Is It Normal for a Believer to Struggle with Doubt?

Stand to Reason Weekly Podcast

Greg Koukl

Religion & Spirituality:christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.9 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Greg answers questions about whether it’s normal for a believer to struggle with doubt, resolving alleged contradictions in the Gospels, why Greg thinks Paul isn’t the author of Hebrews, people’s old ages in Genesis, and reasons to think all sentient beings have a soul.

Transcript

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0:00.0	La La La La,
0:02.0	La, la, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
0:28.6	Hello, friends.
0:29.5	Welcome to our show.
0:30.5	It's called Stan to Reason, and I am your host, Greg Kokel.
0:36.0	Glad you joined me.
0:37.0	Thank you.
0:41.0	You know, I was gone last week and it's just great to get a flood of calls uh when I arrive home so I'm just going to jump right
0:48.7	in I don't have any particular thoughts to start here but I've got a couple of folks of it
0:53.8	standing uh waiting on line through the last hour so let's just jump right particular thoughts to start here, but I've got a couple of folks that are standing waiting online
0:55.7	through the last hour, so let's just jump right in. And in Jacksonville, Florida, this is Jennifer. Hi,
1:02.4	Jen. Hi, Greg. Nice to meet you. Thank you. Nice to meet you, too. I'm a big fan. Oh, thank you.
1:10.4	What's on your mind today, Jen? So I was one, I was a big fan. Oh, thank you. What's on your mind today, Jen?
1:12.6	So I was a believer for about 15 years of my life, and I was wondering if it was normal to struggle with doubt as a believer?
1:22.6	Well, it's absolutely normal is what I would say.
1:26.6	Everybody doubts. Actually, doubting is normal no matter what your personal convictions are. You know, C.S. Lewis, when he was reflecting on Christianity, said, you know, there are times when it just, Christianity seems
1:47.1	so unlikely. But then he says, when I was an atheist, I thought lots of times that atheism
1:54.2	seemed so unlikely. So it's interesting, the great C.S. Lewis is acknowledging his own times of doubt. And this is because we're fallen creatures. We're not perfect in our knowledge about things. We do the best we can. But also, we're not just fallen creatures, Jen. We live in a fallen world. And so as a result, we encounter all kinds of harsh, difficult circumstances. Unfortunately, sometimes Christians have talked about Christianity as if, if you are really spiritual, you'd be able to dodge those bullets.
2:36.0	Well, that's not true, right?
2:39.0	Jesus said, in this world, you will have tribulation.
2:45.0	You will have tribulation.
2:47.0	In fact, last hour we, I talked a bit with someone about the realities of
	...

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