We sometimes assume that belief and doubt are opposites. We either believe something or we doubt something. It almost feels like we are using different muscles or mechanisms to embody beliefs and doubts. We may even feel that a doubt is some kind of external force that tries to wrest us away from our beliefs. But beliefs and doubts rely on the same mental and emotional and psychological mechanisms, they’re just oriented in different directions. For example, let’s say that we can choose to either believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the World, or we can doubt that this is true. If we choose to believe, then our belief-making mechanisms are oriented toward Jesus Christ being the Son of God and the Savior of the World. If we choose to doubt, then our belief-making mechanisms are oriented away from Jesus Christ being the Son of God and the Savior of the World. If we choose to believe something, and then a doubt arises in our minds and in our hearts, we have a choice. We can either continue on the same trajectory of belief upon which we had already embarked, or we can choose to veer off course from that original belief and follow the doubt instead. But once we have chosen the doubt, we are now committed to believing in that doubt. A doubt doesn’t destroy or replace belief but merely channels it somewhere different. We are not obligated to channel our belief into this new direction. Nor are we beholden to continue on the path of doubt. To return to our earlier example, if we choose to doubt in the reality of Jesus Christ and the potential power for good of His Grace in our lives, and then through sad experience we realize that this new choice we have made is leading to an increase of tragedy and misery in our lives, we are perfectly welcome and indeed encouraged to doubt our doubt and reorient ourselves towards Christ. To put it simply, our belief is our capacity to behave in a way that gets us closer to what we are aiming at, and our capacity to doubt allows us to change what we are aiming at. Belief, on its own, is neither virtuous nor beneficial. We can believe in good things or bad things. Doubt, on its own, is neither sinful nor harmful. We can doubt good things or bad things. We are to exercise the Spirit of Discernment and the Light of Christ to judge for ourselves that which is good and that which is bad, and to believe and orient ourselves towards the good, and to doubt and orient ourselves away from the bad. If our life is headed in a positive direction, then we owe it to ourselves to press forward in our good beliefs and to reject any doubts that arise. If our life is headed in a negative direction, then we are to embrace the doubts that would reorient ourselves away from that which is harmful and in so doing reject all of the harmful beliefs that we have adopted. We should neither cling blindly to beliefs nor flee in panic from doubts, but believe the beliefs that are good, and doubt the doubts that are bad.
