This might not help, but that letter appears to be a fairly accurate summary of my own thoughts. . .

Is there a point where one doubts the presuppositions and, often, naturalistic assumptions of science?

Jeff,
This worldview question is a hard one.
I do think that there comes a time where we doubt the assumptions of ontological naturalism – that the natural world produced by meaningless physical processes, the laws of chemistry and physics, is the complete description of the universe. We can doubt (I doubt) that purpose and meaning are useless concepts.
Too often in Christian dialogue though the path to maintain a “Christian worldview” is to deny the usefulness of “methodological naturalism” in the study of God’s creation.
This simply won’t work – we need an approach of critical realism, not a blind (blindfolded) faith.

Dear Jacob,
I am sorry you are so troubled. I know this feeling, and it’s (for me) very uncomfortable.
I have responses to a couple of your points, and I hope they are helpful.
Regarding the conflict between your scientific view of the world and many of the event in the Bible, I would point out that there are different kinds of truths, conveyed in different ways. Karen Armstrong, in her most recent book, The Case for God (I think that’s the title), distinguishes between “mythos,” metaphorical, poetic truth, and “logos,” logical, scientific, quantifiable truth. To apply the way one thinks about one of these truths to the other doesn’t work; it becomes an apples-and-oranges kind of thing. So it stands to reason that the mythos of the Bible can’t be interpreted with the rules of logos that you may be used to using in your scientific work.
That stories in Exodus and the New Testament may be “fantastical” and don’t make sense is exactly the point. Miracles violate the laws of science; that is what makes them miraculous.
As to the archaeological verification of event in the Bible, my understanding is that archeology has never disproved any of the events, only confirmed them. I wish I had specific references for you but I don’t; I wouldn’t be surprised if another reader does, though.
Finally, with regard to the dry spell in your spiritual life, and your sense that God is far from you now, don’t forget that He did enter your life, and call you, once. You did not choose Him, but he chose you. Just as in a good marriage there are times when one feels less that inspired by one’s spouse, sometimes for long periods of time, it’s worthwhile in your relationship with God to just “tread water” and hold on, not doing anything damaging or life-changing until the situation rights itself. He will not abandon you.
I hope this helps. I’ll pray, too.
Your Sister in Christ

As a seminary student, I can identify with what you are saying. I can’t take many of the things I used to accept at face value anymore, and often struggle with whether it’s real or not. There are many days in which I struggle with whether I believe any of it at all.
When I went through my own period of deep doubt (not to say that I still don’t doubt), I was comforted by two things. 1) The opposite of faith is disbelief, not doubt. 2) Thomas who went through his own period of deep doubt, but is the first disciple in John to identify Jesus for who he is: “My Lord and My God.” The reason he was able to make that confession, however, was because he remained in the community of the disciples. Had he left them, I highly doubt he would have been able to confess Jesus as Lord. My own confession happened when I least expected it, in the middle of a typical, dull Sunday service. Thanks be to God.
Beyond that, I’ve come to understand that certain aspects of the story do not necessarily have to be historical for them to be true. Many times the story is really about God then it is about us or, for instance, HOW God made the world.

To add to Gerard’s comment above (#5), I was was comforted recently to read the following verse from Matthew 28. Jesus’s most intimate group (the disciples) had apparently seen miracles, witnessed his death and then seen him alive again, spoke with him directly on countless occassions…and yet at the very end of Matthew’s gospel we’re told:
“16Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; BUT SOME DOUBTED.”
I take a lot of comfort in that verse. I struggle with doubts all the time in reading an ancient document. And yet the writer(s) one of those ancient documents thought it important to mention that even some of Jesus’s disciples doubted after everything they had reportedly seen, heard, felt, touched and witnessed.
We doubters find ourselves in good company.

sorry…#6 was me (Trevor Fox)

Science and the empirical method, though based on certain assumptions, can be very helpful in understanding the way things operate. Assumptions multiply, however, when dealing with the sciences of things past so that assertions about “Where did this come from?” are more vulnerable than those about “How does this work?” There can be hidden assumptions and biases that influence the methodology. The peer review process can help, unless one’s peers share the same biases (and exclude the one’s who don’t). Over time, perhaps these may be worked out into the open and given proper assessment.
Christians do not have to be afraid of scientific methodology, nor do they have to be buffaloed into thinking that it has the last word on truth.

Jacob,
Your questions sound very much like mine. Except my doubt is more about whether the creator is the loving, Christian God, or a distant, unloving sort of deistic God. I am still working on this.
Here are some things that have helped me:
1. Get someone you trust, who doesn’t have all the answers, to sit down and talk to you about it. I’ve done this with a number of friends, and it has helped just to talk over coffee.
2. I am too analytical sometimes. One of my good friends suggested using my heart as well as my head. Like me, your head probably leaves you with open questions — i.e., it tells you that Christianity might be true, but it might not be true. Listenining with your heart (as well as analyzing with your mind) is important too.
3. Atheists have a hard time with some basic questions. Where does the raw love of others and beauty that we’ve all experienced at one point or another come from? Are we really deterministic robots, or when I feel like I am making choices, am I really in fact making them? Atheists try to answer those questions, but their answers don’t seem very strong to me.
4. Try spiritual disciplines like fasting. See where it leads you.

Sometimes, God removes his felt presence from us for a reason. Perhaps He is showing you what is in your heart. Perhaps He is showing you how much you have become dependent on Him on not dependent on Him. Perhaps He is calling you towards greater faith, even in darkness. There are numerous possibilities. The important thing is to continue in relationship with Him, even when He seems absent. Bring your questions to Him in prayer. Bring your despair or anger or confusion to Him. Perhaps this is a time where He is calling you to a different, perhaps more frank, way of relating with Him. God is interested in even these doubting, uncertain, perhaps frustrated places aspects of you.
Blessings

As a Christian who’s dealt with pangs of gnawing doubts on-and-off over the years, I’d like to something further that’s recently brought me a bit of peace.
I grew up in a conservative evangelical community, and like most was taught an anti-evolution line of thought, to read the Genesis creation story literally. 10+ years ago, after weighing the evidence, I came to peace with evolution. Today, many of my fellow Christian friends and relatives who hold to creatianism, ask me how I can believe in evolution and an old universe, and yet in a God who is sovereign. I generally try to explain to them that if God is completely “other than nature” (i.e., if he’s the creator of nature), then his interaction in/amongst creation would be totally something other than our natural minds and sences could imagine or detect. And this, I think, is the stumbling block for Intelligent Designers — ID tends to imagine a God who must interact in the world in the same cause-effect manner that we and every other created matter in the natural world must (i.e., A + B = C), even if it’s in the form of a “miracle” here and there. That’s why ID looks hopelessly for some sort of smoking gun evidence of God’s (or a Designer’s) involvement. But why should we expect to naturally find evidence of something which by it’s definition is unnatural (i.e., God)? Rather, I think God is sovereignly involved in his creation, but mysteriously and in a way totally different than our created/natural minds can detect OR imagine. And, more than that…God seems to work through what appears to us to be a “messy” creation (e.g., species that live for a while and then die out, life that needs to kills and “eat” other life in order to live, “flaws” in species design that lead to injury and disability, etc.).
More recently, when it has come to the Bible, I’ve been plagued by many of the same doubts as you. Reading it (and about it) now as an adult, it’s pretty clear to me that it’s not the perfect, literal document that our Sunday school teachers told us that it was. This caused a REAL crisis of faith for me…even up until very recently. Until…I began applying the same model of God (above) that I apply to creation of the world. Perhaps God did work sovereignly through the development of the Bible that we have today…but in the same “messy” and undetectable and mysterious way that he interacted/interacts in the development/evolution of the natural world. The scriptures were written by people and re-written by people, and fall prey to the exact some characteristics of any document written by people…especially a group of people attempting to write about their God and religion. And yet…perhaps we do have an “inspired” scripture…a scripture inspired by the Holy Spirit who interacted with it’s development in a wonderfully messy and mysterious way. We’re left with a “messy” document (just like creation itself) that doesn’t fit our imaginations of what a “perfect” document inspired by God should look like. But maybe that’s OK. I’m learning to live with (and actually even prefer, and find more exciting) a “messy” and “mysterious” Bible, in the same sense that I now prefer a “messy” and “mysterious” created natural order.
I don’t know if that makes any sense…but that’s my 2 cents.

Trevor, I don’t mean this as an attack, but…

I generally try to explain to them that if God is completely “other than nature” (i.e., if he’s the creator of nature), then his interaction in/amongst creation would be totally something other than our natural minds and sences could imagine or detect.

Well, that would mean that there would be no discernible difference between a world with a God and one without a God. It would seem that Occam’s Razor was made for that kind of chin, no?

As a word of advice, I would offer this:
Get into the presence of the Lord by getting into worship. We enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. His Word is able to discern the issues of our hearts, and His Spirit has a way of settling things in our spirits that our minds do not necessarily understand. Faith is a matter of the heart — with the heart we believe, Paul says. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, enlightened to us by the Holy Spirit.

I’ve found the dry, dark times to be when I hang onto what is necessary of the faith. I ask myself: what can I live with, what can’t I live with. It’s kept me from atheism so far because bottom line, I think there’s a force in the world that renews and I think that’s God plus I just couldn’t live as if there were no God. It’s a time I hang onto what is crucial just for doing it. I certainly get no emotional feel good from doing so.
I agree though, music can speak to your soul. But I have the sense that if you try things to recreate the feeling you had with God, you’ll butt your head against the wall time after time. Dry, dark times just have to be walked through.

Ray Ingles (#12) – Thanks! Good point (and question). I don’t want to get side-tracked on this particular blog (since it’s about Christian doubt, and not an excercise in proving or disproving the existence of God or not)…but I guess I’d simply respond to your thoughts with two questions of my own:
(1) If God is something other than the natural created order, how then could we propose to detect him and his involvement in the world if all we have available at our disposal (as created natural beings) is the created natural world (which would include physical nature & science, our thoughts/ideas about God, our ideas of philosophy & theology, etc.)? Can you ever detect or even come close to imagining something that isn’t “natural”?
(2) Assuming you could somehow detect God and is actions, how would we know which events in the world were his direct actions and which weren’t? And if you could detect events in the world that were NOT God’s actions, then who’s are they (i.e., does some other force in the world compete with God)?
I guess my point is that if God exists, then he (and his activity in the world) are WHOLEY different than we can ever begin to measure or even theorize about.

ughhh….sorry, #15 was me (Trevor Fox)

I appreciate the comments that doubt does not equal disbelief and that the disciples were “doubters” as well.
But in Jacob’s letter, I see a lot of “crises” that are self made. I am not being condemning – I make a lot of crises myself.
1) The first point is vague – what is so “fantastical” about the Exodus story and others? What exactly are the conflicts with his “scientific worldview?”
Jacob, the view that God is real and does miracles in our world and the so-called “scientific view” both rely on faith. Belief in God, miracles, and so forth rest upon assumptions that cannot be “proven” by scientific methods. But on the other hand, the belief that all truth about our world can be divulged by human reason is based upon faith as well – faith in human reason. Can we prove that all truth about our world can be divulged by human reason? No. It is not possible. Humanity is finite – we are limited – in many different ways. Again, one is based upon faith in our feelings, emotions, reasoning, past revelations by God that were witnessed corporately, present revelations by God that are witnessed and experienced personally; the other is based upon faith in human reason.
There is no definite dichotomy.
2) Historically – as a history minor, I learned what good histiography is. And one good quality is humility. There is really little we can know about the past than what primary sources tell us. Right now in historical academia, many are re-examing old beliefs and theories, assumptions, and beliefs and discovering that the lack of humility led to a lot of erroneous thinking. It seems to me that your doubts of historicity probably comes from reading popular levels books that quite honestly seek to discredit Christianity instead of presenting good scholarship.
3) As far as not experiencing God and seeing him act in our world – I don’t know how to address that one. I have experienced many supernatural events – I have prayed and seen direct answers. I have prayed and have not seen direct answers. I have prayed and been told “no, I will not answer that request in that way.” Do I see him act in our world – sure, I see Christ’s body doing something all the time – World Vision is feeding the hungry, UMCOR is helping people in Haiti, local churches in my neighborhood are bringing healing, help to those in need, and all kinds of other good things. If you look, there are mulitudes of groups and people who daily do miracles.
“If you seek, you shall find”

sometimes psychological issues muddy up God stuff. May be some counseling to poke and probe around in the thinking psyche might do some good.

When I speak of worship, I am not talking about music, although that can certainly be a part of it. Nor am I speaking of creating or recreating a feeling with God. Worship transcends the emotional level as well as the rational, which are elements of soul. But worship is an action of the spirit, an aspect of the inner being that is immediate to the Spirit of God. It goes beyond arguments of the mind, or even of the heart. It is the realm of the spirit, the Holy Spirit ministering to our spirit. It is from this depth that faith arises. As Paul said, no one can confess that Jesus is Lord (which is THE act of worship) except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3). Indeed, the natural, soulish man cannot really understand the things of God apart from the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2).

Blogs like this have helped me with my doubts. Just finding out that the stream of Christianity are so much wider and those who swim in it are much more diverse than I every thought, has helped. I love the Jesus story and what I believe is the heart of Christianity, that God is love and he has provided a way for me to enter that story and become transformed from one who is not very loving at all into one who is so full of love he forgives his enemies, even when we were killing him. He overcomes our violence without adding any violence to this world. It is that this kingdom and this king is so different from any kingdom and king of the world that validates it to me. It is too upside down to be made up. And for almost 2000 years there have been those who have followed him and released his love in the world and to me. I see the reality of his resurrection. I can touch them.
I think Jesus emphasizes that we will know who he is if we will follow him. With doubts and failures a plenty, we journey with him, letting those who are more mature and who reflect his life and love, help us. Our doubts are transformed, not into a logical certainty, but into a trusting relationship which will grow more intimate on this journey to Love. It is hard to step out of the story we and the world have created for us and to enter his story. But his call to us is to enter his story and follow, helping each other to live how he lived, and to particapate in his love. Then he says we will know the truth.
I look forward to see what Scot and others will say. Thank you for your e-mail to Scot. May you be strengthend by God’s Spirit so that Jesus will be at home in your heart and may you know intimately his love for you. Journey well my friend.

Hello Jacob,
Brother, I know you have heard this already, but I can greatly sympathize with your doubts. Sometimes just validating that ones doubts our genuine and have validity can help one find the road to healing. Both my cousin (a 29 year old biblical studies major at Emory) and a 32 year friend have have recently become agnostic or atheists and have been Christians for many years. My heart goes out to you. I am 27 and a graduate student in a Seminary in Illinois, and I am currently facing some of the same struggles as you and maybe even more. Concerning your cognitive dissonance with the Bible and science, I would recommend a few books/websites that actually helped save a portion of my faith in this area. They are 1.Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution by Denis Lamoureux or his shorter version of the same book entitled I Love Jesus and I Accept Evolution. I read the former 400+ pager and literally sighed a sigh or relief. 2. American Scientific Association =asa3.org 3. biologos.org. As far as the historicity of the Bible, you may want to try Pete Enns book Inspiration and Incarnation or Kenton Sparks work God’s Word in Human Words at two potential helps. I know one can get bogged down with books, but I thought I might just recommend a few because they have helped me rethink certain assumptions that I have had about the nature of God, assumptions of science, assumptions in hermeneutics etc.. I am currently reading a book called In Prasie of Doubt:How to have convictions without becoming a fanatic by Peter Berger in which he suggests that all truth needs doubt in order to survive. it is very intriguing and has put some things into words that I was thinking about. I feel that I am torn between sometimes wanting to believe because this is what brings me ultimate comfort vs believing because many of the arguments for general theism (let alone Christian theism)are good arguments. I was raised “through and evangelical door” and am learning that I don’t always have to (nor is it necessarily healthy) for me to think in evangelical categories whether it be about scripture, science, etc…I hope this helps brother and please know that you are not alone. In my opinion, the church has not done a good job of validating believer’s doubts and that is one thing I wish we would do better.
Your brother,
Drew

Jacob,
i’m alot older than you (59) my doubts didn’t come on suddenly but over a long time–by the time i was in my late 40s I realized that I know longer ‘believed’ in the simple faith that i’d had when i was younger. I was led to read books that told me that it was all really just a myth anyway. Then my pastor challenged us to read through the Bible with him, the timing was right for me–but i did it with a couple of very hidden and personal agendas. I wanted to prove that the myth idea was right, that there was no God who wanted us to be righteous, and that (my issue) since the Bible was male-centered it didn’t apply to me as a woman.
I did read the whole Bible that year and not only did I find the true God of the Bible, but it became a pivot point for me.
Scot’s book the “Blue Parakeet” now helps me guide others in how they approach the Bible.
I confirm all of the above posters, who state oubt is not unbelief.
Please know that there are many in the older generations who have not had the honesty to admit their doubts like you have done.

Josh (#17) — Appreciate the comments, but I’m not sure they do justice to the doubts folks experience.
Take the exodus point you mention: This isn’t just a doubt raised in popular level books, but also by many scholars. The point is that Exodus says that the firstborn of all Egyptians were killed, which would be a very, very significant event. (And other more problematic items in both the OT and NT are well known — see the Enns and Sparks books noted in a comment above). But we have no record of the killing of all firstborn in the entire culture anywhere in all of Egyptian writings, even though there is clear written evidence of lesser calamities. On the other hand, this concern doesn’t *necessarily* mean that the Exodus story isn’t true, either in its entirety, or at least in certain key parts. Or that that it takes away from other things like the historical nature of the resurrection. But I don’t think we do justice by minimizing the concerns.
Also, invocation of “If you seek, you shall find” rings hollow for many of us. We earnestly seek, but don’t seem to find. At least not that easily. As others have noted above, there is a long line of orthodox thinkers (like St. John of the Cross) who believed that God hides himself at times.

Dear Jacob,
While I am so sorry that you are despairing of your faith, at the same time, I know that we have to pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death on occasion. (We have to suffer with Christ in order to reign with Him.)
Meanwhile, please don?t despair of the fact that Christianity is rationally satisfying as well as emotionally satisfying. However, it might require a long journey in order to arrive at a place of peace. It required such for me, a journey that led me through doubts of His existence and His love for me ? some of the most painful trials imaginable.
I learned that, at times, all I could do was to cry out to a God, whom I barely could trust, and implore Him to take me by the hand. I wasn?t ready for the bigger issues. First, I had to learn how to be a babe. Nevertheless, I would like to point out that many of what we conceive to be rational problems evaporate when scrutinized objectively.
For example, you state, ?Sometimes now I wonder if it’s easier to believe that Jesus was a mistaken Jew and that we got it wrong about the resurrection.?
Such a reaction is totally natural in light of the internal conflict you are experiencing. However, you are probably thinking, ?How can I truly be loving God as I ought if I?m thinking that it would be better if I could forget about the whole thing!?
Please don?t worry about these things. Just accept the fact that we are wholly unworthy of Him and, apart from our Savior, none of us would be able to maintain one shred of faith (1 Peter 1:5). Just know that without Him, you can do nothing (John 15:4-5; 2 Cor. 3:5) and just wait on the Lord (Psalm 27). What is impossible with us is possible with God (Matthew 19).

Jacob,
I love the line in *The Count of Monte Cristo* when the old dying Abba responds to Dantes who said, “I don’t believe in God.” The Abba says, “That is all right. God believes in you.”

i appreciate the honesty. i love that you are willing to ask the tough questions and not satisfied with Sunday school answers.
a couple thoughts…when it comes to doubt, my first thought is the man who comes to Jesus in Mark 9 and says, “I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief.” it seems like this might be one of those Sunday school answers i mentioned, but i believe recognizing, naming and owning the struggle with doubt is the beginning of something good. it’s the beginning of a conversation with God and godly people, not the end.
finally, i had a student say something similar to me a while back; that is, he had his doubts about faith. my advice: read the Gospels. read them and pay close attention to Jesus. then ask yourself, “Do you want to follow and live like him?” this is obviously a little simplistic, but it speaks to the heart of the Christian faith. if God revealed himself through Jesus Christ, then after looking at the person and work of Jesus, do you want to follow and believe in the God revealed through Christ?

Too me the third question seems the most important one :
3) If God is a present reality, how come I can’t experience him actively in my life as a real and dynamic person, can’t be hard for God to intervene in our world right? I know he doesn’t have to, but am I supposed to believe that God is a god who just acted once or twice in history and now just watch us until suddenly Jesus returns?
The last 5-6 years I’ve started to experience exactly that. And it helped me (with the help of some very dear friends) to put my reasoning on equal footing with my heart, as an above poster mentioned.
To experience God as a real person, and not a theoretical entity has changed everything for me. How can I doubt the existence of somebody I know? For me it is impossible. Until I started to live this, I often had the same questions as you (and they are not necessarily answered yet, at least not fully), but now it is less important. I’ve chosen to put my trust in God and in what he says.
My advice would be to get together with somebody who lives this, and spend time with this person. Learn to live loved by following the example of somebody who is already living it. Make christianity a relational exercise, with God and friends, not an intellectual one. Even though the intellectual part is very important, it is not the part that will help you live close to God.

BTW, a now quite well-known book which touches this in a way I appreciated a lot is “The Shack”, by Paul Young.

Jacob-
There are a lot of great answers above, and anything added to it might simply muddy up the waters. I do want to echo the above sentiments: Faith is not the absence of doubt. In fact, I would argue that faith is the process of wrestling with doubt. As one who has wrestled with doubt (and, as a campus minister, helps others do the same), I thank you for your honesty and authenticity.
One of the things that transformed my own thinking is the way to read the Bible. According to Dever (and others), the Bible should be read as: history, literature, and theology. (Or combinations of the above.) Reading the Bible primarily as a book of theology, attempting to teach us about God and our relationship as a people with him, has helped me with some of the difficult passages/stories.
If you want information about the Exodus (in particular), a great book is Israel in Egypt by James Hoffmeier. He presents a lot of archaeological evidence to support the traditional, biblical account.
I would challenge you to confront your doubts head on, and read both sides of the equation. (Don’t get taken in by long words or silly arguments on either side. Sit down and read with clarity, and wrestle with the information you encounter.
God is big enough to take our wrestling with him. (Hence why Israel are “those who wrestle with God.”) As spiritual Israel, never stop wrestling.

For a long time people have been trying to place God into their “BOX,” expecting him to fit their theological paradigm. He is beyond the grasp of our finite intellect which makes some details of his existence and our interaction within his framework of time quite hard to understand. As for the ancient histories from the Old Testament, particularly the creation periods, we as nerdy, finite beings want to understand God as if a clock is running on the wall right next to this year’s calendar. He stated in the Bible that “a day is as a 1000 years.” Maybe, just maybe, our time-line isn’t as accurate as God’s. I for one am not going to be all caught up in the quabble over which came first, the chicken or the egg. Archaeology has for the most part upheld the majority of the Hebrew history. Either you dwell in the world of the unbelieving scientists, or the realm which passeth all human understanding where God dwells. Your choice As for the second issue, YOU and only YOU will be the best judge of assessing God’s presence in the world today. There are all kind of phonies trying to impress everyone including themselves that God exists by claiming miraculous happenings. That is their way of over-riding their innate disbelief. They must “see” proof, kinda like the Jews who wouldn’t believe unless they could see, (that’s what Paul said.)The BIG miracle that God is doing, or not doing in the world today is changing people. If, as you read the Bible You allow Jesus’s teachings to change your life then You will see God working in you. As Paul spoke about “putting off the old man” let Christ do the only miracles he’s promised to us in this dispensation “making us like him.” If you really are a child of the King, let him make you into his image. When we no longer resemble sons of Adam a miracle has taken place. Go Ye therefore and share Christ Jesus with the world in a manner that lifts up His name.

@EricG
The post by Jacob addressed the historicity of those events(Exodus)- so that’s what I addressed.
I will be the first to admit that I struggle with ethical issues like the death of the firstborn in Egypt or the apparent genocide upon the entrance into Canaan. These are tough issues, to say the least.
But I want to say something about doubt. If we are struggling with a particular issue of doubt, then we need to write out specifically what we are doubting and start asking some questions, especially about our own assumptions.
There are many who honestly struggle . . . but then there are those who simply let things get into their heads and never “seek” – thus, the invocation “seek and you shall find.”
The scriptures invite struggling – read the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, the conversations between God and people – Abraham, Moses, and Habakkuk.
Again, I struggle with doubt all the time and minister to those who do. But, there are those in our Western culture who simply accept information that comes down from higher levels, even if it is highly contentious, as “true” without every questioning it. Yet, they have no qualms questioning the testimony of the history of God and his people.
We all struggle with doubt . . . but there is still no excuse for laziness of thought.

I would like to very respectfully and lovingly address Espen?s following comment which states:
?Make christianity a relational exercise, with God and friends, not an intellectual one. Even though the intellectual part is very important, it is not the part that will help you live close to God.?
I must admit that I struggle with this comment for the following reasons:
1. While God has called us to cultivate a relationship with Him and others, I believe (as I?m sure you do) that he also champions honesty, whether it is ethical or intellectual. This is precisely the rub for me. In my experience (and I would venture to say that I?m not alone), it seems that that the more intellectually honest I am with myself, the more that doubt (which is not necessarily bad) creeps into my thinking. Now I know that intellectual honesty does not always lead to skepticism (I know I have had my intellectual breakthroughs with faith), but it has sometimes drastically reduced my confidence levels pertaining to certain issues regarding God, faith, Scripture etc?. issues that I had once thought ?obviously? answered.
2. If our LORD champions honesty, then it would seem well nigh impossible (at least for me), one who has been in Seminary for two years and who reads a lot to dismiss some of the glaring difficulties/problems pertaining to belief in theism (let alone Christian theism), the authority of Scripture, the historical/theological gap pertaining to the knowledge of Christ etc?Gone are the days of easy believism. I am somewhere in between the former and chronic skepticism. Admittedly, there is a large spectrum in between those two extremes and I find myself having to navigate those waters with much more humility than ever before.
3. I find it very hard (if not impossible) to mentally wall off the relational side from the academic side of faith. I believe people are holistic and long for things to make sense and be coherent. Our intellectual life will influence our devotional life and vice versa. But, I would venture to say that many if not most Christians came to know Christ due to an experience or through somebody that witnessed to them. That is to say, I don?t think most Christians weighed some of the most important evidence for or against their faith before the accepted Christ. Of course the former statement does not necessarily invalidate the truth of the Christian faith. I say this only to make a point: Many Christians, including myself, were not encouraged to really dig deep into their faith (sometimes even later in life) and strictly focused on the relational/devotional side of faith to the point that when they were finally introduced (whether intentionally on un-intentionally) to the problems/difficulties of Scripture, God, and faith, they either avoided evidence that seemed to challenge some of their beliefs, were given platitudes to recite back, or deemed the challenges as illegitimate.
4. I really sympathize with those who want to be authentic and honest with themselves. One of the fears I think many Christians (including myself) have is that once they admit so much they wonder what kind of faith they have left. I know the angst of wanting to be honest with myself and asking the question ?At what cost?? By implying (I presume un-intentionally) that the relational part is the part that will bring one closer to God, you have seemed to paint a picture that one can easily wall off the devotional from the intellectual side of faith. Your comment also does not seem to do justice to those of us are wondering what king of faith we have left after it has been challenged and criticized. This, I presume is an angst that many of my brothers and sisters have that goes unsaid because they feel they can?t fit in at their churches on one hand and are ?avoiding? counter-evidence when talking with a skeptic.
These are just some thoughts Espen. If I have misunderstood you, please let me know because this is an issue of major importance to me.If I have been less than gracious, I apologize in advance. God bless

Josh,
Thanks. My comment did, in fact, relate to the historical Exodus question, not the ethical question. Please see above.
As to “laziness of thought,” that doesn’t sound at all like the person who emailed Scot (or, I can assure you, myself for that matter). In fact, none of the many folks that I have met who doubt could be put in that bucket.
In fact, some of the institutional church-type folks who respond to my doubts are more likely guilty of “lazziness of thought.” This is consistent with the comments above which knock the typical “sunday school answers”; I think that is a common (although not universal) experience.

Here is my personal take of “the three questions” as a layperson.
1) Natural sciences and theologies provide models of reality. The models don’t have to cohere and/or begin with the same assumptions. Certainly there are theologies that “play nicely” with natural science. Seek those ones.
2) What does “historical” really mean? Natural science strives to cleanse itself from subjectivity, whereas what constitutes history is necessarily primarily subjective. Given different starting points, it is reasonable for historical narrative to contradict science. An historical event must not only be recognized by someone but also given meaning after the event has taken place. In other words, an historical event only becomes such once someone tells a story about it that endures. An unrelated pile of facts does not make history. The Christ event is necessarily a retroactive interpretation of history given by the Church. It seems to me the reasonable ways to oppose a Christ-centered historical narrative are: (a) natural science is the new meta-narrative and thus universally trumps historical narrative, or (b) offer another historical narrative based on other historic texts. For me, the Christian narrative stands out as better than (a) or (b).
3) I experience God, for example, whenever I experience God’s love, often times in the context of the church community.
I would add that the question of existence of God is no longer primary to my faith. I don’t know that it’s really necessary for Christians to establish a doctrine that God (the father) exists (or is a/the being). What _reveals_ God seems to be more important, regardless of whether or not a category of existence/being applies. It is quite obvious to me that the natural laws studied by science reveal God generally. Regarding special revelation, I’ve been reading Michael Horton’s book Covenant and Eschatology in which he argues that covenants (and their fulfillment) dramatically unfolded in the biblical texts reveal God acting in history.

@EricG
O.K., I see, you are referring to the fact that there is no precedent for the killing of the firstborn by a deity (or something in that vein). As far as histiography goes, it is very difficult to compare the experiences of Israel with the experiences of other nations/religions.
And that, the big picture, should be an answer to the 1st question. Are there any other nations, in the history of the Middle East, in the history of the world, that experienced such a phenomenom as encountering the actual presence of the God they worship? NO, there isn’t. When I first began my studies, I was astonished when I compared primary sources of various ANE religions and Western myths. There is nothing close to the scriptures.
But I want to push back about the “laziness of thought.” I am right there with you about “Sunday school answers” and conservative folk who give glib and unthoughtful answers to intellectual struggles.
But I have the same mode of thought among those who reacted against this kind of thinking. Just because one rejects “Sunday school answers” does not mean that one rejects the kind of “laziness of thought” associated with it.

Dear Brother,
I can identify. It’s interesting that Michael Card after many years as a Christian put out an album entitled The Hidden Face of God. Great lyrics. In one of the songs he points out how believers get lost sometimes. Yes we do, in fact I think I do quite often.
Faith in a sense is only good if there’s a sense of lostness, in other words a sense of utter need and dependence on God. We see this in biblical characters such as Job, and in a true measure even with Jesus.
Faith is hardly faith if it’s easy. If we don’t struggle and doubt, maybe that’s an indication that we really don’t have a living, genuine faith. But if we do, maybe that’s an indication that our faith is genuine. I see myself after decades as a Christian as being more settled in my faith in an unsettling kind of way. So that I just know I’m completely dependent on God, that I’m in over my head in life, and without his help I’m sunk.
Good words from other comments here. I do live with doubts, but I don’t see that as indicating lack of faith, but quite the contrary.
Along with others here I will be praying.
Your brother.

I can relate as well. Here is something I’ve found helpful at times: we don’t worship the Bible, we worship the living Christ. The Bible, in all its perplexities and different genres and different kinds of historiography, witnesses to the living Christ. Our knowledge of Christ is a personal knowledge — one that is relational — and our assurance of faith is supplied by the Holy Spirit.
From this personal knowledge of Christ and this testimony of the Holy Spirit we derive our confidence that the Bible is trustworthy and truthful. We would not recognize the Bible as inspired without the testimony of the Holy Spirit. It’s a mistake, I think, to expect the Bible to be authenticated based on external rules of truthfulness. It is “self-authenticating” based on the testimony of the Spirit.
When I understand that the Spirit testifies to the Bible’s truthfulness, I’m able to relax a bit about exploring what exactly the means in relation to all the different sorts of literature contained in the Bible. I’m then also free to sift somewhat critically through all the different claims different people make about the historical referents for the various Biblical narratives. In some cases I expect there is more underlying historical referent than some people might think, in others perhaps our understanding of the literary nature of the text is growing, but in no event does this imply deception or untruth.

Scot,
I don’t know whether it’s applicable or not but Richard Beck has been posting on “doubt” for a couple of days on his blog “Experimental Theology”. The URL is http://www.experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/.
Dean

I don’t mean this to sound harsh, but: sometimes I wonder if we middle-class Americans struggle with faith because there is so much other interference in our lives. There’s little doubt that it’s no coincidence that the fastest growing churches are in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Jesus Christ has always been the hope for the poor, oppressed and marginalized people of the world. And who can ever forget the Haitians still worshipping God after the earthquake?
A friend told me many years ago after returning from a trip to East Germany — pre-1989 — that she met a woman there who told her E. German christians prayed for those of us in the West because we’re surrounded by too much materialism and distractions from our true meaning and purpose in life. Perhaps America will have to go through some extended period of trials and tribulations in order to more closelly connect with God.

@Drew
Hello Drew, I appreciate your questions and I will try to explain myself better. I do have a bit difficulty expressing myself clearly, this being a subject where there are quite a lot of confusion (also in my head) and english not being my mother toungue.
I agree completely with your decision to be honest with yourself and it is something which is very important for me and that I try to live myself the best that I can.
The key point is that I experience God to be a real person. It has not always been that way, but today I could not doubt the existence of God even if I wanted to. It is not because of fear of the alternative, it’s just that I know, like I know the existence of anybody else I relate to.
That does not mean that I choose to ignore what scientists say and that I affirm blindly what I understand the Bible says. But it means that instead of thinking “this doesn’t work out, God must be wrong” or going into my christian bubble where nobody challenges my worldview, I ask God “hey, what does this mean?”. Sometimes I get an answer, some times not, but I do not stop asking until I get peace in my heart (of course I also search for information in books or on the internet, if I know where to search).
I do sympathize with you who have doubts on the existence of God, I have been in this kind of situation and it is painful. My solution was not to stop thinking, but to submit my thinking to God because deep inside I knew that God existed. It is not a question of detatching the rational from the relational but a question of who do you trust the most?
Jesus said he was the truth. That means that any worldview we can construct, even an evangelical christian one, is not truth. Even one so-called “based on the Bible” (or on science). It might be the best we can do, but it is not everything and very probably wrong in many places.
I hope it is a bit clearer… (and I need to study…)

“1) i find it really hard to reconcile my scientific worldview with the seemingly fantastic stories of much of the bible such as the exodus and stuff”
Science does not say miracles are impossible. Scientists say that. Science cannot say whether the creator of the universe might occasionally violate His own natural laws.
But if God can create a universe, it seems reasonable that He should be able to bypass the rules when He sees fit.
“2) it would have been fine if there’s evidence for those events archeologically or whatever, but so many things seems to go against the historicity of the bible in general”
A great many things historians and archeologists said were false in the Bible have seen been shown to be true. Of those that are still believed to be false, I think patience is the best stance.
Archeology is not an exact science. It’s picking through the dirt, looking for those clues that survived the ravages of time and trying to interpret them properly. Don’t put too much weight on those findings.
“3) If God is a present reality, how come I can’t experience him actively in my life”
So many Christians have struggled with this. CS Lewis, in the Screwtape Letters, suggested God lets us feel alone when we go through the valleys because it makes us stronger on the other side.
It still sucks though.
Good luck. Don’t give up.

God does great things through the weak. we see this theme through the bible.