January 2012 - 61
Counsel the doubtful
Doubt is inherent in man, and in
faith. The first pages of the Bible reveal how man falls into doubt and is
enticed by the offers of the tempter. We are immediately confronted with
fundamental doubt here; the question if God is indeed the God from whom we can
expect everything. It sounds so familiar: “Did God really say you were not to
eat from any of the trees in the garden?” (Gn 3:1). It was a ruse to sow doubt
in the heart of man. For once this question is answered, another will follow,
until man will renounce his true relationship with God and wants to be god. This is
where the fundamental doubt arises; it casts doubt on the power and the goodness
of God, right up to the existence of God. Today, many are stuck in this
fundamental doubt and make no effort to rise from it, to consider the doubt as a
doubt. The doubt fades and makes room for relativism, indifference, complete
disbelief, a removal of everything that has to do with God from this life.
Still, we experience that in spite of everything, God remains in the background
for many people: no, we cannot get rid of the doubt completely; it is like weeds
that are difficult to eliminate and whose roots grow deep. Marnix Gijsen, a
Flemish author who called himself an atheist, could not resist talking about God
in one of his last interviews, and ended with a witticism: “If God were to
appear right there on the other side, I would say: ‘Peekaboo, you don’t fool
me.’”
Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre also
could not help coming back to the inexistence of God in his writings, to vent
his doubt so to speak. There has probably never been a time when God was the
subject of so many modern works, not always in the most pious of ways, often
degrading and jeering, but perhaps this might indicate the tenacious existence
of the doubt about and surrounding God, and we could ask ourselves whether doubt
and faith are indeed completely detached from each other. Is faith not giving a
positive interpretation to that which cannot be proven or understood starting
from that fundamental doubt? Faith arises from this existential doubt
surrounding the nature of man, his origin and destination, and the question if
there is a body that transcends man, from that general vague sense that there
might be something there. This question is the basis for all great religious
traditions and it was gradually answered in the monotheistic religions by a
divine revelation.
Moses also doubted the mission that
he received from God. “Who am I to go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites
out of Egypt?” (Ex 3:11). This is another kind of doubt: doubt about one’s own abilities,
probably well-founded, because Moses was only thinking of his own power,
particularly his lack of
power and had little or no faith in the power of God’s
grace. It is the doubt that arises around the question if God, who exists,
actually intervenes in our lives, if He is concerned about man, and if He can be
near him in a special way. The God of philosophers is that immovable mover, the
one who exists and who has set everything into motion but, other than that, who
does not concern himself with man. He lets things be. The Old Testament reveals
a God who is indeed concerned about man, and His answer to Moses is telling and
guiding: “I shall be with you.” (Ex 3:12). A few verses back, it says: “I
have indeed seen the misery of my people in
Egypt. I have heard them crying for help
on account of their taskmasters. Yes, I am well aware of their sufferings.” (Ex
3:7). God makes himself known as a compassionate God for the first time, a God
who is in pain when man is in pain and who wants to personally intervene. And
during the journey through the desert, that long contemplation for the people,
God reveals his commandments, He responds to the doubts of the people, and
provides security by fixing a framework of the law in their hearts. Indeed, the
commandments, as they were recorded and described in Leviticus, Numbers, and
Deuteronomy, the first books of the Bible, make a good framework for a good
life. No, it is not up to us to say how we should live; God offered us the
guidelines. “From this you can see that Yahweh your God is the true God, the
faithful God who, though he is true to his covenant and his faithful love for a
thousand generations as regards those who love him and keep his commandments.”
(Dt 7:9). A beautifully worded conclusion that will accompany us through the
entire Old Testament and that will be fulfilled with the coming of Jesus Christ,
Son of God, who will fully reveal God to us as well as the full truth about
man.
Jesus enters even deeper into the
doubts that every man has and offers faith as a response to these doubts. Peter
hears it when he tries to go to Jesus across the water and starts to sink: “‘You
have so little faith,’ he said, ‘why did you doubt?’” (Mt 14:31). Jesus himself
becomes the answer to the doubt, the only answer that persists. He offers us
faith, which can move mountains. “In truth I tell you, if anyone says to this
mountain, ‘Be pulled up and thrown into the sea,’ with no doubt in his heart,
but believing that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.” (Mk
11:23). Jesus himself becomes the answer to every doubt, for it is written: “I
am the Way; I am Truth and Life.” (Jn 14:6). He is the one who clears every
doubt if we just believe in Him, so that, in the end, we might be able to say in
the words of Thomas: “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28). “Do not be unbelieving
any more but believe. You believe because you can see me. Blessed are those who
have not seen and yet believe.” (Jn 20:27.29). There is no stronger task for us,
who have not seen Jesus, to take away our doubt.
It would be a false conclusion to
think that every person who believes no longer knows doubt. Doubt is fundamental
and existential, and is overcome through faith. However, that same doubt can
also reinforce our faith, purify it. This is what saints like Mother Teresa,
Therese of Lisieux, and the Curé of Ars have gone through. With great faith,
they experienced a very dark night, they had fundamental doubts but refused to
allow these doubts to have the final word. And exactly because of that, their
faith was purified; it became pure faith. It was a real surprise when Mother
Teresa’s postulator found in her letters and journals that she had experienced a
dark night of more than 50 years, longing for Jesus. It remained a longing,
however. She had truly experienced Jesus in the first moments of her mission
during which Jesus appeared to her with a clear message to love Him in the poor.
And then came the great abandonment. Years later, she understood that this
abandonment was meant to let her share more deeply in the suffering of Jesus,
his abandonment on the cross, and, as a result, better understand and experience
firsthand the abandonment of man, of the poor.
Therese of Lisieux wrote in her
journal that she doubted God at certain times, that she doubted the afterlife.
It was a doubt for which she blamed the devil, who tried to pull her away from
faith. It teaches us to better understand today’s situation; how evil succeeds
in completely removing God from the picture and in portraying Him as the cause
of our misfortune, with his commandments always trying to put up unnecessary
barriers to keep us away from happiness. Just listen to the media when they talk
about the Church, faith or God.
Perhaps, with this work of mercy, we
should take Moses as our icon and his conversation with God as our guideline.
Moses doubts, and it is a pertinent doubt. It is the first move that is
important: we can and should take doubt seriously, not conceal it or pretend
that it is wrong or sinful to doubt. Quite the contrary, we should be encouraged
to face our doubts; express them, not run from them. Acknowledging the fact that
we doubt has to do with humility, realising that we are human and, as such,
humanly limited. However, doubts about ourselves and about our own capabilities
should not discourage us or undermine our self-confidence. We all know those
people who have low self-esteem, who think that they are capable of nothing
because they never heard that they are in fact meaningful, that they are
somebody. When I was the head of a school, I once received a mother who had come
to enrol her son. She and her husband were both physicians and their other
children were all brilliant university students, I was told. But the boy in
front of me was nothing, he had never succeeded in anything, which his mother
told me very laconically as they both sat there in my office. This boy was
deeply frustrated and suffered from deprivation neurosis because he never
experienced any kind of validation whatsoever. Dr Terruwe developed her
well-known affirmation therapy and indicated how the other can be approached in
an affirming way: “You can be who you are, with your flaws and shortcomings, in
order to be the person you are meant to be, but since you cannot present
yourself just yet, you can become that person in your own way and in your own
time.”
People who had to go without that so
necessary affirmation in their youth, and who sense that they really can do
something and that they mean something, are prone to develop deprivation
neurosis. It is a call not to neglect mutual affirmation in our relationships,
to dare to say that the other did something good, and that we appreciate him or
her for it.
Moses heard from God that he could
do it, and that God would help him. He would put the good words in his mouth
with which he would convince Pharaoh to let his people go. This is where we
arrive at a second element, perhaps even more important than the first. We might
feel that our possibilities are limited, that our doubts are many, but we must
continue to have faith that God is there to complete our efforts, even more so,
who is at the origin of our efforts and in fact magnifies them. God expects that
small step from us, and He completes it with his infinite grace. This is what
can give us peace, the profound self-confidence that, in the end, we are indeed
able deal with it all, because we do not have to do it all by ourselves. No, we
do not need to take the entire weight of the world on our shoulders and carry it
like Atlas did. By contrast, I am always moved by Teresa of Avila’s words, which
I read one time in an office of one of our headmasters and which teach us the
opposite of this ‘Atlas feeling’: “Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten
you, all things pass away; God never changes. Patience obtains everything. He
who has God finds he lacks nothing. God alone suffices.” God indeed transcends
our greatest doubt. This is what Mother Teresa showed us by doing nothing else
but radiate God’s love in spite of the spiritual darkness and abandonment by
which she was tormented. We could say that the only thing that was still visible
in her was God’s grace, all the rest was darkness. She had given God all the
space to allow Him to become certainty instead of doubt.
From time to time, we hear people
say that there are no more certainties. It is almost fashionable to cultivate
doubt, so to speak. No, this cannot be nor become our attitude when we continue
to build our life on God and God alone. This certainty of faith we must share
with others; with it, we must encourage others and help them on their way. This
is no place for empty-sounding words, clever one-liners or slogans. And in the
encouragement of others we ourselves will receive encouragement. Affirmation
breeds affirmation; it becomes reciprocal.
0 comments:
Post a Comment