Doubt Is not Sin. It Is Temptation — Daniel Yoder — Ep. 189

Lesson Transcript

How do we deal with doubt? What should a believer do when they have questions about their own relationship to the faith? Daniel Yoder is with us to help us think about this topic and hopefully gain some encouragement. Well, I want to start by saying thank you for allowing me to address this important and practical topic. The subject of doubt is one that I enjoy studying.

I think it's very important, very relevant, and something that many Christians struggle with and maybe struggle to understand and even know how to address it. So, on the subject of doubt, I've benefited from the writings of Os Guinness, and his definition of doubt is that doubt is not the opposite of faith, nor is it the same as unbelief. But doubt is a state of mind in suspension between faith and unbelief, so that it is neither of them wholly, and it's each of them only partly.

So, essentially, yes, doubt is being in two minds. It's wavering between belief and unbelief. There's another author who's referred to doubt as being a form of intellectual temptation. And I think that's a helpful comment because he's distinguishing between doubt and sin. We might think of doubt as a sin, but honest doubt is not sinful. Unbelief is a sin, but doubt is not. So, I think it is a popular, I should say, a popular misconception to equate doubt with unbelief.

So, doubt reveals a divided mind, a state of uncertainty. There's an inner conflict that the doubter experiences between two options, between belief and disbelief. Yeah, I find that really helpful, especially that phrase, intellectual temptation, because then it calls back to what do you do with it as to whether it leads to sin and unbelief or not.

Yeah, so in the context of a discussion like this, we're thinking about doubt in terms of the inner battle that can be experienced as a person, we could say, straddles the fence between trust and distrust of God. So, we do want to distinguish between faith and doubt. Faith is a confident, unwavering trust in God, and doubt is wavering with an inner conflict in loyalties. So, doubters are double-minded, or we could perhaps even say double-hearted.

And that's why it's important to work at resolving doubt, because if doubt is double-heartedness and that's unresolved, then that could lead to a double life. Now, to answer the second part of your question, are there different kinds of doubt? Yes, there are, and we can categorize doubts by kinds or by families. And it is important to know what kind of doubt is being experienced in order to provide a proper response. And I've appreciated the work of Gary Habermas on this subject.

He identifies four different varieties of doubt. So, factual doubt is the first variety that arises from ignorance and from misinformation. So, factual doubt can arise, for example, when a person is confronted with an authoritative claim about a topic that lies outside their area of competence. So, an authoritative sounding statement that contradicts Christianity could unsettle a person who's unaware of the evidence that supports Christianity.

The second variety of doubt that he mentions is philosophical doubt, and that's the kind of doubt that arises from wrong assumptions or wrong thinking. So, our basic assumptions about the nature of ultimate reality determine our view of God. So, incorrect presuppositions about the nature of reality will lead to a faulty view of God. And when people hold a distorted concept of God, it shouldn't be a surprise if they struggle then to trust him.

An example of philosophical doubt could be seen in, for example, a scientist who declared that he could never accept the resurrection of Jesus. And his rejection of that event was because his naturalistic worldview was opposed to the possibility of miracles. So, he had closed his mind to the possibility of miracles, not because of the facts, but because of his assumption of naturalism. So, he had a faulty assumption, and you can't reach a solid conclusion on a subject if you start with an unstable foundation.

So, those are the first two varieties. And then emotional doubt can be mentioned as well. Emotional doubt arises from feelings. This is the kind of doubt that can come when we're discouraged or when we're lonely. This is the kind of doubt that can emerge out of hurts or anxiety or depression. So, for example, an experience such as the tragic death of a family member could lead someone to doubt the goodness of God, and that would probably be an instance of emotional doubt.

And then the fourth category that Habermas lists is volitional doubt. Volitional doubt arises from the will, from our volition. So, doubts of the will come from a desire to be independent of God. And some believers, or I should say some unbelievers, are honest enough to admit that no amount of evidence will persuade them to believe in God. They have volitional doubt, and that's a doubt that arises from a stubborn, rebellious will.

So, the person who wants to be totally self-sufficient and autonomous will doubt God regardless of the evidence. So, there's one college student who admitted to the author Paul Little that Little had answered his intellectual questions and doubts, but that student still refused to believe, and he explained why. He said that belief in Jesus would mess up the way that he's living. And so that refusal to commit to Jesus, to give his life to Christ in faith, had no good reason except personal preference.

So, these are the four varieties of doubt: factual, philosophical, emotional, and volitional. And the many forms of doubt are not unbelief in and of themselves, but doubt can become unbelief if a person persists in it. So, that's my summary of the four varieties of doubt. Find those four categories. Yeah, really helpful. Volitional, emotional.

The philosophical and factual, we may talk a little bit about in a different episode in this series, but yeah, right now I'd like to focus on, I suppose it's mostly the emotional doubt. Maybe it's related to volitional a little bit. And that is, what do you want to say to somebody, in summary, who doesn't have the factual doubt? You know, they believe that Jesus is God, come in the flesh, that he died and was raised again.

So, he doesn't have the factual doubt or even the philosophical doubt there, but is simply struggling with, am I a believer? Do I belong to God? Am I in the faith, as the one scripture passage says? Yeah, well, that's an important question. And a question like this makes me think of a passage like Romans 10, especially verses 5 through 13. I'm not going to read that passage, but I will be basing my response on it.

So, in Romans 10:5 through 13, Paul distinguishes between righteousness, which is based on the law, and righteousness, which is based on faith. And the righteousness that is based on faith doesn't require us to do anything dramatic. He refers to something as dramatic as bringing Christ down from heaven or up from the grave. The righteousness based on faith doesn't require something dramatic like that.

But Paul teaches in that passage that faith is readily available to those who will simply believe and confess that Jesus is Lord. So, Paul lays out the necessity of believing from the heart, and he also emphasizes the importance of a public confession. And what must be believed, as Paul explains, there is that Jesus is Lord. There needs to be a declaration that Jesus has universal and unlimited authority, and those who make this confession then are placing themselves under that authority.

So, there's no salvation apart from submission to Jesus's lordship. And if you haven't submitted to that authority, then you're not in the faith. Now, I do need to clarify that our submission and obedience to Jesus may falter from time to time. We won't obey him perfectly, but we should strive to obey him with an increasing measure of faithfulness. And as Paul explains in this passage, this confession of Jesus's lordship stems from a heartfelt belief in Jesus's resurrection.

The resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone of the Christian faith. The resurrection confirms that Jesus is who he said he was, the Son of God, and confirms that his death for our sins was accepted by his Father. And Paul makes an important comment in verse 11 of that passage where he affirms that everyone who believes in Jesus will not be put to shame. And we're given a tremendous promise as well in verse 13, the promise that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

So, an important point for someone who's struggling even with something like emotional doubt, an important point for them to remember is that your salvation is ultimately based on God's character, not your own strength. The Lord cannot break his promises. He promises that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. So, for someone doubting whether they're in the faith, I would encourage them to read Romans 10:5 through 13 carefully.

They should respond then to Jesus as that passage describes, and they need to remember that what makes our faith valid is not simply that we have it. What makes our faith valid is that the object of our trust, the object of our belief, is worthy of that belief. So, true faith isn't about the intensity that we feel, but it's about the genuineness of the one in whom we place our trust. Or to put it another way, what ultimately matters for your salvation is not the strength of your faith, but the strength of your God.

And yes, we should always seek, as we have opportunity, to strengthen our faith. But even a weak faith in an all-powerful God is sufficient for salvation because salvation is ultimately about his strength, not ours. And I think that's a tremendously reassuring truth for anyone who's struggling with doubt. Yeah, so let me just echo back what I think I'm hearing from you, and I'll let you comment on that. And then I do have a little bit of a follow-up question with it. So, yeah, strength of your faith. Sorry.

It's the object of your faith, not the strength of your faith. And again, just calling us back to actually focus on Jesus, submit to his lordship. And that's a very, that's more, that's concrete. You can do that. It's not this vague, try to drum up faith, which, yeah, so no, we can't drum up faith, but that is sometimes our temptation is to think, yeah, we have to muster the faith. To push it there is what makes that different than some of the false faith described in the Bible?

And I can see people being worried about this. I'm not really a believer. Like a passage like James says, well, the demons believe there's one God and they tremble and supply they don't have faith. Or Jesus said, many will say, Lord, Lord, and be convinced that they're believing in Jesus as Lord, evidently, and will say, I never knew you. Yeah, what if somebody is worried by those kinds of thoughts? It is about more than belief. It is about submission. It is about obedience.

And it's not that we will obey or submit perfectly, but I think we should think about the state of our heart is our desire to obey. And if there is a desire to obey, even if it is a struggle, then I think that is a sign that we are in the faith. We certainly would need to grow in that case, and we all have room to grow. But I think the attitude of a person's heart in that regard, are they desiring to obey and submit, is something important to consider. Yeah, that's helpful.

Is the desire there and then press on with that in the confidence in God? Yeah. Okay. Well, I meant to follow that up just a little bit further. Second Corinthians brings this question back around to chapter 13 where he says, test yourself to see if you're in the faith unless you fail the test. Yeah, there's some things going on there with Paul's relationship with the Corinthians probably, where there's a little bit of antagonism, and he wants them to know that he doesn't fail the test.

But yeah, what does it mean to test ourselves in that fashion? Yes, there are some important things to note about the context of Second Corinthians 13:5. As you alluded to, a major part of Paul's purpose in the letter of Second Corinthians is to offer a defense of his apostolic ministry. The Corinthians had insisted on testing Paul. And so Second Corinthians is at least part of Paul's response to that.

But now that Paul had withstood their investigation, he asked the Corinthians to examine themselves to test whether they are acting in accordance with the Christian faith. And earlier in the letter, like in chapter 7, verse 4, and also chapter 7, verse 16, Paul had expressed confidence about these believers. He genuinely believed that Christ was in them, but he does emphasize that if they don't believe the fundamental truths of the Christian faith, then they would fail the test.

So he does call them to examine themselves, to engage in this introspection. And that's an important aspect of the Christian life, self-examination. The Corinthians desired to find out whether Paul's apostolic credentials were genuine. But then Paul matches this inquiry with a call for them to see if their own lives are authentic. And he knows that they can pass the test, but he still wants them to contemplate the consequences of failure.

So when thinking about how we can examine ourselves, there are a couple of questions that we can use, a couple of very pointed questions that we can reflect on. One is, do I believe in Jesus? That is, have I committed myself to Christ? Have I submitted to his lordship and my desiring to obey him? And that does lead into the second question. Am I serious about following him? Has my commitment to Jesus made a difference in my life? And then we can build off of those two questions to ask a third question.

Am I learning to know Jesus better? Do I know Jesus better than I did a year ago? And if we can't honestly answer yes to those questions, then we need to commit ourselves to seeking the Lord in a time when he may be found. And we need to continue to seek him because the Christian life is to be lived daily, and it is a sign of spiritual health to continually take stock of our relationship to the Lord. That's a really good reminder.

When I asked you that question, I guess in terms of a believer being bothered by doubt, but what I hear in your answer is, well, actually, we should do that regularly, whether or not we're being bothered by doubt. And maybe sometimes we're in the most danger when we are confident and complacent than when we're actually struggling with doubt. Thank you for joining us for this episode, and thanks to our donors and partners for making this possible. We publish essays on our website at anabaptistperspectives.org.

We also release these essays in narrated form as their own podcast called Essays for King Jesus.