One of the things which has always bothered me about the bible is the way in which Jesus, after the resurrection, seems to give Thomas grief for trying to determine, using evidence, what is true:

Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"

But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"

Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:24-29)

It's important to note that Jesus did indeed entertain Thomas's doubts, and was more than willing to answer them. But why, I always wondered, was it wrong for Thomas to want to see with his own eyes? After all, it's not like resurrections happened all the time. And didn't Jesus place a strong emphasis on seeking the truth? ("Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.")

So it always seemed like this passage was a bit anti-intellectual. Not that that such a concern proved it was wrong, mind you. I just didn't like it much, and sometimes wished I could highlight it, as a friend of mine is fond of joking, with a black marker.

But tonight, something thought-provoking occurred: I was confronted with evidence that my view of capital punishment might have been wholly misbegotten (translation: "wrong"). I have changed my mind (at least tentatively) because I saw evidence I had never seen before. Perhaps, I thought, there is some common-sense argument by which less "intellectual" people have seen this all along, which I have been blind to. If so, then my problem was not in wanting evidence, but rather in being blind to the evidence I already had.

And whether or not I missed something, perhaps that was indeed Thomas's problem. He was, after all, an eyewitness to the life of Jesus so far.

After all, hadn't he seen Jesus perform many, many miracles? Hadn't he already seen that Jesus could resurrect the dead: Lazarus? Hadn't Jesus also correctedly predicted his own death? And didn't Jesus, at the same time, also predict his own resurrection? And when had Jesus ever lied to him or been proven wrong on any point before? Did he have any such evidence? If you'd already seen and accepted several dozen (or perhaps several hundred) miracles, it would be irrational to suddenly assert the impossibility of one more.

And what of the other disciples? Why wasn't their testimony good enough? Did Peter or Paul, or Mary or Martha regularly lie to him about what they'd seen? Wouldn't he have trusted the word of any them -- much less the combined testimony of all of them -- on a dozen other subjects? And wasn't the empty tomb there for him to inspect as well, should he wish to see it?

I'd always assumed that doubting Jesus's resurrection was the rational option. But actually, if Thomas had indeed seen and heard all these things, it would appear that Thomas was not being too intellectual or too concerned about evidence, but rather just the opposite: Thomas was actually rejecting the weight of the evidence in order to maintain his doubt. He had, in fact, put God to a test, by demanding more evidence than was necessary.

Again, Thomas's failure wasn't that he needed evidence. Thomas's failure was that he ignored the evidence he already had in favor of his foregone conclusion. Thomas wasn't pro-intellectual, Thomas was anti-intellectual, and engaged the fallacy of circular reasoning: Since I believe Jesus is dead, my friends must all be wrong. Since my friends are all wrong, there is no real evidence Jesus isn't dead. And what about that empty tomb? Who knows. But there's gotta be another explanation.

Again, Jesus gladly supplied the evidence. But had Thomas been a bit brighter, less cynical, and a bit more open-minded, he might have come to the same conclusion quite a bit sooner.

A bit like me, I might suspect.

Merry Christmas. :-)