Doubt
kills. Without a doubt, doubt has massacred individuals, marriages, families
and their environment.
The title
question is a religious doubt. There are personal doubts as well. Without
entering into the exhaustive science of doubt, let’s endeavor to understand the
cause and cure of this complex killer.
Author and
social critic Os Guiness in his work God
in the Dark defines doubt as a divided heart. Os defines belief and
unbelief as being “in one mind.” The believer is in one mind about trusting
something or someone as true; the unbeliever is in one mind to reject something
or someone. So both the believer and the unbeliever are in one mind about their
belief.
The doubter
is not in one mind. The doubter believes and disbelieves at once and so is in
“two minds.” Hence the doubter’s heart is divided. Os Guiness adds, “at its most basic, doubt is a matter of
truth, trust and trustworthiness.”1
The doubter
doubts because he does not doubt his doubt. The doubter doubts because he
believes his doubt. So a misguided belief is at the heart of the doubt.
Why is
there a doubt or a misguided belief in doubt? Os Guiness, through his appropriately
worded subtitles in God in the Dark highlights
the following as reasons for doubt:
1. Ingratitude
2. Faulty
view of God
3. Weak
foundations
4. Lack of Commitment
5. Lack of Growth
6. Unruly Emotions
7. Hidden Conflicts
8. Impatience
9. Inquisitiveness
So if we
doubt the veracity of our Christian faith or if we doubt anything or anyone, it
could well be due to some or all of the reasons stated above.
How do we
kill our doubts?
Os Guiness
reminds us of our own experience. We may, at some point in time, have been
frustrated while striving to solve a jigsaw puzzle. While being frustrated, we
may have been certain that the pieces do not fit the picture on the box i.e. we
would have sincerely doubted the jigsaw puzzle. But upon rearranging the wrong
pieces into the right places, we would have realized that the fault was with us
and not with the picture.
The fault is
with the doubter. Blame ourselves; this is the most appropriate starting point
to cure us of our doubts.
As a case
in point, let’s consider a religious doubt, “What if Christianity is false?”
New
Testament scholar Mike Licona offers four action points to defeat our religious
doubts. 2
1. Doubting is normal: The Bible is
replete with instances of doubters. Abraham doubted God’s promise. The psalmist
doubted God. John the Baptist and Thomas doubted Jesus. None of them were
condemned for their doubts, although some doubts were rebuked as in the case of
Job and Thomas.
Sincere
doubters who are open to reasonable answers grow during the process of their
doubts. Job, Abraham and Paul grew in their faith through their doubts, “Religious doubt is very common and affects
almost everyone at some time. It is not necessarily sin, nor must it be the
opposite of faith. It can even produce some good results. But it can also lead
to serious situations that need to be treated,” says Dr. Gary Habermas, Distinguished
Professor and Chair of the Dept. of Philosophy and Theology at Liberty
University.3
2. Good Evidence Supports the Truth of
Christianity: Resurrection of the Lord Jesus is the bedrock of Christianity.
Apostle Paul asserted the futility of our faith if Christ had not been raised, “if Christ has not been raised, our
preaching is useless and so is your faith” (1 Corinthians 15: 14, NIV).
Strong
evidence exists for Christ’s resurrection, “Without
question, the chief verification of Christian theism comes from the
resurrection of Jesus. This extraordinary event can be shown to be historical
even when only a bare minimum of historical facts is used, each of which is
both admitted by unbelieving critical scholars today, as well as being strongly
attested by the known data…In the New Testament, both Jesus (Matt. 12:39-40;
16:4) and His apostles (Acts 2:22-24; 17:31) pointed to the resurrection as the
chief sign that He was God’s messenger.”4
3. Absolute Certainty is an Unreasonable
Expectation: Be it religious doubt or personal, expecting absolute
certainty is an unreasonable expectation. We could be absolutely certain of
certain things in life but not everything.
I am
absolutely certain that I exist. You could be absolutely certain that you
exist. Provided we meet, I could be certain of your existence and you could be
certain of mine. This certainty is predicated on sight i.e. we see ourselves
and others in action.
But in
matters pertaining to religion, we cannot travel back in time to affirm the
existence of Abraham or Jesus Christ. We should be content with reasonable
explanations of that which cannot be seen. Therefore reasonable certainty is
sufficient for a contented life.
To live
with reasonable certainty is neither abhorrent nor aberrant. We are quite
comfortable to live in reasonable certainty.
It is with
reasonable certainty we believe in man’s excursions to Moon and Mars. It is
with reasonable certainty we believe that 9/11 is an outcome of Islamic
terrorism. It with reasonable certainty we believe in medical reports. We can
go on and on.
Similarly,
reasonable certainty is sufficient to keep us in Christ.
4. Faith is a Commitment: Faith is not the
absence of doubts. Faith is a commitment to the Lord Jesus, since we know HIM
to be real. Despite our doubts, we should continue to believe in Christ.
But how is
it possible to continue to believe in Christ if we doubt Christianity?
After
having known Christ, where do we go to? Is there a better alternate to Christ
and Christianity?
Consider
these verses, “From this time many of his
disciples turned back and no longer followed him. “You do not want to leave
too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the
words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the
Holy One of God.” (John 6: 66-69, NIV, Emphasis Mine).
The key to
Peter’s response was his belief in Christ and his knowledge that Christ alone
offers eternal life to those who believe in HIM.
No! There
is no better alternate to Christ and Christianity.
Gary
Habermas thus describes the uniqueness of Christianity, “Surprisingly, Jesus has no real challengers among the founders of the
major religious faiths. None of the others even claimed to be God, let alone
teaching that they were a unique, one-of-a-kind, divine manifestation of the
Almighty. Buddha was very possibly an atheist! Confucius and Lao Tzu were
teachers of ethics, not theologians. Abraham, Moses, and David never came close
to teaching that they were deity. Neither did Mohammed, who is believed by the
Muslim faithful to be Allah’s chief prophet, but under no condition to be
compared to deity.”5
Christians
are in the best possible place that can ever be. There is none better and no place
better than the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Finally, defeat
your doubts by fervently seeking Christ. Outside of the triune God, there is no
other means to defeat your doubts.
You could follow
the principles described in Philippians 4: 6-9:
1. Pray
(speak and listen to God)
2. Give
thanks and praise God
3. Exchange
anxious thoughts and doubts with God’s Word
“To him who is able to keep you from
stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and
with great joy — to the only God our
Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord,
before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen” (Jude 1: 24-25, NIV).
Endnotes:
1 God in the Dark, p14.
2 http://www.reasonablefaith.org/dealing-with-doubt1
3 http://garyhabermas.com/books/thomas_factor/thomas_factor.htm,
chapter 1
4 Ibid, chapter 5
5 Ibid.
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