In Friday’s reflection I outlined times in Abraham’s story in which Scripture shows the patriarch doubted God. I compared that with the times Abraham followed God’s instructions. But I also noted, this life is not a balance sheet. The story of Abraham is a story that serves as a testament to the idea that faith can coexist with human imperfection. Abraham’s journey, marked by both faith and human flaws, is a central narrative in the Book of Genesis.In today’s first reading we hear from St. Paul: “Abraham did not doubt God’s promise in unbelief; rather, he was empowered by faith and gave glory to God and was fully convinced that what God had promised he was also able to do.” (Romans 4:20-21)

Paul’s insistence that Abraham “did not doubt in unbelief” in the face of God’s promise that he would foster offspring needs to be reconciled with some of the examples in Friday’s post as well as Gen 17:17 when Abraham and Sarah fell down laughing when God told them they would have a son – even at their advanced age.

There is a theory about laughter that says we laugh when we are surprised, when what we hear does not match what we expect. John Calvin called it an “expression of wonder. Not too likely a reason given following conversations about Ishmael and Abraham’s response to Sarah in Gen 18:11-15.

A more likely answer is that when Paul says that Abraham did not “doubt …in unbelief,”  he means not that Abraham never had momentary hesitations, but that he avoided a deep-seated and permanent attitude of distrust and inconsistency in relationship to God and his promises.  Unlike the  person of “two minds” who displays a deeply rooted division in his attitude toward God:

But he should ask in faith, not doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, since he is a man of two minds, unstable in all his ways (James 1:6-8)

Abraham maintained a single-minded trust in the fulfillment of God’s promise.  He had his ups and downs, as do we today. Abraham may have doubted, but he trusted; he was of one mind when it came to God.

Good to remember.

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