For me, an authentic faith involves, even necessitates, being skeptical.
My experience over the last 15 years has convinced me, both in community with other Christians and in my personal engagement with God through the Scriptures, that biblical faith is, of necessity, a questioning faith. If I only have true faith (i.e., a saving faith) when I am certain and sure of everything, then I must admit that I am in serious trouble.
Certainly, when we look at our heroes of faith in the Bible, we see times when they trusted God so implicitly and completely that they acted with incredibly boldness and courage! And I am both convicted and inspired by such examples of undoubting faith. However, I believe that these were moments in a life of faith, mountaintops of faith, but that such faith was not their every day experience. In fact, I see that the most usual display of faith was my biblical heroes’ willingness to engage God with their objections, questions and doubts—time when they hesitated, because they were perplexed, frustrated and disappointed. This, too, is real faith and a true part of living faithfully for God in this world. You see, they trusted God enough to believe that he would accept their questioning, sometimes to a degree that we would even call “struggling.” So, I have come to accept that I am a skeptical believer. That’s not just OK…it is preferred. I think real faith trusts enough to engage with God in Scripture about those things we don’t understand, don’t like and even disagree with. I personally believe that for a period of time in my Christian life, I turned off my brain because I thought that true faith meant convincing myself to believe, to agree and to comply.
Yet as I look at the Bible, I see God inviting me to question him, to straightforwardly express my doubts, my concerns and even my disagreements. God knows I have them, so why act as if I am ready and willing to be unquestioningly compliant. That doesn’t mean that I’ll get an answer to every question or come to a place where I understand and/or agree with everything that’s in the Bible. Abraham struggled with God at times. Job certainly questioned God and even challenged him. The writer of Ecclesiastes even expressed that God has laid a heavy burden on humankind. Many psalms express doubt, discouragement and frustration even to the point of confronting God with why he hasn’t kept his promises! I’m encouraged by these, and other, examples. A living faith is a questioning faith, a struggling faith, a striving faith, and even, at times (no matter how contradictory this sounds), a doubting faith. There are some things that are in the Bible about which I am agnostic—I don’t know and maybe will never know in this life.
I am far from being a perfect dad, but I do believe that I love my children. If they asked for a fish, I would not give them a stone. From the time they could talk, I told them that I wanted them to bring up their questions, their concerns and even their disagreements. I requested just one thing: please be respectful. I didn’t always like it when they disagreed with my rules or questioned my decisions, but I knew that their honesty with me was a true sign of their trust in my love for them. If I, being evil, know how to give good gifts to my children (to quote Jesus), how much more will my Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him. I am convinced that true faith is an honest faith, that freely and respectfully bring questions, doubts and disagreements to God, and may have to live with some of those unresolved for a long time. For me, that's authentic faith.
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