faux serious introspection
Daniel Larison takes issue with Obama’s Notre Dame speech and especially Obama’s use of doubt, which Larison maintains is not a quality, but rather “a function of a mind clouded by the passions”. Doubt, Larison writes, “is the result of confusion. It does not teach us anything, but rather prevents us from learning.” This is interesting coming from Daniel – and a bit surprising, since I think doubt plays a much more nuanced role in our lives (politically and spiritually) than merely as an agent of personal obsfucation and confusion. Where Daniel finds the most fault is in Obama’s inability to separate apophatic theology from doubt – the one being an acceptance of the “unkowability of God” and the other being the “function of human confusion.”
Doubt, to my mind at least, is not at all the “function of human confusion” though it can certainly lead to confusion if we let it consume us. Then again, if we let our appetite for any emotion or passion or pursuit consume us it is possible we will be rendered helplessly confused – by love, by greed, by faith even. By certainty, even. [Read more →]
May 18, 2009 58 Comments
