And yet, there is a debate about the relation of faith to the signs Jesus performs. On the one hand, obviously, the signs are, well, signs. They point to the identity of Jesus. In short, the signs are supposed to bring about faith. The obvious passage supporting this notion comes from Chapter 20, after Jesus' initial appearances to his followers after his resurrection:
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Seems pretty straightforward.
However, there are places in John where a "signs faith" seems to be denigrated, at least a little bit, in relation to a faith that comes without signs. An example of this is seen in what Jesus says to "doubting" Thomas after Jesus appears to him :
Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
The passage seems to indicate that a faith which comes without seeing signs--"blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed"--is viewed as a more sturdy and deeper faith. And this isn't the only place in John that seems to throw some shade on a "signs faith." For example, from John 4:
Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.
“Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”
Ordinary things have always seems numinous to me. One Calvinist notion deeply implanted in me is that there are two sides to your encounter with the world. You don't simply perceive something that is statically present, but in fact there is a visionary quality to all experience. It means something because it is addressed to you...You can draw from perception the same way a mystic would draw from a vision.In short, our faith may rest on stories more than signs. And blessed are those who believe. But signs are still all around us, a visionary quality to all experience, if we have the eyes to see.