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Monday, 21 April 2008

Making room for God

Consider the following Q&A session. Do you think Jesus has answered the question?
Q. Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world? (John 14:22)
A. If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me
(John 14:23-24).
I think Jesus would score poorly in any public examination. He usually tells us things that he desires us to know, rather than answering our question. Probably it is our fault. We pose the wrong questions. We should be asking more important questions instead. But Jesus would score low marks for a second reason. His logic was also wrong.
Consider the proposition:
"If a man loves me, he will keep my word" (John 14:23).
OK, he keeps my word because he loves me. Fine. But he can also keep my word for other reasons. For example, he may be forced to keep my word because someone points a pistol at his forehead. Or he keeps my word in order to win my trust and later my money.
Therefore, the statement
"If he keeps my word, he loves me" is logically wrong, as have been demonstrated in the above cases.
The statement in John 14:23 above is of the format P à Q,
where P = (he loves me) and Q = (he keeps my word).
From lessons we learn in elementary logic, ~P à ~Q is wrong,
where ~P = (he does not love me) and ~Q = (he does not keeps my word).
If someone loves my money and not me, he will still keep my word in order to get my money. We cannot safely deduce that if he does not love me, he will not keep my word. Unfortunately, this is exactly the logic of Jesus. He said,
"He who does not love me does not keep my words" (John 14:24a)
A legitimately logical deduction is ~Q à~P. That is:
"If he does not keep my word, he does not love me."

In terms of logic, this is logical. Alas, human life is so complex that such simple logic just can't handle. Read again. Can I really safely draw this conclusion? Can I really conclude that if he does not keep my word, he doesn't love me? Is it possible that he loves me so much that he refuses to keep my word? Of course, it is possible. I find logic too rigid, too simple to handle human interactions.
When I read this passage, I was more attracted to the image of Jesus, the Father together with the Holy Spirit came to me and make room with me (John 14:23b). This also brought up the image of the 3 visitors to Abraham in Genesis 18.
Jesus answered him, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him καὶ μονὴν παρ' αὐτῷ ποιησόμεθα (John 14:23).
Lord, I am not worthy to have You come under my roof (Matthew 8:8; Luke 7:6).
There is a strong sense of unworthiness in my heart, my soul and my whole being. I must make an effort to go to confession within this week.

My sweet Jesus, I thank You for Your accompanying me all along. I pray that I shall receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation this week. Amen.

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