I think I am speaking within the facts
when I say that a man who is unsound is looked upon in many
communities with more suspicion and with more pious horror than a man
who now and then gets drunk. "Burn him!" "Brand him!" "Excommunicate
him!" That has been the Church's treatment of doubt, and that is
perhaps to some extent the treatment which we ourselves are inclined
to give to the men who cannot see the truths of Christianity as we see
them.
Contrast
CHRIST'S TREATMENT
of doubt. I have spoken already of His strange partiality for the
outsiders--for the scattered heretics up and down the country; of the
care with which He loved to deal with them, and of the respect in
which He held their intellectual difficulties. Christ never failed to
distinguish between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is "_can't believe_";
unbelief is "_won't believe_." Doubt is honesty; unbelief is
obstinacy. Doubt is looking for light; unbelief is content with
darkness. Loving darkness rather than light--that is what Christ
attacked, and attacked unsparingly.
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