By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo 

 

I have met people who have always maintained that their religion is the only one that can save the soul, without any doubt. Most dominant religions profess their own as the only path to God. I believe otherwise. This kind of certainty negates the complexity of God’s creation and His/Her encompassing Love.

In the book, “The Craft of Family Therapy: Challenging Certainties”, co-authored by Salvador Minuchin, Michael D. Reiter, Charmaine Borda (2013), Argentinian psychotherapist Salvador Minuchin said:

“Certainty is the enemy of change.”

In the novel “Conclave” (2016), Robert Harris spoke of certainty:

“My brothers and sisters, in the course of a long life in the service of our Mother the Church, let me tell you that the one sin I have come to fear more than any other is certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end. ‘Eli Eli, lama sabachtani?’ He cried out in His agony at the ninth hour on the cross. ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty, and if there was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.”

For who can really be certain? Certainty killed Joan of Arc, a national heroine of France who led the French army in a momentous victory at Orléans in 1429 that defeated England’s attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Years’ War. However, she was captured during the siege of Compiègne (1430) by Burgundian forces and sold to their English allies. “She was prosecuted by a pro-English church court at Rouen, Normandy, in 1431. The court found her guilty of heresy and she was burned at the stake.”

Certainty made the Church condemn Copernicus as a heretic whose ideas challenged the Church’s established geocentric view of the universe, putting Earth as the center. Copernicus contradicted this in his heliocentric model placing the sun at the center of the solar system. “The Church, fearing a challenge to its authority and the potential for further theological questioning, eventually condemned the Copernican view.”

Doubt, then, is necessary to strengthen faith, a constant re-examination of what we believe to be true. Each resolution of doubt brings us closer to God.

Robert Harris is right, faith is alive precisely because it walks hand on hand with doubt. If everything is certain, there would be no mystery, and there would be no need for faith.

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