At a Christian fellowship group meet today at school,
a member leading the session went through the passage of Psalms 88 and Mark
9:14-29 where Jesus healed a boy with an evil spirit. The member leading the
session talked about how the Psalmist in Psalms 88 experienced moments of
doubts about God in his hardship, so much so that he made rather seemingly
irreverent remarks about God in his lament that might seem blasphemous in
nature. The member talked about how it is possible for fellow believers to
experience similar doubts about God, and that quite often, such doubts go suppressed
in Christian settings, and it is quite convenient for fellow Christians to push
away such doubts from a fellow Christian because of their discomfort with
handling it. The member referred to the Mark passage, and made the point that
at times, what we can do about our doubts is to ask God to help us with our
unbelief.
This session resonated with me because I have been
experiencing some grave doubts about my faith in recent years given my hardships
in life. And I can quite identify with the point made by the member that such
sentiments are not too well accommodated in Christian settings at times. But to
be fair, I am not sure what would be the right way to address such sentiments
as well. There are Christians I know who would approach this by boldly telling the
doubting person that he should just trust God and not doubt. Some other
Christians would just try to allow the doubting person to talk out his
sentiments without offering too much comments. Then there are those Christians
who would try to afford an explanation, or some wisdom to the doubting person.
For me, I will tell the doubting person that I too have similar doubts, but that
I think it is okay to doubt, and that God is bigger than to be upset at our
doubts, but that we should also try to give God the benefit of the doubt. I
suppose different people may respond differently to different approaches, so I
wouldn’t want to overly criticize any of the different approaches. But there
are some which I find myself adverse to, so much so that I prefer not to relay
my doubts to that Christian person whom I know would simply belittle my doubts.
Where I am with my own doubts right now, I think I am
at the point where I think that there is a distinct possibility that God does
not exist. It seems to me that he is virtually absent from the world, or from
my life at least. Regarding the point made by the member that we can ask God to
help us with our unbelief, I wonder to myself why I should even ask God to help
me with my unbelief when it is quite possible that God does not exist in the
first place. I guess my unbelief is the one talking there, rather than the
believing part of me. I once watched a video featuring a talking session
amongst four prominent atheists who are colloquially known as the Four Horsemen
of Atheism– Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel
Dennett. In that dialogue amongst the four individuals, they talked about why
believers seem so persistent in their belief in God. Christopher Hitchens made
the point that one of the chief reasons which he identifies for persistence of belief
is the act of the believer to ask God to help him with his unbelief. I guess
from an atheist point of view, the asking for God’s help with unbelief is a rut
which prevents the believer from embracing his unbelief and coming to the truth
of atheism. Where I am at right now, I am pretty inundated by unbelief so much
so that I don’t even want to ask God to help me with my unbelief. I tell God
that if he wants to help me with my unbelief, he should remove my hardships in
life, rather than demand my psychological attitude of belief towards him. I am
not sure how God, if he does exist, will respond to my attitude towards him. I
told the group that I think that God helps us with our unbelief even if we do
not ask for it. Honestly though, I am not sure. But if there is any reason why
I still continue believing in God, it is that I hope he would do something to
alleviate me of my hardships in life.
1 comment:
Hi Sam,
I'm in a v similar predicament. Don't give up and on God. Email me if you'd like to chat.
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