A reader writes:
I've dipped in and out of the various discussions you've had on religion and belief but haven't participated because it seems to me the the believers and the nonbelievers can go only so far in finding common ground before a final failure in understanding and agreement. In the end, one either believes or not, and there is no rational path, virtually by definition, toward faith. "I believe" and "I know" are incompatible ways of seeing. The gap between reason and faith is unbridgeable.
Merton's statement seems a model of rationality and moderation, of reasonableness, but it won't hold.
The implication is that doubt is merely a way station, however difficult, toward believing, not an insuperable impediment. What he is saying is that doubt is inconvenient, even painful at times, but it can be overcome and faith established in the end. Faith will never, or almost never, be turned aside by doubt, only delayed. What the statement elides is that doubt, if genuine, must be seen as just as likely to demolish faith as sustain it. If not, then doubt is always a poor second to faith. Faith is able to overcome doubt in a way that Merton's formulation suggests doubt can never overcome faith. The ultimate power of faith is not a conclusion but an underlying assumption of what Merton is saying.
