Doubt: Crisis of Doubt Flashcards
Why is it important to address doubt as quickly as possible?
it can drown us in despair, hopelessness, and confusion, and ultimately drive us towards unbelief.
If ignored or left unchecked, it can bore into our brain, releasing a virus of unbelief, infecting and eventually destroying every healthy thought about God. It can take us to the place where nothing else matters. Where we find ourselves loathing even life itself.
If left unchecked, intellectual doubt metastasizes, seeping its way into our emotions and collecting a wide array of fears, worries, anxieties, anger,
Why should we talk about our doubt?
Because unexpressed doubt is one of the most powerful destroyers of faith.
Is Doubt a virtue?
Some people hold that doubt is a virtue and that it makes one intellectually superior
This is false, doubting the truth is a kind of confusion, there is nothing superior about being confused.
They confuse, doubting your faith, with thinking about your faith. Doubt is It is detrimental to the spiritual life, while thinking about faith is not.
What is doubt?
to lack assurance,
To be double-minded
Is doubt the opposite of faith?
No
The Latin word for doubt, dubitare, comes from an Aryan root
meaning “two.” To believe or have faith is to be “in one mind”
with regard to accepting something as true; to disbelieve is to
be “in one mind” about rejecting it. To doubt is to waver between the two, to believe and doubt at once, and so to be “in two minds.”
Is doubt neutral?
That’s why doubt is so disturbing. It splits the mind. Contrary to popular belief, intellectual doubt is not the opposite of faith; unbelief is. Doubt is in
between, seesawing and dangling in the middle. Yet, make no mistake. Doubt never stays put. It’s not neutral. It makes up its mind. It’s directional.
It’s going somewhere.
This means a person will either doubt toward unbelief or they will doubt toward faith. You’ll waver one way or another
As the Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal said, “There is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.” The choice is yours. You can doubt toward unbelief or you can doubt toward faith
What is the difference between skeptical doubt and sincere doubt?
Those with sincere doubts want their doubts solved so they
can go forward with God, while those with skeptical or antagonistic doubt wants their doubts confirmed so
they can move beyond God
How is doubt like “spatial disorientation”
Like the spatial disorientation that divers or pilots often experience, doubt can leave us spiritually disorientated, not knowing which way is up or down.
The solution is to find and focus on a single point of reference. For divers it is the direction of the bubbles, for pilots it is the horizon line on the instrument panel. For believers it is the truth of the bible.
How do we know that we will prevail over our doubts
Jesus said “The gates of hell shall not prevail over the church”
