Can a Christian have doubts?
The man Jesus called the greatest person ever born sent messengers from prison to ask whether he had followed the right man. He was not rebuked. He was answered. Doubt is not the opposite of faith — indifference is. What matters is whether you take the question somewhere or let it sit and rot.
A lot of people carry this quietly and never say it out loud, because they have picked up the idea that a real Christian would not be asking.
The Bible does not treat it that way at all.
John the Baptist, in prison
This is the one that settles it.
John had spent his life announcing that someone was coming. He had baptised Jesus. He had said aloud, in public, that this was the one.
Then he was arrested, and from a cell he sent messengers with a question: are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?
That is not a technical query. It is a man near the end of his life asking whether he got the central thing wrong.
Jesus does not rebuke him. He does not tell the messengers that John should have more faith. He sends back evidence — go and tell John what you have seen — and then turns to the crowd and says that of everyone born of women, none is greater than John.
The compliment comes after the doubt, and with full knowledge of it.
Thomas, who is unfairly named
The other case is the one everybody knows and most people have backwards.
Thomas said he would not believe unless he could put his hand in the wounds. A week later Jesus turns up and offers exactly that: put your finger here. No lecture, no refusal.
John 20:27KJVThen saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.What follows — blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed — is not a slap. It is a reassurance for everyone afterwards who will have testimony rather than a body in the room. Which is all of us.
The distinction that matters
Doubt and unbelief are not the same thing, and confusing them causes real damage.
Doubt is a question, held by someone who wants an answer. It is compatible with faith and often produces a sturdier one, because a belief that has been tested knows why it is there.
Settled refusal is different — deciding not to look, because looking might cost something. That is what the New Testament warns about, and it is not what someone lying awake at three in the morning is doing.
The father in Mark who says I believe; help my unbelief has both at once, and he gets what he asked for. He is one of the most quoted people in the Gospels for a reason.
What to do with it
Say it out loud to somebody. Doubt kept private grows in a way it does not survive being spoken.
Take the actual question rather than the mood. “I feel far from God” and “I do not think the resurrection happened” need completely different treatment, and people often spend years on the first when the second is what they meant.
And keep going in the meantime. Nobody has ever thought their way out of a spiritual dark patch in a single afternoon, and stopping everything until the question resolves is usually how it hardens.
Objections answered
Doesn't James say a doubter shouldn't expect anything from God?
He is describing someone in two minds about whether to trust God at all while asking him for things — a person who wants the benefits without the relationship. That is a different condition from an honest question about whether something is true.
If I have doubts, was my faith ever real?
By that standard John the Baptist’s was not, and Jesus said otherwise. Faith is not a feeling of certainty; it is trust, and trust can be exercised while uncertain. Most people who trust anyone have done it while unsure.
What if I look into it and end up losing my faith?
Then either you were believing something false, in which case you would want to know, or you were not looking hard enough. Christianity claims to be true rather than useful. If it is, investigation is on its side. If it is not, no amount of avoidance helps.
Shared ground, and where traditions differ
All Christians hold
All the traditions distinguish honest doubt from hardened unbelief, and all of them have a long line of saints and writers who recorded periods of darkness — including some of the most revered.
Related questions
Inspired by Biola University, The Good Book Blog — "Doubt Is Not Always a Sin". The argument is theirs; the words here are ours.
Did this answer the question?