Thoughts on Languages, Signs and God

The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. He sighed deeply and said, “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.”  Mark 8:11-12

Our modern world thinks in the language of Science. In the language of Science, you propose a theory and then test it. In Science, you collect data. In Science, you're looking for proof, amassing evidence. When something is true, there will be signs that it's true, clues to buttress a theory you're working on. Eventually you stack up so many clues or evidences or signs indicating that something is true, that you start referring to it as a "fact" or a "law."  In Science, concepts can be expressed in little bits and tidy packages, often with diagrams and mathematics. That's the language of Science.

There are other languages for speaking of ourselves and the universe around us, however. These other languages are, in my opinion, other "ways of knowing." Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule wrote a book that I heard a lot about during my doctoral studies, called Women's Ways of Knowing.  The researchers noted that women don't only know something because they theorize and test a theory, but they also know based on intuition, context and connectedness. There are signs, but their knowing is strongly connected to gut feeling, intuition, and emotion. There is evidence, but it doesn't come in tidy packages; instead, a "way of knowing" is all about concepts being interconnected, interwoven, integrated.

There's another language or way of knowing, which I would call "Superstition." Superstition is a language of fear, because the speaker of Superstition sees evidences of threat in their world. Don't do this thing, because then a bad thing will happen. Or do this other thing so you can keep the evil away from your door. If something happened to you, it's because the Universe is angry with you for breaching some rule or whim of the gods which may or may not have an explanation. You had better make amends, and fast, or worse will come to happen. People who speak Superstition walk around with a fearful eye looking, looking for warnings, for threats, for dangers. They often give away their power to psychics, omens, charms and strategies designed to bring good luck. As there is much fear in our world, there are also a great many people speaking the language of Superstition, whether they would identify it as thus, or not.

And then there's the language of Faith. As with Superstition, Faith is speaks with belief in the unseen. Unlike Superstition, Faith is not a language of fear. It is a language of hope, of expectation, of surety in face of an absence of hard proof. But Faith isn't simply based on make-believe. There is always some evidence or sign that functions as the fertilizer of Faith. Oddly enough, this evidence becomes clear, much of the time, after the crucial moment, and is identifiable only as the basis for the next conversation in Faith. Nevertheless, one doesn't just pick up this language out of thin air. There are signs, clues, and evidences ... but not enough of them for the language of Faith and the language of Science to become one and the same.

While Science spoken fluently doesn't take leaps to conclusions, Faith spoken with conviction, does. It takes leaps, sometimes happily, sometimes grudgingly, sometimes by sheer force of will, based on some sort of evidence. Interestingly enough, if proof were to show up, it would no longer be the language of Faith.

In the above-referenced story of the Pharisees questioning Jesus, they were speaking the language of Science. They wanted proof that he was who he said he was. There were theories floating out there that he was the Promised One. They wanted clear clues, evidences, and signs. The irony was that there were signs all around them, yet they didn't connect the dots. The stories go like this, in order starting in Mark 7: (1) Jesus heals a girl of a demon in Tyre, (2) Jesus heals a blind and mute man, (3) Jesus feeds four thousand people with seven loaves and a few fish, (4) the Pharisees ask him to perform a sign from heaven for them (5) Jesus heals a blind man at Bethsaida.

Okay, you tell me: where in that short narrative was Jesus not giving evidence that he had some kind of connection with the Divine?  Does it not strike you as a bit nutty that religious leaders show up in the middle of all that, asking him to do a hat trick from Heaven?

Herein, I think, lies the issue: Some people either have forgotten the language of Faith, or they never have learned it.

I see people who are naturally drawn to Faith, seeing God's work all around them, picking up on clues and evidences of Divinity--not proof in the language of Science, but evidences in the language of Faith. Other people seem to have no interest in Faith. They demand that God, if He is to be taken seriously, prove His existence in some foolproof (a punny adjective indeed) way, beyond the shadow of a doubt, so that it can be measured, photographed, chemically tested, DNA-mapped, and recorded in the annals of Science. It doesn't matter if evidences come before and after their demands delivered to God in the language of Science; they do not see them. They are effectively monolingual in their set of tools for dealing with the Big Questions of the universe.

It is not my intent to make fun of people who are either disinterested, or who insist on understanding God in the language of Science. Obviously I prefer to approach the whole topic through the language of Faith on this blog. Having said that, I respect those who address the world through the language of Science, and I use a whole lot of the language of Science in my real, day-to-day activities and conversations. I just think it's pitifully narrow to expect and require the whole world to know and speak of everything in the universe using one language at all times. I would prefer that people were multilingual, to stretch my analogy. We need to do good Science; we need to do good Faith. We need not be shocked or offended when people come along who can use more than one language.

In this case, I think the researchers who wrote Women's Ways of Knowing are on to something; there is other ways to know ourselves and the world around us. The authors of that book proposed that those ways are gender-related, but I think there is far more diversity than that. I've suggested here that the Big Questions of the universe (Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here?) can be discussed through the languages of Science, or Superstition, or Faith. It's possible that there are more languages by which to approach the Big Questions. I'm still musing upon the whole thing.

My point is that in any language we speak of these things, we are fallible humans unlikely to find the things that are invisible to us, just as the Pharisees were oblivious to the evidences all around them. I am grateful for the language of Faith, for its richness and its puzzlements, for the ways in which it speaks to the deep in me as none of the other languages do. I suppose that's why I write about Faith so much. Because, unlike the language of Science, the language of Faith invites me to make those leaps based on little evidences, affirms an inner knowing, points out what I wouldn't otherwise see, satisfies my need for hope and rest, and connects me to both the human and the Divine.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.  Heb. 11:1-2