The Uneasy Alliance of Faith and Doubt

As author of the fourth essay in our series on doubt Brian writes from both a personal perspective, as someone familiar with the strain of doubt, and from his professional vantage point, as minister to a church congregation. He casts doubt as the unfortunate, but necessary catalyst of our vivification by God. Without doubt our beliefs may become hard; doubt tenderizes the meat of our faith. While acknowledging its purpose, Brian refuses to elevate doubt for its own sake. Find the opening essay in the series [here]. -Editor.

I feel overwhelmed by all the different ways I could respond to the subject of doubt. It engages me theologically, psychologically, culturally and personally. It is one of the greatest tools in the hand of the Creator, and also one of the most painful and afflicting experiences in the human heart.

I think of the topic very broadly. We don't just doubt the existence of the Creator, but we doubt His power, His purpose and His presence. We doubt ourselves, and whether we can be saved. We doubt each other. We doubt whether evil exists. We doubt whether love exists. We doubt whether we are spiritual beings. We doubt our abilities, we doubt our motives. We doubt our choices – our marriages, our careers, our parenting, our politics. We doubt our safety, our future, our happiness.

Perhaps I will begin personally.

My work of preaching brings me satisfaction. It also brings me a type of discomfort not found anywhere else. I've tried to put my finger on what this is. It's not just the stresses associated with working with people, or anxiety about being evaluated. It's not just the discomfort which comes with presuming to stand up and preach in a culture which doesn't like “preachyness.”

I think it is a discomfort in standing so close when the Lord is speaking.

At times the only thing that allows me to go out on chancel is knowing that I'm going to read from the Word. Whatever else happens, at least I know people will hear the Word of the Lord read. If my sermon fails to illuminate anything, still, the worship service will not be a complete loss.

This isn't just self-deprecation, or a questioning of my abilities (though that is there too). I'm trying to speak of my awe (and terror) at the Lord's words.

Preaching brings me into acute awareness of the Lord speaking with His people. He speaks to the soul. He asks about what we most deeply love. He challenges our most hidden thoughts. He seeks to wake up the part of us which is a above the taste of chicken wings and the buzz from lattés.

The Creator of the universe is asking for our full attention and complete obedience so that He can draw us out of the hellish state we are born into. This is too much to bear.

Can't we get a little more distance? Can't we find a place where the “voice as of many waters” is more of a rumble in the background than the thunderous sound of Niagara when we are close enough to feel the spray? (Revelation 1:15)

Doubt can offer us this distance.

My point is not to emphasize the unique place of preaching, but just to notice my personal desire to be allowed to move further away—something which is difficult when publicly reading the Word every week. But it's not just preachers who hear the Lord's Word, this is an experience many people have. God is extremely confrontational when we listen to what He has to say.

But He is also incredibly silent when we walk away. Doubt is the opportunity which ensures our freedom. Our raw, overwhelming freedom from God.

Doubt refines. It is at the center of the spiritual growth crucible called temptations (Arcana Coelestia 1820, 2338, True Christian Religion 596). We cannot move closer to God without the tearing experiences of doubt at every step (Arcana Coelestia 59). There are no slaves in heaven.

A beautiful statement in Arcana Coelestia 7298 explains that all introduction of truth into a person's mind is accompanied with the introduction of doubts. Truths rammed into the mind without the shoe-horn of doubt have no flexibility. Ideas stuck in our minds without a process of doubt have no extension or proportion. “Inherited” rather than personally digested ideas are the ones we tend to be least reasonable about and most reactive about when we try to apply them in life.

Wrestle with an idea for years, testing, doubting; alternatively dropping and defending. That is an idea which you understand and can truly use. You know how to apply it in different situations. You have a sense of balance. You have a sense of reserve.

The rigid, fearful, and reactive “trust” we place in defending an unexamined idea fed to us from childhood is nothing compared with the deep and quiet confidence we find in principles which we have fought against, and for, over a life time.

But the fact that God puts doubt to great use does not mean that it deserves the attention and acclaim it receives.

It is foolish of our society to extol the function of doubt and cynicism. Doubt only exists in opposition. It feeds off propositions of truth. It does nothing but endlessly argue and tear at anything and everything held up as possibly offering value.

“I propose to marry you, to remain faithful to you, to spend a life time working with you.”

“I propose to work in this profession, to toil to serve these purposes to add value to the world.”

“I propose to give birth to this child and to care for this child for a lifetime, in whatever way she needs to the end of my strength.”

“I propose to open the door to God. To search to know Him, to understand His will and walk His path as best as I can understand it.”

Thanks to Doubt, we are guaranteed that no serious or meaningful endeavor will go forward without stiff opposition, criticism, ridicule, despair and fear. And even though this doubting is useful, I would hesitate to call it a virtue, let alone the greatest virtue. Faithfulness, commitment and perseverance are better ways to measure the character of a person than his ability to find arguments against.

I'm not trying to send the message that “you aren't believing hard enough, just shut your eyes tighter, and believe more.” The doubts we experience can be very compelling and challenging.

But I am cautioning against the idea that the effort to push through doubt is necessarily blind, naïve, or unthinking.

I don't believe that there is an “answer” which allows us to avoid the process of doubt. But there are practices which I think are valuable to apply in religious doubt.

1. We can cultivate our love of truth (Arcana Coelestia 6047). This involves looking, reading, listening and searching for good ideas which are effective at making life better for ourselves and others. Sometimes when doubts arise, we will have a good answer in rebuttal. Other times our own thinking will be changed or at least enriched by the competing idea. Either way, it is our commitment to truth which will help our thinking improve.
2. We can make the Word of the Lord our starting premise. “The Word” means different things to different people. In a broad sense, it is that which we trust to be the source of truth from God. For many people, this source is the Old and New Testaments. I would be extremely suspicious of anyone who claimed that he understood the whole of this book perfectly without confusion or doubt. This is not what is asked of us. We will certainly be unclear and experience doubt about many of the teachings in the Word. At these times, we can acknowledge the confusion about the teachings while retaining a commitment to the Word. The alternative is to bring the validity of the Word itself into question. In the first case, we may sit with confusion about many teachings for our whole lives, but we will continue to learn from the Word. In the second case, we are making a very significant choice to undermine our opportunity to hear from God.
3. We can recognize that thought is secondary to will. Our loves will drive and distort our own thinking in order justify and support themselves. I think this is a key idea of the New Church. We are able to consider ideas which are in opposition to some of our own loves, but this is not easy and will not last long without a commitment to those ideas above the commitment we feel to the things we love. This is a key to religious faith and doubt because the two essential things of religion involve both the will and the thought. On the thought side, we are to acknowledge the Divine as the center of life and on the will side we are to live and love according to His precepts (Heaven and Hell 319, Divine Providence 328, 253, True Christian Religion 692). Without both, we don't move forward. I mention this combo of thought and will because we tend to think of doubt as merely an intellectual questioning. Whereas in reality, if we are to successfully move through doubts, we have to realize that our intellectual beliefs are interconnected with our loves, motivations and manner of living.

We do not find strong, comfortable, enduring faith in God outside of a lifelong commitment to live in accordance with His will. Without coming into the pattern and likeness of God, we don't experience the presence of God.

I believe that these three practices or insights, combined with patience and humility, will lead to a growing trust in the Lord's presence, purpose and significance in our lives. But, lest I end on an unrealistically confident note, I'd like to turn to Mark 9 which Abby Smith referred to last week.

The many brands, versions and types of doubt (religious and otherwise) are an almost constant source of challenge in my life. And so I love the brief story in Mark of the man wrestling with doubt and belief. He has a growing awareness of the limits of his faith, but also a desperate desire to trust the Lord to help his son. For me this story expresses human hope and effort reaching for God and also the helplessness and weakness of that same human condition. It makes perfect sense that the man is described as crying out with tears in his voice, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

Brian Smith

Brian continues to thrive in his marriage to Janine. He loves his growing son Kai and looks forward to an addition to the family in the summer of 2011. He tries to minister in Toronto, Canada where they live. He is trained and employed to study sacred scripture with the purpose of empowering people in their desire to live well. Brian enjoys complaining, reading, writing and dreaming of what could be.

Comments

[Ropemaker]

Hi Brian, 
I love this article and I think I will share this on my Facebook. One thing that has come up for me in this series is that I have been feeling that their is another kind of way folks struggle, a kind of counterpart to doubt but different. It is interesting that you compare a relationship with the Word to the waters of the Niagra. While I understand the value in this, my Niagra has always been the turmoil within myself and the Word has always felt more like a loving presence that I didn't always want around me. My struggle has come more when I am tempted to do something evil and my Niagra has been the great contrast that my will created in the presence of that love. There is a great pain felt in that contrast. There have been times where I tried my best to forget that presence , but it was never doubt more like running from a friend who loved me dearly.  The rushing Niagra in my life is a mixture of my own negative shame in turning from love and a positive resolve to change. So I wonder how this experience fits in with doubt. Do you think it is bad to never feel doubt?

Your Brother,
Ronnie

[Tania]

I really appreciated this, thank you.

[Brian]

re: Ronnie,

I suppose the use of Niagra as an image depends on whether or not you like the waterfall. :) I think of it as majestic, awe inspiring, beautiful, powerful but also sort of terrifying. I think the Lord's actual quality is much more gentle and loving than Niagra might convey, but, to this wandering human, He is sometimes a little scary.

I'm inclined to think that doubt isn't worth pursuing as it will likely come to you. So, I don't think it is bad to not experience doubt. If you notice yourself being rigid or reactive, or unwilling to try to understand where people with different conclusions are coming from, perhaps it is worth asking the Lord whether more humility is needed. But even there, I do not think throwing open your beliefs to any person or idea which wants to take a shot at them is always the good or useful approach to take.

One thing I am interested in that I avoided mentioning is the difference in personality I notice between chronic doubters and people who are chronically dead-sure of themselves. Both approaches have their serious flaws, as well as something of value to offer. I suppose I think it is worth at least knowing about yourself, whether you are inclined to be more sure than people around you or more unsure.

Thanks for your comments.
Brian

[Karin Childs]

This is excellent, Brian. I like how you wrote of the usefulness and necessity of doubt on the one hand for keeping us from becoming rigid in our thinking, and then also of the trouble with doubt that doesn't let us commit to something unless it is completely "proven," or whatever other criteria might be required.

AC 5402[2] indicates that in order to make our faith REAL, we really have to shed a faith based only on what we've been taught by others. And it's doubt that gets us saying, "wait, is that really what the Word says?" or, "is that really what God is like?" When we're feeling doubt about what we've been taught, that gets us investigating for ourselves. I know sometimes in my own life, experiences have brought about serious doubts about certain doctrines. This doubt drove me to investigate the Word and the Writings and life experiences for myself, and thus to form new beliefs that fit me better.

I like your comments about the possible pitfalls of chronic certainty or chronic doubt. Chronic certainty can prevent us from being open to new levels of understanding. Chronic doubt can prevent us from having anything to hold on to or live by.

I'm fascinated by the chapter on equilibrium in Swedenborg's "Heaven and Hell." It describes a spiritual law that sounds much like Newton's third law of motion:

"For anything to happen, there needs to be an equilibrium of everything involved. If there is no equilibrium, there is no action and reaction because the equilibrium occurs between two forces, one acting and the other reacting. The state of rest arising from equal agents and reagents is called an equilibrium." HH 589

More: "In the natural world, what acts and reacts is called force or energy, but in the spiritual world what acts and reacts is called life and volition. Life there is a living force and volition is a living energy, and the actual equilibrium is called a state of freedom. This spiritual balance or freedom occurs, then, between the good acting from the one side and the evil reacting from the other, or from the evil acting on the one side and the good reacting from the other. The balance between active good and reactive evil applies to good people, and the balance between active evil and reactive good applies to evil people. . . . There is also a balance between what is true and what is false . . . ." HH 589

To me, this indicates that, in the realm of beliefs, we're constantly taking in truth which would automatically attract reactive false doubts, or taking in falsity, which in turn would automatically attract reactive "true doubts," or doubts that would lead us to investigate further to discover better ways of understanding the subject. It's just the way it needs to be to keep us and everything else in spiritual freedom. Even during periods when we're not feeling any conscious doubts, these forces are still at work. Amazing!

So, it seems to me: allow and expect doubts; feel out what to do with those doubts and pray for guidance; and pick out for ourselves those "rocks" of belief to commit to that have life make sense to us. Thanks again, Brian, for such a thoughtful article!

[Ropemaker]

Brian,
I think you are pointing out an important truth about a certain type certainty. In the Writings persuasive truth is truth which doesn't bend or extend itself to other ideas but vehemently from the love of self fights againt those who oppose. (check out end of Arcana Caelestia 2689).

But I don't think this means we have to entertain doubt. Historical faith, a faith recieved from parents/society can be replaced by choosing to live the life of faith and confirm it in the Word. One of my favorite child artist's, Akiane, puts it this way, "you don't have to walk down the wrong path to walk down the right one." My favorite revelator Emmanuel S., well maybe second to John, put it this way,

"Everyone is kept by the Lord in the affirmative idea that what he is told and taught by his parents and masters is true. With those who can become spiritual men this affirmative is confirmed by means of knowledges [scientifica et cognitiones]; for whatever they afterwards learn that has an affinity with it, insinuates itself into this affirmative, and corroborates it; and this more and more, even to affection." AC 2689

I know there are other passages that speak of having simple faith is preferrable and I will find them if you wish. I guess my point is that an automatic rejection of doubt is something I think we should all strive for, but it all depends on why. If it is for ego it will not bend at all and will lash out, if it is from good it is a simple effort to turn to the Lord in every moment.
~Dooby