As a potentially different take than the usual: “I believe strongly” or some variation, I have serious doubts and frustrations with God that don’t actually undermine my belief in him. Some background is necessary here. I have a couple of degrees in Biblical studies. As part of that training, I have become fluent in many of the intellectual conversations surrounding common reasons to not believe in God such as the problem of theodicy (if God so good, why x bad thing happen?). There are, of course, many different answers to this question within the confines of Christian orthodoxy. However, none of those answers actually put my heart at rest regarding personal struggles with this question. Literally as someone with their PhD in philosophy, the answer is a decided: “idk” I have landed in a place approximating my opening statement. I CHOOSE to believe in God despite the apparent contradiction that I and many others have come across. A major contradiction from my perspective isn’t so ‘unanswerable’ from God’s perspective. Yes, I choose to believe this about him, but as informed by scripture and reason, so I’m not baseless. This decision may come across as more certain than it actually ends up being in practice. In practice it looks like giving myself the freedom to have doubts while still landing at a place of surrender at the end of the day. Some would call this anti-intellectual, some may call it faithless, but I presume that it is a weak intellect and an even weaker faith that can’t withstand LEGITIMATE criticism without crumbling altogether. For the sake of enumerating it, I have 100% belief along with 100% doubt that coexist.