Doubt and faith

John Calvin to the Five Prisoners of Lyons, 1553

John Calvin · 15 May 1553 · Geneva

Writing to five young men condemned to be burned for their Protestant faith, Calvin urges them to hold firm to the end.

Oliver Cromwell to Valentine Walton, 1644

Oliver Cromwell · 5 July 1644 · Before York · also Grief

Writing three days after Marston Moor, Cromwell reports a victory and then tells his brother-in-law that his eldest son is dead.

Lord Byron to Francis Hodgson, 1811

Lord Byron · 3 September 1811 · Newstead Abbey

Byron tells his friend Hodgson bluntly that he wants nothing to do with arguments for an afterlife, and argues that no single religion can rightly claim salvation for itself.

John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 1825

John Adams · 23 January 1825 · Quincy

Near the end of his life, John Adams tells Thomas Jefferson that laws against religious doubt still punish blasphemy across the Christian world, and argues they should be repealed.

George Eliot to Sara Hennell, 1843

George Eliot · 9 October 1843

Writing under her birth name, Marian Evans, the future George Eliot works out, at length, why she no longer thinks it right to argue people out of their religious beliefs.

Charles Darwin to Asa Gray, 1860

Charles Darwin · 22 May 1860 · Down, Kent

Six months after the Origin, Darwin tells his closest American ally exactly where they disagree about design and Providence — and admits he is bewildered.

Thomas Henry Huxley to Charles Kingsley, 1860

Thomas Henry Huxley · 23 September 1860 · also Grief

Replying to a letter of religious consolation after his young son's death, Huxley lays out, point by point, why he cannot make himself believe in personal immortality.

Fyodor Dostoevsky to Alexander Blagonravov, 1880

Fyodor Dostoevsky · 19 December 1880 · St. Petersburg

Six weeks before his death, Dostoevsky thanks a physician for confirming that a hallucination scene in The Brothers Karamazov is psychologically accurate, and explains why he believes Russia's future depends on educated society rejoining the religious faith of ordinary people.