More or less faith

by Kenneth L. Gibble

Some years back, a survey on religious beliefs in the United States was taken. One of the questions dealt with belief in the resurrection of Jesus. Some gave as an answer an emphatic "yes", some gave an emphatic "no", but a great many answered that they believed in Jesus' resurrection, more or less.

Is that where you fit in? Are you more or less a person of faith? Someone who truly believes and someone who just as truly doubts?

This is nothing new, to live with the push and pull that is faith and doubt. Thomas was the disciple who said he would not believe Jesus was alive unless he could see with his own eyes the nailprints and touch with his own fingers the wounds on his Master's body. Thomas was not the first nor the last person who sometimes believed and sometimes could not believe. Thomas stands for everyone caught in a world where things are not what they should be, often not even what they seem to be.

You and I know who Thomas is. Thomas is ourselves.

Instead of simply feeling guilty about your more-or-less faith, consider the important role doubt has to play in your spiritual life.

Think of it this way. A very small child who accepts without question what a parent says, does not really have faith. Genuine faith can happen only after you have experienced disappointment. Faith is possible only for people who have had their innocence shattered. Faith is possible only for those who have doubted.

What are some good things to be said for doubt? For one thing, doubt requires a certain kind of courage, especially when everyone around you is a believer. To doubt is to weigh the evidence for yourself when you think people around you are deluding themselves. True faith cannot exist when doubt isn't around to ask the hard questions.

Doubt keeps faith from becoming rigid and sterile. If what you believe goes unchallenged for a long time, you have no incentive to learn, to grow.

There is something else to be said for doubt. There are plenty of people around perfectly willing to tell you what to believe, what to do. Doubt keeps you from simply swallowing what someone tells you is true.

Doubt has its place. But doubt also has its limitations.

In John's Gospel, when doubting Thomas sees the risen Jesus, he exclaims, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus answers: "Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

"Seeing is believing" goes the old saying. But the account in John's Gospel disputes the old saying. Seeing is not believing. I once heard a Nigerian Christian illustrate this truth. You go to see a magic show, he said. You watch the magician do all kinds of wondrous things, pull rabbits from a hat, make things disappear, saw a lady in half. You see it, but you do not believe it. Seeing is not believing.

Religious belief is more than allowing your senses to persuade you, more than intellectual assent. I believe dinosaurs once roamed the earth, but that belief doesn't affect my day-to-day existence. I believe Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo, but that belief doesn't change my life.

Belief in God and in Jesus Christ is something different. So is believing in the resurrection. This kind of believing is, as Frederick Buechner has put it, "less a position than a journey, less a realization than a relationship. It doesn't leave you cold like believing the world is round. It stirs your blood like believing the world is a miracle. It affects who you are and what you do with your life like believing your house in on fire or somebody loves you."

The real test of faith, after all, is not what one believes or doesn't believe. The real test of faith is what one does. Some have called faith a leap. You're hanging out a third-storey window with the room behind you on fire. Down below a man holds out his arms. "Jump. I'll catch you," he says. You can believe with all your heart he will indeed catch you. You can even say it: "I believe you will catch me." But if you never jump, you are no better off than if you don't believe at all. Faith is the jump.

There are some good things to be said for doubt. But, in the end, doubt by itself isn't enough. Anybody can play it safe. It doesn't take much character to stand on the sidelines and be cynical about everything. Maybe one of the reasons people opt for doubt over faith is that doubt doesn't cost them anything. Faith requires not only thought but effort. Faith in Christ, in fact, demands everything of you--your heart, your mind, your life.

But real Christian faith doesn't simply demand everything. It also gives everything. It gives your life purpose and meaning. It gives you joy even when sorrow comes your way. It gives you a peace the world cannot give nor take away.

This is what Easter faith really is--it is not so much something we choose to believe as it is a gift. It's the grace to trust that the leap of faith is not into a void, that, in the end, our lives are securely embraced by the everlasting arms of a loving God.

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