It did not turn out as she hoped. She had many struggles in her first months as a Postulant and these only increased when she entered her two-year Novice training. She tells her story in Through The Narrow Gate. This is an extract from the Chapter 7: "The Death I Have to Die"
One day it all came to a head. I had been put in for a four-year
theology diploma and Mother Greta coached me for my first-year exams. I'd been
set an essay: “Assess the quality of the evidence for the resurrection”.
It was part of a course in Apologetics which set out to explain the mysteries
of faith by means of reason. But the more I thought about these mysteries, the
more unreasonable they seemed. Surely that was the whole point of faith, I
argued to myself. If it was perfectly reasonable to believe that Christ had
risen from the dead, then faith was unnecessary. Believing in that would be
more no more difficult than believing in the Battle of Hastings. I had
researched the essay carefully, reading all the relevant books of apologetics
that seemed to argue that the stone that was rolled away from the tomb was
sufficient evidence for any sane person to believe that God had become man, was
publicly executed outside Jerusalem, and rose from the dead after three days. It
can't be proved. I worried. This essay is a sham. However,
since I was working for an examination, I'd reproduced the mental gymnastics
that were expected of me, feeling all the while a sinking loss of integrity. My
pen transformed the flimsy symbolic evidence in the Gospels into weighty,
verifiable historical facts. My essay proved clearly by mental sleight of hand,
that anyone who looked at this evidence and failed to believe in the
resurrection was an imbecile. Wearily, I laid down my pen and handed in my
essay.
The following Tuesday I sat with Mother Greta in a tutorial.
She took off her glasses, polished them, and peered at me short sightedly.
“This sister,” she beamed at me, “is an excellent essay. You
should do very well in your exam”. She replaced her glasses.
I looked back at her. Beneath that frail bird like body I
knew there was an honest mind. I trusted her. I had to ask her about my
dilemma. The resurrection upon which my whole life depended was a miracle,
something that the natural order could not account for.
“But Mother”, I said quietly, staring at her intently, “it
just isn't true what I've written, is it?”
There was a silence. She sighed. And thrusting her hand
under her wimple in a characteristic gesture. She rubbed her forehead hard. Her
voice, when she spoke, was tired. “No sister”, she said flatly. “No, it
isn't true, but please don't tell the other novices.”
This faith v facts dilema is faced by many who take a serious look at the doctrines they have believed for years. Where does truth lie in the biblical accounts of the life of Jesus? Karen Armstrong found when she assessed the quality of the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, the evidence did not stand up to her academic scrutiny.
She continued her life as a nun but eventually left the convent at the age of 24. Her Christian faith had lost all meaning and she faced many struggles before becoming a world-renowned writer and lecturer on God and religion.
Her book, "The Spiral Staircase" records these years, and for those making their own, perhaps lonely, spritual journey a very encouraging read.
She now embraces religion in a quite different way. Instead of trying to make sense of the endlesss tangle of beliefs and doctrines of organsied religion she advocates a religion of Compassion, the Golden Rule, which is found in all faiths and first taught by Confucius:
Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you.
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