In answer to those who questioned his credentials, and the source of his teaching, Jesus claimed that it came from God who sent him. But how do we know that this is the truth? Jesus said, “If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.”[1] Lynn Anderson claims that the “very first and most important step toward faith in Christ is to decide whether or not you really want to believe and honestly face the reasons why you choose what you choose.”[2]
Faith, when you get down to it, depends upon whether you choose to do God’s will (if God exists), whether or not you want to do God’s will. It comes down to motivation. If God exists, are you willing to respond to God’s call in Christ or not? This touches on the heart, or the will, not just the head, or the intellect. Anderson maintains that doubt is “more likely to be rooted in hidden, internal reasons of the will than in conscious, intellectual searching.”[3] People may give all sorts of reasons why they are not believers in Christ, but more often than not, they have chosen not to believe.
What are some of these hidden, internal reasons of the will which block the motivation to believe?
There is the psychological defense. Doubters see belief in God as a psychological crutch. They view believers as emotionally insecure who have invented God because they couldn’t cut it alone. But what if we are created by God to be emotionally insecure without a loving relationship with him? What if we are designed by God to believe in him, and his absence leaves a vacuum in our lives which generates this need? The psychological need is a genuine need. Miguel de Unamuno said, “To believe in God is, in the first instance, to wish there may be a God, to be unable to live without him…. if I do believe in God…it is principally because I want God to exist, and next because He reveals Himself to me through my heart, in the Gospel, through Christ, and through history. It is a matter of the heart.” That is why the Bible says “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”[4] God rewards us with his love when we are genuinely seeking him.
Then there are the emotional needs not to believe in God. Our pride makes it difficult for us to admit we need God. Our relationships may be preventing us from believing – we don’t want our friends to think that we have gone religious. This is called in the Bible, ‘love for the world’. It would be ridiculous to refuse to accept that which we know to be true because we have an emotional need to appear self-sufficient and strong in the sight of others. Our pride and our secular friends will not last forever. They will fail when we most need emotional support. “The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”[5]
Another, and current, reason for doubt, is that of history. Many, as children, have suffered abuse from authority figures, either in their families, or in the church, which has served as an extended family. There are “large crowds of doubters who have been scarred through betrayal by professing believers – relatives, ministers, priests, elders, business partners, mates, mentors, or media evangelists. Anger, disillusionment, and mistrust over this kind of betrayal easily become transferred to God. And, again, the transfer sometimes occurs at hidden, subconscious levels that may surface in the disguise of doubt.”[6]
Allied to this reason for doubt is the history of religions in the world. There has been so much violence and suffering perpetrated in the name of God. The institutional Church, which has enjoyed a position of privilege and power, has often used its position to do terrible things in the name of Christ. There are many people who called themselves Christians because it gave them power, but they did not behave as authentic followers of Christ. Jesus said that, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.”[7]
We must make a distinction, as Jesus did, between institutional Christianity and the genuine Christian. We do not worship the Church, but Jesus Christ.
Through the centuries much has been done in the name of Christianity that does not reflect the teachings of Jesus. When evil has been done in the name of Christ, it is not the will of God, but the will of sinful men. The early Christians were effective missionaries because they took care of their neighbors, the poor, widows, and others who were in need. They protected children, especially baby girls who were often thrown away at birth.
People reject Christianity because of the Crusades, and the terrible things done in the Holy Land by the Crusaders. It was a misguided movement that encouraged people to slaughter others for the sake of political, material and spiritual rewards. This had nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus, but more with the ambitions of men. The Spanish Inquisition was another attempt to control what people believed by those whose positions gave them power over others. Lord Acton was right, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Most genuine Christians live under persecution, and suffer in the name of Christ rather than make others suffer. You can’t blame Jesus and his followers for all the evil that has happened in his name. Some missionaries exploited natives they were trying to convert, but most missionaries were faithful to the gospel of Christ and saved the natives, where they worked, from cruel barbarities. They established schools and hospitals, and gave hope to those they served.
While Muslims reject Christianity because of the Crusades, many Jews reject Jesus because of the Holocaust. The Roman Catholic Church has apologized for any errors and failures of some Catholics for not aiding the Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. Martin Luther contributed to the problem with his hatred of the Jews. Luther was a genuine Christian, but he was sadly and grievously mistaken in his views about the Jews. In that instance, he did not live up to the ideals of Jesus. In contrast to the passivity of so many Christians and church leaders in Germany under Hitler, there was the heroic example of Martin Niemoller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer of the Confessing Church movement, who were willing to suffer and die rather than acquiesce to the official government policy.
Bonhoeffer, who was executed by the Nazis for being implicated in the plot to assassinate Hitler wrote from prison,
“If we are to look more closely, we see that any violent display of power, whether political or religious, produces an outburst of folly in a large part of mankind; indeed, this seems actually to be a psychological and sociological law; the power of some needs the folly of others. It is not that certain human capacities, intellectual capacities for instance, become stunted or destroyed, but rather that the upsurge of power makes such an overwhelming impression that men are deprived of their independent judgment, and – more or less unconsciously – give up trying to assess the new state of affairs for themselves. The fact that the fool is often stubborn must not mislead us into thinking that he is independent. One feels in fact, when talking to him, that one is dealing, not with the man himself, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like, which have taken hold of him. He is under a spell, he is blinded, his very nature is being misused and exploited. Having thus become a passive instrument, the fool will be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. Here lies the danger of a diabolical exploitation that can do irreparable damage to human beings.”[8]
If history can be a reason to doubt belief in Jesus, it also provides many good reasons to believe in Jesus. Atheism has resulted in terrible violations in human rights. Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung were all perpetrators of great violence. Christianity, on the other hand, has been deeply involved in helping the poor, the disadvantaged, and the disenfranchised. Christians built great educational and cultural institutions. The positives of Christianity overwhelm the negatives. Nevertheless, our failures should cause us to be humble in our attitude toward others. There are nameless men and women who have humbly and courageously upheld the Gospel through the centuries, who have served in obscurity, who have given their lives to help others, who have left the world a better place, and who have struggled to do the right thing despite incredible pressure to do otherwise. The civilizing ideas of liberty, conscience and truth can be traced to Christianity.
Lastly, a person may be reluctant to have faith because he or she simply doesn’t want to do things God’s way. Many people do not want to become Christians because they do not want to have to obey or follow the teaching of Jesus. They don’t want to give up their freedom to do their own thing. They want to spend their money on themselves and their selfish pleasures rather than see it as loaned by God to do his will. Stewardship, sharing and giving are a tremendous threat to this kind of person. It is not so much a matter of doubt and faith as a matter of choosing to do one’s own will rather than God’s will. It is not so much an intellectual reason to doubt as a moral one. Helmut Thielicke put it this way:
“If a person learns to bring God into the picture and therefore begins to believe, then he ceases to be so passionately self-willed. Looking back, he discovers that it was this very autonomy, this centering his life on his own ego, that made him seek unbelief and made him fear that faith would threaten his self-will.”[9]
We choose whether to believe in Christ or not. We choose whether to follow Christ’s teachings or not. We choose based upon all sorts of motivations, all sorts of hidden, inner reasons of the will.
If we have a problem in believing we need to be brutally honest with ourselves. We need to take inventory of our inner selves. Could there be any reason – either conscious or buried in our subconscious – why we might not want to believe? Take out that reason and look at it honestly and see whether it constitutes a genuine barrier to believe or simply an excuse to avoid submitting our lives to God’s will.
Remember that Jesus said, “if anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” If you choose to risk doing God’s will by living as though God exists and has a claim on your life, you will discover whether the teaching of Christ comes from God or not.
Even if you discover that you honestly don’t want to believe, at least the uncovering of your real motive will enable you to deal with your decision more openly and honestly. Or it may propel you forward to overcome your reluctance, and cause you to be willing to risk believing after all. You need to choose every day what you believe.
Soren Kierkegaard writes:
“In the end the archenemy of decision is cowardice. Cowardice is constantly at work trying to break off the good agreement of decision with eternity… Cowardice settles deep in our souls like idle mists on stagnant waters. From it arise unhealthy vapors and deceiving phantoms. The thing that cowardice fears most is decision; for decision always scatters the mists, at least for a moment. Cowardice thus hides behind the thought it likes best of all: the crutch of time. Cowardice and time always find a reason for not hurrying, for saying, ‘Not today, but tomorrow’, whereas God in heaven and the eternal say: ‘Do it today. Now is the day of salvation.’ The eternal refrain of decision is: ‘Today, today.’ But cowardice holds back, hold us up. If only cowardice would appear in all its baseness, one would recognize it for what it is and fight it immediately. Whereas decision reminds us of the end to come, cowardice turns us away from finality… A good decision is our will to do everything we can within our power. It means to serve God with all that we’ve got, be it little or much. Every person can do that. In the end, failure to decide prevents one from doing what is good… This much is certain: the greatest thing each person can do is to give himself to God utterly and unconditionally – weaknesses, fears, and all.”[10]
What does one have to lose? And consider all that one can gain. Jim Elliot’s famous remark about mortal life and eternity is still profound: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” He was martyred at age 29 trying to bring the gospel of Christ to the Auca Indians in Ecuador. The witness of his commitment made a profound impact on me at age 16, and resulted in my offering myself for the ordained ministry. I was not alone. His example spurred many to similar endeavor. His life and death brought forth much fruit.
(Ted Schroder, BURIED TREASURE, p. 69-76)
[1] John 7:17
[2] Lynn Anderson, If I Really Believe, Why Do I Have These Doubts? Howard, 2000, 114
[3] Anderson, op. cit., 100
[4] Hebrews 11:6
[5] 1 John 2:17
[6] Anderson, op.cit., 108
[7] Matthew 7:21-23
[8] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge (Touchstone, New York, 1997) 8,9
[9] Helmut Thielecke, How To Believe Again (Philadephia, Fortress, 1972), 17
[10] Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, ed. & trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1990), 347-375
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