Freedom to question

[Anastasia13]

I have this book* out from the library that has the following in its in-cover description:

“Ordinarily, therefore, men deal with their doubt by attempting to bolster their beliefs with arguments and rationalizations designed to preserve the status quo. This is obvious folly. Once doubt insinuates itself, we can evade its demands only by self-deception. What men need is not reassurances but the courage to doubt critically.”

What do you think of this quote?

Honestly, I feel like this has been my own experience because in dealing with some of my own uncertainty earlier this year, among other things I was lead to a great source (a book someone recommended) for some of the answers that I wanted that no one else was answering for me. I also feel just less like I’m trying to believe and more like I just do.

One of the things I have always perceived about Catholicism is that you are just told what to believe and I don’t know, it just seems like that would be so much harder when you are told what to believe about what the Bible says. If this supposed interpreting the Bible for ourselves that Protestants do is so wrong, then at what point does one stop asking if what someone else (the Catholic Church) says it means is what you really think and just accept it?

*Hartshorne, The Faith to Doubt

Edited November 11, 2005 by Light and Truth

[Pio Nono]

JMJ
11/13 - Thirty-third Sunday

Light and Truth,

According to the Second Vatican Council's document [i]Dignitatis Humanae[/i], all people are obliged to search for the Truth. As Catholics, we believe that the Church is the pillar and bulwark of Truth, but it is still incumbent upon us to argue for the Truth when necessary.

Though there may be some truth to the quote you've provided, more doubt is not the answer to doubt - faith and reason are the answers to doubt. Rational argumentation is not "self-deception", but what mankind was made to do. Reason separates us from the animals. Of course, sometimes we doubt ourselves or our rational capacities - but to build a [i]search for truth[/i] based on [i]doubt[/i] is folly, not what that author says. Doubting is appropriate, but only if it leads to a greater search for the truth. Systematic doubt, on the other hand, destroys truth.

On a personal note, building a system of truth based on doubts is exactly what Rene' Descartes tried to do, and as a result we saw the death of philosophy. It's a [i]very[/i] dangerous thing to do. Hope this helps.

Yours,
Pio Nono