Mother Theresa's Struggle with Faith

[Primula Baggins]

I just don't get how anyone can be "certain" about something that can't be proven. Thats just strong belief, surely, not certainty?

I "get" it, though I share your concerns about why it could be problematic. You can have a strong emotional (spiritual?) "certainty" about something, even as the logical/analytic parts of your mind admit that you cannot "know" that thing - in the sense of earth-based/human understanding - to a certainty.

Those of us who value human-comprehensible logic to a fault may feel that this emotional "certainty" is not true "certainty," but that doesn't change the fact that a believer may experience it that way. I emphasize "may" because it sounds as though some religious people (e.g. Prim) do NOT experience faith that way, if I'm understanding correctly.

No, some of us don't (or don't often) experience that wonderful confidence and certainty—because we, too, value human-comprehensible logic to a fault. Believe me, I know that in stepping toward faith I am stepping away from the whole logically constructed universe, from everything that can be and has been measured and tentatively explained by science. Now, in most of my life, that is where I live and work and think. So when I do get washed over with a feeling of joy and certainty about my faith, another part of my mind is going, wai-wai-wait! This doesn't meet the standard! It isn't up to code! Don't trust it! And all the ineffable certainty wafts away to find a friendlier home.

I'm not going to abandon science; it works, for everything except the supernatural, whose existence it can't measure. If I were 100% logically consistent, I would therefore deny that the supernatural can exist. If I were capable of taking the Bible literally, I would therefore deny that science is valid. I can't do either one.

So that's me, stuck here on the floor between two barstools. Just hand me down a drink now and then, okay?

[nerdanel]

If I were 100% logically consistent, I would therefore deny that the supernatural can exist.

...and this is where I have ended up. Even weekly exposure for the past twelve months to a delightful Jewish congregation, the majority of whose members do believe in the supernatural at some level, has not altered this. I think it is likely it will not. So I am in the position - perhaps as dissonant as yours might feel to you, Prim - of sometimes being up on the barstool, having a drink, and sometimes jumping off the barstool to join folks like you on the floor. To the extent that Mother Teresa experienced either the way you feel or the way I feel, it is reassuring to me.

But, it seems likely to me that those sitting on "my" barstool and those sitting on the opposing barstool will continue to clash, on the streets, in the courts, in the government. It's unfortunate.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

My experience is very different. In fact, in many ways I am the diametric opposite of Mother Theresa. I am, always have been, and expect always will be, a profoundly nonreligious person. I was not brought up in a religious household, I have never had any desire to be involved in any organized religious activities, and I actually feel quite uncomfortable on the occasions that I am forced to be present in a synagogue or church.

And yet, I have experienced the sure presence of the Infinite, on many occasions. There is no logical explanation for this, nor do I have any desire to seek one. It is completely different kind of certainty that the Copernican "the Earth revolves around the Sun". It is a sureness that has no particular boundaries or parameters; there is no Book that I believe in the truth of, no Truths with a capital T at all that clearly defines my believe. My certainty comes from what I feel, not what I think. I feel God's presence every time I feel Love, in all of its wondrous and infinite manifestations.

[baby tuckoo]

I'd probably believe in the super (or supra) natural if it weren't for the constant attempt of others to define it for my own good.






Well, maybe I wouldn't.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Baby t, who (in this thread) is attempting to define the supernatural for YOUR own good? I, at least, am only attempting to explain my OWN experience. As far as I am concerned, you are far more qualified to look after your own good than I am.

[baby tuckoo]

Not you, certainly, VtF. Your explanations of belief are inclusive.

My reference was to prescriptivists of behavior and ceremony. You are not one of them, nor are any of the regulars around here. But many exist in our fine country.

I referred to the nature of transcendent belief in the general world (not HoF) and to the danger of bringing that belief into the realm of governance.

[truehobbit]

I just don't get how anyone can be "certain" about something that can't be proven. Thats just strong belief, surely, not certainty?

I guess I'd say that strong belief IS certainty.
Or maybe rather that certainty IS strong belief.
I've never been someone who's much for scientific evidence or logic - these, to my mind, are as fallible as 'strong belief' - are, in fact, nothing else but 'strong belief' in most cases, as the things one can actually 'prove' in the strictest sense of the word are too few to live on with any sanity. Most things we have to take to for granted in life, i.e. believe in, otherwise we'd go insane.

As to joy and certainty in faith, I think a sense of love is what best describes it.
If you feel loved, it makes you joyful, because you are certain of this love. I don't think you'd ask for some test-resistant proof of this love, say, from your partner, before you believe in it. And when, at any time, you find yourself doubting this certainty of love, joy is diminished.

I think (from what we can gather from the bits in the article about Mother Theresa) that this is what Mother Theresa suffered, too.
It seems that in the beginning she had a mystical feeling of closeness to God. Then this feeling of closeness left her, and she wasn't experiencing God in her life as much as before anymore. So she wondered whether she'd lost God's love, whether He had left her, or whether the whole thing had been untrue from the start - a feeling of being deserted by the one of whose love you were most certain.
I think that's the doubt we are talking about here, and the certainty whose loss from their lives I can't but imagine many people here would make desperate, scientific proof for its existence and reasonable foundations notwithstanding.

[Frelga]

Turning to Pratchett for wisdom, as usual. In Carpe Jugulum, Oats its a young Omnian priest, who longs for strong faith but is besieged by intellectual doubt.

They had been warned about it. Don’t expect it, they’d said. It doesn’t happen to anyone except the prophets. Om doesn’t work like that. Om works from inside.
—but he’d hoped that, just once, Om would make himself known in some obvious and unequivocal way that couldn’t be mistaken for wind or a guilty conscience. Just once he’d like the clouds to part for the space of ten seconds and a voice to cry out, “YES, MIGHTILY-PRAISEWORTHY-ARE-YE-WHO-EXALTETH-OM OATS! IT’S ALL COMPLETELY TRUE! INCIDENTALLY, THAT WAS A VERY THOUGHTFUL PAPER YOU WROTE ON THE CRISIS OF RELIGION IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY!”
It wasn’t that he’d lacked faith. But faith wasn’t enough. He’d wanted knowledge.

and a bit further on:

Even when he was small there'd been a part of him that thought the temple was a silly boring place, and tried to make him laugh when he was supposed to be listening to sermons. It had grown up with him. It was the Oats that read avidly and always remembered those passages which cast doubt on the literal truth of the Book Of Om--and nudged him and said, if this isn't true, what can you believe?

And the other half of him would say: there must be other kinds of truth.

And he'd reply: other kinds than the kind that is actually true, you mean?

And he'd say: define actually!

And he'd shout: well, actually Omnians would have tortured you to death, not long ago, for even thinking like this. Remember that? Remember how many died for using the brain which, you seem to think, their god gave them? What kind of truth excuses all that pain?

He'd never quite worked out how to put the answer into words.

It is telling that while by the end the character does not resolve his doubt, he does find joy in his faith. "Everywhere I look I see something holy," he says.

I would also expect that joy tends to come from certainty.

It might, Ax, but I don't think it has to. For me, the joy of religious experience does not comes from certainty or even knowledge. It is the wonder of touching the Infinite, the uplifting warmth of communal worship, the pleasure of being with like minded people, the pride of being part of the tradition that goes back 4,000 years. It is something that goes beyond realm of words. Of those things I'm certain.

That does not mean I am certain of much inside the realm of words, or that I think I know exactly what God likes for breakfast. Or likes ME to have for breakfast. Or what the afterlife is like. Or how long it really took God to make the beasts and the plants. But that's beside the point for me. I think faith is about reaching for the Divine. Not about having reached. YMMV

[Primula Baggins]

I think faith is about reaching for the Divine. Not about having reached.

Yes. Exactly. A journey, not a destination; a continuing process, not a static state of being. And always learning.

And I can tell that I need to finally actually read Pratchett.

[truehobbit]

That does not mean I am certain of much inside the realm of words, or that I think I know exactly what God likes for breakfast. Or likes ME to have for breakfast. Or what the afterlife is like. Or how long it really took God to make the beasts and the plants. But that's beside the point for me. I think faith is about reaching for the Divine. Not about having reached.

Neither of which has anything to do with the doubt we are talking about, though, I think.

YMMV

?

[Primula Baggins]

"Your mileage may vary": You may have a different experience/opinion/outlook.

[Faramond]

Out of the US it's YKMV

[truehobbit]

Ahh, ok - thanks!

LOL, Faramond.

I thought maybe it was 'You mark my vords' - Russian accent, you know.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's funny, hobby.

[Lurker]

All I can say is I am glad to read that Mother Teresa had moments of "doubt". I guess having worked among the poorest of the poor will always have you thinking "Is there a God?"

Right now, I'm starting to read "How To Know God: The Soul's Journey Into the Mystery of Mysteries" by Deepak Chopra.

In what concerns divine things, belief is not approriate.
Only certainty will do.
Anything less than certainty is unworthy of God
-Simone Weil

[Alatar]

I guess Simone Weil and I wouldn't get on very well, cause I think thats complete rubbish. The God I believe in doesn't demand unwavering certainty.

[baby tuckoo]

I've posted it before, but it bears repeating:


Disbelief is not the opposite of Faith. The opposite of Faith is Certainty.

[Cerin]

I don't see how they are opposites.

I'll agree that you can't be said to have faith in something you know is factually true.

However, that isn't the kind of certainty people have been talking about here.

[axordil]

If something is emotionally true, as opposed to factually, is that not because it brings one joy?

[Cerin]

If something is emotionally true, as opposed to factually, is that not because it brings one joy?

I don't know. Mightn't it bring pain or fear rather than joy? Those are emotions, too.

is that not because it brings one joy?

I'd have said, it's because it can't be proved.