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I
try to remember that doubts are part of the faith journey. Frederick
Buechner once said that "doubts are the ants in the pants of faith." And
today I read more about doubting that helps me.
"With practice we discover that there are a number of doubters within us, and they are different. To our astonishment we realize that some of them are allies and friends on the journey of faith, not blasphemous enemies. Sometimes in the climate of prayer we discover that certain doubts are like angels, agents of the Spirit of truth who is struggling to strip away from us superstitious and immature beliefs. 'Doubting the divinity of Christ' for a time may be the only way the Spirit of Christ can get us to start again from scratch and believe in his total humanity. The divine Christ of many people's conventional faith is a fiction, a demigod, not the man who is the Word made flesh. Doubts about doctrines and moral rules may be the only way the Spirit of truth can get us to move from accepting Christianity at second hand, to appropriating it for ourselves in the light of our own experience and questions. The Spirit can work better with us even if our faith is stripped right down for a time, than if we are cocooned in a complacent religiosity which we are not prepared to have disturbed."
Smith, Martin L. A Season for the Spirit: Readings for the Days of Lent. Boston: Cowley, 1991. 124.
"With practice we discover that there are a number of doubters within us, and they are different. To our astonishment we realize that some of them are allies and friends on the journey of faith, not blasphemous enemies. Sometimes in the climate of prayer we discover that certain doubts are like angels, agents of the Spirit of truth who is struggling to strip away from us superstitious and immature beliefs. 'Doubting the divinity of Christ' for a time may be the only way the Spirit of Christ can get us to start again from scratch and believe in his total humanity. The divine Christ of many people's conventional faith is a fiction, a demigod, not the man who is the Word made flesh. Doubts about doctrines and moral rules may be the only way the Spirit of truth can get us to move from accepting Christianity at second hand, to appropriating it for ourselves in the light of our own experience and questions. The Spirit can work better with us even if our faith is stripped right down for a time, than if we are cocooned in a complacent religiosity which we are not prepared to have disturbed."
Smith, Martin L. A Season for the Spirit: Readings for the Days of Lent. Boston: Cowley, 1991. 124.
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