Volume 35, Issue 2, April 2018
Daniel J. McKaughan
Pages 195-218
https://doi.org/10.5840/faithphil2018327101
Faith Through the Dark of Night
What Perseverance Amidst Doubt Can Teach Us about the Nature and Value of Religious Faith
Faith plays a valuable role in sustaining relationships through various kinds of challenges, including through evidentially unfavorable circumstances and periods of significant doubt. But if, as is widely assumed, both faith in God and faith that God exists require belief that God exists, and if one¡¯s beliefs are properly responsive to one¡¯s evidence, the capacity for faith to persevere amidst significant and well-grounded doubt will be fairly limited. Taking Mother Teresa as an exemplar of Christian faith and exploring the close connection between faith and faithfulness in the context of committed covenantal relationships, I set out a view of Relational Faith that does not assume that faith requires belief and allows wide room for honestly wrestling with doubt from within the Judeo-Christian tradition.