Why is OK to Doubt Your Christian Faith
“Why is there evil and suffering in this world?”
“No one naturally can resurrect from the dead after three days. It's impossible.”
“The Bible was written by fallible men thousands of years ago, how can I be sure that what I have is what was written?”
“How can I know that Christianity is the one true religion when there are thousands of other religions?”
Not only you don’t have an answer to these sorts of doubts and questions. They seem to you… persuasive... compelling.
You feel some sort of shame to admit this. You have been a Christian for some time now but never knew the answers to these fundamental questions.
Now you’re second guessing.
And why not?
You already tried to ask your parents, your pastor and/or Bible study teacher of your questions and doubts, but their responses was… well… unsatisfactory (to put it pretty).
You need to have faith.
Don’t worry about those things, in Heaven we will have all our questions answered. Just believe.
(My personal favorite) The Bible is not to understand it, it is to obey it.
This is why you are terrified of witnessing. You are scared to death that someone asked you a question you don’t have a good answer for.
Sure, you cannot deny the positive experiences you have lived since you were born again, but these doubts are keeping you up at night; slowly eroding your faith more and more.
Even these positive experiences you're putting them in doubt.
What if I have been believing in something that is not true? Maybe this is all a fairy tale! But… How would I know?
You don’t need sleep. You need answers.
And there are really good reasonable answers to your tough questions that will revive and bolster your faith.
You will see that, contrary to popular belief (even in some churches sadly), faith is compatible with reason and consistent with reality.
Let me show you the intellectual side of Christianity.
Welcome to the exciting discipline of Christian Apologetics!
Apolo-what?
If you are new to the term, let me take the obvious first silly common misunderstanding out of the way.
No, this is not the course husbands should take nor is the discipline of apologizing that you’re a Christian.
The word apologetics comes from the Greek word apologia which means “to give a verbal defense”. It’s a legal term. It was used when someone responded to an objection or accusation in a court.
Dr. William Lane Craig, philosopher and theologian esteemed worldwide as the best living Christian apologist, defines apologetics as the branch of Christian theology that seeks to provide justifiable reasons to the truth claims of the Christian faith.
Simply put, apologetics responds the question Why should I believe Christianity is true?
Apologetics is an intellectual tool for evangelism and discipleship.
It helps to remove intellectual objections against the faith for unbelievers and helps to intellectually anchor the faith of the believers.
This is not a modern made-up word.
This word appears 8 times in the Bible. In fact, did you even know that we are commanded in the Bible to give a defense of our faith?
Of course not! Bet that not even your parents or Sunday school teacher knew this.
1 Peter 3:15 (NVI) commands us as Christians to defend the faith with gentleness and respect.
… Always be prepared to give an answer [apologia] to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,
This is not something for theology nerds or intellectuals in the church. This commandment is for the whole body of Christ.
The fact that the church has abandoned this duty is the major factor why young people are leaving Christianity.
The 2016 Pew Research study shows that, and I quote,
About half of current religious “nones” who were raised in a religion (49%) indicate that a lack of belief led them to move away from religion. This includes many respondents who mention “science” as the reason they do not believe in religious teachings, including one who said “I’m a scientist now, and I don’t believe in miracles.” Others reference “common sense,” “logic” or a “lack of evidence” — or simply say they do not believe in God.
Some of the reasons why young people were abandoning their faith given in the study were,
Learning about evolution when I went away to college.
Rational thought makes religion go out the window.
Lack of any sort of scientific or specific evidence of a creator.
I’m doing a lot more learning, studying, and kind of making decisions myself rather than listening to someone else.
Check a more recent study of the pew research regarding parents and their teens answering if religion is very important in their lives
When there are religious differences between adults and their 13- to 17-year-old children, however, it’s usually the teens who are less religious than the parents. For instance, far fewer teens (24%) than parents (43%) say that religion is very important in their lives.
Less than one of four teens deems their religion very important in their lives. That’s a tragedy. It shouldn’t be this way since there are, in fact, reasonable responses to such doubts and questions.
But what if I told you, that doubting and questioning your Christian faith might be a positive phase you’re entering into?
Doubts: Sign of a Maturing Faith?
Rethinking one’s worldview is one of the most mentally turbulent phases in anyone’s journey faith. This gets to the very core of your being, of who you are.
But though it can be scary, it can also be (and will be) exciting. Because when you doubt, it might be a sign of a maturing faith.
But isn’t doubt the opposite of belief?
Doubt is not the opposite of belief. The opposite of belief is nonbelief.
Faith is defined as complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
Doubt is the voluntary and transitionary suspension of judgement between decisions.
Reason is a cause, explanation, or justification for some belief, act, fact, event, etc.
Reason is the mediator between doubt as reflection and faith as trust, and these do not contradict.
But how do I reason correctly? Awesome question!
In an interview done to Dr. Dallas Willard by John Ortberg in 2010 about doubt and belief in the Christian life, Willard gives an answer,
Knowledge grows not only for doubting your belief and believing your doubts, but also from doubting your doubts and believing your beliefs.
Use this like some sort of mental filter to see which questions and objections (as well as beliefs) are good ones and which are bad.
Bad objections usually commit logical fallacies. Good ones don’t.
For example: Only science can give us truth. Is that a true statement? Because if it is, then its false. This truth was not acquired through the scientific method. This is a self-refuting statement.
Another example: faith is belief without or on in spite of evidence. As you already saw above (and will expand a bit more below), this is not true. This is what is called a strawman. Attacking the concept of faith by replacing the definition of what faith really is with an incorrect one.
As you can see, there is no logical contradiction between doubt and faith by definition.
Permission to Doubt
Let’s talk a bit more about what faith really is.
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1. NIV. Emphasis added)
Biblical faith entails three components:
- Understanding the content of the Christian faith,
- Trust,
- Assent of the intellect to the truth of some proposition
You can’t have trust in someone or something you do not understand and can’t agree with.
For example, some people would never go on a cruise ship vacation because of their fear that the cruise will sink.
They do understand that cruise ships are way much safer than before, but since they watch the movie Titanic, they don’t assent intellectually to it.
Biblical faith is not an irrational blind leap into the darkness.
The biblical notion of faith requieres you to have confidence and assurance in that which you understand and have good reasons to assent to (in this case, the object of faith is God).
Therefore, embrace your doubts. Go ahead, doubt your faith, but also doubt your doubts. Question your questions. See if they hold waters.
God Wants You to Think | Medium
While doing this you’re transitioning from a childish faith to a mature faith. You’re owning your faith.
You will know not only what you believe but why you believe it.
Some Arguments for the Truth of Christianity
Today, like in Biblical times, apologist makes use of a multidisciplinary knowledge like cosmology, philosophy, ethics, biology, history and more.
Some of those popular classical arguments are:
- The Kalam Cosmological Argument: Seeks to show that the universe is not eternal, that necessarily had to have a beginning.
- The Fine Tune Argument: Seeks to show that the universe fine tuning of its constants isn’t do by physical necessity nor chance and that it is by design.
- The Moral Argument: Seeks to show that if objective moral values and duties exist, then God exist.
- The Ontological Argument: Seeks to show that God exist in basis of what it means to be God as the maximally great being.
- The Resurrection Argument: Seeks to show that the best explanation of the historical facts of an empty tomb, the postmortem appearances of Jesus and the sudden disciple's belief that Jesus rose are better explain by the hypothesis that Jesus rose from the dead.
These are some of the arguments and evidence use to defend the contention that Christianity is true.
Which Christianity Miguel? There are hundreds of Christian denominations.
That’s a really good point. Let me respond.
What do we mean by “Christian” Apologetics?
I have defined the term apologetics. Now let's define Christian.
With Christian apologetics we mean to defend only the essentials doctrine of Christianity held by orthodox Christians throughout history.
We call these essential doctrines dogmas.
Doctrines so foundational that to negate even one of them you will no longer be a Christian.
Doctrines like the humanity and deity of Jesus, salvation by grace through faith in Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the gospel, human sinfulness and the Trinity.
These doesn’t mean you can’t question them or believe them differently.
For example, two brothers in Christ believe that salvation was possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus, but they hold different theories to explain how Jesus made this salvation possible.
One can accept the penal substitutionary atonement theory while the other the Christus Victor theory. These theories are the doctrines. Doctrines are the explanation and application of the dogmas.
The key here is that the focus of apologetics is the defense of the dogmas, not the doctrines.
Apologetics is not the defense of a theological system.
Calvinism, Arminianism, Molinism, Open Theism and every other ism can hold the same dogmas, but they differ greatly on the doctrines that explains and applied those dogmas. Specially in the doctrine of salvation.
The response a Calvinist has for the relationship of God with evil and suffering is not the same as the Open Theist.
We all need to believe in the dogmas, we can differ in the expressions of the dogmas.
The following succinct quote sums it up really good.
In essentials, unity.
in non-essentials, liberty.
in all things, charity.
Although these theological debates are important, these is an intramural issue.
Granting that while in the act of debating you are defending a point and is technically an exercise in apologetics, the term has been coined only in its evangelistic and discipleship contexts focused only on the dogmas of the faith.
Finally, we don’t defend a denomination. Each denomination has their own liturgy, government and dogma’s expression. You can be Catholic, Pentecostal or Reformed and be united in the essentials of the faith.
In short, apologetics is the art of presenting arguments and evidence in favor and defense of mere Christianity.
Pitfalls to Avoid While Learning Apologetics
As I mentioned in the beginning, you are entering into a turbulent but exciting phase in your journey faith.
In some sense, you’re going to re-discover your faith.
You will appreciate the richness and power of your Christian faith so much that you will start to think you need to be rebaptize.
In this process you will learn new things, but equally important, you will unlearn others. Be patient. Discern judiciously.
Don’t rush to adopt a new position because it’s new and shiny and don’t throw what you know already out of the window because it appears old to you now.
Don’t lose your relationship with your Church.
Humbly share what you have learned with your brothers and sister in Christ but remember there might be some friction sometimes. Don’t be pushy. Be patient.
It means nothing how much you know if you don’t have genuine love for others (1 Corinthians 13.2).
Above all else, don’t lose your relationship with God for learning about God. Your endeavor will not be fruitful.
Never ever leave behind your devotional reading of Scripture, your praying life or any other spiritual disciplines and you will grow in knowledge and spirit.
Now, let’s keep that desire for knowing why you believe what you believe burning.
Now you know what apologetics is and is not. You’re fired up and ready to dive in into the classical arguments for the existence of God and Christian evidence.
Start with the book On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision (paid link) by Dr. William L. Craig to get your feet wet.
If you haven’t already, check the links about the popular classical arguments for God’s existence. Those are gorgeous short videos to start familiarizing with the arguments better.
No more being ashamed. No more being terrified of witnessing to others.
You’re not going to waste more of your time. You no longer are going to have a blind childish faith.
As the apostles you will say “[I don’t] follow cleverly devised tales” (1 Peter 1.16).
From now on you will have a smart faith.
