Doubt gets a bad rap in church circles. To my way of thinking, unbelief is the antithesis of faith, not doubt. Doubt is somewhere in the middle, suspended halfway between belief and unbelief. Doubt can go either way. There are two kinds of doubt in Scripture. There is the bad kind that refuses to believe under any circumstance. Bad doubt conceals an obstinate heart. Answer one objection, and another takes its place. Some people use doubt as a convenient camouflage for a resistant will. Yet there is also good doubt in Scripture. My favorite story of honest doubt concerns a father who asks Jesus to heal his desperately ill son, “If you can do anything, have pity on us and help us” (Mark 9.22). Jesus responds, “What do you mean, ‘If you can?’ Everything is possible for one who believes.” The father’s response is classic, “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mk. 9.24). Jesus responds favorably and decisively to this dad’s honest confession by promptly healing his son.
I like what novelist Frederick Buechner writes about doubt, “Doubts are ants in the pants of faith. They keep faith active and moving.” Perhaps if people outside the church knew how much believers genuinely struggle with honest doubt, they might become more receptive to joining us. I meet people who have left the church because we failed to take their questions seriously. The writer of Jude implores us, “Be merciful to those who doubt” (Jude 22).
Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was a devoted Christian who was candid about her doubts. She even put off her baptism into the Catholic church on account of her nagging questions of faith. She decided in the end to proceed with baptism convinced, “If I had wait to get rid of my doubts, I would never be ready.” She prayed: