One of my friends pointed out to me a quotation attributed to Augustine, but which didn't sound Augustinian. My friend's suspicions were correct. The quotation in question was this: "Doubt is an element of faith."
I found this attributed to Augustine in a number of sources:
"Doubt, as Saint Augustine wrote, is actually an element of faith." Immersion Bible Studies: 1 & 2 Corinthians, James L. Evans (2011), Section 4, "Hope Really Does Float" at 1 Corinthians 15-16.
"St. Augustine: 'Doubt is but another element of faith.'" and "Augustine could say, 'Doubt is but another element of faith.'" Faith and Reason, William Hemsworth (2009).
"Saint Augustine, early in the first millennium, wrote that 'doubt is but another element of faith.'" Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game (2013), John Sexton et al., Third Inning "Doubt".
"St. Augustine: 'Doubt is but another element of faith.'" Doubting Toward Faith: The Journey to Confident Christianity (2015), Bobby Conway, p. 35.
"As St. Augustine said, 'Doubt is but another element of faith,' so for some deeply religious people, the absence of doubt is not the best measure of religious commitment." Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, p. 19
"'I've told you what Saint Augustine said about not taking Bible completely literally—and "doubt is but another element of faith."'" Kurt Andersen, "True Believers: a Novel," (2012) p. 59.
The actual source for this quotation, however, is Paul Tillich. Ironically, the Baseball book above actually noticed the same thought in Tillich but apparently didn't realize that Tillich was the original source. Tillich wrote: "But doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith." (Systematic Theology, 1975, vol. 2, p. 116) The quotation falsely attributed to Augustine (never with any actual citation to Augustine's works) is actually just a slight rewording of what Tillich wrote.
I'm not sure exactly how the misquotation began. One possibility is someone misreading Kent Smith's "Faith: reflections on experience, theology, and fiction" where the quotation from Tillich comes shortly after a mention of Augustine (p. 2). Even more probably, the phrase got stuck in someone's mind as a pithy quotation. That person then later couldn't remember who actually said it, and assumed that a pithy quotation like that would have come from a smart guy, and consequently named Augustine as the source.
I'm constantly trying to call folks who write to a higher standard of scholarship, particularly when it comes to use of sources. If you quote something from someone, make the effort to track down your source. If you read something in a book that lacks citations, take it with a grain of salt. It may be right, but a lot of books without citations are poorly researched from other secondary sources, also without source citations. I have no reason to suppose that the original source of this misquotation had any malice. Still, this kind of false attribution can lead to problems that go beyond the original mis-attribution.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comment Guidelines:
1. Thanks for posting a comment. Without you, this blog would not be interactive.
2. Please be polite. That doesn't mean you have to use kid gloves, but please try not to flame others, even if they are heretics, infidels, or worse.
3. If you insult me, I'm more likely to delete your comment than if you butter me up. After all, I'm human. I prefer praise to insults. If you prefer insults, there's something wrong with you.
4. Please be concise. The comment box is not your blog. Your blog is your blog. If you have a really long comment, post it on your blog and post a short summary of it here.
5. Please don't just spam. It's one thing to be concise, it's another thing to simply use the comment box to advertise.
6. Please note, by commenting here, you are relinquishing your (C) in your comments to me.
7. Remember that you will give an account on judgment day for your words, including those typed in comment boxes. Try to write so you will not be ashamed if it is read back before the entire world.
8. Stay on topic. If your comment has nothing to do with the post, email it to me (my email can be obtained through my blogger profile), or simply don't post it.
9. Don't post as "Anonymous." If you are going to post anonymously, at least use some kind of recognizable "handle," so we can tell you apart from all the other anonymous folks. (This is moot at the moment, since recent abuse has forced me to turn off "anonymous" commenting.)
10. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; and abstain from doing to others what you would not wish upon yourself.