+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
So, who else watched Conclave this week? I admit I did, despite it seeming a bit ghoulish, but I’ll chalk it up to the fact that I figured it would be top of mind among both the talking-heads and ordinary folks in the coming days, and I wanted to be able to follow “the discourse.” My thumbnail review of the film: eh… it was alright. Some have praised it as amazing as art and social commentary, others have slammed it as an anti-Catholic or even anti-Christian hit piece. I don’t thing either extreme is right. It was just okay.
I will say, and without getting into spoilers, I’m not sure if the main character had much of an arc; whether or not he developed. This question is apposite today, because he seemed to be defined from the beginning as inhabiting this uncomfortable ground between faith and doubt. This is a reality most of us experience at some point or another in life, and it’s not to be reckoned a fatal moral flaw. That said, I’m always a bit suspicious with art and literature which begins by positing the practical epistemic and theological value of doubt (which is real) but then doesn’t take it any further, which doesn’t seem to lead to any resolution other than maintaining doubt as a virtue in itself rather than the path to a greater faith. I’ve not read the novel on which the film is based, but I have read some articles and interviews which suggest that the book might imply that the Holy Spirit has a role in the way the plot unfolds, as opposed to its film adaptation, every point of which can be empirically justified, even when it’s sometime a stretch. Anyway, that’s my one rather big criticism of the film, though it’s entirely possible I’m not giving it enough credit and am simply falling victim to my own need for clarity and certainty in a knee-jerk fashion. So, as they say “YMMV” (your mileage may vary).
I bring all this up because this week we get our annual reminder of poor “Doubting Thomas.” In previous sermons on this text I said that we miss the point of the story if we turn Thomas into a charicature – the icon of incredulity – whether we lambaste his doubting ways or affirm them as the saint par excellence of modernity and scientism. His life as a whole and his response to this Risen Lord in particular is more rich and nuanced than that straw Thomas. Unlike the protagonist of that movie, Thomas has a character arc, in which his doubt is transformed into greater faith.
So I want to focus not on the doubt itself, but what grew out of it- a stronger belief and a commitment to living out that belief as an apostle after the Resurrection. The more I consider doubt as a part of the believer’s life, the less ready I am to to say anything definitive about it. Some would reckon doubt of any sort a serious moral failing. Unequivocally denouncing all who would question their beliefs can lead to a shallow sort of faith or, even worse, to the kind of unquestioning obedience to a set of beliefs and actions which strikes me as an element of cults rather than true religion.
On the other hand, there are those who would elevate doubt itself to a kind of article of faith, as ironic as that may sound. Such an approach might hold that one must question everything to come to any kind of certainty about anything. Now, I love wrestling with hard questions, and I think new insights often depend on our being open to admitting we were mistaken about something. That said, if doubt is the primary mode of religious imagination, it seems to me we’ll never be able to find our footing. We’ll be captive, it seems, to infinite regress. What’s more, such an approach is helplessly individualistic, finding no recourse to the community of the faithful, the communion of saints of which we are a part, and, thus, more-than-a-little arrogant. No, it seems, if we’re to have any foundation at all, it must be upon convictions which have by some process and at least to some extent been inoculated against doubt. I happen to believe the deposit of faith is trustworthy because it developed by the direction of the Holy Spirit over the course of hundreds of years. Even if one doesn’t believe that, it seems to me manifestly obvious that I am not as smart as the Church Fathers, and edgelords on the internet sending tweets and making youtube videos are far less circumspect and careful in their analysis than those who wrestled with the finer points of the theology of, say, the Incarnation and the Resurrection within communities of faithful inquiry and Christian practice.
However, we shouldn’t view doubt and faith as moral antipodes, but rather as spiritual givens? Each, no doubt, abides alongside the other. Thus the father of the epileptic boy in Mark’s Gospel can without self-contradiction proclaim, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”
The blessedness of those who have not seen and yet believe, then, does not make them morally superior to Thomas, but simply spiritually better off in the moment. It is what is done by the seed of faith, no matter how small, no matter the concomitant doubt and fear, by which we are judged. That mustard seed of faith was enough to raise Thomas from doubt and despair to a heroic life spent, even to the last, in service of the Gospel.
So must we acknowledge our misgivings, our uncertainties, our lack of perfect confidence and ask the God of all confidence to give us the strength to persevere in belief and in trust that he will not leave us comfortless. We’ll not be on the wrong path so long as we keep praying for that assurance, so long as we can honestly say, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”
+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.