Discernment Exercise: Answering Questions About Doubt

Reflect on the following questions. As you do, think about the extent you struggle with doubt. Think about how there are some believers who would answer these questions very differently than you do. And think about whether you understand doubt, and can talk about it Christianly in terms of its relationship to knowledge, faith, and unbelief.

“Have you ever felt intellectually embarrassed to admit that you were a Christian?

“Do you ever feel somewhat schizophrenic about the relationship of your faith to the rest of your life? Do you find yourself compartmentalizing different aspects so that tensions between them are minimized?

“If given a chance between sharing an island with Jerry Falwell and Dove Music Award winner Steve Green on the one hand, or with Jerry Seinfeld and Grammy Award winner Santana on the other, does one upset your stomach less than the other?*

“Do you ever think, ‘Those close to me would be shocked if they knew some of the doubts I have about my faith?’ Do you ever scare even yourself with your doubts?

“Have you sometimes felt like walking out of a church service because it seemed contrived and empty?

“How often do you find yourselves at odds with your surroundings—intellectually, socially, spiritually? Is there part of you which feels out of place no matter where you are?

“On a controversial issue are you most likely to agree totally with one side, find all sides partially persuasive and attractive, or find yourself saying, ‘A plague on all your houses?’

“Someone at work says, ‘Christians check their brains at the door of the church every Sunday, and most of them don’t bother to pick them up on the way out.’ Do you find yourself objecting or agreeing?

“Someone at church says, ‘The humanists are destroying our country. We have got to elect Christian politicians and get this country back to God like it used to be.’ Are you more likely to say ‘Amen’ or ‘Baloney’—or to grunt and change the subject?

“Do you personally find a high degree of paradox in matters of faith, or does it seem primarily reasonable and logical?

“How confident are you that you know God’s desires regarding the specific political, social, and moral issues which face our society?

“Would it bother you more to be thought a hypocrite or a cynic? Why?

“Is it more immoral to act incorrectly in a significant situation or not to act at all?”

Just about everything about doubt is unsettling. It’s unsettling to doubt, especially if the stakes are high and if we find ourselves doubting when everyone else seems content. It’s unsettling to discover that sometimes our very best reasoning isn’t sufficient to resolve our doubts, or that the search for answers simply increases our uncertainty. It’s unsettling to meet Christians who never seem to doubt, and who are unsettled instead by the fact we doubt things they consider settled. And it’s unsettling when non-Christian friends hesitate to believe, and raise an endless stream of doubts instead.

Unfortunately the church speaks only rarely about doubt, and often in terms that cause doubters to hide their doubts rather than resolve them. “Christianity places a premium on the absolute truthfulness and trustworthiness of God, so understanding doubt is extremely important to a Christian,” Os Guinness writes. “Of course, faith is much more than the absence of doubt, but to understand doubt is to have a key to a quiet heart and a quiet mind. Anyone who believes anything will automatically know something about doubt. But the person who knows why he believes is also in a position to discover why he doubts. The Christian should be such a person.”

Without doubt, doubt and its relationship to faith, knowledge, and unbelief is worth some careful reflection by the discerning Christian. Understanding doubt is important not only for our own faith, but also if we expect to help others come to faith and resolve their doubts biblically.

*Some of the names in this question were changed for this article.