Doubt

[HumbleSaint]

We are saved by faith, here is what Paul said about faith and doubting. Hast thou faith? have it ot thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in thing which he alloweth. And he that doubteth is d a m bed if he eat, because he eateth no of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Romans 14:23.

Paul didn't forbid to stay away from meats but if it causes you to doubt your Salvation and we are saved by faith, Then It would be better not to eat it. I think that is the point he was making. So it sounds to me that doubting is sin.

 

[Brackenzee]

Paul was saying that Christian freedom only applies if we actually do it with the faith that we're free in Christ--for example, if you eat pork while still believing it to be a sin, doubting that Christ has declared all foods clean.

Which is different than the type of doubt the OP was talking about.

 

[greatkraw]

No, what you're describing is disbelief. Doubt is perfectly normal.

doubt is what eve did

it is the temptation to not trust God

 

[VW]

doubt is what eve did

it is the temptation to not trust God

Doubt by itself is not sin. Doubt of God, what He has said, what He is doing, what He is and was and will be, and our relationship to Him in Christ Jesus, is sin. I doubt what I see with my eyes, hear with my ears, feel with my feelings, because these things are temporal, transitory, fading away. I trust, with all of my heart in faith, what I have from God, because He is eternal and He loves me.

 

[greatkraw]

Doubt by itself is not sin. Doubt of God, what He has said, what He is doing, what He is and was and will be, and our relationship to Him in Christ Jesus, is sin. I doubt what I see with my eyes, hear with my ears, feel with my feelings, because these things are temporal, transitory, fading away. I trust, with all of my heart in faith, what I have from God, because He is eternal and He loves me.

like i said; doubt is a temptation

 

[VW]

like i said; doubt is a temptation

Is doubt a temptation if I am doubting the physical world? Is it a temptation if I am doubting the political rulers of this age? Is it a temptation if I am doubting the religious leaders of this age?

I do not doubt God, His revelation to me, His word to me, His life in me, His love for me and in me.

Everything else I doubt, because it is fading away. This is not a temptation, rather an act of faith, because I truth that which is not seen over that which is.

 

[Brackenzee]

Doubt is not temptation, doubt is a natural (and healthy) response to not being omniscient. We sometimes doubt God becasue we don't know everything, we can't see Him with our physical eyes or measure Him with scientific instruments. To lack the capacity for doubt is to risk becoming a fanatic.

 

[aspen]

So God throws us in Hell if we doubt He exists? I can just picture it...."Hey, I know, I think I will set up the majority of humanity to doubt my presence by allowing them to grow up in cultures that do not believe in the same way Western Christians do, while blaming their distant ancestors for starting it; create lots of fossils to dupe any group that thinks outside a literal translation of MY WORD into believing they were apes and that the earth is more than 6,000 years old (heh-heh); and to top it off, to make the most close-minded crackpots my messengers to spread the only hint at my existence in the meanest, anti-intellectual manner possible, while beating their audience over the head with the idea that they must believe really hard in me in order to receive my free gift of a grace in order to avoid a place I will torture them for eternity! Places everyone!Satan start tempting, Dante start writing!. Creation museum start manufacturing REAL science - Discovery Institute back them up, but pretend not to! It is time to bring my will to fruition by spreading the truth!"

"Also, I will enforce my will on these people; a law that I may or may not choose to follow myself - personal responsibility is important for my creation, and their inability to take personal responsibility will **** them because I am an ethical God."

Common! I treat my dogs with more compassion! If this is the God of the universe, we better get ready to rebel - it would be unethical not to.

 

[greatkraw]

So God throws us in Hell if we doubt He exists? I can just picture it...."Hey, I know, I think I will set up the majority of humanity to doubt my presence by allowing them to grow up in cultures that do not believe in the same way Western Christians do, while blaming their distant ancestors for starting it; create lots of fossils to dupe any group that thinks outside a literal translation of MY WORD into believing they were apes and that the earth is more than 6,000 years old (heh-heh); and to top it off, to make the most close-minded crackpots my messengers to spread the only hint at my existence in the meanest, anti-intellectual manner possible, while beating their audience over the head with the idea that they must believe really hard in me in order to receive my free gift of a grace in order to avoid a place I will torture them for eternity! Places everyone!Satan start tempting, Dante start writing!. Creation museum start manufacturing REAL science - Discovery Institute back them up, but pretend not to! It is time to bring my will to fruition by spreading the truth!"

"Also, I will enforce my will on these people; a law that I may or may not choose to follow myself - personal responsibility is important for my creation, and their inability to take personal responsibility will **** them because I am an ethical God."

Common! I treat my dogs with more compassion! If this is the God of the universe, we better get ready to rebel - it would be unethical not to.

well you have clearly willingly embraced all the anti God pseudoscientific propoganda

 

[Kakashi]

Doubt is only dangerous if you're not seeking the truth. if you doubt and run away because of that doubt, that's destructive. if you doubt but are seeking after the truth, then that's proactive. That's common sense.


Mark 9:24

"Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"

Sometimes we can doubt but still want to find the truth and believe.

i think John the baptist possibly doubted when he was in prison. he heard about what Jesus was doing ( Mathew 11) and asked if he was who he was waiting for or should he expect someone else. jesus told the disciples to report what they saw and then they reported back to John. I think if John didn't doubt at all he would have just chilled without asking and just taken it on faith, but he didn't. he needed confirmation. i think sometimes what we want when we doubt is confirmation if we're seeking the truth.


That's just my two cents. If you doubt, are you still seeking the truth? Always seek the truth, and I believe we'll always end up back at God( or to him for the first time perhaps) if you seek in earnest.

Also, Adam and Eve's sin was NOT doubt, it was pride; the root of all evil.

 

[Brackenzee]

Oh come off it, greatkraw. There are far more Christians who accept evolution than scientists who accept Young-Earth Creationism.

 

[greatkraw]

Oh come off it, greatkraw. There are far more Christians who accept evolution than scientists who accept Young-Earth Creationism.

dude, since when did the majority win? or were right?
ever heard of the narrow way?

we have had these discussion in multiple threads
you have allowed yourself to be indoctrinated

there is plenty of evidence for a young earth

do not let people bamboozle you with the word science when they really mean some God haters

 

[aspen]

well you have clearly willingly embraced all the anti God pseudoscientific propoganda

Read quotes below....

 

[aspen]

If you embrace reason as God-given, your faith becomes enriched and your doubt turns up good fruit.

If you are anti-intellectual, your faith becomes fear-based and defended in a snarling dog manner, and your doubt serves as a reminder of your impending ****ation.

 

[charisenexcelcis]

Read quotes below....

I noticed. Two of your three quotations are militant agnostics. Kind of sad. My code is this: What does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

 

[VW]

If you embrace reason as God-given, your faith becomes enriched and your doubt turns up good fruit.

If you are anti-intellectual, your faith becomes fear-based and defended in a snarling dog manner, and your doubt serves as a reminder of your impending ****ation.

I am so far away from believing this. In truth, all that I am in the flesh, from which my reason originates, is fallen. Including my reason. There is a wisdom which is from above, which is a gift from God, and it has nothing to do with my old man, the fallen creature who is dead in his sins. The reason, the wisdom that is from the earthly man is sensual, earthy, devilish. The wisdom that is from above, (the gift that I seek from God,) is pure and true and good and full of love. This wisdom I do not doubt, but rather I embrace it and seek it with all goodness and love from my heart for my God. The other wisdom, the other reason, I hate and revile as the lie it is.

 

[aspen]

I am so far away from believing this. In truth, all that I am in the flesh, from which my reason originates, is fallen. Including my reason. There is a wisdom which is from above, which is a gift from God, and it has nothing to do with my old man, the fallen creature who is dead in his sins. The reason, the wisdom that is from the earthly man is sensual, earthy, devilish. The wisdom that is from above, (the gift that I seek from God,) is pure and true and good and full of love. This wisdom I do not doubt, but rather I embrace it and seek it with all goodness and love from my heart for my God. The other wisdom, the other reason, I hate and revile as the lie it is.

I am sorry to hear this - so would Augustine and many of the Early Church Fathers that defended against heresy by developing a rich tradition of the use of reason within Christianity.

But, to each their own, I suppose.

 

[greatkraw]

God invented logic and reason

 

[VW]

I am sorry to hear this - so would Augustine and many of the Early Church Fathers that defended against heresy by developing a rich tradition of the use of reason within Christianity.

But, to each their own, I suppose.

Paul was not a subscriber to man's reason.

"And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my message and my preaching were not in the persuasive words of wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

"Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom however, not of this age, not of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; but just as it is written, 'Things which eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.' For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thought of a man except the spirit of man, which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God; that we might know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no man. 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct Him?' But we have the mind of the Lord."

I think that Paul answers those other men perfectly convincingly.

 

[aspen]

Paul was not a subscriber to man's reason.

"And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my message and my preaching were not in the persuasive words of wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

"Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom however, not of this age, not of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers pf this age has understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lrd of glory; but just as it is written, 'Things which eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.' For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thought of a man except the spirit of man, which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God; that we might know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no man. 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct Him?' But we have the mind of the Lord."

I think that Paul answers those other men perfectly convincingly.

Who said anything about man's reason? The same reason that was subject to the Fall is subject to the redemption of Christ's work on the Cross.