By training, I am an Academic in the Humanities. Now that means many things:
- First of all, I deal more with ideas and concepts than I do with things.
- Secondly, I was able to focus my research on a topic so narrow that I may know more about it than anyone else in the world, which is great until you realize that usually means that no one else in the world really cares.
- Thirdly, we are taught to believe that we are always the smartest person in the room. We are almost always wrong.
- But most problematically, I have been trained to question, to doubt, anything anyone tells me. If I can’t make it work logically, I tend to dismiss it. In other words, faith is tough.
Those Who Doubt are like a Wave of the Sea
Biblically, there is not always of lot of support for doubt. James writes that those who doubt, rather than believe, are “like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.” (1:6-7) Harsh! And don’t even get me started on poor Thomas. He didn’t question Jesus. All he did was question his prayer buddies about something that, I’m pretty sure, all of us would have doubted. He then gets called out by Jesus and makes the poster child for doubters for the rest of eternity. That hardly seems fair to me, but I digress. I find myself in a constant state of questioning the logical aspects of who God is, what He wants, how I play a role, and, more specifically, why he isn’t more clear.
But at the same time, I am not in the same boat as Philosopher and Atheist Bertrand Russell, who was asked what he would say to God if he ever met Him. Russell’s response was “Sir, why did you not give me better evidence.” This end of the argument seems to be just ignoring all of the physical, moral, and intellectual aspects which are almost screaming for the reality of God.
So why I am not caught in the trap of disbelief, I would like to deal any question concerning faith without moving forward into, “Well, on the other hand…” Recently, my pastor gave a sermon on one of my all-time favorite Bible characters. In Mark 9, a father brings his ill son to Jesus after his disciples (the same guys Thomas doubted, by the way) had failed to heal him. Jesus replies to the father, “Everything is possible for one who believes.” (23).
“I believe; Help Me in my Unbelief”
This is when the dad says the line that I find myself repeating every day: “I believe; help me in my unbelief.” (24) In other words, the father is saying exactly what his heart and soul were feeling: that this man, who he had never met, who was being followed by a bunch of vain stumblebums, could cure his child who had been ill from infancy. I believe!!! But, on the other hand… That’s not how things work? If he can do it, why would he do it for me? What does he even mean by ‘believe?’ I believe, help me in my unbelief.
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Dealing with Spiritual Questions, Concerns, and Doubts
This is where I spend most of my days. I am absolutely confident that God lives and cares for me, but then I have questions, concerns, and doubts. One of the aftereffects of spending my professional career in a field that rejects simple and, more often than not, any absolute answers is that I do not like being told what to believe. Therefore, I find myself uncertain of nearly all things, particularly those related to God, and so I question.
One means of help comes from a contemporary Bible scholar, Peter Enn,s who argues that our goal from reading and interpreting the Bible is not knowledge, which is an end sum game, but wisdom which is constantly changing and growing. “(Seeing the Bible as a rulebook provides) comfort and stability, but wisdom asks us to risk letting go of what is familiar for God’s surprises.” In other words, what the Bible told Joseph and Moses is still true, but that truth meant something different to the early followers of Jesus. Then, those same verses give a separate set of truths to readers in the 21st Century. As a matter of fact, what God wants me to hear today may be different from what He needs me to hear tomorrow. My task is to find the process to listen and learn as my doubts are reduced and my fears are released, to be able to take my one hand and make it fit together with what is in the other. But the title of this essay (which I stole from one of Enns’ books), claims that those who are confident in all that they believe may be entering into sin. I am not claiming that a firm foundation is sinful anyway; rather, I am arguing that belief that is never questioned as to its timing or its source can lead us into sin. I know this, because I have fallen into them.
2 Potential Paths to Sin in Our Confidence
There are two paths to sin in our confidence:
- If you base your faith on the verses that support your worldview without seeing them in the context of when they were written, who wrote them, and why, you run the risk of using God’s name and word in vain, of dishonoring Him. In many ways my doubt provides God an opportunity to sharpen my edge to better approach the world around me with His confidence rather than my own. I have learned that when I come to God with my questions and weaknesses, I am able to form a greater, more intense relationship with Him than when I am just cruising along. Let me be perfectly clear. God does not change! Rather, he is so far beyond our perceptions of him that he is able to show us differing and seemingly contradictory aspects of Himself as needed. But we must go looking for them.
- If I ever feel that God has given me the wisdom to judge or condemn any other person who has ever lived in any lifestyle or choice that they may find themselves in, it is a lie. God loves them. I don’t know them. When we use scripture, or more dangerously use our perception of scripture, to place ourselves in any way superior to anyone, ever, we are guilty of the sin of vanity. This not only creates greater distance between ourselves and the creator, but it drives a wedge between those whom we judge and the God who loves them.
Enns refers to the Bible as “an ancient, ambiguous, and diverse book” which must lead to questions and changes over time. Therefore, while I know it is, and has always been, a voice of truth, I am pretty sure that I will spend the rest of my earthly life, begging bowl in hand, asking for clarification, seeking the wisdom of how two ideas can work together and why He should care for someone such as I. But one day, when I see him face to face. I will know in full, and I will stand, one-handed, in awe.
Finally, I will have no need for “the other hand.”
