FAITH AND DOUBT

In its November/December 2010, the Biblical Archaeology Review published an interview with Professor Sean Frayne, Director of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies and Emeritus Professor of Theology at Trinity College, Dublin. Prof. Frayne is a renowned scholar whose studies focus on the integration of literary and archaeological sources of Galilean culture in the Hellenistic and Roman times. Possibly his most controversial statement was that the real Jesus is a historical and theological construct.

For the next three issues BAR published angry letters to the editor. Some threatened to cancel their subscriptions – and a few actually did so - because the article had challenged their concept of faith as true believers. Others offered support of Frayne’s critical views of the historical character of biblical narratives. One of the more trenchant supportive letters said in part, “Within the very concept of faith is the possibility of doubt, lest it would cease to be faith.”

Passages in the New Testament itself would appear to support Frayne’s position. A case in point is the Gospel lesson in last week’s lectionary (Matthew 14:22-33).  The disciples became terrified when they saw Jesus was walking toward them on the sea. Doubting that the approaching figure was Jesus, Peter challenged Jesus to let him walk on the waves too. Jesus bid him come. Out of the boat Peter’s courage failed him and he began to sink. Jesus saved him saying “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

For a second instance see Acts 9:10-19 where Ananias, a Christian in Damascus, had a vision that God had told him that Saul of Tarsus was staying in a house on a certain street praying. Knowing why Saul was in Damascus, Ananias immediately doubted that God had spoken to him. But God insisted and Ananias obeyed. In the ensuing encounter with Saul, the great apostle to the Gentiles was baptized and for a short time longer in Damascus became a persuasive preacher that Jesus is the Messiah.

Taken literally, these miracles stories require an unusual faith that Matthew and Luke had access to any records of these events. Was that possible in an oral culture 50 or 60 years after the events occurred? Or is it credulity?  Another unlikely possibility is that the Holy Spirit inspired the verbal composition of these narratives. Critical scholarship looks at both stories as instances where faith met doubt in challenging situations and triumphed. To believe otherwise is to question the creativity of the authors with a sound theological message to convey: that Jesus is the Christ, Son of God.

No interpreters of scripture use a totally literalist reading of the text. To do so would be to deny that the world revolves around the sun. (Psalm 104:19; Judges 5:51; Joshua 10:13; etc.) It may still appear to be so and our more poetic language still uses it as a metaphor. Yet Galileo proved that to be a totally mistaken observation as long ago as 1610.

Out of such discoveries critical scholarship has developed alternative systems for interpreting the mysteries and apparent paradoxes of the Bible. Neither history nor archaeology can fully satisfy human reason and the seeming paradoxes of faith, Prof. Frayne argued. But faith is just that - “paradox is all but the very definition of faith.” Therefore, in true faith, doubt can never be escaped.

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