How much does love weigh?

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Alfred Lord Tennyson noted, and I accept it – although not without certain reservations – that "there lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.” It all sounds so intellectually correct. "Check your sources" is the mantra of the academy. And you should. In the age of the internet nothing should automatically be accepted as true (even Snopes!). Truth seems to be increasingly elusive. In the first edition of my commentary on Revelation I wrote, to my chagrin, that Antipas was roasted to death in a "brazen bull" (p. 97). That's what all the scholars writing on the Apocalypse said. Then it was discovered that the place of martyrdom was not a “brazen bull” but a "brazen bowl" (see 2nd edition, p. 80.) Even though I had written "bull" (in the first edition) I never could actually picture a person being roasted in an animal, but that's what the authorities said.
       So doubt plays a genuine role in scholarship and in life itself. But when you check the use of the word "doubt” in all its various forms (such as doubted, doubting, etc.) in the NT, you will repeatedly find statements like, "If you have faith and do not doubt" you can move mountains (Mark 11:23), and, "When you ask, you must believe and not doubt" (James 1:6). I was unable to find a single statement in scripture that encouraged doubt.
       Hmmmmm. What now? Since truth by definition does not contradict itself, there must be a tertium quid (a third way) that embraces both. Tennyson is right (I believe) and so also is God (if I am allowed to put it that way). In the realm of possible verification, doubt will clarify and serve to direct us to “truth.” If you are building a beautiful wood dining table you certainly ought to doubt if that strange pile of lumber they delivered was what you ordered.  You need pieces that are exactly 8 feet long so you take out a measure and can’t find a single one longer than 5. “Doubt” helped you arrive at the “truth” about the wood delivered.
       But in the significantly larger realm, where the rules of intellectual verification are inadequate, faith calls on us to believe. Doubt becomes inconsistent with faith. You can’t measure faith or weigh love. My mind always goes back to that Old Testament invitation, "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps. 34:8). In spiritual matters, “seeing” (the understanding) always follows “tasting” (the act of faith). Doubt may hinder the decision, but not the result.  I tasted the Lord and can tell you without the shadow of a doubt that He is “good.”