Easter 2 Doubt 19th April 2009

Jesus said to Thomas: Do not doubt but believe John 20

There’s a lot of doubt around – and not just in Horsted Keynes!

Has there been a time in the history of the human race when so much information has been accessible? This means we can quickly fuel our doubts about anything.

Has there been a time likewise when so much fearfulness and superstitious ignorance has been demonstrated by religious bodies faced with challenges to our cherished beliefs?

Low Sunday traditionally takes us to Thomas – doubting Thomas, but Thomas who also finally makes the pure act of faith in Christ ‘My Lord and my God!’ – Saint Thomas!

How do Christians view doubt? How can we avoid both the broadmindedness that sits lightly to truth and the narrow-mindedness that so easily becomes a hostage to intolerance?

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; wrote G.K.Chesterton but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong. Any conviction worth its salt needs the self-awareness doubt exhibits to save it from narrow-mindedness.

I want to look at doubt this morning. To start with let’s be clear that intellectual questionings have their place. As the medieval author of The Cloud of Unknowing insists of God by love he is holden not by thought. Thinking has its place, even doubting.

Just as scientists have discovered that electronic particles are hard to define so thinkers through the ages have found that rational thought can’t hold God. He is held by loving contemplation through determined devotion, held by the will which the intellect serves.

True – but that doesn’t stop us looking at what Christ means when he says to us through Thomas today Do not doubt but believe.

We live in a doubting age. How do we deal with it? How do we understand doubt as a concept? How can we draw the sting of the word as people of faith living under so much fire in a culture skeptical of any claim to objective truth?

The dictionary defines doubt in three senses: the questioning of received wisdom, the withdrawal of trust in someone and a fearful self-questioning.

From the Christian viewpoint the questioning of most presuppositions is a healthy use of God-given reason. The whole of science is built on systematically doubting existing theories and testing them by experimentation so as to gain a more truthful picture of reality.

Years ago I used systematic doubt to test theories about the forces between the molecular chains in polythene and Teflon when I was a research scientist.

You have a Teflon expert before you – a non-stick Rector!

Would that were true? I will eat my words in time.

Science works through doubting received wisdom. So do the law courts. Politics and art – they both aspire to question the status quo and rightly because that is very often – but not always - the work of the Holy Spirit.

In the life of the church prophets and teachers are raised up again and again to question the status quo in church discipline or in the formulation of doctrine. The Holy Spirit uses such people, sometimes against themselves though!

The ecumenical dialogues of our day are examples of the use of systematic doubt to get beyond the denominational understandings of Christianity towards an ecumenical consensus. As a result Christians are far more agreed about Baptism, the Eucharist and the sacred Ministry and are moving rather painfully towards an agreement on authority in the church. Surely this is the work of the Spirit and it is evidenced by the growing ownership of documents like the Lima agreement.

Doubt as a questioning of received wisdom is a healthy thing.

It’s the second sense of doubt as the withdrawal of trust in God that’s more problematic for us as it was for Thomas.

A good analogy lies in marriage. Lack of trust destroys marriages however well it can be defended. Lack of trust in God destroys Christian believing however good the rational arguments.

Whilst doubt as questioning can lead people from false presuppositions towards God, doubting God himself and the revealed faith of the church through the ages puts your doubt in another league.

Why is this? Because you are up against truth which is not of the take it or leave it variety. Although everyone is a liar, let God be proved true resounds the scripture. I know whom I have believed (Romans 3v4b, 2 Timothy 1v12).

This knowledge is something held by the will and not the intellect, or rather that holds the will - by love he is holden not by thought. Radical doubt is a breaking of loyalty with the Saviour which is why Christians insist a thousand difficulties in their faith do not make a doubt in this sense.

In a third sense doubt is a psychological tendency. The disease of doubt is an obsessive questioning of one’s abilities. This sickness can often be traced back to harmful influences in childhood which result in a poor self-image. The projection of inner doubt into day to day living is seen in a fearfulness which is harmful to the individual and their close associates.

From the Christian perspective this condition is a challenge in that harsh forms of evangelisation are associated with reinforcing such self-doubt. Most Christians believe in a Saviour who is more concerned to give people what they need than what they deserve. Gentle evangelisation faithful to this vision can build inner healing, dispelling self-doubt and bringing people to believe in their potential as children of God accepted by God with all their failings.

We’re all on something of a journey here. Only in so far as we lose self-doubt and both know and value ourselves will we be best able to respond to Christ’s invitation to give ourselves to God and neighbour. You can’t give what you don’t possess.

In these three understandings of doubt there are both creative and destructive strands.

Systematic doubt is a tool for discovering new ways of thinking that illuminate and change the world and have potential to renew the church.

Psychological doubt, which constrains an outgoing life, invites inner healing of which the good news of Christ is servant.

Radical doubt breaks trust and destroys relationships. In the case of one’s relationship with God it goes against the single mindedness that is invited among believers. This surely is the butt of Christ’s rebuke to Thomas Do not doubt but believe. His rebuke is amplified in the first chapter of the letter of James where we’re warned that the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord (James 1v7).

There is decidedness about Christian faith that goes against the grain of a culture that is so undecided and suspicious of alleged certainty.

Doubting God always takes people away from him. Doubting received wisdom of some kinds can bring people closer to God.

Our personal faith comes as it did to Thomas through a disclosure of God’s reality in Jesus. This revelation, like the sun, can only be seen in its own light and no one else’s.

That being said what God discloses needs working out intellectually.

Eastern Orthodox writer Anthony Bloom has helpful wisdom here. A former scientist he saw the value of scientific doubting of models of reality and how such doubting presses knowledge forwards. Unless you are prepared to see reality and your own thoughts and the thoughts of others with keen interest, with courage, but with the certainty that the last word is not doubt, not perplexity and not bewilderment, but that it is discovery then you will be wasting your time he writes.

Do not doubt but believe the Lord says in today’s gospel. Our Lord doesn’t want us to waste time and energy through double-mindedness in our loyalty towards God. He surely does want us to be on an adventure, eager to look at every side of our human experience so that more of the Lord will be made plain to us.

Around the time this church was built Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury wrote that it was belief that leads to understanding and not vice versa. If we keep trusting God we gain understanding. By love he is holden not by thought .

A thousand difficulties shouldn’t make a doubt in distrustful sense. Rather our difficulties are among God’s challenging and deepening gifts. If we take them carefully they can become pathways to discovering a fuller vision of the wonder of God and his creation.