Between Belief and Doubt?

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Many people think that either you’re a believer or you’re not.

If you’re a believer, they may say, you must adhere to a faith that is expressed in dogma and practice and embrace every aspect of it. There is no room for doubt or uncertainty.

If you’re not a believer, you’re pretty much doomed to exclusion from God’s love.

I think many believers have come to see that faith can’t be that black and white. Either you have no questions about your faith, which would be highly unusual, or you ignore your questions thinking they are a sign of infidelity. I doubt there are many who have no questions at all.

Not the Opposite of Faith

Doubt is not the opposite of faith, and the road from doubt to faith is rarely straight. There are lots of curves, detours and even reverses on the journey. And I’ve always believed that atheists, too, have their doubts about their unbelief.

Letters discovered after the 1997 death of Mother Theresa, the famous “Saint of the Gutters,” revealed that she struggled with doubt much of her life – including the 50 years in which she was caring for the poor in Calcutta. In those letters, she expressed her sense of being “unwanted, unloved, shut out,” and doubted heaven’s existence.

“Despite this inner agony,” says an online article, “she continued her mission unfailingly, demonstrating that faith is not a feeling but an action. Her life is a testament to the idea that doubt is not a sign of weakness but can propel compassion. Her commitment to serving the ‘Jesus in disguise’ among the poor became the engine driving her faith even amidst skepticism.”

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God, I believe, is tough enough to handle our doubt.

There was a touching moment in 2018 when Pope Francis was talking to a group of children, and an 8-year-old boy had an opportunity to ask a question. The boy, Emmanuel Balderi, lost his nerve and was on the verge of tears before approaching the pope. But after some urging, he asked the pope if his deceased dad, who was an atheist, was in heaven.

First, the pope told Emmanuel that “"God is the one who says who goes to heaven."

And after hearing Emmanuel say that his father was a good man, the pope said it was beautiful to hear a son say that of his father, and that Emmanuel’s touching words about his father was a good sign about the heaven question.

“If that man was able to make his children like that,” he said, “then it's true, he was a good man,” adding that though he wasn’t a believer, Emmanuel’s father had “a good heart,” shown by the fact that he had his children baptized despite his own disbelief.

He asked Emmanuel to think about what God is like.

"What do you think? A father's heart. God has a dad's heart. And with a dad who was not a believer, but who baptized his children and gave them that bravura, do you think God would be able to leave him far from himself?

Does God Abandon his Children?

"Does God abandon his children?" the pope asked the gathered children. They shouted, "No."

"There, Emanuele, that is the answer," the pope told the boy. "God surely was proud of your father, because it is easier as a believer to baptize your children than to baptize them when you are not a believer. Surely this pleased God very much."

Most of us, I believe, have many of the doubts that Emmanuel’s dad had. I believe it’s true that faith is mostly a matter of the will, requiring prayer, study and commitment. But also, a willingness to live with uncertainty. That shouldn’t be hard because life is filled with it.