Is It Wrong To Doubt?
You may be familiar with a worship song titled Make Room, recorded by Meredith Andrews, in which the lyrics include: “Here is where I lay it down, every lie and every doubt, this is my surrender . . .” I can’t see how “laying down lies” (presumably in the sense of having nothing to do with them—personally disowning them) could be in the least controversial. But is that also the case with “laying down doubts”?
I’m not singling out either this song or its songwriter for criticism—the idea that we should “lay down our doubts” is far from original, we’ve probably all heard something like that said from the pulpit. But since I was in a church service where it was part of the setlist, it raised the question in my mind. Starting this article from the lyrics of a song does have a secondary purpose: reminding songwriters, pastors, and worship leaders that many (most?) congregants get their theological points of reference from worship song lyrics, as much or more than they do from sermons. Hence, we have a responsibility to consider a song’s lyrics, theologically, and not take for granted that simply because a song is published somewhere or features on an album, it must be OK. Think about those words before having everyone sing them!
So going back to the question: is it wrong to doubt? I think the answer is . . . yes and no! It depends on what we mean by "doubt.”
Questioning the status quo in relation to a field of knowledge—doubting the received wisdom—is what leads to new discoveries. Science offers the most obvious example of that. We, today, are the great beneficiaries of scientists’ thoughtful doubting concerning matters of biology, medicine, and healthcare, especially in recent centuries.
Children learn by asking questions, which is a positive way of doubting: “Why, Daddy?” “How, Mummy?”
The Reformers’ doubting and questioning of the beliefs—and especially the practices—of the mediaeval Catholic church led them to want to see those beliefs and practices reformed, ultimately leading to the birth of Protestantism (and some rethinking on the part of Catholicism, too).
It was doubting the received wisdom that the earth was the centre of the universe which led to discovering heliocentrism (that the earth revolves around the sun). To its shame, the 16th- and 17th-century church denounced belief in heliocentrism as “foolish and absurd . . . and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture.” This illustrates that we should pause for thought before affirming the validity of “what the church has traditionally believed” as an argument for the correctness of something (certainly on non-creedal matters). “The Bible clearly teaches . . .” (plus a proof-text) has not aged well in this instance.
Because Galileo affirmed the cosmology of Copernicus, he was tried by the church, found guilty of heresy, forced to recant, and placed under house arrest for the remaining years of his life. And before anyone says, “But that was just the Catholic church,” John Calvin and other Reformers held the same view.
So perhaps we should say that our question is not to do with whether we doubt, but how we doubt, what we doubt, and why we doubt. To say that we should never doubt (period) is to elevate gullibility—simply believing whatever we are told—to the status of a virtue. It also opens us to spiritual abuse by those demanding not to be doubted. Christianity’s focus on truth—and especially, “the authority of Scripture” in relation to that truth—means that believing what we’re told to believe by pastors and leaders is particularly susceptible to exploitation, consciously or otherwise. Too easily does the authority of what a pastor or leader says become conflated with the authority of what the Bible says (when these are by no means necessarily the same thing).
“Because I say so” is inherently unhealthy. It’s the last resort of a parent when all other means of persuading their child have been exhausted! Simply because that is said in a Christian context and supposedly substantiated by a few proof texts does not make it an acceptable practice. If more Christians were more questioning (in a good way), the church would be healthier. I have often said that Christian faith will not be undermined by good people asking good questions with a good attitude. Indeed, it will surely be enriched and strengthened. What is not healthy is for questioning to be closed down—not least when it’s happening because of leadership insecurities or an inability to present a persuasive case.
But what are we to do with more fundamental doubts about aspects of the Christian faith? To start with we need to remember that the definition of “orthodox Christianity” (in other words, of what it means to be a “proper” Christian who “believes the right things”) is classically stated in a deliberately minimalistic way. We’re essentially talking about the content of the early creeds, which are short, simple, and easy to remember. They keep the detail to a minimum. The best-known earliest example would be the Apostles’ Creed (called that not because they wrote it but because it was the early church’s endeavour to define their belief framework). The word “creed” derives from the Latin for “I believe” (the phrase with which the creeds begin). To be “Christian” is to affirm those statements (though precisely what they mean and imply is of course a legitimate theological enquiry).
Can we be sure and certain that those creedal beliefs are correct? A truly honest person would surely have to say no, we cannot, because in large measure that would require proving the unprovable. All we can say is that for reasons we personally find persuasive, we believe them to be highly likely, to a point of near certainty; we have sufficient personal assurance that they are right, there or thereabouts, to shape our life around them.
This helps frame what we mean by having “faith.” People of faith are those who choose to live in such a way—as best they can—that corresponds to those beliefs being true. People who have chosen to live as if they are true, notwithstanding the absence of complete certainty.
We should be humble enough to accept that as flawed human beings seeking to apprehend the things of God, we will undoubtedly have some of the details wrong, doctrinally speaking. We can take comfort that God in his sovereignty would have ensured that we have the Christian belief framework broadly correct in terms of “the big picture,” but human frailty will inevitably mean we won’t have all of the details right—details that, from God’s perspective, really don’t matter. The doctrinal understanding of the thief on the cross is a classic example (one that would meet few, if any, tests of “correct beliefs required for salvation”).
The situation becomes a bit more complicated when it comes to beliefs within specifically evangelical Christianity, where the minimalist approach of the creeds sits in contrast to the more maximal approach in Reformed statements and confessions of faith—and especially when formally unstated (yet still widely insisted-upon) beliefs get added in as well. There are numerous matters in which there are legitimate options concerning what is open to being believed as a Christian, that are not necessarily considered to be allowable options as an evangelical Christian. What’s on the list will depend on which particular branch or brand of evangelicalism it is that we’re talking about. The culture of a particular church or organization will also drive whether it has a less or more strident approach to insisting on those additional beliefs or is comfortable allowing reasonably held alternative perspectives.
Self-evidently, the longer the list, the more questions will be generated. Let’s take three simple examples of matters that are not addressed in the classic creeds.
The nature of the Bible as the “Word of God.” It’s one thing to believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and our final authority for belief and practice (as I do), but it’s quite another to articulate exactly what is meant by the phrase and how it functions as that.
The nature of “hell.” It’s one thing to believe that absent Jesus’ salvation there will be eternal adverse consequences for how we have lived this life (as I do), but quite another to be sure and certain that this “must mean” eternal conscious torment.
How we are “saved.” It’s one thing to believe that Jesus saved us through his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension (as I do), but how exactly he achieved that is another thing entirely.
In all these instances (and many more) Scripture does not tell us “the” answer in any definitive way. Nonetheless, they are typically the subject of specific belief expectations in evangelical statements of faith.
But even within evangelicalism itself, scholars have different theological perspectives on numerous non-creedal subjects. Just search for “Four Views” books on Amazon and you will see what I mean (especially if you then expand the search to “Three Views” and “Two Views”). What does “doubt” look like, concerning beliefs on those subjects? What does “the authority of Scripture” look like concerning beliefs on those subjects? Good questions!
Let’s close with a few thoughts on the opposite of doubt, which perhaps surprisingly has more than one sense. These include not just the more obvious idea of certainty, but also confidence, hope, optimism, positivity, and trust.
If we are worried about being a doubter, then I suggest our approach should be as follows. Firstly, to stop equating having questions with having doubts. Having good questions to which we want to pursue good answers is a fully legitimate exercise with no spiritual shame involved (in fact, quite the opposite). Secondly, to stop thinking that avoiding doubts requires that we affirm certain things as certainties when that is patently impossible. And thirdly, to focus on being people whose disposition towards God and the things of God is characterized by confidence, hope, optimism, positivity, and trust. These are all values that are reflected in “what we do,” rather than “what we think.”
The opposite of doubt is not unattainable mental certainty that tries to block out any questioning thoughts. The closest modern equivalent to the notion of biblical faith would be trust, demonstrated by action. As we read in Hebrews 11 concerning the Old Testament heroes of faith, that was not defined by what they thought (in the sense of never allowing any doubts or questions to creep in) but rather by what they did—how they lived. In other words, by living as someone would live if their framework of belief was true; living faithfully to it being true.
The New Testament Greek word usually translated as “faith” equally means “faithfulness” (in English, we have two words, with different connotations of meaning, but they had just the one). Try reading “faithfulness” or “trust” in verses where your Bible version says “faith” and see what a difference it makes in how those verses come across.