Recently I was sitting in a Bible study with a group of people, and they began talking about struggles they had concerning their faith as they lived daily life. The main struggle that was mentioned was doubt about God – does he really exist?
The most interesting thing to me about this discussion was that every one of the people discussing this topic were committed to their faith. The doubts they personally experienced were not caused by them trying to avoid living for Christ – they obviously wanted to. They did not like having doubts, and actually wanted to push forward to somehow keep on with Christ in spite of their doubts.
Listening to this discussion had a profound effect on me. It took me back to my own high school and college days when I personally experienced that kind of doubt in my own life. In my case, it was brought on when I was being taught about Darwin’s theory of evolution in biology class. It became quite evident to me that if the naturalistic theory of evolution was true, the teachings of the Bible could not be true. As evolutionary theory was being taught as science, it had to be true, right? I didn’t know how to handle that, and it shook me to the core. I had to find a way to gain certainty about my faith, or I would have to give it up. The choice seemed quite clear to me – it had to be one or the other.
As I struggled with this, I ultimately did come to a personal resolution, but it didn’t come easy. The reason it was difficult was because of how the material was presented in class. No one ever overtly said, “God does not exist.” However, based on the approach used to promote evolution, it was taught “as if” God did not exist. After all, if evolutionary theory was correct, God was not even necessary, right? At that point, I was up to my ears in doubt.
So, what about it? Is there a way for Christians to deal with this in a way that gets at actual truth? You bet there is! Let’s look at the problems associated with this.
Why People Come to Doubt God
I have found that there are two main reasons Christians have doubts about God. In truth, these reasons are two sides of the same coin. Reason one is that they accept false beliefs as true without realizing it. Reason two is that they have a wrong, or incomplete, understanding concerning the truth of God’s existence. Let’s look at these two.
Acceptance of False Beliefs
There are, of course, numerous false beliefs that Christians are apt to be exposed to in modern society. That said, there is one that is far and away the most prominent, and this is the one that generates the most doubt in the minds of modern day Christians in America.
The large majority of doubts that come up in the hearts of Christians about the existence of God are based upon an acceptance of naturalistic beliefs. To really understand this, though, we must also note that Christians don’t generally accept these naturalistic beliefs intentionally, or even consciously. In fact, beliefs at the worldview level are generally unconscious, and don’t become conscious until they are studied – which is what we want to do here.
Naturalism is the belief that the natural universe is all that exists. Of course, true Christians will not accept this consciously because we believe in God. In fact, believing in God is an essential part of believing in the Christian faith. So what can I possibly mean when I say that Christians accept naturalistic beliefs? What I mean is that even though most Christians will assert belief in God, they have, in their own minds, accepted certain naturalistic presuppositions to be true. Here is how that works.
Our culture has accepted Naturalism as its default belief system. Naturalistic belief dominates in education, in the media, in politics, in the arts, in entertainment, and in business. While most people who work in these various disciplines will not go around overtly saying they don’t believe in God, a very large percentage will operate “as if” God does not exist. For instance:
- Few teachers will ever tell their students “God does not exist,” but a large percentage teach their subjects “as if” he doesn’t exist.
- The media will not generally even talk about the existence or non-existence of God, but they do report in ways that simply assume he does not exist.
- Politicians will often talk “as if” they do believe in God, but turn right around and act and lead in ways that contradict the teachings of the Bible.
- Artists and entertainers are groups that have more of a tendency to actually say they do not believe in God. They also tend to be quick to express naturalistic beliefs about morality through their art and entertainment (ex: portray causal sex as normal, homosexual relationships as equal to heterosexual ones, lying as okay, murder as justifiable, etc.). This is particularly powerful because the public tends to absorb these beliefs through viewing the entertainment without even realizing they are doing so.
- There is a strong tendency for business people to set aside biblical morality and tend toward “pragmatism” in their work. After all, the primary goal of a business is to make money, and if shady moral dealings are necessary to pull that off, well, that’s just what is necessary.
The result of this is the acceptance of values based on naturalistic beliefs, and the suppression of Christian values. When these two opposing value possibilities come into conflict in daily life, naturalistic values tend to win among those who do not have a firm understanding of the problems associated with Naturalism.
Probably the main thing that confuses people concerning this matter is that naturalistic values have an ability to masquerade as being not religious. Since most naturalistic belief systems are not expressed using overtly religious vocabulary, and do not fit with most people’s definition of a religion, people who believe this faith are often able to get away with their assertion that they are not religious. Since the basis of the belief is that the only thing that exists is the natural universe, they claim that the basis of their entire worldview is science. They then go on to pit science against faith – claiming that religions are based on unsupported faith, while their naturalistic beliefs are based on science.
The truth is, though, Naturalism is every bit as much a faith as any other belief system in existence. While Naturalists claim that their beliefs are based on science, that is actually not true. In order for Naturalism to be based on science, adherents would have to demonstrate the truth of their beliefs using science – which they cannot do.
Naturalism believes that:
1. The material that makes up the natural universe came into being based on natural laws. However, there is no science to demonstrate that to be true.
2. Life came from non-life (from inert chemicals). Yet, not only is there is no science to demonstrate that to be true, there is not even any sense as to how it could be true.
3. The variety of life forms that exist today are the result of naturalistic evolutionary processes. However, there is no known biological mechanism that can account for the existence of the process.
4. Consciousness emerged from non-consciousness. Yet there is no science to demonstrate that to be true.
In other words, Naturalism is a faith system. Everything that it believes about the structure of reality must be believed by faith. It is religious in nature. For some reason, people believe they can doubt belief in God because he cannot be shown to exist using science. But the same is true of Naturalism. The reason people don’t struggle with doubt about naturalistic belief is because the don’t realize they can, or should. But the truth is, there is no science to support it. It is a religious point of view that simply cannot be backed up by the very means they, themselves, require.
Wrong Understanding About God
While one reason people doubt is because of their wrong understanding of a contrary worldview (Naturalism), others do so because of their lack of understanding of their own Christian worldview. When people who self identify as Christians have a wrong understanding about God, it can cause all kinds of problems.
For instance, there are those who imagine God to be like a “Santa in the Sky.” That is, they see him as some kind of being who exists to give them things. If they ask him for something and he doesn’t come through in the way they expect, they begin to doubt his existence.
The problem is, that is not what the Bible teaches about God. We exist for him, not the other way around. We are here to do his will, not to expect him to do our will. For a Christian to have a real understanding of God, it is necessary to know exactly what the Bible teaches about him, and adjust our expectations based on that. God is an objectively real person that we can know in an objectively real personal relationship. When our expectations are right, we don’t expect God to operate in ways that do not represent reality. When our expectations are wrong, that is when we run into trouble and begin to doubt.
We Can Know
Doubt about anything occurs because of a lack of confidence in one’s own knowledge about something. But the knowledge necessary to gain confidence does not relate only to the beliefs you wish to have confidence about, but also to those which attempt to deny the truth of your beliefs.
As it relates to God, one critical matter is, of course, to have an understanding about why the teaching about him in the Bible is true. But the other side of the ledger is to understand why the belief that God doesn’t exist is not true. With our understanding about both of these matters solidly in place, it becomes much easier to put doubt aside, and to personally experience God’s presence in your life.
© 2017 Freddy Davis