Overcoming Doubt

"But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed.  For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord; a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways." — James 1:6-8 (ASV 1901)

Incertitude is a paralysis of the soul's highest faculties. Doubt weakens by distraction. Etymologically it signifies moving in two opposite directions. It produces fluctuation, hesitation, and suspense. "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." He has a divine premonition that he needs "not expect to receive anything from the Lord." If he is a preacher, his announcement of the Gospel will be weak and ineffectual. He cannot speak with the assurance of a personal experience which is requisite to produce conviction.

Unbelief and Doubt

QUESTION: My presiding elder teaches that all men have doubts at times, and that it is not a sin to doubt at times even the divinity of Christ and the existence of God. Is this so?

ANSWER: He probably told you that there is a great difference between unbelief and doubt. Unbelief, involving as it does a permanent wrong attitude of the will inconsistent with spiritual life, is always sinful; and doubt, not implying any fixed and wilful repugnance to saving truth, but rather a temporary suspense of the mind while investigating a theological proposition with a willingness to receive the truth, is not a sin. A man may doubt and yet live on the right side of his doubts. Bunyan tells us that Christian fell into the slough of despond and got out on the right side of his doubts, the side towards the celestial city; and that for a while he was in Doubting Castle, locked up in a cage. Neither of these experiences were destructive of his spiritual life, yet both have their perils. Your preacher should have told you that there is a perfect salvation from doubts on fundamentals. But perhaps he has not got so far in his personal experience as the full assurance of faith, the sure cure of doubt. This is a distinctively Christian privilege unknown to John the Baptist in Herod's dark prison, and to Elijah, his antitype, under the juniper tree. They were the greatest Old Testament saints. The weakest one in the kingdom of heaven opened on the earth on the Day of Pentecost is greater in privilege and experience. He may be entirely delivered from doubt on the fundamentals, and march with firm steps to the fires of martyrdom.

— Steele's Answers pp. 120, 121.

Faith Includes Obedience

The fact that genuine faith always includes obedience is a sufficient answer to the sceptic's objection that salvation is made to hinge upon a bare intellectual act, without reference to the character of the agent. It is just the opposite. It is an act of submission to the highest authority in the universe — an act which tends to conserve its moral order, by enthroning the moral law in universal supremacy. A singular confirmation of the truth of these remarks is found in the Greek Testament, where ἀπείθεια, unbelief, is frequently used to signify disobedience and obstinacy. The unbelief for which men are to be everlastingly condemned lies in the rebellious attitude of the will toward Jesus Christ, and not in any supposed innocent intellectual inability to believe the truth of God's word.

— from Mile-Stone Papers, Chapter 9.

"O Ye of Little Faith"

The most surprising fact which came to the knowledge of Jesus was the weakness of his disciples' faith. Descended from heaven, written all over with proofs of his divinity, and bearing the great seal of God in his right hand — the miracle-working power — he stood unrecognized in the world. A little band of a dozen or more attach themselves to his fortunes, and avow faith in him; but often their perception of the wonderful beauty of his character was so dim, and their glimpses of his divinity were so brief, that they relapsed into distressing doubt, and were on the point of abandoning him forever.