Before we get into the details of your question, let me just sketch out my position just a bit.

My basic point is that psycho-certainty is progressive and derives exclusively through interaction. Cf . Heb 5:14: But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

This is true in ANY area. The more I interact with scientific data via a theory, the more vivid and psycho-certain the relationship between the data and the theory becomes (i.e. confirmation or falsification become more obvious the more and more tests I perform). The more I interact with my kids, the more I have a certainty of what they are like. The more I interact with a text (sacred or otherwise), the more psycho-certain I will become of my understanding of the author's intent/message.

Psycho-certainty is a spectrum thing--not a 'yes' or 'no'. You have a certain degree of it, seeking more. I have a certain degree of it, also seeking more. If I stop consciously interacting with God in my life, my epistemic vividness of Him will fade (just like my memories of childhood friends have faded due to lack of interaction with them/those memories.)

Interaction with God--at a cognitive level--for me essentially means several things.

 
1. to address Him verbally in I-to-Thou contexts (as opposed to think ABOUT GOD, in "I-Him" contexts exclusively). I do this CONSTANTLY--often audibly when alone-- but generally in my mind (sometimes, I literally address the interior Holy Spirit by one of His biblical titles--"Counselor..").
2. Look for His patterns around you (the model of the invisible roommate). Look for the odd coincidences, odd timings, odd little things you all of a sudden 'noticed' for the first time. Look for the big picture trends--how have you changed over the last 5 years (compare your journals--if you keep one; ask your friends and family how THEY think you have changed in the last 3 years, etc)...Look for His fingerprints in the major structures of your life. Ask Him to help you see these patterns--they are NOT semantic nor composite, but will require gestalt like perception (a la the Wall).
3. Face Him in the Word--override the cognitive filters you have toward it, by simple over-exposure. Read the epistle of I Thess 20 times straight in one sitting--it will blow you away! The power somehow coded into the biblical documents (esp. the NT dox) can 'break through' our cognitive defenses, in a similar fashion to how scientific or experiential data can break through our paradigms/grids IF WE INTERACT with the data over and over and over and over. Sometimes it just 'breaks through'. Data is NOT passive in the universe; it somehow has dialogical power. The Word has extra power in our lives (due to the fact that our 'receptor facilities' are permeated somehow with an epistemically-active personal agent--the Holy Spirit--I Cor 2.10ff).
4. Actively look for elements of His character in others--believers and non-believers. As we penetrate the veil of the ambiguity of people's lives, and deliberately look for the 'best' in someone, we come face to face with aspects of God's character--according to 2 Cor 3.18 NAS.

Anyway, you probably get the picture. It is NOT an issue of study, arguments, logic, or sense experiences--it is a matter of long sequences of tiny interactions with a person that create this psycho-certainty. This is not the 'Big experiences' of mysticism, but the day-to-day life with an invisible Roommate.

Now, on to your questions...

Two main points here:

1. If the passages are HUGELY problematic for you (in your conscience or spirit), then do the following:

• Mark on a calendar to 'tackle' the passage in 6 months;
• Read the passage 3-5 times per week--throughout the 6 months-- and ask God to 'help you with' your problem
• Each time, pray for honesty, courage to face the consequences of the verse (in case you end up becoming convinced that it is inspired by Him), and trust in His character (in case you end up believing He DID author the verse).
• At the 3 month mark, read the passage and its context (plus and minus 2 chapters) at least 20 times without stopping, in one sitting. After you have read it the first 10 times, then start marking the passage with a pen. Circle and connect common words and sequences. Underline 'causal words' (e.g. because, therefore) and draw arrows to the 'ground' statement). Number terms in series; diagram parallel structures. Continue to mark as you 'see patterns' emerge during the 10 times.
• Write a journal entry of how you 'felt' at the end of the 'session'--just feelings about the passage, about God, about His possible inspiration, about what good feelings you might have gotten from the passage.
• Continue reading the passage 3-5 times per week--throughout the remainder of the 6 months-- and ask God to 'help you with' your problem
• At the end of the 6 months, 'tackle' the problem with commentaries, friends, etc. See how other folk understood the passage.


2. If the passages are only mildly 'irritating,' give them the 'benefit of the doubt' and do the above cycle compressed into 6 weeks or so.


A couple of other points to remember:

• "Unfulfilled" prophecies are very, very rare (if they exist at all). The major category of these are called 'conditional prophecy'--cf. Jonah's prophecy of the destruction of Nineveh: "On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned." 5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth ". The whole city repented and God spared the city. Was this an unfulfilled prophecy? Not at all--it was a clearly judgmental prophecy, designed to provoke such a response. (And Jonah KNEW that God would 'change His mind' if they repented and it angered him!--cf. Jonah 4.1ff: "But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. "!!!!

This even showed up in the monarchy--compare how the revival of Josiah delayed judgment on the nation until his death--2 kings 22. Or how the pronouncement of Hezekiah's death was 'changed' by God's gracious response to his prayer in 2 kings 20.1ff.

We literally have no way of knowing what might have been the outcomes in the cases of some of the 'anti-nation' prophecies.

But what we MUST remember is that SOME OF THE PROPHECIES were fulfilled completely--cf. Tyre! What this amounts to is that positively fulfilled prophecy (assuming adequate clarity and specificity in the announcement) CAN function as evidence FOR the supernatural character of 'prophecy'; whereas 'failed prophecy' (in many cases) cannot count AGAINST it! In other words, the possibility of unspoken conditions, esp. in contexts of judgment, will always create a falsifiability-problem on some of these prophecies.

So, I would be very cautious in using this criteria to judge individual passages.

• The possible 'unethical' passages are an interesting case. In this situation, you first have to decide whether God is merely recording it without comment/approval (e.g. Jephthah's rash vow--Judges 11). This applies to the vast majority of offensive material in the bible--cannibalism, rape, incest, oppression, torture.

Some unethical behavior on the part of humans is a judgment from God on PRIOR unethical behavior (Rom 1 is full of examples of this principle; Acts 7.41-42; 2 Thess 2.10-12).

If, after studying the passage, you decide that it DOES represent a divinely-sanctioned act/attitude, then the next step is to decide the 'range' of its applicability. For example, the apparent approval of "remote-incest" of Abraham to his half-sister Sarah--does God mean that to apply to everyone, or do we have indications that it is a special case (e.g. later prohibitions in the Law)?

Then, you may have to decide whether it is a "perfect target" (such as monogamy, Gen 2) or a "protective concession" (bigamy in Deut 21.15-17; divorce in Deut 24.1).

But, after all is said and done, we are sometimes left with the following possible options:

1. My ethics are superior to God's (!)
2. His ethics are superior to mine (and I cannot tell 'how' yet in my learning/growth).
3. I have obviously misunderstood the passage.

Practically speaking, I have learned over the years that number One above is not the case...;>)

[And philosophically speaking, it is probably self-stultifying to create a proposition that "The Agent that defines BY HIS ACTIONS the term 'good' does an ACTION that is not 'good'". This is probably a logical contradiction.]

I have found SOME cases of number two, although if my conscience is seriously disturbed by my understanding, I have learned to fall back to number three. If the God-given and progressively-rebuilt conscience I have now SCREAMS out inside me with grief or distress over some understanding I have of a passage, that is a strong indication to me that I have obviously misunderstood the passage. In these situations, I suspend judgment on the passage, and treat it as I do very difficult passages (above).

I have experienced situations where I have absolutized a culturally relative moral dictum, and experienced a conflict within my conscience, but I have learned to detect this situation very quickly.

So, in these cases--even more so than the prophecy ones--we must be very careful, and humbly patient and/or temporarily agnostic, about some passages. (Although I have found that God is eager to calm our hearts when we approach Him with a good-spirit and with a trusting heart.)

This situation needs to be seen in a historical perspective. We need to realize that we have no monopoly on discernment, and that a certain historical humility is in order.

When we come to faith, we step into a historical process of salvation history. We become part of a community of people, spanning all of time. We inherit the work and fruits of others, and we try to add a little ourselves. We 'wake up' within a community or tradition, and we inherit their research, their thinking, their community understanding of how God created the community and how He deals with the community.

We do not have to re-invent the wheel.

We 'wake up' with a canon already. Over the centuries and millennia, the church has argued and worked through discerning the formative revelation of God. The church of the 1st millennium was driven by the Spirit's actions in history to public identify those works that created it, that kept it alive during its birth, that fed it through the attempted infanticide by the world.

We inherit the fruit of that analysis, that argumentation, that discussion. We 'start with' the presumption that the book delivered into our hands represents the COMMUNITY-recognized (and therefore, less subjective than only LEADER-recognized!) Word of God.

What this means practically, is that we should NOT start with a 'assume each verse is NOT the recorded message of God, and therefore re-do all of the labors of the early saints' but RATHER with 'assume each traditional verse IS the recorded word, unless there are extremely strong and compelling arguments that the global church, closest to the facts and events, was wrong.'

Again, this amounts to a certain humility in this regard. We should give the benefit of the doubt to the books held in common by ALL the branches of the early church.

[Just for the record, I am writing an extensive piece on the canon--so some of the more obvious issues associated with that I cannot go into here.]

Now, the above comments applied to whole books, but YOUR question MAY have been related to 'textual' criticism proper. The bible that we have today has already been sifted through by solid text critics for a long time. Disputed passages are generally so marked, and good discussions about them can be easily found in commentaries and textbooks. But, as in the case of the canon itself, we should NOT doubt verses WITHOUT historical/textual/literary evidence that warrants such a doubt. If we don't understand a verse, or think it unworthy of our Lord, this is no reason to doubt the verse, but rather a reason to doubt our understanding of the verse.

And, obviously, we should not construct our worldview on the basis of those few texts with a high number of 'substantive' textual variants (nor even on the basis of single texts without variants--you are on much safer ground to argue from patterns of verses to beliefs).

I think I sorta gave my approach to the first question above--DON'T try to be a textual critic. Use a modern bible that notes any highly-debatable textual passages, and avoid taking strong positions on/from those texts.

One thing to be careful of here. You will find a lot of 'soft arguments' that this or that passage was 'inserted by the early church' or 'made up by the gospel writer'. But these are nothing more than speculations (although sometimes well-sounding) The HARD DATA is the ancient textual manuscripts we have dug up. All theories about some 'originals' that we DO NOT HAVE, is just that--THEORY. The more reasonable approach is to bank on what history/archeology has demonstrated WAS the text used by the young church.

Remember also, that it takes MUCH MORE DATA to support a position that a passage was 'added' to the text (in the absence of ANY textual or archeological data available to support that), and this is what renders most of the 'emendation' approaches so questionable.

Now, as for the 'extremes'...The way to avoid the extremes is to avoid the extremes! As you recognize in your terminology, these are extremes on a continuum. In between the two is the spread of 'psycho-certainty'. As you study passages, in some cases you simply say "I don't know"--"I dont have a clue what this means". Go on to the passages that are understandable. God WILL teach you over time, but it will NOT come through some mystical voice. The Holy Spirit speaks to us from within in OUR OWN IDIOM. We cannot often detect a difference between our renewed spirits and His Spirit in us--we are so closely joined in our agencies and faculties.

We will get progressive clarity, and in many cases progressive 'rebuttal' to our positions(!)--and this understanding will come through dialogical interaction with the biblical material. But if we are honest with the truth we have TODAY (and can understand and apply in good conscience TODAY), He will reveal more for us to work with (cf. Luke 12.48).

A couple of comments here:

• I agree heartily about studying it as a message from a kind Father. This kind of study starts with an "Okay, Lord, re-set my thinking today--I'll just pour the Word in, and the results are YOUR responsibility". And then you interact with the Word, seeking the patterns in the text, being self-critical of any 'convenient' interpretations, asking frequently the question--"why is THIS there, Lord?" or "why does it say THAT, Father?"...
• (I have already commented that if you stick to the historical texts, accepted in common by all the sectors of the early church, then you will NOT have to 'identify the inspired parts', NOR will you have to even consider any more recent claims to revelation--mormons, Koresh, etc. You will have your hands full just working through the commonly-agreed upon stuff.)
• And, as to the sorting out, it's always been the same--test everything against the common scriptural deposit. So the Bereans tested Paul!: Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. (Acts 17.11). Visions and the such like need to be taken with the same skeptical attitude of Paul: 18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. (Col 2.18).

 

There are several considerations here:

• First of all, you must realize that bias is NOT omnipotent; the fact that you can detect it indicates that it is not all-powerful.
• Second, the best defense against it (in my opinion) is a healthy concern/fear of it(which you have already voiced). A self-critical approach to these types of inquiry tasks will serve you well a la the old 'eternal vigilance is the price of freedom' reality.
• Third, recognize that the outcome is not TOTALLY yours. God will often be a prompt to your honesty, but only in the key areas that He is working on in the present (see Phil 3.15: All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. ).

God is VERY concerned about this self-deception. He is constantly after us in the Word to "not deceive ourselves" (I Cor 3.18; 6.9; Gal 6.7; James 1.22; 1.26; I Jn 1.8)! It is probably safe to assume that He will be active in helping us 'work on this problem'! ;>)

• Fourth, the material under study itself (in the case of the Word) will operate on you--to 'cut through' your grids and defenses in some cases (Heb 4.12: For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. ).

All in all, the best approach is to (1) trust the Lord's "engineering" of both you and the situation; (2) maintain a healthy and continual self-critical operation--looking for signs of bias etc.; (3) keep interacting with the data; and (4) ask others to critique your position for bias/hidden assumptions.

The question of canonicity is a bit more complex than that, and I am trying to write a piece explaining that issue. It is not as "odd" as it first appears, once you look at it from God's perspective instead of ours. A very brief overview (albeit VERY simplistic) goes like this.

Imagine that God (1) has inspired a select number of pieces of literature and that (2) He is constrained by His operating principles to NOT be 'spectacular' or "hyper-public" in His revealing of that list of literature. (In other words, He cannot carve the list of books on a mountain somewhere, use sky-writing to force it on us, or suppress wholesale the production of malignant counter-revelation pieces by the Enemy.) How could He get a community of His people to recognize this list? One of the more obviously effective ways would be to 'move from within' (via the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers-only) the community, such that leaders and laity alike 'recognized' the inspired quality of these works. Certain books would be favored by some (e.g. if it spoke more urgently to THEIR situation and interests) and other books would be favored by still others (e.g. speaking to DIFFERENT urgencies and issues in THEIR lives.) The result would be discussion over the whole mass of possible books (but with the obviously heretical ones being rejected by the vast majority), and with SOME 'persuasion' going on. We would typically agree on a majority of the books (that spoke of more common interests), but might disagree on those that touched the different and individual concerns (e.g. eschatology, Jewish-Christian communities). The councils would accordingly NOT be 'decision making' bodies, but solely 'representative' recognition bodies, expressing what the church at large had experienced of God's communication. This group would only be a communication/"rubber stamping" kind of function--and not an 'innovator' in any sense of the word.

Thus the various "canons" delineated by any of the Church Fathers or councils functioned only as a 'consensus statement'--NOT as a 'new policy/edict announcement'. As noted above, these Christians and the entire community were created by these messages from God--and NOT vice versa. Jesus spoke to Paul--converting Him--and THEN Paul wrote the message down. Jesus revealed His message to the apostles--converting them--and THEN they wrote the message down. These written messages (as the word of God themselves--cf. I Thess 2.13: And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.), then created the churches (e.g. Thessalonica), who then could only acknowledge the word which gave them birth (cf. Jas 1.18: 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created. and I Peter 1.23: For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.)

Once again, then, we must give the centuries of saints the 'benefit of the doubt'--for God was just as interested in them getting the 'list correct' as He is getting US to! Accordingly, we should approach the matter with some level of respect for the labors of the past--WITHOUT assuming that they were perfect. But this gives us a more than adequate starting point for study--the books agreed on by all the branches of the church by the end of the 7-10th centuries.

Short answer: The way to learn from them is to watch them, more than listen to them! It is the seeing the image of Christ in them that transforms us--and this image more often shows in what people do, rather than what they say. Look at them and isolate the good qualities of their character and action. Just about everyone (even Christians!) has some aspect of the character of the Father, Son, or Spirit that can be isolated (through analysis and perception) from their bad traits. Focus on the good, look for the acts of love and sacrifice they make, 'believe the best' about the benefit of the doubt things.

I personally always focus on what I call the "four percenters". In the various groups of Christians I have known, there are generally AT LEAST 4 out of 100 (in the USA--more in other cultures) that are visibly sold out to Jesus Christ, and who have been walking with Him for decades and decades. These people show the distinct marks of the being around the Lord (the 'glow' of Ex 33! And 2 Cor 3.7-14). [I am NOT saying that these 4+ are the only believers or disciples or 'good folk' or any such OTHER slur on the others; only that you can COUNT on these to provide input for you to 'look at' --cf. Heb 13.7: Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith..

These individuals tend to show me different nuances of Christ's character--kindness, encouragement, challenge, endurance, mercy, etc. [They also tend to foster humility in me, by the sheer beauty of their spirit sometimes.]

When I go into a new group, I try to ask around to find the people who share their faith, or who work in relief/service work (charitable, not professionally), or who are in charge of the 'prayer chain' or 'hospital visitation' committee. These (and other functions ) often are performed by these 4%'ers. There is much that can be learned from watching and listening to these folk--as they demonstrate the love of Christ in action.

We should listen to all, but as Paul admonishes us--"test all things" (1 Thess 5.21).

Well, the first thing to note is that I am not necessarily talking about the 'prominent members' when I talk about the 4%ers. They MAY be the same, but that cannot be assumed at all. Often those advanced in the ways of the Lord have the meekest character, and hence, do not often 'rise to power' within the institutional church. There are different gifts and different strengths--some result in visible leadership; some don't. The areas I tend to be "in school for" (!) are those quieter aspects of Christ's character, and hence, I tend to seek out the 'quiet warriors' of the Lord. But, your case may be different. It's a function of what your Father is trying to teach you at any given point.

Notice that there is a POSSIBLE inconsistency here. If you can believe that the miraculous occurred in public settings in the 1st century, why would you suspect miraculous events in MUCH LARGER public settings in OT times?

What evidence would (1) argue that these cases are paradigmatically different and (2) that the former is SO LESS LIKELY as to warrant a skeptical approach TO BEGIN WITH?!

There is nothing immediately apparent to me that cries out for a 'different approach' in those two situations.

In fact, with Jesus' words (historically nearer to us than the OT literature is) we have a HIGHER LEVEL of support for the historicity of those weird OT events. For example, Jesus' references to OT events seems to pick out the miraculous elements in the main!--cf. Just a few of the refs. Below:

1. The brazen serpent (Num 21--John 3.14)
2. Jonah and the big fish (Matt 12.39ff)
3. the manna (John 6.30)
4. the Flood (Mt 24.37)
5. the burning bush (Mark 12.26!)
6. the destruction of Sodom (Luke 17.28)

Since Jesus did not mind confronting error whenever he saw it (Matt 12.39!), we have no reason to assume he 'accommodated' his truthfulness to the 'false beliefs' of 1st century Jewry. Therefore, His usage of miraculous events from the OT history must be seen as an endorsement both of their factuality and of the accurate RECORDing of those events in the OT scriptures available to him. Of course, the other NT writers are also convinced of the veracity of these accounts (esp. since Jesus also accepted them):

1. Paul:

For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: "The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry." 8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did -- and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. 9 We should not test the Lord, as some of them did -- and were killed by snakes. 10 And do not grumble, as some of them did -- and were killed by the destroying angel. (I Cor 10.1ff)

2. Hebrews: Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place, 4 which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron's staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant. (Heb 9.3-4) ...and 11:29: By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned. .
3. Peter: who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, (I Peter 3.20)
4. James: Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. (5.17)

 

Couple of points here:

1. Recognize that this situation is to be expected! Jesus was rather clear in the parable of the Wheat and the Tares that the kingdom on earth would be full of impostors (Mt 13.24ff):

Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. 27 "The owner's servants came to him and said, `Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?' 28 "`An enemy did this,' he replied. "The servants asked him, `Do you want us to go and pull them up?' 29 "`No,' he answered, `because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.'"

and also Luke 7.22:

Many will say to me on that day, `Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23 Then I will tell them plainly, `I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

2. Then, work on changing your approach to one of trying to HELP them, rather than focusing on their negatives. Accept the same servant's heart that Christ had among us--He obviously 'bears with' our weaknesses, in order to help us improve. We should have the same attitude (cf. Romans 14).
3. And, in some cases, you may need to find a different group to worship with. (But, remember, most groups have 4%ers--and you should seek those out, wherever present.)
4. Also, definitely check out Christian para-church groups--Christian relief missions, specialty ministries, new missions. Get involved with them and find the true 'heartbeats' within those. Find out where THEY worship/fellowship and try those out.
5. But do not get your expectations up! The church is fallen, as you and I are. There are no doubt people complaining about US as well! But, at the same time, progress is being made in most believers' lives--although only parts of that work may be visible to us. But we MUST go in with a positive attitude, hoping to see the progressive work of the Spirit in their life, and trying to encourage them to 'love and good works' as well (Heb 10:24: And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.) We are NOT called to judge them (Rom 14.10), but we ARE called to 'build them up' (Rom 15.2; 2 Thess 5.11)
6. Carry your disappointments and betrayals to the Lord--He knows EXACTLY what it is like (both from His earthly experience of Judas and the disciples; and from OUR frequent betrayals of Him in our ethical lives.)
7. And don't forget to learn from their BAD examples--remember I Cor 10.5b: Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. I learned very early that it was so much less painful to learn from the mistakes of others that from my own mistakes!

 

My friend, it is very important to realize that 'doubt' is a built-in gift/faculty from GOD! He wants us to use doubt/skeptical/critical thinking in our lives. This is part of the myriad of references to 'test this' , 'examine that', 'discern'--and to 'throw away the bad stuff!' passages. [This critical thinking is NOT the same as the hard-hearted doubt that IS condemned in Holy Writ--cf. James 1.] Doubt will be part of the tools He uses to keep you honest. Doubt will be important to keep you from doing the 'wishful thinking' thing. But doubt about some things will scale down to almost nothing.

For example, I may never see the woman I call 'Mother' again (although I hope to soon!). But there is NO evidence whatsoever that could be raised to convince me (or even really to cause me to 'feel' doubt) that she NEVER existed! She may not have been my mother (someone could easily prove that, I suppose), but that this person was a figment of my imagination--that I had imagined decades and decades of detailed and variegated interactions--is ridiculous.

Against the epistemology of skepticism, the major killer of the position is the impossibility of sustained illusions. The countless stream of robust and varied experiences I had with my mother is too sustained to be an illusion. Experience has a way of 'bringing us back' to epistemic reality. I may believe for a long time that I can fly, but eventually I will have enough "reverse-flight" experiences ;>) so that I will be forced out of the illusion (or to so radically qualify it that it dies the "death of a thousand qualifications"). "Wishful thinking" and "bias" are NOT desired traits by God--He seeks us to grow up into the truth--whatever the cost!!! (See I Cor 14.20: Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. and I Cor 13.6: Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. and 2 Cor 13:8 For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. .) And "wishful thinking" and "bias" are specifically singled out in the NT (often under the rubric of "itching ears"!)--cf 2 Tim 4.3ff: For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. And again, remember that "wishful thinking" (called "deceiving oneself" in biblical terms!) is targeted for extinction by God over time. No, God is working to try to eradicate "wishful thinking" in our lives, and move us on to "belief in the truth" (2 Thess 2.13).

Decades of interaction with God has left me "stuck here"! These interactions were in the Book, in groups, in providence, in my conscience, etc--but the myriad of detailed and variegated interactions (some obvious, some ambiguous, some questionable) leave me 'beyond realistic doubt'. There is a strong argument that could be made that I would NOT be epistemically justified to doubt the existence of this Transcendent Person I call "God" (arguing solely from my personal experience, that is--there are separate issues in argument from historical and philosophical evidence, of course.)

Hmmm...well, I hope the ramblings above will help you start sorting through this stuff.

I may be the only such type you know now, but I personally have met (over the decades--only 3-5 per year) scores of folk who REALLY know the same Father, Son, and Counselor I do. I can see it in their words, their lives, their eyes, their challenges. I learn from them, I can relax with them, and we are all flawed enough for us to help each other grow! These are folks He has brought into my life, as I have grown in His way myself.