Too Skeptical? Or Not Skeptical Enough?

Skeptics are used to being accused of being too skeptical, even cynical. Many actually hear the charge with a touch of satisfaction (“No one’s going to pull the wool over my eyes!”). But in my view we skeptics are often not skeptical enough.

Consider the age in which we live. (People have long enjoyed trying to characterize the defining qualities of the time they live in.) It is generally thought an age not conducive to belief. Competing orthodoxies include many that are directly or indirectly hostile to traditional religious faith, from various isms (materialism, naturalism, feminism, rationalism, consumerism, postmodernism, defunct Marxism, and the like) to the common “‘ism’ of everyday living” that looks for purpose in life in toys, busyness, pleasure and the pursuit of a killing notion of success.

Once, it is suggested, it was easier to believe. (“The Sea of Faith/ Was once, too, at the full” says the melancholic nineteenth-century agnostic poet Matthew Arnold.) Society and social institutions supported religion. Even the great majority of intellectuals and artists supported religious faith in the west until well into the 18th century. Now, alas, it is not so. Hostility to religion is topped only by indifference, and that makes it hard for someone with a skeptical bent to be a believer.

Baloney. If you are really a skeptic, it should make it easier. Your natural bent toward doubting truth claims ought to help you doubt the confused and confusing claims of your times that cast suspicion on faith at least as much as it causes you to doubt faith. I genuinely believe it is easier for me, personally, to be a Christian in a secular age than it would have been in any century I know of in the past.

As one who is skeptical at least around the edges, I am a natural contrarian. (Especially inside my head. Outwardly I love to get along.) Give me a fence and I’ll sit on it until I know what side you’re on. Then I’ll hop off on the other side. You think the poor are victims of oppression; I’ll think the poor often make the bed they lie in. You think the poor are lazy; I’ll counter that no one in the wide world works as hard as the poor. Same with politics, theology, sports, and snack foods.

So being reflexively contrarian, my tendency in an age of faith would be to be skeptical of a faith that most everyone else supports without thought. Having been blessed by living in a age where faith is often disparaged or dismissed (especially in the academic world I have lived in), my contrarian skepticism often pushes me toward faith. You think religion the opiate of the masses? Then I think it’s peachy. You think no reasonable person could possibly believe this stuff? Then I think no reasonable person could possibly think that reason alone can settle what you should believe.

A very small example. I once contributed an essay on Christian humanism (of which I am a fan) to a volume honoring the memory of a much-loved graduate school professor. The last line of the essay used the word “One” in a not very subtle betrayal of my own faith in God. The academic fellow editing the book called me to ask whether I really wanted to capitalize that word. It clearly irritated him and undoubtedly he thought it reflected badly on me as a scholar. He was giving me a chance not to embarrass myself.

Two things came immediately to my mind. The first was the thought that the man we were honoring (who shared my faith) would not have been displeased, maybe even a bit amused. The second was, “I’m glad this reference to personal faith bugs this fellow. Maybe I should put something in there about being washed in the blood.” I told him to keep it a capitalized One. See—a contrarian (and not always cooperative).

Given that we live in a time that largely believes traditional faith passe (at least in the west), I’m glad I’m a skeptic. It helps me see through many of the confident secular pronouncements about what is reasonable, believable, acceptable and relevant. If it also makes me a bit skeptical about similar pronouncements coming out of parts of the church, that’s okay. I need to discern the spirits there as well.

If I sometimes need to be skeptical about external claims, I also sometimes need to be skeptical about my own skepticism (a point I’ve made before). I need to be skeptical about the many excuses, rationalizations, and self-justifications I use to deflect the call of faith on my life. When I hear myself saying, “Okay, I’m not that great a Christian, but I’m not trying for sainthood—and at least I’m not a hypocrite,” I should be skeptical enough to see that for the feeble evasion that it is. The same holds if I trot out some cliched objection to faith and use that as a cover for my own flaccidness.

Can healthy skepticism be used to diffuse unhealthy skepticism, or does skepticism about skepticism just lead to skepticism squared? In my own life, I think it has been more the former. When I have found myself piling up objections to faith in the past—and keeping it at arm’s length—by own skepticism about my arguments and my motives have often lead me back toward commitment rather than further away. The contrarian within me has addressed my inner atheist and said to him, “Given all your many objections to belief, I see that I need to either fish or cut bait.” Then, after a pause for rhetorical affect (my inner atheist is big on rhetorical affect), I say, “I think I’ll fish.”

So am I too skeptical? Maybe. But then, perhaps I’m not skeptical enough.