Perhaps you’ve experienced moments of doubt about your religious faith. Or maybe you’re one of the people who find doubt to be a more frequent companion in your spiritual life. Either way, doubt can be unsettling and uncomfortable. Biblical scholar Peter Enns suggests that part of the problem is that many Christians have come to prize certainty as a hallmark of true faith in God. His new book is called The Sin of Certainty.
Drawing on history, scripture, and personal experiences, Enns argues that believers can handle the most difficult questions if they stop needing to be right all the time and instead focus more on trusting God. “Doubt,” he writes, “is only the enemy of faith when we equate faith with certainty.”
About Peter Enns
Peter Enns is the Abram S. Clemens Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University, St. Davids, Pennsylvania. His books include Inspiration and Incarnation, The Bible Tells Me So, and The Evolution of Adam. His most recent book is called The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our “Correct” Beliefs.
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James L. Kugel is one of the foremost scholars of the Hebrew Bible of our time. Kugel recently visited BYU’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute to talk about his work and about the relationship between religious faith and scholarship about scripture.
A specialist in the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, James L. Kugel is the author of more than eighty research articles and fifteen books, including The Idea of Biblical Poetry and the best-selling book