I’ve been thinking about this recently as I read some posts and comments at badchristian (for example, here). What I’m going to say may or may not have anything to do with Brandon; I don’t know him.
It seems to me that doubt has taken on a far different meaning than what it used to mean in the context of Christian belief. I agree with Brandon that faith is not confined to the cerebral. But the question, I think, is really about the nature of belief, not the nature of doubt. What is it to doubt while remaining a Christian? Clearly, no one has ever completed a Christian life free from doubt. If there was such a person (excepting Christ, of course), they didn’t boast about it.
Here’s the problem with the doubting faithful: it far too often degenerates into “I doubt that Paul wrote such-and-such a book,” with the subtext, “…because I don’t agree with what he says here.” The doubt usually relates to some issue of women or homosexuals, if not to the much more serious issues of Christology that are raised.
That brings me to another point: the levels and degrees of doubt. I see doubt about numbering in Chronicles or dating of books as on a different (lower) level than doubt about the resurrection of Christ, or the Virgin Birth. Of course, as Brandon notes, it really all goes to what one believes about the Bible. Now, I believe the Bible is true because it testifies to the living Christ. Some Christians believe in Christ because the Bible is true. This leads to research, debate, and apologetics about the nature and archaeology of the Bible. No, or very few, battles will be won in this area (witness the near-absolute intellectual flaying of “Creationism”).
But the matter of whether Paul, Peter, James or John wrote various things is not really a discussion that can bear much fruit. Those doubters who question the veracity of these authors or their letters or books many times receive their “evidence” from “scholars” who had already come to their conclusions long before they ever did any “research.” More importantly, even if said “scholars” thought Paul, for example, wrote the letters traditionally attributed to him, that wouldn’t stop them from questioning or discarding the content. The gulf between those who accept what can be proven and live with what cannot (“Let God be true and every man a liar”) and those who question what can be proven and deny what cannot could not be wider. Perhaps the question is really whether we are able to examine our own understanding of some teaching, rather than deny it because we can’t see a reason for it. Doubt can’t be doubted as a part of human existence, let alone Christian existence. The response to doubt is the telling thing.
Timotheos
Balaam's Ass 