Christians have been on the defensive ever since a certain itinerant preacher from Nazareth, having been crucified by Rome, was proclaimed by his followers to have come back from the dead. Even some of his followers weren’t quite sure though they were eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus! A man, a Jew no less, said to be God, who died on a Roman cross for our sin, and coming back to life, was a very tough sell in the ancient world. We think it’s tough now, but we have no idea because we live in the residue of a world that’s been transformed by those events. The Apostle Paul said preaching a crucified Messiah was, “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” It was ridiculous and absurd, but even more, it was offensive, and disturbing that anyone would even make such a claim. So doubt about the Christian claims is baked into the cake of the very foundation of our faith. Yet doubt regarding these claims is often treated as if it must be avoided, or if it means something is wrong with a Christian who would doubt them. Personally, I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t have some doubt about whatever it is they believe.
I recently listened to an interview Alisa Childers did with Shelby Abbott about his new book on doubt, DoubtLess: Because Faith Is Hard. It was a good conversation, but they didn’t address what I consider the elephant in the room when it comes to doubt, something that should always be addressed when discussing this topic. Doubt is not a one way street. I have no doubt, pun intended, that Alisa and Shelby would agree with me, that every view of reality can be doubted, that there is no such thing as a doubt-less existence. I would only argue that in any discussion of Christian doubt, we must at the same time point out the ubiquity of doubt to the human condition.
What exactly do I mean by this? If we don’t believe in letter X, we must believe in some other letter. There is no in between where one doesn’t have to pick A, B, or C. Doubt doesn’t get someone off the hook, as if they don’t have to affirm some other explanation for whatever it is they doubt. When doubting something, we must believe in an alternative to that thing, which itself can be doubted. Yet most discussions about doubting Christian truth claims ignore that whatever the alternative is requires its own belief. Knowing this changes the game, completely.
Needless to say, but obviously it needs to be said, human beings are finite creatures. That means our knowledge is always limited, so faith is always required for us to exist in every area and moment of our lives. Faith is not a religious construct. As I define it, faith is trust based on adequate evidence, nothing more, nothing less. I can’t know anything absolutely or definitively, so I must trust, whether it’s the food I eat, or the doctor I visit, or the car I drive, or the person I love. Faith is living in the knowledge gap. While certainty is available and attainable, absolute certainty is a lie. Only God by definition can be absolutely certain.
So when someone doubts a Christian truth claim, say the resurrection, we must ask what the alternative might be. I can’t argue it here, but the resurrection is by far the most plausible explanation based on the evidence, while the alternatives far less so. Or say someone doubts the existence of God. They can’t stop at doubt, any more than they could stop falling until they hit the ground. Some people can’t get to atheism because clearly that’s absurd, but they’ll say they are agnostics. That’s simply a belief that God can’t be known, and it’s own faith. If that person is serious, they will be willing to justify their agnosticism because they know they can’t stop in mid-air. They have to land on some belief, some faith, and some view of reality that requires those, because they all do!
We could multiply the examples, but the point is critical. Those who proclaim the alternatives must defend them. One of the best books I’ve ever read that shows how weak the alternatives are is a book primarily about asking questions, Tactics by Greg Koukl. He doesn’t get into any kind of deep defense of the Christian truth claims because there are a zillion books and videos and podcasts for that. What he does do is show that doubt is most definitely not a one way street. When the playing field is leveled, and critical questions are asked about every alternative, Christianity shines. As C.S. Lewis said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
P.S. A little addition I forgot to add when I first posted this. We need to stop referring to Christians as believers, and non-Christians as non-believers. Every human being is a believer, and if we use this terminology we give the false impression that some people just don’t have to believe, and that would be non-Christians. Wrong!
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