For the Encouragement of Faithful Doubters - Part Two

Times of doubt

A while ago I wrote to encourage those who are worried that they don't have strong enough faith. I was, to be honest, concerned that my previous reflections may be overly dogmatic, and end up discouraging those who read and say, "I still don't get it!" I don't want to give the impression that I have everything sewn up, and that having everything "sewn up" and solidly grounded is part of the character of saving faith. I want my public reflections to be encouraging and not discouraging.

So I pointed out that nothing can be absolutely crystal clear to us in this life, both because of our finiteness and because of our sinful nature. I showed the examples of those we sometime see as the great men of faith in the Bible, who quite often went through times of doubt and fear. I pointed out that salvation comes through believing in Jesus Christ, in having faith, not a certain amount of faith. And I held out the Bible as God's means to lead us into greater knowledge and certainty about the hope that we have, to enable us to grow in faith.

I hope that was helpful, and pray that these reflections will be an encouragement to grow through studying deeply in the Word of God, relying on the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to see ever more clearly the wonder and glory of Jesus Christ.

But it also made me think about some of the times of doubt I've had in my own life, and the way that I have been brought back from the brink of unbelief. I admit that when I talk about "the brink of unbelief" that's a little over-dramatic. By God's grace, I have never even temporarily given up my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But that doesn't mean I have not had times when I have seriously questioned what I believe, and have times when I simply do not know the answers.

Sometimes I have come across difficult passages in the Bible that I can't make sense out of, and seem inconsistent with other teachings. And I have thought to myself, "What if this isn't true? What if this undermines everything? What if my faith is misplaced?"

Sometimes I have envied the prosperity and "freedom" of those who do not follow God. Like the psalmist, "I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills… always carefree, they increase their wealth. Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure." (Psalm 73:3-13) Freedom to be promiscuous, freedom to get pleasure out of life and get what I want without caring about anyone else - surely that would be easier sometimes. Am I restricting my own progress and enjoyment in life because of something that I simply accept from an old book?

Some unbelieving friends may have told me not to be so hard on myself at those times, though they never got the chance because I have always kept these thoughts to myself. You see, many unbelievers admire faith in other people. They see noble qualities, selflessness, love and giving, grounded in a kind of hope and certainty that they simply don't have. They wish they could have that, but they accept that they don't. They would think it a shame for someone to give up such a faith, because they want to believe that it is possible.

I may have mentioned elsewhere how I was intrigued by the film, The Invention of Lying, written by and starring Ricky Gervais. It's what I would call a double philosophical satire. It mocks Christianity, because it wants to make out that God is just a concept made up by people who really want to believe there is something more than emptiness in life. But it also mocks anti-Christian philosophy, because it wants to point out that faith brings about great things and great feelings. The worst position in the world, it implies, is to know for sure that God is a fantasy and yet have to get by in life.

But I just don't get that. For me, either life is something or it isn't. Truth is truth, and I can't change it. If God exists and Jesus is the Saviour of the world then I have to accept that as true. If it's not true, then I must live consistently with that alternative. There is no point living my life as if God exists, and that I can have the hope of eternal life through the death and resurrection of Christ, if it's not true. Paul said the same thing too. He said, "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." (1 Corinthians 15:19) There is nothing noble or praiseworthy about faith in something that is not true. Like the dying man in the desert who staggers on towards the mirage on the horizon, we would be pitiable, not pious.

What are the alternatives?

But what has brought me "back from the brink" time and time again is the emptiness of the alternatives. And this was brought home to me again while listening to John Piper preach on John 6:68 (you can find a transcript of the sermon, and the audio and video, at http://tinyurl.com/2vpvhak).

In John 6, Jesus feeds a huge crowd of people with only five loaves of bread and two small fish. He is then tracked down all the way to the other side of the lake, because this miracle has made him so popular. Condensing the story somewhat, Jesus treats this popularity with contempt, seeing that all the crowd wants is a miracle worker to carry on feeding them. He therefore gives them some pretty strong and difficult teaching, not only about the nature of his person, his mission and the ultimate gift he came to give, but also the inability of man to come to him without God's inner working. "No-one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him," he concludes in 6:65.

The result, we are told in v66, is that, "from this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him."

Jesus then turns to the twelve who are left with him, and asks them, "You do not want to leave me too, do you?" (v67)

"Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.'" (v68) Who else is there to turn to? Every other alternative is empty. To quote John Piper, "'Lord, to whom shall we go?' In that simple question, Peter is saying, We’ve considered it. We’ve allowed ourselves to ponder what it might be like to turn away from you."

In one Christian Fellowship meeting at work, when I worked in Windsor, instead of sharing testimonies about how the members became Christians, we were asked to share the answer to the question, "Why am I still a Christian?" It was a very valuable session, which I think came from the recognition that sometimes maintaining a life of faith as a Christian is hard. How do we do it? In the face of being told day-in, and day-out, in the media, in comedy sketches, by friends, work colleagues and family members, how stupid we are; how repressed we are; how the world's problems are all down to people like us (ref Dawkins and Hitchens, etc al); how we are bigoted, prudish, killjoys; why do we persevere in faith? When we find things in the Bible that we don't understand, when we face hardships that we can't explain, when we see evil in the world, why do we keep going?

My answer was the same as Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we go?" The alternatives are empty, they do not make sense. I've heard what atheist philosophers have to say. I've listened to other religions. Faced with the impulse to be rational, I have put a lot of consideration into that question. And no other alternative works. Far from the Christian worldview being a leap of blind, irrational, faith, it is the only rational choice. Of course, that's just my testimony. It doesn't prove anything. And it does not mean that I just dismiss the problems that I face - in life and in thinking - or that I have every area of life and existence "sewn up". I simply see enough to know that God is real, that I deserve His wrath for the ways I dishonour Him, that Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead so that I can have that wrath taken away from me, and that through faith in Jesus I can look forward to a wonderful future when God finally brings an end to this present age. I say to Jesus, "'You have the words of eternal life!' (John 6:68) I trust you. Every other alternative is either empty and hollow, or dishonouring to God. So I will continue to cling to you by faith, even when my tiny, sin-tainted mind cannot fathom the answers to the questions that arise from life."

The main alternative, living in Western culture that has lost its Christian foundations and that is increasingly secular and godless, is the prevailing secular atheism and pluralism. This is where most of my unbelieving friends and family come from when they look at my faith with varying degrees of scepticism (this may be the scepticism of pity, which "tolerates" faith only when it does not impinge on their "freedom"; or it may be the scepticism of admiration, which wants the faith without the restrictions on personal autonomy). And so, whether they like it or not, I feel the pressure to conform and live like them.

The apparent attractions are obvious. Conforming is easy. I wouldn't have to say unpopular things about abortion being the murder of a child; or about homosexual, pre-marital or extra-marital sexual acts being sinful. I wouldn't have to be seen as repressive and prudish in my complaints about what gets shown on TV and in the media. I wouldn't have to offend my friends and family with the unstated implication of my faith, which is the implication that they are sinners (along with me) and are facing an eternity in hell. I wouldn't have to face the laughter of the intelligentsia when I say I believe that the whole universe and the whole spectrum of existence was created by God, let alone that I am one of these terrible fanatics who believes that He did it in six days. Ok, so I would drop out of the support net of the church, which is widely acknowledged as a great force for social good on both a personal and cultural level. But on the other hand I could do my own thing, without worrying whether it's right or wrong. I could choose to follow my own path to my own happiness. I could follow money, or power, or sexual pleasure, or all three! I could save time and mental energy on prayer and Bible study. I wouldn't have to worry if the Bible said something I didn't understand. I could go on with the list of the apparent attractions of secularism.

But having been attracted, and having thought about it, I still call them "apparent" attractions. They are superficial, because when I start to dig deeper and examine the foundations of this secular worldview that appears so attractive, it crumbles. I would have to give up too much in terms of rationality. I would have to live in a world of wishful thinking. Let me give you a brief example.

Atheism, because it denies the existence of God, has to posit an alternative theory for the existence of everything. It normally suggests the theory of evolution. Note that I put it that way. If you look into atheist philosophy it is never put the other way around. So we never hear of people being persuaded there is no God because of evolution being the way everything came into existence. For one thing, evolution is still a theory. It is not a fact, as popular presentations of science would have you believe. People believe evolution because they want to believe something about their origins and the origin of life and existence. If God did not create everything, how did it get here? (There are other basic philosophical questions that we could consider - such as, what is reality or how do we know anything - but I don't want to go on too long.)

Existence (broader than just simply life) is either meaningful or meaningless. Being meaningful or meaningless are mutually exclusive. The atheistic theory of evolution says that every present form of existence has randomly formed over billions of years by a process of mutation and the survival of certain of those random formations. The implication of that belief is that every form of existence is meaningless. It's meaningless in the sense that evolution implies no significant difference between forms of existence. E.g. A human is just a different formation of matter to an elephant or a tree. E.g. Life and non-life are just different ways for matter to react within itself. E.g. Love, hate, good and evil are just different reactions within the different formations of matter. But if it's all randomly formed, then distinctions between formations and reactions are meaningless (by applying the definition - if the distinctions between things don't ultimately signify anything then they are meaningless).

The thing I find empty about today's atheism is the shrug that everything may all in fact be meaningless and with no ultimate significance: lymphoma or good health - equally meaningless; love or war - equally meaningless; care for our children or abuse them - equally meaningless; kill people or heal people - equally meaningless!

And yet everybody lives as if existence has meaning, in that everybody gives significance to things, and to things that happen. What I ask is where the significance comes from, and why do we live that way. If you reject God as ultimately being behind everything, then you are left with randomness, which doesn't give significance to anything. It's at that point that I believe that the Christian worldview provides consistency (living solidly based on belief), but atheism does not (because atheists say there is no meaning, but act as if there is).

And coming back to the point, therefore, I find that I would have to give up too much if I were to give up the Christian faith. I could go for the ease of conformity with the secularism of the age, and give up my allegedly restrictive faith. But I would have to then accept a view that ultimately says that nothing has any meaning, or everything has no meaning. And yet I would find it impossible, honestly, to live that way. Can I see the love of my wife and children as meaningless? Can I see the terror and awfulness of war and oppression as insignificant? Can I cry real tears? Can I feel real joy? Can I have real fun? Can I experience real love? Can I know real guilt? Can I know real forgiveness? I honestly cannot accept these things are unreal, illusory, meaningless or insignificant. And therefore I cannot accept atheism.

To whom shall we go?

And so I am forced back to God, in Christ, where I find real love, feel real guilt, experience real forgiveness, real sadness and real joy. Because He made the world and made me in His image, and that gives me the capacity to understand these things and really feel them. He gives me a concept of sin, judgment and justice which explains the evil in the world. He gives me hope. I find atheism bankrupt. Atheists have to live in a dream world of wishful thinking. As hard as it is to be a Christian, or to understand some aspects of theology, it is the only worldview that makes sense and fits with reality as we experience it.

So don't be afraid to consider the alternatives to Christianity. But dig into the roots. You will find that every alternative ultimately crumbles into a heap of inconsistencies and irrationality. And so you always come back to Christ, "in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3) and say, with Peter, "You have the words of eternal life!"

What is prayer?

"Do not be anxious about anything," says Paul, "but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." (Philippians 4:6) James writes, "Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray." (James 5:13)

If we turn to Matthew 26, when Jesus was "sorrowful and troubled" (v37) in Gethsemane, we find that his response was earnest prayer. "Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed…" (v39). If the Son of God felt the need to pray in his darkest hour, then we should too. In fact, in that very hour Jesus told his disciples to do just that. He had asked his disciples to keep watch with him, but they feel asleep. When he rose from praying and found them sleeping, he said to Peter, "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation." (v41)

Prayer is one of those typically religious things. Most religions have prayer as one of their core ingredients. Muslims pray, Jews pray, Hindus pray, Sikhs pray, even the Roman pagans used to pray. But that can lead to confusion. I didn't even understand the definition given in Wikipedia: "Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional connection to some greater power in the universe through deliberate practice." The fact is that the concept of prayer is different - sometimes subtly, sometimes drastically - in different religions. That is not a surprise, since every religion differs in its view of God, mankind and the relationship between God and mankind. Since prayer is, at the very least, about communication by human beings, different religions will have different views and practices when it comes to prayer, depending on, a) who or what that religion says we must communicate with, and b) how said entity/entities prefer or demand to be communicated with according to that religion.

So we must beware of having a view of prayer that is a kind of eclectic mishmash gleaned from the pluralistic culture of our day. As Christians we must let the Bible guide us when it comes to prayer. And since when tough times come prayer feels most necessary and natural, we need to know what to pray in those times and what to expect.

For Christians prayer could simply be defined as the way that we speak to God. Let's not confuse things by talking about listening to God in prayer! God's communication to us might come while we are praying. But it isn't prayer. God speaking to us comes through much more diverse means. Mainly God speaks through His prophets and apostles, and therefore through the Bible. But we may also refer to the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit, for example, as "the Lord told me". But when the direction of communication is from us to God there is only one way of describing it - prayer.

It's also worth pointing out that prayer is communication between persons. Our God is a "personal" God. That doesn't mean that we each have our own individual God! I don't mean "personal" in the same sense someone might have a "personal shopper" or a "personal identification number" - i.e. an individual thing that can only relate to one individual person. God is personal in the sense that he exists in a way that relates to us as persons. Human beings were the only creatures made "in the image of God" (Genesis 1:27). And so He does not have the same relationship with animals and trees as He does with human beings. Because we are made in the image of God, we are wired to specially relate to Him. The communication between God and human beings is person to person. And therefore the way that we communicate with God will be very similar to the way that we communicate with other human persons.

I make that last point because there are other religions that see prayer as simply connecting to a higher power. Their concept of god is simply a powerful being or a mystical concept or such like. Therefore, their gods cannot be communicated with on the same level. For them, prayer is something different than talking. When I visited Bangalore in India on business once, I had the opportunity to visit the ISKCON temple on the Saturday and to go to the local Anglican church on the Sunday. It struck me that one of the main differences between the Hinduism practised by ISKCON and true Biblical Christianity is visible in worship and prayer. Hindus say mindless mantras, in this particular case the Hare Krishna. Christians use intelligible, propositional, linguistically rational, communication. The Hindu aim is to use the mere sound waves from the Hare Krishna mantra, said over and over for hours on end, to revive a state of Krishna consciousness. The Christian aim is to communicate in words that people understand, an intelligible message from God and an intelligible prayer to God.

We speak to God, he hears, he understands and he answers.

But to say that prayer is "speaking to God" is to state only a very basic truth. When human beings speak to their creator it is a very special form of communication. Because God infinitely transcends us, the communication with him will naturally transcend any other person-to-person communication. Think about the most obvious differences. We are limited by space, time and by physical and mental capacities. We will only be heard by other people if we speak out loud (telepaths are extremely rare, if they exist at all in reality) or write or make signals. We can only be "heard" by people within an audible or visual range, or by those who are able to receive our written communication. The audible or visual range of our communication can be extended by technology (printed books, the postal system, telephones, video, internet, etc.), but not infinitely. There will never be any way for a human being to communicate with everyone on the planet. God, on the other hand, can hear the thoughts of our hearts, so that we can think our prayers quietly and he hears them. We can only concentrate on receiving communication from a limited number of sources. God hears all the prayers that are directed to him, and can in the same instant take in prayers from an infinite number of sources. He sees and hears everything in the whole universe all the time. We are limited to communicating in languages that we understand. God is not limited by language. Prayer may be "speaking to God", but God's transcendence means that speaking to him is something very special.

But we should push further. When human beings speak to God it is not just the transcendence of his nature that we need to consider. In other words it's not just the fact that he is an infinitely greater being that makes speaking with him special. He is our creator. He made us. He made the animals, birds, fish, mountains and flowers too. So we are not just lesser beings, we are subordinate beings. Being lesser or greater does not imply any rights or responsibilities to each other. I am a lesser footballer than Wayne Rooney, but that does not create any relationship between him and me, and neither of us has automatic rights or responsibilities towards each other arising from his greater athletic abilities. However, my children are subordinate to me, owing to the fact that Heidi and I brought them into the world. They owe their existence to us, and therefore that creates rights and responsibilities within the family. Hence, in the same way God's creation of the universe puts the universe under God - subordinate to God. Hence, in prayer we speak not only to a greater being, but to the one who gives us the breath to pray, the strength to live, the environment to survive within, and the mind to understand our needs, our environment and our responsibilities.

Furthermore, he didn't make animals, birds, fish, stars, galaxies, atoms, etc. to relate to him in the same way as human beings. Men and women were made "in his image" and were given authority over the rest of creation (Genesis 1:27-28). So not only are we beings that are subordinate to God, we are subordinate with specific delegated responsibilities. God has given us an active role and purpose within his creation.

It's worth pausing to take note that the recognition of this relationship between human beings and God, our creator, who is the source and ruler of everything, is absolutely fundamental to understanding the meaning of life, the universe and everything. At the very least, it is something you need to understand if you want to understand Christianity. In this age of postmodernism people tend to look at Christianity from the outside with a kind of watered down caricature of God. If you look at the cartoons and the satires of Christianity you would tend to find God pictured as a man with a white beard sitting on a cloud. In one classic episode of The Simpsons, God comes to sit down next to Homer beside the swimming pool in heaven! He is that great being who sometimes does things in the world and sometimes chooses not to, who has a place called "heaven" for people who choose to honour him before they die. In that view, we are lesser beings than God, but in no way subordinate to him, and certainly with no responsibility to him. It's like me and Wayne Rooney: greater than me, but not in any way implying any responsibility. By contrast, the Christian view of God and man, which we take as being revealed by God himself in the Bible, is that he created us to have delegated authority in the universe, and therefore he has a right to demand our service, our allegiance, and we have a responsibility to live the lives he has given us in a way that honours him.

So when we pray we are speaking to the one who has created us and given us a role of great responsibility within his creation. This should fill us with awe.