Refusing Doubt

Unifying the heart to fear God...

If you have read the gospels, you are surely familiar with a disciple of Yeshua named "Thomas Didymus," sometimes referred to as "Doubting Thomas." Recall that when Thomas had first heard the testimony of the other disciples that Yeshua was raised from the dead, he was apprehensive and vowed to suspend his judgment until he had sufficient evidence to believe the matter for himself: "Unless I see the wounds from the nails in his hands, and put my finger into the wounds from the nails, and put my hand into his side," he said, "I will never believe it!" (John 20:25). You know the rest of the story. When Yeshua later appeared to the disciples and this time Thomas was present, he said to him: "Put your finger here, and examine my hands. Extend your hand and put it into my side. Do not be become faithless, but believe" (John 20:27).

You might think this lesson should be obvious enough for us: "Don't doubt, but believe; don't harden your heart; don't withhold your hope; don't trust in human reason more than the testimony of faith; in other words, don't act like Thomas did! And yet today it has become fashionable to "celebrate doubt" and to "deconstruct" the testimony of our fathers. Instead of venerating the Scriptures that tell of the ordained plan of God to send Yeshua to die for our sins (Gen. 3:15; Isa. 53:1-12; John 3:16; Acts 3:18; 1 Pet. 1:20; Heb. 1:1-3, etc.), false teachers have arisen to "tickle the ears" of those who do not want to believe: "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths" (2 Tim. 4:3-4). This is that time, friends. Instead of abhorring doubt as the sin against faith, people are now encouraged to question everything they thought they knew about God, truth, life, and death - to break free from their theological biases - so that their minds will be opened and their hearts set free from hidebound and "coercive" ways of understanding. Today's "Christian skeptics" deny the authority of the Word of God, reject the Biblical narrative that tells the gospel message about the meaning of life, and are generally skeptical regarding the possibility of doing theology at all. It is not what the Bible says that is important, they say, but how you read it that makes the difference. Surprise! The Bible is more about you than anything else! Affecting humility and sincerity, these dissemblers claim that being skeptical about “traditional assumptions” and disdaining "doctrines of dogmatism" constitute an improved and more authentic way of living the Christian life...

Now while it is true that we should be honest in our convictions and humble of heart, the way of Yeshua is not to "suspend" judgment (epochē) regarding matters of knowledge and truth (John 17:3). The starting point of faith is not the "I doubt, therefore I am" of the philosophers, but rather "I am loved, therefore I am" of the LORD. Philosophical (or rational) reflection approximates the truth of faith but is always at a remove from what faith really is all about, namely, a passionate inner conviction of what is most real "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your being" is the antithesis of tentative reasoning that dispassionately withholds judgment in the reality of love. The message of the gospel is: “Find God or die.” As long as “truths” do not cut us to the heart and to the bone, we have a secret disdain for them...

The epistemology of Yeshua centers on trusting God by means of the heart. As you believe, so you will know: "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he" (John 8:28). Doubt, on the other hand, steps back from faith by attempting to "understand" it. Paradoxically, the attempt to understand by means of answering doubt's questions leads to second-order questions and doubts, and so on, ad infinitum, so that the "way of reason" becomes vertiginous, unstable, uncertain, and ultimately nihilistic. An attitude of skepticism is both unstable and “unlivewithable,” a sickness of the spirit that has no ground of being.

Indeed the epistemology of the so-called postmodern world (or the “metamodern” world as it is now sometimes pretentiously called) is notorious for failing to explain anything of substantive meaning at all.... Everything is left unexplained; no narrative is permitted (except the narrative that there is no narrative, of course); no logical connections to a “real world” are sound; there is no “story” to our lives, and therefore postmodernism entirely misses the essential point of everything. As such, it is a form of nihilism. And it is also a form of sophistry. It is one thing, after all, to affect philosophical sagacity, but that’s a “rich man’s game,” played in places of comfort, ease, and the luxury of speculative indulgences. The message of the gospel, however, is for the poor in spirit, for the heavy laden, the downcast, the hurting, and the lost. And since it does nothing to feed the ego by flattering itself, the gospel is invariably despised by the rich of this world....

It's been said that there are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is... Doubt is a type of fear, a cautionary or "protective attitude" that deems it better to refrain from believing what may be untrue than to believe what may be true. For the doubter, the risk of being wrong outweighs any benefit of being right, and therefore the skeptic lives "suspended in midair."

The life of faith, however, is decisive, a matter of the will, and therefore God commands us to trust, obey, and to know the truth. The Lord calls out to us in the storm saying, “Take heart. It is I; be not afraid” (Matt. 14:27). When Peter answered the call and attempted to walk across the stormy waters, he lost courage and began to sink, but Yeshua immediately took hold of him, saying, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt (lit., think twice)?” Faith is "lived forward" in assurance and unwavering conviction of God's reality and blessing. "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him" (Heb. 11:6). A doubting heart cannot please God because God is known in relationship, but questioning God's love - drawing near and then stepping back - makes genuine relationship impossible. If we are ambivalent in our resolve to believe, regardless of whatever we may wager to hope, we will be unable to stand still long enough to receive the blessing!

The Scriptures warn that a “double minded person is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8). The word translated “double minded” is dipsuchos (δίψυχος), a word formed from δίς, “twice” and ψυχή, “soul.” The word describes the spiritual condition of having “two souls” that both want different things at once. It is therefore a state of inner contradiction, of having two separate minds holding contradictory thoughts. A doubting heart is shattered, fragmented, and multiple. The inner "dialog" of the doubting heart is "legion" as various voices vie for control, since there is no unifying power to unify the will (Psalm 86:11). Note that "doubting" Thomas' was called "Didymus" (Δίδυμος), meaning "twofold" or "twain."

So being double minded makes us “unstable in all our ways.” Such a cross-eyed approach leads to disorientation and confusion. The Greek word used to describe being “unstable” (ἀκατάστατος) is the same word used to translate being "storm-tossed and not comforted" in Isaiah 54:11. The image of a ship being tossed in the sea pictures a state of distress and peril. Interestingly, the description of being “not comforted” is lo nuchamah (לא נֻחָמָה), which comes from the very word translated as “repent” or “regret” (nacham). When we are double-minded, we are “storm tossed” and unable to experience the comfort that comes from genuine repentance. We are like “a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6). Being "single minded" (ἁπλοῦς) on the other hand, concentrates the will and produces wholeheartedness, conviction, stability, inner peace, and genuine character. "Purity of the heart is to will one thing" (Psalm 27:4). No longer wavering in doubt or engaged in duplicity, the heart is able to commune with God and to receive the blessing.

Doubt is a form of torment, an unsettled state of soul that is forever drawing close in hope yet pushing back in fear, lost within itself with no exit, with no means to escape the dread that is behind the rationalizations, the unending questions, the constant hunger for love, the sense of alienation, only to abandon the heart's great need. Being without faith is the ultimate form of human tragedy, a self-imposed prison, a room inside of hell. In this connection Blaise Pascal wrote: "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 principal and most serious business. But as for those who spend their lives without a thought for this final end, I view differently. This negligence in the matter where they themselves, their eternity, their all are at stake, fills me more with irritation than pity: yea, it astounds and appalls me.” (Pascal: Pensees).

Of course questioning has a place in our thinking, in matters of prudence and science, for example, but when it comes to relating to God these modes of thinking are inapplicable, since metaphysically God is not a "what" but a "who," and that implies that knowing God is inherently personal, "subjective" (i.e., inward), and attained by means of faith. The truth for which one lives and dies is never approached "objectively," that is, as something of subjective indifference, but involves all of the heart and soul. As Kierkegaard puts it: "There are two ways of reflection. For objective reflection, truth becomes an object, and the point is to disregard the knowing subject (the individual). By contrast, in subjective reflection truth becomes personal appropriation, a life, inwardness, and the point is to immerse oneself in this subjectivity" (Concluding Scientific Postscript). Kierkegaard did not deny that objective truth (“science”) had its place but maintained that such knowledge only acquired meaning and “weight” when appropriated inwardly. Knowledge apart from value is indifferent; value apart from knowledge is blind... Indeed, the very value we place on knowledge indicates that it is more basic than knowledge itself. “Faith is the contradiction between the infinite passion of inwardness and objective uncertainty. In other words, if I apprehend God objectively, I do not have faith; but because I cannot do this, I must have faith" (for more on this see "Passion and Paradox"). Each person inescapably chooses to live according to the passion of their own heart, and that is the truth that marks that person’s life...

Yeshua asks the uncertain heart, "O you of little faith, why do you doubt?" (Matt. 14:31). Thomas had a skeptical mindset, a doubting heart, perhaps because he was influenced by Hellenistic thinking of his time. Recall that in the “Upper Room” when Yeshua spoke with his disciples during their last Passover together, Thomas questioned Yeshua’s promise that he was going to go and prepare and place for them, and he wondered what Yeshua meant when he said the disciples knew where he was going (John 14:1-5). Yeshua replied to Thomas by saying “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father without me” (John 14:1-6). Thomas’ doubt had blinded his heart to the very reason for Yeshua’s sacrificial death and ministry! Likewise Thomas later refused to believe that Yeshua was resurrected from the dead and insisted on getting confirmation first: he wanted to examine the body of the Lord so that he could judge whether it was really true (John 20:25). As it happened, however, Thomas was given some time to ponder the testimony of his friends. Perhaps he might have recalled how Yeshua repeatedly foretold of his crucifixion and resurrection (see Matt. 16:21; 17:23; Mark 10:32; Luke 9:22; etc.), and perhaps he was beginning to turn away his doubt to believe the miracle. A week later Yeshua appeared again to the disciples, and this time Thomas was present. Turning to him Yeshua said: "Put your finger here, and examine my hands. Extend your hand and put it into my side." Here Yeshua appeared to go along with Thomas' demand for empirical evidence, but instead he rebuked his lack of faith: "Do not be faithless, but believe" (John 20:27). Thomas' blindness was then taken way as he exclaimed: "My Lord and My God." Yeshua then asked him: "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29). It is not those who see in order to believe that are blessed, but those who have not seen and yet believe. A special blessing is given to those who believe in order to see - to those who do not need evidence or "proof" before they will believe.

So seeing is not believing, despite the old adage to the contrary. Just as the Israelites saw innumerable miracles at the time of the Exodus, the ten plagues upon Egypt, the splitting of the sea and the overthrow of Pharaoh's army, the giving of manna from heaven and water from the rock, the pillar of divine fire that led them to Sinai to become God’s people and to be in covenant with him, and so on, nonetheless later, in a time of testing, they had the effrontery to ask whether God was really with them or not (see Exod. 17:1-7). Likewise when crowds of people - including the respected religious leaders of his day - witnessed astounding miracles of Yeshua, such as giving sight to a man born blind, the healing of the lame and the lepers, and even raising Lazarus from the dead, many still refused to believe in him, again demonstrating that seeing miracles is not sufficient for the heart to believe. "This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet" (Luke 11:29). Faith itself is the miracle, and therefore evidence for faith is not found by means of the natural, but by means of God's Spirit.

So we relate to the Living God by faith, and like father Abraham this means we must not doubt or waver in our connection with him. "No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised, and that is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness" (Rom. 4:20-22).

However, when doubt arises within the mind (and it will, if we are earnest), understand it as temptation to return to the double-mindedness of despair. We must therefore renew our minds by resolving to trust in God, especially if we are tempted to qualify our resolution by seeking to understand. We take “every thought captive” to obey the Messiah. We cannot fight doubt by offering reasons, since the reasons themselves express a kind of doubt, and engaging in a debate with the voice of doubt leads to further doubt. Finding reasons to believe in God, to answer questions raised by doubt, is an downward vortex, since doubt rises against reason at every turn. The way out of this circle is to break the cycle - to silence the voice of doubt by making up your mind. "How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." As Kierkegaard says: "Offering to doubt reasons in order to kill it is like offering the tasty food it likes best of all to a hungry monster one wishes to eliminate. No... one must order it to shut its mouth and to that end keep quiet and offer no further reasons" (For Self-Examination).

Regarding the decision of faith, Blaise Pascal famously said "the heart has its reasons that reasons knows not of," which is to say "Enough! I believe!" Doubt is extinguished by an act of self-denial - taking up the cross - and receiving the miracle of the exchange (2 Cor. 5:21). Faith has its own energy and life and it needs no justification outside of itself, and indeed no justification outside of itself is possible. "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (Prov. 9:10). Faith is foundational to everything else.

So we must believe even when we suffer without explanation or reason. This again presents an occasion for self-denial. Again I quote Kierkegaard on this point: "When a person suffers then it seems as if the struggle were about justifying God... The person wants to reverse the relation, to make God the defendant, to make him the one from whom something is required... But right here is faith's struggle: to believe without being able to understand. And when this struggle of faith begins, the consciousness of guilt comes to the rescue... helping the believer not to doubt God but himself. Instead of the duplicity about thinking through the doubt, which is doubt's most dangerous appeal, the consciousness of guilt thunders 'Halt!'" (Upbuilding Discourses). Our struggle, in other words, is with ourselves, not with God, since our doubt derives from our own will which we love more than anything else. The struggle is to surrender in faith: "A Christian is a man of will who no longer wills his own will but with the passion of his crushed will wills what God wills" (Journals of Kierkegaard).

So there is a dual movement of the heart required by faith: negatively, denying the voice of doubt, and positively, abiding in the Messiah who is the Word of God (John 15:5). This is why we cover our eyes when we recite the Shema: we efface the present moment and its fallenness to affirm the unseen truth of God in all things. We press on in faith, looking for the unseen good and stoutly refusing to turn back to the vanity of despair. "In this way you become a knight who vanquishes all, disdaining all that the world possess, both its good and its evil, everything with which the devil can lure and entice or intimidate and threaten" (Luther). "When around you everything has become silent, solemn as a clear, starlit night, when your soul comes to be alone in the whole world, then before you there appears, not an extraordinary human being, but the eternal power itself, then the heavens open, and the 'I' chooses itself or, more correctly, receives itself. Then the personality receives the accolade of knighthood that ennobles it for an eternity" (Either/Or).

Someone might ask, how do we stop being “double-minded”? This is the essence of the problem, isn’t it? How do we stop being of “two minds,” experiencing that ambivalence of both wanting and not wanting something? In other words, how do we repent - both in the sense of “changing our minds” (metanoia) and in the sense of practically turning to God (teshuvah)? How do we find that purity of heart that wills one thing?

The antidote for having a “double mind” is explicitly given in the Scriptures: "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you, cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded" (James 4:8). Note that the verb used in this verse (“draw near!”) means to come close enough to touch someone or something. Understood in this light, we are encouraged to come so close to God that we are able to "touch" Him -- and to be touched by Him as well. Drawing near to God is God's way of drawing near to you... In other words, as you draw near to God, He will draw near and touch you.

In practical terms, here are some specific things we can do to “draw near to God so that He will draw near to you.” First we can simply pray and earnestly cry out to God for help. “Lord I believe; help Thou my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). The LORD is not indifferent to our suffering and has promised to give us the Holy Spirit to help us. But genuine prayer requires honesty and confession (ὁμολογία), which means agreeing with the truth about your condition. This means, among other things, identifying the ways you have withdrawn from your relationship with God. Indeed, the word homologeo (ὁμολογέω) literally means “saying the same thing” - from ὁμός (same) and λόγος (word). There’s little use trying to pretend before God or to rationalize your own double-mindedness before Him. God knows the number of hairs on your head; He surely knows the condition of your heart!

Second, we must vigorously challenge ideas that attempt to seduce us away from the truth and thereby divide our affections. We must learn to take “every thought captive” to Messiah and be on guard for subtle appeals to compromise (2 Cor. 10:5). If we find ourselves in a state of recurring temptation, we must examine the underlying assumptions that are at work in our thinking. If we dig deeper, we are likely to discover that we doubt that God cares for us, or we are fearful that God will not meet our needs. We must therefore counter such assumptions with God’s revealed truth, and that means regularly studying the Scriptures to remind ourselves about what is real rather than what is illusory. We then can learn to look at life as it really is - a spiritual world, a “valley of decision,” a corridor that irresistibly leads to the world to come. Each soul is on a journey to meet with God for judgment... God does not leave us comfortless. He has promised to never leave nor forsake those who trust in Him. We can set the LORD “always before us” (Psalm 16:8) and walk with Him during our sojourn here in this temporal world.

Third, we can practice our faith by keeping up with Torah study, observing Shabbat (and the other appointed times), enjoying fellowship with other believers, singing to worship music, giving tzedakah, ministering to others in need, etc. These are the mitzvot of our lives, the “works of love” (John 15:12). Our faith is not meant to be a "head trip" or an intellectual exercise: we are meant to live it out in the world. And as we live it, our faith itself becomes strengthened and authenticated (John 13:17). Just as loving others increases - not decreases - the love we ourselves have, so also with the practice of faith. The more we believe, the more we receive. The practice of our faith is upbuilding and encourages the inner resolve to be single-minded... "Upon three things the world does stand: upon the Torah and upon worship and upon acts of lovingkindness" (Pirkei Avot 1:2).

Finally, on a spiritual level what ultimately changes the heart is God’s power of salvation, of course. "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail” (John 6:63). This salvation is not simply freedom from the penalty of sin but freedom from sin’s power. Often, however, we are slow to realize this, and God allows us to revisit the various “waste places” of our own lusts until we have become sick of ourselves -- "to the bones." We have to be willing "to give up our sickness." Usually that means that we must experience repeated failures until we have “learned from the heart” that the LORD - and the LORD alone - is our Healer and Deliverer. Heartache and despair can lead to “godly grief (λύπη) that leads to genuine repentance in our lives (2 Cor. 7:10).

Ultimately “Salvation is from the Lord,” and brokenness of our spirit is God’s gift to us... “Blessed are the poor (πτωχός) in spirit.” This word pictures someone crouching as a helpless beggar, totally dependent on God for help. If you are struggling, ask God to help you surrender your “heart sickness” to Him.... It's HIS work, not your own, that saves... God alone truly changes the heart. Repentance is a miracle from heaven given to you, personally...

A voice says, "Cry!" And I said, "What shall I cry?" All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field" (Isa. 40:6). “All flesh is grass” (כָּל־הַבָּשָׂר חָצִיר) - we are here today but gone tomorrow. We have only so many chances to turn to the LORD and make up our minds that we will serve Him. The Torah intimates, “man is a tree of the field," i.e., הָאָדָם עֵץ הַשָּׂדֶה, Deut. 20:19). The righteous man is described as a “tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth fruit in his season” (Psalm 1:3). If you stand in front of a tree to watch it grow, you will see nothing. But if you care for the tree, nurture it over time, and provide for its needs, eventually you will see its fruit appear. God gives us each a season to repent, but if that proves fruitless in our lives, eventually we will be “cut down,” as Yeshua taught:

"A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it but found none. So he said to the vinedresser, 'Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, but I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?' But the vinedresser answered him, 'Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'" (Luke 13:6-9)

Yeshua further adominshes his people: "Remember (zachar) how you have fallen; repent (metanao) and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your menorah from its place unless you repent" (Rev. 2:5). If you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - Yeshua will “spit you out of His mouth" (Rev 3:16). These are sober words that remind us that time is short for us all. Our lives are not our own; we were redeemed at a great cost to God Himself (1 Cor. 6:19-20). Let us therefore press on in faith, refusing all doubt; let us abandon our ambivalence and silence our misgivings, friends! "Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth" (Hos. 6:3). Amen.

---

Psalm 86:11 reading

הוֹרֵנִי יְהוָה דַּרְכֶּךָ אֲהַלֵּךְ בַּאֲמִתֶּךָ
יַחֵד לְבָבִי לְיִרְאָה שְׁמֶךָ

"Teach me your way, O LORD: I will walk in your truth;
unify my heart to fear your Name."

Psalm 86:11 Hebrew page (pdf)