Blindness IV

Don: There seems to be a need for some sort of spiritual blindness for Man to appear before God. Adam and Eve had it in the Garden, until they lost that blindness in the Fall. They used their newfound ability to discern Good and Evil in order to pass judgment.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Genesis 3:7-13)

They passed judgment not only on others (Adam accusing Eve and Eve accusing the serpent of enticement, both Adam and Eve fearing God as a fearsome Being to be avoided rather than a loving Being to be embraced) but also on themselves (ashamed of their nakedness). The basic sin seems to be to have this power of seeing, of discernment.

In God’s original plan, it seems, Man was to have only limited sight. Yet Jesus went around healing the blind. It was a key part of his mission, and was specifically mentioned In what was essentially his mission statement (quoting Isaiah):

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed,
To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19)

Not mentioned here is that he also came to blind those already able to see:

And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, “We are not blind too, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains. (John 9:39-41)

So seeing certain things, or seeing things in a certain way (but what things? what way?) is linked with sin, as in the Garden; whereas not seeing things in a certain way (but what things? what way?) is linked with righteousness. Saul the oppressor of Christians became Paul the Christian after he was blinded by divine light. He was blinded yet his eyes could see anew. We may reasonably infer that he was blessed as many self-proclaimed prophets and righteous men were not:

Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,

‘You will keep on hearing, but will not understand;
You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive;
For the heart of this people has become dull,
With their ears they scarcely hear,
And they have closed their eyes,
Otherwise they would see with their eyes,
Hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart and return,
And I would heal them.’

But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. (Matthew 13:13-17)

If limited sight is a blessing, as it was in the Garden before the Fall, then why did Jesus not stop after partially restoring the sight of one man:

And they came to Bethsaida. And they brought a blind man to Jesus and implored Him to touch him. Taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see men, for I see them like trees, walking around.” Then again He laid His hands on his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and began to see everything clearly. And He sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.” (Mark 8:22-26)

Note that this man was brought to Jesus by others. He apparently did not come of his own accord, based on his own faith. Note also that Jesus took the man out of the village before healing him—and before asking him one of the key existential questions that God asks us all: “Do you see anything?” Why could Jesus not ask that question in the context of the village? What is it about the village, which would have been so familiar to the blind man, so comforting, so much a part of his existence.

After Jesus had partially restored the man’s sight and asked him what he could see, the man answered that he saw men. He did not say he saw God. The first thing that other blind men (mentioned in Matthew) whom Jesus had healed saw was Jesus, and they followed him from then on. The blind man healed at the pool of Shiloam gained insight about Jesus after being healed:

So they said to the blind man again, “What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?” And he said, “He is a prophet.” (John 9:17)

Yet the blind man in Mark saw only men, and he was given a second treatment by Jesus. Clearly, the message is that God wants us to look to him, not just to men, for vision and insight. Insight limited to Man’s condition and Man’s wisdom is inadequate. If “Only men” is our answer to the question “Do you see anything?” then the work of God is not done. To begin to see everything clearly, is to begin to see the grace and the love of God. Vision focused on Mankind is cloudy, indistinct, faulty, and in need of correction. Vision focused on God is clear and sharp and is restored. God seeks to blind us to Mankind and his ways, and to open our eyes instead to the grace of God. Like the Greeks of John 12:21, we would see Jesus.

The remedy is not the same for all. Some of us just need eye salve, as in Revelation 3; others need to become blind so that insight is gained, as happened to Saul/Paul. Others need their sight to be restored so that they might see Jesus, like the two blind men of Matthew 20. Yet others are like the blind man in Mark 8, seeing indistinctly and needing corrective lenses, or the kind of intercession of which Paul wrote so movingly:

In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.  (Romans 8:26-28)

But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39)

Jesus asked three critical questions concerning vision and our ability to see:

1. To the two blind men in Matthew 20: “What is it that you want from me?”
2. To the blind man in Mark 8: “Do you see anything?”
3. To the blind man in John 9: “Do you believe in me?”

David: What seems to be so important to God—as was the case from the very start, in the Garden of Eden—is that we do not see sin. The environment in the village, like any human environment, would have been tainted by sin. When our eyes are opened to sin, as were Adam and Eve’s at the Fall, God wants to blind us to it.

We have often commented in class that we tend to see all the evil goings-on in the world and tend not to see the much greater amount of good. When we do, it is refreshing—it is as if our eyes were suddenly blinded to the Evil and opened to the Goodness, to God. Evil is a glittering distraction that effectively blinds us to God.

Michael: The Daoist simplification of good and evil as yin and yang tells us that the two cannot be separated. To think that we can tell and judge one from the other is a form of blindness.

Donald: Relying on one’s own sight to determine what is good and what is evil, is risky. To hold that “seeing (with clear vision) is believing” diminishes the need for faith. It weakens the relationship with God since it makes us rely exactly on what we (think we!) see and know.

Jay: Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were blind to sin. It did not exist for them because they could not see it. Perfection is in that blindness. The dilemma is that the examples Jesus gave all moved people out of blindness and into sight. We seem to be dealing with two different types of blindness here.

Don: That’s what needs explanation.

David: Unlike the Daoist view that we cannot, even in principle, see inside the Way, Christian scripture assumes that our eyes can be opened. It also tells us that even with our eyes open, we cannot judge. But if we are at all capable of spiritual vision then what the Christian God seems to want of us is to move from a spirit that sees only sin  to a spirit that sees only goodness/God. Process theology would say that he wants this because it helps his Being to Become. The less we see of God (goodness), the less he (it) exists, and vice versa. So as I see it, the message is that Man is in the habit of seeing sin but being blind to good. Jesus wants to flip that around, making his patients who are blind to goodness recover their sight of it, automatically making them blind to sin. That sounds dangerous, as though sin could then just run riot; but it seems to me, from personal observation, that good is in far greater supply than evil. Why? Why is God supreme? Why are God and Satan not equally powerful and represented? Why are yin and yang not in balance at least with respect to good and evil? It seems to me that mortal blindness is the inability to see this imbalance in favor of God.

Donald: When we equate spiritual clarity with truth, we allow judgment and certainty to take over. Ambiguity is discomforting but healthy in our faith journey.

Don: Which perhaps helps explain why Jesus wanted the blind man in John out of the village, out of his comfort zone of familiar culture and beliefs. The first act of faith is to take the hand of Jesus and be led blindly out of the village. It doesn’t take the village out of the individual—that’s not the point. The point is that you cannot answer the question “Do you see anything?” to God’s satisfaction as long as you are in the village.

Jay: To me, that perpetuates the dilemma, however. The only way to see is through faith, not through sight; yet Jesus is in the business of restoring sight! Perhaps the journey from darkness to light matters more than the end point itself.

Don: When one is blind, faith is simply a survival instinct. You have no choice but to trust your guides. It seems more difficult to have this kind of faith when one can see perfectly well for oneself.

Donald: A blind person is dependent on others. One wonders whether becoming sighted of a sudden causes them to miss that relationship with others, despite the new clarity of things. Maybe it’s like the difference between reading a book, and having to invoke our imaginations to picture the people and events described in it, and then seeing a movie of it, no imagination necessary.

Chris: After Eve’s encounter with the serpent, she looked at the forbidden fruit with new eyes, noticing for the first time that it was good for food, a delight to the eyes. And here’s the serpent assuring her that it would make her wise, as well! No wonder she ate. It’s as though she were seeing the Tree for the first time, even though it had been there all along, when she and Adam were living as one with God. Her own will was kicked into gear by the serpent, and it immediately overrode God’s will. Her desire trumped God’s will. She had been blind to her own will; now, she was blind to God’s.

Perhaps Jesus is trying to restore our sight of God’s will and restore our blindness to our own will.

Michael: Before and after the Fall, it’s as though Adam and Eve transitioned from Faith Stage 1 to Stage 2. When they get settled, by getting them out of the village, Jesus takes them away from the familiarity and certainty of Stage 2 and puts them into the frightening landscape of Stage 3—the essential step to Stage 4 enlightenment.

David: The blindness metaphor is giving us trouble. Dark and light or unenlightenment and enlightenment seem more useful. “Blind faith” is not really blind because it is founded on enlightenment. It is not correct (I think!) to say that one sees nothing in a state of blind faith. The Daoist sage would say (I think!) that when one truly sees nothing, one understands everything, like the butcher I spoke of last week. So the word “blind” may be the problem, not the concept itself.

Donald: Did Adam and Eve live by faith prior to sin? Were the Ten Commandments an inevitable outcome of the Fall and its inherent transgressions?

Don: I’m not sure if the pre-Fall condition was one of faith. Jay has called it a condition of oneness with God. I see faith as a bridge over our separation. With oneness, there seems to be no need for a bridge.

Michael: When Jay’s son [3-week-old Luke James was in Jay’s arms throughout the meeting] looks into his dad’s face you can see that they are one. But when he grows into a teenager, he will realize he doesn’t have to pay attention to dad. Perhaps that’s what happened to Adam and Eve—they simply reached their teens!

David: The mother and the foetus in her womb are a unity, a single being in just about any way you can think. But both the potential of the child to become an independent human being and the potential of the mother to be a complete, fulfilled mother are not realized until after they are separated when the baby is born out of (what surely must be) utter darkness into the light of day. Should we aspire spiritually to be back in the womb? What was it like to be a foetus? We haven’t a clue!

Donald: When we become teenagers, we think we know just about everything. We think we have better sight than when were were one with our parents. Jesus wants us to become like a child, not like a teenager!

David: At the opposite end of the age scale from the child, the newborn, is the literally blind but spiritually wizened or enlightened old man or woman. We have to remember (if only for our own sanity!) to look for the potential in the teenager to become Obi Wan Kenobi (the wise old man of Star Wars). The rules with which we increasingly bind children as they grow might help to steer them toward enlightenment but rules cannot provide enlightenment in and of themselves. Enlightenment can only come from within, I believe.

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