Truth

            I don’t know if anyone likes it. It makes sand of stone, mud of brick. It makes what was previously secure seem untenable. It causes confusion and anxiety. It leads to trust issues and a lack of joy. It causes pain.

            What is this thing? Doubt.

            I am what you could call a professional doubter. I doubt everything because I think about everything. If parts of life don’t make logical sense, if they don’t line up with reality, I discard them. If your words don’t follow your actions, I won’t believe them. If I do something simply because “that’s the way things have always been done”, I’ll change if I can find a way I deem better.

            This leads me to my faith. I don’t want to live a certain way “because that’s how my parents tell me to live”. I don’t want to believe things because “that’s just what you are supposed to believe”. No, I want to live life to the fullest, and that means throwing off things that may be wrong.

            For instance, I used to be very critical of Christian denominations I didn't agree with. The Pentecostals? Their worship was way over the top. The Catholics? Rules and rituals. The Amish? Foolish.

            But I’ve doubted my beliefs about everything, and that includes my views of other denominations. The Pentecostals? They have a passion for worshipping God not seen since a certain naked dancing king by the name of David. The Catholics? They have exemplary saints and mystics who strived to live the Christian life with such a fervor we may never know. The Amish? They are radical enough to live their faith; there is no room for the lukewarm.

            Does this mean I suddenly agree with everything everyone believes? No, but I’ve come to appreciate, through doubting myself, that there is truth in other positions. If we could extract the best from each denomination (and even other religions), what we would have would be Jesus Himself. No longer do I dismiss something because it’s not the position I hold.

            What else have I doubted? Well, I’ve not only doubted my beliefs about other denominations, but my faith itself. Does God exist? If so, He sure doesn’t know how to run the world. I would do better. I wouldn’t allow so much pain or suffering

             But then I doubted my doubt. I found through reading something called “the free will defense”. God could’ve created us with a limited potential for either good or bad. He could’ve made us like the plants, predictable and not likely to mutiny. We could’ve done little evil because we couldn’t have done much at all.

            But then our potential to do good also would be very limited. If you can’t do horrendous evil (think Hitler), you can’t do amazing good (think Mother Theresa), and vice-versa. Our potential for good or evil is equal to the free will we have. God created us with free will (I really don’t care to quibble over the definition of “free will” at the moment). So we do horrible things with it. We burn and we torture.

            But our potential for doing good is just as strong. We give kidneys to those who need it. We give our lives to save others (policemen, firefighters). We live day in and day out in thankless jobs (pastors, stay-at-home moms, missionaries, volunteers, etc.) so that we can change the world.

            Yes, the world is filled with unspeakable evil. But God gave us that potential for evil when He gave us our potential for good. You can’t have one without the other. I don’t want to be a plant. Do you?

Back to You

            So why am I telling you about my doubts and how doubting has affected me? I’m telling you this to let you know that it’s okay to doubt. Nothing’s wrong with it. This post has been about me, but really it’s about you.

            Do you doubt? Nothing's wrong with that, I do, too. All the time. It’s through doubt that you can see truth. But make sure to bring others with you on this journey because “doubt + being alone = depression”. If you don’t have anyone sympathetic you can voice your doubts to, the world is a lonely place and doubt will hurt, not help.

            In the end, it’s about truth. We all need it, but you won’t get to it if you don’t question what you accept and the life you live. You won’t get truth if you don’t think about what you believe and what others believe. What is a meaningful life? Doubt all the answers (including mine), think through them, and you will be better for it.