Reading path
Faith and Doubt
The spiritual wrestling match at the heart of Western literature. These works grapple with belief, with the silence of God, with the terror of mortality, and with the possibility that faith and doubt are not opposites but companions. Some of these writers believed fiercely. Others refused to. Most lived in the agonising space between the two. What holds this path together is not theology but honesty: the willingness to ask the hardest questions and sit with the discomfort of not knowing.
In the app a path keeps your place, marks what you have read, and hands you the next work when you are ready for it.
The first button needs the app on this device; the second gets it there.
The route
- 1. The Book of JobAnonymous, 600 BCE
- 2. ConfessionsSaint Augustine, 400 CE
- 3. The Divine ComedyDante Alighieri, 1308
- 4. PenséesBlaise Pascal, 1670
- 5. Old MortalitySir Walter Scott, 1816
- 6. Fear and TremblingSøren Kierkegaard, 1843
- 7. The Concept of AnxietySøren Kierkegaard, 1844
- 8. The Sickness Unto DeathSøren Kierkegaard, 1849
- 9. The Marble FaunNathaniel Hawthorne, 1860
- 10. Crime and PunishmentFyodor Dostoevsky, 1866
- 11. The Brothers KaramazovFyodor Dostoevsky, 1880
- 12. The WindhoverGerard Manley Hopkins, 1889
- 13. The Varieties of Religious ExperienceWilliam James, 1902
- 14. The Power and the GloryGraham Greene, 1940
- 15. The StrangerAlbert Camus, 1942
- 16. The PlagueAlbert Camus, 1947
- 17. Four QuartetsT.S. Eliot, 1943
- 18. Do Not Go Gentle into That Good NightDylan Thomas, 1952
- 19. AubadePhilip Larkin, 1977
- 20. GileadMarilynne Robinson, 2004
- 21. The StandStephen King, 1978
- 22. A Voyage To ArcturusDavid Lindsay, 1920
- 23. Quo VadisHenryk Sienkiewicz, 1895
- 24. Death Comes for the ArchbishopWilla Cather, 1927
- 25. The BibleUnknown, 1400 BCE
- 26. Are You There God? It's Me, MargaretJudy Blume, 1970
- 27. Brighton RockGraham Greene, 1938
- 28. His Dark MaterialsPhilip Pullman, 1995
- 29. The BetrothedAlessandro Manzoni, 1827
- 30. The End of the AffairGraham Greene, 1951
- 31. Kristin LavransdatterSigrid Undset, 1920
- 32. Niels LyhneJens Peter Jacobson, 1880
- 33. Sunday MorningWallace Stevens, 1923
- 34. Way of All FleshSamuel Butler, 1903
- 35. The Bridge of San Luis ReyThornton Wilder, 1927
- 36. The Heart of the MatterGraham Greene, 1948
- 37. Nature and Destiny of ManReinhold Niebuhr, 1941
- 38. Eminent VictoriansLytton Strachey, 1918
- 39. A Preface to MoralsWalter Lippmann, 1929
- 40. The Gnostic GospelsElaine Pagels, 1979
- 41. Pilgrim at Tinker CreekAnnie Dillard, 1974
- 42. EcclesiastesAnonymous, 250 BCE
- 43. The TygerWilliam Blake, 1794
- 44. RomolaGeorge Eliot, 1863
- 45. Scenes of Clerical LifeGeorge Eliot, 1858
- 46. The Heart Of MidlothianSir Walter Scott, 1818
- 47. A ConfessionLeo Tolstoy, 1882
- 48. Idylls of the KingAlfred, Lord Tennyson, 1859
- 49. The Essays of Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley, 1840
- 50. The Golden LegendHenry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1851
- 51. Summa TheologicaThomas Aquinas, 1274
- 52. Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World SystemsGalileo, 1632