Stop pretending doubt is a sign of enlightenment
Are we overcoming unbelief and doubt towards beautiful realities.... or flirting with skepticism as a higher state of being?
Twice in his first talk as President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Dallin Oaks used a unique, even countercultural verb in discussing “doubt” and critical questions. After describing how even committed disciples “may sometimes have concerns about some historical, doctrinal, or social issues connected with the Church,” he said:
“I want to help all our members overcome present or future doubts. Whatever those doubts, the way to overcome them is to get closer to our Savior Jesus Christ.”
While encouraging listeners to be patient with difficult questions, seek help from others and strengthen their faith in God, this individual we Latter-day Saints hold to be a prophet later said:
“Increased humility draws us closer to Jesus Christ. This will help us overcome questions about the Lord’s doctrine. When we are humble, we can more clearly hear the Lord’s voice.”
“Overcoming questions about Christ’s teachings” … “Overcoming doubts.” When was the last time you heard anyone in modern American culture speak about skepticism in this way?
More likely, you’ve heard some of the many people who now talk about “honoring” your doubts, “respecting” your doubts, “making space” for your doubts, “being honest” about your doubts, “embracing” your doubts or “cherishing” your doubts.
In Hearing God, the late Christian philosopher Dallas Willard observed, “We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes.”
That’s how we modern Americans tend to think about “doubt”: hinting at its goodness and wisdom, while cautioning against any resistance to what we’re thinking or feeling inside.
Perhaps there’s some wisdom in this impulse. After all, a life of incessant resistance and fighting-to-overcome could wear out the best of us. There is, for any of us, a time to simply notice, watch and accept that something is present.
This may be especially true when we are prone to self-condemnation or riddled with fear over what we’re experiencing inside. Learning to just “be with” whatever is here, “without trying to fix or force it to be any different” can be such a relieving practice.
And that’s not the same as “resigning ourselves” to whatever we’re experiencing either, as we remind people in our mindfulness classes. It’s possible to approach doubt and other challenging emotions from a calm, wise place—without resistance or fear—but while still maintaining an intent to ultimately overcome something, rather than glorify it.
But why? And what’s so wrong with celebrating and trumpeting our doubts?
Not everything inside is wise
Part of the impulse behind the throw-the-door-open, open-arms-wide approach to doubt is the idea that anything felt or experienced inside must somehow be good, wise or insightful (and therefore, trusted and followed):
Feeling angry at someone? Best to cut them off—establish those boundaries!
Craving something else? Let’s find out how to get more of it—“obey your thirst!”
Have a persistent thought or feeling? Go with it—above all, be true to who you really are inside!
In this way, people can become enslaved to anything they are feeling and thinking—without even realizing what is happening, and where this is all leading them.
The reality is that chasing passing pleasures, living out any thoughts and feelings, and instinctively separating ourselves from even slight discomforts: it all adds up to a less developed human being and one far more likely to be unhappy long-term.
Yet the many loud proponents of the doctrine that everything felt inside is good and wise like to fancy themselves as uniquely enlightened—positioning themselves as a contrast to more simple-minded voices in the past. One common plank of their teaching is to deny, undercut or distract from the existence of temptation and evil itself (using words like “nondual” or “scientific”1).
But they’re simply wrong about that. Evil does, in fact, exist. Sexual abuse and murder and war and inner torment cannot adequately be explained by materialist explanations of trauma, biology, economics, and social conditions. And because evil is a reality, that means lies also exist, and consequences from those lies.
Practically, this means our unsettled feelings and doubtful cynicism towards truth should not automatically be treated as wise or trustworthy. Sometimes they may be signals of fear, pain, temptation, distortion, or something else that needs healing, correction, or direct resistance.
Yes, doubt and unbelief are normal things human beings experience2 and should be approached with compassion and empathy. But instead of only “making space” and “listening” to doubts that arise, this invites us to see doubt and unbelief as something to ultimately be dispatched, jettisoned and yes, overcome.
That’s an especially important word for anyone who takes scripture seriously.
All that God invites us to overcome
In the same moment he warned his apostles they would be scattered and one day killed, Jesus spoke of love, peace and joy to come. Then he said to his gathered apostles, no doubt at this point a little worried: “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”3
Yet it’s not only Jesus who overcomes in scripture. John writes in the New Testament to “young men (who) have overcome the wicked one” and teaches that those “born of God overcometh the world.” The same apostle later begins the epic Book of Revelation with a series of distinct promises given by the resurrected Christ:
“To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7).
“To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written” (Rev. 2:17).
“He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power” (Rev. 2:26).
“He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment … I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels” (Rev. 3:5).
“Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God” (Rev. 3:12).
Whether or not we overcome is apparently a big deal. But what exactly are we being encouraged to overcome here?
The text singles out specifically “deeds” and “doctrines” which God “hates”—repeatedly cautioning early Saints about being “seduced” by “fornication” and other destructive patterns.
We can do it, because he did
One reason I find this so encouraging is that I know what it’s like to experience the opposite: being overcome by the despair and darker patterns so abundant in the world. Paul likewise cautioned the early Saints in Rome, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”
I can also say from experience how thrilling it is to experience God’s help to overcome any of this. And scripture declares far more delight to come. Christ again tells John: “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame.”
“Because Jesus Christ overcame this fallen world, and because He atoned for each of us, you too can overcome this sin-saturated, self-centered, and often exhausting world,” taught President Russell Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ in a 2022 message referencing the same ancient promise from Christ to his apostles, along with more recent encouragement: “I will that ye should overcome the world.”
President Nelson continued:
“Because the Savior, through His infinite Atonement, redeemed each of us from weakness, mistakes, and sin, and because He experienced every pain, worry, and burden you have ever had, then as you truly repent and seek His help, you can rise above this present precarious world. You can overcome the spiritually and emotionally exhausting plagues of the world, including arrogance, pride, anger, immorality, hatred, greed, jealousy, and fear. Despite the distractions and distortions that swirl around us, you can find true rest—meaning relief and peace—even amid your most vexing problems.”
Cultivating the opposite of doubt
All this happens through exercising and cultivating the opposite of doubt within ourselves. “Through faith they shall overcome,” 19th century Saints were told. This echoes John’s vision of those who “overcame (the adversary) by the blood of the Lamb”—contrasted in the same text by those whom he foresaw as “overcome” by this same adversary.
The consequences of getting this right are enormous and personally consequential. Peter cautioned anciently “of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.”4 And restoration scripture likewise describes the “sufferings of those with whom (the adversary) made war and overcame.”
Such suffering is real and piercing—and hardly recognized by those in the middle of it. But it doesn’t have to keep going! We really can be free of all of this, remarkably. Later in the book, right after being shown a future “new heaven and new earth,” where God would “make all things new” and “wipe away all tears,” the New Testament text quotes “he who sat upon the throne” as saying about that glorious day: “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.”
Overcoming doubt
Are we sure this “overcoming” really includes doubt, some may still wonder. “After all, I keep hearing there’s so much wisdom in our doubts, which are a sign that a deeper process of spiritual transformation is taking place.”
In modern society, once again, doubt towards God and religion is more likely to be taken as an indication of “education” or “integrity” or “authenticity” or even “courage.”
Some other Christian teachers have pushed back on this idea. G.K. Chesterton has been attributed as saying, “When people cease to believe in God, they do not then believe in nothing, but in anything.”5 And C.S. Lewis suggested that to “see through” everything is, finally, not to see.
I want to close this essay with a short exercise illustrating how far removed the popular rhetoric about doubt is from scripture itself. In all my searching of prophetic writing from the Bible and the Book of Mormon, I literally cannot find anything to justify the feel-good rhetoric that treats doubts as a sign of secret spiritual sophistication. See for yourself:
1. Christ and his prophets sorrow to see unbelief and consistently call us out of it:
After being rejected in his home town, the record says Jesus “marvelled (amazed, surprised) because of their unbelief.” Later, he asked one of his closest followers, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” and lamented what he called a “faithless” generation.
Nephi described being “left to mourn because of the unbelief…ignorance and stiffneckedness of men”- adding, “for they will not search knowledge, nor understand great knowledge, when it is given unto them in plainness, even as plain as word can be.”
Likewise, President Oaks taught in that same address, “Those of diminishing faith and activity in the restored Church are a major source of concern to your prophet leaders. We love you, young and old, men and women. So does the Lord! God is relentless in His loving pursuit of each of you.”
2. We’re encouraged to ‘doubt not’:
Christ promised miraculous things to those who “have faith, and doubt not” and who “shall not doubt in (their) heart.” And after speaking directly to those “of little faith” about how much God watches over the small details of our lives, Jesus says plainly: “neither be ye of doubtful mind.”
He later said to Thomas “be not faithless, but believing.”
Paul encouraged people to “pray everywhere”—“without … doubting”—talking about father Abraham as an example of someone who did not “stagger” (waver) “through unbelief” at the beautiful promises made to him. And the same James who encourages those lacking wisdom to “ask of God” then reminded early Saints to “ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”
“Let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.”
Restoration scripture channels this same invitation, with Moroni calling on readers to “doubt not, but be believing”—quoting Christ as saying “whosoever shall believe in my name, doubting nothing, unto him will I confirm all my words, even unto the ends of the earth.”
The text also describes moments of communion with the Living God that left people “nothing doubting,” bidden to “marvel not, neither should they doubt” and having such sacred experiences that there was not a living soul “who did doubt in the least.”
“Look unto me in every thought; doubt not” the Lord said again to Saints in more recent centuries.
3. Doubt is described as a particular state we need help to be delivered from and repent of:
Book of Mormon prophets describe the possibility of “fall(ing) into a state of unbelief”—as well as that same condition being removed: for King Lamoni, the “dark veil of unbelief was being cast away, and the light which did light up his mind … infused such joy into his soul, the cloud of darkness having been dispelled.”
The descent into a state of doubt can happen over time, and because of choices and actions of others, such as children whose “their unbelief and their hatred (was) because of the iniquity of their fathers,” entire peoples who “dwindled in unbelief because of the iniquity of their fathers,” and even whole generations potentially swept away into becoming “unbelieving and stiffnecked.”
This can be a gradual, societal process of “dwindling” in unbelief—even as a whole nation—a phrase that shows up repeatedly in the Book of Mormon. Others do not “dwindle in unbelief,” but instead “willfully rebel against the gospel of Christ.”
Regardless of how it happens, this veil of unbelief can again be pierced, with restoration scripture describing “unbelief and blindness of heart” as sins to be repented of—with ancient Americans coming to “fear because of their iniquity and their unbelief” once they recognized what it was. And the New Testament depicts a father asking Christ, “I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”
After his resurrection, Jesus “upbraided” (“rebuked” or “scolded”) his disciples for “their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.”
And at the end of the American text, Mormon turns directly to “those who do not believe in Christ”—asking whether they will believe “in that great day when ye shall be brought to stand before the Lamb of God—then will ye say that there is no God?.... Do ye suppose that ye could be happy to dwell with that holy Being, when your souls are racked with a consciousness of guilt that ye have ever abused his laws?”
“O then ye unbelieving, turn ye unto the Lord, cry mightily unto the Father in the name of Jesus, that perhaps ye may be found … cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, at that great and last day.”
4. Rather than signaling more enlightenment, doubt can eventually lead to obscuring and blinding people from beautiful realities:
Isaiah spoke anciently of those who “understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not”—a prophecy Jesus later referenced as being fulfilled in people’s rejection of him: “For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed.”
In the new world, Jesus recalled what happened: “And now, because of stiffneckedness and unbelief they understood not my word.” This same process played out in the children of believing parents after King Benjamin, who the record says “did not believe the tradition of their fathers” and “did not believe what had been said concerning the resurrection of the dead, neither did they believe concerning the coming of Christ.”
“And now because of their unbelief they could not understand the word of God; and their hearts were hardened.”
Restoration scripture describes how otherwise good insights and truths can be “cast it out by your unbelief” and details how minds can be “darkened because of unbelief.”
Alma likewise describes how this can be a progressive, iterative process: “therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word… until they know nothing concerning his mysteries” (with the opposite trajectory also available, with a person who “will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.”)6
Paul likewise described how the “god of this world hath blinded … them which believe not” and also wrote how doubt can lead us to see everything through different lenses: “Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled”—in part, because “in works they deny him.”
5. Doubt leads to poor choices which can fuel even more doubt:
The cognitive consequences of doubt are especially significant, because we cannot see what we cannot see. But the implications go far beyond mental implications to behavior itself:
Doubt naturally dilutes obedience, with restoration scripture describing those who “receive a commandment with doubtful heart, and keep it with slothfulness.”
Alma describes how doubt can lead hearts to become calcified—asking the people whether they would “harden your hearts in unbelief” (this same phrase “harden their hearts in unbelief” shows up elsewhere in restoration scripture).
Hearts rejecting God in doubt inevitably go elsewhere—with restoration scripture describing early inhabitants taught truth by their parents, until “Satan came among them, saying … Believe it not; and they believed it not, and they loved Satan more than God. And men began from that time forth to be carnal, sensual, and devilish.”
In this way, hearts can change too—with Hebrews cautioning “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.”
As minds, hearts and behavior all get tied up in the same doubtful stew, the New Testament underscores how stuck people become in their progress (which is how Latter-day Saints understand heavy words like “damn” and “condemn”). “He that believeth not is condemned already,” Jesus says, with Paul writing that “all might be damned who believed not the truth (and instead “believe a lie”) and who subsequently “had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
This is why I believe that when doubt takes over a life, it changes us into a different person over time.
6. Doubt constrains what God can do in our lives:
In the presence of doubt, great things are withheld—which could otherwise be given. This is first apparent in the Old Testament, when the Lord tells Moses and Aaron, “Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.” The writer of Hebrews later says, “So we see they could not enter in because of unbelief.”
“Because of your unbelief” Jesus likewise spoke of people unable to do miracles (other translations say “Because you have so little faith/because of the littleness of your faith”).
The New Testament subsequently describes how Jesus “did not many mighty works (among some people) because of their unbelief”—something Christ recalled again in ancient America, describing how he could not show certain people “great miracles, because of their unbelief.”
At the same time, the Book of Mormon describes miraculous deliverance among young people with “exceeding faith” who were taught to believe that “whosoever did not doubt, that they should be preserved by his marvelous power”—who had been “taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.”
Yet the opposite also shows up in the Book of Mormon, with aching consequences following a departure from faith. When things got bad enough in ancient American society, Mormon describes how “there were no gifts from the Lord, and the Holy Ghost did not come upon any, because of their wickedness and unbelief.”
“The reason why he ceaseth to do miracles among the children of men is because that they dwindle in unbelief, and depart from the right way, and know not the God in whom they should trust,” this same prophet says, before entreating future readers:
“Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth.”
His son Moroni closes the book quoting Christ as inviting future readers to “Come unto me … and I will show unto you the greater things, the knowledge which is hid up because of unbelief. Come unto me …. and it shall be made manifest unto you how great things the Father hath laid up for you, from the foundation of the world; and it hath not come unto you, because of unbelief.”
“Behold, when ye shall rend that veil of unbelief which doth cause you to remain in your awful state of wickedness, and hardness of heart, and blindness of mind, then shall the great and marvelous things which have been hid up from the foundation of the world from you.”
“If it so be that I do not speak, judge ye,” the Lord warns. “For ye shall know that it is I that speaketh, at the last day.”
If miracles have ceased, Moroni later says repeatedly, “it is because of unbelief”—adding that “if the day cometh that the power and gifts of God shall be done away among you, it shall be because of unbelief.”
“And the reason why he ceaseth to do miracles among the children of men,” Moroni reiterates “is because that they dwindle in unbelief, and depart from the right way, and know not the God in whom they should trust.”
7. Doubt removes beautiful possibilities in our future:
In addition to limiting what God can do in our present lives, doubt fundamentally shifts what our ultimate future looks like as well, in at least three ways:
There can be physical consequences: Jude recollects in the New Testament how “the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.” Nephi warns about the possibility that his people could “dwindle and perish in unbelief.” And Jacob describes being shown “that many of our children shall perish in the flesh because of unbelief.”
There can be relational severing. Paul describes how groups of former believers can be “broken off” (or “cut off” in other translations) from the main body of faith “because of unbelief.” Restoration scripture also describes Christ reassuring how this same group who gets “scattered … because of their unbelief” can ultimately be “brought to a knowledge of me, their Redeemer.”
Piercing future regrets are prophesied. Right after recounting a parable of the rich man who builds bigger barns and “layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God,” Jesus tells another parable of a servant who refuses to watch and prepare for the Lord’s coming, who ultimately appoints this servant upon returning “his portion with the unbelievers.”
Revelation’s forceful caution about destructive patterns includes warning to “murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars” about painful future regrets awaiting them (which is how Latter-day Saints interpret imagery of fire and burning). Also included on that list: warnings to “the fearful, and unbelieving” (a caution repeated in restoration scripture).
“These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire,” the apostle John relates.
These are not my words. They are what’s recounted in scripture. As illustrated above, it’s difficult to find anything in scripture from both the old and new worlds that backs up the modern day glorification of doubt and belief as somehow spiritually transformative and developmentally enlightened.
Notes:
President Oaks also spoke extensively about the misuse of science to crowd away faith, beginning with a statement “Never let your secular learning limit your horizons.”
After outlining both scientific and spiritual methods to gain knowledge, he declared, “There is no ultimate conflict between knowledge gained by these different methods because God, our omnipotent Eternal Father, knows all truth and beckons us to learn by both methods. Those who don’t believe in God, who formally reject traditional religious morality, and who rely solely on the tests of scientific evidence fulfill a Book of Mormon description of those “who live without God in the world.”
Then he cited earlier teaching by Elder Richard L. Evans for those who are “caught off balance by some scientific evidence that seems to be contrary to what we interpret from the scriptures”:
There may be some seeming discrepancies. Do not worry about them. Eternity is a long time. I have a great respect for learning, for academic endeavor and the university atmosphere. . . . I have a great respect for science and scientists and for the search for truth. But remember this: science after all (even when it is true and final and factual) is simply man’s discovering of a few things that God already knows and controls in his ordering of the universe. . . . God has not told us all he knows. We believe in continuous revelation. Be patient. Keep humble and balanced in all things.
“Who among us has not experienced insecurity, loss and even doubts on their journey of faith?” Pope Francis once said. “We’ve all experienced this, me too.” C.S. Lewis likewise wrote, “I think the trouble with me is lack of faith… often when I pray I wonder if I am not posting letters to a non-existent address.”
This is something reiterated in restoration scripture repeatedly:
“Behold, ye are little children and ye cannot bear all things now; ye must grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth. Fear not, little children, for you are mine, and I have overcome the world, and you are of them that my Father hath given me” D&C 50:41.
“I have overcome and have trodden the wine-press alone” D&C 76:107.
“The Lamb of God hath overcome” D&C 88:106.
In Joseph Smith’s translation of Matthew, he noted that after Jesus said “And again, because iniquity shall abound, the love of men shall wax cold” the Lord added, “but he that shall not be overcome, the same shall be saved.” JS—M 1:30. Again, this happens through digging deeper in our faith:
“He that is faithful … shall overcome the world.” D&C 63:47.
A vision given to Joseph Smith references those “who overcome by faith, and are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise” D&C 76:53. In the same vision, they state: “and again we bear record—for we saw and heard, and this is the testimony of the gospel of Christ concerning them who shall come forth in the resurrection of the just—They are they who received the testimony of Jesus, and believed on his name and were baptized after the manner of his burial, being buried in the water in his name, and this according to the commandment which he has given—That by keeping the commandments they might be washed and cleansed from all their sins, and receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of the hands of him who is ordained and sealed unto this power; And who overcome by faith….they shall overcome all things.” D&C 76:60.
The actual quote from “The Miracle of Moon Crescent” is that hardened disbelief does not always leave people immune to belief; it can leave them “on the very edge of belief—of belief in almost anything.”
Another beautiful depiction of this process: “That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.”
The Doctrine and Covenants text also cautions, “And that which doth not edify is not of God, and is darkness…. again, verily I say unto you, and I say it that you may know the truth, that you may chase darkness from among you.”