DOUBT IN PERSPECTIVE
God is bigger than you think
By Alister McGrath. IVP. 142 pages. £6.99
ISBN 1 84474 137 0
‘Have you ever had doubts?’ asked the interviewer in the morning service. Time did not permit a rounded answer so I risked telling the truth and said ‘No’. Mind you, I suspected he really meant ‘problems’. What a difference!
Problems? Yes. Doubts? No. Doubts question a person; problems arise from something mystifying that person (Person) has done. Faith is not ability to answer questions; it is trusting the God who has revealed himself in the Bible. Two readings have not convinced me that this distinction is as clear in Dr. McGrath’s book as I would wish — for all around I meet people who complain of ‘doubts’ when actually they mean inability to understand how the sovereign God runs his world. And neither do I find here the Bible prominent as a remedy against doubt, as I think it should be.
Nevertheless this is a fine book, easy to read, meeting many people where they are, and wholesome and practical in its recommendations.
Five chapters ‘clear the ground’, ‘domesticating’ doubt in Christian experience: you are unlikely not to meet it; searching for certainty can be futile; other life-views are just as prone to doubts (if their adherents think clearly). Chapters 6 -9 deal respectively with doubt about the gospel, about ourselves, about Jesus and about God. Two chapters round the study off: handling doubt and keeping it in perspective. I can’t imagine anyone, alert to the pressures of living in this world, who will not be helped on every page.
The book is easy to read, with well-chosen illustrative material, and an overall fidelity to Holy Scripture.
