Doubting Thomas and the Nature of Trust
Have recently found myself dwelling on how trust plays out in human relationships. I was reminded of Thomas the Apostle in the New Testament who doubted the unbelievable tale of Jesus' resurrection from the grave. In the end, Thomas, once he was able to see (and perhaps feel) the wounds in Christ's body, stood as fast in his faith as he had before. Yet, Christianity has gone up and down with its interpretation of Thomas and the subsequent application of trust in relationships. At present, I am drawn toward Thomas, and sense that he's perhaps the most philosophical of the Apostles. Thomas appears to be someone who trusts completely when not given any reason to doubt, but once there is sufficient doubt placed in his mind (like a man coming back to "life"), his trust seems to fade - or does it? I don't view Thomas, in the face of one doubt and sudden wondering, as willing to drop everything he once held to be true because of a single, perhaps misplaced, doubt. Thomas doesn't sit on his ass, either, he seeks out Jesus pretty quickly, asks for his doubt to be shown the door, and Jesus obliges, putting his doubts to rest (which is, for me at least, thematically orgasmic when Jesus does this.)
How ought we view Thomas, and trust in general? There's one side of me that is sympathetic toward someone who trusts without needing, necessarily, constant reassurance, but there's the other side, which dominates, which has me modeling myself after Thomas, someone who trusts explicitly until given reason not to, and expects to be proven wrong. Had Jesus not shown Thomas the holes in his hands and feet, or the gash in his side, Thomas would have certainly remained doubtful, and for good reason, too. Yet, I'm disinclined to judge Thomas based upon how Jesus responded to him. I think that Thomas was in the right regardless of how Jesus treated Thomas's doubt. What are your thoughts, though? This thread can go more micro or macro, whatever goes with the flow, O:)
How ought we view Thomas, and trust in general? There's one side of me that is sympathetic toward someone who trusts without needing, necessarily, constant reassurance, but there's the other side, which dominates, which has me modeling myself after Thomas, someone who trusts explicitly until given reason not to, and expects to be proven wrong. Had Jesus not shown Thomas the holes in his hands and feet, or the gash in his side, Thomas would have certainly remained doubtful, and for good reason, too. Yet, I'm disinclined to judge Thomas based upon how Jesus responded to him. I think that Thomas was in the right regardless of how Jesus treated Thomas's doubt. What are your thoughts, though? This thread can go more micro or macro, whatever goes with the flow, O:)
Comments (41)
The response: "You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me"
You need to put that reaction in context. It was written by the author of that Gospel. We have no reason to believe that it was actually said by Jesus. I am almost certain it wasn't, because it's such a ridiculous piece of nonsense and most of the sayings attributed to Jesus are pretty good value.
Apart from anything else it's self-refuting. The person who believes Jesus resurrected just because some random person told him that will believe the next random person that comes along and tells him the first person was lying and that Jesus was a purely mortal prophet, and Muhammed is the only guy with a direct line to the almighty. Then they'll believe the next person who comes along to tell them that Quran business is all lies and Joseph Smith is The Man, and we need to follow the Book of Mormon.
Believing without good evidence is nearly always a harmful thing to do. Among the wrongs it causes are lynchings, mob violence, revenge killings, unnecessary marital breakup and friendship breakup. Just think about all the vicious gossip you've ever heard. Would it be good to believe that without evidence?
Given the reaction attributed to Jesus is so stupid, why would the writer(s) of John's Gospel put those words into Jesus's mouth? Because they were writing sixty years after Jesus's death, so their target audience had never even met Jesus. They wanted people to believe the amazing claims in their Gospel, despite having no first-hand evidence of its veracity, so they put in that chain-letterish ruse to make people feel that they would be especially holy if they believed everything this Gospel said.
I thought I heard somebody once say that St Thomas is the patron saint of scientists. But when I Google it, all I find is that apparently St Albert the Great has that honorable title. So maybe I made up that idea myself. I certainly think Thomas should be the patron saint of scientists. He was the only one that one could respect in that story. The rest carry on like a bunch of hysterical schoolkids.
First of all, the 'gnostic gospels' refers to a collection of ancient manuscripts that were found by shepherds in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in the 1940's, sealed in clay pots in a cave. They brought them home, the mother of the house used some to cook on, but then one of the shepherds thought they might have some resale value in the antiquities market, which is how they eventually saw light of day.
These manuscripts contained many long-lost texts which had been excluded from the Bible (along with other 'apocrypha'). Amongst these was the Gospel of Thomas, which since it has been translated, has become very popular in alternative and New Age circles. It's out there freely available on the Internet, and worth being familiar with. Many commentators note the almost Zen Koan-like quality of some of the sayings it includes:
There is a religious studies scholar by the name of Elaine Pagels, who's book Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas claims that the suppression of this gospel - it's exclusion from the Bible - was a watershed moment in the formation of Orthodoxy.
I will leave you to make your own judgement about Pagel's book - it is certainly not without its critics - but when I first encountered it, it made intuitive sense to me, as I had already formed the view that the mainstream Christian tradition had excluded something of great importance at the time of its foundation, this being the equivalent to the Asiatic teaching of mok?a, spiritual liberation, conceived as the transcending or overcoming of the eternal round of birth and death. I had the idea that perhaps this kind of understanding was still preserved amongst the various gnostic movements, but had been suppressed or driven underground by the nascent Roman Catholic orthodoxy.
I don't know if that is true or not - there are many blurred lines in the debate, and many deep questions of history and hermeneutics. But I think it's definitely worth being familiar with the debate, and, more broadly, what gnosticism stands for, and what the import is of the rediscovery of the Nag Hammadi scriptures. There's a lot of material on gnosis.org and some of the writers associated with that site, namely, Stephan Hoeller, Richard Smoley, and Marvin Meyer, are worth reading.
Also, another little-known but fascinating thing about Thomas, is that after the Resurrection, he sailed cross the Indian Ocean to Goa, started a Church, and formed what I think is still the oldest Christian congregation known to history, which is still practicing, on the West Coast of India (click here for some resources.)
I think that gnosticism was suppressed in large measure, because it's much easier to control believers than to impart higher knowledge. There is a real tension in the NT between 'Believe, and you shall be saved', and 'You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free'. But then, perhaps it's the case that there the scriptures have to appeal to devotional believers, as well as to discriminating thinkers. There's a scandalous web essay, Christianity has Pagan DNA which nevertheless contains a grain of truth in my opinion.
Just to be picky - it's acting on the basis of poor evidence that is harmful. I'm not sure if one acts on the basis of belief or of knowledge, but that's 'cause I went to see Timothy Williamson speak last week and I'm thinking about it. Does the Christian say, I know that my redeemer liveth? Or, I believe?
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Trust is under-studied. It feels as if mutual trust is so obvious a basis for most human lives, we forget to mention it. Or analyse it.
Francis Fukuyama wrote a book on trust about 20 years ago. I am not very familiar with that particular work, but he touches upon the topic in some of his more contemporary work such as Political Order and Political Decay.
He argues that at least part of the reason for the diverging economic fortunes between northern and southern Europe (e.g. between Germany and Greece) lies in the rampant mistrust of government among Southern Europeans, which leads to an impairment in civic and administrative functions such as tax collection (people conduct business in the "shadow economy" rather than keep it on the books and fork over the taxes to the government), leading to a substantial loss of revenue in the national coffers, and precipitating in part the financial hardships we're currently witnessing in some of those countries.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57980.Trust
This is just false. It can be nearly always a harmful thing would be the correct way to phrase it.
But this has nothing to do with believing without evidence. Indeed Jesus didn't say one should believe without evidence. In fact, even if he had said "you should believe in me without evidence", that wouldn't entail that you should believe everything without evidence, only that you should believe in Jesus without evidence. But the statement doesn't even suggest that. It says that Blessed are those who believe without seeing me. It talks about their blessedness, not about their moral character or right and wrong. Second of all, "not seeing" isn't the same as "not having evidence". So it seems that the whole narrative that you built is a bit artificial, purposefully misrepresenting what is there - sorry to put it this bluntly, as I do generally appreciate your insights.
He's trying to distinguish between himself as Jesus and himself as Christ. Thomas believed in Jesus, because he had seen him, talked with him, learned from him, and was preparing to preach Jesus' message after his death. But the story doesn't end there, like Thomas thought, because Christ comes into the story, and essentially says, "wait, wait, hold on guys, I forgot something." Henceforth, Thomas is thus an Apostle of Christ, not merely Jesus. So, in my estimation, Jesus the Christ was not mocking Thomas, or giving disdain, but clarifying - as I wrote in the OP, showing Thomas's doubts the door. Otherwise, Thomas would be teaching Jesus' teaching, and not the full message of Christ.
Ah, thanks for the suggestion. I'll see if I can get my hands on the first novel somehow (Y)
Thanks for the book link, I'll try and check that out as well. I am reasonably familiar with the Gospel of Thomas, though I hadn't thought of tying it back into my recent thoughts. Again, thanks for the input :)
Quoting Arkady
This could be another thread topic, perhaps. From a historical standpoint I would heavily disagree with his thesis, if it is as you say.
If I'm to understand Kierkegaard here, I would probably disagree with him. It seems like he has failed to distinguish between the nature of God's love and our own imperfect forms of love. Theologically, God would not test himself, but because we are not God, we must wrestle with both ourselves and others, so that we might sense God's love more fully. And testing, asking questions, looking for the truth - these all tests that are needed. I wouldn't call them violent or hankering desires, either. There's also an irony in Kierkegaard alluding to Keats, seeing as Keats' love was of fleshy passion (if I can remember his biography, I may be wrong), and not particularly contemplative or meditative in nature.
But if we are to become like God, what are we to do? Isn't that the idea, to become like Christ?
Quoting Heister Eggcart
The latter is a symbol for the former, indeed :P
Go on.
Go on what? :s
Well I aim to say that you are right, we are not God. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't attempt to be like God. And, in-so-far as being like God involves trusting in our love, we are to trust - faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. I personally think you read the Doubting Thomas story too literally. Its meaning isn't the literal event of Thomas not believing Jesus was resurrected - but rather Thomas not having faith.
This "lack of passion" is rather an attack on not really believing, and feeling things fully, and powerfully -- but rather aways lukewarm, doubtful, relativistic everything, and nothing is true bullshit, and no one really feels or believes anything completely anymore.
His message wasn't that people should sin, but rather that people should really believe, and feel things fully, become entirely invested, consumed, and act with that genuineness, or good faith. This is superior to not believing or feeling anything with conviction, and not sinning, as well as doing a whole lot of nothing else either.
No, I think this is superficial too. Kierkegaard was against outward passion and for inward passion. Indeed, what I quoted is only a small passage. If you read more, you'll see he calls "burning passion" to be the product of anxiety, and therefore inadequate - a deception.
Quoting Wosret
Kierkegaard was an ironist and a romantic.
Quoting Wosret
Yes, he did protest against this.
Where's that from? I know that his concept of anxiety is half a response to Kant, and also other guys I haven't read, and the "anxiety" is basically the friction between duty and freedom. The anxiety he's talking about here is a habitual, or ritualistic crippling of action. Something like, all identity is based in memory and recollection, so that the crippling anxiety is always recalled, and recreated to prevent actions by rendering the idea of them impossible to you.
So that, in this sense, anxiety is the cause of sin, but it seems to me to be an entirely negative force for action in K.
Why do you think that? To me the story has always been very simple and has nothing to do with personal identity. It is simply that Thomas does not believe that Jesus's life has continued beyond the crucifixion, until he meets the risen Jesus, and Jesus complains about that.
How do you interpret that in the context of Paul's experience on the road to Damascus, or indeed any other non-corporeal experience? I would call that 'seeing' Jesus because I think the 'see' in the John passage means 'perceive' and is not strictly limited to the visual sense.
If we include that and other non-visual spiritual encounters as 'seeing' then to believe without seeing simply means being gullible, and believing whichever proselyte, from whichever religion, just knocked on our door, doesn't it?
Works of Love
Quoting Wosret
Yes but don't be mistaken about everything written under a pseudonym as being K's own views - that's precisely why he is an ironist. Works of Love is arguably his central work - written in his own name. Anxiety in the sense used where I quoted is fear - fear of loss. Anxiety is what remains for the one who hasn't sworn his love by the higher - by the eternal - by duty. That's why Kierkegaard says "you shall love" as a command - it's a duty to love, whether this is in romantic love or otherwise. Only this can make human love eternal - grounding it in God. When one has sworn by God, then there is no anxiety left - neither is there any burning passion on the surface, it has all shifted inwards. Outward passion is always born out of fear - you fear that you will lose the beloved, your passion is merely an effort to prevent that or mask the anxiety. The fear is certainly born out of love, but it is a fear that exists only in the lover who hasn't sworn by the eternal.
Personally I would count those experiences as deeply personal and vague - totally unlike the kind of seeing that can be confirmed by society. There is a leap of faith in holding true to those very personal experiences - one could always discount them as hallucinations for example.
lol >:O
You answer your own question here, I'd say.
I'm not sure if you're familiar with the story of Nilolai Tesla - I watched the Netflix doco on his life recently - but it showed that his invention of AC/DC power was strongly associated with visionary states where he experienced insights into some kind of higher or deeper reality associated with a vision of the Sun. His was definitely a mystical vision, but in this case it resulted in an astonishingly powerful physical invention.
There are many cases of visionary encounters in the history of science; there was an excellent book by Arthur Koestler called The Sleepwalkers, which discusses the often serendipitous nature of scientific discovery which frequently occured as a result of something completely different to what the scientist in question set out to achieve (hence the title). Kepler, for instance, was trying to validate Platonic cosmology when he discovered the elliptical orbit of the planets.
Many labour under the misapprehension that religious metaphors are badly-formed or archaic scientific hypotheses, since displaced by 'real science'. It's the generic 'thunder-god' view of religion - 'we used to think that the Gods caused thunder, but now science knows!' From this it follows that Christianity is a 'bronze-age' cult, which has no place in our scientifically advanced culture.
Now, of course that is true - but only to a point. The visionary and prophetic contents of sacred texts (such as the Bible), aren't necessarily explicable in terms of the 'thunder gods' of the ancient world - the God of monotheism ostensibly displaced, or replaced, the pagan Gods. Perhaps it's an historical accident that in so doing, the One became identified instead as one of 'The Gods' of the ancient world - hence the saying that atheists believe in just 'one less God' than do believers (and see also the way in which the various cultic deities were incorporated into the early Church).
But, perhaps what Jesus means by 'the Father' is not actually 'a God' in that sense at all, but that what he said has been transposed into the interpretive framework of 'the Gods' because of the cultural milieu in which he lived and taught, wherein The Gods were the only suitable metaphor for what he meant.
Meaning that, God is not a God, and believing in God, is not believing in a God (even though there are many who do believe in a God, and pray for [miracle cure/job success/parking spot] on the basis of that belief.) But perhaps what 'belief' is really about, is not a throwback to pre-scientific thinking or belief in a benevolent but archaic Sky-Father-Deity, even though religion as is usually understood seems to inevitably point in that direction. What if it is instead an intuition of a radically different kind of existence, of what is possible as a human, and of what 'being human' means? But a vision that has, nowadays, become deeply entangled with the historical detritus of millenia of thought and dogma.
I tried to bring up the distinction between Jesus and the Christ, because it's important, especially in the story with Thomas. Jesus does not "complain", Christ does, it's why he must show himself to Thomas, because Thomas assumes that Jesus is dead, and that Christ is not alive.
Are they not the same person? My understanding is that 'Christ' is a name essentially meaning 'Messiah' that was applied to the historical Jesus some time after his death, and it is used mostly to refer to Jesus in relation to his post-resurrection activities. Use of the term also emphasises the belief of the speaker in the divinity, or at least the Messianicity, of Jesus. But they must be the same person because if post-resurrection Jesus is not Christ then Jesus was not resurrected - he was replaced. Hence either they both complain or neither does.
But in relation to the story with Thomas, the difference between Jesus and Christ is pretty huge. If Jesus were not resurrected from the dead, thus becoming the Christ, then Christianity falls apart. This is why Christians name the resurrected Jesus, Jesus Christ. I'm not saying that the two persons are separate, but there is a difference, otherwise Thomas wouldn't need to see or feel anything.
Well let's accept for the sake of furthering the discussion, that Jesus being also the Messiah is tremendously significant and that Jesus saw it as essential that Thomas understand that.
You said
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Let's look at that clarification - as attributed to Jesus by the author(s) of John:
How does that clarify anything about Jesus's Messianicity? It doesn't even mention it.
Here's what a clarification would look like:
[quote=risen Jesus Christ]I'm very glad Thomas that you've now had this opportunity to learn that I have risen from the dead. Now there's one more thing that it's very important for you to know. That is that I am the Messiah [add various phrases about also being God and/or Son of God, according to one's preferred theology]. I would like you to go out and tell others about this.[/quote]
Even the most contorted exegesis cannot turn the phrase in the text into something that means that. We must bear in mind that we are talking about someone that has divine powers, not some inarticulate savage, and hence they would be able to express themselves in the clearest fashion possible, so that no possible doubt could remain as to what they meant.
Quoting andrewk
I dunno about this. This assumption is often poked fun of (pretty rightly) by anti-Christians because God chose perhaps the least obvious and easily understandable way in which "he" could remedy the world he created. I'm reminded of a non-stamp collector video, I think, that touches on this, haha.
How do you get that reading out of the text? Here's the text in full:
[quote=Authorised (English) Version of the Bible, John 20:24-29]
24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.
25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.
26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: [then] came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace [be] unto you.
27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust [it] into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.
28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed [are] they that have not seen, and [yet] have believed.
[/quote]
I can't see any mention of a changed appearance in there. The passage appears very straightforward. Thomas does not believe his friends' claims that they have seen Jesus (and note that it uses the word Jesus, not Christ). Then he meets him, and thereafter believes his friends' claims. Lastly we have verse 29 which the author(s) attribute to Jesus (again - Jesus, not Christ), which has no corroborative evidence in any other text and is most naturally explained as the author trying to influence readers to believe him (the author).
I suggest that if Christness and altered appearance are emphasised, that is done by later writers trying to retro-fit their preferred theology to a text that does not support it.
This may be true. I'll look back and recheck. Though, I think Christ's appearance is described by Mary and the other women in the tomb..?
This statement is generally taken as the paradigmatic statement of blind faith. However, I would say what it means is that: any person who is aware of their innate moral deficiency and need of salvation, already 'believes', or perceives the need of salvation, even in the absence of a figure to believe in.
TRUST IS A TOOL
There are several practical uses for trust as a tool:
1.) In Discovery and Experimentation; for example, a.) whether the trusted person is truthful or not; b.) whether the person is competent or not; and c.) whether being trustworthy is the best way to go or not (and given the need for diversity toward broader survival, it will not always be, diversity being what it is); and
2.) As a General Social Tool - to be used at will or not. Note that, as a tool, trust is neither inherently good or bad, it is how the tool is used that determines whether it was used for good or bad (and what is 'good or bad' is determined by higher philosophy, which mankind does not have yet). Enter Me. (but that is another topic).