Doubt

This morning, I wasn’t waiting for a random word to flash across my mind. Sorry, mental lexicon.
I read a post on this—let’s face it—Book from a very good friend from my Basel days: Martin Duerr.

Martin happened to be a pastor—and he knows how to place his signs just right.
He’s an honest man who can describe his doubts, fears, and views with beautiful style.
This morning, he inspired me to expand my personal slogan:
“He who doubts, thinks. He who thinks, doubts. He who thinks and doubts, writes.”

Thanks, Martin.

In his open post, Martin wrote about his doubts—but also about a spiritual experience: a moment he’d waited for a very long time. And this, despite the fact that the written word—the best of it, at least, many words—has always held him under its spell.
Letters between two people who feel deeply fond of and drawn to each other instantly catapult him into lover status. Oh yes, words are one of the most powerful gifts we Homo sapiens-ers have been given.

So, when and how was Martin Dürr seized by the spiritual? Go on, take a guess: the written word of an American writer named Frederick Buechner stirred something profound in Martin’s soul, mind, or other inner equipment.

In his wonderfully honest post, Martin asks his readers who among them has ever had a spiritual experience.
Oh yes, I gladly accept that invitation.
Thank you, Martin.

As a young man blessed with a face full of endless pimples, I was an occasional doubter.
Every suitable—or unsuitable—occasion felt like an invitation to doubt. The menu was quite lavish.
I doubted my looks, my self-confidence, the homegrown Protestant religious instruction—from the existence of Santa Claus right up to an almighty God. My teenage wanderings took me from Sunday school to the Jesus People, to Catholics, Mennonites, briefly adorned with Hare Krishna folks—and back again to the doubters’ camp.

And just like Martin, a book title once kicked its way into my teenage awareness: “This Book Has No Title”. The author was a man named Raymond Smullyan from New York City. The book itself was more of a slim volume, but its content felt enormous to me.

Raymond was a high school dropout who became a magician, logician, musician, chess composer, then a riddle-maker—and eventually, a professor. The second book I read was, logically enough, titled “This Book Needs No Title”.

Above all, certain pages from his books made me first look up, then lean in. Smullyan built bridges between science, philosophy, and humanity—using complex logic and countless puzzles. With witty sentences, he framed the existence and non-existence of God. After reading, I first thought I was just as dumb—or as smart—as before digesting Raymond’s text. Only later did I realise: Raymond, the logician, was showing his readers how absurd a formal proof about God really is. Insight into God’s existence—or lack thereof—isn’t a matter of logic, but of personal, existential choice.

Raymond Smullyan entered my life without a title—and opened the door to science through his paradoxes.
And with that, he brought me closer to the love of doubting—but not to doubting love.

Hmm. This story doesn’t sound very spiritual at all, does it?
Ah—there’s the doubter at work again. And that’s a good thing.

Let’s doubt again.