Doubt, Not Refusal
What does it mean to be "too skeptical?"
February, 2023
Jesus' closest followers had the benefit of being eyewitnesses. They saw miracles first-hand. Any excuses for rejecting Christ's message fell apart in those situations. And yet, Thomas put up drastic resistance to news of Jesus' resurrection. He changed his mind, of course, but only after being given the opportunity for yet another miraculous confirmation. Does that mean the modern "doubting Thomas" is beyond hope? What about the person who says, "I would believe if I saw a miracle?" Is that a valid request to make of God?
It's entirely normal to "want" to see those things. Even staunch believers often wish God would let them see something truly miraculous. In this ministry, I interact with many people who feel stuck in a valley between "hard" rejection and "easy" acceptance. It's important to point out that those are issues worth discussing. The difference is in whether we demand signs as a condition of faith, or willing to accept what God's shown us short of something that spectacular. "Wanting" to see God's power and "insisting" on His performance as a condition of our faith are not the same.
The point of "better to believe without seeing" (John 20:29) is not that one is supposed to have blind faith. In that context, it means it's better to believe "without demanding excessive proof." Thomas' request was not reasonable. He'd seen Jesus do miracles. He had the eyewitness testimony of his fellow apostles. He had Jesus' own predictions. Yet he not only refused to believe, but he also invented an absurd standard of proof: Either I stick my fingers in the wounds or I won't believe it. That's the equivalent of a person confronted with logic supporting the existence of God as a Creator, the preservation and truth of the Bible, the eyewitness testimonies of the early church, and so forth, and to all that replies, "no, I need a personal, direct, custom-designed miraculous event."
The Bible indicates that God provides all people with a level of available evidence (Romans 1:18–20; Psalm 19:1). It's not complete, nor perfect, but its more than enough to suggest a person needs to seek and search (Matthew 7:7–8). Jesus often made the point (John 5:39–40) that when a person says, "I will believe only if I see a miracle," they usually mean "I will never believe." Some of Jesus' critics asked for miraculous signs immediately after seeing miraculous signs (John 6:26–30). We see the same thing in secular issues, where people are confronted by "proof" for or against something and excuse it away all the same.
A humorous story demonstrates this attitude. A man becomes convinced he's dead, and doctors spend hours arguing that he's not. Eventually, they spend a while convincing him that only living people bleed; they show excessive notes and charts to prove it. When the man gets angry, saying "I already told you, I know, only living people bleed," a nurse pokes him with a needle. The man looks down at the blood and says, "oh, I guess dead people bleed, too."
Most people have encountered a friend, relative, or co-worker who takes that view of some issue. In short, no amount of proof is enough to overcome a person who doesn't want to believe it. That's no to say all people in that frame of mind are equally resistant. But no person is left so devoid of evidence that it's unfair for God to hold them accountable. The same is true of eternity: people don't go to hell because they didn't know something or didn't do something. They go to hell because they sin—people who go to heaven are being rescued from that.
It's good to have a cautiously skeptical mindset. The Bible tells us we should avoid gullibility and be willing to fact-check what we hear (Acts 17:11; 1 John 4:1; 2 Corinthians 13:5). But we also need to avoid the opposite error of hardheadedness and excuse-making. We don't need to understand every nuance of every extended theory behind something to trust it. That's why people can drive cars and use light switches safely without advanced degrees in physics. And even the advanced physicists have unanswered, unproven questions. Once we get to the "good enough" phase, we need to respond accordingly.
-- Editor
