Are you uncertain about the existence of God? Do you doubt the existence of God? Most people would probably regard the two states as being identical, or at least identical in all of the essentials, but that would be inaccurate. Uncertainty and doubt are surely related, but if we look closely at them we find that they are quite different in the underlying attitudes.

In Why Atheism?, George Smith writes:

Uncertainty is negative, whereas doubt is positive: Uncertainty is a mental state in which full assent is lacking, whereas doubt is a mental process in which the truth of a belief is actively called into question. Doubt therefore has an aggressive quality that pure uncertainty does not. To doubt is to actively question the truth of a proposition.

There’s a tremendous difference between active questioning and seeking on the one hand and merely failing to agree with something on the other hand. Obviously it’s possible for the two to exist in the same person — someone can simply be uncertain as a general rule, but actively doubt and question when there is good reason to do so. No one actively doubts and questions a particular claim 100% of the time, after all.

Nevertheless, it seems clear that actively doubting is generally preferable to mere uncertainty.

The foregoing analysis will aid our understanding of what it means to doubt a supposed revelation from God, and why this is said to constitute a grievous sin. In Christianity doubt stands opposed not to certainty per se, but to faith. To have faith, in a religious context, is to have absolute confidence in God and to trust his revelations unconditionally.

Thus, for the Christian to be uncertain of a divine revelation is bad enough, but to doubt that revelation is incomparably worse, because the latter implies a readiness to criticize that the former does not. Uncertainty may be attributed to a temporary lapse of faith, a human foible that even God may understand and overlook. But actively to doubt the truth of a purported revelation is to challenge God himself, and this indicates a rebellious spirit, not a lack of self-confidence.

In short, for the Christian to doubt the truth of a purported revelation is potentially to challenge the authority of the infallible God in whom she believes. It is therefore religious doubt, not atheistic disbelief, that constitutes the greatest threat to orthodox beliefs, because doubt threatens to undermine a belief system from within.

This is why it is more important when dealing with believers to try to plant a seed of doubt than to actively promote atheistic disbelief. There is little or no ethical and intellectual value to atheism; there is, on the other hand, tremendous ethical and intellectual value in skepticism, doubt, and critical thinking.

Encouraging believers to doubt what they have been taught means encouraging them think harder and more skeptically about matters generally. Whether it ever leads to atheism or not is almost irrelevant — that might be better, perhaps, but at the very least it should lead to a more critical, liberal, and engaged theism. That’s far better than an uncritical, blind faith. Doubt should be promoted over faith and, in the long run, this will undermine traditional religion.

 

Read More Book Notes from the Book Reviews on this site.