STOP DOUBTING AND BELIEVE

Joseph Epstein, in his biography of Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), the famous author of Democracy in America, recounts how Tocqueville, at the age of sixteen underwent an intellectual, even more, a spiritual crisis.  Doubt had seeped into his soul through his readings of Voltaire and the other eighteenth century French Enlightenment philosophes. He was devastated by what he encountered in their books. Here was this well-brought up boy, certain in his belief in the church and respectful toward the monarchy, everything in his world in perfect place, and suddenly he discovered that nothing of what he believed was anywhere so solid as he thinks – that institutions were not divine or even hallowed by tradition but man-made and easily unmade by man; that religion was merely another human invention and a blockade to reason; that science held all the significant secrets of the universe. Years later, at age 51, he wrote of his teenage experience:

‘All of a sudden I experienced the sensation people talk about who have been through an earthquake, when the ground shakes under their feet, as do the walls around them, the ceilings over their heads, the furniture beneath their hands, all of nature before their eyes. I was seized by the blackest melancholy, then by an extreme disgust with life.’

Epstein comments:

“Doubt had the young Alexis by the throat. And doubt was to haunt him, this seemingly most confident of thinkers, all his days – doubt often edging into despair. Tocqueville’s was a mind that preyed on itself, sometimes so drastically that he believed that he had lost his reason. ‘There are certain moments,’ he wrote, ‘when I am so tormented and little master of myself.’ He ranked doubt only after death and disease as the third greatest terror in life.” (Joseph Epstein, Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy’s Guide p.18)

His crisis of doubt had the effect of not taking any social structures as God-given. He did not abandon his belief in God’s overall direction of human destiny but he saw that human beings had a part to play in making life better rather than worse. In that respect he followed Voltaire who was a deist rather than an atheist.

René Descarte accepted nothing that could be doubted. And because everything is subject to doubt he would have become a skeptic except for one basic fact: the existence itself of consciousness cannot be doubted. It is consciousness that does the doubting. First consciousness is needed so that then doubt can exist.

“Doubt is the intellectual equivalent of what the emotions call anxiety. In other words, the emotion of anxiety reveals experientially the same phenomenon that the concept of doubt demonstrates intellectually – namely, the indestructibility, the eternity of consciousness, and the fact that its existence is logically necessary.” (Peter Koestenbaum, Managing Anxiety, p.151)

Doubt is often the result of the pain of unanswered prayers or tragic loss, e.g. Voltaire’s Candide on the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 when 30,000 died, or the suffering of children. There is no simple or satisfying answer to the problem of suffering and evil. Atheism does not have the answer. Reason comes to a dead end. Science explains it in terms of the Darwinian survival of the fittest. Such knowledge gives us no comfort or compassion for the weakest among us. We all, including atheists, face tests to our faith. However, they need not cause us to surrender to doubt or despair.

 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.” (James 1:2-8)

First, the testing of our faith leads to growth into maturity.

We all experience doubt at some time in our lives. Our faith is tested in a myriad of ways. Jesus himself was tested in the wilderness. Doubts show us that we are thinking creatures endowed by God with a consciousness, a mind, an intelligence, that is in his image. When our faith is tested we are given the opportunity to wrestle with our doubts and come to a satisfactory conclusion if we are willing to persevere and not capitulate to the Tempter. Tests to our faith should make us stronger, more mature, more complete, more committed to what we believe. We think through our convictions and come to a resolution that we can live with until we have further understanding. My study of philosophy and the arguments of atheists have strengthened my faith in the truth of the Scriptures, in God and in his coming in Christ.

Second, God gives us wisdom if we ask for it.

Flannery O’Connor wrote, “No one can be an atheist who does not know all things. Only God is an atheist. The devil is the greatest believer & he has his reasons.” (cf. James 2:19 “You believe that there is one God, Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder.’)

When we are faced with a test of our faith, we have to admit that we don’t know everything. We don’t have all the information and knowledge that we need to answer our questions. In the absence of satisfactory explanations we humbly admit our need in prayer and ask for wisdom from on high. This wisdom is promised us if we ask for it. It may not come immediately, we may have to persevere in prayer, we may have to be patient and be willing to give God the benefit of the doubt, but it will eventually be received. Elijah, when fleeing for his life from the wrath of Queen Jezebel, after much doubt, loneliness, and depression, heard a gentle whisper giving him guidance for the future. (1 Kings 19:12) Tests of faith should drive us to prayer for wisdom.

Third, such prayer should be wholehearted.

If we ask wholeheartedly and sincerely our doubts will be resolved. God responds to faith, not the anxiety of doubt. The prayer of faith expressed genuinely will receive the answer from the Lord.

 “Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who ‘worry their prayers’ are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.” (James 1:6-8, The Message)

The wisdom of faith is to have no inner reservations but complete confidence that God will answer your prayer.

“Teach me, Lord, that the fight of faith is not a fight with doubt. But a fight for character. Enable me to see that human vanity consists of having to understand. Make me a believer, a ‘character man,’ who, unreservedly obedient, sees it as necessary for his character’s sake that he must not always understand. Make me willing to believe even when I cannot understand.” (S. Kierkegaard)

When the woman who had the issue of blood for twenty years touched the hem of Jesus’ garment, Jesus said to her: “Take heart, daughter, your faith has healed you.” (Matthew 9:22). It would have done her little good if she had doubted. She asked in wholehearted faith, and she received the answer to her prayer.

When the blind men came seeking their sight Jesus healed them. He said to them: “According to your faith will it be done to you.” So many who are blind to the truth of Christ do not seek in faith, and so they are not healed.

When Peter stepped out on the water to walk to Jesus he could do so until he saw the wind-whipped waves, took his eyes off Jesus and started to sink. Jesus said to him: “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

We are of great or little faith. Which are you? Do not look at the storm around you and all the circumstances of life that can cause you to doubt. Instead look to Jesus with faith and put your trust in him. Let him drive doubt away as the sun rising dispels the darkness of the night. The risen Jesus said to doubting Thomas: “Stop doubting and believe (John 20:27).