I'm Krista Tippett, today a history of doubt with historian and poet Jennifer Michael

Hecht.

We'll look at the contribution of skeptics, cynics, and others who follow the human impulse

to challenge what is given and to doubt.

Hecht has explored a rich tradition of doubt across the ages as graceful life philosophies

and even as a driving force in religious reform.

This way of being in the world defies the narrowness of religious and atheist certainties

in our time.

The great figures I love the most are ones who continue constantly to question.

They may decide for sure that they don't believe in God, but they don't decide for sure

that they really know what the universe is all about.

They decide for sure that questionings for them.

This is speaking of faith, stay with us.

This public radio podcast is supported by the Fetzer Institute as part of its campaign

for Love and Forgiveness online at loveandforgive.org.

I'm Krista Tippett.

As an historian, my guest this hour always noticed doubt, she says, out of the corner of

her eye.

Jennifer Michael Hecht defines doubt generously, broadly addressing the human impulse to question

what is given in order to invest one's days with meaning.

Jennifer Michael Hecht demonstrates the graceful and illuminating role doubt has played throughout

history.

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