Here is the latest session of our online study of Chris Green’s new book, Being Transfigured, in which we talked about doubt.
Here are some of the quotes from the chapter that we cited and discussed:
• Grace cannot save us without first losing us, which means grace always makes things awkward.
• Not all questions are faithless. And sometimes, in fact, the only faithful response to truth is confusion.
• If we’re honest, we’ll have to admit that much of what passes for doubt is nothing but honest hesitation, the inevitable upshot of generations of poor or bad teaching, teaching which trades in simplicities and cheap certainties, often eschewing pain at all costs, leaving us to feel that our salvation depends not on the mystery of faith, sustained by God’s devotion to us, but on our own grasp of our own beliefs or on the intensity of our desire for religious experiences.
• We have to be saved from “simple faith.” But not so that we might have “great faith.” That, too, always proves false. We need, instead, “the faith of God,” which is what is left of our faith after it has been purged by the Spirit.