The really irrational thing once you have faith is to entertain reasonable doubts
Until recently I never realised that triangulation had entered theology as well as politics. But listening to Thought for the Day on BBC radio the other day, it struck me that modern churchmen, too, are triangulating the deepest question of all in religion: the question of faith. Faith is now advanced as the triangulation between disbelief and certainty. An idea which has been developing for more than a century is close to becoming the accepted wisdom on faith.
The idea is that not only is faith perfectly reconcilable with doubt, but that in some sense doubt is at the core of faith. Doubters are thus encouraged to believe that they have already reached first base in their journey, and their doubt has qualified them. They can see the chasm. Faith is the leap.
Increasingly commonly, Christian broadcasters and writers are confronting non-belief in this shrewdly triangulating way. ‘You say you don’t believe,’ they say, ‘well of course you don’t. Given the claims of religion, who wouldn’t doubt? Only a fool would swallow these claims without anxiety. I too doubt. We all do. Doubt has been a constant companion in my spiritual journey. I do not expect it ever to depart, and its presence gives depth to my faith.
‘Faith is exploratory. Faith is a leap beyond those things that can be demonstrated. Faith reaches conclusions which by definition cannot be ascertained — otherwise faith would not be needed to reach them...’ And so on. Gosh, I could churn this stuff out so easily. You end up persuading the gullible that their inability to believe what religion teaches is in fact a hopeful sign that they are searching; and that when they do make the leap, this will make their journey braver and their faith more sublime. Soon they will be banging the tambourines and praising God that He has given them so much doubt — as though those billions of simple souls who were born into religious certainty and never questioned it somehow possess a lesser faith.
So at this point let’s have a reality check. Faith is a perfectly well-established English word, one of our strongest. It means complete trust. Faith does not doubt. Faith is the abandonment of doubt, the end of doubt, the end of searching. Many claims may be made for the searcher, but not that he has faith. Those who do have ceased to be troubled. They have cast themselves entirely on God, as they see Him.
Faith is (or was) a clear and ancient idea, which is being traduced by a modern theology concerned to ingratiate itself with the scepticism of a secular world. In just one way, however, the idea has always left itself open to being misinterpreted in this way — and this is the opening which progressive theologians have spotted, and into which they have cunningly insinuated their argument.
The opening is this: what one believes through faith is unlikely to be capable of proof. In an uninteresting sense of the word, of course, one could have enormous ‘faith’ that if two marbles are dropped into an empty jar, and then another two, the total number of marbles in the jar would be four; but this isn’t a useful way of employing a term whose special quality is to convey a decision to throw reasonable caution or hesitation to the winds, in circumstances where it is impossible to establish a truth beyond question. In this sense, more faith is demonstrated by one who leaps from a high mountain, confident that angels will catch him, than by one who leaps from a plane, strapped to a parachute he knows has been checked — although the latter may have more confidence.
Both require great trust but only the second requires faith in the interesting sense of that term. If you leap from the mountain simply hoping the angels are ready, or thinking there’s a decent chance that they are, you are making a calculation, taking a risk. Jesus makes it very clear (as, I am told, does the Prophet Mohammed) that real faith involves not a calculated risk, but an abandonment of human doubt. Doubt, to these spiritual leaders, pollutes faith. Thomas was not thanked for wanting to check the holes in Christ’s hands and feet.
Religion or no religion, there are reasons why human beings need the impulse of faith, and why all societies esteem faith as a positive quality. Many decisions are binary. You do or you don’t; you go for it, or not. The odds beforehand on a binary decision proving wise are seldom, however, of a yes or no kind. This means that decision-makers are required to take all-or-nothing decisions prompted by reasoning which is anything but all-or-nothing. It may be 60/40 whether a leap should be taken but you cannot do a 60 per cent leap.
So an apparent paradox arises: once a decision is taken, chances of success are maximised if it is carried through with the utmost belief, as though its correctness were beyond question. If you are only half-sure a decision is right, you will reduce its chances of proving itself right if you pursue it halfheartedly. It follows that the higher animals (as any rider will know) have developed the impulse we call faith: an ability, once committed, to commit absolutely even if the decision to commit was only taken on the balance of probabilities.
Nowhere is this truer than with the placing of faith in other people. You can never be sure your faith in a person will be rewarded, but if you act towards him as though your trust was incomplete, this will adversely affect his own performance. Again, the higher animals need the capacity to place total confidence in each other, even if the decision to do so was taken on the toss of a coin, and to convince themselves of their confidence in order that they may display it convincingly. Conversely we love and appreciate those who have placed total confidence in us even while we know they cannot have had good reason for it. Not unnaturally, we suppose a deity, if one existed, would respond likewise. The atheist Bertrand Russell’s response when asked what he would say to God if he ever met Him — ‘But Lord, you should have given me more proof’ — is considered unlikely to win divine approval.
Paradoxically, therefore, it is often rational to expunge rational doubt; and irrational to place in a plan a confidence proportionate only to our degree of certitude that it is the right plan. These are perfectly Darwinian reasons why faith, as an animal impulse, is considered noble; and that great exponent of natural religion Bishop Joseph Butler was wrong to argue that the human instinct to place faith in someone superior must have been instilled in us by an ultimate superior — or why would we have it?
But the leap having been taken, all doubt must fly. And here progressive theology confounds the foundations of its own logic. You who have faith may show sympathy and understanding towards me, who doubts. But you should not share my doubt. Not if you have faith.
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