God Knowable and Unknowable

Human experience cannot be understood as inseparable from--well--the limitations of human experience.  This is not meant to be flippant, but it is always important for us to remember that a portion of our world consists not of what any empirical test could reveal as fact, but consists rather of our embracing notions that are little other than beliefs, but which--being untested--can stand as facts in our world-views.  Our worlds are worlds within which certain ideas are not assailed, certain ideas are constantly questioned, and certain ideas are examined critically only from time to time.

And certain ideas are of such simultaneously ephemeral and yet fundamental quality that they can only be held by us in moments of thought.  Such ideas we can learn to concentrate on, though we can only hope to in increase incrementally the frequency with which we address them, and the lengths in which we allow them to occupy us.  These episodic moments are the roused-readied-reaped cycle, churning through our days in a thousand parallel, overlapping, and widely varying ways.

These moments are of the type I described in the last post, trying to make a point about hard-edged science owing its tapestry of insights to myriad confused and fitful mental states of individuals.  Such states can often--and should--occur to religious thinkers as well--hard-edged or otherwise.

I think that this notion can inform our understanding of an otherwise puzzling aspect of Jesus' interaction with the Samaritan woman in John.

In particular, it refer to the passage in which Jesus states: "Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews" (4:22, KJV).  Here would seem to be an exclusive declaration: the only source of revelation about God and his true relationship with man comes (somehow) through Judaism--or through its adherents.  The actual narrative of the episode, however, gives an entirely different--fundamentally more nuanced--cast to Jesus' statement.  He had preceded it with:

"Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father" (4:21).  Jesus is being fundamentally inclusive--not exclusive--in his approach to spirituality, and no wonder; the theology he espouses (if one might even call it properly a theology) is a constant challenge to every particular with which a person might encapsulate thought about God.

And--though Jesus is second to none in his esteem for the great religion of the Jews--the question would naturally arise: Who is Jesus talking about when he says "salvation is of the Jews"?  Could he possibly be talking about groups or segments of first-century Judaism that have crossed his path in the Gospels?  Is he talking about the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, the chief priests, the lawyers, the scribes, the rulers, the soldiers, the lost masses, the wicked towns, doomed Jerusalem herself?  Jesus spends much of his time talking about Jews or groups of Jews who are not proper vessels of any teaching or understanding that has been withheld from the Samaritans.

But what exactly is the type of teaching or understanding the Jesus considers so important (for here lies the key to what he could mean about it coming from the Jews)?  Jesus continues:

"But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.  God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (4:23-24).  Jesus is talking about the ineffable, not the definable.  And Judaism has always consisted of a vital mix of very practical theology and very esoteric inspiration--it is simply the case that not many people of Judaism (or of any faith tradition) maintain a lively interaction with the things they say they believe.  (Or at least one must concede that such a view seems to be held by Jesus about his contemporaries.)

"Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews".  Judaism is given short shrift if it is not understood that Judaism encompasses both elements of Jesus' preceding statement.  Jews can both seek to understand God and seek to challenge always any ways in which they presume to understand God.

Indeed, Gentiles can--often from a different perspective--probe at the very same questions.  One is reminded of the centurion of Matthew 8, "saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.  And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.  The centurion answered him and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.  .  .  .When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith. no, not in Israel" (8:6-10).

That God is both knowable and unknowable, near at hand and unimaginably distant, is the sort of thing that mankind has always grasped at, and that Jesus has accorded to the earnest searchings of the Jews.  His dealings with the Samaritans emphasize not their distance from the Jews, but rather their proximity; proximity both in religious inclinations and in their potential proclivity to believe Jesus' teachings.  It is in this Samaritan setting that Jesus admonishes his disciples:

"Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest" (4:35).

A true understanding of God is never far from any person, yet it always tends to be excruciatingly distant.  We must think of the God we know, and we must think that we do not know God.  Such a thing cannot be a matter of doctrine; it is a living thing; an electric, organic, vital--and fleeting--thing.