Doubt

In Greg’s class ongoing these Sundays, one thing we mused upon was presumably unnamed doubts of the disciples at the end of Matthew’s gospel. The situation of these folks having doubts while the Resurrected Jesus was right before them seemed to give many comfort about their own states of unbelief. Though encouraging, there was one thing about the situation that wasn’t addressed.
Reminiscing about what John Harris brought up some months ago about the dark side of “critical thinking”, there seems to be no bar to it from culture to culture (no, I don’t know enough cultures to prove that). Critical thinking is taught us in school so we can discern anything, from sports to literature. Our professor revealed that this can cause damage. Critical thinking has its value. Yet, the danger lies in taking a shortcut. Namely, instead of keeping critical thinking confined to its proper place, we just doubt everything until it’s proven.
If we are downright “trained” to doubt, perhaps this was true of that culture as well. Admittedly, there is a quote from “Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible” I’ve freshly come across, “The Middle Eastern world is non-, indeed anti-introspective…” That being said, there is irony in that the author uses that as a reason for westerners to not engage our mindset on them as we read. That’s just it, though. I’m implying a similarity, not a difference. Instead of introspective doubt… trained doubt.
Trained waters run deep, even w/ the shining life of Christ right before you. We are trained to doubt, do you doubt this?