When it comes to doubt I’ve always considered myself extremely blessed.  There are many key aspects of the Christian faith about which I have never had the slightest doubt.

I cannot ever recall seriously doubting God’s existence.  I have no recollection of ever doubting that Jesus died for me on the cross, that I am a child of God and that all my sins have been forgiven.  The closest I have ever come to genuine doubt about any of those things is in those fleeting moments when the thought passed through my head, “What if someone just made it all up?”  Those thoughts never stayed for long because I have this conviction that the Christian faith is a faith grounded in real human history... in time and space.  It wasn’t made up!  The Christian story does not begin with the words, “Once upon a time...!”  In contrast the gospel story of Jesus begins with real places and real people that we can confirm from history.  Those facts enable us to have certainty and confidence.

I have always credited my lack of doubt to the strong gospel-centred upbringing that my father and mother gave us as kids from childhood.  I was taught Bible stories with conviction.  I was not only taught about the love of Jesus and the need to serve Him, but I saw that lived out (admittedly with failings) in the life of my Dad and Mum.  Furthermore those teachings were grounded in the concept of grace – God’s undeserved favour to sinful humanity – which is the heartbeat of the Christian Faith.

The Bible has good reason for stressing the importance of teaching the faith to our children – and teaching it well.  That’s not a politically correct thing to say these days.  Christians are often accused of brainwashing their children.  We’re told by the woke-brigade that we must let children make up their own minds when they become adults.  The problem is that too often children are not given the information that they need to be able to make up their own minds.  You cannot expect someone to make a decision about something of which they are totally ignorant.  That’s why Moses told Israel to teach God’s instruction to their children and that’s why the apostle Paul told parents to nurture their children in the things of the Lord.

However I should also admit another reason why I have little trouble with doubt.  My confidence and certainty about Christianity didn’t just come from years of careful Christian nurture by my parents – important as that was.  There is also something about the gospel story itself that leads to certainty and confidence.  In fact gospel assurance is grounded in the very character of God – His faithfulness to the promises that He makes to us in the gospel.  The writer, R.C.Sproul, in his little booklet, ‘Doubt & Assurance’, put it this way: “The nature of the God of the universe is not to bring you to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, then make you wonder for the rest of your life whether or not you have a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.” (p.73).

At this point I can imagine some of you wondering: So where does this leave those of us who have doubts?  Well, doubts can be very real.  I’ve chatted to far too many people who struggled with doubts.  However, doesn’t it all depend on what you do with those doubts...?

When pride gets hold of our doubts it drives us in the direction of unbelief.  I guess that it’s all too easy to be tempted to believe that, because we haven’t got all the answers to the hard questions of faith, that there aren’t any answers to those questions. (Sproul p.22).

On the other hand, if our doubts drive us to our knees and make us examine the Scriptures afresh then those doubts will have a positive outworking in Christian growth.  Some have even suggested doubt can be a healthy sign as it drives us to our knees and back to the Bible.

It’s not my intention to minimise doubt.  I know, for example, that when it comes to the issue of suffering questions easily crop up.  Is God really a loving God?  It’s tempting to give simplistic answers – when the book of Job struggles with that for some forty chapters.  Ultimately, here too, we must focus on the cross of Jesus – where great evil and great suffering led to great blessing – nothing less than salvation for the world.

John Westendorp