Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. (Matthew 28:16-17)

 Now the Greek word in this passage that is translated as doubt is the verb διστάζω distazo, which means literally two-fold or double stance. To be caught between two positions, to vacillate.

Why would the disciples, who been with Jesus over three years, had witnessed his death and met him previously on multiple occasions in his resurrection body still doubt?

We may speculate fruitlessly on what was the object of their doubt, perhaps they simply did not believe their eyes or questioned their sanity, but what is clear is that when it came to Jesus, seeing is not believing.

After the miracle of the feeding thousands from one basket of food, people were ‘amazed’, but not yet faithful.

Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.  Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.’

 Then they asked him, ‘What must we do to do the works God requires?’

 Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.’                     (John 6:26-29)

Jesus is saying then that faith is an act of the will, not a reaction to evidence.  And of course, faith in Jesus is the requirement for salvation, thus Paul confirms this to an act of commitment, of human responsibility:

…if you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (ibid 10:9)

He then repeats the phrase with transposition:

 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. (ibid 10:10)

Justified means to made holy in the sight of God, and that is the transaction where Jesus imputes or gives to the disciple his righteousness.  But Paul’s point is a simple one, that profession is nothing without a profound and lasting change of heart.

Yet Paul also says that faith is an act of God:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God…(Ephesians 2:8)

The antecedent of ‘it’ is ‘faith’, and faith, as the following verse says, is a sovereign gift which owes nothing to human endeavour, in which we could boast.

Given all this, how could some of the disciples of Jesus doubt.  One answer is that for the Gospel of Christ, God never removes doubt.  Put another way, regarding Jesus, certainty is denied to his followers; and if true, it begs the question, why?

The French philosopher François-Marie Arouet, whom we know by his pen-name, Voltaire, wrote this:

Le doute n’est pas une état bien agréable, mais l’assurance est un état ridicule.              (Letter to Frederick II of Prussia 6^thApril 1767)

Translated: ‘Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one’.

As it happens, English derives the word ‘doubt’ from the Latin which came to us from the Old French noun doute– the Latin dubius is retained as ‘dubious’.

Voltaire was a ‘deist’, that is one who believes in God through natural reason.  This is also ascribed to Voltaire:

What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason.

 To the person that uses ‘natural reason’, like many of the Enlightenment figures such as Voltaire, the Bible indeed affirms that we can deduce God’s existence:

…since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (ibid 1:19-20)

It is also the case that the word for ‘know’, γνωστός gnostos, can mean ‘be acquainted with’.  To know, in English, can also imply a relationship with, but the context of Paul’s argument has more to do with acquaintance than intimacy.

Voltaire was not a Christian, he did not accept revealed truth; he rejected the Bible and he rejected Jesus, and yet he had no problem declaring God’s existence.

This is why the saving faith is in the Gospel of Christ; the knowledge of God, in and of itself, offer no hope, for that we need to believe ‘Christ and him crucified’.  As Jesus’ half-brother acerbically remarks:

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder.  (James 2:18-19)

The demons, remember, are fallen angels denied redemption and salvation (Matthew 25:41; 2 Peter 2:4).

But if is possible for people to observe God and reason his existence from the evidence of nature, it impossible to do the same regarding  the Gospel of Christ, which is beyond rationality, outside of lived experience or personal interpretation; no person has ever deduced the Gospel, in fact, without revelation is its foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18). Jesus is humanity’s hope but that hope is unseen, in other words beyond proof and therefore subject to doubt.

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? (Romans 8:24)

Only a handful of people saw Jesus and only handful believed him, but to those that cannot have the luxury granted Thomas, who demanded empirical proof, Jesus says this:

‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’ (John 20:29)

Hope then does not equate to certainty; therefore, salvatory faith must include doubt.

Certitude regarding Jesus as the Christ is therefore denied us, and faith that includes doubt earns God’s blessing.  But of course, even Voltaire, a man that denied revealed truth could say the certainty is absurd – even natural reasoning confirms this.

Only God can have certainty because He is control; apart from God, humans are forced to rely on probability.  God knows the outcome that we might guess at, but never know in advance.

Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’  As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16)

Not only is the idea of human certainty fallacious, it is delusional – and worse still, it is wicked.  Why wicked? Because it is presumptuous, an expression of arrogance in the eyes of God.

So Biblical faith does not equate to certitude; therefore, when it comes to the Gospel, God does not remove doubt.  Any that say they ‘know’ they are saved through their faith is in immortal jeopardy, for they must assume control of the all matters that are rightly God’s.

And this brings us to the ‘why’.  Why does God deny us incontrovertible proof of salvation?  Why is saving faith laced with doubt?

The answer is that while, justification is a unilateral act of God that is irreversible and work of an instant, the outworking of this, sanctification, takes a lifetime.  This is then the process whereby:

…(you) continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.  (Philippians 2:12-13)

Thus God’s work sits alongside the work of faith in those he saves.  Doubt of salvation becomes a blessing because it means renewing one’s faith on a daily basis. And such faith is not a lack of assurance, nor it designed make us unconfident:

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.  (Hebrews 11:1)

One possible explanation for doubt is found in these notoriously perplexing verses from the same author:

If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left,  but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. (ibid 10:26-27)

If saving faith was on one simple profession that proffered complete certainty, what incentive remains for the prideful to walk a Godly path?  God knows that with the spirit of autonomy given us in his likeness, a man or woman secure in their salvation would require nothing else of Him.  Throughout the Bible, we see the steps God takes to ensure human dependence, because independence leads to hell.  Doubt is God’s gift, and is equally precious as His gift of faith in Jesus as Lord and Christ.

God keeps Christians in two minds and we are the loser for not realising this. It might explain, for instance, why so many Christians misconstrue doubt with ‘losing’ their faith.  Also doubt is uncomfortable as Voltaire observed, so many seek teaching that takes away discomfort and offers security.  But if any teach that all can have certainty in their standing with God, the teacher flies in the face of Scripture.  Even the reason of the world in which Voltaire had faith, declares this position absurd.