Doubt and Mother Teresa

Shocking. Extraordinary. Startling.

Those are some of the words used by Katie Couric, Time Magazine, and other media outlets in describing the content of previously private letters written by Mother Teresa over several decades that have now been made public. In these letters, we find a woman who is arguably the most admired figure of the last 100 years express torment over her own spiritual condition. Coinciding with what she believed was a divine calling to leave a fairly comfortable life to minister to the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, Teresa began to speak of her walk with Christ using terms like 'dryness', 'torture', 'darkness', 'emptiness', 'silence', and 'loneliness'. Over the last half of her life as she outwardly became a beacon of compassion, hope, and sacrifice in a cynical world, she privately lamented what she perceived was an overriding lack of Christ's presence in her life. This affected her prayers, believing that her upward words to God often returned to her as if they were knives to the point where she spoke of no longer praying. She believed herself to be a hypocrite whose outward smiles were a deceptive mask. She lamented a loss of zeal, a tremendous emptiness, a loss of love, and a teetering faith. On a couple of occasions, she seems to flirt with the possibility that God may not exist at all.

Interpretations of these writings already run the gamut. Atheists like Chris Hitchens confidently proclaim that these writings prove that even the most outwardly devout constantly fight against what he believes is the obvious reality that all of religion is merely a human fabrication and nothing more. Teresa's more intimate interpreters believe these letters demonstrate tremendous courageousness and heroism that only comes from faith. The truth is while some opinions are certainly more informed than others, nobody exhaustively knows Teresa's struggles, what brought them on, and whether Teresa ever came to a place of spiritual rest prior to her death.

When I read some of what Teresa said in these letters, I feel like I'm reading a Psalm of Lament out of the Old Testament. More than once, the Bible itself records the excruciating laments of God's own people bemoaning how distant God seems to be, how terrible life is when God doesn't seem to be there, and how hopeless things seem to be when God seems to allow the chaos and despair of the world to overtake us. Most Christians throughout history have affirmed without apology that suffering and even doubt are often tools of purification that move us closer to God often without us realizing it when we're in the moment, or in Teresa's case, the last half of her life. If one holds a high view of Scriptural inspiration (ie: that the words of Scripture are divinely inspired), one must conclude that God is not scared of having even his most famous, loyal, and devoted followers express full-throated laments about their relationship with him for all the world to see. For those of us who hold a 'high' view of sin, the sufferings of the saints align with the sufferings of Christ because that's how awful sin is. Sin takes a great toll, and sometimes the toll is greatest on those who love God the most. Teresa, as much as any person in recent memory, was excrucatingly intimate with the devastating results of sin. Poverty, hunger, disease, disaster, and death are all the results of sin, and Teresa understood this as much as anyone. Similar to the agony that befell Wilberforce as a result of his intimacy with the slave trade and his advocacy to end it, Teresa also appeared to endure unending agony over the plight of everyone around her and the indifference of most of the world to the crises they embodied. That's enough to make anyone ponder the most basic and difficult questions of life and faith.

One issue that comes out of this is quite disturbing. If someone as devoted to God as Mother Teresa struggled with doubt and spiritual uncertainty for decades, how can any of us lesser people possibly be spiritually sure of anything? While quoting extensively from the Johannine literature tells us that we can indeed be sure of certain spiritual realities, and while this possibly should be enough to settle the question, the fact is, it often doesn't. This normative authority is essential, but it's not the only perspective that weighs in on the question of credibility and belief. If we don't believe or feel something in our hearts, it often doesn't matter how many times John 3.16 is repeated - we still won't be able to own it as our own and embrace it in belief. Having confidence in spiritual realities is at once both simple and complicated, and we will likely search in vain to fully understand why Teresa had the doubts she did.

If we're honest, many of us as Christians will likewise confess that we have had periods of doubt in our walk with Christ as well. I certainly have. But in the end, to say that none of us can be sure just because someone like Teresa may not have always been sure is fallacious reasoning. It's like saying that because a great philosopher like Berkeley wasn't sure if objects actually existed, neither can we (he believed we could only know if an object can be perceived by the human mind, not that we can actually know that it exists). If God didn't want the world to know that his people struggle with doubt, the Christian Bible would weigh a lot less. That doesn't mean that God is okay with us living in constant doubt and constantly questioning his existence or power - he's not okay with that. But Scripture does seem to leave a place where doubt, to some degree, is something that God uses for good purposes for those who still pursue after him even in the midst of doubt. Teresa's life of good works and worldwide inspiration are certainly consistent with this. And in this respect, I agree with her chief postulator that these letters demonstrate not only human heroism, but the sovereign work of God in assigning the strongest of his people with the often gruesome task of curbing the most naked scourges of sin in front of a watching world. Doubt motivates us either to seek after God all the more, or to run away from him all the more. It is indeed a tool of refinement.