Hot Doubt and Cold Doubt

I'm currently teaching a class at church called Faith at the Edge: A Conversation for Doubters. In the class I've made a distinction between Cold Doubt and Hot Doubt. Cold Doubt is the doubt of the studious, the intellectual and the questioning. Hot Doubt is the doubt of the wounded, the god-forsaken and the suffering.

This distinction is not exact. For example, a great deal of Cold Doubt is simply vicarious Hot Doubt. We look at Haiti, Darfur or the Holocaust and, vicariously, experience the god-forsakenness of the world. But the distinction does highlight some differences among doubters. Some doubt for intellectual reasons. Others doubt in the wake of loss, trauma or pain.