Faith and Doubt
- Apr 20
- 4 min read
“Many people mistakenly believe that faith is the absence of doubt. In reality, faith is the ability to move forward despite doubts. The Apostle Thomas did not reject faith; he just required personal confirmation to strengthen it—he needed a personal meeting with Christ. His doubts did not make him weak; on the contrary, they helped him come to a deeper understanding. And Christ did not condemn St. Thomas for this—He gave him what he needed. Similarly, everybody should experience this very personal meeting with Christ in their lives. After all, the Lord does not avoid our questions: He waits for us, like Thomas, to reach out and touch Him, even if not physically, but with our hearts.” (Ariadna Nefedkina)
“There is a jocular, scornful expression: “Doubting Thomas”. It is fundamentally unfair. The Apostle Thomas was neither an atheist nor a skeptic. He was a man who devotedly loved his Teacher and always remembered His words that after Christ there would be false teachers and false prophets who would pose as Christ. That is why he was slow to believe rumors and tales, even from his closest and most devoted friends. Thomas himself wanted to make sure to see the Risen Christ. He did not want to build ideas about the Risen Savior on the basis of the other apostles’ testimonies. He himself wanted to be “initiated” into the mystery of the Resurrection of his Teacher. That’s what living faith is—an incessant personal search. It is not the fear of asking yourself questions or even doubting something-—it is an unceasing movement towards God. The “unbelief” of the Apostle Thomas is not a denial or rejection—it is a voluntary departure from the original faith, born from hearing—which the Apostle Paul mentioned—to a contemplative faith, which alone is capable of fully uniting a person with Christ in a living experience of communion with Him.” (Hieromonk Kirill Popov)
“Thomas, called the twin, was absent when you came to your disciples through closed doors, O Christ. He refused to believe what they told him, But you did not reject him for his faithlessness. When he saw your side, and the wounds in your hands and feet, His doubts vanished and his faith was confirmed. After both seeing and feeling you, He confessed you to be neither and abstract God nor merely a man. He cried: Glory to you, my Lord and my God!” The hymn is clear that Christ does not reject Thomas for his lack of faith. Disbelieving is not sufficient cause for Christ to reject one of His chosen disciples. Indeed, the hymns see the doubt of Thomas as being blessed, for all of us might have moments of doubt. If one of Christ’s chosen Twelve has difficulty believing in Christ risen from the dead and Christ does not reject him, then we all can take heart when we doubt, for Christ will be merciful to us as well.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“Thomas doubted the news of the resurrection because he was not present when the Risen Lord first appeared to the disciples and said that he would not believe unless he saw and touched His wounds. When Christ appeared again eight days later, He told Thomas to do precisely that. Thomas responded by recognizing Him as “My Lord and my God!” This encounter demonstrates the profound importance of Christ’s bodily resurrection for the Christian faith. Simply put, there would be no Christianity without it.” (Fr. Philip LeMasters)
“Faith is a gift from God; it is more so a decision. We decide to believe in God, whom we cannot see with our eyes or touch with our hands as did St. Thomas before he believed. We decide to trust in God when circumstances are beyond our control. We decide to be followers of Jesus Christ when the world around us dictates otherwise.” (Fr. Joseph Irvin)
“Faith is God’s gift; it is not something of which we are fully capable, for we are flawed and doubt-ridden…I often have to remind people that to doubt God’s existence is no sin. What matters in a moral sense is what we do with our doubt. Do we let it fester in us so that slowly it begins to infect first our prayer, then our relationships and finally, having sucked every vestige of hope out of our hearts leaves faith completely dead?” (Dynamis 4/4/2014, Hieromonk Maximos)
“Faith is not logical certainty but a personal relationship, and because this personal relationship is as yet incomplete in each of us and needs to continually develop further, it is by no means impossible for faith to coexist with doubt…Yet doubt does not in itself signify a lack of faith. It may mean the opposite – that our faith is alive and growing…Faith is not the supposition that something might be true, but the assurance that someone is there.” (Dynamis 2/9/10, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware)
“Faith is a principle of questioning and struggle before it becomes a principle of certitude and peace…our faith journey is a movement from seeing our faith as an “interesting uncertainty” to an “incomprehensible certainty.” (Thomas Merton, Gerald Manly Hopkins)
“It is not about never doubting, it is about coming out on the other side with twice the faith you had going into your doubt." (Beth Moore)
“God never leaves Himself “without evidence of himself and his goodness.” [Acts 14:17] Rain and good crops, for example, are evidence of his goodness. Later Paul wrote that this evidence in nature leaves people without an excuse for unbelief (Romans 1:20). When in doubt about God, look around and you will see abundant evidence that He is at work in the world…When you doubt, don’t turn away from Christ; turn to Him…The presence of doubt does not imply an absence of faith. Christ honors whatever faith we have and will increase faith when we sincerely desire Him.” (Life Application Study Bible, Acts 14:15-18, Matthew 11:4-6, Orthodox Study Bible, Mark 9:17-27)
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