I have so many questions I feel I'm losing my faith?
Am I alone in feeling this way?
by Peter Davison
Q: I have so many questions I feel I'm losing my faith? Am I alone in feeling this way?
A: No, you're far from alone! In fact, faith and doubt go hand in hand. We shouldn’t confuse faith with certainty, though some people want us to think that way. For example, saying God is all-knowing and all-powerful, leads us to ask, "Well, how can an omnipotent God allow so much suffering?" This perennial question was highlighted in the Sunday readings from Job last Fall. Our faith tells us God is self-limiting: first the story of creation, in which God grants us freewill, including the freedom to ignore God. Then the Bible is full of stories about "God's people" being selfish, getting into trouble, experiencing alienation and exile, and calling on God only when things go wrong. But God remains faithful. Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son is loved because in it God patiently waits for us to "come to our senses and come home," then rushes out to meet us and celebrate our homecoming. Oh yes! God could have made a world without pain and suffering, but such a world would be without human freedom. God’s response to our pain (not a slick explanation) is to become one with us and one of us. The Christian gospel is not about eliminating life’s complications, but about God sharing our questions and our powerlessness, and submitting to human injustice and foolishness. In and through Jesus, we believe, God endures all we endure and more, feels Godforsaken, but still puts his trust in a Divine Love which finally conquers evil, and is ultimately vindicated.
Another observation: Christian tradition contains a Greek word, "apophatic." It suggests we are better off saying what God is NOT, rather than trying to say what God IS. All attempts to define God are essentially idolatrous. We're tempted to domesticate God and reduce the Holy to something we can control. This is why, basically, we can say only two things about God: first that God is, as Paul Tillich put it, "the Ground of all Being"; and, secondly, "God is Love." A clue as to how this works comes from our own experience of being in love. Our love for "the other" is always beyond words, and leaves us speechless. It teaches us respect for the "otherness of the other." It avoids attempts to control the other for our own ends, and makes us want to do anything for the beloved, even if that causes us suffering. We know love is what makes us human, and that, for all its costs, love ultimately triumphs. So when we say, "God is Love," we speak of a love we want to emulate, which makes us "God-like."
So we speak of the "mystery of faith"; for while love ultimately triumphs, and "love makes the world go round," love also entails suffering. Another clue lies in the word "passion." Our passions make life worth living. They give us the greatest joy, but can also cause us to suffer. When as Christians we refer to The Passion, we are talking at one and the same time about God's enthusiasm for humankind and the whole of creation, and God's suffering with us and for us, as we experience the darkest side of life.
It's usually people of passion and compassion who raise your question. No merely intellectual answer will satisfy you, or anyone else. But I suspect your questions are a sign of deepening, not weakening, faith. The mystics teach us that beyond "the dark night of the soul" we can look forward to illumination and communion. May that be true for you, and for all of us.
