Summary: The following text is both a theological reflection and a focused study—not a leisurely read. Its aim is to challenge the commonly accepted popular interpretation of John 20:29b—“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”—by showing that it does not reflect the true intent of the author. The verse should not be read as opposing faith and experience. Rather, it reflects a key principle of the spiritual tradition: crede ut intelligas—believe in order to understand, that is, to reach an experiential understanding. Faith in the Risen Lord must come first; only then can the experience of His presence follow. This summary offers the central thesis for readers who may not have the time or energy to study the full argument.
I – Clarifications on John 20:29b
Introduction
When we hear this beatitude: “Blessed are those who believe without seeing,” we sometimes give it the following meaning: “Do not try to see the divinity of Jesus; it cannot be seen on earth. On earth, one must believe and remain in the obscurity of faith. Therefore, do not act like Thomas who wants to see; believe. And that is more meritorious.” However, this interpretation does not conform to the spirit of the Gospel, which promises the pure in heart that they shall see God. How, then, should we understand this verse?
When one reads the passage towards the end of which it is inserted, it appears that this concise beatitude seems to transcend the text. Yet the Gospel account of Thomas’s disbelief cannot be separated from the final saying (“blessed are those who believe without seeing”). In fact, the apostles say to him: “We have seen the Lord.” What we are asked to understand here is: how did the apostles “see” the Lord?
Is it a question of the simple vision of the senses and of the intellect, which we are all capable of, or rather of the “seeing” made possible by their faith, now purified through the Passion? We can say that their way of seeing Jesus is that of someone resurrected with Him (transformed and sanctified). Let us also note what the Lord does for Thomas so that he may see, through faith, His divinity: He gives him measurable signs for the senses—“put your hand.” And He invites him to open his heart to His Divinity. We can say that, through the Holy Spirit whom He communicates to him, the Lord elevates the mind (heart) of Thomas to a supernatural functioning and thereby enables him to see His divinity. He will express it as follows: “My Lord and my God.” He now sees, through faith, the Divinity! Only faith allows one to see the Divinity, to attain it. What is flesh is flesh; what is spirit (divine, supernatural) is spirit (see John 3:6). Only faith, only the spirit can see the Spirit. It is only through the Holy Spirit that we are made capable of seeing Jesus, His Divinity.
Let us now try to penetrate the meaning of this beatitude: “Blessed are those who believe without seeing,” for it seems to govern our entire life.
Locating the Verse
Before beginning, let us consider the context of this passage within the Gospel. It is found at the end of the Gospel according to Saint John, more precisely just before the conclusion of the first ending, where the Evangelist explains the reason for composing his Gospel: “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). The central theme of John’s Gospel is simple: to believe. The passage immediately preceding this conclusion—the appearance to Thomas— acts like the final brushstroke completing the formation of the believer. In the Hebrew mindset, what comes at the end is not of lesser importance than what appears at the beginning of a work. Quite the contrary.
The Veiled Prohibition
In this passage preceding the conclusion, there is a kind of veiled prohibition: one must not desire to see in order to believe; one must not show oneself to be unbelieving (cf. John 20:27). It is worth trying to understand the precise meaning of this implicit prohibition, because it concerns our act of faith and the divine life (to be received) that flows from it.
The Usual Interpretation and Its Insufficiency
Commentators usually say: he touched the humanity of Christ, he touched the man and believed in the divinity; he confessed God. But is that sufficient to explain the “seeing” and “believing” of this beatitude? “Seeing” would mean touching the humanity of Christ, and “believing” would be believing in His divinity. In that case, the prohibition would be not to touch Christ, not to seek to see in order to believe, not to seek tangible, visible proof. Yet this explanation is inadequate, because: what role, then, would the signs performed by Jesus in the Gospel of John play? These signs aim to show Jesus as man and to suggest His Divinity through His actions. They are aids offered to the human heart so that it may open itself to the action of the Spirit and be able to believe (that is, to “see” the Divinity of Jesus).
The Word upon Which Our Faith Rests
What makes us say that the previous explanation is insufficient is the fact that “faith comes from what is heard” (Romans 10:17); faith presupposes that something is heard, that something is seen beforehand. One cannot make an act of faith in a void. One must somehow “see” a formulation of faith, “see” a word given by God. For this to happen, God must first reveal Himself in order to invite us to make an act of faith in what He reveals. We must learn that the Word became flesh in order to believe in Him.
Note: Hence the insistence of Saint John of the Cross in Ascent of Mount Carmel II, 22, urging us to fix our gaze upon Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of the knowledge and wisdom of God, in whom dwells the fullness of the divinity (for the divinity is the end towards which the act of faith is directed; it immerses us therein). Saint Teresa of Jesus summarises her teaching in this exhortation: “Fix your gaze upon Christ.”
To deprive the act of faith of a prior “given” which must be “seen” (in the sense of “understood by the intelligence”) is to prevent it from existing. One sees Christ as man and confesses His divinity. One sees the host, one understands the priest’s words saying that it is the Body of Christ, and then one can make an act of faith. It is like looking at light through a stained-glass window. The tangible “given” of faith is the stained-glass window. But the goal toward which faith leads us is the light itself that passes through the stained glass. We see the bodily Christ, and then we enter into His humanity in order to discover His divinity hidden within it. From now on, says Saint Paul, I no longer know Christ in a human way (2 Corinthians 5:16). Seeing Christ two thousand years ago did not guarantee the act of faith. The Pharisees, and many others, saw Him and did not wish to believe.
We thus perceive a kind of sacramentality of faith. There are the formulas of the Creed. They are necessary, but we must use them to touch and penetrate what they conceal. Saint Thomas Aquinas clearly states that the act of faith brings us to the content of the words (and not to their outer shell). The act of faith leads us to the very reality that is professed. This sacramentality of faith is given to us through the Incarnation of the Word. In fact, when God wished to speak to us in fullness, “He spoke to us through the Son” (Hebrews 1:2). Thus, Faith came into being. Cf. Galatians 3:23,25 concerning this expression: “Before faith came, we were held in custody under the Law, confined for the faith that was to be revealed. […] But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.”
So, it is not that kind of “seeing” that the Lord refers to when He asks us to believe without seeing. On the contrary, this kind of “seeing” is necessary (though it must, in a certain sense, be surpassed from within). What kind of “seeing” then is meant?
The “seeing” to be avoided
In His farewell discourse, Christ says that it is good for the apostles that He goes away; otherwise, the Holy Spirit will not come. “It is better for you that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you” (Jn 16:7). One might think that He could have remained in His risen state and not ascended to the Father. One might also suppose that, for the faith of the disciples, it would have been good if He had remained with them in this way until the end of time. No. For He says to Mary, “Do not cling to me […] I am ascending to my Father” (Jn 20:17). If He desires that through our act of faith we might attain God in Him in all fullness and purity, then everything that is not purely God must disappear.
Going to God “through the flesh” or “through the Spirit”
We know that we can apprehend God in two ways. In other words, our act of faith can take on two modalities: one divine and the other human.
Note: “To apprehend” in the scholastic sense of the term, that is, to approach through the intellect. It is one of the first steps the intellect takes in order to approach an “object” and then understand it.
One is good, and the other is bad. One gives us God, who is uncreated, while the other gives us something created (a kind of distant and created echo of God). “What is received is received according to the mode of the one who receives it.” “God is spirit” (cf. Jn 4:24); He cannot be apprehended by the flesh—that is, by the human mode. “What is born of the flesh is flesh, what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Jn 3:6). “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail.” (Jn 6:63). “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.” (Jn 8:23).
He desires worshippers “in Spirit.” “True worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth” (Jn 4:23). The Spirit is the Holy Spirit, and the Truth is the Son. It is through the Son and in the Spirit that one worships the Father.
The origin of the act of faith
The act of faith is born of God; it proceeds from Him. It is God who makes man capable of making the act of faith. “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn 1:12-13). “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 16:17 and parallel). “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail.” (Jn 6:63).
It is God who gives man His own divine mode. “No one can come to me unless it has been granted him by the Father.” (Jn 6:65).
While revealing Himself to man, while speaking to him and inviting his faith, He simultaneously offers the help of the Holy Spirit in order to elevate his understanding and introduce it into His light.
Only the Son apprehends (or knows) the Father in a perfect manner—but He also enables us to do so in Him and with Him. Such is our true act of faith (“See below: Connection between the ‘seeing’ and the beatific vision of Christ.”).
Here are some citations to illustrate this sort of “closed” circle within the Trinity: God alone knows Himself perfectly and eternally. But this circle gives itself. God elevates man and allows him to enter into His circumcession (the circuit, the circulation of divine life) to enable us to participate in this knowledge that God has of Himself. This is eternal life: “that they know you, the only true God” (Jn 17,3); “No one knows who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Luke 10,22); “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (Jn 1,18); “It is […] what we have seen that we testify” (Jn 3,11); “What he has seen and heard, of that he testifies” (Jn 3,32); “No one has ascended into heaven [that is, no one knows God as He knows Himself], except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven” (Jn 3,13).
Summary
We can summarise the steps of the act of faith as follows:
1- See:
It is to understand (with the intellect). It needs to be done. It follows the “rule”: “Understand in order to believe.” Example: Mary at the Annunciation asks for clarification: “How will this be?” “What should I believe?” In fact, the act of faith is based on a word or on signs that have meaning. We believe a word. Therefore, there must be a minimum to understand beforehand in order to make the act of faith.
Note: It is worth noting in passing that Mary’s act is based on a word: “Let it be to me according to your word.” Furthermore, she had, beforehand, sought to understand it by asking questions to the Angel of the Lord. This was her right. It is the first “understand” or “see.” Hence the importance of carefully meditating on the Word of God in order to understand what He wants to accomplish in our lives. The reading and meditation of the Law of the Lord (the Bible) greatly nourishes the faith, because the act of faith is based on this first “seeing” in order to launch towards its object. To distance oneself from Scripture severely weakens the spiritual life. This is something one can verify for oneself. Our saints have been deeply attached to Scripture. It should be noted that our Rule, which draws from the purest tradition of the Desert Fathers, has this point as its central precept.
(1′)- See:
To want to taste either with an intellectual clarity or with the senses. This is to be avoided. Because what is “seen” here is something created. While God is uncreated (can’t be seen). It is a wrong desire to understand (3-) before having believed, before having made the leap of faith. “Give me to see before I open myself to the light of God.” One does not participate in the movement of the act of faith.
2- Believe:
This act needs to be made. It is made with the help of the Holy Spirit. “Believe (in order to understand).” It is the leap of faith. it is the opening of one’s heart, one’s intellect to the content of the Word or to the divine reality.
3- See:
See God with the spirit (receptive mind). It is the Goal of Christian life. “(Believe to) understand.” This is a knowledge. Believing here obtains for us an experience, a knowledge of Jesus-God. See Ascent of Mount Carmel Book II,26,1-11. Having made the act of faith, one receives the light to understand.
“It is no longer because of your words (first ‘understand’) that we believe; we have heard for ourselves (inner intelligence: knowledge), and we know that […]” (Jn 4:42). “Because I told you: I saw you under the fig tree, you believe. You will see even greater things. And he said to him: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.'” (Jn 1:50-51). “[…] if you believe, you will see the glory of God”(Jn 11:40). “We have seen his glory” (Jn 1:14). “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (Jn 1:18).
The Fulfillment of the Act of Faith: To See
As we saw earlier, the entire Gospel of John aims to bring us to believe. But this faith gives us life: “[…] that by believing you may have life” (Jn 1:31). Life is found in the Word of God: “In him was life” (Jn 1:4). But life is the light of men (see Jn 1:4). Therefore, faith leads us to the light! Saint John could have said: “All this has been written for you so that you may believe and, by believing, you may see.”
Believing is not seeing. But believing makes us see. Believing introduces us to the light of God. The act of faith is a participation in the Light, who is God.
We have a regrettable tendency, in the name of faith, to choose darkness. However, there can only be darkness because of the distance that separates us from God. This is what Saint John of the Cross will explain in The Dark Night of the Soul: God seems dark to us because His light infinitely exceeds our ability to see; we are as if blinded by it. But God invites us, through the act of faith, to participate in His light. Therefore, faith, in its deepest nature, leads us to vision.
At first, the human being tends to perceive the light of God as something obscure. But gradually, the more he is transformed by it, the more he is illuminated. And he sees!!
Why Thomas Refuses to Believe
In fact, Thomas refuses to believe that:
- Christ has risen
- It is He who appeared to the apostles in His absence.
There is a lack of humility here. The Act of Faith Always Requires Humility. As we see, the act of faith comes from God and is therefore to be received. It is God who invites our action. If there is no humility, we refuse to receive, we want to rely on ourselves. This is presumption and pride. Elizabeth says: “Blessed is she who has believed,” and Mary responds: “He has looked with favour on the humility of His servant.” Mary thus summarises what happened at the Annunciation: it is an act of humility in which she accepts the action of the Holy Spirit in her: then she makes her act: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord [she makes herself available without conditions, without delay, without turning back], let it be to me according to your word.”
He does not allow himself to be guided by the Holy Spirit, who is urging him to make the act of faith. He wants a proof that Christ is risen. The word of his brothers is not enough. He acts as if a tangible proof will lead him to believe. But this is a mistake in such an evaluation. This is the reaction of the rich man in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man: he says to the Lord: “Send someone to warn my brothers.” Abraham’s response is: “If they did not listen to Moses, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:30). Similarly, Jesus says to the Jews: “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39-40). “To want to listen” is the challenge.
A sign or a word from the apostles would have allowed him to open himself to the resurrection. The act of faith is a free act that the Holy Spirit wants to realise in him. Moreover, if he lacks humility, if he does not want to be guided, if he does not want to abandon himself into God’s hands, even if he sees Christ, this will not be enough. A trustworthy word from the apostles is sufficient, for it is from that word, just as from his touch of the risen body, that he will make the act of faith. This is the heart of this episode.
To Summarise What Has Been Said
We can thus explain this beatitude: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” in this way: Do not seek first to touch the divinity; open your heart and you will see it. Do not seek to contain the divinity by your senses and intelligence, dive into it; it offers itself to you. The beatitude of John 20:29 does not mean: “You must not see, you must believe and remain locked in your darkness.” Rather, it can be said: “Blessed [for you see] are those who believe [those who open themselves to the light] without seeing [without wanting to touch it before opening themselves].” The intelligence, in order to see, must open to the higher horizon of God, and it will then receive the light of the Holy Spirit, which enables it to see God.
II- The Holy Spirit Makes Us “See” the Divinity of Christ
Many people saw Jesus but did not recognise God in him. Think of the Pharisees. They saw Jesus of Nazareth, but they couldn’t recognise God in him. The goal of Christian life, or the goal of the Gospel, is not to make us see Jesus of Nazareth in the flesh and bones. Often, Saint John in his Gospel says this phrase: “You see me, and you do not believe.” See and believe. One might want to say: first “see” with the eyes of the body, and then instead of saying “believe,” say “see” with the eyes of the heart. Many saw and did not believe. Many saw Jesus of Nazareth, but they did not believe that he is God; they did not see his divinity, they did not recognise his divinity.
The entire structure of the Gospel of Saint John is built on the binomial see/believe. See and then believe. The Gospel, through all that it recounts about Jesus, through all the signs it relates, wants to open hearts, so that the Holy Spirit may enter and make them believe, make them see the divinity of Jesus. First, see Jesus in the flesh (through reading the accounts), or “see signs and wonders” (Jn 4:48), and by seeing, believe that he is God, “see his divinity.” “Yes, this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life” (Jn 6:40).
For John, “believe” is in fact a “higher” kind of “seeing.” “Because I told you, I saw you under the fig tree, you believe! You will see even greater things than that.” And he said to him: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (Jn 1:50-51). “If you believe, you will see the glory of God” (Jn 11:40). “I am the Light [eternal], I came into the world [I took flesh], that whoever [by seeing me in this flesh] believes in me [may open their heart through the Holy Spirit] may not remain in darkness [but may see the Light of my Divinity]” (Jn 12:46).
The goal of the Gospel is for us to be made capable of seeing the divinity of Jesus (as the Centurion said at Jesus’ death, or as the first conclusion of John says: “so that you may believe that he is the Son of God” (Jn 20:30-31)). “Seeing that he had breathed his last, the centurion, who was standing opposite him, cried out, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!'” (Mark 15:39)
Desiring today to see Jesus, or have an apparition of Jesus, etc., does not necessarily advance us. Many saw him in the flesh and bones, and they did not believe. Here are again the words of Isaiah quoted by Jesus in the Gospels: “You will look but will not see” (cf. Mt 13:14-15, cf. Jn 12:37-41). He is before them, but they do not see. Their eyes need to be opened. What is important for us, then, is to see Jesus through the Holy Spirit, to see his divinity.
It is the Holy Spirit Who Allows Us to See the Divinity of Jesus. It is important to ask for the Holy Spirit in order to see Jesus. Without it, our spirit remains thick, and our inner eyes remain blind. This is the main reproach that Stephen addresses to the elders and the scribes: “You resist the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51). It is the Holy Spirit who comes into our hearts and shows us Jesus, revealing him to us in depth.
It is through the Holy Spirit that we see God (Jesus or the Father). It is by the Holy Spirit that we see the divinity. We can see this in the Gospel of Luke, where this is emphasised several times: Elizabeth recognises Mary and the Child within her through the Holy Spirit: “And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the baby leapt in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she cried out with a loud voice and said, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the baby leapt in my womb for joy. Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord!'” (Luke 1:41-45). And in Luke 2:22-32, Simeon, upon whom the Holy Spirit rests, recognises in the child he holds in his arms the salvation brought by God. It is the Holy Spirit who warns him and shows him! “My eyes have seen Your salvation.” Similarly, it is by being filled with the Holy Spirit that Stephen is able to see God and the Son of Man: “But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, ‘Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.'” (Acts 7:55-56). The connection between being filled with the Holy Spirit and seeing God is very visible; it is clearly emphasised by Saint Luke.
Saint Paul, in his own way, shows us the necessity of asking for the Holy Spirit in order to know God, or to know Christ according to the Spirit: “For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God” (1 Cor 2:10). “Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.” (2 Corinthians 5:16) “For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor 2:11). “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3).
Saint Irenaeus also says: “Without the Spirit, it is not possible to know the Word of God; the knowledge of the Son of God comes through the Holy Spirit.” (Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, 7.)
Seeing the Son, Seeing the Father
In the Gospel of John, in chapter 14, Jesus says: “If you know me, you will know my Father as well; from now on you do know him and have seen him” (v.7), and “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (v.9). These words clearly show that knowing the Son leads directly to knowing the Father. In other words, seeing Jesus is seeing the Father, because their divinity is one and the same.
“If you know me” means that, through the Holy Spirit, we can “see” Jesus and recognise his divinity. And by seeing the divinity of the Son, we come to know that of the Father. Jesus and the Father form one divine reality. These words highlight how, through the Holy Spirit, we can fully perceive the divinity in Jesus and thus see and know God in His fullness.
III- The Link Between Our “Seeing” and the Beatific Vision in Christ
The importance of believing in the beatific vision of Christ, that is, that in His humanity, Jesus fully participates in the divinity and sees the Father, is crucial. Otherwise, the author and the accomplisher of our faith (See He 12,2) would be a blind man leading other blind men. We must once and for all put aside any repulsion towards considering Christ as He IS and recognising the act of “seeing” the Father as a grave defect. If our vocation is to contemplate the Father in the Son, how could it be otherwise?
What would the Apostles have seen at the Transfiguration, and what does it mean when Jesus says: “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:27 and parallels), and many other texts like: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8), or when Stephen sees the Son of Man at the right hand of the Father (Acts 7:56)? Saint Teresa of Jesus, in the Seventh Mansions, speaks of an intellectual vision of the Trinity.
Would it then be a defect in Christ not to remain in obscurity? This is to misunderstand and ultimately consider God to be eternal darkness! From the God Who Is Other, we end up with a God of Eternal Darkness.
A Christ who does not lead us to the Father is not a true Mediator. (According to the maxim of the Fathers: what is not assumed cannot be saved.) To lead us to the light, He must Himself be of the light. To argue that He does not fully assume our humanity, or that He does not suffer the Passion if He is in the light, is to measure things with our own yardstick (Faith means closing our eyes to any light that is not God, not closing our eyes to the very light of God. Otherwise, what does faith consist of, and where does it lead us?). Christ did not assume sin, so why should we impute to Him the fact that He does not renounce the beatific vision (we would then have to impute to Him that He did not want to assume sin to resemble us!!)? The absence of the beatific vision is a direct consequence of sin (those who sin are in darkness). He cannot assume it. He would no longer be the Mediator; He would not lead us to the divinity. There would be a rupture in the person of Christ, no union of the two natures. Holiness would mean remaining blind. But in the unique person of Christ, there is a profound unity (without confusion, however). His deepest self is that of the Word of God. The foundation of His soul plunges into the divinity; it is said in the Apocalypse that His eyes are “like a flame of fire” (Revelation 1:14)—it is the fire of divinity.
Faith requires us to close our eyes to any light that is not God, not to close our eyes to the light of God itself. Otherwise, what is faith? And where does it lead us?
IV- “We have seen the Lord,” “My God”
The apostles say to Thomas, “We have seen the Lord!” They had a vision. Who can tell us what kind of vision this was? Thomas seems to see the risk of imagination, delusion, or disturbance that one might have. He wants to make sure that it is indeed the living Jesus they have seen, and he wants to see the “numerical” identity between what they saw and the one they knew before. He seeks proof of the vision and to dismiss any risk of illusion.
Note 1: The Lord will rebuke him: “Do not be unbelieving, but believe.” But let us note that Thomas’ issue is not primarily with the resurrection itself. What he does not believe is his fellow apostles, his brothers, who claim to have seen it. The doubt concerns first and foremost the vision that the apostles have had.
Note 2: On the other hand, while the Lord asks Thomas to believe, the apostles did not have the doubt Thomas had; they believed at once, without verifying the validity of their vision. Paradoxically, they “saw.” “They said: ‘We have seen the Lord’!!!” Simply, they did not ask for proof. They did not verify. Was it imprudent of them? The Lord seems to ask for belief. Yet, St. John himself tells us to test the spirits to know whether they are from God or not. This is enough to make one lose their bearings!
Other propositions:
(They saw the Lord, but they did not see God! They say, “The Lord,” and He says, “Lord” and “God.” Is “God” included in Lord?)
They saw the Lord, and it can only be by the action of the Holy Spirit that gives them the inner certainty that it is indeed Him. Jesus would have wanted us to honor the work of the Holy Spirit, who allows belief without proof.
Let’s revisit: they saw and believed that it was Him, without “numerical” proof. But they could have been under illusion. To be like a dove alone is dangerous; prudence and discernment of the serpent are needed as well. Why then blame Thomas for not believing?
Is the testimony of the number (the apostles) enough? Not necessarily. We have seen throughout history countless crowds running after and idolising charlatans. Numbers do not prove anything.
There is indeed meaning to all these words.
Jesus associates two things: the body and the divinity in the vision: the body touches the body, but the heart touches divinity. But the body is the way to certainty, the sure channel to divinity. He touches the body, says: “My Lord,” and touches the divinity, saying: “My God.”
Jesus then says: because you have seen, you have believed. Because you have seen the numerical identity, the door of My body led you to My divinity, and you saw it too! Because you saw My body, you saw My divinity.
One could interpret the beatitude this way: Blessed are those who have not seen (like all of you here gathered) My resurrected body and who have believed (who will reach divinity) in My divinity.
He did say: “My God,” because he saw something, and through the door of His body, he entered into the divinity. He too saw the Lord!!! His divinity. So it wasn’t a “wild” vision, it was something very profound. It is not about seeing the Lord’s body, it is about seeing His divinity and then saying: “My God.”
In conclusion, we understand the prudence of several of the Church Fathers (especially perhaps those of the East) who consider this Gospel not as a reproach to Thomas but rather, by his “doubt,” it leads us to true faith. The Coptic Church celebrates “Thomas Sunday,” and Thomas’ attitude is praised and celebrated there. It is thanks to him that we believe in the resurrection of the Lord, in His divinity.
Let us also note that just two verses later, St. John solemnly concludes his Gospel by explaining its own dynamics: “These (the signs that Jesus did) have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God (that is to say, God), and that by believing (by entering into divinity), you may have life in His name” (Jn 20:30).
A more literal translation gives: “Put your finger here and see [with your fingers, meaning touch them, but touch them by the Holy Spirit] My hands, put your hand and enter My side” (the verb “enter” is very strong, and it seems this is the vision [“we have seen,” “My God,” the blessed faith: entering into divinity]).
Thus, the Gospel of John leads us, through the signs, to the vision of divinity. It leads us to this very deep statement: “My God.” A clear affirmation of the divinity of Christ. But this can only be made through the power of the resurrection, by the Holy Spirit. It is another way of “breathing” (“He breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20)), and of communicating the Holy Spirit. The Gospel leads to this affirmation, to this goal: to see God. “I want to see God,” said St. Teresa, “we want to see [the divinity of] Jesus” (Jn 12:22), said some Greeks.
- “No one has ever seen God” (Jn 1:18a)
- “It is he who baptises with the Holy Spirit [who makes the divinity visible]” (Jn 1:33)
- “Where are you staying? […] Come and see. They came and saw where he was staying.” (1:38-39)
- “Come and see!” (Jn 1:46)
- “You will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man!” (Jn 1:51)
- “Do you believe [that I am …]? You will see greater things than that.” (Jn 1:50)
For John, to believe is to see!!! - “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” (Jn 11:40)
- “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I Am.” (Jn 8:27)
By seeing me on the Cross, you will see my Glory, my divinity. And here is the decisive moment: “One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth—so that you also may believe. For these things happened that the Scripture might be fulfilled: […] ‘They will look on him whom they have pierced.'” (Jn 19:34-36) By looking at him, they will receive the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood. By seeing the Son of Man in his Passion, Isaiah saw his Glory (Isaiah 52-53): “And to whom has the arm of the Lord [his divinity] been revealed? […] Isaiah said this because he saw his glory and spoke of him [alluding to Isaiah 53].” (12:38-41)
The Gospel of John is the story of a vision of God to which we are gradually called. So finally, imagine someone coming to a priest saying: I have seen the Lord. What will he do? It is written: test the spirits to see whether they are from God. So he will not simply put that person to the test, but will try to see, to discern whether this person is otherwise well-balanced, whether he or she leads a normal life, etc. And one can only praise the prudent attitude of that priest. Thomas, it seems, does the same: he wants to check whether this is not a shared hallucination on the part of men who are deeply downcast after having lost everything, a bit like the disciples of Emmaus who said: “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel; but besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place!” (Luke 24:21) and who are locked in for fear of the Jews. They must have undergone a sort of collective psychosis that produced hallucinations or something similar. Thomas says: no. I want to make sure this is not an illusion, that it is a real being whom you have seen, and that it is indeed the Jesus we knew and who was crucified and who died. Can Thomas be reproached for this attitude? No.
Light shed by another passage
Let us now start from another reproach of Christ and use it to shed light on the reproach addressed to Thomas: “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Here too, there is a reproach for lack of faith. But it touches on another issue: that of the link between Christ’s suffering and death (which are a scandal for those who followed him) and the resurrection. They did not see how to combine the necessity of both. Now we see that with Thomas, we are indirectly in this same issue. Thomas knows him dead, he is sure of it. He was crucified and the spear pierced his heart. That he knows perfectly well. Up to that point, he follows Christ. Beyond that, he knows nothing!! Everything seems to end with death. He is shaken. His faith is shaken, because he does not know the Scriptures, and he lacks understanding, he does not see that crucifixion and death were the path he had to take. He wants the continuation of the one he knew. He does not want a vision. So let us return to what the reproach of lack of faith consists in. For saying: do not be unbelieving but believing, does not tell us: believing in what. Even if the text is implicit and it is faith in the fact that he is risen. Jesus says: “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” To be believing in John, enlightened by Luke, then means: see, penetrate with your understanding moved by the Holy Spirit into the Scriptures, and understand that all this was necessary. That this stone which made your faith stumble had to be there: the Passion. The necessity of the scandalous Passion. The Passion was the great scandal for the faith of those who followed Jesus. The edifice they had built in following him, admiring him a bit like one admired the Temple (“Teacher, look, what large stones and what large buildings!” Mk 13:1) collapsed in a few hours, the dream they had formed vanished in the storm of the Passion. The structure made by human hands did not hold up. It was not faith in Christ that was the bond linking them to him. It was a sincere attachment, certainly, but still human. There was not the penetration of faith, which goes beyond a human attitude, and which is moved by the Holy Spirit and makes us reach God himself as he is and not as we had formed him in our head or in our heart.
Yes, faith pierces, through the Holy Spirit, appearances and makes us reach God himself.