Dostoevsky on Doubt

"I will tell you that I am a child of the century, a child of disbelief and doubt. I will remain so until the grave. How much terrible torture this thirst for faith has cost me and costs me even now which is all the stronger in my soul the more arguments I can find against it. And yet God sends me sometimes instants [sic] when I am completely calm. At those instants I love and feel loved by others and it is at those instants that I have shaped for myself a Credo where everything is clear and sacred to me. This credo is very simple. Here it is: To believe that nothing is more beautiful, profound, sympathetic, reasonable, manly, and perfect than Christ. And I tell myself with a jealous love that not only is there nothing more but there can be nothing more. Even more, if someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky, in a letter a woman who had helped him through crisis.

Dostoevsky said the 19th century was one of disbelief and doubt, but we Christians in the early part of the 21st century might argue that is a title for our time. Our larger culture responds to sincere faith with curiosity, hostility, and mockery. Within the church some hesitate to reveal periods of doubt, yet Jesus himself asked for the cup of his crucifixion be taken away from him as he prayed in Gethsemane.

What is the nature of doubt for a Christian? Is it a single period of darkness, or is it a "thirst for faith" that lasts a lifetime? What does God teach us through periods of doubt?

Like Dostoevsky, do you have a Credo (Latin for "I believe") - a single statement of your faith?

What does he mean when he says, "[N]ot only is there nothing more but there can be nothing more"?

Contemporary pastor Tim Keller says this about doubt: A faith without some doubts is like a human body without antibodies in it.  People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. Can you be comfortable with doubt? What are the benefits of doubt to your faith?

Finally, what do you think of his assertion that even if Christ were not true, he would rather remain in Christ than in truth? It might remind you of Pascal's Wager. Or it might remind you of Puddleglum in The Silver Chair:

“One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say.”