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What Does Not Exist (2)

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012 | Author:

And Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith, and do not doubt, you shall not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it shall happen.”  Matthew 21:21  NASB

Doubt –  “The attitude which the NT expresses by diakrinesthai in the sense ‘to doubt’ is seen in prayer and action, not in reflective thought. . . . In Mk.11:23; Mt. 21:21 man has the promise of God and he clings to it when he speaks the word of faith to God, or to the mountain.  But he still thinks it impossible, or at least not certain, that what he says should be done.”[1]

When the New Testament speaks about doubt or about the double-minded man, it is not speaking about cognition.  Doubt is not an issue in my mind.  Notice that Büchsel writes, “But he still thinks it impossible.”  What I think about God’s promise is irrelevant.  Cognitive doubt plays no role in the biblical texts.  What matters is what I do with what God promises!  As long as I act on the basis of God’s word, it doesn’t matter if I still think such actions are nonsense, impossible, contradictory or useless.  I can have all the cognitive doubts in the world and still have faith because I did what God said to do.

It is extremely unfortunate that we have confused the Greek idea of cognitive doubt with the Hebrew idea of failure to act.  It’s not surprising, however.  In our Western world, doubt has become a matter of mental disassociation.  Since the Greek paradigm places primary emphasis on rational consistency, doubt is viewed as a breakdown in the thought process, particularly with regard to the objective of logical certainty.  In other words, in our culture, doubt is the expression of a lack of absolute confidence, of resolute conviction.  In the Greek paradigm, faith is the equivalent of “confident assurance,”[2] a mental state that admits no lingering questions.  Therefore, doubt is, by definition, the opposite of faith.  With this definition, if I have doubts, I cannot have faith.  The process of believing becomes an entirely inner struggle of the mind.

But this is not true in Hebraic thought.  In the Hebraic worldview, the sure sign of doubt is not my mental struggle with the impossibility of the assertion.  The sure sign of doubt is my refusal to act.  “I believe; help my unbelief” makes perfect sense in Hebrew but is incomprehensible in Greek.  Logical certainty is not necessary in order to believe in the Hebraic world.  In the Hebraic world, evidence does not demand a verdict.  In the Hebraic world, the process of believing is much more like learning to swim.  Hold your breath and jump in the water – and see how you like it.  Your mind might be screaming that floating is impossible.  You weigh more than water.  Your mind tells you that you won’t be able to breathe.  Your mind is shouting, “Danger!”  But you can’t learn to swim by thinking about it.  You have to get in the water.  You must do before you decide.

Topical Index: doubt, diakrino, Matthew 21:21, faith


[1] Büchsel, diakrino, TDNT, Vol. III, p. 947.

[2] See the NASB and NIV translations of Hebrews 11:1

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What Does Not Exist (1)

Monday, October 29th, 2012 | Author:

And Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith, and do not doubt, you shall not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it shall happen.”  Matthew 21:21  NASB

Doubt – “A fascinating insight into the subject of doubt can be gained from examining the root words themselves, as always in Torah. The Hebrew word for doubt is ‘safek,’ and for certainty, ‘vadai.’ Amazingly, these commonly-used words are not to be found in the entire biblical writings! Nowhere does the Torah mention the Hebrew forms for doubt or certainty. Both these words are of Rabbinic origin.”[1]

Rabbi Tatz’ insight raises a very interesting question.  If the word for doubt doesn’t exist in Torah, how is it that it is expressed on the lips of Yeshua?  Is Yeshua also a product of the rabbinic development of this word?  Is His thought an addition to Torah?

When we investigate the Greek text of Matthew, we find even more bizarre circumstances.  In this passage (and in only a handful of other New Testament verses), the Greek word diakrino is translated “to doubt.”  But the TDNT tells us that this meaning is not known prior to the New Testament.  Reflect on this for just a moment.  This means that in classical Greek, in the LXX and in other Greek texts, diakrino never means “to doubt.”  In fact, the usual choice of Greek verbs for “to doubt” is distazo.  When you read the translation of Matthew 14:31 (“Why did you doubt?”), you are not reading the verb diakrino.  You are reading distazo.  Distazo is a verb about wavering, hesitating, delaying.   It is not about mental confusion or questioning.  It is about lack of action!  When Yeshua extends His hand to pull Peter from the waves, He does not ask if Peter’s cognitive framework is confused.  He asks why Peter didn’t follow through.  “Why didn’t you keep walking?”  This kind of “doubt” has nothing to do with our minds.  It’s not Greek.  It’s Hebrew!  Reading Matthew 14:31 as if it involves the Greek idea of mental confusion is importing a paradigm into the interpretation of the text.

But diakrino is a different story.  If this Greek term never meant “doubt” in the sense of mental lack of certainty before it shows up in the New Testament, then is it possible that Yeshua could have used a Hebrew word with such a meaning?  Only if Rabbi Tatz’ insight prevails.  The translation of Yeshua’s Hebrew expression into the Greek text of Matthew means that the translator had to be familiar with the rabbinic development of doubt and he had to pick a Greek word that expressed this unusual usage.  But in the New Testament, diakrino is usually used in the sense of distinguishing between things (e.g. Romans 10:12 – God does not make a distinction between Jew and Gentile).  In the few texts where diakrino is translated as “doubt”, it takes on a meaning that exists only in the rabbinic sense.  TDNT points out that this concept of doubt is never about human doctrine.  It is always a question about the authority and veracity of God’s Word.[2] Büchsel makes this very telling remark in his discussion of diakrino.  “Linguistically, diakeinesthai in the sense “to doubt” is a product of Greek speaking Christianity.”[3]

Perhaps you need to read that last remark again.  Diakrino as “doubt” comes about in Greek speaking Christianity!  Wait a minute!  Büchsel just told us that the idea of mental uncertainty in this Greek word is not a Hebrew notion.  Does that mean that our idea of doubt arises from a paradigm that is not part of the Tanakh?  It seems so.  As my son said when we discussed this verse, “Action move mountains, not thoughts.”  If Yeshua really intended to communicate the Greek idea of cognitive dissonance, He would have had to use a word that came from Hellenized rabbinic Judaism, not the Torah.  Is that possible?  Certainly, but if it is the case, doesn’t it change the way we understand what He said?

With this in mind, what might Yeshua mean when He says, “Have faith and do not doubt.”  I suggest to you that He is really saying something very Hebraic.  To have faith is to act on the words of God without hesitation.  To have faith is to obey.  Then what is doubt in this context?  To doubt is to delay obedience.  It is not to have mental confusion or cognitive dissonance.  To doubt is to not step forward.

Many Christian have been taught that if they have enough faith, God will do whatever they ask of Him.  When what they ask doesn’t happen, these poor souls are asked to examine themselves to see where they doubted.  In other words, they are told to do an inner search of their mental constitution to see if at any point they have questions or uncertainty.  Questions, of course, are sins because questions belie the certainty of faith.  But this is heresy (There, I said it).  God doesn’t do what we are supposed to do.  If you pray for God to act, but you don’t act, then you demonstrate your lack of reliance of God.  It’s not your thinking that’s the problem.  It’s your follow through.

Remember Boaz.  Boaz calls for God to bless Ruth for her hesed.  And then Boaz steps forward and causes the blessing he asked from God to happen in Ruth’s life.  Boaz trusted God to do it – and then he fulfilled what God would do.  That’s what it means to have faith and not doubt.

Topical Index:  doubt, distazo, diakrino, Matthew 21:21, Matthew 14:31, Akiva Tatz


[1] Rabbi Akiva Tatz, “Doubt & Certainty,” http://www.aish.com/sp/ph/48944106.html

[2] TDNT, diakrino, Vol. 3, p. 947.

[3] Büchsel, diakrino, TDNT, Vol. 3, p. 948.

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Who Cares?

Saturday, September 08th, 2012 | Author:

When they saw Him, they worshipped Him, but some were doubtful.  Matthew 28:17  NASB

Doubtful – What is the opposite of faith?  If you’re of a Greek mindset, you would say, “Doubt.”  That’s because the Greek idea of faith is tied to cognitive agreement.  If I have Greek faith, I am mentally convinced.  My mind is made up.  I agree with the propositions.  This Greek idea has saturated our culture.  We say, “He lost faith,” by which we mean, “He no longer holds fast to his conviction.”  We are plagued by doubt which most Christians consider a sin.  After all, the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways and who could be more double-minded than the man who doubts the truth.

But notice Matthew’s report.  These men saw with their own eyes the risen Yeshua and they worshipped Him.  But some edistansan (doubted – from the Greek verb distazo – to waiver, to hesitate, to be uncertain in opinion).  You can think of it as “standing at a distance from yourself.”  The Greek language itself supports the idea that doubt is a mental issue.  How could these people worship and doubt at the same time?

The problem is resolved in Hebrew.  First we notice that Matthew pays absolutely no further attention to this “important” detail.  Yeshua never bats an eye at this doubt.  He goes right on telling His disciples what to do.  He doesn’t even take a moment to sympathize.  Obviously, for Matthew and Yeshua doubt does not require therapy.  That’s because doubt doesn’t matter.  What matters is obedience.  The emphasis in Hebrew is not on your mental state.  It’s on your feet and hands.  It’s perfectly alright to question things.  It’s acceptable, in fact even encouraged, to withhold cognitive affirmation.  Doubt is simply part of the process of learning.  What is not acceptable is disobedience.  Frankly, Yeshua doesn’t care if His disciples have lingering hesitation about their interpretation of these events.  But He does care that they get about His business.

Go do it!  That’s what’s important.

Hebraic thinking doesn’t begin with rational arguments, compelling doctrines or cognitive convictions.  It begins by doing something.  It is the most practical of religions.  Have doubts?  No problem.  Just get into the flow of doing things and see what happens.  Just start acting on the basis of the instructions.  It’s OK to doubt.  In fact, it’s expected.  After all, you won’t know the Hebraic truth of the matter – and that means the reliability of your stance – until you actually stand.

They worshipped.  Some doubted.  So what?  Then they went about doing what He said.  You have to walk the road to clear up the doubt.  There are no intellectual bystanders among followers of The Way.

Topical Index: doubt, distazo, Matthew 28:17, cognitive, practical

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The Will to Believe

Sunday, June 05th, 2011 | Author:

Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. Romans 6:4  NASB

Walk – I got an email.  “It is certainly not your responsibility to help me but I still struggle with some crippling doubt. I still have trouble seeing, at times anyway, not always, the difference between what we believe and the power of positive thinking. Yes, the disciples all died horrible deaths for what they believed. But no one can prove to me that they walked the earth, much less that what they ‘witnessed’ happened.”

How would you respond to this cry for help?  Would you quickly run to your apologetics texts and haul out arguments and evidence for the resurrection?  Would you regurgitate Aquinas’ five proofs for the existence of God?  Would you tell your story?  Do you think any of those efforts would do any good?

Buried in this email is a thoroughly modern epistemology.  That epistemology (how we know things) asks for something that the Western worldview cannot deliver – proof! What we want is absolute certainty before we will believe.  We will never get it.  This Greek-based worldview wants evidence about the world to have the same characteristics as mathematics.  In mathematics I can have proof.  But that simply can’t happen in the external world because the world is not circumscribed with strictly-held rules like the game of mathematics.  At best, the world is filled with fuzzy logic.  At worst, it is stuffed with paradox.

There is another crucial reason why the expectation of proof is focused in the wrong direction.  Proof makes trust unnecessary.  No one has to exercise willpower to believe 2 + 2 = 4.  There is no possibility of doubt about this.  Therefore, there is no need to make a willful decision to trust that 2 + 2 = 4.  Anyone who doubts this would be considered insane.

Contemporary conviction about beliefs requires justification before conviction.  But this isn’t the biblical (Semitic) approach.  In the Bible, I make a commitment and then I discover (perhaps) its justification.  “But wait,” you object, “that means I could make a commitment to anything.  To Islam, for example.  What keeps me from following just any view?”

The answer is found in the radical difference between our idea of commitment and the Hebrew idea of commitment.  Our idea of commitment is that we embrace a way of thinking.  That’s what we call commitment – to vouch that something is true.  So, we believe that Jesus is God or that lying is wrong, etc.  We can believe these statements without any real impact on how we act.  But the Hebrew view is very different.  To make a commitment is to live a certain kind of life.  To commit is to walk according to God’s instructions.  It doesn’t really matter what I think about these instructions.  If I commit myself to them, then I do them, regardless of my current thinking.  I am not asked, or expected, to justify them.  I am asked to obey them – to make them my way of living.  I am asked to put my trust in these instructions about life even if I don’t have proof.*

That doesn’t mean the biblical instructions are unreasonable.  Upon examination, they are very reasonable.  I need to follow the Ten Commandments. I need to love my neighbor.  I need to honor my parents.  I need to worship.  I need to be careful about what I eat.  These codes of conduct make life workable.  But I don’t have absolute certainty about any of these things.  I decide to make them my code of conduct.  I put my trust in them.  This is what it means to have faith – to rely on the trustworthiness of the instructions.  And the only way I can do that is to live by them.  Any other claim of faith – without the code of conduct – is a Western view of justified statements.  It isn’t the biblical view of faith.

Over time we discover that this is the way life on this planet really works anyway.  All the really important decisions in life are trust decisions, not proof decisions.  That means there is always the presence of doubt at some level, but it doesn’t matter.  Doubt is the other side of trust.  What matters is how I walk, and by walking I discover that my trust is sufficient, just like His grace.

“A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of thought.  He is asked to surpass his needs, to do more than he understands in order to understand more than he does.  In carrying out the word of the Torah he is ushered into the presence of spiritual meaning.  Through the ecstasy of deeds he learns to be certain of the hereness of God.  Right living is a way to right thinking.”[1]

Doubt all you want.  Doubt is crucial for the development of spiritual growth.  But don’t stop doing!  Failure to obey isn’t a lack of sufficient evidence.  It is a lack of oxygen.  Without obedience we die.

Topical Index:  doubt, walk, justification, evidence, Romans 6:4

*This is the reason why negotiating with true followers of Islam is hopelessly misguided.  True followers are committed to a way of life, not a set of rational propositions.

[1] Abraham Heschel, I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology, p. 120.

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Whole Life

Saturday, August 14th, 2010 | Author:

Commit your way to YHWH, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. Psalm 37:5 (Hebrew text)

Trust – First I must accept the seal of ownership.  God rolls over my path.  Now it belongs to Him.  Then I must act according to the directions of the new owner.  Batach is the verb of confidence.  It expresses the feeling of security in someone or something.  To trust God is to confidently rely on Him.  This, of course, is seen in the actions of the faithful.  They do not put their confidence in the house (family), weapons, other men, temples, idols or even themselves.  The only exception to this caution is Proverbs 31:11.  Husbands are to trust their wives in the same way that they trust God.  But most of the occurrences of batach involve the admonition to “Trust in YHWH,” although surprisingly there are very few instances where Scripture indicates someone actually does trust in the Most High.  Perhaps that’s why the life of Yeshua is so exceptional.

What does it mean to place my confidence in YHWH?  No better example, other than the Messiah, can be found than Abraham.  Abraham responds to the call of God without hesitation even though he is not given any destination.  He acts on the word of the Lord.  He is obedient in spite of the lack of explanation or justification.  In fact, the instances in Abraham’s life which reveal him to be a man of faults and failures just like the rest of us are all instances where he doubted the reliability of God’s promise and determined to take action without divine counsel.  Nevertheless, Abraham demonstrates a life of confident reliance on God’s promise, even at the point where it appears that the promise will be snatched away from him.

We are all sons and daughters of Abraham, and we will all face the same call to put our confidence in His word in spite of circumstances to the contrary.  No man escapes the test of faith passed down to us by our father Abraham.  It is embedded in the spiritual DNA.

We are often taught that Yeshua fulfilled His mission knowing full well that God would rescue Him from the grave.  But I’m not so sure that we can understand Yeshua’s example of perfect trust if the end is inevitably predetermined.  Trust presupposes that there is the possibility of doubt.  I do not trust that 4 + 4 = 8.  Of that I am absolutely certain.  But I do trust that the justice of the Lord will prevail because there exists observable evidence to the contrary.  Trust only makes sense where it is possible for me to imagine a lack of confidence.  For this reason, trust is a willful decision, an active verb of voluntary submission.  Things might be otherwise, and yet I act as if they will not be.  When I put my whole life in His hands, I do not erase the possibility of doubt.  I simply refuse to accept it as real.

Topical Index: trust, batach, confidence, doubt, Psalm 37:5, Proverbs 31:11

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Unholy Rollers

Wednesday, August 05th, 2009 | Author:

“You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Matthew 14:31

Doubt – “There is no word in Biblical Hebrew for doubt; there are many expressions of wonder. Just as in dealing with judgments, our starting point is doubt, wonder is the Biblical starting point in facing reality. The Biblical man’s sense for the mind-surpassing grandeur of reality prevents the power of doubt from setting up its own independent dynasty. Doubt is an act in which the mind inspects its own ideals; wonder is an act in which the mind confronts the universe” – Abraham Heschel.

Heschel’s comment makes us reconsider our typical understanding of doubt. Furthermore, it challenges our translation of this Greek passage in Matthew. Could Yeshua have really used a word that doesn’t exist in Biblical Hebrew? And if He didn’t speak of doubt, then what did He say to those men tossed about in the boat?

Most of the time we are told that doubt is not sin. In fact, we are often encouraged to express our doubts openly to God. He can handle them. It’s OK to question things. But take another look at Heschel’s comment. The essence of doubt is found in the story of the Fall. The serpent suggests that even if God did tell the couple what was true, they had their own faculties to determine if God’s word made sense for them. In Heschel’s words, Havvah inspected God’s word according to her own ideals. She doubted the truth of God’s instruction because she did not allow the wonder of creation to dispel the ridiculous suggestion that she had the capacity to decide what was true for herself. She did not confront the universe. She looked inside to inspect her own consideration of the matter. This is sin, plain and simple. When self-determination is the root of my actions, whether mental or physical, I oppose the truth of the Creator. I sin. I refuse to confront the wonder of it all. I deny my dependence. I reject His glory and mystery. I turn a blind eye toward the question of my own existence. No wonder Hebrew doesn’t have a word for this. In light of the Creator God, such an act is incomprehensible.

Ah, but we have a word for it, don’t we? We doubt – and excuse our affront to the Creator by acting as though we have a right to question His glory and authority. After all, He made us with the ability to choose, so what’s wrong with questioning Him? Actually, everything! This is self-idolization disguised as rational dilemma. The proper answer to this kind of arrogance is this: “What’s the matter with you? Are you so blind that you cannot see the handiwork of the Creator in front of your face? Do you imagine that you made all this? Do you imagine that you control and care for all this? Do you think your very being is the result of your action? Get real! Why are you setting yourself up as the arbiter of what is true and what is real? Look around you – and get some humility.”

Conversing with God about serious things is part of our experience with the God who cares for us. Questioning God’s authority or ownership is not. The biblical viewpoint is about an encounter with God’s care and God’s instructions. Doubt has no place in this arena because care and direction are the assumptions of the biblical point of view. It’s perfectly OK to ask God why.  It’s sin to ask God “Says who?” Rolling on those waves is an unholy ride.

Topical Index: doubt, Heschel, Havvah, wonder, Matthew 14:31, Genesis 3:4, distazo

Abraham Heschel, Between Man and God (Free Press, New York, 1997), p. 96.

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