Check out part one and part two if you missed them!
Over the years, I have talked with a number of people who have been told in response to their questioning about God, “You just don’t have enough faith,” or “You just need to read your Bible.” Some were given such a response in their childhood years; others, in their teenage to young adult years. In every situation described, the result was damaging to the person’s belief in God. I don’t know the mind of the responder, nor the reason why such a response would be given. However, I can say that Christians should thoughtfully engage with questions about doubt.
In Paul Copan’s book, “A Little Book for New Philosophers,” he cites several reasons as to why we should engage. In the previous posts we’ve looked at why we should engage in questioning. In this post, we will look at the doubt itself, including equally applying doubt to alternative views.
- Those engaging in doubt should doubt fairly.
Many people have told me about how doubt (either their own or a loved one) has caused a turning away from faith in God. I rarely hear a person tell me that while they had doubts about God, they had equal doubts about other views they were exploring and/or about their doubts, in general. Paul Copan in A Little Book for New Philosophers suggests that we should not only investigate our beliefs, but also our doubts. He wants us to consider “doubting our doubts.” Why?
For some reason, we seem to take aim at our beliefs and wonder if they are true, but we almost never seem to take aim at the doubt itself and wonder if it has merit. Are we taking doubts more seriously than beliefs? Copan gives us an example: “After all, it’s logically possible that the external world is illusory, the universe isn’t older than fifteen minutes, and that other minds don’t exist. But we never truly contest these things; we rightly take them as properly basic.”
He goes on to say that we rightly trust our rational capacities, even when we are in the midst of doubt. It takes rationality to doubt beliefs. However, why do we not apply our doubt to our rational capacities? Why do doubters rarely ask from where their own rational capacities come? Why should they trust that their own rationality and thinking are working properly?
Copan responds, “Being made in the image of a rational, truthful God makes excellent sense of this fundamental trust we have that our cognitive faculties aren’t systematically deceiving us and thus that we can seek after truth.”
We’ll look at understanding the different kinds of doubt we face.
A Final Consideration
As we consider our beliefs in Christianity and ask questions about why we believe those things are true, we should also consider the alternative views. In my own experience, people limit themselves to questioning their particular religious beliefs. Yet, we should not only question what we’re coming from, but also question what we might be going to. We don’t just step out into a void of belief, we’re adopting other views. What does an atheistic view of the universe offer in the way of establishing human value and human rights? What does Buddhism offer as far as establishing ultimate justice and injustice (good and evil)? What is the Islamic view of the nature of man and the nature of God…do humans have free will? There’s a lot to be questioned and considered before stepping away from the Christian faith. No matter where one ends up, it will be considerably different from the Christian worldview. So, we must question and apply doubt to those beliefs as well.
In Conclusion
Doubt is not the enemy of faith. It is a part of our maturing in our faith, by growing in our knowledge of and relationship with God. A youthful faith that overtly trusts what our religious authorities teach is appropriate for a youthful Christian. However, a maturing believer is called to a maturing faith, questioning even the very teachings of those we’ve entrusted with authority.
“Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.”
1 Thessalonians 5:20-21
Original publication date June 12, 2017. Updated September 28, 2021.