Thomas the Doubter

According to the Holy Bible, the Apostle Thomas (of Doubtful fame) had to experience the presence of the physical Jesus in order to believe the impossible – that Jesus had returned from the dead. We Christians are taught to be surprised at Thomas’ lack of faith. Even Jesus seems to rebuke Thomas’ desire for proof. But would any of us really have believed without questioning? This story has a lot more depth to it than the professional clergy and Bible experts lead us to think.

Many scholars excuse Thomas’ doubt by saying he just wasn’t too bright. Apparently a smarter man would be eager to accept what he was told. Preposterous. Belief without proof goes by another name – credulity. Thomas wanted to believe the account given by the disciples. But he understood human frailties, and knew that our hopes and beliefs can often override our discernment. Thomas was smart enough to want a little objective proof.

Society is forever on the cusp between the old and the new. Currently we call the old “modernity” and the new “post-modernity”. The place we put our faith is the main distinction between the two: modern people have faith in rules, post-moderns have faith in processes. Rules are static but can be clearly defined. Processes are dynamic but are open to interpretation. The modern trust in technology is a type of faith in rules – so long as we use our knowledge of physical laws to create new things, we believe they must be good and that we will forever solve every problem we face. The post-modern confidence in relationships indicates our faith in process – we tend to believe that there are no absolute truths and even a destructive relationship has positive benefits (and that we will forever solve every problem we face.)

Let’s put the dichotomy between laws and processes in more gracious terms:

- Modernity states that God is revealed through the rules of creation. Our understanding of God is limited to what we can make, though we can still appreciate that God will not be fully revealed to us until we have perfect knowledge of all creation. The Holy Bible is a set of written rules in which God can be found.

- Post-modernity tells us that the important things for us are the relations between God and people. God relations seem to follow certain patterns of change; even though these patterns may be too complex for us to comprehend. The Holy Bible is an account of people searching for God, and God revealing himself through the search process.

The scientific method holds the middle ground between rules and processes. At its best, science is a process by which we attempt to discern rules and describe relationships. Science struggles to offer proof for all things and leave nothing to faith. However, the very foundation of science is an assumption that there is order in the cosmos and that we are capable of discovering parts of that order.

Many of us, like Thomas, search for Jesus and for his truth. If any of us were fully modern or post-modern, we would search in different ways. A modern Thomas looks for examples of technology bringing life to a man on the third day of his death; finding none, he concludes that Jesus either did not die or did not return from the dead – or that there is a conspiracy to conceal resurrection technology. A post-modern Thomas who trusts Christians about other things, will probably believe that resurrection is the most likely explanation for Jesus appearing to his disciples.

Jesus tells Thomas that those who believe without seeing are blessed. This is not so much a criticism of Thomas as it is a lesson to the disciples. In the future Thomas and the others would need to witness to people with doubts, but who don’t have the opportunity to see Jesus’ physical body. If Thomas can convince them, they will indeed be blessed. I’m grateful that Thomas was ready to look for truth; his actions set us free to believe what he already found to be true. And that surely is blessing enough for Thomas and for all other doubters.

Thanks to Pastor Mark Mildren for bringing up this topic. He and I agree nine times out of ten, leaving the other ten percent for me to enjoy writing about.