The previous post introduced the term "epistemic healing."  I began to try to distinguish good, even necessary, questions that feel like doubt but often are steps on the way to confidence in knowing, from others that breed mental immobility and harden the heart into perpetual hesitance.  Epistemic sickness lies there.  

As a pastor I have had any number of conversations with people who, because of a class they took or a book they read, now doubt the orthodox teachings of the Christian faith.  (There seems to be no end of self-identified Christian scholars bent on debunking the church's central claims, such as about Jesus' resurrection from the dead.)  Some people embrace the new knowledge enthusiastically, while others find themselves locked down, not knowing what to think any more.  They now doubt what they thought they knew.  Some very influential faith-development theory bears some of the culpability for this sad state of affairs. ...