Healthy Doubts

Questioning your faith or experiencing doubt does not mean that your faith isn’t real or that you are not spiritual enough. In fact, Barna reports that two-thirds of Christians have doubts. Having questions is normal. Tim Keller writes, “A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection. Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts. … It is no longer sufficient to hold beliefs just because you inherited them” (Timothy Keller, The Reason for God [New York: Penguin Group, 2008], xvii).