Christian Doubt

Everyone has a skeptical dial. You ratchet it way up when it comes to arguments or conclusions that you don’t like, but then you dial it way down for your own personally held views. In researching the Christian faith I once had, I find myself ratcheting my skeptical dial up and down. I recently caught myself doing this when listening to a podcast on the cosmological argument. I quickly want proof for a designer God, but don’t demand proof for the opposing theory of a multiverse. Both sides of the argument cross over into  metaphysics, but I find myself more skeptical of the arguments that have religious implications. I place the burden of proof on Christianity; however, at the end of the day belief in a multiverse may take as much faith to believe in.

Granted a skeptical dial is beneficial and I use mine every day. For instance, I am not skeptical of the traffic lights, or the evening news, or the love of my wife.  However, I am skeptical of the Spaghetti Flying Monster, acupuncture, and astrology. Other things fall on a range of skepticism. For instance I believe the 1 day weather forecast over the 7 day forecast, and I believe the 7 day forecast over the Farmer’s Almanac.

But when seriously weighing two sides of an argument, it is unfair to put an unreasonable burned of proof on one side, because that biases the conclusion before research even starts. So while I keep searching, I need to remember to keep my hands off the dial, and require from both sides the same burden of proof.

Tim in the comments quoted an excellent passage from Andrew Peabody. It was so good that I wanted to highlight it here as a separate post.

There are two kinds of scepticism,—that of the heart and that of the intellect. The former is adapted to make unbelievers; the latter, to make Christians. The fomer will not look at the hands and the side, because it is determined not to be moved morally and spiritually as they would move the honest soul; the latter insists on seeing the wound-marks, because it wants to know the precise truth, and therefore avails itself of whatever evidence God has given. The scepticism of the heart hates the light, and will not come to the light, lest its deeds be reproved. The scepticism of the mind is that which cannot believe without sufficient evidence. It proves all things, and holds fast that which will stand the test. It examines both sides of a question, and adheres to that which imposes the least strain on its belief. Such a mind needs only to have the evidences of Christianity fairly presented, to yield to it entire and cordial faith. Many of the firmest believers, many of the ablest defenders of the truth as it is in Jesus, belong to this class of minds. In this sense, Lardner, Paley, and Butler, whose contributions to the Christian evidences are invaluable, and will be so for generations to come, were pre-eminently sceptics. They would not believe, without examining the hands and the side, trying all the witnesses, testing the objections against Christianity with the opposing arguments, weighing coolly and impartially the evidence, real or pretended, on either side; and the result was a faith in Christ, which sight could hardly have rendered clearer or stronger.

God has made many such minds, and they are among the noblest and best of his creation.

– Andrew P. Peabody, Christianity and Science (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1874), pp. 250-51.

In dealing with my own doubt and interacting with others who doubt or have lost their faith, I have seen these two kinds of skepticism. In my own case I have had both kinds of skepticism. The skepticism of the heart is less frequent and comes when I am just tired of searching for God, and say to myself, “The hell with it!” But luckily these moments are few. Unfortunately, most of what I’ve found on the internet has been of this variety. These sites are full of hate and bitterness; rejecting opposing arguments just because they are opposing arguments. The more healthier and productive skepticism is what Andrew describes as “skepticism of the mind”. This is the kind of skepticism which will look at the evidence farely and go where the data leads them. This is the type of skepticism I aim for.