Is faith compatible with doubt in Buddhism and Judaism?

Résumé du document

It is common to hear people speak of a religious man as a "man of faith", as if faith and religion were two synonyms. It is true that speaking of a person's religion assumes speaking of their faith, the degree at which they believe in their religion. However, faith is not the only implication of religion from the human mind's perspective. In fact, if faith exists, it is in contrast with doubt, which exists, too. These two words, faith and doubt, seem to be semantically opposed.

The first one seems to appeal to a belief that is self-sufficient (in the sense that it does not need certainty to sustain itself), intuitive, hopeful, and confident in the existence of an ultimate truth which is metaphysical but which is extremely influential in the world of physical reality. The second one, doubt, is rather complex as it can ben understood in different ways -not that faith cannot; it can, too.

The aim of this paper is to invesigate the compatibility between faith and doubt in two very old religions, one of the Middle-East, Judaism, and one from the Far-East, Buddhism.

Extraits

[...] Judaism, in the relationship between God and Humanity, is presented as a religion which does not curse doubt, but which at the same time shows that there is no real point at become sceptical and questioning the human fate, hoping to find some kind of answer. However, in Judaism, doubt can lead to faith, because in the book of Job, although he did not get any answer to his questions, he had the direct experience of God which increased his faithfulness to Him and resolved his problems. Consequently neither Buddhism nor Judaism are against the compatibility between faith and doubt. [...]

[...] In theory obviously, faith can be compatible with doubt; yet, is it really in the religion itself? How would Buddhism answer this question compared to the way Judaism would? In order to answer this question, I will select and explain a few passages of the main Buddhist and Jewish texts in which the notions of faith and doubt are mentioned. Let us start with the “Light of Buddhism. In Buddha's final Instruction that appears in the Legend of Buddha's Life, Buddha speaks to Ananda, one of his most devoted disciples, and shows him how important it is to your own lamps” (The World's Wisdom, Legend of the Buddha's life, Buddha says to Ananda that monk becomes his own lamp by continually looking on his body, feelings, perceptions, moods and ideas in such a manner that he conquers the cravings and depressions of ordinary persons and is always diligent, self-possessed and collected in mind” (Legend of Buddha's life, p.63, 18-c). [...]

[...] Is faith compatible with doubt in Buddhism and Judaism? It is common to hear people speak of a religious man as a of faith”, as if faith and religion were two synonyms. It is true that speaking of a person's religion assumes speaking of their faith, the degree at which they believe in their religion. However, faith is not the only implication of religion from the human mind's perspective. In fact, if faith exists, it is in contrast with doubt, which exists, too. [...]

[...] (The World's Wisdom, p section 20-a). For Buddha, religious life does not depend on the answer to these questions” (p.64). Rather, Buddha wants his disciples to focus on the central issue of human existence: “Miser, the origin of misery, and the path leading to the cessation of misery” (p.64). Buddha therefore encourages doubt because it is one of the ways through which the man spirit gets self controlled through the knowledge of the self, but at the same time, Buddha distinguishes between the wise and unwise doubt and questioning, the unwise being the ones that never lead to any answer because these questions are not central to the human existence although they look profoundly important. [...]

[...] The fact that I doubt something does not dismiss the fact that I can have faith in it or in something closely related to it. For example, my friend came to me and told me that there are other forms of life on Earth which are not visible to us humans but which interact with us on a daily basis without our awareness. I have no knowledge of these entities, I have never seen any-probably because they are not visible!- and I have no way of proving that this reality is impossible, therefore I do not know basically if this is true or false. [...]