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by Noah Mitchell
This radio interview with Jennifer Hecht outlined the nature of doubt through time. The �human impulse� to doubt, Hecht says, goes against the flow of society and our environment. For this reason, to be a doubter, one must be �a little bold and a little brave.�
Hecht suggests that doubt itself is somewhat of a �modern phenomenon.� She begins with a variety of Greek forms of doubt from the 3rd and 4th centuries B.C. The first, the Cynics, derive their name from the word for �dog.� They live life �casually� by �going with the flow,� like a dog, unlike the modern misconception of being dismissive of everything. Cynics did not necessarily expect a �transcendental aspect,� but expected to be happy in their way of life. Diogenes, their leader, believed air is intelligence and that air is in everything, a god, found in different modes, depending on the thing it is in. They doubted the rigidity of society and nobility of character.
A second group is the skeptics. Led by thinkers such as Socrates, who claimed humans are not designed �to gather truth,� they believed humans do not know anything. It is impossible for all varieties of brilliant philosophies to be true, so they would ask how any can be true.
Thirdly, the Epicureans doubted the common idea of �meaning,� but also made suggestions of how to live in the absence of religion, a contribution to the line of thinking given by faith. They doubted the good use of fear, claiming it ruins our lives. We must accept and realize �the sweetness of life,� Hecht says on behalf of the Epicureans. They also doubted ambition, urging humanity to love what we have. The Greek philosophers were mostly �not against religion,� but respected the answers religion offers in rejection or doubt.
Hecht then takes a look at doubt in religion, beginning with Christianity. Job, she says, doubted the goodness and power of God as he was stripped of his material wealth. There is no evidence of �divine justice� in the book, which Hecht claims was written when Jews had a sense of success stemming from being a good person. The book of Job�s doubt is �a howl against the injustice of the world.� In the Book of Ecclesiastes, a more stoic shrug of doubt is presented: �only that shall happen that has happened�there is nothing new beneath the sun.� Later, even Saint Augustine said, �If I am mistaken, I exist.� This element of doubt was part of the Christian idea of faith, that �faith isn�t provable,� as Hecht says, sighting Jesus� words on the cross: �My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?� Since Christianity rose after doubt had a history to reflect upon, doubt was incorporated as part of religion.
As Christianity �takes over,� doubters are persecuted, and a pattern of doubt is witnessed. The Roman Emperor closes the schools of philosophy in the eastern Roman Empire. In response, doubting philosophers flee to lands where Islam is eventually born. However, just as in the subsequent generation after any new religion, doubt emerges. Muslims question �miraculous� beauty of the Koran. The same pattern is seen in the far East with the birth of Zen Buddhism. Though the goal of Zen itself is doubt, the next generation doubts the methods of Zen to arrive at doubt itself.
During Enlightenment times, Descartes and others adopt the view that humanity must overthrow all opinions and �start from the beginning� rationally. Humanity is filled with misconceptions. Even Jewish philosophers said that nothing is known except that there is God, in some form of existence. From this, all else should be rationalized.
Doubters, for the most part, wanted to keep our eyes on community and the human world�s ideas of magic and celebration coming from outside you, a magical quality of human experience, even if their doubt led to rejection of religion itself. In some cases, doubt led to a deeper Faith: when Benjamin Franklin began to doubt revelation, he read books against Deists and found that the �refuted� arguments were stronger than the �refutations� themselves. In either case, doubt is not a negative force, as the common connotation goes. There is usually �not much pride� in doubt, Hecht says. Doubt is often �equated narrowly with a rejection of Faith,� when it is more often the �possibility of other answers.�
The modern categories of agnosticism, atheism, and theism are too calcified, argues Hecht. Atheists and Agnostics are narrow, modern constructions as opposed to the broad ancient philosophies. We don�t have to be against religion or mystery to doubt. With objective morality rejected, one is still given enormous responsibility: morality is not gone, it is from humanity itself, and therefore should be respected.