Doubt and Fear, the Enemies of Faith

     Recently I watched a movie called “The Great Debaters”.  It’s a movie about four teenage debaters in the early 1900s.  Early in the movie, the father of one of these young teenagers asks the boy, “What is the greatest weakness of man?  The boy thinks for a minute and responds that doubt is the greatest weakness of man.

     There is a great deal of truth to this statement.  Faith and hope working together serve as our greatest strengths.  Meanwhile fear and doubt stand against faith and hope and serve as greatest weaknesses.  So today I want to talk about these attributes.

     What is faith?  Let me give you the definition found in the Bible Dictionary of the King James Version of The Holy Bible widely used by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  “Faith is the hope for things which are not seen, but which are true (Heb. 11:1; Alma 32:21) and must be centered in Jesus Christ in order to produce salvation.  To have faith is to have confidence in something or someone.”  So what is hope?  Hope is the desire for something to be or to happen.

     At first glance these seem to be pretty much the same thing.  But as you spend some time thinking about it, you realize they really aren’t.  As we read more in the Bible Dictionary, we learn that faith is kindled by hearing the testimony of others.  So let me outline the process and then give you the difference.

     We are born into a world with very little, if any, knowledge.  As we grow and develop, we learn to understand language and figure out how to communicate.  Then we start listening to the beliefs of others.  Some of these beliefs relate to religion, some to politics, and some to other things.  We undoubtedly hear things we things sound wonderful and desire that they are true.  We hope for them.

     Then we start to test these beliefs we hear to find out if they really are true.  We research facts, we ask questions, we test processes, and we ponder upon what we see and hear so that our understanding of the matter grows.  During this whole process we are placing some measure of confidence in the belief we will get the desired (hoped for) result.  And the more we do get it, the stronger that faith becomes, making it easier for us to believe the next test or trial will also yield the same result.  After enough times trying the matter, we find our faith has yielded knowledge that in fact that belief was true.

     So hope is the state of mind that causes us to desire something is true.  Faith is a combination of the state of mind of having confidence something is true and the process of acting to determine if it is indeed true.  Knowledge is the reward we get from acting in faith to test the hopes we have and find out if they are true.

     Now take a look at the other side of the coin.  What is fear?  Fear is the doubt that causes us to believe something is not true or simply is not.  What is doubt?  Doubt is a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction.  So back up in the process to where we hear the beliefs of others.  Some of these beliefs are opposites of the good beliefs that we desire to be true.  As we hear these negative beliefs, we start to doubt whether or not the ones we like are true.  This doubt can lead to fear that if we placed faith in the desired beliefs and tested them, these tests would yield the results we don’t want.  This fear can prevent us from testing to find out and keeps us from the knowledge of the truth.

     So doubt is also a state of mind that stands against hope.  Fear then can prevent action and learning.  In this way it prevents us from learning the truth and gaining knowledge.  We can have hope and doubt at the same time.  However, we can only act one way upon the matter.  We can choose to act in faith and test the matter, or we can choose to act in fear and not test the matter.  If we choose to act in faith and get the desired results, faith grows and fear diminishes.  If we choose to act in fear, it grows and faith diminishes.

     I must now state there are other ways of looking at faith, hope, doubt, and fear.  But when it comes to faith in God, the simple truth of the matter is that fear will prevent you from learning the truth.  It will prevent you from spiritual growth.  And it will ultimately only lead to regret.  And doubt is what leads to fear.  This is why we can state that doubt is the greatest weakness of man. 

     And this is why hope and faith are so important in our lives.  Only through acting in hope and faith can we learn of Jesus the Redeemer.  Only through hope and faith can we learn to be like Him.  Only through hope and faith can we live like Him.