LIFE IN A DOUBTFUL WORLD

A SERMON FOR LOW SUNDAY

The Story of St. Thomas today is a story about doubt.  This one apostle is now forever known as “Doubting Thomas”, which itself has become a term to apply to anyone who is dubious of pretty much anything.  You might even ask yourself, “Am I a doubting Thomas?—Am I lacking in something here, am I failing God somehow by doubting?”  Let’s try and answer that question, and if the answer is truly in the affirmative, then let’s see what we can do about it.

First of all, let’s be completely clear about what it is that’s missing when we doubt something.  It’s not the lack of knowledge.  Lack of knowledge just means that we don’t have enough facts about something to believe it fully.  For example, if we look at the origins of the Coronavirus, what do we really know, with certainty, about how it began?  Did it really originate in those bizarre wet markets of Wuhan, where people buy everything from cats to bats for their dinner?  Or did it come from the nearby research lab where they were experimenting on bats and coronaviruses?  And if the virus originated in the lab, was it accidentally released, or was it a deliberate ploy by the Chinese to take over the world’s economy?  There’s a lot of things we don’t know, and until these things are investigated by people we can actually trust, we never really will know what went on.  So for now, we have a lack of facts on which we can base a real knowledge of what happened. 

We can compare this situation of having incomplete facts with something a bit different.  Do you know off the top of your head what is 3,487 divided by 65.42.  I doubt it.  You’re probably ignorant of the answer, but I do know what it is.  I’ve had the chance to check my calculator and find out that the answer is 53.3017426.  I’m telling you that’s the answer, and I know it to be true.  Here’s where our assent to the truth is put to the test.  Should you believe the person who is telling you something?

Do you believe me?  Or do you doubt what I’m telling you?  You don’t know the answer, you can’t just sit there and figure it out in your head, and you’re too polite to whip out your calculator and check.  So you have the choice whether or not to believe me.  Would Father lie to us?  Hopefully, you trust me enough not to think that!  But is it possible that Father made a mistake?  Did he do the math right?—he’s not very good at math, that’s for sure.  Or did he make a mistake entering the numbers on his calculator?  Ah, this now becomes a bit more doubtful, doesn’t it?  Now, you’re doubting what I’m telling you.  Probably with some justification.  Just as you might doubt what the Chinese government or the mainstream media end up telling you about how the coronavirus started.  Doubt, you see, is not necessarily wrong, it doesn’t have to be a bad thing.  It’s simply a question of how much credence you give the person or organization that provides the information, with what degree of certainty can you conclude that they aren’t lying or simply mistaken.

So why is Saint Thomas’ reputation so tarnished by the doubt he showed when the other apostles announced to him that they had seen the Lord?  Is it because he doubted the word of his friends, apostles one and all?  He certainly knew them better than to think they would lie to him about such a momentous matter.  But perhaps he thought they were simply mistaken, that they had caught a glimpse of someone who looked vaguely like our Lord, and they had jumped to the wrong conclusion, a simple matter of mistaken identity.  After all, dead people don’t usually pop up a few days later as though nothing had happened.  Saint Thomas certainly didn’t want to get his hopes up about something so fantastic, only to have them dashed by disappointment later.  So did Saint Thomas have some legitimate excuses for “doubting” the other apostles?

No, the real problem with our “Doubting Thomas” is that he doubted the words not of the other apostles, but the very Word of God himself.  Our Lord had repeatedly told them that on the third day he would rise again from the dead.  They had all probably been mightily puzzled by these words, and after our Lord’s death on the Cross, after they had seen him so powerless and humiliated, they had probably consigned his prophecy of resurrection to the very back of their minds.  They had all doubted.  Thomas was not alone in his doubt.  As our Lord died on the cross, they were all, with the exception of St. John, in hiding.  After the Resurrection, they were still there, still hiding when our Lord appeared to them all on the “first day of the week.”  All of them, that is, except Thomas.  The rest saw our Lord with their own eyes, they broke bread with him and, realizing that ghosts don’t eat and drink, they finally understood the truth of his prophecy.  But Thomas had not been there that day; he had not seen with his own eyes, and he still needed to be convinced.  When the apostles told him that Christ was truly risen, that his predictions had come true, he should have remembered our Lord’s words, and been convinced.  The added confirmation by the apostles should have been all that was necessary to restore his faith in Christ’s own words.  But it wasn’t.  Doubting Thomas failed in his faith.

We should never doubt the Word of God.  It might be okay to lack faith in the things we’re told by other people.  It doesn’t mean we’re calling them liars necessarily, but simply admitting the possibility of error creeping in somewhere.  We shouldn’t be gullible, but examine everything we’re asked to believe with the eyes of healthy scepticism, especially when it’s something we want to believe.  But not when we’re told something by God.

It isn’t our lack of faith in God that makes us doubters about our very uncertain world.  But it would be a sinful lack of faith in God if we were to doubt that he permits bad things to happen for reasons unknown.   We may have a lack of knowledge about God’s plan for us, but insufficient data must never turn us into doubters of his omnipotence, of his mercy, or of his love for us.  We should often repeat the Act of Faith, begging God to increase our faith in him, reminding ourselves every time we say it, that the things he has revealed can be neither a deliberate lie nor an unintended mistake.

If only Saint Thomas had happily acknowledged the report from the other apostles that our Lord’s prophecy had been fulfilled!  But ironically, the fact that he didn’t gives us more reasons to have faith ourselves.  By his verification of our Lord’s identity, we have less reason to doubt the word of the other apostles about the most important article of our faith.  The Resurrection is our proof of the divinity of Christ, the greatest of miracles that confirms and makes sense of everything we believe.  We have not only our Lord’s words that he would rise from the dead, not only the confirmation of the apostles that he did truly rise, but now also the conversion of the cynical Saint Thomas.  What more do we need?  To place our own hands in his wounds?  Surely not, surely we have learned the lesson of Doubting Thomas?

The world is infected today.  Infected on the physical level by a malicious virus.  But worse yet, infected spiritually by a level of sinfulness beyond anything it has previously experienced.  It’s enough to make us wonder what’s in store for this wicked world.  We may wonder, but we may never lose faith in God and in God’s plan.  We may never doubt.  We must take solace in the words of Holy Scripture—the Word of God—that no matter what dangers befall us, our souls will be kept safe so long as we do God’s will and keep the faith.  We must believe those words of our Lord, that one day, “heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.”  We must believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because it is God who has revealed them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.