The Skepticism Lives Loudly in Him

By David G. Bonagura, Jr. ( bio - articles - email ) | Apr 07, 2026

If someone said to me, “The dogma lives loudly in you,” as Senator Dianne Feinstein famously said to Judge Amy Coney Barrett during her 2017 confirmation hearings for a seat on the US Seventh Court of Appeals, I would take it as a high compliment. Of course, Feinstein, wielding “dogma” as a pejorative, did not intend such flattery, but Catholics know that dogma expresses the truths of faith in teachable form. Hence what Feinstein alleged is in fact the epitome of Christian living, synonymous with St. Paul’s thunderous declaration: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20).

If I were to make a similar judgment about New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman after having heard his Holy Week podcast-debate with the New YorkTimes’s Ross Douthat, it would be, “The skepticism lives loudly in you.” Given Ehrman’s on-air description of the historian’s role—to be skeptical of all evidence at first brush, then to corroborate facts rigorously from the available data—I think he would take the declaration as a compliment.

Erhman, who called himself an agnostic, an atheist, and a “Christian atheist” on the podcast, told Douthat that the evidence for Jesus’ existence is overwhelming. It’s the claims that the New Testament writers make about Jesus that he finds problematic. The Gospels, in his opinion, were written far too late and the oral tradition far too unreliable to report anything close to what Jesus actually said. And, he adds, since we don’t know who any of the authors really were—he denies any were eyewitnesses—the Gospels are essentially quaint stories with minimal authentic content.

Douthat, for his part, did a superb job challenging Erhman’s theories of suspicion. (A New York Times columnist extremely well versed in the intricacies of New Testament composition, and friendly to them—who would have thought?) The two, however, were speaking different languages. For Douthat, the varying parts and circumstances of the Gospels point plausibly to a coherent, divinely inspired whole. For Ehrman, the parts are more significant than the whole and contribute to undermining it.

The deeper issue shaping each man’s reading of the Bible is their respective approaches to God and faith. Douthat, like all genuine believers, trusts God and, by extension, trusts His word. His heart is open to God and His workings in the world. Ehrman, like many agnostics and all atheists, doubts God’s existence and is skeptical of divine claims—especially of Jesus’ divine claims.

Skepticism, contra Ehrman in his historian’s chair, is not a virtue. Yes, it may help when encountering strangers and telemarketers, but when engaging people and scholarship it presents insidious dangers: it paralyzes relationships and undermines understanding. Worst of all, it generates a hard heart that becomes impervious to love: the love of God and the love of other people.

Skepticism and hard-heartedness move in a reciprocal—and cynical—loop. Sticking with the human being’s relationship to God, a man can harden his heart for any variety of reasons, from an encounter with suffering to experiencing evil caused by a believer. Such a disposition can make him doubt God’s love for him and, eventually, God’s love and existence all together. When skepticism leads—as in the case of Ehrman, who described his journey from practicing Christian to “Christian atheist”—a man’s doubts toward God transform his heart into an impregnable fortress: there is no way God, should He exist, could enter, because He is not welcome. When God comes calling in His unique way, this man, like the hard-hearted Pharisees who witnessed Jesus’ miracles, finds every excuse imaginable to deny that God acted at that moment.

In the Gospels, there was only one limit on Jesus’ power: the unbelief of His hearers. Whether in His hometown or in other places where people resisted Him, “He did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief” (Matt 13:58). Because of these hard-hearted adversaries, Jesus taught in parables so that “those outside” the Kingdom of God “may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand; lest they should turn again, and be forgiven.” (Mark 4:13).

Yes, Jesus could have overcome their resistance with mighty deeds had He desired to do so, but that was not His way. Instead, He awaited an expression of faith in Him before performing a miracle. “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed” (Matt 8:8). The expression of faith established a relationship; the miracle confirmed it. Jesus did not come to impress those who wanted no part of Him; He came to bring those who trusted Him into union with the Father through Him. “And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:13).

We return to the reciprocal relationship of hard-heartedness and skepticism. It’s no surprise that those whose hearts are closed to Jesus doubt Him—how else could they justify themselves? Scholars such as Ehrman (tragically, there are many like him teaching at universities throughout the West, including at Christian and Catholic ones) who give their professional lives to studying God’s word while disavowing every divine claim within it seek to show their own brilliance over that of God. They will not be convinced by counter-arguments such as those raised by Douthat, because they are too skeptical, too hard-hearted.

To these scholars convinced of their own righteousness (they can’t be skeptical of everything), Jesus addressed the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:9-14), which ends with this warning: “For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Skepticism leads down the road to humiliation, where many hard-hearted Bible scholars may find themselves eventually. But who am I to judge? “If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts” (Psalm 95:8).