Why Doubt Can Be Good

I feel like it’s a bit difficult to get people motivated for apologetics. I’ve written Biblical cases for apologetics, and I’ve been working tirelessly to prepare lessons, and to be available for questions somebody in the ministry might have. And that’s good and all, but that just doesn’t seem to work all too well.

Best seller Nancy Pearcy writes in her new book, Saving Leonardo, “Join a campus ministry group? A Bible study? Important though those things are, the most decisive factor [according to a Fuller Seminary study] is whether students had a safe place to work through their doubts and questions before leaving home. The researchers concluded, ‘The more college students felt that they had the opportunity to express their doubt while they were in high school, the higher [their] levels of faith maturity and spiritual maturity.’ The study indicates that students actually grow more confident in their Christian commitment when the adults in their life – parents, pastors, teachers – guide them in grappling with the challenges posed by prevailing secular worldviews. In short, the only way teens become truly ‘prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks’ (1 Pet. 3:15) is by wrestling honestly and personally with the questions.”

I think this is how I’ve personally come to love apologetics. For those of you who know my testimony, I did research for about four months, and the last two months before getting baptized was me just trying to emotionally accept it. It was very personal for me. I knew that if I decided not to become a Christian, the stuff I read would haunt me.

Shortly after I got baptized, I had a lengthy conversation with a Jehovah’s Witness. Coming from an atheist background, I looked very little at theology. The deity of Christ wasn’t even an issue. I actually didn’t even know it was an issue. If you had asked me if Jesus was God after I got baptized, I wouldn’t know what to say. I’d probably say no, since the Father is God, and God is one, or some line of reasoning like that. But a week after I got baptized, I had this long conversation with a Jehovah’s Witness over the phone. We spoke for about seven hours straight from about eleven pm to six in the morning. I got smashed. This guy knew the Bible better than I did, he shot down my objections, and he presented a positive case. It scared me. A lot. A week old Christian and I’m already starting to wonder if I made a mistake. And a major one at that.

I was watching this atheist guy speak on youtube. He was presenting a case against the existence of God. Having been used to the rhetoric of Hitchens  and having him as my standard atheist, I thought he was one of the best, and if I could see through him, I can see through enough. However, when I heard this guy give arguments against the existence of God, I had to pause the video. I thought he gave some really good arguments. Arguments I never heard before. Arguments I didn’t know how to respond to. They’re child’s play to me now, but they were deadly to me at the time. The kind of arguments he gave are called arguments from incoherency, and they are probably the best kind of arguments you can give against the existence of God. For example: Is God self satisfied? By that I mean, is God perfectly happy with Himself? He must be, because God is perfect. So if God is satisfied with himself, why do we exist? Because we exist, that means God desired for us to exist. But if God desired for us to exist, then that implies a weakness in his character, because if God is self satisfied, then he shouldn’t desire anything at all. And if God doesn’t desire anything at all, then we shouldn’t exist, yet here we are. Hence an argument can be formulated: If God does exist, then nothing else should exist. Something other than God exists. Therefore, God does not exist.

I paused the video, and thought, ‘Oh crap, I’m in trouble.’ I struggled with this question for a while. I didn’t want to watch the rest of the video, but I did. I didn’t even know where to begin to look. I didn’t know any of the websites I know today, and all I had in my library at the time was Dinesh D’Souza. I had seen Dr. Craig on youtube before but didn’t know the magnitude of his work or how widely he was known.

When I was a kid, especially in the third grade, I used to never do my homework. I had worksheets, but I would always throw them behind my bed and tell my mom I was done. Then at night, as I would lie in bed, knowing I hadn’t done my homework, and I would have nothing to turn in the next morning, I felt a wave of prickling heat overcome my body. I now know that feeling is called fear. This heat wave trickling over my body is what I felt when I encountered this Jehovah’s Witness and this atheist (turned out to be Victor Stenger).

Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t even know what apologetics was when I got baptized. When I came out of the pool, I had Alex Fleit come up to me, me still dripping wet from the baptism, she asked me if I was interested in apologetics, and I kind of brushed her off, not knowing what it was. I had never heard the word before. Looking back, I know this was something I was reading, but had no idea the field was this large, and that it even had a name. So I grappled with the questions. Does hell exist? Are we all annihilated after we die? Is Jesus God? Does God even exist? – A question I thought I had already answered. Here I am, confronted with the issues personally. I tried to put them off for a while, but I can’t let questions linger in my head. A brother once asked me why I sound mad when I ask questions. I retorted, Because I don’t have the answers. Truth. I always wanted to know the truth. And I’m left alone with these questions that leave me with doubt.

And I think this is the biggest difference between me and most in the NSA. For the people I teach, I feed them the answers. With a silver spoon. And perhaps this is why they don’t seem to hold the information in as much. They didn’t feel the heat I felt. They aren’t as threatened by it as I was. There is no real danger for them, it’s all easy answers. But it’s not. I struggled with the issues for a while. The drive for those in the NSA is mainly curiosity and the desire to learn more about God. It’s external. But for me, when that Jehovah’s Witness chewed me up and spit me out, the drive was internal. I had a personal reason to do the research. I was involved personally against someone who really disagreed with me, and was better at proving it then I was objecting to it. For those in the NSA, it’s all hypothetical. There is no internal drive.

When I started the series for the Jehovah’s Witnesses for the NSA, I role played one of them for five minutes and answered questions like a Jehovah’s Witness. And that really connected with people. Why? My guess is that unlike me saying, “Ok, this is what they are going to say, and this is why it’s wrong” I played the opposition, and I had answers for everything they asked. And apparently, that was one of the more popular lessons I ever gave. And the NSA really learned. This may also be why probably the most popular meeting we ever had was when we had real Mormon missionaries come over and talk to us.

The Marines have this slogan, The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle. While I agree, my view on this has changed in recent days. My view was to have as much training as possible so when you’re out in war, battle won’t be as bad, and thus, though not realizing it, decreasing the value of real battle. But now, I think actually being in the battle can be of real help. I often hear of Marines who say that there is something about a real war that training simply can’t prepare you for. And there may be something to this. I guess you could say I’m an apologetic veteran. I didn’t have the training. It’s always been a spiritual battle for me, right from the get-go. And the NSA has training. They haven’t really felt the fire, that internal fire, that internal fear, the motivation it gives is so much more powerful than an external curiosity.

Now, fortunately, when it comes to atheists, I don’t feel that fear anymore. Even when I come across something new, and I can’t think of something right away, I don’t trip. Why? Because I’ve been through it so many times, and I’ve always found a satisfactory answer. I’ve always been led back to God. Christianity has always come out on top. And so when I come across something I’m not sure how to deal with, I know God will provide an answer, because he always has before.

However, I still feel that nervousness. For example, I’m currently struggling with the mind-body problem. Are we really more than our brains? I can’t give a confident answer right now. But no matter what the outcome, no matter what happens, whatever the answer I come to, I’m going to be able to know it like the back of my hand. I’m going to know the ins and outs of that problem. If someone gave me the answer at the first sign of doubt and killed it, I would probably forgotten it the next day. So that’s my advice. Internalize the problems. Internalize the motivation. Internalize the fear. Don’t be so stuck in hypothetical’s and what-ifs. In fact, I’m not even sure if I should be helping you guys anymore. I don’t want to keep spoon feeding. Feel the heat. Be refined by fire.