Until recently I never realised that triangulation had entered theology as well as politics. But listening to Thought for the Day on BBC radio the other day, it struck me that modern churchmen, too, are triangulating the deepest question of all in religion: the question of faith. Faith is now advanced as the triangulation between disbelief and certainty. An idea which has been developing for more than a century is close to becoming the accepted wisdom on faith.
The idea is that not only is faith perfectly reconcilable with doubt, but that in some sense doubt is at the core of faith. Doubters are thus encouraged to believe that they have already reached first base in their journey, and their doubt has qualified them. They can see the chasm. Faith is the leap.
Increasingly commonly, Christian broadcasters and writers are confronting non-belief in this shrewdly triangulating way. ‘You say you don’t believe,’ they say, ‘well of course you don’t.
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