The conflict between Christians and nonbelievers often revolves around the questions of faith and doubt, sometimes depicted as questions of gullibility and skepticism. Christians have generally promoted faith as having positive value and even being a virtue while doubt, in contrast, is commonly denigrated — and if faith is a virtue, then naturally doubt comes to be regarded as at least a vice if not an outright sin.
- Doubt as sin. — Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature — is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak, s. 89.
Nonbelievers approach this from a different perspective: what Christians call faith is little more than rank gullibility, a dismissal of the importance of skepticism in all subjects, but especially in those like religion where any truth — if it exists — is elusive and dubious at best. Christian claims to have found the truth are themselves based upon this “faith” and, hence, merely an example of Begging the Question.
The truth is a bit more complex than Nietzsche portrays it, but he does offer important insights. For one thing, it isn’t true that Christianity in general has completely denigrated doubt. On the contrary, doubting has played a role in many religious works throughout the centuries. Secondly, it also isn’t true that nonbelievers are always role models as skeptics — they, too, have ideas and beliefs that they don’t do a good job at questioning.
This is not to say, though, that Nietzsche is completely wrong. Although doubting has always been a part of religious writing, this is only true in the context of temporary doubting. The person who doubts the Bible, who doubts religious leaders, and who even doubts the existence of God is not considered to be sinning so long as that doubt is used as a means for returning to True Faith — preferably sooner rather than later but better later than never.
If a person’s doubts remain as a permanent part of their perspective on religion, things change. Instead of being treated as a religious seeker who eventually finds the truth, they might now be portrayed as obstinate and deceived, not seeing and understanding the Truth which is plainly in front of them. Doubting is good, but only as stage in life like childhood. Eventually you are expected to “grow up” into a mature faith.
Thus, while it might be a mistake to say that Christianity rejects doubt entirely, there is an essential truth here in that doubt has not been treated very well. This is unfortunate, but it is also not surprising. It is unlikely that a religion would survive very well if it encouraged persistent doubting and critical skepticism of its fundamental doctrines. Encouraging faith makes more sense from a survival standpoint and allowing a little bit of temporary doubting (or doubting off-and-on) gives the appearance of being fair.
The problem, as is so often the case, lies in dogmatism. Christianity has treated doubt as a means to an end, rather than as an end in and of itself — and with that I have no disagreement. I don’t regard doubt as have value in and of itself but, rather, as being a useful check on dogmatism and as helpful when it comes to trying to reach truth.
Christian leaders, naturally enough, have assumed that they posses the truth. Thus, to say “doubt is useful for trying to reach truth” would for them mean much the same as “doubt is useful for trying to reach a proper Christian belief.” This isn’t a shocking position because everyone believes that they are right; however, by excluding the possibility of being mistaken, the point of doubt itself is undermined.
Rather than a check against dogmatism, it becomes a shill for a dogmatism: “Yes, we have doubted and we come back to the True Faith,” as if there were any point in doubting when the outcome was predetermined. We are allowed to glance back towards land, but never take seriously the possibility of leaving the water.
Nietzsche is not denigrating faith, though. Nietzsche is attacking the idea that doubting is a sin. Notice that he uses water as a metaphor for faith and then describes us humans as having an “amphibious nature.” To be amphibious is to be at home both in the water (faith) and on land (doubt). He would also criticize the idea that faith is sin — that we should reject the possibility that we could exist for something other than walking on land and should deny the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature.
