Doubt is an Insidious and Destructive Thing
Dec 21st, 2008 by Mark Lefers
I realized again how doubt can play with my mind and how my seemingly innocent thoughts can be transformed into destructive thoughts–thoughts that feed and grow in the fertile fields of doubt.
The two catalysts for this recent event are: 1. I think about my doubt almost every hour of every day. It is constantly on my mind. 2. I have shared my struggle with doubt with several people who say they are praying for me.
Then come the destructive thoughts. . .
Why aren’t they asking how I’m doing?
Why aren’t they trying to witness to me?
Why aren’t they helping me more?
Why aren’t they giving me the insight that I’m searching for?
These thoughts could be triggered from small things like getting no e-mails from them, or passing them in the hallway without them checking to see how things are going. Christian are supposed to witness to unbelievers, and who easier to witness to then a friend or someone who actually goes to their church?
After some incubation these thoughts have several different outcomes:
1) Feelings of being forgotten. Feeling that people don’t really care about the struggle I’m going through. These friends don’t care whether I end up in hell or not. These feelings are similar to the feeling that I have of God forgotten me, and why He doesn’t help me out of this doubt.
2) General self pity. Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I’m gonna go eat worms.
3) Maybe they don’t really believe it either, and really can’t bring themselves to witness to me.
4) I sometimes wonder if these feelings are just a subconscious need for attention. A desire for others to help me out.
All of these outcomes are unhealthy and can feed off themselves or develop into an addition outcome. With regards to 1 and 2 above, I just have to tell myself to get over it, and to not pity myself. I have to pick myself up from my boot straps and continue to find some resolution in my struggle with doubt. I also have to step back and look at the big picture. They probably have very busy lives too, and I should be grateful for any interaction, e-mail, or prayer. When I was a Christian I never helped someone dealing with doubt so why should I hold them up to a higher standard?
Regarding #3, I have nothing to base it on, so I shouldn’t let the “What if’s?” make my situation worse. It does no good to make wild speculations. #4 is a bit harder to address, since I really don’t think I’m doing it for attention, but I can’t rule out a subconscious desire. So all I can do is to stand on guard and be careful that this doesn’t lead to a dependence of attention. I can imagine that if I was lonely the need for companionship, attention, and love would perpetuate feelings of doubt and the problem might appear to never get solved.
So with this said. I need to be aware of how quickly additional troubles can spring up out of my doubt, and I need to keep these distractions in check.
Hey. I’d try witnessing to you, if that was anything my tradition taught me to do. I only get witnessed at by fundamentalists around here, and they don’t even know their Scripture, so that’s no fun. Well, okay, sometimes it is, when I get to correct them, and they turn red and condemn me. But I’m getting off track here. As to your point #1, if they’re actually your friends, I’d bet that they are concerned, but don’t know how to help you. I get in trouble for that sometimes. While trying to figure out how to solve the problem, I wind up doing nothing. I think anyone who cares about you (and really, anyone who’s a good Christian), would want you to not go to hell.
Regarding point #4, I doubt that this started from a need for attention, as there are ways to get attention that don’t require you to go through all this personal suffering. Of course, now that this has happened, there is the possibility that you could become, for lack of a better word at hand, “addicted” to the attention.
When you’ve got problems like this, sometimes you need someone to talk to. If I can help by talking through any points with you, I’d be more than happy to take some of my time. I’m no biblical scholar, by any means, but I do a lot of reading, and have a lot of theological debates (some of them rather crazy) with my friends. I hope I’m not being too forward or anything.
I suppose at this point, I could point out that, when you feel that God has forgotten you, and you wonder why he’s not helping you with your doubt, it’s important to keep in mind that God doesn’t give you trials that you’re incapable of getting through. Which probably sounds kind of limp right now, I suppose. But God doesn’t solve your problems for you. He only gives you the strength (both inner and that of your friends and family) to solve them yourself.
Kavar,
I agree with your point #1. I was just trying to get across that if hell is as bad as the Bible talks about, wouldn’t someone do anything in their power to help someone. In the big picture, just “not knowing what to say” seems like a poor reason to let someone go to hell.
Thanks for your offer to talk through some of my issues I could always use the help. I’m working my way through researching the historical reliability of the resurrection accounts. Do you by chance know of any books that honestly look at both sides of the debate? What’s your take on the resurrection?
I’ve heard many times your comment about “God not giving me trials that I’m incapable of getting through.” But I’ve read many de-conversion stories where this would seem not to be the case. Granted I don’t know how their stories finally end, but these de-conversion stories do appear as if it is possible to loose one’s faith.
Possible to lose your faith, surely. But an argument could be made that they could have found a way. I’ll have to take a look over my books, see if any of them give a good cover of the resurrection from both sides. It’s kind of a tough one to cover. First off, did the resurrection take place? And if it did, is it a complete physical resurrection, or his spirit again made manifest? Depending on the denomination you talk to, the answers to these can be all over the place. The problem is, there’s no way to have firm evidence of it either way, to the best of my knowledge. It’s unfortunate that the historical records in that era are so thin. What it keeps coming down to is a bunch of witnesses of questionable reliability. Personally, I’ve always just accepted the resurrection on faith…kinda. The Apostles seem to have had some really powerful experiences, and they came from somewhere. Though I tend to favor reading Paul’s letters (but the ones he’s reliably credited with, not the wannabes), and stay away from Luke (including Acts, mostly. he writes a nice narrative, but likes to take liberties to make a better story). Of course, he didn’t even meet Jesus until after the crucifixion, and then seemingly not in bodily form as I recall. I guess what it is for me is that I read the different accounts, and the writers disagree on a lot of details, but look for where they agree on things.
I think I’ve rambled long enough (and also not enough probably, in a helpful direction), and I’ll sign off here for the moment. If more comes to me, I’ll be back to add on, or if you want to drag this another direction… Anyway, as I said, I’ll take a look, see if anything I’ve read (or friends have read) discusses in any depth the case for/against the resurrection.
Mark,
I have read through your postings and was trying to figure out where to post my comments so I decided to use your latest entry.
Earlier this year (2008) I began to have serious intellectual doubts about Christianity. I am 42 and have professed evangelical Christianity since I was 12 and became interested in theology and apologetics at 17 and have pursued those interests since then. About mid way through 2007 I rejected creationism and became an evolutionist due to the overwhelming evidence. Darrel Falk’s “Coming to Peace with Science” was instrumental in that.
Evolution did pose many questions such as the issue of Adam and Eve and original sin. I read a lot and just couldn’t come to any satisfactory answers to many of my questions. I also noticed \that Christ and the apostles accepted Adam and Eve and the flood of Noah as all hsitorical but I realized the evidence of science was against these. This also raised the questions of historical critical issues with the Bible, especially Genesis.
I read Peter Enns’ book “Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament” which helped in many ways but also raised other questions. It did pique my interest in critical issues related to the Bible, specifically it made me wonder if there was a way to still be evangelical, hold to evolution, and accept many of the critical findings regarding the Bible. I then found Kenton Sparks’ “God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship” which I dived into. I found Sparks book eye opening but it ended up having a major side affect. By the time I finished reading it the doubt due to evolution and the many critical problems in the Bible essentially ended my faith in Christianity.
For a time I tried to embrace some sort of liberal Christianity but without the foundation of the Bible there was no real reason. I realized that if the Bible isn’t truly the word of God and with the multiplicity of religions in the world there was just no reason to hold onto faith. I then became an agnostic. I continue to read and think through the issues and I find myself leaning heavily towards a soft atheism, which essentially says that there may indeed be a god or gods out there but I currently I do not believe there are any due to the evidence.
You can often find me commenting over at the Debunking Christianity blog (which you do have a link to).
So this is in essence is my story. I hope it helps you think through the issues of doubt that you are going through. I did go through them as well, but mine didn’t last but a few months. I would also recommend Ruth Tucker’s “Walking Away from Faith: Unraveling the Mystery of Belief and Unbelief” as she deals with the issue of doubt.
As to the issue of the resurrection of Christ I have 13 books in my library dealing specifically with this topic written from both sides of the fence. I personally have not studied the issue indepth as of yet, but do plan to. For me the other issues (evolution, natural history, and historical and biblical criticism) far out weighted any notion of a real resurrection.
For a good summary of the many problems with Christianity I highly recommend John Loftus’ book “Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity.” John tells a very moving account of his own conversion to Christianity, his studies under a number of prominent apologists like William Lane Craig, and his subsequent deconversion. The bulk of the book is detailing the reasons for rejecting Christianity. Of the many arguments that he brings up one of the more interesting is what he calls the “outsider test for faith.”
Anthony,
Thanks for your brief de-conversion/doubting story. It would be fascinating to see all the different stories out there. Like mine, I’m sure your’s is not done. I can imagine that if I did eventually completely give up on Christianity, I would still question and doubt if that was right. Even though I hate being in doubt, the more I go through this, I wonder if there is great benefit from it. For sure I won’t be the same, and for the better too.
Evolution hasn’t ever really been a problem for me regarding Christianity. If Christianity is true, God is much bigger and wiser than I can even fathom. So I shouldn’t be surprised if everything isn’t the way I think it should be. It is also almost certain that I will not be able to figure out all my questions. Should some ancient text really capture modern scientific knowledge? For me, evolution caused me to doubt what Christian authorities said both about science and theology.
You mentioned that you couldn’t come to any satisfactory answers to many of your questions. Is this the cause of your doubt? Are you trying to answer too many questions at a time? Do you hold out on having faith until you have all these questions answered? A question someone asked me was “What criteria for evidence must be met in order for you to step forward in faith?” I’m still thinking of my response.
You mention that you comment at Debunking Christianity. I’d also recommend the Jesus Creed blog. There is a contributor RJS who has some great posts regarding science. I’ve read Loftus’ book, and have been slowly going through his ~10 books that he recommends. Unfortunately it takes me awhile since I have to research what each author says, because every writer is somewhat biased. Even me
Mark,
I would say that I am agnostic and a freethinker, which allows me to go where ever the evidence leads. I guess you could also say that I am a bit of a skeptic so in that sense I still doubt.
Evolution didn’t originally bother me all that much until I started thinking through its ramifications with many aspects of the Bible and the theological issues that were tied to them. My inability to find satisfactory answers were related to this issue. This is where much of my original doubt came from. This along with the many problems of the Bible’s historical reliability, contradictions, and other historical-critical issues is what ultimately led to my crisis of faith that ended in my deconversion. For me there was not enough left in christianity to latch my faith onto. Chrisianity is a worldview that takes in many things, so there wasn’t one thing that caused my doubt and then rejection, it was acumulative evidence against it that was the problem.
As for the question that someone asked you, “What criteria for evidence must be met in order for you to step forward in faith?” my answer is that there is not one piece of evidence that could bring me back to faith. I explained this to Craig Blomberg when he visited Debunking Christianity for a short while. In order for me to come back to faith the issues of evolution, natural history, the historical unreliability of the Bible and the many critical problems in the Bible itself would need to be addressed in a satisfactory way. Even then I doubt that I would come to any “evangelical,” let alone a fundamentalist, faith.
I have looked at Scot McKnight’s site before and was actually reading it before coming to your site. I was happy to hear that Scot had made it public that he now embraced biological evolution. I do have two of his books in my library, “Finding Faith, Losing Faith: Stories of Conversion and Apostacy” which contains John Loftus story, the other is one he co-edited with James D.G. Dunn “The Historical Jesus in Recent Research.” I will go back to the site as much as I can.
I read through your blog entries but I don’t think I saw where you state specifically the reason(s) for your doubts.
Anthony,
In this post I discussed the general path that led me into my doubt. It looks like we had similar paths. The things you mentioned that are holding you back from faith are the issues of evolution, natural history, the historical unreliability of the Bible and the many critical problems in the Bible. However, one could say that these aren’t really salvation issues. Is the problem more that you doubt whether the gospel is true? For me, the questions you raised led me to doubt whether the gospel was true or not. If the Bible was historically unreliable, if the Bible’s account of creation was wrong, if there were troublesome things in the Old Testament, this made the gospel harder to believe. But maybe this was a wrong way to go about it. Maybe for now I should worry about whether the Bible is historically or scientifically accurate or not. Sure these issues make it more complicated, but what it really boils down to… what the whole Bible is supposed to be pointing to… is the gospel message. That’s why I’m trying to focus on the resurrection and the reliability of the New Testament. I figure if this is true, the other things can fall into place in due time, if ever.
William Lane Craig has written an excellent answer to a 21 years old student’s question about doubt: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5889 Subject: Dealing with Doubt
In his response Craig claims that evidence is inadequate to produce faith. As most of us have noticed, one could go further and say that the evidence is destructive to faith. Craig describes his own experience of the Holy Spirit:
God has provided a more secure foundation for our faith than the shifting sands of evidence and argument. He has given us the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit as the proper foundation for our knowledge of the great truths of the Gospel. This implies that we have to be very mindful of our own spiritual formation. First and foremost, you need to be sure that you are a regenerate Christian. If you have not been born anew of the Holy Spirit, then you lack His witness within you and so find yourself cast solely upon such arguments and evidence as you in your limited time and knowledge come across. If that’s the case, it’s no wonder you feel doubt and uncertainty!