Doubt and Fear
Denny Burk says doubt and fear are sins here. His article seems careless for those struggling. If I had read his article at some points in my life, I would have felt cast away, guilty as charged, unable to fix the issue. I would not have come to understand the answer comes with more fear, not less.
Why more fear? There is ample scriptural evidence that we should fear God. That fear is the root why we understand we need a savior, and only that savior’s perfect love can be an antidote. Our modern secular world leads us into grave error when we do not fear God. I expect Dr. Burk would concur we must have fear of God, and a fear that makes us realize we need a savior, a savior made of perfect love.
Doubt is a different animal from fear. The priests I encountered that helped me back from a dark place of doubt in God dealt with doubt like a disease, noting the Thomas story, the implication being that the sufferer of doubt is not dealing with anything the apostles themselves didn’t have to deal with and overcome. I had never heard it called a sin. Is it one?
Doubt stems from curiosity, from questioning. A healthy skepticism in this day and age should not be sin. Questioning is good if one is to get at truth.
Denial of doubt is not a remedy, denial deepens doubt.
Faith is required per scripture in order not to doubt. Faith is first a gift, not something we control but something from God.
Eph 2:8–9 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Doubt is something to overcome in order to experience the full power of the faith we are given. In fact the three scriptures Dr. Burk quotes are about Jesus lamenting that his disciples have not (yet) overcome doubt with faith.
Here they are from the NASB:
Matt. 14:31 Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and *said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?
This passage implies the size of our faith correlates with our ability to not to doubt, to be certain.
Matt. 21:21 And Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen.
The construct here is similar if you have a microphone you can achieve an amplified voice in a large room. That does not make not having a microphone a sin. It does make having a microphone valuable, should you need to communicate to a large group of people. Note he says have faith AND do not doubt. There are two things here.
Mark 11:23 Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him.
This passage is similar, teaching “do not doubt” is a valuable condition in getting prayers answered (in context, prayers that are consistent with God’s purpose and will).
Dr. Burk then moves to James 1:6–8. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
Again, if our prayers are to be answered we must use our faith we have been given to drive out our doubt. However, that does not mean doubt is a sin. Doubt is noticeably absent from the lists of sins in Romans, Galations, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians. Those sins are about disobedience. Is doubt a sin or a disease whose remedy is a growing faith?
Faith comes from hearing the word of God (see Romans 10:17). Faith grows through obedience, which is why a Catholic priest told me once to continue to come to mass to be obedient to God’s laws even if I could not find a way at that moment to believe. Original seeds of faith are given, and we can ask God for more if we do not yet have enough. The elimination of doubt is the certainty of belief. Faith drives out doubt and enables us to leverage the power of prayer God has offered.
Doubt is a condition like growth, a condition that appropriately used leads to learning and faith. Inappropriate doubt, doubt that persists after you know better, is like cancer. Doubt’s remedy is faith, a faith we have been given — Paul says in Romans we can look to the skies and know the seed of faith we have been given — that we are all without excuse. We are commanded to grow faith but are left free to squelch it with/in sin. We are commanded to drive out doubt with a growing faith by hearing scripture to increase our exposure to truth, and to be obedient in other ways. Thus it is the failure to accept the answers to questions that drive out doubt that is a sin.
Finding doubt in our being is human, failure to drive it out leads to enabling evil. Enduring doubt, doubt rooted in denial and pushing away available learning, denial not driven out with obedience to God, is sin. Jesus was fully human. He drove out any human doubt, if there was any, well before his ministry began, and he did not sin.
