Robert submitted the following statement on our website: “I believe that God exists [and] Jesus is His son and it is not OK to doubt this!”
Let’s address the implication of this comment.
Robert,
Thanks for your submission on our Room for Doubt website. I’m not sure if you are expecting a response or not, but I’d like to offer a brief reply.
I don’t want to infer too much, but it sounds like you might be somewhat concerned about our program’s effort to deal honestly with doubts about the Christian faith. We are not wanting to create doubt where none exists, but we are trying to provide a platform for open discussion with those who do, in fact, have significant questions and doubts. If you believe that God exists and that Jesus is His Son, and you have no doubt about it, I think that’s great! However, there are a lot of people, including professing Christians, who do have doubts about God and the identity of Jesus. One option is just to tell them to stop doubting, because it’s totally incompatible with having “true faith” and therefore wrong. Another option is to give them an opportunity to talk about their questions and doubts and help them work through it. We have opted for the latter.
I suppose you could say that the Room for Doubt program is trying to practice what Jude commands: “And have mercy on some, who are doubting” (Jude 1:22). We believe that this is a worthy and acceptable Christian pursuit.
–Dr. Rich Knopp, Program Director, Room For Doubt; Professor of Philosophy & Christian Apologetics, Lincoln Christian University.
