Very often, I will come across a student who professes to be a Christian to have doubts about their faith. 9/10 these "doubts" are not doubts but simply questions that have yet to arrive at an answer. Concerning matters of true religion, doubt/ unbelief is the working premise of a unregenerate person; faith seeking understanding is the working premise of a believer.
There are two notable occasions where conversion happens: where the working premise of unbelief is discarded for the working premise of a faith that seeks understanding.
From doubt to question:
[Mk. 9:23-25] The father with the ailing son. The father began with the question built on the premise of doubt, "but if thou canst do any thing..." to a question/request working from the premise of faith, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."
From question to arriving at the knowledge of the truth vs. From doubt arriving at more doubt:
[Jn.20:24-28; Mk. 15:29-32; Mt. 28:12-15] "Doubting Thomas" - this is a misnomer, truthfully, he was "Questioning Thomas" - he had questions that when satisfied resulted in belief. Thomas knew who Jesus was, what had happened to him - that he died, and thus when asking the question "unless he sees the risen body of Jesus, he will not believe" is working from a premise of a knowledge of the truth. Thus, when he does have his question answered, he immediately proclaims , "My Lord and my God". This is in marked contrast to the unbelief of the Pharisees who during Christ's crucifixion stated that they would believe if Jesus would come down from the cross (doubt). Their "question" was but unbelief/ doubt masked as "blossoming faith" - for when Jesus resurrected and their own soldiers reported it, such an answer only compounded their doubt - as they sought to further conceal the matter - paying hush money rather than repenting that they killed the Messiah. As such, they never arrived at the knowledge of the truth since their working premise in asking "Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe," was nothing but doubt seeking more doubt.
Note how both Thomas (Jn.20:25) and the Pharisees (Mk. 15:32) both asked to "see" but only Thomas had eyes that see and percieve since he was working from the premise of faith; whereas the Pharisees had eyes that see and did not percieve since they were working from the premise of doubt.
Doubt is unbelief - the nature of unbelief as is noted in 2Tim. 3:7 is one who is "always learning and never arriving to a knowledge of the truth (understanding)." The goal of doubt is not an answer, but more doubt. To have questions about something is not the same as doubting something. The nature of having a question is to arrive at an answer. The nature of doubt is to arrive at more doubt. Hence Augustine understood this... "faith seeking understanding." To have faith is not to doubt, but to have questions that are seeking answers that will be revealed in time through the searching of the scriptures. Questions begin from some knowledge of the truth and arrive with the knowledge of more truth. To begin asking a question about something is to acknowledge the premise of the question as being true and worthy of an answer. Doubt cannot even begin to ask a question since it cannot even acknowledge the validity of the premise on which it stands. Thus the nature of doubt is unbelief - the unbelief that anything can be because they have given up knowledge of the God who is. Such are rightly described as fools. Fools cannot ask questions; questions are the task of Christians grounded in the knowledge of the God who is. Such are guaranteed to come to the knowledge of truth yet to be attained. It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter (Prov.25:2).
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