Part 8: Doubt

Introduction

“If there were brain-shows, as there are cat and dog shows, I doubt if it (my brain) would get even a third class prize….Thence, no doubt, soap-suds and cabbage water, seeped away to mingle with the graver accumulations of the ‘closet’ and the waters of the well from which the pump drew our supply….I have no doubt about my mother’s reveries. In her latter years in a black bonnet and black silk dress she became curiously suggestive of the supreme widow….I doubt if one person in a million of all the hosts of Christendom has ever produced a spark of genuine gratitude for the Atonement….No doubt she interceded with God for me and asked him to take over the task of enlightenment….Both of my parents were doubtful of the healthiness of reading….”

Introduction

These sentences and more are plentiful in H.G. Wells’ Experiment in Autobiography. With great confidence, he frequently uses the phrase, as we do, no doubt. “The safety, comfort and dignity of Mr. And Mrs. Thomas Morley and Miss Morley were no doubt a constant preoccupation.” “Now if this had not happened, I have no doubt I should have followed in the footsteps of Frank and Freddy and gone on living at home under my mother’s care…” “She asked all sorts of people for information and no doubt she took her troubles to her Heavenly Father, who remained, as ever, speechlessly enigmatical.” “He induced me as a personal favor to pray for faith, but I doubt if I put much power into my prayers.”

Introduction

In the forgoing sentences, H.G. Wells reminds us that the word doubt is used in many and various ways. When we are absolutely confident of a matter, we boldly proclaim: “There is no doubt.” When another makes a bold claim, we may be quick to retort: “I doubt it.” These illustrations remind us that there are many types of doubt. Os Guinness notes that “doubt is not primarily an abstract philosophical or theological question, nor a state of morbid spiritual or psychological anguish. At its most basic, doubt is a matter of truth, trust and trustworthiness.” And Pascal clarifies our options: “You are wasting your time, one must either believe, deny, or doubt” (505/260).

The Certainty of Doubt

“Anyone who believes in anything will automatically know something about doubt.”

- Os Guinness

The Roots of Doubt

• Doubt, n., “the (subjective) state of uncertainty with regard to the truth or reality of anything; undecidedness of belief or opinion” (OED).

• With plural (e.g., “I have my doubts”): “A feeling of uncertainty as to something, specifically, uncertainty as to the truth of Christianity or some other religious belief or doctrine” (OED).

• Our English word doubt comes from the Latin dubitare, which means “doubt; be uncertain or irresolute; hesitate over.” “This word is rooted in an Aryan word meaning ‘two’” (Guinness).

• The Latin phrase in dubio means in doubt (Amo, Amas, Amat and More).

The Roots of Doubt

• Os Guinness: “To believe is to be ‘in one mind’ about accepting something as true; to disbelieve is to be ‘in one mind’ about rejecting it. To doubt is to waver between the two, to believe and disbelieve at once and so to be ‘in two minds.’”

• “The heart of doubt is a divided heart” (Guinness).

Five Greek Words For Doubt: First

• Distazo, v., doubt; hesitate in doubt; reservations or vacillation.• Peter walks on water, but begins to sink: “And immediately Jesus

stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’” (Mt. 14:31).

• “Doubt or wavering had entered Peter’s heart because for a moment he had looked away from Jesus, that is, he had failed to rest the eye of his faith upon the Master” (Hendriksen).

• “But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful” (Mt. 28:16-17).

Os Guinness on Distazo

“Genuine faith is unreserved in its commitment; doubt has reservations. Faith steps forward; doubt hangs back. Doubt holds itself open to all possibilities but is reluctant to close on any.”

Five Greek Words For Doubt: Two & Three

• Diakrino, v., separate, arrange; be at odds with oneself, doubt, waver.• “And Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Truly I say to you, if you have

faith, and do not doubt, you shall 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 shall happen. And everything you ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive’” (Mt. 21:21-22).

• “But let him 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 let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded (dipsukos) man, unstable in all his ways” (James 1:6-8).

Five Greek Words For Doubt: Two & Three

• “Yet, with respect to the promise of God, he (Abraham) did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God” (Rom. 4:20). “One might almost translate: ‘He was not inwardly divided…” (Kittel).

• “This word can convey several meanings but one of them expresses an inner state of mind so torn between various options that it cannot make up its mind” (Guinness).

Five Greek Words For Doubt: Four

• Dialogizomai (from which we get the word, dialogue), v., doubt, dispute, argument.

• “Now while the people were in a state of expectation and all were wondering in their hearts about John, as to whether he might be the Christ; John answered and said to them all…” (Lk. 3:15-16).

• “But Jesus, aware of their reasonings, answered and said to them, ‘Why are you reasoning in your hearts?’” (Lk. 5:22).

• These people were debating within their hearts, arguing one side of the issue, and then the other.

Five Greek Words For Doubt: Five

• Meteorizomai, v., (from which we get the word, meteor), “in the sense ‘raise up,’ hovering between hope and fear, restless, anxious.” Used only one time in the New Testament in Luke.

• “And do not seek what you shall eat, and what you shall drink, and do not keep worrying (don’t be of doubtful mind). For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that you need these things. But seek for His kingdom, and these things shall be added to you” (Lk. 12:29-31).

• If one is “lifted up in the air,” he is unsettled, leading to restlessness and anxiety.

A Compelling Picture of Doubt

• Doubt means being in two minds.• Doubt wavers, has its reservations, and hangs back.• Doubt means being at odds with oneself.• Doubt leads to the instability of double-mindedness.• Doubt reveals an inner state of mind being torn by many options. • Doubt can have a difficult time making up its mind.• Doubt is a form of inner dialogue and argument.• Doubt can lead to fear and anxiety.

The Essence of Doubt

“The combined force of all these phrases and words is surely inescapable. If a person is ‘torn’ between options, unable to ‘make up’ his mind, or if he is ‘up in the air’ over something and unsure which side he should ‘come down on,’ or if he is furiously ‘debating’ with himself or ‘hanging back,’ or weighing up ‘his reservations,’ he is nothing if not ‘in two minds.’ This is the essence of doubt” (Guinness).

Experiment in Autobiography

“It is my conviction that deep down in my mother’s heart something was broken when my sister (Fanny) died two years and more before I was born (of appendicitis). Her simple faith was cracked then and its reality spilled away. I got only the forms and phrases of it. I do not think she ever admitted to herself, ever realized consciously, that there was no consolation under heaven for the outrage Fate had done her. Our

H.G. Wells1866-1946

Experiment in Autobiography

Lord was dumb (silent), even in dreams he came not, and her subconsciousness apprehended all the dreadful implications of that silence. But she fought down that devastating discovery. She went on repeating the old phrases of belief – all the more urgently perhaps. She wanted me to believe in order to stanch (stop the flow of) that dark undertow of doubt. In the early days with my sister, she had been able to saturate her teaching with confidence in the Divine Protection, that she had created a prodigy of Early Piety. My heart she never touched because the virtue had gone out of her.”

Some Reasons Doubt Exists

• Man as man experienced a “catastrophic personality shock” (Henry).• Christian foundations of Western culture have been severely

damaged.• Trust has been violated or lost.• Failure to find reasonable and satisfying answers.• Accepting a distorted picture of God.• Wish-fulfillment – hoping God does not exist.• The existence of human suffering.• The problem of unanswered prayer.

Getting to the Kernel of Doubt

Three Misconceptions:1. Doubt is wrong because it is the

same thing as unbelief.2. Doubt is a problem which troubles

faith but not knowledge.3. Doubt is something to be ashamed

of because it is dishonest to believe if you have doubts.

The Movements of Doubt

“Doubt moves in the direction of unbelief and passes over that blurred transition between the open-ended uncertainty of doubt and the close-minded certainty of unbelief….Doubt is a half-way stage. To be in doubt is to be in two minds, to be caught between two worlds, to be suspended between a desire to affirm and a desire to negate. So the idea of ‘total’ or ‘complete’ doubt is a contradiction in terms; doubt that is total is no longer doubt, it is unbelief.”

- Os Guinness

What Are We To Do?

“What then is man to do in this state of affairs? Is he to doubt everything, to doubt whether he is awake, whether he is being pinched or burned? Is he to doubt whether he is doubting, to doubt whether he exists? No one can go that far, and I maintain that a perfectly genuine sceptic has never existed. Nature backs up helpless reason and stops it going so wildly astray” (131/434).

The Duty of Doubters

“Doubt is then an unhappy state, but there is an indispensable duty to seek in our doubt, and thus anyone who doubts and does not seek is at once unhappy and in the wrong. If, in addition, he is cheerful and presumptuous, I can find no words to describe so extravagant a creature” (432/593).

Making a Serious Search

“The immortality of the soul is something of such vital importance to us, affecting us so deeply, that one must have lost all feeling not to care about knowing the facts of the matter. All our actions and thoughts must follow such different paths, according to whether there is hope of eternal blessings or not, that the only possible way of acting with sense and judgment is to decide our course in the light of this point, which ought to be our ultimate objective. Thus our chief interest and chief duty is to seek enlightenment on this subject, on which all our conduct depends. And that is why, amongst those who are not convinced, I make an absolute distinction between those who strive with all their might to learn and those who live without troubling themselves or

Making a Serious Search

thinking about it. I can feel nothing but compassion for those who sincerely lament their doubt, who regard it as the ultimate misfortune, and who, sparing no effort to escape from it, make their search their principle and most serious business”(427/194).

William Shakespeare

“Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise, the tent [attention] that searches to the bottom of the worst.”

- Troilus and Cressida

William Shakespeare1564-1616

The Possibility That We Are Wrong

“What amazes me most is to see that everyone is not amazed at his own weakness. We behave seriously, and everyone follows his calling, not because it is really a good thing to do so, in accordance with fashion, but as if everyone knew for certain where reason and justice lie. We are constantly disappointed and an absurd humility makes us blame ourselves and not the skill we always boast of having. But it is a good thing for the reputation of skepticism that there are so many people about who are not sceptics, to show that man is quite capable of the most extravagant opinions, since he is capable of believing that he is not naturally and inevitably weak, but is, on the contrary, naturally wise. Nothing strengthens the case for skepticism more than the fact that there are people who are not sceptics. If they all were, they would be wrong” (33/374).

The Sceptics’ Arguments Against Certainty

“The strongest of the sceptics’ arguments, to say nothing of minor points, is that we cannot be sure that these principles are true (faith and revelation apart) except through some natural intuition. Now this natural intuition affords no convincing proof that they are true. There is no certainty, apart from faith, as to whether man was created by a good God, an evil demon, or just by chance, and so it is a matter of doubt, depending on our origin, whether these innate principles are true, false or uncertain” (131/434).

Pascal: Three Principles

“Submission. One must know when it is right to doubt, to affirm, to submit. Anyone who does otherwise does not understand the force of reason. Some men run counter to these three principles, either affirming that everything can be proved, because they know nothing about proof, or doubting everything, because they do not know when to submit, or always submitting, because they do not know when judgment is called for” (170/268).

Affirm

Doubt Submit

Incapable of Doubt

“Ecclesiastes shows that man without God is totally ignorant and inescapably unhappy, for anyone is unhappy who wills but cannot do. Now he wants to be happy and assured of some truth, and yet he is equally incapable of knowing and of not desiring to know. He cannot even doubt” (75/389).

Giant Despair in Pilgrim’s Progress

“Now after they had gone over the stile, they began to discuss what they should do to prevent future pilgrims from falling into the hands of Giant Despair. They agreed to erect a pillar and to engrave the following warning on its side: ‘Over this stile is the way to Doubting Castle, which is ruled by Giant Despair, who despises the King of the Celestial Country and seeks to destroy his holy pilgrims.’ Many who came later read what was written and escaped the danger.”