Doubt

Note: Last Updated 6/4/2025.

George MacDonald:

     “I’ve brought Curdie, grandmother. He wouldn’t believe what I told him and so I’ve brought him.”

     “Yes — I see him. He is a good boy, Curdie, and a brave boy. Aren’t you glad you’ve got him out?”

     “Yes, grandmother. But it wasn’t very good of him not to believe me when I was telling him the truth.”

     “People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn’t seen some of it.”

(George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin, [Philadelphia: David McKay, 1920], Ch. XXII, pp. 147-148.)

Timothy Keller:

     The faith that changes the life and connects to God is best conveyed by the word “trust.” Imagine you are on a high cliff and you lose your footing and begin to fall. Just beside you as you fall is a branch sticking out of the very edge of the cliff. It is your only hope and it is more than strong enough to support your weight. How can it save you? If your mind is filled with intellectual certainty that the branch can support you, but you don’t actually reach out and grab it, you are lost. If your mind is instead filled with doubts and uncertainty that the branch can hold you, but you reach out and grab it anyway, you will be saved. Why? It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you. Strong faith in a weak branch is fatally inferior to weak faith in a strong branch. 

     This means you don’t have to wait for all doubts and fears to go away to take hold of Christ. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you have to banish all misgivings in order to meet God. That would turn your faith into one more way to be your own Savior. Working on the quality and purity of your commitment would become a way to merit salvation and put God in your debt. It is not the depth and purity of your heart but the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf that saves us.

(Timothy Keller, The Reason For God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, [New York: Dutton, 2008], p. 234.)

Timothy Keller:

Jesus asks the disciples, “Do you still have no faith?” That could actually be translated as “Where is your faith?” I love that way of phrasing it. By asking the question in this way, Jesus is prompting them to see that the critical factor in their faith is not its strength, but its object.

     Imagine you’re falling off a cliff, and sticking out of the cliff is a branch that is strong enough to hold you, but you don’t know how strong it is. As you fall, you have just enough time to grab that branch. How much faith do you have to have in the branch for it to save you? Must you be totally sure that it can save you? No, of course not. You only have to have enough faith to grab the branch. That’s because it’s not the quality of your faith that saves you; it’s the object of your faith. It doesn’t matter how you feel about the branch; all that matters is the branch. And Jesus is the branch.

(Timothy Keller, King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus, [New York: Dutton, 2011], p. 55.)

Doubting.

Augustine of Hippo:

Dost thou wish to understand? Believe. For God has said by the prophet: “Except ye believe, ye shall not understand.” …If thou hast not understood, said I, believe. For understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that thou mayest understand; since, “except ye believe, ye shall not understand.”

(Augustine of Hippo, Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John, 29.6; trans. NPNF1, 7:184.)

Mark 9:24b:

I do believe; help my unbelief.

(New American Standard Bible: 1995 Edition.)

Francis S. Collins:

     Doubt is an unavoidable part of belief.

(Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, [New York: Free Press, 2007], p. 33.) 

Paul Tillich:

The affirmation that Jesus is the Christ is an act of faith and consequently of daring courage. It is not an arbitrary leap into darkness but a decision in which elements of immediate participation and therefore certitude are mixed with elements of strangeness and therefore incertitude and doubt. But doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. Therefore, there is no faith without risk. The risk of faith is that it could affirm a wrong symbol of ultimate concern, a symbol which does not really express ultimacy (as, e.g., Dionysus or one’s nation).

(Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology: Volume II: Existence and The Christ, [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1957], p. 116.)

Frederick Buechner:

…doubt is not the opposite of faith but an element of faith, in other words goes hand in hand with it. I have faith that there is an all-loving, all-powerful God in spite of the fact that I have no sure way of knowing that there is. Not knowing for sure means that maybe I am wrong.

(Frederick Buechner, The Longing for Home: Recollections and Reflections, [San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996], p. 168.)

Os Guinness:

…doubt is not the opposite of faith, nor is it the same as unbelief. Doubt is a state of mind in suspension between faith and unbelief so that it is neither of them wholly and it is each only partly. This distinction is absolutely vital because it uncovers and deals with the first major misconception of doubt — the idea that we should be ashamed of doubting because doubt is a betrayal of faith and a surrender to unbelief. No misunderstanding causes more anxiety and brings such bondage to sensitive people in doubt.

     The difference between doubt and unbelief is crucial. The Bible makes a definite distinction between them, though the distinction is not hard and fast. The word “unbelief” is usually used of a wilful refusal to believe or of a deliberate decision to disobey. So, while doubt is a state of suspension between faith and unbelief, unbelief is a state of mind that is closed against God, an attitude of heart that disobeys God as much as it disbelieves the truth. Unbelief is the consequence of a settled choice. Since it is a deliberate response to God’s truth, unbelief is definitely held to be responsible. There are times when the word “unbelief” is used in Scripture to describe the doubts of those who are definitely believers, but only when they are at a state of doubting that is rationally inexcusable and well on the way to becoming full-grown disbelief. Thus the ambiguity in the biblical use of unbelief is a sign of psychological astuteness and not of theological confusion.

     So it is definitely possible to distinguish in theory between faith, doubt and unbelief (to believe is to be in one mind, to disbelieve is to be in another and to doubt is to be in two minds.) But in practice the distinction is not always so clear-cut, especially when doubt moves in the direction of unbelief and passes over that blurred transition between the open-ended uncertainty of doubt and the close-minded certainty of unbelief.

     But the overall thrust of the biblical teaching on doubt is plain. A variety of words is used but the essential point is the same. Doubt is a halfway stage. To be in doubt is to be in two minds, to be caught between two worlds, to be suspended between a desire to affirm and a desire to negate. So the idea of “total” or “complete” doubt is a contradiction in terms; doubt that is total is no longer doubt, it is unbelief.

     Of course, we may call our doubt “total doubt” or charge it with unbelief. But only if our purpose is to stop doubt short and see that it does not become unbelief. When the father of the demoniac boy cried out to Jesus, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” he was condemning his own doubt as unbelief. But his words have become a doubter’s prayer for good reason. Jesus, who never responded to real unbelief, showed by answering his prayer and healing his son that he recognised it as doubt. The distinction between doubt and unbelief, though not hard and fast, is valid and useful. Its importance, however, is not that we know when doubt becomes unbelief. Only God knows that and human attempts to say so can be cruel. But it means that we should be clear about where doubt leads to as it grows into unbelief.

(Os Guinness, God in the Dark: How to Understand and Resolve the Dilemmas of Doubt, [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1996], pp. 17-19.)

Os Guinness:

     Here are three tips for followers of Christ who wish to have a view of doubt that strengthens faith: (1) Remember the character of doubt; (2) learn to resist its confusion, and (3) uncover and confront doubt’s real causes.

     First, remember the character of doubt. Contrary to widespread misunderstanding, doubt is not the same as unbelief, so it is not the opposite of faith. Rather it is a state of mind in suspension between faith and unbelief. To believe is to be of one mind in accepting something as true; to disbelieve is to be of one mind in rejecting it; to doubt is to waver somewhere between the two, and thus to be of two minds. This important distinction uncovers a major misconception of doubt—the idea that a believer betrays faith and surrenders to unbelief by doubting.

     This twoness or doubleness represents the deepest dilemma of doubt. The heart in doubt is a divided heart. Here is the essence of the biblical view of doubt, which is echoed in human language and experience from all around the world the New Testament words for doubt—for example, dipsychos, diakrinō, distazō, dialogizoma, and meteōrizomai—have this sense of doubleness. So also do many other languages. The Chinese speak of a person with “a foot in two boats” and the Navajo Indians of “that which is two with a person.”

     An all-important difference exists, therefore, between the open-minded uncertainty of doubt and the closed-minded certainty of unbelief. Because faith is crucial, doubt is serious. But because doubt is not unbelief it is not terminal. It is a halfway stage that can lead on to a deepened faith as easily as it can break down to unbelief.

     The doubleness or indecision of doubt can be described from the outside with high-noon clarity. But from the inside it is foggy, gray, and disorienting. The world of doubting feels like a world with no landmarks and no bearings. Thus a second tip for those who want to develop a view of doubt that strengthens faith is: Learn to anticipate and resist the confusions of doubt.

     Followers of Christ are not simply fair-weather believers. They are realistically committed to truth, people who “think in believing and believe in thinking” as Augustine expressed it. They are, therefore, like experienced pilots who can fly in bad weather as easily as in good, by night as well as by day, and upside down as well as right side up. Faith’s rainy days will come and go and dark nights of the soul may threaten to overwhelm, but safe flying is possible for those who have a solid grasp of the instruments (God’s truth and promises) and a canny realism about the storm and stress of doubt.

     Many common confusions about doubt can be cleared away with help. For example, doubt is confused with unbelief, which reinforces doubtfulness by adding guilt. Others divorce faith from knowledge. Knowledge becomes assigned strictly to the realm of certainty and faith to uncertainty. There is the confusion of thinking that, because God is the answer to all doubt, only answers that are theologically correct “God-talk” are sufficient. Such confusions are an aggravation of the doubt, not its real source.

     The first two tips for handling doubt are vital but obviously preliminary. Without remembering the character of doubt, any outbreak of uncertainty can call faith into question before doubt ever specifically doubts anything. Without resisting doubt’s confusion, the symptoms can sidetrack a serious investigation of the root causes. But when these two steps have been followed the real job remains—the believer must tackle those root causes. The third tip for those who want to strengthen faith through doubt is that they must resolve the specific challenges that underlie it.

     Any attempt to draw up an exhaustive catalog of doubts would be overwhelming and depressing. But anyone who listens to doubters and studies doubt in the light of the Scriptures soon finds that there are “family resemblances”.among doubts. It is, therefore, possible and helpful to discern a broad overview of the main types. Of course, these broad “families” are only generalizations. Doubting is specific, and doubts strike everyone differently. But, when used with sensitivity and compassion, the categories are anything but a straitjacket. They help people to see where they are, how they got there, and—most importantly—how they can get out.

     It has been my privilege to talk to hundreds of individuals who have experienced different kinds of doubt and differing levels of pain and confusion. No one who understands the pain and perils of doubt can be blithe about it. Loss of trust in God is truly life’s ultimate loss. But such is the nature of faith in God through Christ, affirmed by countless Christians through history, that there can be a constructive side of doubt.

     True, there is no believing without some doubting. But since belief strengthens as the Christian understands and resolves doubt, we can say that, if we doubt in believing, we nevertheless also believe in doubting.

(Os Guinness, “I Believe in Doubt: Using Doubt to Strengthen Faith”; In: R. C. Sproul, ed., Doubt & Assurance, [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993], pp. 32-35.)

Note: See further: Knowing, §. 3. Epistemic Certainty.

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria