Abstract
For centuries, there has been a rather vocal tradition, which has castigated Thomas on account of his questioning the validity of the other disciples’ claims of having seen Jesus risen from the dead. For this, he has earned the rather derogatory nickname ‘Doubting Thomas’, which has passed into common usage to denote someone who is rather sceptical.
But, I want to challenge this misconception of doubt head on, and say that doubt is actually courageous and can help to encourage and increase an individual’s faith rather than detracting from or destroying it. If, rather than than rebuking Thomas, the Church actually learns from his example, it might actually help to deepen our knowledge and understanding of God and his ongoing relationship with humanity, here and now.
We might find it uncomfortable to accept, but doubt plays a vital part in our lives. And although we might not be conscious of it, it is our endless struggle between doubting and believing, that ensures that our horizons and ways of thinking become wider, that our knowledge and understanding grows and, most importantly, encourages a sense of humility, because we are always left with the sense that ‘I might be wrong’.
It is when we don’t doubt that our thinking becomes limited and narrow, and we become arrogant, thinking that we are always right and everyone else is wrong.
I know it might be difficult to believe - with dogmatic figures, like Richard Dawkins, expounding their views in the media and often arrogantly treating those with differing views as idiots - but science is built upon doubt.
Fortunately, there are only a few scientists like Dawkins, and I think the reason why the media like him and his ilk, is because they peddle supposedly irrefutable facts and certainty, which is easy to digest and understand. Whereas, in reality, science is built upon the assumption, that all scientific experiments are conducted with the expectation that they will prove that the scientist’s original hypothesis is incorrect. In other words, counter-intuitively, scientists are wedded to the idea of trying to prove that their ideas are wrong.
I will illustrate this with a personal example from my own research in Psychology. One of my areas of research explores the age at which Protestant children living in Northern Ireland begin to align themselves with a particular national identity.
I assumed that the first national identity that Northern Irish Protestant children would define themselves to be would be British, as a way of marking their difference to the Catholic inhabitants of the island, who would class themselves as Irish.
Not only that, I believed this because of many working-class residential areas being festooned with union flags on lamp posts, their curbstones painted in red, white and blue, and there being a large number of murals painted on gable walls depicting paramilitary organisations and their unswerving loyalty to Britain. Whereas, in comparison, middle-class residential areas of Northern Ireland lack such open displays of national symbolism. Based upon this, I believed that working class Protestant children in Northern Ireland would identify themselves as being British at a younger age compared with their middle-class peers.
But, owing to the framework that underpins science. I had to doubt my original beliefs, and set about my research with the expectation that the first national identity with which Northern Irish Protestant children would align themselves would not be British. Further, I had to doubt that I would find a social class difference between the children.
With regard to my research, I was right to doubt to my starting hypothesis. I was right to doubt it, because my original assumptions were wrong. No social class difference was found between the children, despite the marked differences in the residential areas they were growing up in. Also, and even more unexpectedly, my studies found that British was not the first national identity the children regarded themselves to be, it was Northern Irish.
Thus, my doubting my original beliefs and assumptions had helped me to see something far more surprising and hopeful. I, and many others, really believed the weight of history was against these children, so much so that anyone growing up there would not see that they had a choice. I thought that the children would simply respond that they belonged to one group or another, British or Irish, depending on which half of the sectarian divide they belonged. And my original belief supported this seemingly unresolvable divide.
But, owing to the scientific framework, I had to doubt my original beliefs, and thus happily found something hopeful and inspiring. Protestant children regarded themselves as Northern Irish. And the great fact about the Northern Irish identity is that it is not sectarian but inclusive and encompasses both Catholics and Protestants; it transcends the bitter divide. These children are able to overcome what that their parents and countless generations before them had failed to achieve.
And, yet it was only by doubt that this hopeful finding was discovered.
And, I think it is through Thomas’s doubt that the real joy and radical nature of Jesus’s resurrection can be witnessed. It is through Thomas’s doubting that we see the real power and shocking nature of Christ’s resurrection. As we are told, Thomas is sceptical of what the other disciples claimed to have seen.
For it is in a locked room that the resurrected Jesus appears. This tells us that his resurrection is more than just his dying and coming back to life, some indication that he is no longer constrained by the laws of biology. No, this account tells us that by being resurrected, he is no longer constrained by the laws of physics.
And, yet it is only by Thomas’s doubting that we ever get this glimpse of the magnitude of the resurrection. Jesus knows that, in order to allay Thomas doubts and widen his horizons and depth of understanding, he is going to have to do something that, without question, lets Thomas know not only that he has risen but to instil the belief that he is both “My Lord and my God!”
I maintain that it is only Thomas’s doubting, challenging and questioning of his original belief that Jesus would rise again that brought about such a radical and seismic sea-change in his thinking. This real and honest doubt of Thomas is full of integrity, and I believe it was this that led to a widening of his horizons and a deepening of his faith. By being honest about his doubts and admitting his difficulties with the accounts he was being told, Thomas was able to get rid of the mist that was clouding his vision, and see God and his relationship with the world afresh anew with a real openness and understanding.
And that is why I think that being honest about our doubts, even if only to ourselves, is a really good thing. I believe that doubt about God or certain aspects of his nature can counter-intuitively often be God’s way of actually working with us.
The twentieth-century theologian Paul Tillich wrote: “Many Christians feel anxiety, guilt, despair about what they call ‘loss of faith’. But serious doubt is confirmation of faith. It indicates the seriousness of the concern, its unconditional character.” (Dynamics of Faith (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957), p. 22.
So, I suggest that if we are to take our faith earnestly we have to be prepared for doubts. But we should not feel dispirited, that we have failed, or that there is something lacking in our understanding while trying pretend that there is nothing wrong. This way can only lead to dejection and we distance ourselves from God.
Once we accept and acknowledge our doubts, I firmly believe that, just as it did with Thomas, this way will allow the blinkers that narrow our vision to be removed and we will be able to see afresh, with a renewed understanding and vision of God.