On the Virtue of Doubt

One of the dangers of learning is in being attached to one's own ideas or to one's own interpretation of the ideas of others. We gain freedom through truth, but we can be held back from truth by holding to closely to what is our own, particularly to the thoughts that are our own. Yves Simon in A General Theory of Authority is quite good on the role of obedience in releasing us from attachment, even attachment to our own ideas.

This is akin somehow to Mother Theresa's unknowing (which many interpret as a negative sort of doubt, but which is really only a greater form of belief--when you believe and act according to that belief, in the midst of your doubts, which arise because of your lack of sensual and sometimes even spiritual experience).

In the very remarkable A Secular Age, Charles Taylor writes, "Those who believe in the God of Abraham should normally be reminded of how little they know him, how partial is their grasp of him. They have a long way to go. (Of course, the fanatics among the forget this and revert to living in another bubble, enjoying a false confidence in their own hard-edged truths.)"