A Letter to My Fellow Doubting Thomases

What to do when stalked by doubt.

Thomas, one of Jesus’s twelve disciples, is best known for not believing in the resurrection of Jesus, even after his friends swore by it. Though it’s not in our Bible, history handed him the nickname “Doubting Thomas.” It’s proven to be pretty sticky over the centuries.

I don’t like to call Thomas “Doubting Thomas.” Personally, I think he gets a bad rap. I can relate to Thomas much better than any of the other disciples. He’s a realist. He knows that when a person dies, they stay dead. And when the other disciples told him that Jesus—the same Jesus who was recently nailed to a cross—visited them, he wasn’t so quick to believe. (I’d have a tough time believing that motley crew, too.) He needed proof, evidence. “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe,” the rationalist says (John 20:25, ESV).

Overall, we don’t know much about Thomas, but the New Testament does speak of his intense loyalty to Jesus. As Christ made his last pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Thomas seems to be the only one who understood the situation; “Let us also go, that we may die with him,” he says in John 11:16. Thomas may look before he leaps, but he’s not averse to leaping.

Jesus is intensely loyal to Thomas too. Rather than giving up on the disciple who doubted his resurrection, he later appears to him much like he did to his other friends. What a fun scene that must have been.

Jesus glances around the room; Thomas embarrassingly shuffles behind one of the larger disciples—probably Bartholomew. Jesus’s eyes soon land on the Realist. Here, we expect the hammer to smash Thomas’s psyche into a million pieces. Jesus will humiliate him for doubting the Son of God. Thomas will receive his nickname and forever be etched into history as a doubter.

But this doesn’t happen. The Son of God who spent years telling his disciples that he would one day die and rise again fails to say, “I told you so.” His reaction to Thomas’s doubt fails to carry any condemnation. There’s no humiliating nickname or vicious indictment.

 Instead, Jesus looks at Thomas and says, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe” (John 20:27).

Rather than lashing forward in offense, Jesus gives Thomas the evidence he needs. Jesus tells Thomas to investigate. The original Greek word for “place” here literally means “shove.” Jesus has nothing to hide. Thomas asked for proof and here proof is standing right in front of him. Even Jesus’s follow-up response, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (v. 29), seems directed more for the benefit of John’s readers than it does as a criticism of Thomas. Jesus offers room for moments of doubt.

There’s a seventeenth-century painting by Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio that brilliantly illustrates this scene. Titled The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, Caravaggio makes great effort to depict the grittiness of Jesus’s appearance to Thomas. While many of the artists of his day chose idealism over authenticity, Caravaggio, a rough man himself, became known for his unflinching realism. He didn’t paint the world as he wanted it to be, he painted the world as it already was.

In his masterpiece, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, the somber figure of Jesus is shown inserting Thomas’s finger into his side. The scene is dark and moody, in contrast to what could easily be celebratory and bright. Even Thomas’s clothes reflect the ordinariness of the situation. His shirt is worn, the stitching tearing at his shoulder blade. As observers look down at Thomas’s hand exploring the wound of Jesus, they can’t help but notice the dirt underneath his nails.

Here, Caravaggio captures the certainty of spiritual doubt and all its shadows. As much as we’d wish that life—and faith for that matter—would possess an air of fairy tale-like haze, that’s not always the case. Even the best of us experience moments of doubt. But, like John’s narrative (and Caravaggio’s painting) shows, the Christian faith argues that Jesus loves us where we are, despite the doubt. Despite the dirt.

It’s somewhat difficult to express what Thomas’s story meant to me in college. College is already one of those times when you have no idea who you are or what you want to be. And if you do know what you want to be, it’ll change tomorrow. The only thing that doesn’t have any change is your bank account. (Get it? College students are poor.)

As I began my twenties, I saw several friends leave the faith, and my intellect finally caught up to my heart. I experienced uncertainty as a child and adolescent, but I didn’t ask questions because I didn’t want to be labeled a doubter. And when I did muster up the courage to ask about the Bible or miracles, I was often told to “Just have faith.”

But in college I let my questions fly. And Thomas stood beside me, encouraging me. “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Over time, I’d eventually realize that Jesus was standing there too. Not with a nickname, but always with his presence, guiding my hand into his side.

I’m convinced there are right ways to doubt and wrong ways to doubt. In my opinion, theologian Alister McGrath gives the best clarification of what doubt is and isn’t in his book Doubting:

[D]oubt is not skepticism—the decision to doubt everything deliberately, as a matter of principle...it’s not unbelief—the decision not to have faith in God. Unbelief is an act of will, rather than a difficulty in understanding.¹

We live in a fallen world where we have good days and bad days. We face big questions, and doubt comes at us even when we wish it wouldn’t. We can hide those doubts or bring them to God.

Jesus doesn’t want us to stay in a place of doubt—it wasn’t Jesus’ wish that Thomas would spend the rest of his life investigating the question of Jesus’ resurrection—but he does meet us where we are.

With all the recent talk of deconstruction, I wish people would stop treating doubt like it’s either a badge of honor or the devil’s necklace. As a Christian deeply committed to orthodoxy (and one who desires that those who doubt would also stay committed to orthodoxy), I realize that sometimes it just happens. It is.

Bring doubt to God and the church. Don’t give up on Jesus. Trust him and the faithful Christians who have come before you—and those who currently living among you—to help you work through that doubt. You can’t stay in the desert forever, but sometimes we find ourselves there for a season.

The above is an edited excerpt from my book Failing Faith: When What You Thought You Knew about God Doesn’t Work in the Real World.

1. Alister McGrath, Doubting: Growing through the Uncertainties of Faith (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 13-14. His definitions of “skepticism” and “unbelief” seem to be a good way to understand the type of “bad doubt” described in a passage like James 1:6.