Doubting Thomas

As a child, I attended the local Baptist Church and also went to their Sunday School. I listened to many sermons and stories and I remember that one figure from The Bible was mentioned repeatedly in a negative light. This was Thomas, always given the prefix "Doubting", and he clearly represented something that we should not do – we were told that his doubting meant that he had a weak faith in Jesus and the Resurrection. As Sunday School teachers and Baptist Ministers were important figures to me at the time, I went along with this and tried not to be a doubter myself.

Thomas gains his reputation from a passage in The Holy Bible [1]:

John 20:24-29

But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

So Thomas was cautious and wanted reassurance that events had taken place, something that received a mild rebuke from Jesus, who implied that belief was enough, without the need for evidence. It's a scene that has been reinforced in many religious paintings over the centuries (a selection being given below to convey the emotional flavour). 

The story of Thomas, and the way it was interpreted, was only part of my growing doubts about the Christian religion and I found it impossible to accept everything that was presented to me. Perhaps this was because, even as a child, I was a committed Natural Historian and asked myself questions about animals and plants that I saw and needed to find answers - but there are many Natural Historians who have an unquestioning faith in Christianity. There is no better example than Philip Henry Gosse FRS (1810-1888), for whom all of Nature was evidence of the power of God.

Henry Gosse was so disturbed by ideas on evolution that were circulating in the mid Nineteenth Century that, in 1857, he published Omphalos as a means of resolving differences between the time scales of Lyell's Geology  and those of the Biblical account. In Omphalos, Gosse put forward his idea that Creation occurred a few thousand years ago and that all rock strata and fossils, that Gosse knew must be many millions of years old, came into existence at the same time. He coined the term prochronic for this phenomenon. Predictably, his ideas were dismissed both by scientists and by Christians, dismayed at the thought that God was playing tricks with us. As David Knight remarked in Science and Spirituality [2], the result was that:

Gosse's explosive Omphalos, contrary to his intentions, made the literal reading of Genesis impossible for thoughtful people..

All this stemmed from Gosse's unshakeable faith in the literal truth of The Bible. In an Appendix to The Naturalist of the Sea-Shore [3], Henry Gosse's second wife, Eliza, wrote this:

He studied the Bible as he would study a science. He must know what each separate portion was about, who the inspired writer was, what he was wishing to say, and for what purpose it was written; also how it was connected by prophecy or quotation with the New Testament, either in the Gospels or in the Epistles. He was microscopic in his readings, and in his interpretations of the Word of God, for he most implicitly believed every word of the original languages to be Divine, and dictated and written, through the writers, by the Holy Ghost. These languages, through their antiquity, are necessarily obscure; thus he was content to leave many passages and even chapters unexplained, satisfied that they never contradicted each other.

This description is telling as Henry clearly wanted to know as much as possible about all the Bible had to tell and had the same sense of enquiry that he used in science. However, the sections that could not be explained were accepted as being divinely inspired and that was a matter of faith.  What would Henry have thought of Doubting Thomas, someone who sought evidence? His view was probably similar to that of my Sunday School teachers, with Thomas perceived as questioning the basis of faith rather than seeking reassurance about a very significant event.

Henry Gosse led his own small Christian group that met in a chapel near his home in Torquay and this encouraged his insularity. He was not only the leader, but also gave the regular sermons and his congregation looked up to him and took on board all that he said. Henry's isolation meant that he received few challenges from those with whom he could debate, but he did have a Doubting Thomas in his own family - his son Edmund - and the breakdown of their relationship was deeply hurtful to both of them. It was documented in Father and Son [4] and is a sad story. Henry was a fascinating and warm man, with a wonderful ability to communicate his deep interest in Natural History. However, his attachment to his own religious principles caused not only a split with scientific and religious communities but also with his own son, for whom he cared deeply.

Henry might have done what was right for Henry but, as David Knight points out, he damaged other people's ability to access the very things that he believed in.

[1] King James' Bible http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/

[2] Eliza Gosse (1896) in Edmund Gosse The Naturalist of the Sea-Shore: the Life of Philip Henry Gosse. London, William Heinemann.

[3] David Knight (2004) Science and Spirituality: The Volatile Connection. London, Routledge.

[4] Edmund Gosse (1907) Father and Son: A Study of Two Temperaments. London, William Heinemann.

Two wives in Heaven

It is difficult to imagine a more devout Christian than Philip Henry Gosse, the great Victorian Natural Historian, writer, illustrator and lecturer. His faith seems to have been absolute and it was kept so by his belief that the Second Coming was imminent and that this required a constant state of preparedness.

Gosse needed his faith at the time of the illness, and subsequent death from breast cancer, of his wife Emily in 1857 when he was 46 years old. He was certain in the knowledge that they would be re-united in Heaven and he promised Emily that their only son Edmund (later Sir Edmund) would also be with them. Gosse’s need to ensure this led to a break down in the relationship with Edmund, who did not share his father’s beliefs and wilted under the constant pressure put on him to “walk closely with God”. It wasn’t like that when Edmund was young, as they were very close and supported each other through their bereavement, rejoicing when Edmund was baptised as a boy to be a full member of the Brethren. The closeness, and subsequent conflict, between the two are recorded in Father and Son.¹

After Emily died, Gosse moved to Torquay and immersed himself in collecting marine organisms, building aquaria to observe them and continuing with his writing and painting.² After a few years, he met Eliza Brightwen and they married in 1860, being devoted to each other for the rest of Gosse’s life. Edmund liked Eliza and they, too, enjoyed a harmonious relationship, even after Edmund and his father had fallen out.

You will notice that I have only mentioned Gosse’s first names once in this blog post. 

To Emily he was Henry, as we see in the opening of A Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast: ³

 “You are seriously ill, Henry” said my wife; “you have been in the study a great deal too much lately; you must throw it all up, and take a trip into the country.”

Yet to Eliza, he was Philip. In an Appendix to Edmund’s The Naturalist of the Sea-Shore: the Life of Philip Henry Gosse ⁴ (in which he always refers to his father by the first of his two Christian names), Eliza writes:

“All these recreations [describing collecting marine creatures] were a great rest to Philip Gosse’s active brain, as the exercises and air were healthful to his body, and to me they were a source of very great enjoyment”

It seems probable that Edmund used Philip rather than Henry to please his step-mother, who was clearly involved in the production of the biography. However, he also refers to his father as Philip Gosse in Father and Son. ¹ Why the change? Was Philip just for formal usage, or could it be that Henry (for consistency and a sense of closeness, I always refer to him as Henry ²) had to reconcile that there would be the souls of two wives with him in Heaven and that this differing use of first names was a means of overcoming a possible conflict? No-one knows and it is a difficulty that must be faced by many Christians who have a second marriage, a step that seems very sensible after the trauma and loneliness of bereavement has passed a little. Is it possible for there to be jealousies in Heaven, or are souls above such things? This is a genuine question based on my lack of theological knowledge and I have no intention of being flippant here. Rather, I am intrigued by the usage of the two first names. Was it to indentify his second marriage as a new start, or was there another reason? Was it Eliza’s choice, also adopted by Edmund? Did Henry still refer to himself by his second name, the familar one used only by members of the family? He usually signed Philp Henry Gosse or P.H.Gosse, so there are no clues there.

¹ Edmund Gosse (1907) Father and Son: A Study of Two Temperaments. London, Heinemann.

² Roger S. Wotton (2020) Walking with Gosse: Natural History, Creation and Religious Conflicts. e-book available from all good e-booksellers.

³ Philip Henry Gosse (1853) A Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast. London, John van Voorst.

⁴ Edmund Gosse (1896) The Naturalist of the Sea-Shore: The Life of Philip Henry Gosse. London, Heinemann.