Questioning tenets or traditions should neither invalidate nor lessen faith.

The medieval theologian Anselm used the Latin term fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding) to underscore the importance of questioning faith. While some may consider “blind faith” a virtue, I think that it can be dangerous in that it may lead one to accept uncritically all manner of religious claims.

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I do not know if heaven and hell exist, but I believe they do. I would not presume to know who is, or is not, going to either fate. The Roman Catholic Church authenticates a saint as having qualified for heaven because of an exemplary faith and life. Of course, the Church has erred in a few instances (Christopher and Veronica, for example) but generally reserves such an honor for exemplary persons who have exhibited holiness (for example, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and likely-to-be saint, Mother Theresa of Calcutta). I leave it to God to determine an individual’s fate.

Why would I believe that there is a heaven? In addition to scriptural assurances, the nature and complexity of my experience of life, and experiences in life, lead me to believe that this is not all “sound and fury signifying nothing.”

Is it likely that some of the most morally corrupt individuals in history are in hell? If there is a hell, it is likely. However, if God is infinitely compassionate, it is also possible that God has afforded even the most grievous sinners the opportunity to repent. So I am not about to trump God and declare who might be banished from God for all eternity.

I prefer to think of “hell” as separation from God—whether that separation is a permanent state seems to me uncertain. After all, would it not thwart even God for some of God’s own never to come to fulfillment in the eternal presence of God? Why would God bring them into existence? Human free will can resist God’s invitation, but not forever.

I doubt that there has ever been a saint or theologian who did not have doubts about faith. The list of doubters includes the Apostle Peter, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, Martin Luther, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Mother Teresa—not bad company for those who sometimes struggle with belief. After all, the claims that faith makes are rather grand: God created us; we have souls; God watches over us; God will judge us; there is an existence after this one; our actions in this world, at least in part, may determine our fate in the next; God has been revealed to us in texts, persons, and events.

It would be hard not to doubt some (or all) of these claims at some time during our lives. Those of us who take faith seriously and are critical thinkers in other aspects of our lives—for example, asking, Is the President lying to us? How do analysts predict the behavior of the stock market? Is it safe to trust technology?—naturally raise questions. Religious faith is not immune from such scrutiny. In fact, a little skepticism is a healthy thing. Those who think through their commitment to faith by raising critical questions can offer more than emotion, more than opinion, and more than personal history or indoctrination to explain their beliefs.

Given the choice between an uncritical and naïve appropriation of faith and Mother Teresa’s admitted struggles with her faith, I join the diminutive woman with wrinkles on her face and light in her eyes who, when asked by a journalist why, given her resources of a band of Sisters who owned only as much as the poor they served, she continued to struggle against poverty with virtually no chance of success, responded: “God, did not call me to be successful. God called me to be faithful.” Being faithful does not mean being uncritical, or mindless, or unwilling to question even our most deeply held convictions of faith. Mother Teresa persevered in faith despite her doubts. We, too, may doubt but have faith without fear that we are being untrue to our faith or to ourselves.