CHAPTER 2
Dare to Doubt
The Heart of Doubt Is a Divided Heart
What is doubt? And how is it related to faith and unbelief? Our English word doubt comes from the Latin dubitare, which is rooted in an Aryan word meaning “two.”
So we can start by defining our terms like this: To believe is to be “in one mind” about trusting someone or something as true; to disbelieve is to be “in one mind” about rejecting them. To doubt is to waver between the two, to believe and disbelieve at once and so to be “in two minds.”
This two-ness or double-ness is the heart of doubt and the deepest dilemma it represents. The heart of doubt is a divided heart. This is not just a metaphor. It is the essence of the Christian view of doubt, and human language and experience from all around the world also bear it out.
In English the double-ness of doubt is pictured in phrases such as “having a foot in both camps.” There are many equivalents in other languages. The Chinese picture of irresolution is humorous as well as graphic. They speak of a person “having a foot in two boats.”
In the Peruvian Andes the Huanuco Quechuas speak of “having two thoughts” and the Shipibos further to the east have an expression, “thinking two things.” In Guatemala the Kekchi language describes the doubter as a man “whose heart is made two,” while the Navajo Indians in the Southwestern United States use a similar term, “that which is two with him.”
The Greek words in the New Testament that are translated into English as “doubt” are equally fascinating. Examining root meanings is not everybody’s cup of tea, but it is worthwhile here because it sheds so much light on the nature of doubt. Notice that in each case there is an unmistakable emphasis on the ambivalence or double-mindedness of doubt.
One word (dipsukos) speaks of a person who is chronically double minded. James describes such a doubter as “a heaving sea ruffled by the wind” A second word (diakrino) is the stronger form of the word to sunder or to separate. This word can convey several meanings, but one of them expresses an inner state of mind so torn between various options that a person cannot make up his or her mind.
Jesus uses this word when he says to his disciples, “Have faith in God. I tell you this: if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted from your place and hurled into the sea,’ and has no inward doubts, but believes that what he says is happening, it will be done for him”
A third word (meteorizomai) means “to raise” or “to suspend,” when it is used literally (as it is in the root of our modern word meteor). Or it can mean “to raise a person’s hopes” when it is used figuratively. But when it is used figuratively, it can also mean to soar or to lift oneself up, and so to be arrogant in spirit.
And then, because one is lifted up in the air, it comes to mean to be unsettled and, therefore, restless, anxious, tense, and doubtful.
The last use of the word covers doubt. It describes a state of mind that is the result of an awkward position. Many modern expressions capture this ambivalence, such as being “up in the air” or being “hung up.”
When Jesus says to his disciples, “You are not to set your mind on food and drink; you are not to worry,” he is saying that God’s care for us as Father means that food and drink are not to be a hang-up, an occasion for doubt and anxiety that constantly keeps us up in the air.
A fourth word (dialogizomai) is the root of our word dialogue. Its own root is “thought,” and from that it has come to mean the inner debate of a person who is reasoning with himself or herself. The word is usually used in the New Testament for internal reasoning that is wrong or evil. Jesus uses it when he confronts the disciples after his resurrection: “Why are you so perturbed?” he asks. “Why do questionings arise in your minds?” The word opens a window into the debate raging in the councils of the disciples’ hearts as they doubted. So long as there is doubt, the debate continues and the arguments fly back and forth. Only when the votes are cast is it clear whether faith’s motion has been passed or defeated.
A fifth word (distazo) means doubt in the sense of hanging back, hesitating, or faltering. It expresses what we mean when we say that we have our reservations or vacillate about something. Matthew uses this word when he records that “Jesus at once reached out and caught hold of him, and said, ‘Why did you hesitate? How little faith you have!’”
The same word is used of those who doubted the risen Christ: “When they saw him, they fell prostrate before him, though some were doubtful.” Genuine faith is unreserved in its commitment; doubt has reservations. Faith steps forward; doubt hangs back. Doubt holds itself open to all possibilities but is reluctant to close on any.
The combined force of all these phrases and words is inescapable. If people are “torn” between options, unable to “make up” their minds, or if they are “up in the air” over something and unsure which side they should “come down on,” or if they are furiously “debating” with themselves or “hanging back,” or weighing up their “reservations,” they are nothing if not “in two minds.”
This condition of doubleness is the essence of doubt.
Doubt Is Not Unbelief
What follows from this observation is decisive for our whole discussion: 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 willful 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 stage of doubting that is rationally inexcusable and well on the way to becoming full-grown unbelief. 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.