The Danger of Unrealized Doubt

What a person says and does is almost entirely dictated by their beliefs.  What we wear is dictated in part by what we believe about the weather and social norms.   What we eat is influenced by what we believe about nutrition and taste.  How we act morally and how we prioritize our lives is largely motivated by what we believe about which worldview is true. 

It is easy to see, then, that our beliefs lie at the very core of who we are. Furthermore, our beliefs have at least three distinct properties.   All of our beliefs have some sort of content.  That is, our beliefs are based on things we take to be true.  Moreover, our beliefs have some measure of centrality.  For instance, I believe the blue whale is the largest living thing, but that is not central to my entire belief-system.  Lastly, beliefs also have strength.  My belief in my own existence is much stronger than my belief that there is water on Mars. 

Of these three properties, it is the strength of our beliefs that is most eroded by doubt.  Consider the situation where an employee believes that their boss is constantly monitoring their productivity.  Such an employee will likely be a hard and diligent worker.  However, over time, if the employee notices that they can take longer breaks and cut corners without consequence, their belief that they are being monitored may be cast into doubt.  Their work ethic will falter, and they will likely fall into a pattern of less diligence. 

Why is this so dangerous for the Christian? If we believe a certain truth (that apples are fatally poisonous, for example), we will then respond accordingly (not eating an apple).  If however we find ourselves acting counter to our conclusions (eating an apple), we can correctly conclude that we do not believe what we thought we did.  We claim to know that God is omnipotent, omniscient, good, gracious, righteous and merciful.  These are the beliefs that we hold dear.  Yet, how often do we act accordingly?  This is a question that should cut a Christian to the core.

The answer is at least two-fold.  We cannot discredit the role of sin in our lives.  It is clear that Satan believes wholeheartedly that Jesus is the Son of God, was raised from the dead and ascended into Heaven.  It is the sin in Satan’s heart that has earned him damnation, and we must be aware of our own sin as well.  But there is often something else at work within us: doubt.  We desperately want to believe that God is all loving, but we see so much evil in the world.  We want to believe that God is righteous, but so many evil deeds go unchecked.  We want to believe that God created all things, but Darwinism is preached in every school.  Our world is a doubt factory.  The real danger is that we are often unaware that these doubts are taking root in our minds.

We once had a leaking drain pipe under our house.  It was fairly far back in the crawl space, so I did not notice it for some time.  I don't even know how long the leak was there!  However, one day when I went into the crawl space for another purpose, I notice a very pungent and very large puddle under the house where there shouldn't have been one.  After following the little river of waste water deeper under the house, I found an enormous hole in our cast iron drain pipe.  Once I know the hole was there, I spent a weekend cutting out the rusty pipe and replacing it!  

In much the same way, we often go years without knowing that there are doubts eating away at our otherwise reasonable and wholehearted faith.  The cares of this world are not conducive to Christian growth, but they are persistent and ever present.  They can and do find their ways into our hearts and minds.  Once there, we do not even notice them until one day we realize that we are not even sure if we believe anymore as we act completely contrary to how we know we should be acting.  This is the danger of the unrealized doubt in our lives.  

If we love the Lord and desire to please him, but we find ourselves acting contrary to those desires, we must take action.  We must endeavor to strengthen our beliefs.  Doing so will limit sins influence, lessen our doubts and strengthen our faith.   But how do we strengthen our beliefs?  Luckily, this is fairly simple.  We must spend our time in thought!  We must set our minds on things that are above, renewing them.  We must think about the doubts that are causing us to stray.  If Darwinian thinking is causing us to look at weaker people with scorn, or that successful people are “fitter” in some sense, we must consider whether Darwinism has any merit (I posit that it has much less merit than modern man assumes).  If we find ourselves believing that material wealth brings happiness, we should consider that claim on its own merits to see if it is true.  If, however, we leave these doubts and misled beliefs reign unchecked, we will be on very dangerous ground indeed.