No doubt?
*PROLOGUE*
I carefully photocopy, cut out and neatly fold the slip of paper into the locket hanging on the chain around my neck. It’s my way of reminding myself the ultimate personal foible I make as a Christian. Every now and again, when the need arises, I open the locket, remove the creased clipping and read the words over and over again until I saturate my mind with them. I must allow my mind to become transformed, I must let the words wash over me, because there is power in them. Most of all, it’s a promise I have to cling to, having a desire so strong to live in truth.
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.” —James 1:2–8
***
In hindsight, this scripture poses a grave contradiction to the ‘thinking, intelligent’ Christianity my particular brand of religious poison proudly affirmed. The idea that struggling to understand God whilst in ‘relationship’ with him constitutes a lack of Godly wisdom only to then postulate an ‘ask and receive’ exchange that requires you to have never come to a place of doubt in the first place, is not only ridiculous, but if the Bible is to be believed as the divine word of the one true God, also damning.
Every difficult question we can ask of Christianity, of the Bible and its God, comes down to this frightful treatment of doubt as sin. When, as in this case, doubt guarantees the doubter no promised wisdom to relieve the doubt despite the sincere and earnest seeking of truth when addressing the dissonance between Biblical truth and everyday reality, what’s really being said is this:
Matthew 22:37 And he (Jesus) said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
BUT
Should your desire to love your God by the pursuit of truth and integrity in your belief and knowledge of him drive you to a place of doubt, pull back. Everything is questionable, everything should be weighed and discerned except those things which threaten the validity of what you believe.
Because if you get to a point where you doubt, not even God will help you. You’re lost.
By the Bible’s own profession, God is jealous, petty and vindictive, with a self-esteem so easily diminished, so easily crushed that any whisper of intelligent questioning drives him into an angry sulk that costs you not only peace in this life, but eternal judgement. Love God with your mind, yes, but fear him more.
But love him with ALL your mind!
Richard Dawkins put it this way:
“Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declare even doubt to be a sin. One is supposed to be case into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature – is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.”
Doubt has always been an essential ingredient in the advancements made by humans. It’s our natural curiosity that prompts us to ask questions, and in many cases not just ask, but seek the answers. Healthy doubt allows us to examine everything with a keen eye and a fully engaged mind – and that includes our findings. Doubt can even save us from trouble – ever double-checked to see if you turned the stove off?
Only very small children watch a magician and actually believe he’s performing magic – it’s doubt as well as curiosity that drives a child to insist on seeing both open palms to know the magician is not concealing a coin in either one.
Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning (1605), Book I, v, 8.
“Is God fair? The Christians say that God damns forever anyone who is sceptical about truth of bunkistic religion as revealed unto the holy haranguers. What this means is that a God, if any, punishes a man for using his reason. If there is a God in existence, reasons should be available for his existence. Assuming that such a precious thing as a man’s eternal future depends on his belief in a God, then the materials for that belief should be overwhelming and not at all doubtful. Yet here is a man whose reason makes it impossible for him to believe in a God. He sees no evidence of such an entity. He finds all the arguments weak and worthless. He doubts and denies. Then is a God fair in visiting upon such a skeptic the penalty for his inevitable intellectual attitude? The intelligent man refuses to believe fairy tales. Can a God blame him? If so, then a God is not as fair as an ordinarily decent man. And fairness, we think, is more important than piety.”
The Christian faith, as one friend put it, is about truths held in tension. The dissonance in many precepts of the Bible then not only inspires doubt, but demands questioning.
In contrast:
Proverbs 9:10, The Holy Bible
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”
Might I also suggest, the beginning of dishonesty and blind faith.
Were we in some kind of mind meld yesterday?
Me talking about uncertainty, you about doubt. Spooky.
Doubt is beautiful. I feel sad for the people that don’t know that (and for the me that once upon a time was one of them).
Haha – you and I seem to often be on the same track. I’ll have something in mind, then read your post and be like, woah, you stole the words right out of my brain.
I knew that implant I had the aliens, er, implant in your head was a good idea.
Dunno why I didn’t read this when u posted it! Thanks for linking it in one of your comments! Im sure I remember looking at the picture, but don’t remember reading the actual post. What an excellent post tho Ness. Totally agree with you.
This is a really good post, well written. For me and I think for many, the first step of freedom from being controlled by religion is to admit doubt is a good thing and shouldn’t prevent you from looking for answers. That faith like a child thing you brought up, I have heard it so many times. Looking for answers is fine, until you find some that might contradict what the bible is alleged to be, then you need to have faith like a child, ie. trusting without worrying if it is true or not, taking an adults word for it to be true.
What freedom that is, to realize you can think for yourself outside the confines of the structure of the bible and the church. Love the Dawkins and Bacon quotes.
Thanks. I agree, having left the church recently enough, that the first step was admitting doubt seriously (instead of shoving it to the back of my mind), and I’m glad I did. Good luck!
Yeah, I can relate, just getting to the point where I couldn’t shove the doubt to the back of my mind anymore. I would like to understand why that happened to me better than I am able to.
I don’t like to link back to my posts but will here, did you read this one?
http://atimetorend.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/doubt/
[...] “Questioning is the first step towards developing personal convictions. The problems begin when you decide to accept the standards of society and ignore God’s standards. Jeremiah warns that the heart is “deceitful” (Jer 17:9). People don’t decide against God’s ways because they’ve thought things through. People decide against God’s ways because they are attracted to sin. Begin to think for yourself and depend on God.” [...]