Faith and Doubt

2011 has come and gone. Being one of the worst years in my life, I find my faith in God has declined. Hence, as a solution, I'm writing a journal to keep track of my faith or the lack of it thereof. Perhaps it's a misnomer to say that it's a solution, since there is a possibility that in the end I might choose to forgo said faith.


Why do I call it the journal of doubt then? Well...because this is the very first thing that has to be established.


As Descartes once said, to know anything for certain, you must first doubt everything.


No I'm not being a douche, repeating some tautological cliches I learn from a TV series (HIMYM). This is what I really think ought to be the foundation of faith.


Here are my thoughts:


1) How do you have faith in a being you cannot imagine? The only way to know an amorphous being is to know his characteristics.


AND, no, God is not some bearded old man. He is not even in a shape of a human. I hate idiots who quote Genesis 1:27 and say since we are created in his image, He should look like a man. The original Hebrew word used in Genesis 1:27 to translate "image" is Tselem, which refers to the likeliness of God's power to reason, in contrast to animals.


The word "image" is used many times in the bible, but the original Hebrew words used differ according to the context. For example, Exodus 20:4 "Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image". The Hebrew word used was "pecel" which means idol. The Hebrew word that actually refers to physical likeliness is "temuwnah".


Before I start diverting my thoughts for today's journal, the point I'm trying to prove (or maybe it's just vain self justification), is that you cannot claim to believe in a being that is shapeless without knowing the characteristics of said being. Without knowledge of His characteristics, saying you believe in God is nothing more than a statement since "God" is not the original word used and is merely a made up English word to describe said being with such characteristics anyway.



2) "Faith" has lost its original meaning (among thousands of others). The original Hebrew words for faith are "Amun" and "Emuwnah".


They mean faithfulness and loyalty, in a context of acting on something with certainty. In other words, there must be a degree of knowledge in conjunction with an action for faith to be put in context.


Apathy is a canker that disguises itself in a form of faith. It is not uncommon to hear colloquial statements such as "I don't care about (fill in the blanks), I just believe in God". Nowhere in the bible can you find the act of faith not related to another act, in its original Hebrew meaning.



While faith has also been used to translate scriptures originally written in Greek, such as in the context of "hope", there's really no room to adopt apathy unless u misinterpret faith.



3) Perhaps the biggest challenge to justify writing such a journal, is to explain away the claim by many that there are myriads of scriptures that go against the act of doubt.


I shall focus mainly on the book of Job. Job was stripped off everything, family, wealth, health, you name it. No matter how righteous he was, doubts filled his mind.


Throughout his questioning for his suffering, he seeks for wisdom. Not wisdom for wisdom's sake, but one to understand God, particularly the suffering that fell upon him and the injustice of the world. It is through doubt that he seeks to understand, whereas friends not in his shoes can only make apathetic statements in response to his cries.


Here's the catch, the three friends who tried to defend God made inaccurate statements about the higher being. In the end, Job got his reply from God through all his cries of doubts, while the 3 friends who supposedly defended God got somewhat reprimanded for their inaccuracies.


The most ironic part is that whatever the three friends have uttered are so similar to many who hide behind the veil of apathy disguised as faith.


Just to wrap up on the book of Job, in Job 28:20-21 “But do people know where to find wisdom? Where can they find understanding. It is hidden from the eyes of all humanity."


That's right, true wisdom is found on humanity, on empathetic endeavours for the betterment of mankind. Whether or not I will end up like Job, or I fall to become a strong atheist at the end of the journal, I will not regret the pursuit for wisdom through doubts, because ultimately it is the most humane thing to do.



Apart from the book of Job, the other books that actually talk about the conflict between faith and doubts are all in the New Testament where Jesus is physically present. So it's in a totally different context when Jesus is physically there to tell you "Ye of little faith".



In our modern context, we can only relate to Job. In fact, it is worth reiterating that God was pleased with Job despite all his doubts, but was angry at the three friends who were seemingly pious but was in fact apathetic.



Well... I'm done justifying myself. The reason I make this journal public is that I remotely hope that there will be an Elihu to speak to me, though I'm surrounded by all the Bildads and Zophars as Eliphazs.


......and thus begins my journal of doubt.


P.S. (Seriously, I can never understand why many can have the audacity to claim that the bible is a love letter from God and there is nothing more important than Him, yet refuse to try and understand said letter in its original language. When you fall in love with someone, you would at least try to understand their mother tongue and culture too would you?)