In one of Graham Greene’s novels a character says: “It’s odd … how sharing a sense of doubt can bring men together perhaps even more than sharing a faith. The believer will fight another believer over a shade of difference: the doubter fights only with himself.” We have seen in our time how “true believers” commit horrible crimes in the name of their belief. This cannot be what faith intends. Anne LaMott observes that the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty. Doubt is, in fact, an element of faith. Certainty does not require faith. All of which suggests that the prayer of the father of the epileptic boy is one we can all take to heart: “I do believe, help my unbelief!”
