{"id":2385,"date":"2021-10-23T06:33:04","date_gmt":"2021-10-23T06:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/10\/23\/faith-animated-by-doubt\/"},"modified":"2021-10-23T06:33:04","modified_gmt":"2021-10-23T06:33:04","slug":"faith-animated-by-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/10\/23\/faith-animated-by-doubt\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith Animated by Doubt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 13pt;\">A living faith is animated by doubt. Faith dies when it hardens into a subjective certainty and a moribund complacency. I have had this thought for years. Each time I re-enact it, it strikes me as true. I was pleased to discover recently that T. S. Eliot holds the same or a very similar view:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 13pt;\">&#39;For people of intellect I think that doubt is inevitable,&#39; Eliot once told an interviewer. The doubter is a man who takes the problem of his faith seriously.&#39;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 13pt;\">The quotation is from the outstanding 712 pp. biography by Lyndall Gordon, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkusreviews.com\/book-reviews\/lyndall-gordon\/ts-eliot\/\"><em>T. S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life<\/em><\/a>, W. W. Norton &amp; Co, 1998, p. 112.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 13pt;\">Doubt, the engine of inquiry, is the purifier of the quest for contact with that which lies beyond inquiry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 13pt;\"> <a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/.a\/6a010535ce1cf6970c0282e12b35c8200b-pi\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Eliot  T. S. Imperfect\" border=\"0\" class=\"asset  asset-image at-xid-6a010535ce1cf6970c0282e12b35c8200b img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/.a\/6a010535ce1cf6970c0282e12b35c8200b-800wi\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" title=\"Eliot  T. S. Imperfect\" \/><\/a><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A living faith is animated by doubt. Faith dies when it hardens into a subjective certainty and a moribund complacency. I have had this thought for years. Each time I re-enact it, it strikes me as true. I was pleased to discover recently that T. S. Eliot holds the same or a very similar view: &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/10\/23\/faith-animated-by-doubt\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Faith Animated by Doubt&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[372,40,139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-belief","category-literary-matters","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}