I know what’s behind all my doubt-borne anxiety and obsessive, sinful trawling of the Internet in search of God (or not God): It’s a fear of being wrong. And a fear of uncertainty.

Father, I want to reorient the things I do, the things on my list, toward this: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:35). And toward this one, too: “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14).

I have decided how to deal with my existential doubt about God: Consider myself married to You.

I have several marriages. In order of strength of commitment, I admit that I am married first to Carla and the kids. But right after that comes You. But despite that order, which is the inverse of how I would have ordered it at this time last year, I am privileged to live in a pluralistic culture where it is hard to imagine those two marriages ever coming into conflict. So we might almost consider these marriages functionally tied in importance, if not in their priority.

After that—and this will help with my concentration problems at work—I am also married to my colleagues at DiamondBack. Then to Houserville. These two marriages are more dissoluble without fault.

But the first two, they are not dissoluble. I tell You, O Lord, the same thing I told Carla and she me: I will never divorce You unless someone can prove Your non-existence. Folks may be able to make strong inferential, probabilistic cases that You don’t exist, but they can never disprove it. And there remains enough evidence out there for a reasonable person to make the inferential, probabilistic conclusion that You are.

Can Your existence be deduced or induced with certainty? No. Even the least explainable miracles, such as Vonna Wala’s healing, can be dismissed by appealing to the possibility of future, non-theistic explanations, and even though that may be unwarranted extrapolation and a fallacious argument to the future, such dismissal can carry weight and eliminate theistic certainty. Short of an intense encounter with the metaphysical, which I hope for but don’t count on, I can never return to thinking Your existence is certain.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t live as though it is certain. And that is my plan.

My notes from talking with Dave Palmer about my doubt

• It’s about time!
• This doesn’t happen quickly. It’s going to be take time.
• It’s not gonna help to be impatient.
• God is doing something in you that will good fruit will come.
• “Though the mills of God grind slowly / Yet they grind exceeding small / Though with patience he stands waiting / With exactness grinds he all“ (Longfellow)

Why is faith a virtue?

If you ask a believer to focus on God in prayer, the part of their brain responsible for attention and concentration becomes very active. If you ask an atheist to do the same, the characteristic patterns of prayer don’t appear because there’s nothing for the atheist to focus on. Science tells us that the way humans understand God is more a feeling and experience than an idea or set of beliefs. For atheists, the pattern of connections across the brain that create this experience aren’t there. There is no God in their brains. It turns out that some belief in God is vital for people to experience and know God. In some measurable way, you have to leap before you look.

That seems foolish to many people, and I’m one of them. The Bible constantly extolls the virtues of faith and belief in things unseen. I think that reflects an intuitive understanding of what we’ve learned about the neurology of belief in modern times. Many of best things about Christianity only happen after you know God, but God can’t be proven. That’s why faith is extolled as such a virtue.

— Mike McHargue, “Walking With God Through Doubt”

If my intellectual faith—that is, my confident intellectual assent that Jesus is alive, or even that God exists—dies, I do want to keep what faith I can muster along the Richard-Beck definitions supplied below aligned with Jesus. He will always be a great totem, and this way I can continue to celebrate Him with my family.

Sacramental faith: A faith with and through the body. This is the faith of the book of James, the faith of obedience. It’s the faith of discipleship, moving one’s body through life the way Jesus moved his body through life. It is the faith of orthopraxy (“right practice”). The first Christians were called followers of “The Way.” This is the faith of the path, what Eastern religions call the dharma.

Doxological faith: The faith of worship and allegiance. The early Christians confessed that Jesus was Lord, a radical political claim That is, regardless as to whether you believe in the Incarnation or the Resurrection, a Christian confesses that Jesus is Lord, the telos of her ethical and political existence. Doxological faith is the claim that, at the end of the day, the teachings of Jesus are the authority in my life, what monastics call the “rule.” Everyone has to make choices in life, big choices and small choices, and we make those choice in light of some conception of what is “good” or “best.” Doxological faith makes Jesus that criterion.

“If I had to distill it to one issue, I would say it’s that the visible church seems to care more about ideas than people.”

— Derek Webb, in reply to “Is there one thing you see as the biggest issue/blind spot for the church, an area where Christianity is failing to live up to its promise and purpose?” on Rachel Held Evans’ blog

In context, Webb is talking about Christians letting disagreement trump relationships. In true reader-reception form, his offering is broader and more convicting: I care more about having the right ideas than I do about actively loving people. Christianity is less about about having good theology and more about acting like Christ.

Jesus hung out with rejects on purpose.

I resolve: On Sundays and holidays, I will rest from my agenda-fulfillment and I will not look at screens proactively.

“Suffering is the stripping of our hope in finite things, therefore we do not put our ultimate hope in anything finite.”

— Tim Keller

“Rest is an act of defiance.”

— Walter Brueggemann

[Psalm 16](Psalm 16) stands as a gleaming promise. And it has this line: “I said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good besides You.’” That’s the attitude I want to have.

In the middle of a game of toss during our after-church socializing today in the sunroom, Sullivan sent a Nerf football upon onto the valance, knocking the 3.2-lb. porthole Carla got from her dad down and onto my head, edge first. It opened a quarter-inch-wide gash in the crown of my head. It hurt like you’d expect such a wound to hurt, and I walked out of the room for some privacy, but Carla and the Rookes stopped me because I was bleeding profusely.

Long story short, Matt took me to the hospital and chatted happily with me while we waited for the parade of health professionals to come through my ER room. A medical student named Alex was the one to put the six staples in. He put in at least one too many because of what he claimed was some inaccuracy in the stapler.

It felt good to be the center of attention. But more precisely, it felt good to be personally helped in a time of need. Over the course of the episode, Carla put my socks on and cleaned my bloody head in the shower after I returned from the hospital, Lara fetched towels for the blood, Sullivan gave me a hug, Janet examined my head to make the professional recommendation that I visit the ER, the medical professionals took good care of me, and Matt was a friend. He wished me “blessings” as we parted ways three hours after the incident, and I replied, “I have one! It’s you!”

If I’m ever in need of care and in pain that goes beyond a ‘2’ on the pain chart, I hope I’m a kind sick person to the people caring for me.

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds” (Matthew 16:24-27).

I am challenged by these words of Jesus this morning. In what ways am I trying to save my life? In what ways am I losing it for Jesus’ sake?

“You want it all, but you can’t have it.”

— Plato, as tweeted by Mike McHargue. Methinks it apocryphal and more likely a pop lyric. Nevertheless, I like it. Maybe he is summarizing Plato with a lyric.

This McHargue correspondence strengthens my hope that this wound of doubt I suffered last month is not for nothing. I’ve already written that you could summarize the intellectual effect of the doubt in one sentence, “I could be wrong.” And I feel peace and resolution when I say that. And perhaps that will open me up in all sorts of good, godly ways that I can’t anticipate.

Norman is going to try to schedule my private audition with Rich Biever for the part of Valjean for two weeks from today.

If this goes well—and really, for the quality of the audition itself—may I remember my words from a year ago:

It’s good to sing for my own enjoyment (or Yours, God), and it’s good to sing to delight someone else. But it’s unhealthy to sing to elicit praise.

Father, as I get deeper into singing performance in State College, please protect me from the intoxicating effects of people’s praise.

Listen. Act. Share.

In light of the bean burning incident, action! In light of last month’s crippling doubt, action! Let my love for Carla no longer comprise talking; let it rather comprise doing. Let my Christian faith no longer comprise reading, thinking, and praying; let it rather be listening, acting, and sharing! But especially acting.

I just told Carla: “I evaluate what you’re thinking too quickly. I’m sorry.” She admitted doing the same to me. O Lord, that we be quick to listen and slow to speak.

me:

I wanted to write briefly to update you: I have set my face to follow Jesus. But I have to tell you, the uncertainty about Him still undercuts my overall confidence and my prayer life. How do I talk with a still-invisible God of whom I’m unsure? The problem of evil makes me less likely to praise Him, the problem of divine hiddenness makes me less likely to thank Him, and the problem of unanswered prayer makes me less likely to ask of Him.

Moving through life with a foundation I’m unsure of is a novel experience for me. Whatever the benefits of the doubt—and I do intend to read that book—I think I was happier without it.

Why I’m unsure about Him after hearing miracle claims from close friends is a mystery to me. I do know doubt is very social, so I’m going to do what I can to avoid reading material from the dark side. And I have a lot of reading and video-watching to do to shore up my faith. One of the few things I’ve gotten to already is the McHargue article series you sent. I appreciated it, although I still don’t know how he goes about discussing faith and God with his kids.

Thank you again for your support through this.

Love and admiration, Scott

P.S. Also, compared to me (and speaking very myopically), McHargue has a one-up on me that I envy: “I once heard Jesus whisper in my ear. A few hours later, I met God on the beach in one of the most powerful experiences of my life. I understand that this sounds ridiculous to modern ears, but I’m relaying my own experience here. I heard a voice, and then I had a time where I felt like I connected with something beyond physical space and time.” I cannot remember a similar experience in my own life. I’m jealous. I hold out hope for such an experience. Nevertheless, McHargue does lay out a nice place to be that harmonizes it all. He doesn’t answer the Questions, but he still invites me to a nice mindspace.

friend:

Thanks for the update! I was actually just about to write to ask.

So, your status has me thinking of the story of Jacob wrestling the angel, again. After all, he walked with limp the rest of his days. Did he regret his grappling with that shadowy figure? Did he miss the days of “wholeness” before, the unquestioning pursuit of his loves and desires? Or was it a reminder that gave him sustenance and holy pause through the turbulent days ahead? I don’t have a clue—but I suspect that he was buoyed by the fact that he heard from God in the midst of his aching, sleepless night.

And so I hear and agree with your desire to hear Christ “whisper”—and to know that it was Him.

That’s my prayer for both of us, today.

P.S. I hear you regarding doubt being a social thing, though I suspect the opposite is also true—what to do with this? Navigate the waters with humility and grace, I conclude.)I never want to fall in love with my own questions, my own hipster self-awareness. I’m remembered of an old Sixpence song [link lost]—perhaps you know it?

me:

Yes, if this struggle leads to a theophany, it’ll have been worth it. So AMEN. Heck, I’d take a miracle, or even a God-stamped “time where I felt like I connected with something beyond physical space and time.”

And yes, in my own heart, at least, faith is a social as doubt. I wonder how the social allure of faith feels to an atheist. Is it as anxious as that of doubt to a believer?

I agree wholeheartedly about the Questions. I don’t like Questions as part of my identity. I prefer the fruits of the spirit. And in the face of my questions:

• Want a theodicy? Screw that; who knows? The point is: Evil is. So join God in fighting it and sympathizing with and relieving its victims.
• Worried that God is hidden? Live in such a way that you reveal Him.
• God may not answer most prayers in ways that are discernible, let alone miraculous. But that doesn’t mean He doesn’t answer some, even sometimes miraculously. And it doesn’t mean there aren’t other salubrious effects of praying. So pray anyway.Reflecting yesterday on how to raise my kids toward Jesus, and coupled with some knee-jerk thoughts when faced with criticisms of the Lewis trilemma—“Wait, what? People find problems with the Lewis trilemma? I thought that was open-and-shut! Man, this apologetics stuff is doomed”—it occurs to me that so much religious doubt and anxiety might be preempted if we acknowledged up front to our kids, similar to what McHargue advocates, that:
• We might be wrong about our religious beliefs. But it’s still OK to hold them, and to do so very passionately, provided they aren’t motivation for hatred or violence. In fact, for many people, such beliefs are more than OK: they are joyful and vital.
• Other people have looked at virtually the same evidence to the deity of Jesus and come to very different conclusions, often rationally, and sometimes motivated by love, or at least Polonian honesty. While this might challenge our soteriology or our Christology, it doesn’t have to assail our faith in God or even in Jesus. We might be wrong! Whoa. Acknowledging that might be the biggest change in me through all this so far.

/S

How do good things in the ekklesia end up going bad? Often the road to corruption is paved with stones of well-intended pragmatism. Virtue is not always practical, nor profitable. Love is not pragmatic. There is no love column on a profit-loss statement or a balance sheet. Love cannot be analyzed. Love can be entered in to. Doing what is right does not always have an immediate practical outcome of benefit. When a spirit of pragmatism enters a community (especially regarding money) little incremental steps are taken choosing the practical and the profitable over the virtuous and honorable. Those little bricks of making pragmatism our God, pave the highway to corruption. Pragmatism wants to assure that a course of action turns out well for me/mine and ours. Love wants to make sure it turns out well for others, even if it costs me/us.

—Stephen Crosby

Briefly reflecting on Luke Muehlhauser, the “Common Sense Atheist,” and his dedication to preparing for the “intelligence explosion” he fears, it occurs to me that it might be best if I focused my charitable efforts like he does. Now, I won’t be concentrating on defending against the singularity, but I could stand to narrow things down. Currently, it’s Water.org, Young Life, the Pregnancy Resource Clinic, Food for the Hungry, the State College Food Bank, and Clearwater Conservancy we donate to. I like all those organizations. But if I want to make a difference, perhaps I need to get behind one in particular.

But where I want to make a difference is interpersonally. If I’m going to change the world, I want to change it through friendship. The problems I’m solving? Well, I imagine many might be solved this way, at least for the people I’m interpersonal-ing. But first among them is loneliness.

Reflecting on my knee-jerk thoughts when faced with criticisms of the Lewis trilemma—“Wait, what? People find problems with the Lewis trilemma? I thought that was open-and-shut! Man, this apologetics stuff is doomed.”—it occurs to me that so much religious doubt and anxiety might be preempted if we acknowledged up front that:

• We might be wrong about our religious beliefs. But it’s still OK to hold them, and to do so very passionately, provided they aren’t motivation for hatred or violence. In fact, for many people, it’s more than OK: it’s joyful and vital.
• Other people have looked at virtually the same evidence to the deity of Jesus and come to very different conclusions, often rationally, and sometimes motivated by love, or at least Polonian honesty. While this might challenge our soteriology or our Christology, it doesn’t have to assail our faith in God or even in Jesus.

Éa is a likable sick person. And Carla is an excellent nurse.

If I’m not careful, I’m going to petrify a habit of mine that has developed in the past few weeks and become such a temptation as to displace the role seeking online infotainment or titillation has at times played in my life: reading theological articles on the Internet during the workday. If I allow this habit to solidify, it will have two detrimental effects: I will lose my job, and I will lose my faith.