We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

Doubt as a Companion to Faith
A true and living faith is never a destination; it’s a journey. And to move forward on this journey we need doubt. Faith is not based on certainty. Think of it this way. We often cling to certainty-seeking faith like one might a map as if the map itself is actually the territory. But our “map” of God is never the complete and fully truthful reflection of the territory. We can only be genuinely open to going deeper with God if we hold our maps in a flexible way.
This kind of openness recognizes the benefit of doubt. This kind of doubt makes room for us to struggle on the inside of our relationship with Jesus because our faith is not found in how certain we are, but in the faithfulness of Christ.
Exploring the doubts we might have inside this relationship allows us to be honest, open, and as objective as possible as we work through issues without fear that the faithful love of Christ for us hangs in the balance. And the freedom to explore these kinds of doubts makes us adept at remaining humble as we remember that our maps are always limited and tentative, whether we are talking about our relationship with God or other people. The map is not the territory.
With our confidence in the faithful love of the self-sacrificial character that Jesus displayed on the cross, exploring doubts can free us to honestly explore our map for ourselves. Knowing how easy it is to be self-deceived, this kind of doubt allows us to explore whether we really believe what we say we believe.
More importantly, it empowers us to better relate to God, whose perspective is always further beyond our own than the stars are beyond us. Doubts that you explore within your relationship with Jesus can give you the space to wrestle toward an ever-deepening, increasingly intimate relationship with another. Doubt is not the enemy of faith. It’s a much-needed companion.
If you’re among those who have felt the need to try to avoid doubt and strive for certainty, if you are among those whose security has been wrapped up in a commitment you made at some point in the past that you thought “sealed the deal” between you and God, or if you are one of those many who embraced the idea that faith is an invisible thing that has no necessary connection to how you live, day in and day out, maybe it’s time you consider a reframe. Maybe it’s time to let go of the certainty of your map and embrace the relationship.
—Adapted from Benefit of the Doubt, pages 150-152
Image by Alex Siale via Unsplash
Related Reading

Christ the Center
The center of the Christian faith is not anything we believe; it’s the person of Jesus Christ. The foundation of my faith is a person, not a book and a set of beliefs about that book. Rather than believing in Jesus because I believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God, I came…

The God Who Embraces Our Doubt
Lawrence OP via Compfight Zack Hunt over at The American Jesus posted some of his thoughts on doubt, and it seemed fitting on this week before the Doubt, Faith & the Idol of Certainty conference to share what he had to say. We’re thinking he must have stumbled on Greg’s book or maybe God is…

A Rational Defense of Belief in God
The New York Times recently posted a review of Alvin Plantinga’s book, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism. In it, Plantinga argues on philosophical grounds that, among other things, theism is not in conflict with science, that a belief in naturalism along with evolution is contradictory, and that “Faith…is another basic way of forming beliefs, distinct…

Faith, Doubt and Agnosticism
Hartwig HKD via Compfight Greg was recently interviewed by Premier Radio in the UK for the program Unbelievable? along with Andrew Whyte (an agnostic) on the topic of faith and doubt. They discuss their personal journeys of doubt and how this led them on vastly different paths. You can find the interview by clicking here. You…

Gungor and Doubt
Gungor is working through the issue of doubt on their new album. (Thanks Orlando for the heads-up.) We’re busily getting ready for the Faith, Doubt & the Idol of Certainty conference tomorrow. It’s not too late to join us. Hope to see you there.