But you feel, I dare say, that, though you might be impressed by the
stories of such an apparition, you could not feel certain that the
apparition represented any reality; there would be no definite proof
that the witnesses of the apparition were not under the influence of a
delusion. Well, I will admit that there would be no proof of the
ordinary kind, that is to say, no proof such as is conveyed through the
senses about ordinary terrestrial phenomena; but I think you might feel
certain; only it would be that kind of certainty which is largely bred
from Faith and Hope. And this sort of certainty, and no other, appears
to me that which was intended to be produced by the Resurrection of
Christ. His manifestations were unseen and unheard save by the eye and
ear of Faith. If the proof of His resurrection had not depended upon
Faith, then the Roman soldiers would have seen His material body
miraculously issuing from the shattered sepulchre, and the companions of
Saul would have both seen Christ and understood the voice that cried,
“Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” If we could ascertain exactly the
historical basis for the account in the Fourth Gospel of Christ’s
manifestation to the doubting Thomas we should probably find—supposing
that we were really justified in treating the account as historical—that
there was in Thomas a strong desire to believe, combined with a strong
sense of the impossibility of attaining adequate proof. As in the life
of Christ, so in the resurrection of Christ, conviction appears never to
have been forced on any entirely unwilling unbeliever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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