Proof

 5^th March 2023

 

Introduction

 

Hello and welcome to the Open Space podcast: I’m Reg Bartlett and in the chair today. You can contact Open Space at openspacescotland@gmail.com. 

 

Proof, we feel the benefit of proof, we all need to know what we think we know is valid, trustworthy, reliable and works in diverse circumstances.

 

I need to know that the brakes in my car will work. I know that brakes have failed in certain circumstances but that doesn’t affect my trust in my brakes. Mostly brakes work, they don’t fail and if they do, accident investigators will search for why they have failed so it doesn’t happen again or at least the likelihood and consequence is so affected that the risk is reduced to acceptable levels. Ahh the dreaded risk assessment!  

 

There are a range of ‘ways of knowing’. We know things because we think things through.  We try and take bits of data and turn it into information, meaningful data if you like. We try and deduce; we create a working hypothesis and see if our information supports it. Sounds good but there is a problem. Does it work in the real world? Do ideas and combination of ideas that seem sound or at least ‘sound enough’ work when we try and put them to work in the real world of life. If not, why not? Could I be biased in my thinking. Have you ever thought something was a good idea simply to find out it was the worst decision you have ever made when you put it into practice? Unintended outcomes, the situation was more complex than I first thought.   Ok, let’s think about it in another way. How about trying to understand an issue the other way round. What do I observe in the real world? Can I accept what I see? If I can’t see, hear, touch, taste or smell can I create a tool that does it for me, a tool that will demonstrate what’s happening beyond my direct senses? Can I rely on knowledge by Induction? How does the real world give up its hidden complexity? Can something be truly known, can we prove anything and if a theory is disproven once is that it, all over, back to the beginning and start again? Can I really know anything with any sense of certainty? Well, we know we can. Paracetamol helps reduce the pain of a headache or an inflamed joint, but it doesn’t work all the time in all circumstances. It works within parameters, doses, frequency and individual characteristics of the person. We even influence the effect of a medicine by what we believe about it, who prescribes it and what we are told to expect.  Amazing! 

 

In what do I put my faith and trust as ways of knowing? It’s important; can I rely simply on the world of ideas or do I need to experience these ideas in the material world as valid. Data is not information, which is not a hypothesis, which is not a theory which is not a fact, which is not a trial or double-blind trial. But they are all needed, all part of process of what makes knowing and life possible. We are not even consciously aware of all these complex processes at work all at the same time to make life in our world possible. We turn up at the G.P. tell them a story about ourselves and we expect, even demand they have a solution to the questions of our health. We are totally unaware of the complexity of the process we are involved in. 

 

It's much the same in matters of ‘Faith”. For example, am I basing my faith on simply data, information, a working hypothesis, a theory or piece of research using double blind trials and experiments. Am I basing my trust simply on ideas or practice or some kind of mixture of both. 

 

What we value, how we tend to act, what we believe, how we change how we live and behave over time is complex. Simply reducing it to one element of the knowledge process will affect the outcome of living our lives. Singular bits of data are less reliable and generalisable than a field trial. 

 

In John 4

 

Jesus Returns to Galilee

⁴³ When the two days were over, he went from that place to Galilee ⁴⁴ (for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honour in the prophet’s own country). ⁴⁵ When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival; for they too had gone to the festival.

Jesus Heals an Official’s Son

⁴⁶ Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. ⁴⁷ When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. ⁴⁸ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Unless you^[g] see signs and wonders you will not believe.’ ⁴⁹ The official said to him, ‘Sir, come down before my little boy dies.’ ⁵⁰ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your son will live.’ The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. ⁵¹ As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. ⁵² So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, ‘Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.’ ⁵³ The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, ‘Your son will live.’ So he himself believed, along with his whole household. ⁵⁴ Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

 

Jesus makes his way back to Galilee to Cana; in fact to where some claimed Jesus turned water into wine. He was also now known through what happened in Jerusalem at the ‘Festival’.  The clearing of the Temple got Jesus a reputation.  But for what? ‘A wine making social and religious radicle?’. The people seem to know what they have seen and they welcomed Jesus. They seem to have eyes to see but what exactly are they seeing? Who are they welcoming? 

 

I have met many people who identify as Christian. It never ceases to amaze me why they call themselves Christian. They seem to welcome Jesus but what they see in him is very varied.  What data, information, hypothesis, theory is circulating about Jesus? How can we know? There appears to be two strands of evidence circulating now: wine making and Temple clearing. And then something strange happens at lease strange for us in the 21^st century. 

 

A Royal Official, a Senior Civil Servant if you like comes to Jesus and asks him to come and heal his sick son. Jesus mind seems to on other things he says to the man, ‘Unless you^[g] see signs and wonders you will not believe.’ Mnnn, is that what the man was asking for a ‘sign and wonder’. Is this man simply seeking some evidence of Jesus true identity, is he not truly having a last-ditch attempt to save his son, is Jesus perhaps looking and talking at the man but actually speaking to a wider audience? The man believes Jesus when he says his son will live. A word only statement, but the man believes and goes on his way; he meets up with his staff the next day and they tell him, all is well, and that his son got better at the time Jesus said he would the previous day. The outcome was that whole household is told the story and they believe; but believe what? What have they got evidence for? What is their lived experience confirming for them? 

 

Now we have three incidents and two signs. Wine making from water, clearing a temple and healing a very sick child. The is some narrative between these stories about purity laws, ethnic identity and gender identity and now a healing. What is John the author telling us. Are we expected to know something? 

 

The answer is yes. To even remotely see what’s going on here John is making a big assumption and its this. He assumes we know at least the outline of the story of the Hebrew scriptures. The gospel of John is continuation of the meditative literature tradition of the Hebrew people known as the TaNak or as Christendom renamed this literature the Old Testament. 

 

John is continuing a way of formulating knowledge. It’s quite different from how we do it today. As we have considered a bit earlier modern western natural science and social science are the main player in our culture for at least official knowledge. There are many other ways to know things and explore truth statements: poetry, art, music, literature, philosophy, history, archaeology family stories, gossip, superstition, tradition, institutions, religion, conspiracy theory and direct experience. The list goes on! These are all used in our culture. The next time you are being told something by someone ask yourself how they know what they telling you is true. How do you know you can trust what I’m telling you? What are my sources?  You may surprise yourself and end up more than a little cautious about what you believe as ‘True’. 

 

John in the First Century Middle East is part of a Hebrew literary meditative tradition that is culturally situated in Roman occupied Israel and has added the lived experience of a Rabbi called Jesus of Nazareth as a lens through which to understand history, the present and what the future could hold. 

 

To understand what John is writing we need some of his information to make sense of the story. Usually, in my experience people are not taught this or  the information made available to them for them to consider, to meditate upon, to reflect on and come to a knowledge of the truth about the way things are. We have been taught to rely too much on tradition and institutions. ‘The story of Rabbi Jesus means what the Church says it means?’ Really? What church, from what part of history and what will you own and disown? 

 

The cultural background, the language and our own forms of knowledge will shape what we conclude, or perhaps meditate on, hold lightly, gently, respectfully valuing others opinion, respecting diversity and holding disagreement peaceably. 

 

The alternative way to consider Jesus is to be always looking for ‘Signs and Wonders’. The Heaven and Earth story of Jesus and the Hebrew people  gets replaced by a Heaven and Hell story of the Romans and Greeks. Knowledge by deduction over knowledge by induction, the lived experience. The bible records the lived experience of the Hebrew people by a large number of interpreters and writers, rewriters and redactors producing a literature full of meditation potential as a vehicle for us to be part of the making of a world fit for all  of us to live in free from poverty and want. Tim Mackie (there is a source) calls it a ‘minority report’. He is suggesting that the bible is attempting to speak ‘truth to power’.  But is that our experience of it? The bible has often been an abused document by the powerful to kill the truth. The story of Rabbi Jesus meets us in the here and now. It does not tell us what to think but gives material to begin thinking, reflecting and meditating on what makes a good world. Surely that’s worth more than as Jesus put it; signs and wonders.   

 

 

So what do you make of the story of a people who welcome a winemaker, a temple clearer, a challenger of the religious establishment and its ownership of the sacred writings, a baptiser and healer. Are any of these themes linked to anybody in the TaNaK? If so what is there identity and what are the references. Who is it that the scriptures speak of? What is John trying so say to me 2000 years down the line? Why should it be important to me? 

 

The questions just keep on coming….. Here is some reading for you. You can use and online bible like Bible Gateway to look readings up its easy…. Go on have a go and see some of John’s sources of knowledge and what he thinks about them…. 

 

Isaiah 25: 6-10

Psalm 69

Isaiah 53

Isaiah 40

 

And may your mediation bring you peace as you pray…

 

"Blessed are you O' Lord King of the Universe Who has fulfilled all of the law through Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah and have covered us with His Righteousness.’

 

Amen….