As I’m on the editorial group for Grove Doctrine, I plan to promote (but not review) each of the books released in the series as and when they’re published.
Is doubt a sign of weak faith, perhaps even of no faith? While what we believe is important, there will undoubtedly (!) be times when we question some or all of the central tenets of Christian belief and our faith appears a sham. In this Grove Book, Andrea Russell looks at how issues of doubt and certainty manifested during the sixteenth century and how clergy during this time sought to alleviate the anxiety these issues produced for many in their congregations. Russell explores Richard Hooker’s sermon, A Learned and Comfortable Sermon of the Certaintie and Perpetuitie of Faith in the Elect, noting that while ‘assurance and peace are available as Christians, . . . certainty is not’ (p. 13). Towards the end of Doubt, Russell writes,
The aim of learning [theology and doctrine, for Hooker,] is not to arrive at certainty; our experience of God is not one that will lead to certainty. Our knowledge . . . is to lead us further into glimpsing who God is, this God who saves us. Those glimpses will sometimes be like blinding lights but at times they may well lead us to doubt and darkness. Both paths can lead us deeper into God, revealing to us more of God’s goodness and more of the God who takes hold of us in salvation. Belief and doubt can lead us into an honest faith that allows us to believe in God with integrity. (p. 22)
Russell’s book concludes with an appendix on how to read Hooker.
Doubt is available for £3.95 from the Grove Books website (in both print and electronic formats), as well as through Christian bookshops.
On the now universal spirit-killing doubt mind that now patterns and controls every minute fraction of human culture including everything that is now promoted as religion, and of course all co called theology
ReplyDeletewww.dabase.org/doubt.htm
Quite.
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