Given everything I’ve explored thus far and the recurring theme of my previous struggles with belief that lay behind it all, some may be wondering, “why is/was it so difficult for you to believe certain tenets of your faith?” This is a great question, and one which I’ve thought about quite a lot. As I mentioned in my story, although I did struggle with some particular beliefs related to my faith (especially when it comes to the nature of the Bible, which I hope to get to in more detail very soon), the real heart of my struggle wasn’t ultimately with particular beliefs so much as it was with the nature and importance of belief itself (note: I will be using the term “belief” in the more modern/propositional sense going forward given that it seems to be the predominant sense in which the term is used today – see my last post for more info on this if you’re unsure what I mean). Put differently, it wasn’t so much a specific set of individual beliefs that I began to question as it was my belief about those beliefs. My belief not only about the truth of my beliefs but, most centrally, their ability to be controlled by my will and, in turn, their consequent necessity both for faith and for living out the Christian life in general. I realize that might sound a bit abstract or hard to grasp or relate to for some, but that truly was the initial catalyst that inevitably led me to my own “dark night of the soul.”
For much of my life, I had not really given much thought to the nature of belief and, like many people probably, more or less assumed that I had the power to simply choose what to believe. This wasn’t so much a consciously thought out notion, but rather was more like a subconscious belief or working assumption that I had always had. Indeed, we often hear or use language that indicates such an ability all the time, as when someone says something like “I decided to believe X,” or “I refuse to ever believe Y,” etc. As a result, my initial approach during my time studying philosophy, theology, and apologetics was one of trying to find the position on any given topic that had the best arguments and evidence in support of it. Why? Because I didn’t want to simply choose to believe whatever I liked or whatever made me feel good, but rather I wanted only to choose to believe that which I had good reasons to think was true. I had the power, or so I thought, to choose to believe whatever I wanted, but what I wanted was to choose to believe something that was true, whether I liked it or not. “The Truth” became my god, and it was only “the Truth” that I was going to believe, come what may. This understanding lasted for several years, and likely would have continued for several more, if not indefinitely, were it not for my somewhat obsessively reflexive mind. I would constantly find myself analyzing various beliefs, searching for arguments and counter-arguments, loopholes, fallacies, etc. Yet I did so not merely with respect to the beliefs of others, but with my own beliefs as well (if not moreso).
Although it may sound strange, it was actually a very natural thing to do for me as someone who was obsessively passionate about pursuing “the Truth.” It only took so long while questioning all of my beliefs to finally begin to question my belief about my beliefs, and then my belief about that belief, and so on. Like the proverbial toddler who can’t stop asking “why,” I drilled my beliefs with questions with such unending repetition that I would often lose sight of where I was in the chain of questioning. But, unlike the proverbial toddler, I wasn’t doing it out of a rebellious spirit or a desire to try and weasel my way out of something. Rather, I really wanted to know why I believed what I did and whether there were any compelling reasons to do so. And that was true not just for my beliefs in general, but also for my beliefs about my beliefs, etc. As you might imagine, such a level of questioning can be quite overwhelming and intense, as if being vigorously questioned under the grueling lights of an interrogation room, only where the interrogation room is your own mind and the one doing the questioning is none other than yourself. Needless to say, this went on and on for several years and, although certain beliefs of mine became incredibly strong as a result (such as my belief in the existence of God), many others began to strain under the tension of my own mind, some buckling entirely under its pressure. Not only because I began to realize that I didn’t really have very compelling reasons in some cases but, perhaps even more importantly, because I became overwhelmed by the sheer amount of competing views and the corresponding depth of complexity and disagreement surrounding them. Even the simplest of beliefs could set me off down a rabbit trail of questioning that would take me days, weeks, or even months of investigation before inevitably giving up after either losing my train of thought and/or reaching a state of mental exhaustion.
As a result, I found myself moving more and more towards a state of agnosticism on many topics and yearned to inhabit an intellectual/spiritual world in which I could have the freedom to explore the ideas I had been investigating with a genuine sense of openness and curiosity. Yet, having still inhabited a world in which I was constantly burdened by the idea that I was required to believe certain things in order to truly please God or in order to live a truly genuine and authentic Christian life, I consequently became increasingly desperate in my quest to shore up my beliefs, lest they all fall away and leave me in a state of utter skepticism and outside of God’s saving love. Yet, this endeavor to shore up my beliefs and to convince myself of what I was “supposed” to believe became increasingly more and more difficult to sustain, as I failed over and over again to arrive at a reasoned conviction on so many issues. It wasn’t that I hadn’t surveyed and assessed plenty of reasons for and against various positions, but rather that in many cases none of those reasons ultimately convinced me either way. And yet it also wasn’t because the reasons I had been exposed to fell short of some narrow set of criteria that I had concocted in my mind and so didn’t “pass my test,” so to speak; rather, it was simply that they didn’t cause or compel me to believe (no matter how badly I may have wanted to). Going around in circles on this path for quite some time to no avail, I had finally begun to reach a dead end. It was at this time that I finally began to question the whole enterprise of what I was doing; that I finally began to question the very nature of belief itself; that I finally began to question whether my beliefs were truly under my own power to choose; and, most importantly, that I began to question whether their correctness was truly necessary to the Christian life. The more I would hear the question “what must I believe?”, the more I couldn’t help but find myself responding with “whatever seems true!” After all, it’s who you trust that ultimately matters anyways, not what you believe, right?
Of course, what one believes is important and may (and likely will) change over time as one’s discipleship and pursuit of God deepens, but (when it comes to one’s beliefs, at least) can’t a simple loyalty to seeking (rather than arriving at) “the Truth” be enough? After all, believing specific theological dogmas never seemed to be Jesus’ test for those who sought to be his disciples. So why do we so often act like it is? Doesn’t coming “as we are” include our beliefs too? Can’t we sincerely pursue a relationship with God regardless of what happens to “seem true” to us? Furthermore, and perhaps most crucially: can we really do anything else? I don’t know about you, but I find myself utterly incapable of choosing to believe something simply because I am told to believe it (as if believing is no different than raising one’s arm or nodding one’s head). To recall one of my favorite quotations from Alice in Wonderland, when the Queen asserts that she is a hundred and one years, five months, and one day old, Alice responds by saying “I can’t believe that.” To which the Queen responds, “Can’t you? Try again: draw a long breath and shut your eyes.” Indeed, after all the logical reasoning was said and done, it was this very kind of activity that I often felt left with in trying to convince myself of things I had been told I must believe. To help give some experiential context to this, take something that you currently believe and now try and choose to believe the opposite. Or, to up the ante, imagine that you would receive a million dollars by simply choosing to believe something you currently do not (e.g. that the Earth is flat, that murder isn’t wrong, etc.). Can you do it? I mean really do it? Although there are no doubt many people who believe many crazy things and who report that they can, in fact, choose and change their beliefs at will, I reckon that is probably not the case for most people (or at least most of the time). And, in any case, it is definitely not the case for me.
Indeed, such Alice in Wonderland type behavior on my part has always turned out futile. Of course, I could always feign belief by giving some form of verbal assent (whether out of fear, a desire to please, or pure mental exhaustion), but such a thing isn’t really believing so much as it is make-believing. Believing, as I came to see it, isn’t so much a decision by the mind so much as it is a triumph of it. That is, when I really believe something to be true, it’s not so much that I possess its truth as it is that its truth possesses me. Put differently, it doesn’t seem that I think something is true simply because I believe it, so much as I believe something simply because I think it is true. The more I began to think about this, the more it seemed to me that belief isn’t the sort of thing that is chosen by or imposed on someone so much as it is something that is born in someone. That is to say, when a truth possesses me, nothing can shake it from its enthronement until some greater truth displaces it or gives it less prominence. And it seems to me that it is through our reason or our experience – rather than our will – that this takes place. After all, when Jesus called his disciples to follow him, he didn’t ask them to mentally assent to a laundry list of theological propositions about him so much as to simply enter into a relationship with him. As their experience and relationship deepened, of course, they would naturally come to believe certain truths. But these beliefs were not chosen by them (through their will) so much as born in them (through their experience). Such beliefs would inevitably become their creeds, to be sure, but again – they were not imposed on them as a condition of “belonging,” either by Jesus or others; rather, they grew out of a shared experience they all held in common, an experience that served more to tear down barriers to faith than to build up new ones. After all, the saying isn’t “come as you are, but only so long as you can convince yourself of the truth of the following statements,” but simply “come as you are.” That is all, and may it ever be so.
To sum up then, although many of my beliefs were impacted by my own internal questioning during my crisis of faith, no belief was more radically impacted than my belief about the nature of my beliefs. It was the shifting of my mind on this one particular belief that slowly began to turn my entire world upside down in such a powerfully transformative way, and nowhere else more saliently than in my spiritual life. Where I had always previously believed that I was capable of choosing my own beliefs, it wasn’t until I truly began to question and struggle with my beliefs that I began to realize that this wasn’t necessarily the case after all. Yet, this realization didn’t just impact how I came to see the nature of belief (or even faith for that matter) – it also had a tremendous impact on the way I came to see the nature of authority as well. And so it is to that important (and often sensitive) topic that I intend to turn my focus to next time.
Until then, thanks again for reading and – as always – stay curious, seek truth, and love well.
Cheers,
