The Will to Believe

by Robert Hamerton-Kelly

A character in Dostoievsky’s once well-known novel, The Brothers Karamazov, says that Thomas believed not because he saw the risen Jesus but because he wanted to believe, because he willed himself to believe. Thus the novel reveals something of its historical context by raising the question of the relationship between what we usually call facts on the one hand and interpretation on the other. Dostoievsky was involved in the cultural wars of a Russia trying to decide whether it was a West European culture or a culture sui generis, unique in more than the banal sense. Western culture at that time, - the second half of the 19th century, - appeared to Russians to be a culture of rational enlightenment based on empirical science. By giving priority to empirical reality, the reality that can be apprehended by the five senses, - taste, touch, sight, hearing and smell, - such an enlightened culture claimed to be able to do away with the retrograde dimensions of tradition and the superstition of folk and state religions. It presented itself as progressive, a term that would be used proudly until the end of the Communist experiment in 1990. In the novel Dostoievsky, - who had himself experienced a conversion away from progressivism during six years in a Siberian labor camp for treasonous work on behalf of a progressive movement, - contrasts with it a conviction of the spiritual depth of the Russian peasant and the holiness of mother Russia. Rather than Western scientific progressivism the essence and therefore, the future of Russia, is a spiritual plant that grows from the dense roots of peasant faith, sunk in the soil of holy Russia. The will to believe is a fruit of this plant, and the will to believe is our theme today.

Dostoievsky’s claim that Thomas believed not for empirical reasons but for reasons of the will, is our starting point in trying to understand the Gospel passage about  “Doubting Thomas.” In what sense is Thomas a doubter?  In the sense that he refuses to accept the witness of the other Apostles; but the narrative allows him to get away with this because he is himself an Apostle and thus entitled to see for himself and not just rely on the witness of others. Seeing for himself is part of the definition of an Apostle. In what sense then is he one who wills to believe? In the sense that he interprets what he sees correctly, that he reads the signs accurately. The important thing is not just the event of the Resurrection, but the event plus the right interpretation, and it is in the realm of right interpretation that the will to believe plays its part. Thomas wills to believe that the resurrection means that Jesus is “Lord and God.” In the same passage John tells us how and why he composed his gospel. “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. These however, have been recorded so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that thus believing you might have life in his name (20:30).” The appearance of the risen Christ is a sign, and Thomas interprets it correctly to mean that Jesus is his “Lord and God (20:28).” Thus he wills to believe.

We might notice that Thomas does not do what he at first demanded, namely put his finger into the nail prints on Jesus’ hands nor insert his hand into the wound in his side. The simple possibility of doing that is enough, and thus we see a first step away from the empirical. We move from the demand to see and touch in the most crude and intimate way to seeing alone, and then we move again, farther away from the empirical, to believing without seeing. “Because you have seen me you have believed, “ says Jesus to Thomas, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe (20:29)! ”

Those who believe simply because of what they hear from others are equally blessed with the Apostles who not only hear but also touch and see. It seems that the earliest preaching of the Gospel, - that Christ died for our sins and was raised on the third day, according to the scriptures, - took place as an attestation by those who had experienced it, of the full empirical presence of Christ after his death, together with the interpretation of it as the inbreaking of Life into our world of death. Our Epistle reading confirms this: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes and beheld, which our hands have handled, - the Word of Life – (Life in fact appeared and we saw him and now we attest and proclaim to you that the eternal life which was with the Father appeared to us) – so we announce to you what we have seen and what we have heard, in order that you might have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. We have written these things to you so that your joy might be fulfilled (1 John 1:1-4).”

The Apostles heard, saw and touched, the recipients of the letter merely read about it, but the Gospel of John calls them equally blessed with the Apostles who heard, saw and touched. We too are the readers and if we accept the message of the letter as true we shall be equally blessed with the Apostles, we shall be united with them in the fellowship of the church, united with the source of Life, and, as the letter says, our joy will be “fulfilled.” The letter has been sent to us so that we might know the truth about the Resurrection and have our joy perfected. So the Apostles heard, saw and handled, and we merely read their testimony, but may be fully blessed in that reading. Many people seem to want to be Apostles before they will believe, are not content to believe the apostolic testimony alone. They wait for a special sign, an uncanny moment, an oceanic feeling, before they will believe the truth of the apostolic witness; they live by experience, meaning specially profound and moving moments, rather than by faith; but Life for us who are not Apostles comes through faith and faith alone, that is, through hearing, reading and believing the testimony. We believe without seeing, touching, or handling. We merely read the letter and accept it. We will to believe.

Let me end with this account of the faith experience of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She is to be beatified this coming October and as part of the process of investigation of her life there have been published letters she wrote to her spiritual advisors. Mother Teresa was a nun of the missionary order of Our Lady of Loreto, teaching in the convent school in Calcutta and enjoying all of the satisfactions of the life of a religious. She had many of what Catholic spirituality calls “consolations,” that is, moments of special joy in the divine presence, of the vivid sense of the presence of Christ. One day in 1946 – September 10th to be exact - as she rode the train from Calcutta to Darjeeling, Christ appeared to her and commanded her to leave the order of Loreto, put on the tunic of the poorest of the poor and go out alone on the streets of Calcutta to succor the dying. It was not a call to social work. From her correspondence we learn that Christ said to her: “I want Indian nuns, Missionaries of Charity, who would be my fire of love amongst the poor, the sick, the dying, and the little children…” She would often say that the chief purpose of the Missionaries of Charity is “not to do social work but to adore Christ in the littlest and weakest of his children…” (Carol Zaleski, “The Dark Night of Mother Teresa,” First Things, May 2003, p.25).

She gave up her deeply satisfying life as a religious to obey Christ, and from that moment on the frequency of the consolations diminished and after a year ceased altogether, and for the rest of her earthly life. We know from her letters that she felt at times that she had lost her faith. Christ seemed to have abandoned her, and through 50 years of work with the poor she was bereft of spiritual comfort. Nevertheless, there now exists the worldwide order of the Sisters of Charity and many centers where the destitute are succored and Christ adored. As I read this I thought of the words of our text, ‘You have believed because you have seen, blessed are those who believe without seeing.’ Blessed are those who believe the witness because they will to believe it, who go on without consolation. Who knows what marvelous work they are doing for the Lord?

So we can experience God, even hear, see and touch him, if we are Apostles, but we need not. Those who never have an experience that they can identify as God, never see, never hear a call, never receive a consolation, or have a mystical experience, are perhaps more blessed than the converted, called, and consoled, if they will to believe and persevere. Experience is ambiguous and ever changing, only the will can be firm. So let us all, consoled or not, will to believe, and then get on with it.

Amen.