Is It Okay to Doubt? | Fr. Joseph-Anthony Kress & Fr. Jacob-Bertrand Janczyk
September 5, 2024
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: And this is Father Jacob-Bertrand Janczyk.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: And welcome to Godsplaining. Thanks to all of those who support us. If you enjoy the show, please consider making a monthly donation on our Patreon. Be sure to like, subscribe to Godsplaining wherever you listen to your podcast. Father Jacob-Bertrand, welcome back to us.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Thanks, I’ve not gone anywhere.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: [laughter] I know, right?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: I’ve been here. I’m here. Don’t worry. It’s all good. Not going anywhere. Yeah. For better for worse.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah. So we are airing this episode in early September. I believe September 5th is the air date on this episode, which means it is a day after my mother’s birthday. So happy birthday, mom, love you.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: It’s almost my mom’s birthday.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Oh, really?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Are both our moms born in September?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yes.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Let’s go.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: And we’re both born in December.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Oh, look at that. Shucks. So as we start this great, glorious month of September, most people think May is the month of mothers, but for us, actually, September is the month of our mothers, which is beautiful.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Correct. If you asked my mom, she would probably say that every month is her month.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: That’s right. That’s right, yeah.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, mother Teresa.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Oh, gosh.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: My mom’s name is Teresa. We ironically, we, some people, ironically call her that.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Some people do, yeah.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: She’s great, yeah.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: We love her. And so this month of September the month of our mothers is also gearing up for the fall. So now you’ve been in New Hampshire for a few years now…
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah. Depends on how you count.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: I don’t know how to count actually.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: It’s my second assignment there. So this time around it’s my third fall, this fall is fall number three.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: So talk to me about New Hampshire fall, what does that look like? What’s your favorite part of it?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Um, that’s a good question. So like growing up, I grew up in Connecticut, which is still New England, like New Hampshire, but it’s Southern New England, so it’s quite different. So like summers are noticeably more warm and like, and then living in DC for almost a decade, obviously summers are even warmer. So, like, my looking forward to the fall was always like, “Oh, it’s not miserable outside anymore,” or kind of miserable like Connecticut, I mean, Connecticut, it was fine. But New Hampshire doesn’t, like, the summers are really nice in New Hampshire. So, like, then my thing with the fall was always like the anticipation of like the cooler weather you know you’re not because it’s not so much that so because the like the summers aren’t so intense so, what do I like to fall? I like early fall until like daylight savings hits and oh new Hampshire yeah it gets chilly. I just like the chilly weather. We have, we’re lucky enough in our house and in our, yeah, our community in New Hampshire to have a fireplace in our house, which is awesome. You’ve experienced it yourself.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: It’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful thing.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, we spent a lot of time in front of the fireplace in the fall and the winter. So I really, I like that. I would say that’s like what I’m anticipating most right now.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: All right, I love that. You don’t like the color, the trees as they change? I fully expected that.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: I mean, it’s pretty, but it’s like, it’s one of those things, like even again, I’ll use like DC, like living in DC for the people talk about when they come to visit, they wanna see the monuments and stuff, it’s like we drive by the monuments all the time. And like, you know, it’s like in your backyard. So it’s pretty for sure. But it’s it’s like there you know what I mean. So it’s not like terribly special.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Okay.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: In that sort of way. Yeah, but it’s lovely.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Fr. Jacob-Bertrand, there is something that I know both of us have experienced multiple times. Whether it’s in the confessional or in pastoral counseling situations. It’s something where we engage with a lot of people when we’ve heard this phrase like, “Father, I’m doubting,” or, “I have doubts.” And that kind of engagement is extremely common. Like, it’s really, really common to hear. But when you are dealing with somebody and that comes up and that kind of boils over to the surface that they’re struggling They have doubts in the Faith or something along those lines. What is your initial response? What is your initial take on it and how do you deal with it?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah now how do I deal with it? I’ll guess it’s worth addressing first of like from whether it’s in the confessional or conversation or what, you know like the setting for me. I like to kind of distinguish in my own mind that establishes like two different routes or tacts or approaches and responding. And the first, and that has to do with like, what is the content of that person’s doubt? Or like, what is the doubt in response to, I guess, to put it in that way. And on the one hand, and this might be less properly doubt, but often it’s something, I think, anything you could also affirm that we engage or experience or contact in these settings. But it’s a doubt with respect to a teaching or a dogma of the Faith. We could think here of people when, especially the Protestant converts, or as they’re coming to doubt about our relationship to Mary. And what does that look like? I don’t know, or that’s that sort of stuff. I don’t know about this teaching. That can be totally, totally like, I don’t know, what’s the opposite of hostile, totally open to like, “Okay, I want to learn, but I’m not sure,” or like, “I believe the Churches is wrong in this and blah, blah, blah, blah. So you can, you can, you can run the whole spectrum there, but that’s one way. Okay. Well, this is more about like a teaching of a truth than it is a sort of like spiritual engagement, kind of thing. So the, the, the other one and probably more properly doubt, so you have one, a doubt with respect to a teaching or something of that nature and the second with respect to God Himself. And this comes again in like the other in a whole host of forms and varieties, right? Like I doubt that God exists or like my faith is weak or I doubt that God is like listening to my prayers or like whatever might be or even like I have doubts about like whether or not this sin will be conquered in my life like that kind of world I think is very different than like the sort of dogma world. I mean the two things but in my mind, I would approach those differently where one is an engagement with like an intellectual truth. The other is an engagement, I would say, or let’s say engagement with an intellectual truth and an encounter with God. How are we encountering God? His love for us His mercy, that sort of thing. I don’t know if that makes sense or if it’s too like, splicey –
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah, I kind of appreciate that distinction is like, okay, a doubt in the doctrine versus a doubt in God proper. And I think when it comes to the doubt in doctrine, like, yeah, that’s actually, that’s where growth and faith is important, you know, that faith is a virtue that is given to us. And so to ask the Lord, like, oh, I may struggle with this teaching. I may not agree with it or I may doubt the validity of it, but I want to be open to growing in it. And that’s a growth of faith. That’s a growth in the virtue of faith, and which is a gift and to ask the Lord to help us in that, to move in that way. But that takes a lot of just kind of, I don’t know, yeah, it’s a growth of faith in the intellect in that way, maybe. And I find the other distinction though, but doubting with God proper, like, okay, now we’re doing what they’re totally different thing. That’s a broken relationship, right? That’s a, there’s a lack of trust there. There’s a, there’s doubt in some capacity. And so that takes a totally different approach now. And to move the person into a deeper encounter where they do have trust in the One. Maybe they don’t understand it totally, but they do believe and trust the reality and they’re not skeptical of it or they don’t doubt it. So that might be another issue to talk about is like, what is, is there a difference between like maybe skepticism and doubt?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, I think so. And I think that the skepticism, like that I was when you were explaining that that word popped into my mind too, skepticism. And when you were talking about on that first category, that this is a thing of faith in the sense of like believing what is true. It’s also, I see it too actually, and this isn’t like, yeah, I see it a bit differently. I see it more as an issue of obedience than I do, not that faith isn’t involved, but as Catholics, we’re called to be obedient, we’re called to be obedient to God, and we’re called to be obedient to the Church.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: And that this was earlier in the year that was the Gospel where the Lord said, like, “…if you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Correct.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Our obedience to His commandments is an expression of the love…
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Right.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: …that we did receive and also that we have for Him.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: It’s also an invitation of Christ, who was obedient to the Father.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Right, He said, I was obedient to the will of my Father and I ask that you do the same.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah. And this is where the sort of, does that mean that we have to like, blindly pretend that we know everything and that everything is like make sense? No, but there’s a difference between asking questions of like, I don’t understand this where the disposition is, but I believe the Church is right. But I don’t understand. So like, I’m wrestling, I’m struggling, so can we talk about that? Like explain to me, okay, you explained it to me, I’m still not sure, but I’m, I trust, you know, I’m giving my trust to the Church to Christ versus like, no, I’m skeptical, the Church is probably wrong. So I’m going to fit, you know, like, that’s very different to me. And I think that that’s an attitude that obedience to the Church, into what she teaches through the guidance of the Holy Spirit is the disposition of holiness. Yeah, we don’t get to create it. It’s not ours to create, and we’re invited to participate in these sort of things. So yeah, question, ask questions, these sort of things. But the sort of disposition ought to be one of trust and reliance on, yeah, on the church in the Holy Spirit working through the Church. So I think that’s, that’s like, yeah, incredibly important. And if we approach with this sort of modern skepticism that like, I know better, it’s like, well, you don’t. Sorry.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah, I think there were when we’re talking about skepticism and just questioning. Like once again, we really should question. That’s how we learn. That’s how we grow in the faith is to question. This is like, and this is not uncommon even throughout all of the Old Testament and even into the Gospels and the New Testament, like people had to ask questions. You know, like, Lord, what do I need to be saved? Okay, you must be born again in water and spirit. Okay, does that mean I have to crawl back up in the womb? Like, what are you talking about here? Like, there are questions. And so I never fear from that. And this kind of brings up for me the, the figure of the apostle Thomas, right? Thomas kind of carries that moniker of “Doubting Thomas” and as if it’s a pejorative thing, I don’t necessarily think it is. I have a different take on Thomas as the doubter. So Thomas in his life, he missed the first appearance of the resurrected Lord. He wasn’t there, I don’t know, nobody knows what he was doing. He maybe overslept or he was out running maybe running into 7-11, getting a hot dog or something. You know…
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: That’s a throwback.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah, that is it. For those who know, know. He missed the first appearance of the resurrected Lord to the apostles and then they tell him about it. He’s like, ah I don’t know about that. I saw that man crucified. Then he says, unless I put my finger into the nail marks and my hand into his side, I will not believe. This is, that’s a unique kind of doubt, right? So somebody’s proclaiming the resurrection to him and he says, he puts up this barrier, unless these things happen, I will not believe. Now that’s different than just questioning, right? It’s saying, oh, what do you mean? That’s a definitive statement there. And I think that’s where we, if we’re talking about doubts and questions and skepticism and this whole kind of swirly, morally mix of things in our heads, it’s okay to question, but when you present your things and these doubts as definitive, I will not believe, you know, that’s doubt, right? That’s a barrier in a separation there. And then the Lord appears later on and turns directly to Thomas and says, you put your hand, put your fingers here, put your hand here, right? And so you see the Lord approach Thomas in his doubts precisely where he said he would not believe. You know, and then Thomas makes a beautiful act of faith. My Lord, and my God. So he moves from doubt a definitive doubt to a definitive act of faith. And the Lord meets him and encounters him there. So I don’t wanna ever fear when people say, oh, I’m doubting or I have doubts about my relationship with God or whatever it is. It’s like, yeah, that’s okay. But those doubts should lead us closer to Jesus.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah. I think that like when you say that should lead us closer to Jesus might like what kind of comes to mind is like, well, okay, so if I’m doubting, if I have these doubts, whether they’re as extreme as Thomas or whatever they might be, they’re our own, you know, kind of what experience sometimes of our relationship with God. Like immediately begs the question, even like sitting in the confessional and hearing somebody say, like I’m struggling with it, whatever, like it immediately begs the question, even if they don’t ask explicitly, like how do I fix it? Like what’s the remedy? You know, to move from like as Thomas moved, I will not believe unless to my Lord and my God. Like how do I fix it? In the answer is, you don’t. You don’t. I mean, we are called to remain like faithful and persevere. So what do we do? We continue to frequent the sacraments. We continue to engage our Lord in prayer and show up in prayer and be present to persevere. But it’s through that perseverance that God works on us, that he bestows His grace, that He heals, that He transforms. And I think what you’re point about that we come to believe through doubt, that we can be led, whether it’s with doubt or pain or hurt or like struggling with a particular sin or whatever it might be, we can there’s a temptation to think that like once this is fixed then I will be holy then I will be happy then I will engage but actually it’s not that our Lord causes our pain, our doubt these sort of things, but it’s certainly true that He allows it. But it’s also certainly true that he’s present in it. And those circumstances of our lives, as you said, become what the catalyst or the whatever, the field of our continued conversion. So we can’t look at dought as like, okay, do I believe God’s got this? And to me, why am I suffering so much? You know, well, I don’t know why all these things, but what I do know is that the Lord loves you and that he is with you and that whether or not, like my emotive or psychological or intellectual, whatever is matching up to what I want it to be with respect, like, doesn’t change who God is. And our call is to remain faithful in like pursuing Him. And this is like, this is that trust thing. It’s like, okay, so yeah, granted, easier said than done.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Of course. For sure.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: For sure. But that call doesn’t change. And His grace doesn’t change.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: And that’s it. It’s like when we have those doubts, I think the first thing is to actually acknowledge them as that, oh wow, I’m really doubting the Father’s love for me. Like I don’t think I’m worthy of love. And I will go through these motions, but honestly, I don’t think I’m worth it. Or will doubt, did the Lord really forgive me? Everything else is able to be forgiven, but this one thing, no, that’s not. He can’t forgive that or whatever it may be. We can doubt these things that He actually says that. And this is where when we’re talking about our relationship with God, this comes up in my life in a few different ways, but I’ve found that if we’re able to read the Gospels within an eye to the promises that the Lord makes. And I think this is the understanding that when the Lord himself makes a promise, that’s a divine promise from eternity that cannot be taken back. We can be unfaithful to the promises, but He cannot be. And so if we’re struggling with our doubts, quite often when it’s in the doctrinal teaching said, but when it’s in the relational reality, if we doubt who God is and who we are, then it’s good to be, to reaffirm the promises that the Lord makes in the Gospels, recognizing that He does love us, that He calls us His friends, that He promises to never abandon us, and that what we bring to Him is received and embraced and redeemed. And this is where, you know, when I specifically look at Thomas’s life and his engagement at the Lord post-Resurrection is that he moved from doubt to belief, my Lord and my God, by the wounds of Jesus, by actually touching those wounds. And so I think quite often, our own doubts, too come from wounds and to be unafraid of touching our own wounds and actually placing them in contact with the resurrected wounds of the Lord. And so when we come to those doubts, I think a lot of people, like you said, we want the solution, we want the answer because we are thinking it’s an equation or we think it’s linear or whatever it may be.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Or it’s just painful.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Or it’s just painful – And how could a good God let this happen? And I doubt that he even exists. I doubt he even gives a rip about me or all of these things. Like how could this happen? That’s real pain. Those are real wounds. Yeah. And it’s deep. But I think the first step is to acknowledge that, as a source of our encounter to the Lord, but then to put those in contact with the wounds of Jesus as well.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah. I think what you’re saying to the promises of our Lord to put them in contact with reality. Because I think we often get trapped in our, like our own head space, or we were out and we kind of look at things through particular lens and like, it kind of like snowballs in ways. And I think engaging with reality and what I mean, but I’d like to, to, to like ways stand out to me first is like looking back at my past. And how God has worked in my life. He has, you know, he has. Totally. To take stock of that, even little things, even little things like the blessings, friends, whatever, or even the way by which various crosses of my life have played out and shaped me for me and to the man, to the priest, to the religious that I am today. But also to, I think we also have to have the courage to like speak to friends. You know? And we don’t have to like reveal all the inner workings of our hearts, but just be like, yeah, I’m kind of, yeah, like this is tough right now, because I think often our friends, other people see the same thing from a different angle and can, yeah, encourage, but also point out, like yeah, the Lord is good and the Lord loves you and this is how I know He loves you me looking at you like into your own life how I know that he loves you and that might not be the solve all or like the fix all but it’s but it’s good thing it helps to take stock of what it is that the Lord has done and is doing, whether it’s hearing it from another voice or from your own past and that sort of thing. Yeah, I think that’s important. It’s comforting too. And it takes us outside of our own kind of what spiral in ways.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: So I think we’ve talked a lot about how doubts can actually help our faith. If I want to go be so bold to say that, it’s not a huge detriment to our faith, and that we can move from doubts to faith, but how do we do that? We’ve talked a little bit about this, but also I think we need to talk about the risks in that, in doubting. So how does doubt become actually harmful to us, into our faith and our relationship with God? How does doubt actually hurt and become very problematic?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, like is doubt a sin?
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah, right, basically.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: It’s like yes and no, or can be.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah, not all the time, but sometimes it can be.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah. I don’t know if I would count doubt as an emotion, strictly speaking. I think it has like a motive, I think it’s an intellectual thing. Like it’s something with our mind, whether or not we, and it pertains to faith. Faith is a virtue that perfects and works on the intellect. Doubt is not just like an emotion, but it’s certainly tied up,
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: It’s very emotional.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Correct. What I think is that like when when doubt becomes… doubt always I think runs the risk of being problematic very quickly. I don’t think like sitting in a world of doubt is like a healthy thing, and because it’s not a healthy and a good thing, whether spiritually, psychologically, both, and it kind of like leaves us on the precipice of like danger zone, if that makes sense. And what I say…
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Would you say it’s a highway to the danger zone?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: One might.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: I would.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah, one might. Because, and I think that it’s ultimately the reason is that we begin to, like, not believe in ways. And it doesn’t need to be like a full renunciation of faith, but like we begin to doubt the promises and not believe in the mercy of God and what, you know, etc, etc. Which then, like, begins, you know, when we don’t believe or have faith or trust in something, it changes the nature of the relationship, our investment, our desire. So like those sort of things, does that mean that like persistent doubt or struggles with doubt or struggles with the Faith are sinful? No, I don’t think so. But it’s sort of like, well, how does that, how do then we engage in our relationship with Christ? Like how is that put into action? Like whether it’s thought or deed, but that’s sort of the question that I ask.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah, I think when it comes to doubt, you know, I think what do you do with it? Like you kind of use the phrase, do you just sit in your doubts and things? And it’s like, that’s actually a really good, I think a lot of people just sit in their doubts and let it spiral, you know, and they just sit there. But if doubt has movement, motion to it, then that’s a different thing. Like if the doubts are like, oh, I really don’t doubt that. I struggle with this relationship, or I doubt this truth or this aspect of God. Let me move to Him. Like let me actually bring this doubt to Him. You know, that’s a different thing. But if we just sit in ourselves and kind of sit in the cesspool that is this like doubt of that. And then I think that’s where it really becomes problematic because it’s hard to get out of that.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: It becomes a distraction rather than like a way by which we can still attempt to engage.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: And I think that’s why I was kind of given the advice of like I think the first steps to acknowledge I am doubting this. Because I think until we acknowledge that it will have this kind of authority over us and just spiral us out of control, we just get stuck in that cycle of just sitting in the doubts. So I think, first step is to acknowledge like, oh, actually, I actually doubt that aspect of God’s love for me, or I doubt this reality. Now what do I do with it?
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: And I think in that too, there’s a difference between it and it’s good to acknowledge like, I don’t feel that aspect of God’s love for me versus I don’t believe in that. I like right with God’s mercy, like His forgiveness. Like I don’t feel that I’m forgiven and I don’t feel that I can be forgiven, but like I know I am.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: I know that I am.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah. So there’s a disjunct between that and it’s where… And I think that’s often kind of where we are. It’s like the doubt of feeling and like the doubt of like the truth of an act.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: The lack of feeling, the doubt that the reality is.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: You know, I think that’s really good. Yeah, so I think as we kind of have broken this open and shown some aspects of both the differences between skepticism and our engagements with it, the positives and the negative aspects of it is okay, 25 minutes from now, somebody walks up to you and says, “Father Jacob-Bertrand, I need to talk, like…I am doubting. How do I do with this?” Like, I mean, where do we go from this? Like, do you yell at the person? Do you, I mean, it’s a similar question to what we started the episode off with, but now like having a better understanding with doubts, like, how do we even help ourselves through this?
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah, I think it is, there are a couple aspects and we’ve kind of hit on them a little bit, but like to kind of summarize.
Fr. Jacob-Bertrand: Yeah exactly.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: The first is like to persevere. To pray for that grace of perseverance and that’s like regular like Mass, confession, prayer life. Just showing up, trusting that the Lord is working and or at least giving the space for Him to work. The second is to have conversations, whether that’s like with a friend or a priest or whomever. Yeah, and I think we’ve talked about that. And I think the third thing here is that it’s like to recognize that it’s okay. Not to be sort of swallowed up by it, but like, yeah, it’s okay. It’s fine. As long as we persevere, as long, you know yeah, it’s okay. It’s fine.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: I think that’s, that’s me is like the number one thing is just not to let it become a mountain of something that’s like, we’re not trying to make mountains out of mold hills here and I don’t want to be dismissive of it, but I actually, I do want to downplay it. It’s like, you have doubts. Good. We have all had doubts in our faith. Like now what are you going to do with it? Like what’s the next step? Like this crisis of it. I doubt it’s like, yeah. What’s the next step? What are you doing with that? You know, and to me is like to keep the on perseverance, like you were saying, and that means to kind of downplay it, but then just, what’s our next step? What do we do with that? And like I said, that may take more time and prayer, talking with friends, talking with the priest to work through all of it. I don’t want to dismiss it all, but it is about let’s not just sit in this and be this catastrophic moment. Let’s move through it all. Yeah. So cool. Well, thank you to thank you to all of our listeners and thank you to you for listening to this episode of Godsplaining. Please follow us and like us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and every other social media platform that we are on. I don’t know all of them, but they’re out there we’re there, please like and follow up. Like, follow up, subscribe, and give us a five-star review. It really does help us out, and we appreciate reading the comments. And if you would like to donate to the podcast, you can do so through our Patreon, which is linked in the description and the show notes. You can also follow links in the description and show notes to shop Godsplaining merchandise and to get more information on upcoming events. Thank you so much and God bless you.