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DOUBT AND RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT
Nothing that has been said should convey the impression that
positive attitudes and values are lacking during this period.
Certainly there are men and women whose behaviour in the
middle thirties suggests that the dynamic qualities of youth have
been lost irretrievably and that only static mediocrity remains;
but these are the minority. Usually nothing more serious has
occurred than a necessary stabilisation which is accompanied by
a superficial indifference because the individual concerned has
failed to perceive clearly the spiritual significance of the new
situations and responsibilities in which he is now immersed.
The dreams of heroism have gone, but their place can now be
filled with a new consciousness of duty. Religion has lost its
mystical quality perhaps—but only because the City of God has
‘descended out of heaven’. Now the Christian faith must be
tested in the crucible of common experience; in the home, the
street, the office or workshop. The strength of spiritual maturity
must be used in the acceptance of all the responsibilities of
citizenship. Secular and family interests must be seen in the light
of the Christian calling, and the calmness and poise of the adult
must empower the life of the Church and the community.
Spiritual discoveries of great value can be made during this
period when men and women are encouraged to see their
responsibilities in this way. They begin to realise more clearly than when
they were young what their human limitations are, and through
this knowledge they learn to depend on God. The spiritually
dangerous age is thus transmuted into a time of blessedness.
Doubt and Psycho-physical Disturbances
Doubt arises for many different reasons. Some people expect
their religious experience to be attended by signs and wonders,
manifestations of supernatural power. When these do not
appear, their faith is shaken. People of a sensitive nature are
often the victims of this confusion. In people of a colder
and more dispassionately rational type, the same result is
brought about in another way, when experience disturbs the
shapely edifice of thought they have constructed about
the meaning of faith, the nature of God and other religious
matters which, for them, are intellectual problems to be
resolved by logical methods. A third form of doubt has its roots
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