what you are actually trying to say.
To wit and centrally: "...Now correct me if I am wrong but it seems to me by virtue of your own parameters of discussion possibilities have confirmed to a degree that faith and doubt are one...
I just don't get that. Why don't you you set out your reasons for this assertion with clear statements o ... view full comment
Jack, I did not understand your first post here and I don't understand your second one.
I may have some vague sense of what you are trying to say--but I'd be guessing-- and you seem not be advancing any arguments so much as putting high sounding words together, the meaning of which it's difficult to distill. And worse, argument or not it's mostly unclear what you are actually trying to say.
To wit and centrally: "...Now correct me if I am wrong but it seems to me by virtue of your own parameters of discussion possibilities have confirmed to a degree that faith and doubt are one...
I just don't get that. Why don't you you set out your reasons for this assertion with clear statements of ideas, one following from the other, and maybe without the verbal shield of "to a degree".
Here's btw an excellent exchange between Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan on the sheer incoherence of putting doubt and faith together:www.beliefnet.com/.../Is-Religion-Built-Upon-Lies.aspx
I haven't linked to it comprehensively but you can sort that out. I think it's well worth reading. My view is that Harris does to Sullivan what my butcher--actually I don't really have a butcher, though my second cousin, a short cute girl, whose name I can't remember, but is the daughter of my first cousin Miriam, whose mother Toby was my mother's immediately oldest sister, is married to one--does to meat to mince it, if you know what I mean.
Thanks Itz. It's all good stuff.
Went to the Twins game last night. Great fun. Brewers pitcher had 2 outs and for whatever reason couldn't throw a strike to the #9 batter who was hitting .186. The fullness of time found two more runners reach safely and a one pitch deep in the seats no doubt about it grand slam. Twins win.
I was as clear as I want to be. You know, Hansel and Gretel and all.
Thanks Itz. It's all good stuff.
Went to the Twins game last night. Great fun. Brewers pitcher had 2 outs and for whatever reason couldn't throw a strike to the #9 batter who was hitting .186. The fullness of time found two more runners reach safely and a one pitch deep in the seats no doubt about it grand slam. Twins win.
I was as clear as I want to be. You know, Hansel and Gretel and all.
...I was as clear as I want to be. You know, Hansel and Gretel and all....
Exactly!
...I was as clear as I want to be. You know, Hansel and Gretel and all....
Exactly!
Boxo, sorry if I was a little harsh, and I appreciate that you appreciate, or at least understand, my views. It's hard for me to reciprocate until you lay out your own views in a way that someone who doesn't know, say, who Jaynes (sp?) is or what he thought, might understand. Until then, cheers. JH
Boxo, sorry if I was a little harsh, and I appreciate that you appreciate, or at least understand, my views. It's hard for me to reciprocate until you lay out your own views in a way that someone who doesn't know, say, who Jaynes (sp?) is or what he thought, might understand. Until then, cheers. JH