Can we agree on this?  Please?  Like, this has to be the most basic level of common sense…but like all common sense, it is quite uncommon to find someone who truly understands and appreciates this truth.

In case you are struggling to understand how the existence of faith does not eliminate doubt, consider the more obvious truth that courage does not eliminate fear!  Do you know that?  Can you appreciate that?  Without fear, there would be no need for courage.  And without the existence of doubt, there would be no need for faith.  But courage and faith are made beautiful, because they rise above the basic instincts of humanity, to doubt and to fear.  This, I think, is why God says that His righteous ones shall live by faith (Heb 10:38).

Let me give you an illustration using courage and fear again.  In a state of war, it is right that everyone – even the soldiers, prepared for battle, armed with weapons – will know the feeling of fear!  But while others hide and cower, the soldiers go boldly forward, because they have courage and FAITH that they can win against their opposition.  The only one who would not have a trace of fear, is the one that is invincible, who knows that he is indestructible, and so, he has no reason to fear…but rather, he should be feared.  Such a one is like a god…  But I will say that there is only one true God, who is invincible and above fear.  By faith, I call Him Jehovah.

So why this unusual rant?  It is because I am sick and tired of people trying to say that faith eliminates doubt, and making those who recognise the existence of doubt, the possibility of imperfection in something as fundamental as the Bible, to be as though they are without real faith.  But in the absence of doubt, you can’t be said to have faith, just like none can be hailed as courageous in the absence of fear!

Now, I do not live in the place of doubt, I simply recognise its existence, and I bring it into submission, and I choose to abide in faith.  It is a choice we must all make.  And that is why there is value in your faith…because you choose to believe, not because you were compelled or brainwashed, as the Atheist might argue.  This is not to say that faith has no reason.  There is sufficient cause to have faith (in Jesus Christ), just as there is sufficient cause to have courage in a time of war.  There has to be REASON for faith to exist, otherwise, it is just stupidity!  Is it a wonder that God says “come, let us reason together…” (Isa 1:18).

People who do not understand how I can say I believe in the Bible, and yet say that I do not profess it to be infallible, often suggest that I cannot truly believe in Jesus!  That is absurd!  Like, before the Bible, before the Torah, before any holy book, there were holy people who believed in the existence of God!  Do you believe that?  I’m sure you do.  The Bible says so.

How do you suppose that Enoch knew it was God he was walking with all those years..?  There was no written record to testify of God.  And by faith, he would have had to believe that God was who He said He was (and not in fact the Devil), and that in fact, there is none other like Him in all the world and universe!  He, who had less reason (perhaps) to live by faith, did regardless!  We, with the Bible, being a testament of the existence of God and a revelation of His will for man, have greater cause to have faith in God (and in His revealed Christ).

And I would say that such a one who lives in the tension of doubt and faith and chooses faith is more honourable than the one who has eliminated every trace or denied the existence of doubt!  Just as Jesus said to Thomas who doubted, believing only after seeing the resurrected Jesus and touching His wounds, I say to you, who choose to believe that the Bible must be infallible for it to be believed that:

“because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

By His grace, this shall be the last thing I write about the doctrine of the infallibility of the Bible, which is built on the premise that doubt can and SHOULD be eliminated.  That is not God’s will for man, for there is no beauty in such faith…if in deed it can be called faith.  Such is no more than a religion, built on a presupposition of truth.  It is a doctrine built on the fear of error, to shut down reason (and thereby the exercise of wisdom), to control and not to convict.  As such it is anti-faith.

May God be true and every man a liar (Rom 3:4).

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