Faith and Doubt - What is Faith?
John Telgren
"There is no way the Bible can be accurate!" Do you really
expect me to believe that Jesus came back to life after he died? Give me a
break!"
Comments such as these can cause one to doubt his faith. Doubt can lead
someone to think he has become an unbeliever because he has lost his faith.
There is nothing wrong with "honest" doubt. There are some things that doubt is
not.
1) Doubt is not skepticism. While there is nothing wrong with honest
doubt, there is much wrong with "dishonest doubt," which is nothing more than
skepticism. Skepticism is simply the willful decision to doubt everything
deliberately, virtually rejecting what is highly probable.
2) Doubt is not unbelief. Unbelief is the decision not to have faith,
which is a far cry from what doubt is. Doubt may amount to nothing more than
difficulty in understanding something. There is no reason to feel guilty about
honest doubt. Faith and doubt are not mutually exclusive. However, faith and
unbelief are mutually exclusive.
Everyone has some sort of faith. Even a die-hard atheist has faith that there
is no God. They may not think of it as faith, but the fact that no one has
"proved" the non-existence of God means that they accept their belief in no God
by faith.
The Atheist would challenge our faith by saying ours is not a reasonable
faith because there is nothing to substantiate it. We will look at evidence that
demonstrates that not only is our faith reasonable, it is the most likely
probability.
I do want to make a point before continuing. People rarely come to faith with
resolved doubts. Francis Bacon said, "If you start with total certainty, you
will end up with doubt, but if you start with doubt, you will end up with
certainty." Faith is not going to be faith solely because of the evidence we
will be looking at. Notice the following passage:
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things
not seen (Heb 11:1)."
Our faith is not based on the ability to prove or disprove. If we could prove
100% that our belief is true, then our faith would no longer be faith. So when
we engage in a defense of our faith, we are showing "evidence" that our faith is
"reasonable." However, the bottom line is that we accept our Lord by faith.
Our faith comes from hearing, not necessarily from proving (Rom 10:17). While
proving can remove obstacles to faith and strengthen it, faith is ultimately a
decision. The Greek word for faith carries the idea of trust and obedience.
James discusses this in James 2:19. Real faith is not merely mental assent, or
even acceptance of some facts. It is an active trust in our Lord.
Next, we will look at how to handle doubt, and then look at evidence for the
reasonableness of our faith.