A Re-Appraisal of Saint Thomas: Our Process Model for Authentic Faith
- JM Zabick
- Apr 24, 2025
- 8 min read
This is an updated edition of a piece originally published April 22, 2021.
I’ve always been irritated by the “Doubter” label, which is commonly attached to the great Apostle Saint Thomas. In fact, I once challenged the nun teaching my grade school religion class to the point of getting in trouble because it just didn’t seem fair.
I still feel that way—more uncomfortable than ever about how St. Thomas is frequently promoted as a prime example of weak faith.
To establish a benchmark for how poorly this Disciple has historically been caricatured, one need look no further than the great Reformation-era theologian John Calvin (d. 1564). He described Thomas as “downright obstinate,” “proud and insulting toward Christ,” and one who possessed stupidity that was both “astonishing and monstrous.”[1]
The ridiculous tone of such a description seems difficult to reconcile with the portrait of Thomas in John chapter 11, where Thomas was willing to stand with Jesus despite the consensus among his peers. In that passage, Jesus wanted to go to Bethany a few days after hearing that his friend Lazarus was ill. Remembering how the Jews in the area tried to stone their Master during a recent visit, the disciples were perfectly fine with letting Jesus go alone. They were all concerned about their individual well-being.
That is, except for Thomas.
Thomas alone defied the collective mindset of his frightened companions, stating, “If Jesus goes, then WE GO. And if he dies, then let us DIE WITH HIM.”
The tag “Doubting Thomas” comes from the scene narrated later in John, chapter 20. The Apostles were gathered in a room with its door bolted shut. They were in great fear that those who killed Jesus were currently pursuing them.
St. Thomas was not among them, however.
It is reasonable to think he was the one who drew the short straw for gathering supplies, food, maybe even intel on what the authorities were up to. Yet, in light of the prior passage, it is perhaps more credible to see him as the only one courageous enough to step out and tend to those things.
And that is precisely when Christ first appeared to the Apostles … each of them … BUT Thomas.
So, Thomas was not included in the revelation that the rest were privileged to. Thus, is it any wonder he could not embrace their stunning report?
Indeed, there would have been plenty of dialogue among them, including Thomas’ questions and suspicions, their excited testimonies, and their attempts to persuade him that “we really did see the Lord.”
At some point, Thomas stated, “Enough, you guys! Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, put my finger where they were, and put my hand to his side, I’m not buying it.”
Many see only doubt in that declaration and little else. Given how the traditional portrayal of Thomas has evolved, positioning his uncertainty as a platform for fidelity to a system of more particular convictions—certainties—“preaches” really well.
However, I can’t recall a sermon that ever stressed, much less even noted, the genuine hurt expressed in what Thomas was saying here.
It is easy to overlook that Thomas was in mourning when seeking to land on a point far from which this article will. His master and dear friend, Jesus, whom he faithfully loved and followed, was taken from him, unjustly tried, and brutally murdered just days prior.
We should then be able to appreciate that Thomas was, like the rest of them, scared. Probably deprived of sleep, under immense anxiety, and with deep sorrow. His grief would have been measurably confounded by the seemingly out-of-left-field peace his peers had suddenly come to enjoy.
When we forget that, we are prone to examine Thomas through a lens blind to how their sudden, confusing jubilation would have greatly amplified his loneliness and pain.
In a way, Thomas must have felt such complete isolation, on top of the grief and fear, that it almost seems cruel. As inconvenient as it may be for “that’ll preach,” the man's doubt was well-warranted.
Yet, beyond this, we see Thomas had a process for believing. He didn’t just snap to it and align his mind to the belief pattern offered by the others. How could he?
His faith could not conform to what others said merely because they said it. How could it?
This carries forward the sense of St. Thomas that John’s gospel intentionally gave his readers in chapter 11. And despite what the likes of Calvin may say, Thomas was not an obstinate thinker … but an independent one.
When the risen Lord confronts Thomas, Christ tells him, “Stop doubting and believe.”
While those who presuppose his weakness read this as a rebuke, a more proper rendering (according to D. A. Carson) is, “Do not be unbelieving ... but believing.”[2]
In other words, it's as if Jesus, assuring his friend, said, “Thomas, do not remain in unbelief, it is safe now to believe.” And without a moment's hesitation, Thomas leapt all in. He responded to Jesus with a historical declaration, “My Lord and my God!” (v. 28).
Did you know that this was the first proclamation of anyone in history to acknowledge Jesus as God?
That was one bold statement.
The point with Thomas is that his process of coming to belief illustrates just how much greater one’s faith is made through the fires of natural doubt and the questions that it makes us confront. Thomas’ path to belief shows us that revelation is often sweeter when it’s not built upon a mindlessly assumed sort of faith, which melds with the prevailing winds, as opposed to one often painfully, and in loneliness, earned through a crucible of doubt, and that learns to coexist with uncertainty.
Such can sometimes be difficult, especially in the community of faith. Because in a setting where “taking doubts captive” means shoving them in a closet and not dealing with them, it is often thought that a wrestling faith is a weaker faith.
Nevertheless, the irony of such an idea seems readily apparent to those with even the slightest sense of how well-conditioned and formidably strong the members of the “Wrestling Team” are.
When we look to the Greatest Commandment, the imperatives to love God are meant as personal ones.[3] Therefore, loving God with all our minds involves the challenging, persistent, and intentional work of cultivating strong, independently conditioned intellects more than simply adopting a “hive mind.”
The New Testament theology of mind teaches us as much.
There are a few occasions in the gospels where we see Jesus wanting to distinguish where a particular thought is rooted. It is as if he’s asking, “Is what I am hearing from you the ‘hive mind’ speaking, or what you think?”
During the Passion of Our Lord, Pilate (the Roman governor of Judaea) questioned Jesus. He asked Christ if he was indeed the king of the Jews.[4] Of course, knowing he was not (in the earthly sense he understood monarchy), the Roman probably asked the question incredulously, if not facetiously.
Aware of this, Jesus’ response is telling. He was more concerned with making a distinction: “Is that your idea, or are you buying in on what the Jewish accusers have already settled in their minds?” It was a way to impress upon Pilate the value of making his own conclusion, not just assuming what the Sanhedrin had already decided.
A more famous instance of this, recorded in other gospel narratives, is where Jesus asks his Apostles, “Who do people say that I am?” However, after they answer him, we see that Jesus was not necessarily interested in what the broader sphere thought. His follow-up inquiry cracks at the most vital aspect of the passage … “But what about you? Who do YOU say that I am?”[5]
Through these questions, Jesus guided them to discern whether their belief in him was based on God's revelation or whether they stalled in the confines of groupthink.
In this respect, I think Christ’s decisions to appear to the disciples, knowing St. Thomas was not among them, may have been for a divine purpose that only Thomas was process-oriented enough to work through.
And if I am correct in that belief, perhaps that purpose was not to paint Thomas as Christianity’s ultimate doubter, but to showcase him as something far more significant.
In an era of American Christianity, where “strong faith” is seen mainly as unquestioningly adopting various propositions and defending them as certainty without nary a thought, I wonder if Christ was giving the rest of the disciples, and us, an example in Thomas—an example of what the process of greater revelation and stronger faith looks like.
And I wonder if that example was ultimately to tell us that genuine faith is not a race to see who can most swiftly claim certainty.
Like the other Apostles, Thomas was with Jesus for three years or so, but he was the last to see him rise.
Like the other Apostles, Thomas was used to calling Christ “lord” (a title that in those days was not a statement of divine recognition but of fealty), but he was the first among them to refer to Jesus as God!
This juxtaposition is incredibly significant, but almost always overlooked, when “Doubting Thomas” is preached. It is also why it is so common to hear Jesus’ final words in this sequence interpreted as a rebuke of Thomas to sell a “leap before you look” brand of faith.
However, when Jesus tells Thomas, “Because you have seen, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed,” he is not admonishing the Saint.
He recognizes that Thomas’ declaration demonstrates that his faith has yielded an understanding of who he (Jesus) truly is, which now exceeds that of the other disciples. His faith was arrived at through the trial of doubt and not derailed by the siren song of “just accept what we believe” when he was holding out for divine revelation.
“Because you have seen, you have believed.”
Believed what? “That I am God.”
Remember, upon seeing Jesus, “… the other disciples told [Thomas], ‘We have seen the Lord!’”[6] They confessed that they saw the Lord alive. Only Thomas admitted that he was seeing God.
Whereas seeing Jesus was not enough to elicit such a declaration from the others, something about Thomas’s path to this revelation is informative.
Jesus appears to be referencing Thomas’ process of faith in a way that anticipates the Ascension. He uses Thomas’ faith to point beyond. An example for all those who will NOT even have the luxury that Thomas did, and yet will come to accept, as a process of faith, that Jesus is God.[7]
As the author of Hebrews would later define faith, Thomas’s was based on “substance” and “evidence,” not groupthink. As much as he probably wanted all of it to be true, he didn’t let that persuasion define the reality he was relegated to.
That we so commonly assume this is a weakness in Thomas, as opposed to a strength, defies the nature of faith, as defined by the author of Hebrews.
So, before we get too harsh on Thomas, let’s not forget He was NOT doubting Jesus. He was doubting what he was being told.
Thomas was not a “leap before looking” sort of guy.
For this, St. Thomas should stand out among the disciples for the more profound revelation his process of faith afforded him alone and how it was intended to stand as something greater for the early Christians who would never have laid eyes on Christ like he had.
NOTES
[1] John Calvin, “Commentary on John—Vol. II,” at Christian Classics Ethereal Library. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom35.html#formats. Calvin’s specific statement is, “The stupidity of Thomas was astonishing and monstrous; for he was not satisfied with merely beholding Christ but wished to have his hands also as witnesses of Christ’s resurrection. Thus he was not only obstinate, but also proud and contemptuous.” [2] D. A. Carson, The Pillar New Testament Commentary—John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 656. [3] Matthew: 22:37. [4] John 18:33. [5] Matthew 16:13–16; Mark 8:27–29; Luke 9:18–20. [6] John 20:25. [7] Carson, John, 659.
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