Doubt is Fuel for Faith

John 20:19-31

A sermon by the Very Rev. Bernard J Owens delivered April 16, 2023.

Jesus did say to Thomas “do not doubt but believe” but when we take a simplistic view of either doubt or belief then something expansive and generative gets downgraded to a crass dealbreaker.

“Either/or” thinking has made us perpetually insecure in our relationship with God and produced a religion fearful of anything that would suggest doubt or uncertainty or even free thinking. The worst sins of religion get committed when that need for certainty is brittle and unyielding.

When we are in a living relationship with something that is unknown or uncertain, doubt simply comes with the territory. It’s part of a growing comfort with moving through the dark, learning to trust the grace and love of God when certainty and clarity of vision are hard to come by.

Doubt is fuel for faith: to have doubt is to have a living relationship with the unknown…and faith according to Thomas Merton means “integrating the known & the unknown into a living whole.