How faith grows stronger when believers make room for doubt

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How faith grows stronger when believers make room for doubt

Christian Scripture, personal experience and Jewish tradition reveal how questioning can be in a living relationship.

By Walter Hesford | FāVS News Columnist

The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. 

Katy McCullum Sanchse’s April 12 FāVS News column, “Fear and great Joy: Why Easter makes room for all,” makes a compelling case for why seemingly opposite emotions, fear and joy, are both appropriate responses to the resurrection experience revealed in the Gospel of Matthew 28:8. Sanchse decries the “tyranny of ‘or’,” which posits polarities, and celebrates the “holiness of ‘and,’” which creates surprising connections.

This prompts me to consider the relationship between faith and doubt, often considered to be in opposition, at least among Christians. 

The archetypal doubter in Christian Scripture is Thomas, who tells his fellow disciples that he will not believe that Jesus had risen from the dead until he sees and feels the marks of Jesus’s crucifixion. 

When Jesus appears again, he invites Thomas to feel his wounds. “Do not doubt, but believe,” he says. Thomas does so, and proclaims Jesus as his Lord and God. “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet come to believe,” responds Jesus. (John 20:24-29 NRSV)

This gospel story was of course written for those who would never see Jesus to encourage them to nevertheless have faith in him.

Faith is affirmed as a positive force throughout Christian Scripture, doubt a negative one. When the disciples are amazed when a fruitless fig tree withers at Jesus’s command, he tells them “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to this fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted and be thrown into the sea,’ it will be done.” (Matthew 21: 20-21 NRSV) 

Thomas: the bible’s most famous skeptic

And Paul throughout his epistles proclaims that we are justified by faith in Jesus (see, for example, Romans 5:1). 

Seemingly, then, there is no room, no role, for doubt among the faithful. How, then, can I argue for a relationship between faith and doubt? I do so on the basis of my own experience and that of others. 

Like many, I drifted away from church in my late teens, as I had doubts about some of the doctrines and practices I was raised on, especially the view that only those who shared the narrow faith of my denomination could take communion. 

I found spiritual nourishment in nature, and from time to time attended some church just to participate in the singing and community or to hear a good sermon. I didn’t commit myself to a church, however, until I found one that welcomed questions and those with doubts. I still belong to this church, which still welcomes doubters.

I suspect that many who have expressed doubt have been turned away from church, turned off entirely by those who profess faith. 

One such doubter was Emily Dickinson who as a teen-ager refused to commit herself to Christ. After that, she questioned the validity of faith, as this sardonic 1861 poem indicates: “‘Faith’ is a fine invention / For Gentlemen who see! / But Microscopes are prudent / In an Emergency!” 

For Dickinson, faith was an invention of patriarchal preachers who claimed to have visions of another world, while she herself found it wise to trust in an invention that gave one insight into emerging life and medical emergencies in the here and now. 

Doubters who explore the here and now, with or without microscopes, during emergencies and ordinary experiences, need to be welcomed by those with faith. This will deepen and expand faith’s hold on a reality that matters.

Judaism’s long tradition of honoring doubt

A friend who has recently read Martin Buber’s 1951 book“Two Types of Faith,” reminded me that in Judaism, doubt is given vivid expression, especially in biblical wisdom literature such as the Book of Job and Ecclesiastes and, more recently, in commentary on the Holocaust. Those who express doubt remain faithful to Jewish tradition.

In this tradition, doubt and faith are honored, and have a living relationship. It should be so in all religious traditions. 

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