Reasons for Doubt

This is my second post in a series I am doing on doubt in the Christian walk (you can read the first post here). I want to continue to share my personal story with doubt and what I have discovered as the reasons I have doubted continue to doubt when they flare up again.

For me, doubt has had three roots: pain, ignorance, and rebellion. I think it is likely that this is true for most doubt. Let me take them one by one.

Pain can cause one to question the goodness of God. As I felt intense pain in my own life, primarily from what I felt was rejection and distance from my dad, I doubted the goodness of God. Pain and suffering--our own or that around us--can cause us to ask some really difficult questions. Why does pain and suffering exist if an all-powerful, all-good God exists? Why does God allow me to suffer? Or them to suffer? Why would God allow this? Does God even exist? Does He hear me? These are the ringing echos of cries that come from places of deep pain and suffering. And they are best not answered philosophically or intellectually, when one is in the midst of asking such questions! The question behind the question here is not intellectual, but one of the heart. This was one of the big mistakes of Job's friends who tried to "comfort" him by giving him answers in his suffering. Their finest moment was the first seven days when they simply sat with him and wept with him. As soon as they opened their mouths, they were done. Sometimes silence is the only thing we can do.

Ignorance is another root cause of doubt and questioning. This can occur when one has improper views from God (learned, implied, or assumed). As I struggled over the idea of God in my early 20s, my picture and image of God were primarily formed by my dad, and I wasn't thrilled with a God who was in my dad's image. My rejection of God was a rejection of that god, who I thought was as I had been raised. Thankfully, God is so much bigger than our conceptions and if you really want to find Him, He will be found!

Lastly, rebellion is a big reason for doubt. This, I fear, is not one that we find easy to confess, but when we are deeply and truly honest with ourselves, the idea of being accountable for our actions (especially knowing our own sinfulness) and our obedience being due to a higher power doesn't sit well with us. Our American Individualism doesn't want to be told what to do. After all, we have declared our independence and we have no king! The further I walked away from God, the deeper I went into outright rebellion against Him, as my choices and actions were against what His will was for my life. I didn't care. I wanted to go my own way. To quote C.S. Lewis in his struggle with coming to Christ:

"Remember, I had always wanted, about all things, not to be "interfered with."  I had wanted (mad wish) "to call my soul my own."  I had been far more anxious to avoid suffering than to achieve delight.  I had always aimed at limited liabilities.  The supernatural itself had been to me, first, an illicit dram, and then, as by a drunkard's reaction, nauseous."

Rebellion, whether in the form of "leave me alone" or "I will go my own way" can be easily covered up by the intellect raising "objections" to keep one at "arm's length" to God. And thus, I think this is the most insidious and nasty one, and the most camouflaged reason, even from ourselves.

Doubt

After a short discussion on the topic of doubt in my 20|30s church group, I want to further reflect on my experience with doubt in my walk and some of the lessons I've learned and been taught.

I was raised in an ultra-conservative, highly rigid form of Christianity (if you know him, Bill Gothard-style). There was no room for doubt. There was an answer for everything. I grew to expect certain results based on certain inputs. If one was a believer, then certain things would occur and conversely, others would not occur. Christians wouldn't get divorced, or if so, their divorce rates would be exponentially lower than non-Christians. Then I started getting out, first in college, and then on my own as I graduated college, moved to Dallas, and what I believed ran into the hard rock of reality. My assumptions were wrong. What I saw didn't match with what I had understood to be true. I quickly concluded that my understanding was wrong, and in the process, decided what I believed and had been taught was wrong too (the proverbial phrase of 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'). Quoting from M. Scott Peck in his The Road Less Traveled (and I will address parts of this quote in a latter post since it contains aspects that I don't completely agree with, but it does provide a good context):

To develop a religion or world view that is realistic...we must constantly revise and extend our understanding to include new knowledge of the larger world. We must constantly enlarge our frame of reference... We must rebel against and reject the religion of our parents... our religion must be a wholly personal one, forged entirely through the fire of our own questioning and doubting in the crucible of our own experience with reality.

After trying a couple of churches in Dallas, I finally gave up and went agnostic for a few years and the more I observed of Christianity (primarily American evangelicalism), the more it disgusted me and my doubts became greater. I developed a mental stance that in order for Christianity to be true, my doubts must be fully and completely satisfied and my questions fully answered; and since this wasn't possible, Christianity was an untenable position for me. I continued to hold to the standard I had been raised with, but since that standard wasn't achievable, I wouldn't believe.

I share this personal story in what I plan as the first of a short series of posts on doubt in order to highlight what I consider to be the most important thing I've learned about doubt: you will never have absolute certainty about anything in life and if that becomes your standard, nothing will measure up or satisfy. One of the big reasons I stepped away from Christianity for a while was because my standard for certainty was unreasonable--it was too rigid and strict. I wanted to see, touch, taste, and smell, and that has simply not been given to me, nor to you.

So, I would urge you to consider your own expectations of evidence and certainty as you think about your expectations of God and how He reveals His truth to you. How much certainty are you expecting?