Article September 13, 1982 Issue

"Neither fear nor doubt": handling skepticism

DANIEL E. LEES

Epiphany: "A feast on January 6 in commemoration of the coming of the Magi as the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles an appearance or manifestation esp. of a divine being." Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary .

Students of scientific Christianity often experience what might be called epiphanies, illuminations of spiritual reality, after which come periods of accelerated progress marked by harmony, peace, and demonstration.

One such marvelous burst of illumination for me has been Truth's unmasking of skepticism. Doubt is indigenous to mortal mind, that putative consciousness claiming to be the creator and sustainer of a material existence. Skepticism, or formal doubt, is a philosophical topic close to 2500 years old. Thomas Huxley was acknowledging this school of thought when in 1870 he coined the term "agnostic," based on a Greek word agnostos, meaning "unknown, unknowable." It is defined in one dictionary as "a person who believes that the human mind cannot know whether there is a God or an ultimate cause, or anything beyond material phenomena." Webster's New World Dictionary .

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