Paul James Toscano embraces his doubts—doubts that spring from an awareness intimately connected to faith. His doubts extend beyond the incidental aspects of Chrstianity and Mormonism to the fundamentals of faith.

"I fear that Jesus, whom I love so much, may be a fiction," he writes. Even so, he explains that he cherishes the idea of Jesus "as a king in disguise among his people, eating of their limitations and drinking of their disappointments, yet able to descend into the abyss and rise again, pulling out of meaninglessness both soul and cosmos. If Jesus was not the Christ," he declares, "he should have been. If he is not God, he should be."

At the same time, "if Jesus is real, where is he? Certainly he is neither clear nor accessible. And his gospel, as compelling as it is inscrutable, seems to sanctify least those who make it their career."

Thus we see Toscano's encompassing view of a God who is so far beyond our ultimately petty concerns, he could not care about such things as pedigree—a God who loves everyone equally. However, according to some modern LDS commentators, "the full weight of salvation is upon us"; God's love is "conditional." If we err, we are lost.

"This is not good news," Toscano asserts. "It is not the gospel. It is legalism." It is not the gospel of a God who cleanses us from corruption—something far and away beyond our own ability—and asks us only that we forgive our neighbors' trespasses. This God "does not require certainty or purity as conditions of his deliverance, merely that we recognize our lack and long to be filled." Such divine love transcends even Toscano's doubts.

Excerpt:
"Doubt and faith are twin offspring of genuine spirituality. True sprituality is a free mind that practices irony and compassion. Without doubt, faith hardens into arrogance. Without doubt, we cannot doubt ourselves, our assumptions, aspirations, expectations, and predispositions. Without self-doubt, we cannot question our righteousness; we cannot repent; we cannot forgive. Without doubt, we cannot tolerate the unfamiliar. Without doubt, we cannot criticize the power structures that serve us and afflict others.

"Perhaps faith is to give God the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps doubt is to restrain the narcissism of certainty. For me, the bread of doubt is as sacred as the water of faith. Together they form a Eucharist of hope, a wellspring of charity—a love that is neither partial nor sentimental, but simply the heart's desire that God's love fall like rain in equal measure upon the just and the unjust, that no one claim a blessing one would withhold from another or impose a burden one would not bear oneself."