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MAY 1, 2008
Counsel the doubtful
Part four in a series on the Spiritual Works of Mercy
“What is truth?” Pontius Pilate’s question to Jesus had nothing to do with a desire for truth. It had everything to do with sidestepping the truth and avoiding the responsibility that truth imposes, such as protecting the life and dignity of those he governed, in this case the life of Jesus.
Could a similar shirking of duty underlie the skepticism that is so prevalent in modern culture? Why is the doubter often more admired than the believer? Why is innocence scorned and labeled as ignorance? Why do many despair of even knowing what is true?
An era of doubt
Of all the spiritual works of mercy, perhaps none is more needed today than the third one: “Counsel the Doubtful.” Many of our contemporaries are plagued with doubts: doubts about their ability to know what is true, doubts about their ability to do good and avoid evil, doubts even about the existence of God.
Dealing with doubt, admittedly, is something with which we all have to contend, to some degree. God creates us with an intellect that naturally reaches out for truth. We seek to know what is right. Even when we believe in God, our faith in Him is subject to challenges since what we believe surpasses our full understanding. “We walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7). This is why theologian Paul Tillich said that an act of faith demands daring and courage.
But challenges to faith and dealing with doubts are a far cry from the hardcore skepticism that pervades modern culture. Such skepticism paralyzes our natural tendency to reach out toward God; and it stifles our soul’s natural desire to surrender in faith to Him. It leads to cynicism and despair, the exact opposite for which God made us.
From doubt to faith
How can a person move from uncertainty to faith? Can doubts be overcome through scientific evidence? Do philosophical arguments rid us of doubts? These are questions that many of our contemporaries face with sincerity in our day. After all, faith is an authentically human act, requiring the use of both freedom and reason. This struggle against doubt is already evident in the New Testament where the disciples of Jesus say (Mk 9:24), “I do believe, help my unbelief!”
The mystery of God and His love transcends our ability to understand but it is not contrary to reason. Rather, faith is entirely reasonable, whereas disbelief is actually contrary to our human nature, as St. Thomas Aquinas explains in his Summa Theologiae (II, II, 10, 1 ad 1). God plants in each of us a natural propensity for religion.
It is not enough, of course, to know about God. What we need, and deep down desire, is a personal relationship with God. In fact, what makes Christianity so attractive is the fact that it is centered in a vibrant encounter with the living Jesus Christ. The first step in faith is an acceptance of Jesus as God; the definitive revelation of the Father. Most of us come to such an encounter through the help of faithful witnesses.
Faithful witnesses
The ability to lead others to faith in God, and the ability to counsel the doubtful, depends on the authenticity of the lives of the witnesses. Nothing can be achieved by the half-hearted believer. No one is convinced by a cafeteria Catholic. On the other hand, the witness of a faith-filled person impacts the lives of many others. We have experienced this, in our own time, in persons such a John Paul II and Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
The Good News of the Risen Christ has always been conveyed by those whose personal testimony was credible and convincing. This is why the Apostles, after the betrayal and suicide of Judas, established one primary qualification for the man who would take his place: he had to be a witness. St. Peter stood in the midst of his brothers and told them (Acts 1:21-22), “Therefore, it is necessary that one of the men who accompanied us the whole time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which He was taken up from us become with us a witness to His resurrection.”
The witness that convinces and changes peoples’ lives goes beyond the accumulation of data and the marshaling of facts. While it is objective, it is above all deeply personal. The convincing witness is the one who possesses an unassailable commitment to the truth, the truth that reaches its fullness in the person of Jesus Christ. Moreover, He, the Risen Lord, is above all others (Rev. 1:5) “the faithful witness.”
Witnessing to the truth today
God, in His infinite wisdom, has called us to be His witnesses in an age of doubt, an era of skepticism, a culture of suspicion. Carl Anderson eloquently explains this in his latest book “A Civilization of Love.” Through the writings of Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche, Anderson writes (p. 23), “It would not be an exaggeration to say that the ‘masters of suspicion’ [Marx, Freud, Nietzsche] have largely succeeded today (in some places much more dramatically than in others) in creating a new ‘culture of suspicion’ in which Christianity and its values are increasingly marginalized by contemporary Western society.”
We are not the first generation of Christians to face these challenges. But the ways that they present themselves today are unique, even as their basic nature is the same. Nonetheless, as we face them, we have no reason to be discouraged or dismayed. Did not Jesus see the need, prior to His Ascension into heaven, to repeatedly tell His followers, “Be not afraid”? John Paul II and Benedict XVI continue to echo that good advice to us today.
The atmosphere of suspicion around us makes even more evident the need for the practice of the third spiritual work of mercy, “Counsel the Doubtful.” What a difference faith in God makes. As St. Peter says about the Risen Lord (Acts 10:43), “To Him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in Him will receive forgiveness of sins through His name.”
What could be more precious than to know, to believe and to love Jesus Christ? What could be more loving than for us to assist others to overcome all doubts and arrive at a similar faith in Him?
Copyright 2008 The Catholic Sun.
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