(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for Believing & Seeing, originally shared on February 8, 2021. It was the eighty-eighth video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
It’s been said that “seeing is believing”.
Is it? Today we’re going to look at both the truth and the limitations of that
statement, and how the statement “believing is a way of seeing” is also true
and limited. And, how we can benefit from both ways of seeing.
Remember the two-colored dress controversy.
It was a picture online of a dress which some saw as black and gold, and others
saw as white and blue. Others have popped up since.
People looking the same image see it very
differently based on how the brain “sees” color in light.
I
posted a picture yesterday of what look like two cushions, one grey and one
white. Yet, if you put your finger over the line in between, they both appeared
to be grey.
One commenter on another site said that, “Shading
influences your eye. Kinda like truth. It can be distorted depending on how
it’s shaded.”
Is seeing always believing? Can our senses
always be trusted? Is truth what we see or what we believe?
It’s been said that we don’t see things as
they are; we see things as we are.
It can be argued that the role of science is
to force us to not do this, but to see things as they are.
And that’s possible, up to a point. After
that, we see things in light of certain assumptions about the way the world
works.
Science also seeks to remove the assumptions
that aren’t true.
But, it can only do that under the
assumption that the only things that are real and true are the things that can
be measured numerically or confirmed physically.
Everything can be described and measured
numerically or confirmed physically on a superficial level. After that, we have
to start making non-scientific philosophical assumptions, such as that nothing
exists that can’t be understood numerically or physically, which seems to be
just to convenient. That is, that we always pass the tests that we write for
ourselves.
For example, if everything has a cause, what
is the first cause?
If beauty can be completely described with
mathematics, why does it inspire?
Where does the inspiration for double-bind
experiments come from, and why?
What do you see when you look at a stained-glass
window? If it’s daytime and you’re looking at it from the outside, you see a
dark brown blob. If you’re looking at it from the inside, you see colors and
patterns, and meaning. If it’s nighttime, the opposite is true.
Day or night, what is making the difference?
The light.
*John 8:12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of
life.”
Science gives us one kind of factual knowledge.
It uses principles that have been shown to be consistent in the material world
to describe the material world. That’s all it can do. It can’t speculate on the
purpose of life or what exists that cannot be measured and therefore
controlled. It can’t say that a thing cannot exist because it can’t be described
with material laws. It can’t say something has no meaning because it has no
measurable form.
The contribution of science has been a
blessing and a curse on the human race. Look at where we are in the pandemic. We
are happy that science is focused on an effective vaccine to thwart a global
pandemic, and not another weapon of mass destruction like, say, a biological weapon,
for example.
There are lots of people floating all kinds
of theories about the origin of COVID-19, the reason for its spread, the nature
of the vaccine. What science has done for us is give us easily verifiable
reasons for having confidence in effective means for slowing the spread of
COVID-19 like wearing masks, washing or sanitizing our hands regularly, maintaining
social distance, avoiding crowds, staying at home unless providing an essential
service or seeking one, and so on, more reliable treatments, and vaccines that will
stop it in its tracks. People have lots of opinions about these things, and everyone’s
entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.
Sally and I have received our first vaccine doses and will get our second in a
few weeks.
Revelation is another kind of knowledge. It
is a kind of knowledge that can only be revealed by God. Its contributions have
also been a blessing and a curse, as by itself, it is very difficult to tell
who is telling the truth.
And, the stakes are high. Who does and does
not speak for God?
*Deuteronomy
18:18-22
You tell who is speaking for the Lord by
seeing if what they prophecy takes place or proves true.
But, how do we do that in real time? What
would you make of this story, and the many like them?
I read a feature in Readers Digest a few
years ago called something like, “The Best Salesman I Every Knew”.
In one of the stories, a man told of being a
new employee on the sales team of a company with an excellent sales department.
He was sent out to shadow one of their best sale persons.
One of their company’s clients was a small
church in the rural south. The two salesmen attended an evening meeting of the
board to make their pitch in back corner of the worship space. When their
presentation was finished, the president of the board said that he needed to
bring the matter before the Lord.
He excused himself and went to the altar and
prayed.
The president returned and said, “The Lord
said, ‘Wait’”.
The supervising salesperson excused himself
and also went to the altar and prayed.
Then, he returned and said, “He’d like to
speak with you again.”
Did the salesperson speak with the Lord? Did
the Lord change his mind? If not, do you think God is pleased by this kind of
cynicism. Seems kind of self-serving on the part of the salesman, but how would
you know?
Reason and Revelation.
Reason and revelation can both be our guides
but they both need to be rooted in the truth.
We use our reason and seek God’s revelation.
We look to our experience and to the Word and the Sacraments, with one as a
check on the other.
And, we exercise humility, knowing that, as
Paul writes at the end of 1 Corinthians 13, verse 12:
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then
we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even
as I have been fully known.
How do we know the truth?
*John
18: 37-38 Pilate asked him, “So you are a
king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for
this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belong to the
truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”
Jesus answered a few chapters earlier
in the Gospel of John, we see the conversation with Jesus’ disciples:
*John
14:5-6 Thomas
said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the
way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one
come to the Father except through me.”
How do we seek the truth? You’ve heard that
phrase, “the truth will make you free” it comes from the Bible and is usually
quoted out of context and thrown in our faces. Here is in its context, just a
few chapters earlier from the verses we just read:
*John 8:31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue
in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the
truth will make you free.”
The truth is a person, not a proposition.
How do we determine the truth?
How do we determine the truth?
We don’t. We discern the leading of God, the
Holy Spirit. Yes, that is very subjective but that’s how God works, with
people. We consider the whole testimony of the Bible, the witness of the Church,
our reason and the voice of God within us, through Creation that declares the
majesty of God, Jesus, the Light of the World, and through the Holy Spirit, the
streams of living water.
That is the blessing of both reason and
revelation, seeing and believing, comes from the eyes to see and the ears to
hear the movement and the voice of God.
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