DOUBT BOOK REVIEW
January 2004

While some people see it as negative and unproductive, doubt does lots of work.

Doubt toils in the fields of philosophy, science, politics and the arts and does its most mysterious work in the field of theology by inspiring new religions: Doubt fathers devotion.

This is one of many lessons we learn in "Doubt, A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson," by Jennifer Michael Hecht, historian, professor and award-winning poet.

We also learn that doubt is older than most faiths, that it includes many categories, schools and practices, and that doubt has a pantheon of heroes, who still to speak to us across the ages. And who would question the importance of studying faith and doubt — you can't grasp one without the other — in this post 9/11 world?

"Since I began writing this book, well before September 2001, the significance of its subject has redoubled," Hecht writes in the concluding chapter. "The book is now offered as a way to contextualize the struggle over religion and secularism that is at the heart of the crisis."

In short, the book is not only fascinating, it's also timely and important.

ONE SIMPLE SENTENCE

Hecht begins by pinpointing the origin of faith and doubt in one simple but profound sentence: "We live in a meaning-rupture because we are human and the universe is not."

Hecht calls this, "The Great Schism," and it causes us staggering problems because we have an almost "violent" desire for knowledge and control.

Enter a host of philosophical and theological geniuses to help us cope with the cruel facts of life: that natural forces can wipe out a lifetime of dreams in an instant; that the vast, empty spaces of the universe fill some people with dread; that happiness is elusive; that morality is fragile; and that death is mysterious, terrifying and certain.    

Hecht explains that some prophets and thinkers try to heal the schism by writing a human meaning back into the universe; this results in a story of God or gods, who care about our welfare. Other religious innovators have gone the other way, urging us to steep our souls in the cool indifference of those vast and silent spaces; this results in the great non-theological belief systems of the East, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism.  

Philosopher-scientists have taken a third path; they believe reason can solve the meaning-rupture by exposing and explaining everything. And "graceful-life" philosophers open a wider way forward; they say awe and wonder is the best approach to life — learn what you can, know your limits, and don't fear death because it's not something you'll experience anyway, or to paraphrase Epicurus: Where I am, death is not; where death is, I am not.

And lest we think otherwise, Hecht reminds us that billions of moral and principled people have lived without recourse to a personal God or hopes of eternal salvation, and they didn't degenerate into beasts or go mad with fear and uncertainty.  

In fact, many of them have taught us courage as they performed the heavy lifting for cultural advancement. Take Anaxagoras for instance.

COURAGE

He was one of the early heroes of doubt and played a role in the battle between religion and science. He is also, "the earliest historical figure to have been indicted for atheism — in fact, it seems they wrote the law just for him," Hecht writes.

A meteorite had fallen in 467 BCE, convincing Anaxagoras that heavenly bodies were not gods, just glowing lumps of metal. "This was the origin of a conflict between religion and science," Hecht explains. "Here, new information, new empirical data, led to a direct challenge to the way in which the gods were envisioned."

This new type of doubt spurred a new kind of punishment. Set up about 438 BCE, the law held that society must "denounce those who do not believe in the divine beings or who teach doctrines about things in the sky."

The fortunes of doubt rose and fell for centuries but headed into steep decline in 415 CE with the brutal murder of Hypatia, one of the First Ladies of doubt.

The "terrible story of Hypatia" has been cited as the "defining moment in the death of ancient philosophy at the hands of Christian orthodoxy," Hecht writes.

She quotes church historian Socrates Scholasticus, who said Hypatia, "made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time."

She became head of the Platonist school of Alexandria and was not frightened to face "an assembly of men" to teach philosophy or advise on political affairs. But she soon ran afoul of the future Saint Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria.

So some of Cyril's followers, "waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with roof tiles." They later burned the dismembered remains.

Doubt completed its slide into oblivion in 529 CE. "That year, fearing the anger of God, the Christian emperor Justinian outlawed paganism and closed the Epicurean Garden, the Skeptic Academy, the Lyceum, and the Stoic Porch. After more than 800 years, they no longer existed."

Doubt was not defeated; it just went on vacation for a while, coming back stronger than ever.

COSMOPOLITAN DOUBT

But let's say you're not interested in historical figures or philosophical theories. What does "Doubt, A History," have to say to you, a person who currently lives under a post 9/11 national terror alert system and hears reports about flight cancellations or terrorist bombings daily?

The answer revolves around one of doubt's most longstanding and powerful incarnations, what Hecht calls "cosmopolitan doubt," which occurs when people from varying cultures are thrown together. Hecht explains:

"If my ostensibly universal God demands rest on a different day than your ostensibly universal God, we are both going to notice the glitch and wonder who's got it right, if anyone. So difference alone leads to a more questioning, critical attitude toward received truths, i.e. truths that have tradition as their primary proof or source or authority."

This might also be called "doubt from diversity" — and we're up to our ears in it.

OUR SHRINKING WORLD

It is perhaps an unstated thesis of Hecht's book that as our communication-saturated, Web-wired world shrinks, we reach greater levels relativism, pluralism and diversity, which is to say doubt, more than ever, is forcing itself on us whether we like it or not.

So we all have a stake in understanding the intricacies of doubt and why our free society frightens other cultures and their time-tested, doubt-denying beliefs.

Our praise of freedom and equality rings false and our commitment to diversity remains shallow if we don't grasp the ongoing importance of doubt.

Moreover, one of the best weapons in the war on terror is improved intelligence, not the kind you get from agents in the field or experts in Washington, but the kind you get from quiet study in the privacy of your own home.

Have a little faith in doubt and read this book.

MORE: Doubt 1 • Doubt 2