Quotes about Questioning

Doubt strips away distraction so we can see more clearly the inadequacies of whom we think God is and move us from the foolishness of thinking that our god is the God.

Andrew Perriman at "P.OST" (postnost.net).

And taking seriously the historically shaped biblical portrayal of a violent God drives us to ask for ourselves, "Is this what God is like?

Doubt signals not God's death but the need for our own—to die to the theology we hold to with clenched fists. Our first creeping feelings of doubt are like the distant toll of a graveyard chapel, alerting us that the dying process is coming our way.

Doubt signals that this process of dying and rising is underway. Though God feels far away, at that moment God may be closer than we realize—especially if "know what you believe" is how we're used to thinking of our faith.

Whether we are aware of it or not, behind our religious deliberations, in one form or another, we are really asking a deeply foundational question, "What kind of God do I believe in, really?" This is not a luxury question for those with idle time on their hands, but exactly the kind of question we should deliberately bring to the front of our consciousness as an expression of responsible faith; it is not evidence that our faith is weakening.

Doubt is God's way of helping us not go there, though the road may be very hard and long.

But the LORD God called out to the man, “Where are you?”

“Who told you that you were naked?” asked the LORD God. “Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

“Why are you angry,” said the LORD to Cain, “and why has your countenance fallen?

And the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I do not know!” he answered. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

So Pharaoh summoned Abram and asked, “What have you done to me? Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife?