Faith in Doubt; Doubt in Faith

I believe in doubt. 

There, I said it. In doing so, I may in fact have opened the doors of cosmic retaliation. So far (sigh of relief), I have seen no lightning strikes nor felt any jolts of electricity; make no mistake, though, I have knocked on wood, my fingers are crossed, and my lucky rabbit-foot is poised protectively by the side of my keyboard.

I make no claims of being a religious scholar, but the religions I know of are, without exception, premised on the concept of faith.  And, as a language person, I can't help but point out that, while we don't often talk about it, faith itself is predicated upon doubt. You cannot have one without the other.  If you do, you have certitude. Certitude by definition is not faith, and faith by definition is not knowledge.

This complexity of thinking is not new. Derrida, for example, explains that translating language is incredibly complex: when looking at Plato's use of the word "pharmakon," which of course is translated as "drug," the translator then must choose between two competing, in fact polarizing, concepts.  A drug, he argues, has both the ability to cure and to poison--two extreme meanings, two binaries or opposites, and yet both contained within one word.  Rejecting the limitations of translation, Derrida suggests that the single word, pharmakon, carries both hope and despair and in so doing the word embraces simultaneously polar extremes. (I know that is a an oversimplification for you Derridian scholars.)

Language is like that:  complex, challenging, paradoxical, thought-provoking.

For me, faith is one of those terms that demands attention, but only if you allow yourself to think about it. Many of us proclaim faith. But in the simple act of merely proclaiming faith, we are also admitting doubt.  Faith by its very definition is coupled with doubt. Faith is not the quest to remove doubt. Instead, faith is the ability to accept doubt. To admit it. To choose to believe in the midst of it. Faith is the ability to believe in contradiction, to accept uncertainty.

For me, faith is the human mind's, the human heart's, acceptance and resignation of not knowing. It is the ability to hold two competing ideas in your heart and still breathe, and in some cases faith pushes those with doubt toward a search for truth.  

Perhaps faith is more honorable, more courageous, more powerful than certitude. Perhaps faith is higher order thinking. Perhaps faith, confidence, belief, and trust allow us to survive an uncertain existence amidst the certainty of doubt.

Written 29 April 2015