Spiritual Doubt

A nine-year-old asked not too long ago how it is that we know the Bible is true. How do we know it is not just made up stories, a fiction?

It is a big question for a young child to ask, but it is an important one to ask. If he doesn’t ask it, then he will never have a faith richer or deeper than his parents’ faith. This child is a believer, as much as one can be at that age, and a seeker. He wants to believe, but needs to understand.

As strange as it may seem, one of this boy’s keys in his spiritual formation is his doubt.

I can say this because I understand there being two kinds of doubt. The first is the kind we find in James 1:6—someone asking wisdom of God but not really believing God can or will grant such a thing. I call this doubt of accusation. Our very request of God is an accusation against God: “This will prove you don’t exist!” The doubt of accusation assumes that God is not willing or able to do as he has.

But there is another kind of doubt, a spiritual doubt. Spiritual doubt assumes God does exist and will be faithful to His promises, but confesses the reality that we cannot see how it is possible for God to do so. “I believe,” the man cried to Jesus. “Help my unbelief.”

Spiritual doubt longs for God to be known, and so it not opposed to faith. On the contrary, spiritual doubt admits our human frailty and finitude. We may not “get it.” But at least there is something to get.

Perhaps this spiritual doubt is reminiscent of Anselm’s “faith seeking understanding.”

Perhaps this quotation from Thomas Merton will be helpful:

Faith is not the suppression of doubt.
It is the overcoming of doubt,
and you overcome doubt by coming through it.
The man of faith who has never experienced doubt
is not a man of faith.
(Asian Journal, 306)