4 Assurances For The Doubting Christian

Everyone wrestles with doubts. It could be due to a painful or difficult season of life, a question you heard or thought of that you don't have a good answer for, or maybe it seems that there must be multiple ways to God and therefore what makes Jesus so unique?

Whatever the reason, doubt happens. So what can we do in the midst of doubt to keep us going? Below are four things that help me when I am struggling with doubt.

1. It is hard to deny the reality of the resurrection of Jesus

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is 1 Corinthians 15. The New Testament book of 1 Corinthians is extremely significant when it comes to whether or not Jesus actually rose from the dead.

Here's why. There is a lot of debate about a lot of things in the Bible (no surprise there). What's interesting, however, is that it is universally accepted by even the most skeptical of Biblical scholars that the Apostle Paul is the author 1 Corinthians, and wrote it in the early to mid-fifties AD. Meaning he wrote that letter within 20 years of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes about some of the people who saw and met with Jesus after his resurrection, including one instance where he appeared to over 500 people at one time. Paul then goes on to say that many of them were still alive at the time of the letter's composition (with the assumption that many in Corinth actually knew who some of these people were).

This is an awkward claim to make if Jesus didn't actually rise from the dead, since the Corinthians would reject Christianity if all these people claimed that they hadn't actually seen Jesus.

He then writes that Christians should be pitied more than anyone else if the resurrection didn't happen and they were all making it up!

While we won't get into it here, the alternative theories of what happened to Jesus (he just fainted, or he had a twin brother, or they somehow went to the wrong tomb, etc.) historically do not add up at all.

Yes, it is a supernatural thing for Jesus to actually rise from the dead, and it makes sense why we would be skeptical of it. But I have found that there are no other explanations for what happened and to explain how Christianity exploded in the midst of extreme persecution.

In seasons of doubt for me, the truth of the resurrection is always an anchor of encouragement.

2. Not having an answer doesn't mean there isn't one

Whether from personal suffering, or just looking at the pain and brokenness in the world, evil and wrongdoing can make us doubt the goodness, presence, or even the existence of God. Why would God allow so much of it?

But here is the reality; just because we can't think of a reason for suffering, or why is the world like "this," asking questions that we don't have a good answer for doesn't automatically mean there isn't a good answer. This means that hard questions don't disprove the existence of God just because they are hard.

In his greatly helpful book The Reason For God, Tim Keller writes,

Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga provides an illustration to address the above flaw in reasoning. "If you look into your pup-tent for a St. Bernard, and you don't see one, it is reasonable to assume that there is no St. Bernard in your tent. But if you look into your pup tent for a 'no-see-um' (an extremely small insect with a bite out of all proportion to its size) and you don't see any, it is not reasonable to assume that they are not there. Because, after all, no one can see 'em. Many assume that if there were good reasons for the existence of evil, they would be accessible to our minds, more like St. Bernards than like no-see-ums, but why should that be the case?"

It not true, for example, that there can't be a reason (and even a very good reason) for suffering that we in our extremely limited experience and understanding might not be able to think of. And even more than that, if Jesus really did come to do what he said he came to do, that means something even more profound.

3. Suffering doesn't mean God doesn't care. If God didn't care, he wouldn't have come

Not only can suffering lead to doubts about God in general, more specifically it leads to doubts about his goodness. All of us have wrestled with this when life has been hard.

What can happen is that because we often can't think of good reasons why terrible things happen, we then think there cannot be one. And if there is no good reason for suffering, then surely God doesn't care, isn't loving, or doesn't exist.

But like we saw with the second point, not having an answer we can comprehend doesn't mean there isn't one. And God goes a step further. He comes in the form of a man to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. He endures our shame and punishment. He gives us grace and forgiveness through Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.

This means that for whatever the reasons may be that pain and suffering happen, it is not because God doesn't care, because if God didn't care he wouldn't have come. And this is what makes Advent (the Christmas season) all the more beautiful.

God came because he cares.

4. There are no better alternatives

Finally, and I am just being honest here, there are no better alternatives. This, of course, doesn't mean the God of the Bible is the true God. But it does mean that there are even more questions (that cannot be answered) if God doesn't exist.

For example, evil, pain, and suffering are terrible things. But if a good and powerful God does not exist, then none of us can actually say what is right and wrong. We can say we don't like something (like murder, genocide, etc.) but we can't actually say it is wrong.

If God does not exist, then it really is a "strong eat the weak" world. We really shouldn't care about helping people less fortunate or about human rights. Why waste time on things like being charitable and loving to those in need when this is the only life there is and there is nothing intrinsically valuable about every human life?

These and so many more are the difficult questions that cannot be answered in a universe devoid of a creator God who finds every human being valuable. Again, this doesn't mean that God does exist, but it means God's non-existence has a lot of questions it must answer as well.

In the end, wrestling with doubts is hard. But it is also ok. God is a big God who loves and cares for us, even when we have questions. So ask questions, live in the tension of doubt and faith, and be assured that God is still there, still good, and still loves you.