Personal Reflections on Faith and Doubt

Recently, I have been reading John D. Caputo’s book On Religion. By the author’s own admission, it is not an entirely orthodox work, at least in terms of traditional Christianity. Yet it is a work that has been raising in my mind a number of important questions. During this past semester, much of what I have written has been much like auditing a course or two in philosophy. There is nothing inherently wrong with that and further we will almost certainly hear more along these lines before all is said and done, perhaps even beginning with the next issue. :) However, there is also another reason we have been hearing so much of the philosophical side and that is because in my world, faith and doubt are often all but indistinguishable from one another and to some degree I can “hide” behind the often somewhat impersonal nature of philosophic thought as I try to regroup and refocus. I suppose this tension between faith and doubt is in part a by-product of the college environment in general, or at least college as it appears to me as a philosophy and English literature major (though perhaps to those pursuing a more business- or professional-oriented track it is much less so this way). In my world, there is no shortage of intellectually stimulating reading and new ideas are constantly pouring in with countless more brimming up and foaming over just behind them. Yet I think that there is an element as well that acts a bit like sandpaper by sheer overkill, scuffing and scuffing and scuffing away until little remaining humanity remains.

Caputo is a professor who currently teaches at Syracuse University in New York, a philosopher (not surprisingly) who previously taught at Villanova University, a Roman Catholic institute known for its strong Augustinian leanings and located in the Pennsylvanian town whose namesake it bears. In fact, in the spirit of Villanova University, On Religion takes much of its inspiration from St. Augustine, though it is decisively (in the author’s own words) post-modern (in the vein of Derrida in particular, with whom Caputo has conversed in person, and of continental philosophy in general), as well as taking after Kierkegaard, whom we covered to some extent in the previous issue (see under the heading Kierkegaard). His work, while admittedly somewhat heterodox (perhaps very heterodox depending on your point of reference), is refreshing in that it seeks to move beyond the thinking we have inherited from the Enlightenment period, the very historical era we have spent much time examining these last several months. As Caputo bears out, the whole idea of “post-” anything implies not so much a moving on and leaving behind as a learning from and incorporating: it is a reflection of the continual evolutionary process of growth, even when that evolution sometimes seems to be “progressing retrogressively.”

I would certainly not say that Caputo’s book would be for everyone; in fact, it might not speak to many on the mailing list at all. For me, however, I think it has begun to stir some of the questions back into life with which I have long grappled. At the very least, it has become clear to me that my conception of Christianity and of faith in general is not what it once was. My own views seem to be charting new paths that leave me feeling increasingly at odds with others in the Christian community and even with myself, for I seem to be moving closer to disbelief and doubt than toward belief and faith. To increasing degree, I find myself at odds with and alienated from many of my fellow Christian brothers and sisters. I find these things disturbing, yet paradoxically I also wonder at times if I am not seeing reality more clearly.

Caputo maintains that faith is of a different flavor than Knowledge with a capital K. That seems apparent enough, though perhaps not in the way he describes it. Within Christianity, we often talk about “the most important decision a person will ever make” and look at life at least in part in terms of a world to come. By faith, at least the traditional and orthodox varieties of Christianity believe in sin, salvation, and a hereafter. At least in many churches and faith communities, this faith is presented in absolute terms and belief is seen as being of paramount importance. For something that we cannot know except by what we take to be revelation (itself requiring some kind of initial persuasion if none other than our cultural upbringing), we take it as “Gospel truth,” an expression which itself highlights just how true and absolute we take our faith. But perhaps I should not say “we,” for these things do not seem so obvious to me much of the time. So often, I find myself on, if not the outside looking in, then the outer edges, bemused when the believers around me act and speak as though to look at the world in any other way than their own is an idea unable to be comprehended. By contrast, I find in Caputo a voice that sounds somewhat like my own, though I am made uncomfortable at times by how far he seems to take the question. As a friend of mine says regarding this apparent double-standard between my own tendency these days toward heterodox thinking and my discomfort when others express the same, I “trust myself”: I think myself responsible enough to keep from going completely out of bounds, even when I am skirting dangerously close to the edge. That is not so obvious when I am reading or listening to others. In any case, I know what it is to live in my own head, I know how disturbing it seems to me to walk such a fine line as I often feel I do, and there is no ambiguity as to where I am coming from to myself, even if it is but the perfectly clear and lucid recognition that I have no clue where I am headed and a sneaking suspicion that for all their professions to the contrary, many of the others around me do not either.

Caputo suggests that there are two ways to look at the world, which he conceptualizes in the lives and philosophies of two “post-Enlightenment” thinkers: Kierkegaard and Nietzsche (Caputo is a philosopher, after all, and we would expect the vast majority of his thinkers to be of the philosophic variety). For Nietzsche, God is dead and Dionysus is Lord: that is, since there is no meaning in the world we can make a graven image of our own angst. This conception, suggests Caputo, was radical for its time. But equally radical was Kierkegaard for whom God was also dead (at least as presented from the impoverished and corrupted pulpits in everyday Christendom, though certainly not in fact), but Who was very much alive in personal, gut-wrenching desperation in the face of great objective uncertainty. Kierkegaard’s passion-filled faith was often anguished but always either hot or cold, never lukewarm. These two thinkers went outside the rational framework of the academy and Enlightenment thinking and represent what Caputo believes is always present in the life of faith: the faith, hope, and hopefully love of the Apostle and Kierkegaard and the uncertainty that Nietzsche could be correct and that all we believe is only so much straw. At times, our belief may seem sound enough, but wait until someone near to us dies or our bodies are wracked with sickness or succumb to the everyday atrophy to which all creatures are subject, our bodies fast wearing out, the certainly of death readily tabulated in the few remaining years of our life expectancy. What is it that we believe then? Do our propositions carry us through? Or do we experience questions and doubts, wondering on the very deepest levels if what we have believed is really true?

For Caputo, describing our religious path as the “one true religion” borders dangerously on a transgression of faith into an effort to shore up the Nietzschean uncertainty that keeps him (and me) up at night. He believes that if we are to get honest—really honest—none of us know: we most certainly do not have Knowledge with a capital K. That may not be true, but that is the way the world increasingly looks to me these days. Just this past Memorial Day, surrounded by my family, I was struck at just how different the world looks to me any more. My family (at least those present) are all Christians and look at life through the eyes of Protestantism (with a primarily evangelical bent). This weekend is certainly not the first time I have noticed the difference and seen the changes that have been taking place in me, but it seemed even more pronounced, perhaps in part because I had been reading Caputo’s book off and on during the time I was there. I do not suppose there is any rule that says I must see the Christian faith as my family appears to see it; for that matter, there is no rule that I can see that says there is not a possibility we are all mistaken about the whole thing (though a great many would vehemently protest to the contrary). In fact, I am not exactly certain how one can be either hot or cold when one begins to see the world in this way. It seems to me that in order for faith to work, it must be believed. And as long as the belief remains, the faith is also intact. The difficulties begin to arise, however, when that basic belief is (for one reason or another) called into question. Faith is not the sort of substance as reason or Knowledge (with Caputo’s capital K): it is faith. The virtue of faith is not always to walk with clear answers (often quite the contrary in fact), but to walk in clear trust. Nevertheless, to walk in clear trust means to believe (as unswervingly as held belief ever can be) that there is something in which—or Someone in Whom—our trust may securely be vested.

Now personally, ever since the radical transformation that happened in my life when I was twenty-three, I do not long doubt the existence of God. Nor do I easily warm to philosophies that treat Him as some wimpy little powder puff of a Deity that threatens to blow away in the breeze. Yet even here I waiver at times, not about powder puff gods but about God in general, or at least any real provision He might offer us in this life or any to come. Particularly when it comes to the propositions that make up the backbone of the Christian faith, I am so prone to waffle and waiver, tossed about on the waves, not even worthy of the label “double-minded”—perhaps “quadruple-minded” would be more fitting. There are times where my faith is quite strong, though it is usually when seen through the eyes of someone I believe has something I do not: someone who models for me what I feel I have lost somewhere along the way. Much of the Christian books and articles—in fact, a great deal of mainstream evangelical Christianity in general—leaves me feeling cold. I do not condemn it. If it moves you then if anything I envy you, for it has seemed to have lost that power over me any more. But there is one person at least who still can evoke some sense of faith in me.

I have recently found some level of renewed inspiration in the Episcopal Church, quite a different view of Christianity that I have seen in the evangelical world in which I grew up. In particular, Father Chumbley, the rector of Christ Church where I attend, has been a real inspiration to me. He appears to model his life around the order of St. Benedict, or should I say that this spiritual discipline is his means of seeking God in the quiet places, for it seems to me that he has something I do not: that is, he seems to me to be a veritable temple of the living God. When I see him and when I hear him, it seems to me that it could be said of Father Chumbley: “this man walks and talks with God.” Granted, he has all the makings of an excellent parish priest—one could probably not choose a better model to cast in that role if one were to film a movie on the subject (as we learned was also true of Platinga and Wolterstorff in The Present King of France is Bald): he has a certain charisma of sorts, he is amiable, he seems to work well with people, his previous career in banking has instilled in him pragmatic skills for organizing and planning, and he is relatively young and athletic while still carrying a sense of proper gravity and dignity worthy of the liturgical collar. Yet for all of these things, he seems to me very human: transparently human. In fact, it is precisely because he seems transparently human to me that he has such credibility. When I see his life and his example I think to myself that maybe there is something left in the Christian faith for me yet. For I cannot begin to count the number of times, particularly in recent months, where I ask myself why I continue to publish these newsletters, or, for that matter, even to call myself Christian. Philosophy, at least, is “safe”—even if it doesn’t interest everyone, it is capable of keeping my own confessions (such as those here) at arm’s length.

(For that matter, it has been well said of our use of language itself that it is an art form not only of revealing but also of concealing. Imagine, for example, a world in which everyone was free to speak their mind at any time about anything, such as the example I read about in the January 2006 issue of Reader’s Digest in which former chiropractor and current artist Jon Sarkin had to have part of his cerebellum removed: he eventually learned to curb the correspondent lack of inhibition it left behind, but he was difficult to live with until he did, saying exactly what he thought when he thought it and walking away in the middle of a conversation whenever he grew bored. Or, concerning language, as we used to often say, the space between notes is just as important as the sounds themselves, and what we do not say may be motivated as much by wisdom as by an intent to conceal. In my case as of late, perhaps it has been a mixture of both.)

Parenthetical comments aside, I do not think that I ever could go back to the Christianity of my youth. What is more, I am not at all certain that is such a bad thing; in fact, I am very inclined to think that it is a good thing: when I was a child I walked like a child, talked like a child, and thought like a child and all of that. At the very least, even the most traditional believer would agree (at least I think that he or she would) that we have to make the faith our own or else it really is not our faith at all. I do not want anyone to misunderstand me: I do not mean to elevate the Episcopal Church over any other. That being said, for me personally (and it could have much to do with the specific junction in which life finds me at present), the Episcopal Church seems to offer to me a much better synthesis between what I learn in the classroom and what my faith suggests to me about the reality of life. At least from the perspective of the other people with whom we live and commune, if our faith does not contain a generous dose of charity, it seems of dubious value; further, even in my darkest moments, my faith suggests to me that there is far more to life—far more to being human—than the merely cerebral and that if any kind of value and worth is to be found in life, it is going to be found here. Ultimately, of course, I believe it will be found in God, but we often need a little push to send us off: often a little push in the dark. That is where religion, ethics, and a community of like-minded believers can be invaluable assets.

I am used to a tradition of Christianity that tends to view at least certain aspects of higher education with a fairly pronounced degree of suspicion: in my opinion an unhealthy (if understandable) suspicion that thinks itself threatened and in competition many times when it actually is not. I have long said that I am looking for a spirituality that breathes well out of doors and for me personally, what I have been finding in this particular tradition has helped me sort and reconcile (or at least accept) the tension that has long since existed between my academic life and my spiritual life. I do not think that either sphere should be compartmentalized (for life is life, truth truth) and even though my faith has been flagging as of late, I do not picture myself giving up either side. Any variety of the Christian faith that asks me to abandon my education entirely is asking the impossible (and being just plain silly), even if of my own accord I ultimately reject or move past what I have learned. To consider and then ultimately reject is not to remain the same—it is not the same as the state prior to the education—but it is to have acquired new learning and new life lessons by seeing why what we have long believed is still wisest. But I do not really believe education or lack thereof has too much to do with the life of faith (at least directly), for I have seen examples of both highly educated and poorly educated believers whose lives were worth a thousand golden words and I have seen both highly educated and poorly educated persons whose lives were examples of the depths of human depravity and decadence. Rather, I think life is almost always what we make it, and the life of faith depends almost entirely on the individual and his relationship (or lack thereof) with God and by extension his fellow man.

To be entirely realistic, I have had almost no quiet time in what seems an eternity, my prayer life is in shambles, and I feel a bit run-down in oh, so many ways. One can hardly expect to have a dynamic faith under such circumstances. Yet there is light at the end of the tunnel—reminds me of a one-liner my sister-in-law shared recently: “Due to recent budget cuts, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off”—and I am looking forward to a summer off: the first summer off in five years. My plans for pursuing a doctorate in philosophy were put on hold: of the seven schools to which I applied last spring for this upcoming fall, no fewer than seven rejected my application. I will be pursuing degree work toward an M.A. in English literature instead, not my choice really, but something to stop the gap in between (or that is how it looks to me now). I will also be teaching two English 110 courses this fall—that is, Writing I—and was fortunate to get my first pick: I have a late-afternoon Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule with my courses not only back to back in terms of time but even meeting in the same room. I am also hoping to convince the college to cover a course in contemporary philosophy in addition to the two courses in linguistics and third course in literary theory that I will be taking on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Monday nights (the problem is that the philosophy course is not directly related to English and it is technically only an undergraduate course, as MSU unfortunately offers no graduate program in philosophy). At the very least, we should all be able to breathe a sigh of relief to see all the focus on philosophy begin to fade out somewhat from these newsletters, though I suspect there is a round or two left in me yet as I intimated in the opening paragraph. :)

Perhaps some of the most encouraging words I have had spoken of me in a long time came from a discussion forum post written by Sara some time ago. I was feeling a bit down at the time and she complimented me on my agile mind, but the paragraph that stuck with me most was the one which concludes: “you . . . have chosen a course of deliberate life-affirming optimism (even when you are feeling miserable).” That is true, I believe. And both in keeping with that recognition as well as in actual fact, I believe much of what I have expressed in this mailing is in all likelihood a very positive sign: I think it is the sound of the sap slowly beginning to flow again after the long months of winter. We all need quiet time to think and reflect and no matter how stimulating the intellectual diet of academia can be, one can overdose on it and begin to lose one’s perspective of life. That is true of many things, as far as that goes, but as I have been helping a friend paint, pack, and move this past week, it has struck me that jobs that bring sweat to the brow tend to leave a person feeling accomplished, much of the stress melted away through the pores. That is not always so true in an academic world where a great deal of mental energy is expended, but after a day’s worth of work, the mind has not sweated itself into the bliss of settling down into a comfortable armchair ease but instead keeps on blasting frenetically away, often hours after it is time for bed. Exercise, as we all have read, is one of the best stress-relievers and there is little of that, at least in my approach to academia thus far.

Archive note: See also the thread Endings/Beginnings regarding this newsletter.

In any case, I hope you have enjoyed a more human look at the man behind these writings. If you should happen to think of it throughout your week this week, you might say a prayer or two for me that I will quickly regain my equilibrium and my perspective and can begin bringing some of the warmth of humanity back to all the things I do. And, since we’re being informal and chatty here—and since man cannot live by bread alone in a capitalistic country—if you know anyone that needs Web design work done, I am for hire and would be happy to give them a free estimate. :) I am currently working on Fayette Family Medicine, a new site for Annie Skaggs, an M.D. from Kentucky, the heart of horse-racing country. I find that Web design, while mental in its own way, nevertheless is something like fast cars, motorcycles, and working on engines in the garage is for other men. It has a certain hands-on element, even though writing in the language of computer code does require thought and concentration, not to mention the temptation at times to swear under one’s breath. :) And you know what else I have found? I grew up the son of a professional mechanic and it seemed that my father always was working on everybody else’s car while his own was in various states of disrepair. Likewise, my own site is starting to look rather primitive in terms of the technology that drives it, but I like it in some strange way. I guess it was my first. And it is honest. (Not that the other sites are not honest, just that this one was, well, it just is what it is and that is that.)

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