(The Nationalist, 21 April 2006)
Just imagine you were on Chris Tarrant’s TV show, Who wants to be a millionaire? and you were asked the question, ‘In what Italian city is there a famous leaning tower: Rome, Pisa, Milan or Florence? Easy. Pisa, of course; everyone knows it. But suppose the question were, ‘In what Italian city is there a tower that stands vertically?’ you’d be puzzled by the question. Doubtless there are lots of Italian cities with towers that stand vertically. Everyone remembers the tower that leans, not the one that stands straight, just as everyone remembers the plane that crashes, not the one that lands safely.
Sometimes, too, a person is remembered for the mistake they made. I know a bus driver who, just once in about forty years of driving, took a wrong turn and drove his bus into a cul de sac from which it was difficult to reverse. Local people remember that, and he gets needled about it from time to time. Everyone, too, remembers the doubts of the apostle Thomas – “doubting Thomas”. It was he who refused to believe that Jesus had risen, and demanded to see the wounds made in his flesh by the nails. Few remember his profession of faith that followed soon after.
Thomas is a good teacher. His lesson is that doubt is not the opposite of faith. (In a similar way, indifference, rather than hatred, is the opposite of love.) Doubt is the complement of faith. It saves us from gullibility or credulity. Faith and doubt are like the two poles of a battery; they need each other. ‘We come to the house of faith, only after we have travelled through the forest of doubt’, said a French writer. Thomas had doubts; he also had the courage to ask good questions that evoked good answers.
Thomas’s doubts reinforce our faith. Had he not doubted, and, as a result, been shown the evidence, our faith in the resurrection might not be so sure. Thomas, the doubter, made the best profession of faith in all the gospels; he said to Jesus: ‘My Lord and my God’. Seeing is not believing; it is just plain seeing. But believing is seeing. Believing is when, despite the absence of evidence, you face your fears and give yourself whole-heartedly. Believing is not simply intellectual assent; it is a commitment of the heart.
What is the opposite of faith? Fear. And it is this, probably more than anything else, that diminishes us. We are afraid of so many things: afraid of ourselves; afraid of others, that, if they knew us as we really are, they might not love us. Many fear God, waiting for him in death as a judge, ready to blame and punish. Many have secrets in their life that they fear will come to light and expose them to retribution, ridicule, or contempt.
On the same occasion when Thomas doubted, Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you’, and he said it, not once, but three times. The New Testament also says, ‘In love there can be no fear, but fear is driven out by perfect love’. (1 John 4.18)
Thank you, Thomas.
For those in a hurry: ‘Fear is driven out by perfect love’. (1 John 4.18)