Confessions of a Skeptic
I admit it. I’m a skeptic. Now, before the reader jumps to too many erroneous conclusions, let me explain. I’ve always found it difficult to believe something just because I was told it was true and I was supposed to believe it. Whether this be certain religious dogmas or secular dogmas, I am prone to skepticism. I now feel free to admit that I am a skeptic because I understand that not all skepticism is bad.
According to J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, in Philosophical Foundations for A Christian Worldview, there are at least three major forms of skepticism (This discussion is part of a brief introduction to a much more involved discussion of skepticism as a philosophical position). The first is a position called iterative skepticism. This type of skepticism cannot even be considered a true philosophical position, rather it is a verbal game. When someone makes a claim of knowledge, the iterative skeptic asks, “How do you know that?”. To every answer, the response is another question, “How do you know that?”. The iterative skeptic offers no true philosophical position.
The second type of skepticism is called metaepistemological skepticism. Moreland and Craig state that these skeptics hold to an extreme form of naturalized epistemology. They reject philosophy and the quest for justification of beliefs and instead focus on how people form their beliefs.
Traditional epistemology provides an account of justification and knowledge, of epistemic virtues and duties and of how one decides what one ought and ought not believe. Purely psychological or neurological descriptions of causal, belief-forming processes are merely descriptive and not normative or prescriptive.
The third form is heuristic or methodological skepticism. In this case, the use of doubt enables one to reach a better understanding of things. Again, I confess. I’m a hueristic skeptic. Here are more comments of Moreland and Craig:
In this sense, skepticism is not a position to be refuted or rebutted, but a guiding method to help people understand knowledge. This form of skepticism is, indeed, very helpful, since doubting and questioning knowledge claims can lead one to deeper understanding.
The heuristic skeptic “employs the use of doubt to develop knowledge.” As part of our duty as Christians, to love the Lord with all our minds, we must avoid naivete. We must learn to think critically and consistently about the issues, religious and secular, which confront us.