We often talk about faith and doubt as though they are opposites.
If I have faith, I shouldn't doubt. If I doubt, my faith must be weakening. And if I can somehow eliminate all my doubts, eventually I will arrive at perfect faith.
But I'm not sure that's actually how scripture describes faith.
Alma says:
«“Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.”
Alma 32:21»
That definition changes something for me.
Faith isn't certainty.
In fact, Alma specifically distinguishes faith from certainty. Earlier in the chapter he says that if someone knows something, they no longer have cause to believe it, because they know it.
Then he describes his famous experiment with the seed. Plant the word. Nourish it. Pay attention to what happens.
When the seed begins to swell and grow, Alma says something fascinating:
«“Your knowledge is perfect in that thing, and your faith is dormant.”»
In that thing.
You have learned something. You no longer need faith concerning that particular piece of the experiment because experience has given you knowledge.
But you haven't suddenly learned everything.
There is still an enormous landscape beyond what you know.
And that's where faith continues.
Maybe doubt isn't faith's opposite
I think we sometimes make a mistake when we picture faith and doubt at opposite ends of a line:
Faith ←——————→ Doubt
I'm beginning to think the relationship is more complicated.
Doubt and faith can both exist because our knowledge is incomplete.
If I have absolute knowledge, I don't need faith about that particular thing.
If I don't know, however, there is room for questions.
There is room for doubt.
But there is also room for belief.
And hope.
And faith.
In that sense, doubt doesn't necessarily destroy the room where faith lives.
It can be part of the room.
That doesn't mean doubt is inherently virtuous. Doubt can become stubborn, cynical, or unwilling to consider evidence, just as certainty can become arrogant and unwilling to consider evidence.
The virtue isn't doubt.
The virtue is honesty.
I want to be able to say:
This I know.
This I believe.
This I question.
This I don't know.
And this I still hope is true.
I think there is room in discipleship for all five sentences.
“Lord, I believe”
One of my favorite expressions of faith in scripture comes from a father desperate for Christ to help his son.
Jesus tells him that all things are possible to one who believes.
The father responds:
«“Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”
Mark 9:24»
I've always loved the contradiction inside that sentence.
Except maybe it isn't a contradiction.
The man believes.
The man also struggles to believe.
And somehow he brings both of those things to Christ at the same time.
Christ doesn't stop him and say, “Come back when you've eliminated the second half of that sentence.”
He helps him.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland used this very story when speaking about faith and doubt. He encouraged people to honestly acknowledge their questions and concerns, and he specifically said:
«“I am not asking you to pretend to faith you do not have.”»
I love that.
Because pretending certainty isn't faith.
Sometimes “I don't know, but I hope” may be a more honest expression of faith than saying “I know” when I really don't.
We want a burning bush
There is a scene in Season 3, Episode 1 of Daredevil that I've been thinking about.
Matt Murdock is physically broken and spiritually angry.
He survived the collapse of Midland Circle, but his life as he knew it is gone. He's injured. He's isolated. He feels abandoned by God.
Father Paul Lantom tells him:
«“The burning-bush business doesn't happen very often, even in the Bible. He's usually more subtle than that. You want to hear God, Matthew, you have to listen more carefully. Because he speaks in whispers.”»
It's fiction, of course.
But there's something very scriptural about the idea.
Elijah discovered that the Lord wasn't in the wind.
He wasn't in the earthquake.
He wasn't in the fire.
Then came the still small voice.
Sometimes I think what we really want from God isn't faith.
We want the burning bush.
Give me something undeniable.
Give me an angel.
Give me a miracle.
Give me an answer so unmistakable that I never have to wonder again.
Remove the uncertainty.
Then I'll believe.
Except the Book of Mormon gives us a rather inconvenient example of people who got exactly that.
Laman and Lemuel got the angel
Laman and Lemuel didn't merely hear family stories about miracles.
They experienced them.
They saw an angel.
They witnessed divine deliverance.
They experienced the Liahona.
They heard the voice of the Lord.
They saw Nephi exercise miraculous power.
They crossed an ocean in a ship their brother said God had commanded him to build.
At one point, after an angel literally appeared and told them the Lord would deliver Laban into their hands, they almost immediately began questioning how the Lord could possibly deliver Laban.
That's remarkable.
They got the burning bush.
And it didn't produce lasting faith.
That tells me something important.
A miracle can provide evidence. It cannot make the next choice for us.
An angel can answer one question.
It cannot force me to nurture what I experienced afterward.
Laman and Lemuel demonstrate that removing doubt in one moment doesn't necessarily create enduring faith.
And that fits Alma perfectly.
Knowledge can become perfect “in that thing.”
Then comes the next thing.
And the next.
And eventually even Moses has to walk away from the burning bush.
What happens when we discover we were wrong?
This matters to me because sometimes religious people encounter information that doesn't fit what they were taught.
Maybe it's Church history.
Maybe it's something a prophet or apostle said.
Maybe it's an interpretation of scripture.
Maybe it's a policy.
Maybe it's something we were absolutely certain God wanted, only to discover later that our certainty was misplaced.
And if we've been taught that faith means certainty, we suddenly have a serious problem.
Because now intellectual honesty and faith can begin to feel like enemies.
If I admit that this thing was wrong, what else might be wrong?
If a Church leader made a mistake, what does that mean about prophets?
If something I was taught about Church history wasn't accurate, what does that mean about everything else?
It becomes frighteningly easy to fall into an all-or-nothing framework:
Either I must find some way to prove that my religion has never been wrong, or I must conclude that none of it is true.
But those aren't the only possibilities.
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf acknowledged plainly that there have been times when members or leaders in the Church have made mistakes. In that same Come, Join with Us address, he said:
«“It's natural to have questions.”»
And he spoke of faith growing even in the “sometimes sandy soil of doubt and uncertainty.”
That gives us another possibility.
Maybe I can say:
Yes. That was a mistake.
And then ask:
What does that mistake actually tell me about everything else?
Maybe the honest answer is sometimes, “Not as much as I originally feared.”
Other times it may require me to change something I believed.
And sometimes the answer may simply be:
I don't know.
“I don't know” is not a failure of testimony
I think we need to become more comfortable with those three words.
I don't know.
Elder M. Russell Ballard acknowledged that sometimes we can study, learn, and know, while at other times we have to believe, trust, and hope. He also acknowledged that we may not always find satisfying answers to our questions.
That matters.
Because faith shouldn't require me to invent an answer just because uncertainty makes me uncomfortable.
If I don't know why something happened, I don't know.
If I don't know how to reconcile two things, I don't know.
If the historical evidence points somewhere I wasn't expecting, I should be willing to follow the evidence.
Faith doesn't require me to call something true when I know it isn't.
Faith doesn't require me to pretend an unanswered question has been answered.
Faith doesn't require manufactured certainty.
Elder Holland's words come back again:
Don't pretend to faith you don't have.
Start with what you actually have.
Hope deserves more credit
Maybe part of our problem is that we sometimes treat hope as a consolation prize for people who haven't achieved knowledge yet.
But scripture doesn't.
Moroni connects hope directly with faith.
Alma does too.
Faith is hoping for things that are not seen, which are true.
Hope isn't defective knowledge.
It's part of faith.
There are things I believe about God that I cannot prove.
There are things I hope are true about eternity.
There are experiences in my life that I interpret as God's involvement, while recognizing that someone else might interpret them differently.
There are questions for which I don't currently have satisfying answers.
And there are things I once thought I understood that I have had to reconsider.
I don't think I need to hide any of that from God.
He already knows.
Maybe faith isn't about eliminating uncertainty
Father Lantom tells Matt that God doesn't usually send burning bushes.
Laman and Lemuel remind us that even when He sends the equivalent of one, spectacular evidence doesn't guarantee enduring faith.
Elijah reminds us to listen for the still small voice.
Alma reminds us that faith exists precisely because our knowledge isn't perfect.
The father in Mark shows us that belief and unbelief can exist inside the same human heart.
And modern prophets and apostles have acknowledged that questions are natural, Church leaders can make mistakes, some questions don't presently have satisfying answers, and we shouldn't pretend to possess faith we don't actually have.
Put all of that together, and I come to a different understanding of faith.
Maybe faith isn't measured by how much uncertainty I've managed to eliminate.
Maybe part of faith is what I choose to nurture within the uncertainty that remains.
That doesn't mean ignoring evidence.
It doesn't mean suppressing questions.
It doesn't mean believing something simply because I desperately want it to be true.
It means being honest about the boundaries of my knowledge and still leaving room for hope.
So perhaps my testimony doesn't always have to sound like:
“I know.”
Sometimes it might sound like:
I know some things.
I have good reasons to believe some things.
I have questions about some things.
I genuinely don't know some things.
And there are beautiful things I still hope are true.
I don't think God is threatened by any of those sentences.
And I don't think faith requires me to erase any of them.
After all, if Alma is right, faith was never perfect knowledge in the first place.
Perhaps uncertainty isn't the place where faith dies.
Perhaps it is the room where faith lives.
