Doubt: Triggers Flashcards
How is doubt like a child?
Alister McGrath writes, “Doubt is like an attention-seeking
child: when you pay attention to it, it demands that you pay even more
attention. This is a vicious cycle that is difficult to escape from. If we feed
our doubts, they’ll grow.”2
Doubt triggers
- Absurdity
- Contradictions
- Uncertainty
- Immorality
- Idols/Sin
- Twisted scripture
- Partial Seeking
- Dishonest Prayer
Do we need 100% certainty before we can believe in anything?
100% is not possible. We can never by 100% certain about anything, Nor are we required to be. We don’t need 100% certainty before we can believe something, All we need is reasonable assurance that what we believe is true and trustworthy
Example:
I believe the sun will rise tomorrow, even though I can’t be sure of it.
I believe that the chair won’t break when I sit in it, but I cannot be sure of it.
All beliefs will require some level of faith.
Thankfully, certainty has never been the requirement for belief in Christ. Faith is Not blind faith, but evidential, reasonable, informed faith. Nevertheless, faith is still involved.
Difference between feeling certain and being certain
Feeling certain is not the same as being certain.
The problem with feelings is that they are fickle, and our moods often betray us.
Why is 100% certainty not possible?
because of our own finitude. To be 100% certain, we would need to know all there is to know about something, but seeing that we are finite beings, that is not possible.
Lack of certainty means we can’t believe in Christianity.
False
Lack of certainty does not mean a lack of evidence, and if we consider the evidence then it is more reasonable ot believe in christianity rather than any other religion.
Does injustice prove that God is unjust or non-existent?
No
Our moral outrage at injustice points to the existence of a moral standard beyond ourselves, which is God.
Apparent contradictions in the bible
“When Noah takes the animals on the ark, does he take seven pairs of all
the ‘clean’ animals, as Genesis 7:2 states, or just two pairs, as Genesis 7:9-10 indicates?”
“In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him three times ‘before the cock crows twice.’ In Matthew’s Gospel, he tells him that it
will be ‘before the cock crows.’ Well, which is it?”3
“On the third day after Jesus’ death, the women go to the tomb to anoint
his body for burial. And whom do they see there? Do they see a man, as
Mark says, or two men (Luke), or an angel (Matthew)?”
How are apparent contradictions in scripture like math problems?
Apparent contradiction are just that “apparent”, It is not that they don’t have a solution, but rather that a solution has not yet been found. This does not mean that a solution will never be found.
It is kind of like the Sum of Three Cubes problem, in mathematics that puzzled mathematicians for 65 years, untill it was finaly solved by a super computer.
Currently there are many math problems that are still unsolved such as the 6 Millenium problems. This does not mean that there are no solutions to these problems, simply that they haven’t been solved yet.
Apparent Contradiction: Did Noah take 2 or 7 animals
The clean beasts and birds entered the ark “by sevens” (KJV), while the unclean animals went into the ark by twos.
There is no contradiction here. Genesis 6:19 indicates that Noah was to take “two of every sort into the ark.” Then, four verses later, God supplemented this original instruction, informing Noah in a more detailed manner to take more of the clean animals.
If a farmer told his son to take two of every kind of farm animal to the state fair, and then instructed his son to take several extra chickens and two extra pigs for a barbecue, would anyone accuse the farmer of contradicting himself? Certainly not.
It was necessary for Noah to take additional clean animals because, upon his departure from the ark after the Flood, he “built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the alter” (Genesis 8:20). If Noah had taken only two clean animals from which to choose when sacrificing to God after departing the ark, then he would have driven the various kinds of clean beasts and birds into extinction by sacrificing one of each pair.
Thus, after God told Noah to take two of every kind of animal into the ark, He then instructed him to take extras of the clean animals
Difference between moral and natural evil
Moral evils
refer to things like murder, rape, theft, adultery, and child abuse. These evils
are the result of fallen mankind’s free will, and many people have doubted God’s goodness because of man’s cruelty.
Philosophers and theologians
also refer to natural evils, such as the volcanic destruction of Pompeii, Hurricane Katrina, the Thailand tsunami, and the bubonic plague.
How do different world-views rationalize evil
And each worldview has its own explanation or rationalization for suffering and evil.
Buddhism claims evil is just an illusion and all of us are in need of nirvana.
Hinduism calls on karma to explain suffering and evil.
Atheists see evil and suffering as a brute fact of our deterministic existence.
To the Christian, both moral and natural evils are the result of living in a sincursed world—a world that God warned Adam and Eve about back in the Garden of Eden, informing them that life would be very unpleasant if they
disobeyed His Word. But disobey they did. And it’s been a history of unpleasantries ever since
What should we ask, instead of why is there evil?
Why isn’t there MORE evil?
Because Good exists, and if Good exist, then God exists, because God is Good.
How does unconfessed sin lead to doubt
Unconfessed sin is a guaranteed way to decrease our faith and increase our doubts. And the longer we fail to confess our sin, the harder and more
impenetrable our hearts become. Hard hearts not only create hearts of doubt, they can also lead to hearts of unbelief. And that’s scary. We cannot
dismiss the importance of the lost art of confession. The author of Hebrews writes this sobering warning to his fellow believers:
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living
God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called
“today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness
of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold
our original confidence firm to the end.
The author tells us that sin is not only deceptive, but it carries with it certain heart-hardening viruses. When we fail to take confession seriously, we allow our hearts to harden. And callous hearts pave perfect paths for doubt and unbelief.
How can a wrong understanding of Prayer lead to doubt
Fourth, wrongly projecting our desires on God, which sets us up to experience blown expectations and, in turn, tempts us to doubt. It’s important that we pray according to Scripture. Otherwise, we may assume
God values the same things we do. Besides, let’s be real. We’ve got way too many “pamper me prayers” and not enough “transform me prayers.” Our job is to fall in alignment with Scripture rather than to persuade God to get
on board with our wishes. The majority of prayer is just getting our will to agree with God. And that takes surrender. And surrender doesn’t come
easy. Isn’t that the truth?
