Types of Christian Doubt
Jan 10th, 2010 by Mark Lefers
It being Sunday, I thought I’d recommend a sermon on doubt by Dominic Smart. This sermon is on three main forms of doubt that Christians go through. I’ve gone through all three forms and am currently in the third form of doubt–a refusal to accept God. A willful choice to believe in science and my own understanding over the Word of God.
I listened for about 15 minutes. Not very interesting to me.
Sabio,
Thanks for commenting. Sorry you didn’t find it interesting. What aspect did you not find interesting? Or was it just the topic in general that didn’t interest you? I put this sermon up because doubt has many different forms and people are searching for a variety of different things. There are many Christians that struggle with the first two types of doubt mentioned and this might be helpful to them. I imagine that your in the third type (basically unbelief), which I am in too. In talking to others about doubt, it has helped me to distinguish what type of doubt we are talking about. Typically in a church setting it is types 1 and 2, but on the internet it is type 3.
OK, I made it all the way through. :^) I think the good thing about that is the “you are not alone” message. When I started expressing doubt in the church that is very much what I received from people, sympathy, and also relief that they were not the only ones struggling with doubt. It is true people are reluctant to admit to being anything but “strong Christians” and are therefore reluctant to admit doubting God.
Doubt 3 is the biggie — sinful unbelief, which the speaker labels as “rebellion against God and refusal to accept God.” This is where I depart completely from the message. I would not place myself in that category, though I think Dominic Smart would.
Smart says about Doubt 3 (sorry for long quote):
It is not “Struggling to believe,” or “I would really like to believe but I can’t yet, I need some more answers.” It is, “I won’t believe that, I won’t believe God. I would rather believe *anything* or *anybody* than accept what God is saying in his word. I would rather believe that *anything* could save me than accept that Jesus by his cross could save me. I would rather believe *anything* about myself than believe that God’s verdict is that I am a sinner and I need salvation. I would rather believe *anything* about how to live than believe the word of God that we should live for him and him alone. I won’t believe.
Not, “I can’t” or “I am struggling with it,” but “I won’t.” And this is a matter of the will set against God.
The reason I depart from that message is that I do not find the biblical record of those things credible and try as I might, searching my heart, I do not see my will set against God. Now from the last line of that quote he does define sinful doubt a bit more narrowly in saying it is, “I won’t” believe. Certainly I am not at the point where I won’t believe, but I can state definitively that I don’t believe and that I am not struggling with that.
The message I get from that, and pretty much all evangelical apologetics about doubt that I have heard or read, is that there is primarily a moral implication if one is not believing the bible is the true and only message from God. Intellectual reasons for doubting are rejected. I am disappointed in that because it fails to provide tools for honest inquiry into the things doubted. It just claims on authority that one must believe, or keep struggling to believe, or repent of unbelief. Maybe he could have added Doubt #4, “Intellectual Doubt,” where honest inquiry can be made. No, doubting the veracity of the bible is only to be rebuked or ignored.
All that said, thanks for posting the link, I enjoy listening to stuff I disagree with and thinking through it. I think it would be a sympathetic and helpful message for a Christian to keep believing what they want to believe, but honestly I would rather see Christians more comfortable with Doubt #3, not just doubts 1 & 2.
ATTR,
In thinking about it more. I don’t know if I would fit nicely into just one category. I guess that is the problem of categories. Life and people are more of a spectrum the strict categories. But categories still have their uses.
Why wouldn’t you categorize yourself as someone in Doubt 3 (a refusal to accept God)? In looking at Dominic’s quote, maybe I would put myself in Doubt 2.5. Because, I would really like to believe but I can’t yet, I need some more answers. (Doubt 2). But I also believe science over scriptures. I would rather believe science that the word of God (Doubt 3) I have feelings of both, I can’t and part of me feelings of I won’t. And if the won’t is classified as sin, so be it.
I agree with you, I don’t see my will specifically set against God. But I’m still trusting in science over scripture; I still trust the natural world over claims of a supernatural world.
I’m curious when you say that you don’t believe and that you are not struggling with that. Are you saying that you don’t struggle with doubt? Or that you don’t struggle with trying to search for evidence of God? Or something else?
I have found some evangelical apologetics that are open to doubting one’s faith, and that it is spiritually healthy to struggle and doubt the hard topics. One example I can think of is Habermas who classifies doubt into 3 different categories (emotional, intellectual, and volitional), and I don’t believe he rejects intellectual reasons for doubting. I think the new wave of apologetics are trying to address these honest intellectual doubts. Doubting the veracity of the bible should not be rebuked or ignored. Doubts should be addressed by evidence and reason.
I agree doubts should be addressed by evidence and reason. It does not sound to me like Smart is doing that, it sounds more like he is addressing them with a wish and a prayer.
I think Smart’s Doubt 3 category is willful rejection of God, which I think is different than not believing the bible to be true. Though I would admit their are verses in the bible that would seem to equate the two. A false claim and convenient apologetic strategy if you ask me.
I am not really waiting for more answers to decide what to believe, whether or not I like the answers, I feel like I have enough information, and God can tell me differently if he is real and should so choose. When I was struggling with doubt I feel looking back that I was really trying to make myself believe something I didn’t believe anymore.
Not sure about the new wave of apologetics, though I am sure you have read more of them than I have. Perhaps they are evidentialist rather than presuppositional? Certainly they have more scholarly material available to them than in the past (though the skeptical scholars do too). But I do not find them more compelling, it still seems that faith and believing what they want to believe is at the bottom of the apologetics, not honest inquiry. And that is fine, as long as it is called faith. If faith is belief in something for which there is a lack of evidence, how can it be expected that others should arrive at the same conclusion?
Newer, to me at least, would be liberal or progressive Christianity which focuses more on a way of life rather than trying to discern or believe that the resurrection was real or not. That seems to me the best way to try to live Christianity in light of modern understanding and evidence, rather than trying to nail down and believe true historical facts from the bible.
I can’t remember if Smart used the Thomas example for Doubt 3 category, but I would put myself in the Thomas category. Thomas said “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.” This is where I am some days. Is it realistic for me to demand this kind of evidence? What type of evidence would I accept in order to believe in God? To date, I haven’t been able to answer this.
I too have tried to make myself believe something I didn’t believe anymore. But on the flip side, I’m still looking and interested in the possibility that God exists. Christianity has so many good things: gives life meaning, hope of everlasting life, loving community, justification, etc. Also the more I learn about science and nature the more I know that there is so much we don’t know. For instance we only know what 4% of the universe is made of. I’m not pleading for a god of the gaps, I’m just pointing out that there is so much we don’t know and to give up on these important questions I think is unwise.
You also mention that faith is belief in something for which there is a lack of evidence; however I have seen in multiple places that this idea is incorrect. A better translation and description of faith is trust.
Smart does use Thomas for Doubt 3, as you mentioned, but also as not trusting his brothers reports about Jesus. Oh, and not trusting Jesus himself, because Thomas walked with Jesus as Jesus predicted what would happen to him, and he chose not to believe because he didn’t want things to end that way. I hear what you are saying about relating to Thomas, but I don’t see that as sinful opposition to God as Smart describes it.
Agree with you about looking at the good of Christianity, and about the concept of faith meaning trust as well. However people can mishandle the trust concept as well — just trust God, it is a relationship — as though that can gloss over the belief in the first place. I would be happy to trust God and trust the bible’s truth if I believed they were true. I can see how a relationship with God would not be possible without trust, but I do not see how belief in God would have to start with trust. Trust that one is not being deceived by believing? Maybe that does make sense, I don’t know.
I guess I don’t worry too much about whether my doubt/unbelief is a sin or not, because I doubt the existence of God, so a sin against Him is meaningless to me. I don’t believe questioning is wrong. I think everyone should at times challenge those beliefs we hold most dear.
Here was a good summary of faith someone gave me in another blog.
“… faith that saves is a gift (Eph. 2:9; Philip 1:29) and therefore cannot by definition be a work that we perform. Yet, faith too is mental. Let me explain.
St. Augustine noted that faith is “resting in the evidence.” Some think that faith is devoid of evidence or that the more faith one has the less evidence is required. But faith believes with the evidence, not against it. Faith is always “faith in” or “faith that”. Faith is not the opposite of thinking or reasoning.
Faith is trust in someone or something. Faith is having more certainty than doubt. Faith is not some amorphous wish or hopeful desire that something might be the case. Faith believes with the evidence and never against it.
There are Three Elements to “Faith”
1. Faith begins with knowledge (notitia). Cognition (mental processes) is the primary faculty involved with notitia. Faith is not an empty container but is filled with content. Faith necessarily entails “faith in” something or someone. Simply because faith involves religious knowledge does not require us to be less certain about the content of our faith. When our religious convictions are logically sound and fit the facts, then we are justified in holding our beliefs with certainty.
2. Knowledge, then, leads to mental assent (assensus). Assent moves us from cognition to conviction. When we assent to a belief we are admitting the truth of a claim or we are agreeing with the facts of a claim. Assent to facts is what makes belief possible. There is an emotional element involved with assensus wherein a personal element of assurance is present, but we must not confuse our subjective assurance with the objective facts of a belief. Mental assent is necessary in all our beliefs. Assent includes knowledge of (notitia) and acceptance that (assensus). One must not only know the truth but also accept it as fact before belief obtains. Mental assent, though necessary, is not sufficient. Mere acceptance of truth falls short of genuine faith.
3. Finally, faith comes to completion with trust (fiducia). From cognition (= awareness), to conviction (= acceptance), to commitment (= appropriation). Whereas notitia is primarily intellectual, assensus emotional, fiducia is volitional. Faith is a trust that surrenders the soul to the facts. The seat of faith lies not in the intellect alone, nor in the emotions alone, or in the will alone. True faith that involves all three elements finds its rest in what the Bible calls the human heart (Rom. 10:9-10), lies in all three.”
So I agree with you first comes knowledge, evidence, reason, data, etc. And the examples I can think of where Jesus deals with doubters, He presents them with evidence. He shows doubting Thomas His risen body, and he shows doubting John the Baptist (through his disciples) His miracles. But also in both examples the doubters were looking or desiring evidence. Thomas came back with the other disciples to the room Jesus appeared before, and John sent his disciples to ask and see if Jesus was the Messiah.
So that is what I’m trying to do: research, look for evidence, try to gain more knowledge, etc. If I find God again that would be great and the best case scenario. If not, I at least have learned more about a topic that tries to answer the big questions.
Hi Mark, I’ll have to look over that when I have a bit of time to try to digest it. BTW, I review that blog from time to time, but usually end up frustrated by the conservative bent to the theology and vow not to read it any more. And then I read it again after a while. :^)
My first impression reading the response you received was, if faith and belief have to be that complicated, isn’t there something wrong with the whole process? I mean, if you tried to conjure up faith in unicorns, it would require that kind of mental gymnastics. But faith in real things doesn’t take so much. And studying the universe, even if we only know what 4% of it is comprised of, doesn’t take so much faith as hard work and carefully considered judgement as to what to believe and what not to believe. Shouldn’t studying the bible be the same, we study it and carefully come to determine what we think it means, rather than wondering if a certain belief is going to be supernaturally granted to us by God?
Guess I’ve become something of a naturalist through my searching and studying.