"Do You See?"

Adam's prize was open eyes,
His sentence was to see.
Day by day, he's worn away
Against reality.

--Tom Rush

In his book The Essential Jesus John Dominic Crossan reduces the "authentic" sayings of Jesus to what he thinks were arguably their pithy originals (on the simple premise that time "improves" those quotations we remember, usually adding words and elaborations that weren't original, but are "better").  One of them that he attributes to the historical Jesus of Nazareth is:  "You have heads, use them!"

There are some places in the gospels where Jesus upbraids his audience:  "He who has ears had better listen!", is usually what he says.  Interestingly, Jesus never asks for insight.  He never asks "Do you see?"  Of course he never apparently asked "Were you listening to what I said?"  He's a bit more elliptical than that:  "He who has ears had better listen!"

"You have heads, use them!"

We privilege sight above all other senses.  Taste is irrelevant, except to infants, who put everything in their mouth to taste as well as smell, see, touch, and hear (does it rattle?  Bang?  Echo hollowly?).  But taste is for food, and we have few words for it, fewer metaphors (any meat that isn't beef "tastes like chicken."  Right?).  Sight takes pride of place.  "Do you see?," is usually a metaphorical inquiry, not a literal one.  Seeing is equated with understanding.  "Seeing is believing!"  Well, no, believing is believing; seeing is subject to deception (ask Penn & Teller).  "Pics or it didn't happen!"  What, I can take a picture of the moment I fell in love?  I can photograph my desires, affections, hopes, fears, dreams?

We never mean it that literally, of course, but our favorite metaphors for accepting or understanding relate to seeing.  So why doesn't Jesus ever say:  "Do you see?"

In the synoptic gospels the things that would most make people "see" that Jesus is something more than human are called dunamis.  This means "power," or more clearly "acts of power."  It is, per the synoptic writers, the power of God at work in the healings, the feeding of the 5000, etc.  John's gospel is different, and takes the metaphor of sight head on.  Now, is that because sight has become the metaphor it is today, probably through the Greek culture prevalent in that region of the Roman Empire?  Is it peculiar to the situation of John's community?  Hard to say, but in any case John calls the miraculous acts of Jesus semeia, or "signs."   Semioitics has taught us to pay attention to signs and signifiers, and I'm not sure if that's a great leap forward or simply looping backward to yet another strand of human history and culture, taking it up again as if it were new.  We are more and more inclined to reinvent the wheel and rediscover fire and think we've done something significant (a sign!).  In any case, John called the changing of the water to wine at the wedding in Cana a "sign," the first Jesus presented.

Do you see?

But John is ambivalent about the signs.  Jesus makes no claim for himself at the wedding; the groom is credited with saving the best wine for last.  Nobody acclaims Jesus and follows him that day.  When Jesus does signify (semiotics also teaches us to pay close attention to how we talk about signs and sign-ificance) in John's gospel, it's almost a challenge to the audience.  As Jesus says to Thomas after the Resurrection, it's better to hear and believe than to see and believe. The signs are treated as almost a distraction.  At the last supper in John, Jesus talks for three chapters, but he never institutes the Eucharist, the ultimate Christian sign. We still don't agree whether the sign is literal, symbolic, or both and a little bit of neither. In John's gospel, Jesus doesn't say "This is my body, this is my blood." John doesn't want Jesus pointing to anything as a sign.

This comes up in the question asked of Terry Eagleton, and his response.  The occasion is a lecture, which runs for about 42 minutes, and the first question, which appears on the video at about 43 minutes.  Thanks to TC there is a transcript of the question:

43:41  Stuart Ritchie, Psychology Department.  I hate to ask such a sublunary question, um, but do you actually  have any evidence for the existence of God because it seems to me that you can talk about how nice you think the emperor's clothes are and how fancy they are and all that but it doesn't really matter if the emperor isn't actually wearing any clothes at all.  Um, and in fact, you don't seem to be, I don't know who your talk is aimed at, 'cause you're not going to convince any atheist because you haven't provided any evidence for the existence of God and you're not going to convince any religious people because you've basically told them what they believe is not actually what, say, Christianity is.  So I'm not entirely sure where your lecture is aimed. 

The link to our discussion is Eagleton's response, because he calls this kind of question the "Yeti" question.  That is, proof of visual evidence of the Yeti would prove the Yeti's existence; and so, apparently, visual proof of God would prove God's existence.  This is not, contrary to what people like Stuart Ritchie think, a new problem:

Isaiah 64:1-9

64:1 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence--

64:2 as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil-- to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!

64:3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.

64:4 From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.

64:5 You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.

64:6 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

64:7 There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.

64:8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.

64:9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.

I've used that before, but there you are.  Second Isaiah, crying out for God to make an appearance, to prove God's existence, if you will, as he did in the time of Elijah:

So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel. 21And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word. 22Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the LORD, but Baal’s prophets are 450 men. 23Let two bulls be given to us, and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. 24And you call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the LORD, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.” And all the people answered, “It is well spoken.” 25Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many, and call upon the name of your god, but put no fire to it.” 26And they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice, and no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made. 27And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” 28And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them. 29And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. No one answered; no one paid attention.

30Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” And all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the LORD that had been thrown down. 31Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the LORD came, saying, “Israel shall be your name,” 32and with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD. And he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two seahsa of seed. 33And he put the wood in order and cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood. And he said, “Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” 34And he said, “Do it a second time.” And they did it a second time. And he said, “Do it a third time.” And they did it a third time. 35And the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water.

36And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. 37Answer me, O LORD, answer me, that this people may know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” 38Then the fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. 39And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The LORD, he is God; the LORD, he is God.”

1 Kings 18:20-39

Ah, yes; dem was de days!

But, you see (!), Stuart Ritchie doesn't see (he is the wise child in the Andersen fairy tale about the unclothed emperor), and therefor it is not.  Except, as Eagleton goes on to reply, you don't "see" love, either; does that mean it is false?  And so we are back to John's way of handling the subject:

Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Signs, you see, signify.  But what they signify is not always apparent, and not always so clear.  And we seldom look beyond the sign to the signification.  Take a STOP sign.  We read it, we follow it's direction, even in a private parking lot where (under Texas law, at least), it has no significance.  We follow it because it signifies the power of the state through law to enforce the command written on the sign.  But we seldom look beyond the sign itself; we just reflexively obey.  John doesn't want us to do anything by reflex.  If we saw the fire from heaven burn the wet wood and consume the water in the trough, would  believe?  In what?  If we saw the water turn to wine at Cana, would we believe? In what?  And why?  Because it is true, and the truth will set us free?  Or because it appeared to tell us something, and then we decide what that is?  And which is truth?

"You have heads, use them!"

I think about these things when I get bored with the news of the day, the reading of which is something of an addiction I need to break.  Now you'll excuse me, there are some shocking historical photos on the internet I need to see.