Did Jesus teach Fideism to Thomas?
Fideism is the idea that Christians should believe in Jesus work of salvation without any evidence or proof. A passage that is often cited in support of this is from Jn 20. Thomas refuses to believe until he personally touches and sees the risen Jesus. He sees Jesus and believes without touching. Then Jesus says, " Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." This is taken by many in churches to mean that one should believe in Jesus without any proof or evidence whatsoever (Fideism). And points exactly like this are often made by atheists as well. I find that Atheists are not so much former Christians who were abused by the church. I'm sure that has happened many times. But my experience has been that Atheists were simply taught incorrect things at church. And they reject the faith based on what it is not instead of what it actually is. In the case of the doubting Thomas passage, the strongest ...