Did Jesus Teach Us to Have Blind Faith?

Most of us are familiar with the gospel story of “Doubting Thomas,” the disciple of Jesus who, for some reason, wasn’t around when Jesus first appeared to his disciples after he rose from the dead. The 20th Chapter of the Gospel of John tells us Jesus showed them the scars on his hands and his side from when he was crucified and stabbed with a spear, and then he left. Then, in verses 25-28, Thomas shows up and we read:

“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. 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. 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. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.”

Once Thomas sees Jesus for himself, he believes, just as the other disciples did, but it’s in the next verse (29) where Jesus says something that has been used for centuries to justify the insistence that people “blindly” believe what they’re told:

“Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

In fact, the expression “blind belief,” or the type of belief that relies on no evidence whatsoever, stems from this story…or I should say, from the way it’s usually presented from the pulpit.

So, did Jesus really mean to say it’s a good thing to believe what we’re told without any proof at all? Or when we hear this common interpretation, could it be that this is just another one of the hundreds of other examples of Jesus’ words having been twisted to mean something he didn’t actually intend?

Well, let’s start with a little process of elimination. Jesus could not have meant that it’s wrong to believe in him on the basis of visual evidence of a miracle, thus the biblical term “sign.” If this had been the case, then he certainly wouldn’t have done so many miracles. Jesus wouldn’t have shown his hands and side to any of the disciples. In fact, in the very next two verses (30-31), John says, “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name.”

Consequently, it makes no sense at all to think the point Jesus was making in verse 29 was that there is something wrong with believing on the basis of visual evidence. So the question then becomes whether or not Jesus was saying that it’s better to believe on the basis of no evidence.

Well, once again, the answer becomes clear when we go back and re-read this famous passage without Doctrine Goggles. If so, then you should notice that Jesus did not, I repeat, did not say, “Blessed are they who don’t have any evidence whatsoever and yet believe.” No, all he said was that those who don’t rely on visual evidence to believe are blessed, that they have an advantage of some sort.

So what was he getting at, if he was not arguing in favor of what we now call blind belief?

The first clue has to do with what it is that makes visible miracles an unreliable means of determining actual truth.

Back in 1972, I met a follower of a then fairly popular, somewhat overweight teenage Indian guru named Pret Rawat, better known at the time as Maharaji Ji. The follower was quite convinced Rawat was the Messiah and that he knew this because of the miracles he had witnessed. When I asked for an example, he claimed he had personally witnessed a levitation in the air of some other believer in the name of this guru. After seeing that, he just knew all the MaharaJi Ji’s other claims must be true.

I guess you could say that, in that moment, I was not only a Doubting Thomas, but I didn’t even bother to say that I might believe too if only I could see a levitation for myself. The reason is probably because I had already seen a number of magician shows in which it was made to appear that levitations were occurring, but they were illusions.

You see, the problem with believing in anything on the basis of what we see is that, as any illusionist/magician can tell us, our eyes can be deceived! Whether it’s levitating someone off the floor or removing cancerous tissues without doing surgery, there are magicians who can do the exact same tricks, mostly by diverting our attention at just the right moment so our brain doesn’t register what’s really going on.

This isn’t to say that everything we see is an illusion. In fact, most visual perceptions are probably fairly accurate. Ironically, though, it’s this very general accuracy that tends to make us all the more susceptible to being fooled by those who know how to divert our eyes.

But there’s actually a more important issue here, even if someone were capable of performing an actual miracle—it wouldn’t necessarily mean everything else that guy says is true! Far worse than the human weakness to have our eyes deceive us is the tendency to fall prey to the faulty logic, “If A is true, then B-Z must also be true.” There was no good reason for that follower of Guru Rawat’s to assume that he was also the Messiah, just because he could levitate people off the ground. To have such an ability would only show that he could do one unusual and entertaining thing. But no one ever saw him leap over a tall building with a single bound and, clearly, he did not usher in an age of peace!

And then there’s the been-there-done-it factor. Many of the things that were thought of as miracles at one time are now thought to be common place. We fly through the air. We cook food in seconds. We talk to people on the other side of the world. When people first saw an airplane or a microwave oven or a cell phone, they seemed to be supernatural in nature (in fact, I recall when microwave ovens first came out, we called them “Magic Ovens”), but only because it’s a new experience. If ever someone were to figure out how to actually levitate, then that too will seem quite amazing…for a while. But once the science behind the process is revealed and spread about, and people then get used to it, any Messianic claims by someone floating people off the ground will be obviously ridiculous. In other words, what passes for a miraculous sign is in many if not most cases, just something that our technology has not yet allowed us to do…but give it time.

So, if visual evidence of the miraculous is iffy, what other sort of evidence could serve as a good reason to believe? What kind of evidence cannot be faked or accomplished by technology? What was the much more reliable sort of evidence that Jesus was telling Thomas about, so much so that it isn’t subject to the weaknesses of visual evidence?

How about the transformation of the human heart!

Yeah, I know, that sounds a bit mushy to the cynical ear but, really and truly, even if one day humanity acquires all the technology imagined in Star Trek (we’ve pretty much got the “Communicator” already, but just as the TV shows and subsequent movies emphasize), the challenge of getting people (or all the other intelligent life forms) to choose good over evil remains.

Jesus spoke about this in another passage (Matthew 9:2-7 and Mark 2:3-12) where, a man who was crippled was brought to him for healing, but the first thing he said was, “Be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven.” There happened to be some scribes present who began to say amongst themselves that Jesus had committed blasphemy, but he turned to them and said, “Which is easier? To tell this man his sins are forgiven or to stand up and walk?” The scribes didn’t answer, and that’s because the implication was clear–sure, it’s possible to fake a physical healing, but there is no faking it when you’ve hurt someone and they forgive you! Any time someone is slapped in the face and responds by turning the other cheek, it’s a miracle.

What is it, then, that can explain why some people, regardless of whether or not they belong to a religion or none at all, come to be fully convinced that doing good, even in response to bad, is the best way to live? How is it that, in spite of all the millions of acts of cruelty that humanity has committed for millennia, somehow, in the midst of all this evil, some people rose up to say, “This isn’t working!” and began to talk about living in accord with some wierd, invisible thing we call “charity”?

You can’t see it. You can’t study it in a lab. And there is no scientific theory of its existence on some quantum level. But there are more than a few who seem to be 100% convinced that loving thy neighbor as thyself is not only applaudable, but that it’s utterly foolish not to! That people who embrace this invisible charity thing, are not only themselves transformed for the better, but their influence is felt all around them.

Now let’s go back to the story of Doubting Thomas. Jesus didn’t have any problem with Thomas believing on the basis of what he could physically see. But he explained that the really, really, really best and most reliable evidence of God’s existence and His desire to save us, not from Himself as those who perpetuate the lie of Hell claim, but from the suffering we cause one another, is the immediate proof that results from embracing Jesus’ principle message–to do good, even to those who do bad. To love, even to those who hate. To forgive, even to those who seek revenge. When we do (as Jesus taught in Matthew 5:45), we prove to be the children of our Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

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