The Archbishop of Canterbury, is reported to have said in a recent interview that Paris attack by the terrorists makes him doubt God. He is not the first person to talk like that. He is just one of SO many important and influential people in the West who have openly expressed doubts about God. They have problem with God, and so much so that it has become a feature of their worldview.
One who is in a state of doubt cannot decide which one of the two opposites is really the case. He is not sure, and he has no knowledge that can help him to decide. Doubt about God could mean doubt about His existence, or about His attributes. Even if one does believe in God’s existence, he might be in doubt whether this God is a Loving God, an all-Knowing, and all-Powerful God. Paris attack, perhaps, has made the Archbishop doubt that He ever exists, or if He does He is not all-Knowing, or if He is, then He must be a weak or evil God, so that He could not or did not do anything to stop the attack.
Doubt is a disease of the soul, and we call it a disease because it makes people very unhappy about themselves. There is no way one can be happy if one does not know, or in doubt, as to whether God exists or not because that question has to do ultimately with his meaning of life. But God is too obvious to deny. The world cannot exist without a creator, and the creator cannot create without knowledge, will, and power. We can know at least that much about Him with our reason alone. With further reflection, we may come to consider some other attributes of Him like seeing, hearing, and speech, by just looking at ourselves, because we know it is not possible to do what we have been doing as a human being have we been blind, deaf, and mute.
Next comes the possibility of God communicating to man His will and guidance, which we may call religion. We must not deny its possibility because reason does not deny it as something possible. What a sensible human being should do is investigate the truth-claim of all religions using whatever means at his disposal to verify its truth, because what is at stake is his final destiny.
The western culture and civilization has been built upon the denial of God and His guidance to mankind because of its experience with religion. But this experience is a particular experience with a particular religion. So the conclusion should be particular as well, not general. They must not doubt all religions simply because their experience with their religion has led them to doubt. Yet that is precisely what they have done, and it indicates just how ignorant and arrogant they have been. They should look as well at the experience of others, because they do not know everything. But humility, seemingly, is not one of their character traits.
Without God and religion to guide life how would one answer the pertinent questions: who am I? and what is my destiny? Now everybody is left on his own trying to find answer to the questions. But what have they found so far? Are they satisfied with what they have found? No. In fact, they have now come to believe that there is no final answer to the questions. So the quest for answer is perpetual, and yet the goal post is ever-shifting. Life has become like a game to them. Is it possible to become happy in this kind of life?
Even though the western culture and civilization has achieved a lot in term of physical and material development, yet it has failed to make people truly happy because the doubt remains. This doubt can only be eliminated by certainty, which is the property of true knowledge, yet they have denied that that knowledge can ever be achieved. They have lost hope because they have doubt in God and have put too much confidence in their own ability too unravel the mysteries of life. Yet they have failed miserably and remains unhappy.