Great points, it's so important to build wisdom around the search for truth before just plunging into it. I went through around 4-5 years of excruciating doubt about my faith. It wasn't until I realised that my doubts stemmed about 50-60% from anxiety that I was able to overcome it. It's so important to distinguish between anxiety and doubts, because they often get helplessly conflated.
Dr. Gary Habermas has some excellent talks about helping doubters learn to distinguish their intellectual questions from their anxiety. Also, learning a stoic approach to life is really important. Cognitive therapy - or, basically, interrogating your thoughts and requiring them to be clear - is a huge help. Eventually you can find peace and then really dig into answering those tough questions which require a level of nuance that emotionally compromised thinking can't achieve.
Thanks, Evan—you make a great point (several, in fact). I think a lot of what’s going on with (particularly young men) isn’t so much a genuine philosophical problem but more of a generalized anxiety problem—possibly even a disorder. And despite my somewhat joke-y comment the other week about philosophy as therapy, I really do think what many of these people need isn’t more answers to super technical philosophical questions, but time spent working on their mental health with an actual specialist—and, of course, time spent in prayer.
Anyway, for those who think that might be what’s going on with them, the resource you’ve recommended sounds like it could be helpful, so I hope they check it out.
This is a great lesson. When I was younger I used to be occasionally neurotic about various challenges to free will, but that faded with consistently finding that nearly every challenge depends on metaphysical assumptions that were evidentially ambiguous at best.
Now when I find a substantial objection, its inspiration to keep digging.
Philosophical exposure therapy of a sort, I guess.
Great points, it's so important to build wisdom around the search for truth before just plunging into it. I went through around 4-5 years of excruciating doubt about my faith. It wasn't until I realised that my doubts stemmed about 50-60% from anxiety that I was able to overcome it. It's so important to distinguish between anxiety and doubts, because they often get helplessly conflated.
Dr. Gary Habermas has some excellent talks about helping doubters learn to distinguish their intellectual questions from their anxiety. Also, learning a stoic approach to life is really important. Cognitive therapy - or, basically, interrogating your thoughts and requiring them to be clear - is a huge help. Eventually you can find peace and then really dig into answering those tough questions which require a level of nuance that emotionally compromised thinking can't achieve.
Thanks, Evan—you make a great point (several, in fact). I think a lot of what’s going on with (particularly young men) isn’t so much a genuine philosophical problem but more of a generalized anxiety problem—possibly even a disorder. And despite my somewhat joke-y comment the other week about philosophy as therapy, I really do think what many of these people need isn’t more answers to super technical philosophical questions, but time spent working on their mental health with an actual specialist—and, of course, time spent in prayer.
Anyway, for those who think that might be what’s going on with them, the resource you’ve recommended sounds like it could be helpful, so I hope they check it out.
Appreciate you!
This is a great lesson. When I was younger I used to be occasionally neurotic about various challenges to free will, but that faded with consistently finding that nearly every challenge depends on metaphysical assumptions that were evidentially ambiguous at best.
Now when I find a substantial objection, its inspiration to keep digging.
Philosophical exposure therapy of a sort, I guess.
Philosophical exposure therapy—I love that.
"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." The major obstacle is sin.