If I were to have a patron saint, it would have to be Thomas the
Apostle. He is remembered for his incredulity when the other apostles announced
Christ’s resurrection to him: “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the
nails and I put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into his
side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25)
Eight days later, he made his act of faith. “Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou has believed,” Jesus said.
“Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed.” (John 20:29)
In key points in your life, you will make choices. Should I go to college or start a business? Should I marry Lily or Suzy? To discern between what is false and what is
true will allow us to decide wisely. But
Pontius Pilate’s eternal question—what is truth?—lies at the crux of how to
choose wisely and thusly how to live wisely.
I’ve met people who insist that we can know nothing absolutely; no truth
is certain; all is relative. We can
never know for sure, they would say for example, that the earth goes around the
sun. On the other extreme is someone who
insisted to me that space aliens (“greys”) repeatedly
abducted her while being cradled in her mother’s arms. (My youngest asked me today, “Is there such a
thing as Loch Ness monsters?” “No,” said
I. “They’re fables.” Then Ben asked me, “Is there such a thing as
a Permanent Record?” “No,” I
chuckled. “That too is a fable.”)
So here we have the full range of
beliefs—from irrational skepticism to delusional credulity. It’s indeed a paradox that the atheist who
holds to the former joins hands with the theist who holds to the latter in
their mutual incoherence. As Eric Hoffer writes in The
True Believer, “fanatics are ready to fly at each other’s throat. But they are neighbors and almost of one
family. They hate each other with the
hatred of brothers. They are as far
apart and close together as Saul and Paul.
It’s the fanatic and the moderate who are poles apart and never
meet.”
What do we do? Do we just throw our hands believing that
nothing can be known? Or do we on the
other hand tolerate whatever nonsense popular culture throws at us—
So how do we know what is true? We start, as Thomas did, from a point—not of
belief-- but of doubt. And from that
doubt comes inquiry, the exacting search for evidence,
and the exercise of logic. A theme in
this book is that all of life conspires to trick us, to make us think that
appearance is reality, that the shadow of things is the substance of
things.
Doubt is especially important when it
comes to foundational beliefs. Cults
find fertile soil in mysticism and irrationality precisely because such cults
discourage critical thinking and tough-minded rationality with their fallacious
appeals. In the laboratory and the
academia also, you must be ready. Someday, you may encounter a popular and
smart teacher who eloquently bashes the “Xian myth.” He may even take a special interest in
you. At such times in particular, you
need to carefully weigh, think, and debate the issue through, and be prepared
to disagree without being disagreeable.
This mental engagement is needed where ever any argument is made—from
professors or the pulpit, the media or your friends, and even what you are
reading right now. Rationality and
Christianity are not in opposition with each other, as the writings of C.S.
Lewis and Thomas Aquinas attest.
My world was bright and fresh when I
was a kid. Those were days filled with
questions. But the years have passed,
and now I find comfort in my well-worn prejudices. It’s hard to summon the childlike curiosity
and courage to challenge them. But what
if those prejudices lead me down a wrong path?
That’s a problem. And that’s why
I keep asking why. “When I was a child,
I spoke as a child,” as Paul writes. As
I grow, so to do my questions. So, to the question: why is the sky blue, I was
happy with the answer that God made the sky that way. Later, I found out that there was more to the
answer-- that
the short wave length of blue light causes it to get scattered by oxygen and
nitrogen molecules than the longer wave lengths like red. The latter answer expands on the first
answer, but doesn’t invalidate it. When
my five-year old asks me why is there bad in the world, I’ll say that there is
bad, but there’s also good, and that I love you and God loves you. When he gets older, he’ll read about great
men and women who also saw that there was bad, and decided to do something
about it. They became educators,
scientists, and missionaries. They made
a difference because of the effort to learn, work, and lead. But this starts with one simple word:
why? We cannot ask that word if we’re
satisfied, when all of life is good. So,
when we doubt, we kindle the tiny flame of hope and a vision for something
better. This is why I say: Doubt is
faith. It’s another kind of belief, and
it’s a positive affirmation. Certitude
is apostasy. It’s a kind of spiritual
death, as certitude breeds inertia, passivity, and hopelessness. Even blasphemy depends on strong
faith. “If anyone doubts this,” G.K.
Chesterton says, “let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous
thoughts about Thor. I think his family
will find him in the end of the day in a state of exhaustion.”