Reasonable Doubt

If you read a Bible commentary on today's gospel reading, you will likely find some mention of an accusation that early Christians had to answer.  People were saying that Jesus had not risen from the dead. Rather his disciples had swiped his body and then perpetuated a hoax about his resurrection.  Many scholars will note that Matthew's gospel, written many decades after the actual events, seems tailor made to address such charges.  Similarly, some scholars argue that claims of a "virgin birth" for Jesus (found only in Matthew and Luke) are an attempt to refute charges that Jesus' birth was actually "illegitimate."

(Presbyterians have an interesting history with the whole virgin birth thing. At one point it was an article of faith required for ordination.  It was later dropped as an absolute requirement, but I was asked in 1995 by a pastor nominating committee what my beliefs on the virgin birth were.)

But whatever Matthew's reasons for supplying that little detail about stealing Jesus' body, I found my thoughts drifting to questions of faith and doubt.  Am I more likely to believe because Matthew refutes claims that disciples pilfered Jesus' body?  Is faith the product of getting the story straight?  And if I'm suspicious that Matthew is creating details to deal with charges against the faith, might that not actually make me more inclined to doubt the biblical storyline? Throw in the fact that the different gospels give slightly different versions of the story, and such issues are amplified.

It seems to me that there are plenty of places where reasonable doubt can emerge. (I once had a Muslim acquaintance tell me that he thought we Christians had a huge problem because our Bible had so many authors with so many different takes, unlike Islam, based solely on the the writings of the Prophet.)  If Christian faith must exist on the basis of the empirical evidence alone, we run into problems right away. It is no wonder that many people assume science to be the enemy of faith (a view I do not share). Science is all about empirical data, but the empirical data build a pretty shaky case for faith.

Like love, one must experience faith.  Like love, it can wax and wane, and even disappear entirely.  For people of faith, the prospect of its waning or, worse, disappearing can be terrifying.  But fear rarely leads to the best human responses, and fear related to faith is no exception.  I've know my share of Christians who practiced denial with regards to faith, who insisted they had never felt a the slightest twinge of doubt. I suppose that's possible, but I think it much more likely they're terrified at what happens if they admit such doubts.  And so they work very hard to fool themselves and God.

I think that fanatical fundamentalism is an extreme form of such denial.  It refuses to allow doubt or any variation from truth on anyone's part, and woe to those who don't stay in step.

By contrast, my tradition is rather open to doubt.  I'm quite happy about that as I don't think I would fit in otherwise, but our friendliness with doubt sometimes raises other problems.  It makes us very suspicious of religious certitude, and we become so unsure of anything that cannot be confirmed by empirical evidence or logic that we struggle actually to act on our faith.  We may do good things because we are convinced they are reasonable and the right thing to do, but that does not really require much in the way of faith or discerning what God calls us to do.

It seems to me that faith is quite often about doing things that seem unreasonable even in the face of doubt.  Being non-violent in the face of violence often seems a foolish tactic. Seeking the good of your enemy even more so.  Being abused, chastised, or attacked for doing such things only seems to confirm the foolishness of those tactics.  I suppose that is why so few of us ever experience the truly transforming power of faith.  That is why there are so few Gandhis or Martin Luther Kings who can act on faith and transform the world.

O Lord, I'm no fanatic, and I know well how to doubt.  Help me to have faith, faith that actually hears and does what Jesus calls me to do.

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