Give Faith The Benefit Of Doubt
Faith and doubt are believed to be polar opposites. But instead of being diametrically opposed to ach other, is faith and doubt omplementary? Indeed, is doubt the necessary precursor without which ith cannot exist, cannot come to be? This philosophical question is at the eart of British author Robert Harris' test novel, The Conclave, which can be escribed as a theological thriller. As the title suggests, the book is Doubt a conclave of cardinals who are sequestered in the Sistine Chapel in one to elect a new pope, following the earth of the previous pontiff. The central character of the story is e Dean, the 75-year-old Cardinal Lomeli, devout and dedicated priest assailed by oubt caused by his worldly duties of Ministration which he fears have distanced him from a God whose absence his heart is cause of spiritual anguish. Making the opening address of the Conclave, all of a sudden he is moved by inspiration to abandon his carefully prepared, conventional speech and launch into an extempore discourse on the necessity of doubt. Quoting from St Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, he describes the Catholic Church as the living body of Christ. He argues that what breathes life into the Church, what establishes it on the bedrock of faith, is not certainty but its opposite, which is doubt. Certainty, he says, is the biggest spiritual sin because it breeds fanaticism and intolerance. But most of all, certainty eliminates the profound mystery that is fait It is this hard-won faith which has emerged after a desperate and sometimes despairing battle with doubt-that transforms the ritual of religious doctrine into spiritual exaltation, a feeling of total oneness with all of Being. Lomeli's equation between faith and doubt-which scandalises his traditionalist colleagues-was also voiced by Kierkegaard who wrote about the need to shipwreck the vessel of reason on the reef of doubt and leave no option but for us to make the hazardous leap, in 'fear and trembling', to the ground of faith. The rigorous discipline of science-which in many ways is parallel to that of the spiritual -is rooted in systemic doubt. In his famous essay, The Duty of Doubt, JBS Haldane underlined the centrality of scepticism inallscientific endeavour. The first maxim of science is that there is no such thing as an absolute and unalterable truth, but only a working hypothesis which in time will be disproved by another theory. Haldane went on to say that doubtisduty enjoined not only on scientists buon all of us who want to live in a society where there is freedom of diversity an dissent, a society untrammelled by the shackles of bigotry and intolerance. Doubt is a necessary requirement iall forms of discourse, whether it is the everyday discourse of democracy in which weshare, compare and often disagree with each other’s' views, orthainner dialogue of consciousness which sometimes given the name of spiritual Far from being a moral and intellectual Achilles' heel of convict doubt is the only antidote to dogmatise disease of mind and spirit all them dangerous in that it has no means to diagnose itself. Keep the faith, whatever it be, by a means. But never fear to subject it to tacit test of doubt, for doubt is the well-spring of faith. That's perhaps thinly thing we needn't doubt.
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Jug Suraiya and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it.
Courtesy: Jug Suraiya and Speaking Tree,Times of India
Give Faith The Benefit Of Doubt
Faith and doubt are believed to be polar opposites. But instead of being diametrically opposed to ach other, is faith and doubt omplementary? Indeed, is doubt the necessary precursor without which ith cannot exist, cannot come to be? This philosophical question is at the eart of British author Robert Harris' test novel, The Conclave, which can be escribed as a theological thriller. As the title suggests, the book is Doubt a conclave of cardinals who are sequestered in the Sistine Chapel in one to elect a new pope, following the earth of the previous pontiff. The central character of the story is e Dean, the 75-year-old Cardinal Lomeli, devout and dedicated priest assailed by oubt caused by his worldly duties of Ministration which he fears have distanced him from a God whose absence his heart is cause of spiritual anguish. Making the opening address of the Conclave, all of a sudden he is moved by inspiration to abandon his carefully prepared, conventional speech and launch into an extempore discourse on the necessity of doubt. Quoting from St Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, he describes the Catholic Church as the living body of Christ. He argues that what breathes life into the Church, what establishes it on the bedrock of faith, is not certainty but its opposite, which is doubt. Certainty, he says, is the biggest spiritual sin because it breeds fanaticism and intolerance. But most of all, certainty eliminates the profound mystery that is fait It is this hard-won faith which has emerged after a desperate and sometimes despairing battle with doubt-that transforms the ritual of religious doctrine into spiritual exaltation, a feeling of total oneness with all of Being. Lomeli's equation between faith and doubt-which scandalises his traditionalist colleagues-was also voiced by Kierkegaard who wrote about the need to shipwreck the vessel of reason on the reef of doubt and leave no option but for us to make the hazardous leap, in 'fear and trembling', to the ground of faith. The rigorous discipline of science-which in many ways is parallel to that of the spiritual -is rooted in systemic doubt. In his famous essay, The Duty of Doubt, JBS Haldane underlined the centrality of scepticism inallscientific endeavour. The first maxim of science is that there is no such thing as an absolute and unalterable truth, but only a working hypothesis which in time will be disproved by another theory. Haldane went on to say that doubtisduty enjoined not only on scientists buon all of us who want to live in a society where there is freedom of diversity an dissent, a society untrammelled by the shackles of bigotry and intolerance. Doubt is a necessary requirement iall forms of discourse, whether it is the everyday discourse of democracy in which weshare, compare and often disagree with each other’s' views, orthainner dialogue of consciousness which sometimes given the name of spiritual Far from being a moral and intellectual Achilles' heel of convict doubt is the only antidote to dogmatise disease of mind and spirit all them dangerous in that it has no means to diagnose itself. Keep the faith, whatever it be, by a means. But never fear to subject it to tacit test of doubt, for doubt is the well-spring of faith. That's perhaps thinly thing we needn't doubt.
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Jug Suraiya and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it.
Courtesy: Jug Suraiya and Speaking Tree,Times of India