Jesus, paradox, and John's Gospel

How can something be hidden and un-hidden at the same time, clear to children and unclear to the better educated? How is it that something which Jesus’ disciples can hear is in a sense completely un-hearable to others at the same time? To some people this may be a contradiction. To others, it’s a paradox that is only explained by an underlying truth.

For instance…

When Jesus says his words are for those who have ears to hear, he is answering his disciples’ question of why his words go misunderstood. It’s the sort of enigmatic reply that Jesus is known for. Even the phrase “for those who have ears to hear” is curious. It’s a humorous word picture, not a statement of philosophy. Some people who have ears are like people who don’t have ears, Jesus is saying, and therefore they are like a deaf person even if they heard every word he said. Confused?

I’m going to talk about the Trinity. Many people would run a mile at the thought. Discussion of the Trinity has been appropriated by philosophers for well over a thousand years. In my book on the Trinity, I take the subject out of the realms of philosophy and into the world of semitic thought, a world of word-pictures rather than logic statements, where thoughts are often conveyed in narratives and images without explanatory notes.

What's explicit about pictures?

It’s not an easy thing for many in the west to get their heads around this. Western intellectual thinking long long ago had a paradigm shift that separated it from semitic ways of thinking. Valid in its own way, western rationalism serves many useful and important purposes. But it can be tone deaf to the music of the Bible. How do we attune our ears to the world of semitic thought? It’s not just a different way of seeing, but more like different eyes to see with. It’s not just different ways of hearing, but in Jesus’ word-picture, a matter of having ears at all. It’s not irrational, but it is different.

Let me make an analogy that people in the west can understand more readily. Ikea furniture instructions. The sort of instructions that come with pictures and without words. Because they are sold in different countries that speak in different tongues. Ikea know that a picture of a plank and a screw means the same everywhere, and it is most efficient for them to sell their product with universal pictures rather than multiple translations. But what happens when you take it home and try to put it together? One person will be in a state of frustration complaining to a partner that “the pictures are not very explicit,” only to be told annoyingly by their partner, “yes, they are.” The partner will, to their irritation, say, “Look the pictures show you that this size screw goes into this size plank on this side.” And the first person moans again, “That’s not explicit to me,” and the second person just doesn’t understand why the pictures are not clear and explicit to the first person. And it's frustrating at times because Ikea have decided that explicit images are more valuable than explicit statements. I'm using the two different meanings of the word explicit: visually clear and not hidden; or verbally explanatory to remove doubt as to meaning.

The first person might have been happier if Ikea furniture came with well-written verbal instructions alongside the pictures. Because that is some people’s key idea of explicit. But not everyone's. Ikea believe the diagrams are explicit (tested by people's ability to readily follow and understand them).

Another example. Which is more explicit for a child reading a Janet and John book, the picture of the red ball in the air, or the statement – here in the English language - that “the red ball is in the air”? To the child, of course, the image is clear and explicit and sufficiently so, but the English adult wants the child to learn the explicit statement in the English language. It is possible to be verbally clear and explicit only because it has a clear and explicit image first. But, as we become more educated, we forget that the image is clear and explicit, because verbal reasoning becomes dominant over the visual in Western thought. In fact, part of the problem is that we use the word explicit in the two different senses of the word, and we have a view as to which is more important, a bias for the verbal over the visual. 

So much so that if you ask an adult in Britain what it means to be speak of an explicit image, their brain will reach for a qualifier: e.g. “Do you mean sexually explicit images?” (Meaning that there are body parts that are not hidden.) Or we might think of explicit violence in a movie. But change the context, and the language is used casually. The Ikea image is “not very explicit,” but the television footage of a footballer committing a foul in the penalty area “is pretty explicit.” We know the conversation: the foul tackle is pretty explicit in the TV pictures, but not from where the referee was standing at the time. Eyes to see, ears to hear. We still know an explicit picture when we see one. Basically, explicit means that the object, the ball in the air for instance, is fully in view and not hidden. This is rather different from what a philosopher defines as “explicit,” which means that a verbal statement is clearly explained beyond doubt. And the historic problem with understanding the Trinity is connected to the fact that discussion of it has been appropriated by the intellectual verbal discipline of philosophy, and it is hard for Western philosophers to stomach the idea of their discipline ever being subordinate to the word-pictures and narratives of Scripture. It's a bit like the dichotomy between a silent movie and a talkie - in the early days, many critics thought silent movies the superior art form, communicating truth through explicit and implicit imagery, whereas most films later came to be dominated by dialogue. (The rise of CGI has shifted the balance back a bit.)

Jesus claims that there are things that are explicitly clear to children and simultaneously hidden from adults. Contradiction or paradox? 

Another way of Jesus putting it: there are things that are straightforwardly knowable but only to those “who have ears to hear.” Contradiction or paradox? 

It’s paradox in the sense of an apparent contradiction that leads to underlying truth. An image is only clear and explicit to your understanding if you can focus your eyes on it. Jesus is saying that his words are misunderstood only if your ears are not attuned to them.

There is a terrific youtube channel which analyses Beatles recordings to observe oddities that listeners have probably never noticed, with the premise that once you hear this, you can’t unhear it. That’s a great way of putting it. My book on the Trinity does something similar. As I said, in my book I take the subject out of the realms of philosophy and into the world of semitic thought, a world of word-pictures rather than logic statements, where thoughts are often conveyed in narratives and images without explanatory notes. Pictures that, once you see them, you can't see them.

The temple word-picture

I show for example the picture of a triune God in 2 Chronicles 5-7. There we have the word-picture and narrative of God in heaven listening to prayer whilst God's Name resides in his earthly temple and God's Glory fills that temple. I show it to people and we find that once you see it, you can’t un-see it. Being Western thinkers, we can be immediately tempted to try to appropriate it hastily back into the language of philosophy and wrestle with questions such as, where are statements about “being” and “persons,” but the point of my book is to retrieve it back to semitic thought until we have grasped it. The force of explicit propositional statements and the force of explicit word-pictures can amount to two different things. 

The place to start understanding the Trinity is the word-pictures and narratives of semitic thought.  Borrowing the language of science for a moment, we make our observations first. We look at the word-pictures first. We can posit our logic theories afterwards. But we can’t start with abstract theories and project them back onto the Bible. That is precisely not the way to read the Bible at all. That is not letting the Bible speak to us. Remember how the Ikea pictures are clear and explicit in meaning to one pair of eyes and not to another. Remember how the footballer’s foul tackle is explicit in the TV pictures but yet was not from where the referee was standing at the time: once you see it, you can't un-see it.

When Jesus spoke in paradoxes, he did so to makes us think, but not to make us only abstract thinkers. He did so to make us ask, why are we not hearing what others can hear? Why are we not seeing what others can see and understand clearly and explicitly? The ball is in the air and not at all hidden. We can’t solve the problem by being Western rationalists. Other worldviews are available, worldviews communicated in word-pictures and narratives.

Paradoxes in John

Another example. John’s Gospel is a tour de force of paradoxes. John wants to make us think, but not merely to make us abstract thinkers. That’s why he communicates his paradoxes in word-pictures and narrative. Here is an example.

This is by way of a meditation on John chapter 20. Here Jesus says, the Father is “my God, and your God” and later Thomas calls Jesus “my Lord and my God”.

That’s a thought-provoking contrast, but that’s not all. In this chapter, Jesus tells Mary not to touch him and this is when Jesus says to her that the Father is “my God, and your God”; and a few verses later Jesus tells Thomas to touch him, and this is when Thomas calls Jesus “My Lord and my God”. It’s a striking juxtaposition. Here are the verses from John 20:

John 20:17, 27-29: ‘Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not;

for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God…

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.’ (KJV – out of copyright!)

 

This is surely a deliberate contrast - what do we learn from it?:

- Jesus’ first command, not to touch him,

when Jesus says to Mary that the Father is

“my God, and your God”;

and then

- Jesus’ second command, to touch him,

when Thomas calls Jesus,

“My Lord and my God.”

 

The way John relates the resurrection narrative is surely intended to make us think about these two moments together.

The first excerpt emphasises Jesus’ humanity in relationship to the Father - before and after the resurrection the human Jesus has a God, the Father. This is as a Christian expects, for Jesus “had to be made like his brothers in every way” (Hebrews 2:14, 17). We, who are flesh and bone, have a God to worship and so therefore must the flesh and bone Jesus.

The second excerpt presents his humanity (ie ‘touch me’) and his divinity {‘my Lord and my God’ says Thomas to him}. Contradiction or paradox?

John’s gospel climaxes as foreshadowed in the prologue: the divine Word made flesh (John 1:1, 14). In his humanity Jesus is a flesh and bone man (John 1:14) whose God is the Father (John 20:17); at the same time, Jesus in his divinity (John 1:1) is ‘my God’ (John 20:28). So Jesus is Thomas' God. 

(And yes, this leads to worship. Notice how in Rev 5:13-14 the Lamb is worshipped. Some may doubt this, but then note in this context Rev 14:4 regarding 'first fruits' to Christ. This is worship. See how this fits with Rev 20:6: 'priests of Christ and God.' (See also Rom 16:5 on first fruits.) Priests of Christ and God bring first-fruits to Christ and God in worship.)

John loves paradox. It’s signalled in Jesus’ contradictory instructions to touch him and not to touch him, and it goes a step deeper with Jesus speaking of “my God” and being hailed by Thomas as “my God.” It’s not a contradiction, but a deliberate paradox to open our eyes and ears to underlying truth.

And again...

Here’s another way of communicating about these verses about Jesus.

The prologue: John 1:1 presents Jesus as ‘god’ without the definite article in the Greek, saying “and the word was god” (most translations, which a minority would translate as “a god”); and the narrative climaxes in John 20:28 when the Greek unambiguously supplies the definite article, with Thomas calling Jesus “the god of me” (that is, to translate the Greek literally). This verse is normally translated in English as “my God”, not as “the God of me”, obscuring the fact that the definite article (“the”) is unambiguously supplied in the Greek, declaring Jesus as “the God”.

Here in the climax of the narrative any lingering questions from John 1:1 about Jesus’ divinity are answered. He is “the God of me”.

Only the incarnate Son could be “my God” to Thomas, and yet at the same time speak of the Father as “my God.” Therefore to myself writing this post, both the Father and the Son are “my God.” That’s the message to me of John chapter 20. Does it resolve all the philosophical questions we might ask about it? Absolutely not. Is it communicating in semitic thought, in narrative and word pictures? Yes, absolutely. To begin to understand, then, philosophy had to be subordinate to the word-pictures and narrative.

Food for thought

I hope this meditation gives you a chance to think how you might look to Jesus and call him “the Lord of me and the God of me,” the divine Word made flesh.

What I’ve written here is bound to offend some people. Why? The answer is in narrative:

And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the son of David; they were sore displeased,

And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? (Matthew 21:15-16 KJV)

Sometimes hard to take for those of us with an extensive Western education, but Paul wrote: “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise” (1 Cor 1:27). Contradiction or paradox? You decide. John Lennon once, commenting on how musicologists were analysing Beatles' songs, said that intellectuals have proven that you can be a genius and not have a clue what's going on. In my life, I often come back to that.