Is Doubt A Sin?

Once again James kicks at my soapbox.

 My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

 If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.(James1)

I get really ticked off when people say, especially to kids, that to question or doubt God is a sin and unforgivable.

..being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

I had a professor, in undergraduate school, who countered  Jame’s view on doubters: 

“Out of the greatest doubt comes at the strongest faith.”

I don’t think there is anyone in the entire world that never --  at least from time to time -- doubts, or questions, God; or Gods actual being. 

By God’s very nature — invisible, whose voice is silent, whose image is untouchable — is unbelievable.  Not at all comprehendible, or understood, by the human mind.  

God poses multiple of contradictions for the historical worldview that survives on logic and reason. 

For a person, with the created human mind, to say they have never doubted God or God’s existence is highly suspect.  At least to this illogical mind. 

What we have here a huge dilemma.  A dilemma that is for all of those who want to say: “But it says it in the Bible.”

Whose is to say that James is incorrect or not?

In this question lies the great divide that lives in the universal Christian world today.

Those who believe that all truth is limited to the words written between the cover of the Bible. That is, those who believe in the inerrancy -- without error -- of scripture.

Or those who believe in the ‘living word of God.’

The living word of God is a theology that believes that God's will, and God’s word, has lived and is still living, far beyond what is printed on the pages of the Christian Cannon.

God is not limited to ancient stories in an ancient book.  

This point of view understands the Bible as simply the foundation of the truth of God; as understood by human beings of long ago. 

People who lived in a very different, and limited world of, understanding about many things.  A world that was much simpler and less complicated.  A people who lived on fallacies and myths they made up to make sense of what they did not know.  

I base this on things like the Hebrew understanding about leprosy, woman’s menstrual cycles, children disrespect of elders, sexual orientation, the place of  men and women in the community and what sin actually is;  just to name a few.

Later, in ancient history, a man called Jesus came to adjust the thinking of the generation that came before him.  He spoke of many of the myths, rituals and traditions of the Hebrew mentality.  And how misguided and incorrect their assumptions were. 

However those old habits were so ingrained that their human minds would not — could not — accept anything but what they had always known and believed.

Much like we ourselves react to change today.

More tomorrow on the Book of James.