Abstract
This essay contains four arguments in defense of the creative role of doubt in religion. Within a specified framework or context it is argued that: 1) creative doubt is a means of constructively acknowledging human finitude, 2) creative doubt can play a role in keeping one's fundamental beliefs alive and vital, 3) creative doubt, by continually challenging the full adequacy of religious symbols, serves as a check against the idolatrous worship of one's own religious language, and 4) the avoidance of doubt may reflect a relinquishing of freedom and a dehumanizing quest for certainty.
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References
de Unamuno, M., “Saint Emmanuel The Good, Martyr.” In Karl, F., and Hamalian, L., eds.,The Existential Imagination. Greenwich, Fawcett Publications, 1963, p. 99.
Ibid., p. 101.
Ibid., pp. 102–103.
Ibid., p. 115.
Ibid., p. 119.
Peirce, C. S., “Fallibilism, Continuity, and Evolution.” In Hartshorne and Weiss, eds.,Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol. I,Principles of Philosophy. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1960, pp. 58–72.
Ibid., p. 60.
Ibid., p. 70.
Tillich, P.,Dynamics of Faith. New York, Harper and Brothers Publisher, 1957, p. 1.
Ibid., p. 7.
Ibid., p. 21.
Ibid., p. 19.
Bronowski, J.,The Ascent of Man. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1973, p. 374.
Tillich,Dynamics of Faith, op. cit., p. 41.
Ibid., p. 44.
Mill, J. S.,On Liberty. New York, The Liberal Arts Press, 1956, pp. 22–23.
Dostoevsky, F.,The Brothers Karamazov, trans. C. Garnett. New York, The Modern Library, 1950, pp. 292–314.
Ibid., p. 305.
Bertocci, P. A.,Religion as Creative Insecurity. New York, Association Press, 1958, p. IX.
Russell, B.,A History of Western Philosophy. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1945, p. XIV.
Rice, P. B.,On the Knowledge of Good and Evil. New York, Random House, 1955, p. 288.
Ibid., 1955, p. 288.
Tillich,Dynamics of Faith, op. cit., p. 101.
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Baird, R.M. The creative role of doubt in religion. J Relig Health 19, 172–179 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00990134
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00990134