The World as it Ought to Be

Dealing With Doubt – Part 1

The three loads of ammunition that I will lay out in these next posts touch on three different aspects of doubt, for it is a multifaceted beast. We will look at “The World as it Ought to Be”, “The World as Best it Could Be“, and “The World as I’ve Seen It“. These will deal with intellectual aspects of doubt, more philosophical aspects, and experiential aspects respectively. None of these on their own is likely to help someone in doubt. Even the three posts together are unlikely to. Nonetheless, together with other answers, encouragements and experiences, the heart builds a cumulative case for hope. And hope will draw a person to the light in the darkness.

The problem with doubt is that it’s very quick to answer. Everything is picked apart, everything is questioned. Whether we like it or not, those who genuinely are seeking after the Truth, no matter what it may end up being, will scrutinise every argument pitched to them. It is not out of malicious intent, but an unwillingness to accept something simply because it sounds nice. Hope holds out a light, but doubt says, “is the light real?” This is why it is so important to give our hearts the cumulative evidence, and also to be honest with ourselves. We must play doubt at its own game. If we would doubt the things we have seen, heard and learned about the Christian faith because of some evidence that contradicts, or because of lack of evidence to confirm, are we applying the same strictness to the source of doubt itself? Is the cumulative evidence stacked against Christianity sufficient for doubt, while we do not allow the cumulative evidence for Christianity to be sufficient for hope?

As I mentioned, answering intellectual aspects of doubt is insufficient of itself, but being honest with how we receive evidence is crucial. If we face our intellectual fears with honesty, then we allow hope to make us doubt doubt. And that will sustain us at some of the lowest moments. Whatever the darkness, the most dangerous thing we can do is close the door on hope. We may not have certainty, we may never have certainty, but when we refuse to allow evidence to bring rays of light in, we are cutting off a lifeline. On the other hand, when we do allow those little rays in, over time they will add up to flood the place with light.

One of the ways in which this played itself out in my experience was being honest with the origins of the story I believed. In the next post I will speak a lot more about how we must hold to the better story but let me now introduce the idea by saying that we have to thank Post-modernity for something. The idea of narrative. The postmodern culture of today has championed the need for the buzzword “narrative” in every aspect of life. Who will win the election? Which narrative holds up better? Who will we believe? The one who tells the better story.

When it came to doubts about the Christian faith, I soon realised that if I could not believe the Christian message at an intellectual level, then I would have to believe something else. Nature abhors a vacuum. Having done quite in-depth studies of other world religions, I quickly came up with an issue. If I was to apply the same criteria to any of them, then I would have no hope of believing. And yet the arguments for Atheism were so lacking, so dismissive of vast swathes of human experience that goes beyond the physical, and so misunderstanding of the beliefs of other faiths, that I couldn’t believe that either. Something deep inside me was determined to worship.

And so, in the dark early mornings of Scottish Winter (It was actually late spring by the calendar, but Scotland never got that memo…) I wrestled with this fact. I had to believe something. The starting point was that I didn’t have a better option than Christianity, but the intellectual in me couldn’t be satisfied with that weak an argument. But as I wrestled, I determined to let hope do its work. I chose to give it a hearing, to hear its pitch for why I should listen.

As I considered the other religions out there, I slowly realised that there were actually two reasons why I could not accept them. The simple one, by which I had previously dismissed them, was that the facts just didn’t add up for them. Whether their historical origin, or contradictory accounts, the facts weren’t there. Except, of course, for Judaism, but my doubts for Christianity would equally apply to that, so I wasn’t helped. There was another reason however.

One of my very first lectures in Bible College was by a great lecturer, who would become something of a friend over the course of our time. I was probably the only Bible nerd in the class. The others were surely interested in growing spiritually and ministry etc., but not so interested in random academic arguments, so I enjoyed nerdy chats with him. That early lecture was an important one for me. The lecturer showed how the creation narrative in Genesis compared to other Ancient Near Eastern creation accounts. The distinct difference? The goodness of the Bible’s God, who created man with dignity and blesses him, rather than an angry deity who makes mankind as a slave. I came out of that class uninspired. Why, I reasoned, would I care about what other accounts say, when I’m here to learn what the Bible does say? (Even now, after these years, I cringe to write that line, knowing that I once thought it!)

Fast-forward to my wrestlings in the dark Scottish mornings, and this lecture came back to seize my mind and not let it go until I had dealt with it. Regardless of whether Genesis was written as a polemic, or if it merely acts as a polemic because it is true, there is something important about how it stands in contrast to other creation accounts. It tells a different story. It creates a subversive narrative. If all other creation accounts speak of God as a bad god, with humanity’s labour as his goal, then why would people who suffered so much, as slaves in Egypt, and thus maybe understanding that narrative in experience, turn around and write about a God who is good, and a world that was made with immense potential for blessing? A snapshot in time would confirm one narrative, but seeing their story over years of history might show that the other was true after all. My mind started turning, beginning to understand the narrative the Bible was beginning to paint.

Without boring you with all the arguments that my heart produced in these wrestlings, one thing did emerge. I could not only reject other religions due to poor facts, I also rejected them because they did not tell a story which corresponded with reality. Ever since the writing of Genesis, the Judeo-Christian account was telling a story which corresponded to the reality that I found myself living in now, in the 21st Century. It could explain why we long for good, for that is how the world was intended to be. It explains why it’s not that way now, because of the Fall. I know how sin in my own life destroys things, and the lives of those around me. It makes sense. My experience, and longings line up with the Biblical account. No other religion could provide that.

Imagine an architect has left 5 sets of possible plans for a 3-bed house that is to be built. You are walking around the house, and you can’t tell for sure if it’s exactly to the architect’s specifications. The final finishing on the walls hides the structural elements. It could be different to the architect’s work. But then you have a look at the plans. One is incomplete, two are for wildly different designs; a bungalow and an apartment, another looks nothing like the house. But the fifth one bears a huge resemblance. You may not be able to confirm every last detail, but you can imagine that if this was the architect’s plans, then this is indeed how you might expect the house to look. It is the way it ought to be.

Now, that doesn’t make it true. And doubt was quick to remind me of that. But nonetheless, I had to file it away in the hope drawer. If the Biblical account be true, then the world as we know it is exactly the way it ought to be. If the world is this way, then that doesn’t necessarily prove the Bible is factually true, but it does throw a small spanner of doubt in the workings of doubt itself. Being honest with where the evidence led me opened a crack in the door for a sliver of hope to weasel its way in. And hope embedded tends to bring life in the Spring.

This is one short example of how we can face the intellectual side of doubt, even though it is often subject to our feelings, and mental anguish. Nonetheless, we must fight doubt with doubt itself. We must seek the Truth, no matter where that will lead us. The danger of letting doubt call the shots is real. It closes the door on hearing from hope. In the darkest hours, determine in your heart to give hope a hearing, and see if the world is indeed as it ought to be if the God of the Bible is behind it.