Do any major Christian traditions have documented ways of dealing with religious doubt?

Question

Many religions claim to be the only true religion, including most branches of Christianity. Among the major Christian traditions, are there any documented statements of faith that include the possibility that their own beliefs might not be the "one true religion"? In other words, is there any literature treating religious doubt accepted in the tradition as part of the tradition, and not examples of individual cases of religious doubt?

If there is such literature, and if this point is covered within it, how do these major traditions view themselves in light of the "risk" involved if they were wrong in the claim to exclusive truth?

Answer 1

Many religions claim to be the only true religion, including most branches of Christianity. Among the major Christian traditions, are there any documented statements of faith that include the possibility that their own beliefs might not be the "one true religion"? In other words, is there any literature treating religious doubt accepted in the tradition as part of the tradition, and not examples of individual cases of religious doubt?

I think what is important to clarify is the difference between these two sentences above, which I will highlight by proposing two statements below:

1. "We, as a faith community, include doubting we are correct in our belief as an official part of our belief, and so we announce these doubts in [doubt literature x]."

2. "We, as a faith community, understand that doubt is a normal human experience and that our adherents will likely, on occasion, doubt some or all of the tenets of our faith, and so we address this experience in [doubt literature x]."

I am not aware of any "major Christian tradition" that has an accepted literature of the first type; that kind of institutionalized doubt is really not the purview of any religion, but is perhaps more the territory of scientists and skeptics. It is unlikely religions would succeed as social phenomena if they made it clear in their official PR that "hey, we could be wrong on all this."* And in this I agree with Steve's answer below.

(*Though, humans being as strange as they are, it would be fascinating to be shown that I am wrong and that there are such traditions and statements.)

At best, some Christians may acknowledge that, while they are not wrong, other religions are "as correct as they are" in that they are all paths to the same union with the divine. I think Fr. Thomas Keating, for one, may be amenable to this, though he is not representative of the entirety of Catholicism by any means.

As regards statement (2), though: In the Catholic tradition, there is something of a literature in this regards, yes. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, for example, allows some leeway for a distinction they make between voluntary doubt and involuntary doubt:

Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated, doubt can lead to spiritual blindness. (CCC 2088)

Also, within the Catholic tradition there is also treatment of periods of spiritual torpor or feeling a lack of God's presence--sometimes referred to as "spiritual dryness" or also "acedia", and that may include doubts. One often refers to St. John of the Cross's poem, The Dark Night of the Soul as a Catholic touchstone on this issue and that title has come to refer to the phenomenon itself. In addition to St. John of the Cross, notable Catholic figures like Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, and Mother Theresa of Calcutta, who, it was found, claimed to have suffered from it for just over 50 years.

If there is such literature, and if this point is covered within it, how do these major traditions view themselves in light of the "risk" involved if they were wrong in the claim to exclusive truth?

I am not aware of much in this regard, other than perhaps Pascal's Wager, which has been incorporated into the literature of various Christian apologists, in which he argues that the "risk" is something like finite inconvenience (as compared to the risk of infinite suffering).

Again, as Steve essentially pointed out, trying to promote religion by calling attention to the "what if we're wrong?" issue is sort of like trying to sell used cars by pointing out the puddles of transmission fluid all over the lot.

Answer 2

"Is there any literature treating religious doubt accepted in the tradition as part of the tradition?" That's an oxymoron, isn't it? "We believe Jesus is God, unless, of course, He isn't." That wouldn't be a statement of faith. Statements of faith are the rock-steady parts of the faith that they cling to as part of their identity.

Answer 3

I don't know much about Unitarian Universalism, but here are a few facts and references relevant to your question:

• It looks like contemporary Unitarian Universalists do not identify themselves with Christianity any more than with any other religion.

• Few, if any, Christian groups would consider individuals who hold the beliefs espoused by the UUA to be Christians.

• Originally, both Unitarians and Universalists -- separate groups until 1961 -- identified themselves as Christians (UUA.org History page).

• The "Quotes from Unitarian Universalists" page from this UU congregation's site offers the following:

"Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the attendant of truth. Doubt is the key to the door of knowledge; it is the servant of discovery. A belief which may not be questioned binds us to error, for there is incompleteness and imperfection in every belief. Doubt is the touchstone of truth; it is an acid which eats away the false. Let no one fear for the truth, that doubt may consume it; for doubt is the testing of belief. The truth stands boldly and unafraid; it is not shaken by the testing." - Robert T. Weston

• A number of individual UU church sites describe doubt as a "virtue" (Examples here and here).

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Edit: I would also suggest -- though I'm not sure what authorities to cite -- that a significant proportion of the subset of Christians who might generally be described as "well educated" in matters of the faith would consent that, implicit in the concept of "faith," there is some acknowledgement of the concept of doubt. Does that make sense? That is, the very statement, "I believe that x is true," can, to some hearers, demonstrate that the speaker admits of the possibility of error -- especially when contrasted with the similar, though not equivalent assertion, "x is true." The former is a statement about one's personal beliefs, qualified by the inclusion of a first person pronoun; the latter is formulated as a objective statement of fact.

I think we all, at some point in our respective lives, have "believed" statements which we later learned were untrue -- importantly, however, we have also "believed" in things that we later found to be factually accurate.

That may contribute something to explain the essential absence of formal references to doubt in historic Christian literature.

It's difficult to explain. I'm probably making it more complicated than necessary.