Zacharias Ursinus, author of the Heidelberg Catechism, might not be the first Christian thinker who comes to mind when we think of doubt. Perhaps we think of Luther’s Deus absconditus or John of the Cross’s “Dark Night of the Soul.” But Ursinus had a place within his theology for doubt – a very important place. For Ursinus, one of the marks of true faith is “the strife and conflict within us of … faith & doubtfulness.” Struggling with doubt and uncertainty is a sign that our faith is genuine because it shows that it is not a charade or pretence.
Ursinus was a great influence on John Robinson, an English separatist who influenced the Pilgrims. Robinson wrote, in the same vein:
“Yet we are not here to imagine an idea of faith, free, in in this infirmity of our flesh, from doubting. The tree may stand, and grow also, though shaken and bended with the wind: so may faith hold its both standing, and life, notwithstanding such doubtings as the flesh, ever lusting against the spirit, mingleth with it.”
Like a tree shaken from the wind, and yet never at risk of being uprooted, through Christ our faith is secure.
“Praised be the Lord, even the God of our salvation, which ladeth us daily with benefits. Selah.” Psalm 68:9 (Geneva Bible, 1599)
Man Against World 