God in the Dark E-Book

Os Guinness

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 319

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 1996

Beschreibung

Do you have significant doubts about God? Are you afraid to doubt, much less admit to anyone that you aren't fully convinced of God's faithfulness? Are you so torn by your questions that life is losing its meaning? This forthright but compassionate book works to tear away the layers of misunderstanding about doubt to reveal not only its dangers but its great value. As author Os Guinness explains: "If ours is an examined faith, we should be unafraid to doubt... There is no believing without some doubting, and believing is all the stronger for understanding and resolving doubt." For those who are unsure of God's trustworthiness—and for those who are in a dark place, wanting to know "Why?" or "How long, O Lord?"—God in the Dark is a must. It puts a human face on the problem of doubt and examines it thoroughly. In a way that will respond to your questions, settle your fears, and strengthen your faith.

Leseprobe

GOD

IN THE

DARK

God in the Dark

Copyright © 1996 by Os Guinness

Published by Crossway

1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

Portions of this book were previously published as The Secret of a Woman’s Influence (1988) and The Wise Woman (1980), both by Broadman Press.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Cover illustration: Raymond Elliott

Cover design: Cindy Kiple

Art Direction: Mark Schramm First printing, 1996 Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from The New English Bible. © The Delegates of the Oxford University Press and The Syndics of The Cambridge University Press 1961, 1970. Reprinted

Scripture verses marked amp are from the Amplified Bible. Old Testament copyright © 1965, 1987 by the Zondervan Corporation. The Amplified New Testament copyright © 1958, 1987 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint copyrighted material: From Knots by R. D. Laing, the poem “If I Don’t Know . . . I Don’t Know,” copyright © 1970 by the R. D. Laing Trust; reprinted by permission of Tavistock Publications Limited and Pantheon Books, A Division of Random House, Inc. Four lines from “The Free Thinker” from The Collected Poems of G. K. Chesterton; reprinted by permission from Miss D. E. Collins and Dodd Mead and Co., Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Guinness, Os    God in the dark : the assurance of faith beyond a shadow of doubt / Os Guiness.          p.       cm.     Includes bibliographical references and index.     ISBN 13: 978-0-89107-845-6 (alk. paper)     ISBN 10: 0-89107-845-2      1. Faith. I. Title. BT774.G85 1996 231'.042—dc20                                                                   95-41684

C H17 16151413 1211100908181716151413 12 1110 98 7 6

D.O.M and in memory of my mother, a woman of deep faith who magnificently fulfilled her motto,

C O N T E N T S

PART ONE: I AM, THEREFORE I DOUBT

1

I Believe in Doubt

11

2

Dare to Doubt

21

PART TWO: SEVEN FAMILIES OF DOUBT

3

Forgetting to Remember

Doubt from Ingratitude

39

4

 Faith out of Focus

Doubt from a Faulty View of God

57

5 

No Reason Why Not

Doubt from Weak Foundations

75

6 

An Unsigned Contract

Doubt from Lack of Commitment

95

7

 No Sign of Life

Doubt from Lack of Growth

113

8

 Coup d’État from Within

Doubt from Unruly Emotions

125

9

 Scars from an Old Wound

Doubt from Hidden Conflicts

145

PART THREE: TWO TORTURING QUESTIONS

10

 Why, O Lord?

Doubt from Inquisitiveness

165

11

 How Long, O Lord?

Doubt from Impatience

197

Postscript

215

Notes

217

CHAPTER 1

I BELIEVE IN DOUBT

The simplest things in life are often the most profound. Sometimes I feel on fire with the immensity of this: Each of us is a person—alive, growing, and relating. From the moment we wake to the moment we fall aslee p, we think, we feel, we choose, we speak, we act, not as isolated individuals but as persons among people.

And underneath everything lie dependency and trust. From a baby with its mother, to friendships of children, to neighbors in community, to agreements among nations, life depends on trust. Counting on people is trust. Enjoying people is trust. Trust is the shared silence, the exchanged look, the expressive touch. Crying for help is trust; shaking hands is trust; a kiss is trust. The highest reaches of love and life depend on trust. Are there any questions more important to each of us than, Whom do I trust? How can I be sure?

We can devise a thousand strategies—such as law—to help us flee from trust. We can summon up scores of reasons— such as suspicion—to protect us from vulnerability to trust. But we have all once known the experience of complete dependence and complete trust—with our mothers at the beginning of life. And we can all know similar dependence and trust at the summit of our lives—in our free acknowledgment of God, when we receive his gift of faith as a trust that arises out of utter dependence on him.

All of which is why when trust goes and doubt comes in such a shadow is cast, such a wound is opened, such a hole is left, such anxiety gnaws.

God is not only a person, he is the supreme person on whom all personhood depends, not to speak of life itself and our entire existence. That is why to know him is to trust him, and to trust him is to begin to know ourselves. That is why our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. It is also why trusting God in the dark is so hard, and doubting God is so devastating. For when trust and dependence turn into doubt, it is as if the sun is eclipsed, the compass needle wavers without a north, and the very earth that was so solid moves as in an earthquake.

I have met some people who are on the road to faith who doubt God because they want to believe but dare not. How would you feel if someone flew more than halfway around the world to say to you, “I am at a loss. Life has no meaning unless God is there. There is hardly anyone left whom I can trust. Will you help me in my search?” I well remember a man on our doorstep in London who had crossed the world for this very reason. It was deeply sobering because I knew that after his previous failures to find answers he had cried out louder and more often, and the scars of the razor blades were still on his wrists to show it. What would you say? How would you help him? How would you introduce him to God who would never let him down, especially since God was less certain to him than human beings who had let him down?

I have met other people who are backing away from faith in God and doubt God because they do not want to believe but still do. I will never forget a woman who sat in our living room when we lived in Switzerland. She argued; she cried; she pounded the floor. Why should she trust God? He was a monster; a hard, unyielding monarch; a Mafia boss whose power was everywhere; a merciless creditor who demanded his pound of flesh. Hadn’t she tried to obey? Hadn’t she given it everything? But the more she saw God the more she feared, and the more she feared the more she became angry, and the angrier she became the more she hated, and the more she hated the more afraid of God she grew.

She knew she was caught in a vicious trap, sliding down a slippery spiral. She was young; she was loved; she was successful. But none of it made any difference. She could not trust God. She could not trust with real rest and without reservations. And in the bitterness of doubt, her spirit was like darkness at noon.

The doubts of these two people were entirely different, but they were both doubting God for the same reason: They did not know God as he really is. The man, however, knew that he did not know, while the woman thought that she did. Her picture of God (which came from experiences in the past) was so distorted that, without realizing it, she was believing a grotesque caricature of God that, for sanity’s sake, she was forced at the same time to doubt.

Fortunately, she is not in that position today. She has come to know God as he is; she is able to trust him, and her whole life reflects the difference. In later chapters we will examine doubts like these in depth to see how they arise and how they can be resolved. They are only two types of doubt among many others, but they introduce us directly to the heart of our problem.

Doubt is not simply intellectual, an abstract philosophical or theological question. Nor is it merely psychological, a state of morbid spiritual or psychological anxiety. Doubt is personal. Doubt is all about people—who they are and what they say. At its most basic, doubt is a matter of truth, trust, and trustworthiness. Can we trust God? Are we sure? How can we be sure? Do we trust him enough to depend on him utterly? Are we trusting him enough to enjoy him? Is the whole of living different for that trust?

THE VALUE OF UNDERSTANDING DOUBT

Part of the glory of the Christian faith is that at its heart is a God who is a person. “He who is,” the father of Jesus Christ and our father, is infinite, but he is also personal. The Christian faith therefore places a premium on the absolute truthfulness and trustworthiness of God, so understanding doubt is extremely important to a Christian. Of course, faith is much more than the absence of doubt, but to understand doubt is to have a key to a quiet heart and a quiet mind. Anyone who believes anything will automatically know something about doubt. But those who know why they believe are also in a position to discover why they doubt. The follower of Christ should be such a person. Not only do Christians believe, they are those who “think in believing and believe in thinking,” as Augustine expressed it. The world of Christian faith is not a fairy-tale, make-believe world, question-free and problem-proof, but a world where doubt is never far from faith’s shoulder.

Consequently, a healthy understanding of doubt should go hand in hand with a healthy understanding of faith. We ourselves are called in question if we have no answer to doubt. If we constantly doubt what we believe and always believe-yet-doubt, we will be in danger of undermining our personal integrity, if not our stability. But if ours is an examined faith, we should be unafraid to doubt. If doubt is eventually justified, we were believing what clearly was not worth believing. But if doubt is answered, our faith grows stronger still. It knows God more certainly, and it can enjoy God more deeply. Faith is not doubt-free, but there is a genuine assurance of faith that is truly beyond a shadow of doubt.

Obviously then, each one of us should understand doubt for God’s sake and for ours. God is to be trusted, yet we human beings are prone to doubting: That is justification enough for trying to understand doubt. But an understanding of doubt will also bring two particular benefits to followers of Christ today.

First, a healthy understanding of doubt will act as a safeguard against today’s widespread and unnecessary breakdown of faith. Christians are confronted by a situation that militates openly against assured faith. In most modern countries, public life has grown more secular and private life more pluralistic. In the Western part of the modern world, the Christian foundations of Western culture have been torn up and discarded. Our Christian past is in disrepute, and the very basis for any faith, Christian or otherwise, is held to be discredited in thinking circles. At the same time the vacuum created by collapsing Christendom has been filled by a bewildering variety of alternative faiths, facing us with a jostling and anxiety-creating pluralism. Many of us are also smarting emotionally under the sting of reactions to our faith and are keenly aware of the intellectual deficiency in our response.

In such a situation, it is hardly surprising if at times we falter as believers in a disbelieving age. This state of affairs has aggravated the already serious problem of doubt among Christians. Some, in response, have abandoned the faith altogether; many more have kept the faith but abandoned all pretense of any intellectual component. The loss of faith has not been stanched, and this has suggested that the Christian faith is a fragile, vulnerable belief with little intellectual integrity. This suggestion, in its turn, lends support to the common rejection of the Christian faith among thinking people. What is most damaging is not that Christians doubt but that there seems to be so little honesty about doubt and so little understanding of how to resolve it. This must be changed.

Second, a healthy understanding of doubt helps us to prepare for the years of testing that, I believe, are to come. Faith at its truest is radical reliance on God. It is a conviction born of understanding, grounded solidly in the truth of who God is and what he has said and done. But what our faith “should be” may be far removed from what our faith “is.” In practice, many of us have become Christians and are continuing to believe for less than the best reasons and clearest motives. This will have serious consequences in the critical years ahead when the civilizational conflicts deepen and the battle between God and the gods grows more intense.

For example, one person’s faith may be a genuine trust in God but also a trust in certain Christian friends, while another person has truly committed to God and also to the care of a strong local church or Christian community. Or again, others may honestly put themselves under the Lordship of Christ, yet at the same time adhere passionately to some aspect of the Christian way of life that by temperament or nationality they would be likely to espouse anyway.

In each specific case it is impossible to determine the exact line of distinction between faith and faith plus, between our faith in God and our faith in other people and things. Where faith is not as strong or as pure as it should be, it is not illegitimate. If our motives had to be spring-water pure, which of us would pass the test? But impure faith that is weak or wrongly based is always vulnerable in a crisis. To the degree that other motives are also at work, faith is not radical reliance on God alone. Seen in this light, every test that shows us what we are really relying on can be constructive. If testing shows that our attachment to Christian friends or to a particular lifestyle or culture is stronger than our attachment to God himself, we must ask whether these supports for faith are in danger of becoming substitutes. What we need, then, is to be stopped short before the process of substitution is complete and faith becomes altogether empty.

THE SQUARE ONE PRINCIPLE

Jesus challenged the Jews of his day with a searching question: “How can you have faith so long as you receive honor from one another, and care nothing for the honor that comes from him who alone is God?”1

Ostensibly their faith was solely in God, but that faith was only nominal. In reality, their faith was in each other. More precisely, their nominal faith in God was supported and accredited by a closed system of mutual human honoring that made the need for any honor from God superfluous.

We should ask similar questions of ourselves, particularly those of us who are Western Christians. What sort of faith do we have? How can we know how strong our faith really is so long as we are comparatively untroubled in a world of material affluence, social ease, and spiritual privilege? Or to reverse it, could it be that in the deepening turbulence of our generation God is not only judging a culture that has abandoned him but also, as it were, shaking up the bag and testing the foundations to see if we Christians are as ready as we think for the critical years ahead?

The coin has two sides. Much of the weakening and breakdown of faith we are witnessing is a logical consequence, pure and simple, of the deep deficiency of faith today. On the other hand, it may also be a sign of God’s hidden sovereignty and wisdom preparing us for a tougher future.

Long-standing supports are crumbling, and many of the accepted assumptions of normal Western life are being shaken—such as social stability and a reasonable prosperity.

We are forced to see the true foundations of our faith (that is, our practical rather than professed faith, our day-to-day trust, our matter-of-fact belief, our down-to-earth reliance). Far better to be tested today and have the chance to put right what is shown to be wrong than to be tested tomorrow and be found wanting.

The issues we are facing in the present crisis of faith touch on what I call the Square One Principle. Life can proceed with deceptive ease on the basis of a faith that was once vital but has become so taken for granted that it is no longer authentic. At that stage any pressure may be such a test for faith that the believer is faced with a choice: Give up or go back to square one. If we give up, then we abandon faith altogether. But if we go back to square one (and so back to our roots, back to our foundations, back to our beginning), we will find a faith that is solid and secure. The lesson of the Square One Principle is this: The person who has the courage to go back when necessary is the one who goes on in the end.

Richard Sibbes, the Puritan writer, put it this way: “Christ’s work, both in the church and in the hearts of Christians, often goeth backward that it may go the better forward. As seed roots in the ground in the winter time, but after comes better up, and the harder the winter the more flourishing the spring, so we learn to stand by falls, and get strength by weakness discovered—virtutis custos infirmitas—we take deeper root by shaking.”2

Seen this way, the collapse of Christendom is a blessing for the Christian faith, and the present crisis of faith may be the best opportunity for the gospel in centuries, at least for Christians in the West. But to use this opportunity fully we must stop the severe hemorrhaging of faith among believers; we must provide decisive answers to the questions and objections of our contemporaries; and we must work toward a clearly discernible Christian response to the crises of civilization. Developing a fresh understanding of the old problem of doubt is a key contribution to this.

GOAL AND APPROACH

What is faith? What is an assured, understanding faith that is strong, true, and beyond a shadow of doubt? And what is the misunderstanding or mistreatment of faith that causes doubt, and how can it be avoided? And, above all, what does it mean to let faith be faith to such an extent that it will, in turn, let God be God? These are the questions we will examine, and that is our goal—to let God be God.

What will be our approach in this book? In Part One (the first two chapters) we will examine the nature of doubt, setting it off clearly from common misconceptions that cloud the issue today.

Part Two (Chapters 3 to 9) is the heart of our discussion. Here we will examine the seven most common categories of doubt and develop a framework in which we can understand and analyze all our specific doubts.

In Part Three (the last two chapters) we will look at two doubts that are probably the supreme doubts of all believers in all times: the doubts that come from two torturous questions, “Why, O Lord?” and “How long, O Lord?”

Getting to the heart of doubt is rather like peeling a chestnut: It’s worthwhile in the end, but it entails getting through a prickly layer. The prickles surrounding doubt are the layers of misunderstanding that obscure what doubt is—and one misunderstanding above all: the common idea that doubt is wrong and we should feel guilty about doubting because doubt is another word for unbelief.

Once we have torn away these layers of misunderstanding we can get to the kernel of doubt and see not only its dangers but its value. Then, since we find there is no believing without some doubting and since believing is all the stronger for understanding and resolving doubt, we can say as Christians that if we doubt in believing it is also true that we believe in doubting. René Descartes got things exactly the wrong way round. The truth is not that “I doubt, therefore I am” but “I am, therefore I doubt.”

CHAPTER 2

DARE TO DOUBT

Once when I was traveling in Southern Europe I witnessed the proverbial sight of a peasant beating his donkey. The peasant was walking behind, driving his donkey on. Huge bales of firewood were strapped to its back, but the donkey forced its way up the steep little path that served as a village street. Gradually the animal slowed, exhausted. Spurred on again by a stream of oaths, it staggered a few paces further and sank to the ground, defeated, and lay there panting in the relentless sun. It was then that the peasant beat it—and beat it and beat it and beat it again.

Many Christians treat faith like that. Believe this! Believe that! Stop doubting and believe more firmly! Admonitions and warnings are piled onto faith’s back until it can take no more. Cajolings then give way to threats and threats to the big stick until, undernourished and overloaded, their faith sinks to the ground and expires.

We might ask which is worse: the cruelty or the stupidity? Which sadder: the plight of faith and the donkey or the plight of the owner? But this is not a book about donkeys or even about faith—at least not directly. It is a book about doubt. Yet what is doubt but faith suffering from mistreatment or malnutrition? Concern for the prevention of doubt is automatically concern for the prevention of cruelty to faith. The way to get the best out of something—whether faith or a donkey or anything else—is to find out what it is and treat it accordingly. Mistake it for something else or push it beyond its limits and its purpose may be destroyed. Ask it to do more than it can and it may not do what it should. Donkeys have no objection to donkey work, but they cannot stand to be taken for racehorses or tractors.

As soon as we ask what faith is and what sort of mistreatment of faith causes doubt, we are led to the first major misconception about doubt—the idea that doubt is always wrong because it is the opposite of faith and the same thing as unbelief. What this error leads to is a view of faith that is unrealistic and a view of doubt that is unfair.

Doubt is then the jackass of the world of faith. Like the donkey, it is despised by its enemies and mistreated by its friends, but only because it is bound to be treated unfairly when it is seen unrealistically. The injustice is that the donkey is beaten until it collapses and then it is beaten for collapsing. In the same way many Christians drive their faith unfairly when they believe, and then they flog their faith unmercifully when they doubt. In both cases they do this because they have been led to believe that true faith is doubt-free and that doubt is the same thing (and just as sinful) as unbelief.

In short, we must remind ourselves of a simple, opening truth when we doubt, especially those of us who are more conscientious or more conservative. Many Christians have specific doubts, but that is not the deepest problem. Over and above specific doubts, they feel guilty and ashamed at having doubts at all and that is what torments their faith. They do not understand what doubt is. And that, however dangerous doubt may be, it is not something to be ashamed of.

THE HEART OF DOUBT IS A DIVIDED HEART

What is doubt? And how is it related to faith and unbelief? Our English word doubt comes from the Latin dubitare, which is rooted in an Aryan word meaning “two.” So we can start by defining our terms like this: To believe is to be “in one mind” about trusting someone or something as true; to disbelieve is to be “in one mind” about rejecting them. To doubt is to waver between the two, to believe and disbelieve at once and so to be “in two minds.”

This two-ness or double-ness is the heart of doubt and the deepest dilemma it represents. The heart of doubt is a divided heart. This is not just a metaphor. It is the essence of the Christian view of doubt, and human language and experience from all around the world also bear it out.

In English the double-ness of doubt is pictured in phrases such as “having a foot in both camps.” There are many equivalents in other languages. The Chinese picture of irresolution is humorous as well as graphic. They speak of a person “having a foot in two boats.” In the Peruvian Andes the Huanuco Quechuas speak of “having two thoughts” and the Shipibos further to the east have an expression, “thinking two things.” In Guatemala the Kekchi language describes the doubter as a man “whose heart is made two,” while the Navajo Indians in the Southwestern United States use a similar term, “that which is two with him.”1

The Greek words in the New Testament that are translated into English as “doubt” are equally fascinating. Examining root meanings is not everybody’s cup of tea, but it is worthwhile here because it sheds so much light on the nature of doubt. Notice that in each case there is an unmistakable emphasis on the ambivalence or double-mindedness of doubt.

One word (dipsukos) speaks of a person who is chronically double minded. James describes such a doubter as “a heaving sea ruffled by the wind”2 A second word (diakrino) is the stronger form of the word to sunder or to separate. This word can convey several meanings, but one of them expresses an inner state of mind so torn between various options that a person cannot make up his or her mind. Jesus uses this word when he says to his disciples, “Have faith in God. I tell you this: if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted from your place and hurled into the sea,’ and has no inward doubts, but believes that what he says is happening, it will be done for him”3

A third word (meteorizomai) means “to raise” or “to suspend,” when it is used literally (as it is in the root of our modern word meteor). Or it can mean “to raise a person’s hopes” when it is used figuratively. But when it is used figuratively, it can also mean to soar or to lift oneself up, and so to be arrogant in spirit. And then, because one is lifted up in the air, it comes to mean to be unsettled and, therefore, restless, anxious, tense, and doubtful.

The last use of the word covers doubt. It describes a state of mind that is the result of an awkward position. Many modern expressions capture this ambivalence, such as being “up in the air” or being “hung up.” When Jesus says to his disciples, “You are not to set your mind on food and drink; you are not to worry,”4 he is saying that God’s care for us as Father means that food and drink are not to be a hang-up, an occasion for doubt and anxiety that constantly keeps us up in the air.

A fourth word (dialogizomai) is the root of our word dialogue. Its own root is “thought,” and from that it has come to mean the inner debate of a person who is reasoning with himself or herself. The word is usually used in the New Testament for internal reasoning that is wrong or evil. Jesus uses it when he confronts the disciples after his resurrection: “Why are you so perturbed?” he asks. “Why do questionings arise in your minds?”5 The word opens a window into the debate raging in the councils of the disciples’ hearts as they doubted. So long as there is doubt, the debate continues and the arguments fly back and forth. Only when the votes are cast is it clear whether faith’s motion has been passed or defeated.

A fifth word (distazo) means doubt in the sense of hanging back, hesitating, or faltering. It expresses what we mean when we say that we have our reservations or vacillate about something. Matthew uses this word when he records that “Jesus at once reached out and caught hold of him, and said, ‘Why did you hesitate? How little faith you have!’”6 The same word is used of those who doubted the risen Christ: “When they saw him, they fell prostrate before him, though some were doubtful.”7 Genuine faith is unreserved in its commitment; doubt has reservations. Faith steps forward; doubt hangs back. Doubt holds itself open to all possibilities but is reluctant to close on any.

The combined force of all these phrases and words is inescapable. If people are “torn” between options, unable to “make up” their minds, or if they are “up in the air” over something and unsure which side they should “come down on,” or if they are furiously “debating” with themselves or “hanging back,” or weighing up their “reservations,” they are nothing if not “in two minds.” This condition of doubleness is the essence of doubt.

DOUBT IS NOT UNBELIEF

What follows from this observation is decisive for our whole discussion: Doubt is not the opposite of faith, nor is it the same as unbelief. Doubt is a state of mind in suspension between faith and unbelief so that it is neither of them wholly and it is each only partly. This distinction is absolutely vital because it uncovers and deals with the first major misconception of doubt—the idea that we should be ashamed of doubting because doubt is a betrayal of faith and a surrender to unbelief. No misunderstanding causes more anxiety and brings such bondage to sensitive people in doubt.

The difference between doubt and unbelief is crucial. The Bible makes a definite distinction between them, though the distinction is not hard and fast. The word unbelief is usually used of a willful refusal to believe or of a deliberate decision to disobey. So, while doubt is a state of suspension between faith and unbelief, unbelief is a state of mind that is closed against God, an attitude of heart that disobeys God as much as it disbelieves the truth. Unbelief is the consequence of a settled choice. Since it is a deliberate response to God’s truth, unbelief is definitely held to be responsible. There are times when the word unbelief is used in Scripture to describe the doubts of those who are definitely believers but only when they are at a stage of doubting that is rationally inexcusable and well on the way to becoming full-grown unbelief.8 Thus the ambiguity in the biblical use of unbelief is a sign of psychological astuteness and not of theological confusion.

So it is definitely possible to distinguish in theory between faith, doubt, and unbelief (to believe is to be in one mind, to disbelieve is to be in another, and to doubt is to be in two minds). But in practice the distinction is not always so clear-cut, especially when doubt moves in the direction of unbelief and passes over that blurred transition between the open-ended uncertainty of doubt and the close-minded certainty of unbelief.

But the overall thrust of the biblical teaching on doubt is plain. A variety of words are used but the essential point is the same. Doubt is a halfway stage. To be in doubt is to be in two minds, to be caught between two worlds, to be suspended between a desire to affirm and a desire to negate. So the idea of “total” or “complete” doubt is a contradiction in terms; doubt that is total is no longer doubt, it is unbelief.

Of course, we may call our doubt “total doubt” or charge it with being unbelief. But only if our purpose is to stop doubt short and see that it does not become unbelief. When the father of the demoniac boy cried out to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief!” he was condemning his own doubt as unbelief.9 But his words have become a doubter’s prayer for good reason. Jesus, who never responded to real unbelief, showed by answering his prayer and healing his son that he recognized it as doubt. The distinction between doubt and unbelief, though not hard and fast, is valid and useful. Its importance, however, is not that we know when doubt becomes unbelief. Only God knows that, and human attempts to say so can be cruel. But it means that we should be clear about where doubt leads to as it grows into unbelief.

SOFT OR HARD ON DOUBT

The heart of the Christian view of doubt is a healthy combination of an analysis of the nature of doubt and an awareness of where it leads. The former is encouraging and the latter sobering. But curiously, this combination is also the reason why people tend to be either “soft” on doubt or “hard” on doubt, and both can find biblical support for their views. The former can point to the great difference between doubt and unbelief and the latter to the great similarity. Each ignores the balancing emphasis of biblical teaching.

This balance sets apart the New Testament view from its Greek and Roman surroundings. The world of the first century was marked by a deep awareness of doubt, but usually it traced doubt back only to philosophical skepticism or cultural irresolution. In the New Testament, however, faith is synonymous with the obedience of faith, so that faith also involves both the understanding and the will. Doubt is therefore tackled primarily at the point of action and not solely at the point of reflection. It is just as much a matter of what we do as of what we know and how we know that we know.

The Old Testament laid special stress against disobey-ing—rather than doubting—God. But the New Testament is strongly against doubt itself and stronger still against unbelief. Now that God has revealed himself so fully in Christ, the value of the stakes of salvation are higher, and there is less excuse for lack of faith.

This combined emphasis—that doubt is not the same as unbelief but can lead naturally to it—allows us a mature handling of doubt that avoids the extremes of being too hard or too soft on doubt. Those who forget the first point fall into the error of being too hard. In equating doubt and unbelief, they make doubt the opposite of faith in a way that is true neither to the Bible nor to what we know of human knowledge. By insisting that only doubt-free faith can be counted as genuine faith, they misunderstand what knowledge and faith are. The perfectionism in the demand is more destructive of genuine faith than the worst of doubts could ever be.

The true relationship of faith and doubt is closer to that of courage and fear. Fear is not the opposite of courage, cowardice is. Fear, in fact, need be no final threat to courage. What courage cannot afford is recklessness. Take a mountain climber, a Grand Prix racing driver, or a person conquering a devastating disability. Each one has a courage that controls his or her fear and subdues his or her emotions so that risks are made responsible and commitments in the face of danger are carefully calculated.

It is the same with faith and doubt. Doubt is not the opposite of faith, unbelief is. Doubt does not necessarily or automatically mean the end of faith, for doubt is faith in two minds. What destroys faith is the disobedience that hardens into unbelief.

This is the second point that balances the first and safeguards it from the other extreme—being too soft on doubt. Doubt is not always fatal but it is always serious. Some people react so strongly against the morbid view of doubt that they treat doubt casually, even celebrate it. The error here is to isolate doubt from faith and unbelief and consider it strictly by itself as a mere mechanism of human knowing. The only question then asked is, how does doubt work? And the answer, since it is only abstract, carries little sting.

But the question is not abstract in real life, so to the interesting questions of how must be added the urgent question of what. As soon as this second question is asked (whom or what is being doubted?), the price of doubt rises or falls immediately. It is whom or what we doubt and not how we doubt that sets the market value of doubting.

If the object of our faith were as elusive as the Loch Ness monster or as inconsequential as whether to have a third cup of tea, then doubt makes little difference. But since the object of Christian faith is God, to believe or disbelieve is everything—at some points literally a matter of life and death. Thus the market value of doubt for the Christian is extremely high. Find out how seriously a believer takes his or her doubts and you have the index of how seriously he or she takes faith. For the Christian, doubt is not the same as unbelief, but neither is it divorced from it. Continued doubt loosens the believer’s hold on the resources and privileges of faith and can be the prelude to the disasters of unbelief. So doubt is never treated as trivial.

DOUBTING IS AS DOUBTING DOES