I have an audiobook of The Pilgrim’s Progress Retold - a much simplified version of the original Pilgrim’s Progress. It has the same quaint language and earnestness as the original, and I find that amusing (John Bunyan’s probably turning in his grave right now…).

I listened to it again recently, and one scene hit differently from before: Their imprisonment in Doubting Castle by Giant Despair.

My summary

Christian, our pilgrim, and his companion Hopeful leave the true path (“the King’s Highway) for a slightly nicer alternative route through “By-path Meadow”. On that route they’re caught in a storm and nearly drowned. They try to return to the highway, but end up in the domain of Giant Despair, the lord of Doubting Castle. He puts them in his dungeons, starves them, beats them, and is planning to kill them when (surprise!) they find a way of escape.

Giant Despair’s Way Out

Throughout their stay in the dungeon, the giant continued to make their life miserable, while offering them a way out (my emphasis):

So, when morning was come, he goes to them in a surly manner, as before and, perceiving them to be very sore with the stripes that he had given them the day before, he told them that, since they were never like to come out of that place, their only way would be forthwith to make an end of themselves, either with knife, halter, or poison: “For why,” said he, “should you choose life, seeing it is attended with so much bitterness?”

And in the allegory Christian considers it, but Hopeful talks him down by reminding him that suicide would be a serious crime, and so would really be a one-way ticket to Hell, not an escape.

I’ve mentioned before this is something I’ve had a little experience with: When doubt crept in and wouldn’t go away again I frequently thought about ending it all. One of these days I’ll write more about that experience, but it won’t fit here. What I can say is this: While during that time it often felt like things would never improve and there was no way out, that just wasn’t true.

Christian’s Way Out

Here’s how our pilgrims finally escape (again, my emphasis):

Now, a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out into this earnest speech: “What a fool,” quoth he, “am I to lie in a foul-smelling dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom called Promise, that will, I am sure, open any lock in Doubting Castle.”
…
Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the dungeon door, whose bolt, as he turned the key, gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outward door that leads into the castle-yard, and with his key opened that door also. After, he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too; but that lock went exceedingly hard, yet the key did open it. Then they thrust open the gate to make their escape with speed; but that gate, as it opened, made such a creaking, that it waked Giant Despair who, hastily rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail; for his fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and came to the King’s highway again, and so were safe because they were out of Giant Despair’s rule.

It sounds so simple: Just trust the promises of God, and you too will be able to escape Doubting Castle. There’s no way Giant Despair can stand against such assurances.

Unfortunately, the reality isn’t quite so simple. As I’ve written before, my experience was that there’s a massive disconnect between the promises of God and the reality. Basically, we can’t trust God’s promises.

That meant when fellow believers and online sources told me to trust the promises of God, or quoted cliched reassurances from the Bible, the despair just intensified. Perhaps these promises do help some believers escape Doubting Castle - but if so I suspect it just shows their doubts were of a different kind from mine.

My Way Out

I had a long and painful stay in Doubting Castle, but was able to escape.

How, you ask? Not by relying on doubtful promises, but by slowly building new and (to me) better founded realities to rely on. I let go of a religion and a pilgrimage that I couldn’t have confidence in, embraced the mortality I’d always had, and took greater control of my life, and things went better as a result.

See, here’s the thing: Once you realise the doubts might actually be well-founded, Doubting Castle isn’t so much a prison to be escaped as a portal to a new and (hopefully) better reality. And as for Giant Despair, the despair I felt wasn’t just because I had doubts (slowly becoming certainties), but because I felt trapped and didn’t have a good way of processing those doubts. It was that that I had to figure out, not “How can I get rid of these doubts?”

For me it was a hard process. Really hard. First, there was the private building up of new certainties and gaining confidence that yes, there was a way out and it was a way that I could take. Then there was a public declaration, which inevitably changed the way I related to fellow believers, family members, and friends.

But what I can say is that in the end it made life a lot better.

I’m also far more confident now that I made the right decision than I was when I actually made that public break. I’d never say I’m completely in control of life and everything’s perfect, but I’m no longer trapped, and doubt and despair are no longer daily companions. I’ll take that as a win.

Another way: Avoiding Doubting Castle completely

Back in the world of Pilgrim’s Progress, after their escape our pilgrims want to save others from the same experience. What better way than to put up a warning notice?

Now, when they were gone over the stile, they began to contrive with themselves what they should do at that stile to prevent those that should come after from falling into the hands of Giant Despair. So they agreed to build there a pillar, and to engrave upon the side thereof this sentence: “Over this stile is the way to Doubting Castle, which is kept by Giant Despair, who despiseth the King of the Celestial Country, and seeks to destroy His holy pilgrims.” Many, therefore, that followed after, read what was written, and escaped the danger.

Of course, Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory, so it would be dangerous to take it too literally. But I think the central conceit of this episode is that there is one place - and only one place - along life’s journey where a pilgrim will leave the right path and fall into doubt and despair. It also implies that the only way out is to retrace your steps and undo the things that led you into Doubting Castle in the first place.

This reminds me of how I saw doubt actually being dealt with by fellow believers. We all knew there were things that we were supposed to avoid doing. Things we shouldn’t explore. Questions that shouldn’t be asked, and lines that shouldn’t be crossed. After all, those things might lead to doubt, or, worse still, to actual apostasy.

And it does make a certain amount of sense: If you know a particular route will lead to heartache, why not try and avoid it? The problem is - I just don’t think the world works that way.

I’ve written before about how, looking back, my deconversion feels inevitable. When I did make the break official, fellow believers wanted to try and find the one thing I’d done wrong. That would then be the one thing they could convince me to undo, or, failing that, at least stop other believers following in my footsteps.

I don’t think this is correct. For me there was no single step to apostasy, but a lengthy progression. I wasn’t doing anything daring like, say, reading the New Atheists (horror!). Instead, I was talking with neighbours, work colleagues, and friends, and trying to defend the faith against its critics. All things that I was supposed to be doing.

My real problem was that reality didn’t fit the religion I’d grown up in. I could block the doors, close the windows, and put up big placards saying “We live by faith, not sight!”, but no amount of faith would allow me to opt out of reality for ever. Plugging gaps didn’t keep me out of Doubting Castle - it just meant that I stayed in there longer than I needed to and remained vulnerable to Giant Despair.

News flash! Doubting Castle demolished!

In the sequel, Christian’s wife and children get the chance to travel to the Celestial City, and they are guided by the trustworthy Mr. Great-heart. When he comes to the stile leading to Doubting Castle with the notice left by Christian, he decides to act:

I have a commandment to resist sin, to overcome evil, to fight the good fight of faith; and, I pray, with whom should I fight this good fight, if not with Giant Despair? I will therefore attempt the taking away of his life and the demolishing of Doubting Castle.

This leads to a difficult struggle, but the final outcome isn’t really in doubt:

Then they fought for their lives, and Giant Despair was brought down to the ground, but was very loath to die. He struggled hard, and had, as they say, as many lives as a cat; but Great-heart was his death, for he left him not till he had severed his head from his shoulders.

Then they fell to demolishing Doubting Castle, and that, you know, might with ease be done, since Giant Despair was dead.

So I guess we can all rejoice. No Christian will ever again face doubt or despair. How could you doubt it?

Once more, this is allegory and probably shouldn’t be pushed too far. But I can’t see any way Mr. Great-heart could achieve this stunning victory on behalf of others. Believers can possibly help other believers work through doubt and despair, but I don’t think they can stop them encountering it.

Going back to my experiences with fellow believers, I can make a couple of guesses. Perhaps he was a great preacher, valiantly wielding the Sword of the Spirit - which is the word of God. Or perhaps he was an apologist, confidently proclaiming all the reasons why we have to accept the Christian God as creator and the resurrected Jesus as Lord. Bunyan himself was both preacher and apologist, so it’s possible Mr. Great-heart is a self-insert, either of who Bunyan thought he personally was or what he wanted to be.

If it is either of these things, my take is that powerful preaching and apologetics might help the already convinced believer, but, like the key Promise, they didn’t (and won’t) work for me.

Conclusion

I don’t think Doubting Castle will ever completely go away. And I don’t really think it should go away, anyway - I think it’s important to have reasons for what you believe, but it’s not healthy being rigidly certain and dogmatic about what you believe.

What we can try to escape are the worst effects of it, which at least in my case were despair at the world not being the way the religion says it should be, and the constant feeling of being trapped.

I can’t be sure my way out works for everyone (in fact, it probably doesn’t). But I think it’s important to know there’s more than one way out of Doubting Castle. Because “Squash the doubts, hold onto the promises, and get back to The Truth no matter what the cost” was never going to work for me, and I’m certainly not the only former believer who’s found doubt slowly turning into certainty.

So, if anyone reading this is stuck in Doubting Castle, what I have to offer is hope: Hope that there’s a way out beyond either forcing yourself to stay in a religion that’s not working for you or ending it all.

Perhaps the doubt isn’t because you did the wrong thing or took the wrong path, but because the religion is literally unbelievable. And perhaps for you too Doubting Castle can be a portal to a new and better reality.