| Occam's Razor and John's Theology: An Exposition of John 1:1-18 |
| PHILOSOPHERS LOVE TO DISAGREE. The history of philosophy attests to this fact, consisting essentially of a long series of conflicting opinions on what defines and constitutes reality. It should come as no surprise, then, that only the greatest and most compelling of ideas endure the test of time in philosophical circles. One of these ideas was presented by the nominalist Franciscan monk William of Ockham in the fourteenth century, and is known as Ockham's (or Occam's) Razor. As usually stated, Occam's Razor amounts to an assumption that among competing metaphysical claims, the simplest explanation is the best, or at least the most promising: "Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity." Secular philosophers, scientists and scholars frequently appeal to Occam's Razor to defend the likelihood of their hypotheses. What many of them fail to realize is that on the grounds of this very principle Occam himself rightly understood the existence of God and the authority of Scripture to be self-evident. John's Gospel has endured the test of time for a number of reasons - most obviously and most importantly, because it is more than a mere piece of literature, but is biblical literature, God's inspired message to man: It offers the truth of the gospel of Christ to sinful men in need of a savior. Apart from its practical, redemptive merits, however, the Fourth Gospel offers an elaborate statement of theological truth. John is a lasting, spiritually compelling work because it is both profound in its complexity and stark in its simplicity. In a sense, it is the ultimate theological expression of Occam's Razor: The reality of God as creator of the heavens and the earth is necessarily complex, but his revelation to us concerning himself turns out to be relatively simple. One almost gets the impression from studying it that the principal author of the Fourth Gospel (the Apostle John, in my opinion) - like a research physicist writing a book for a lay audience - is deliberately condescending to a level at which everyone can understand. In other words he's translating a rich, divinely inspired revelation, the fruit of a lasting relationship with Jesus himself, into simplified, logically codified terms. (John 21:25 lends support to this view, as the author assures readers that there is much more to the revelation of Christ than could ever be recorded in the pages of a book.) Nowhere is this combination of simplicity and profundity in John's theology better demonstrated than in his prologue, or the first eighteen verses of the Gospel. In these few verses John masterfully distills the complexities of theological concepts (e.g., the deity of Christ) into an unadorned and coherent form. An examination of contexts reveals that John 1:1-18 is a well-defined pericope, written from a particularly detached perspective and consisting of neither a strictly historical record of events nor of theological commentary on those events. (Verse nineteen begins what may be termed more typical Gospel material, the story of Jesus' ministry on earth.) Thus, as the first of four major sections of the Gospel - a prologue, the signs, the passion, and an epilogue - the prologue is not so much a subsection of Gospel narrative; rather it serves as a grand cosmological-theological backdrop or introduction for the events that follow. It begins, logically enough, with the ultimate beginning of all things, and ends with the end of all things. Jesus Christ is the answer on both counts. He is the transcendent, eternally preexistent Word (v. 1-3) as well as the fulfillment of grace and truth in human flesh (v. 14-18). In between he is the Light of the world, the truth received by many and rejected by still more (v. 6-7). In characteristic straightforward manner, John uses the prologue to pronounce exactly what his Gospel is all about and where his own theological priorities lie. To expand it a little further structurally, the prologue may also be seen as a broad synopsis or summary of the entire Gospel itself. This is a diagnostic Johannine feature, as there is really nothing equivalent to it in the Synoptics. An implicit structure derived from the prologue-as-summary view consists of three basic categories, all centered on the person of Jesus Christ: (1) Verses 1-4 are the revelation of Christ, as creator and Light of the world, roughly corresponding to John 1:19-6:71; (2) Verses 5-11 describe the rejection of Christ as Messiah by the Jews, corresponding to John 7-12; (3) Verses 12-18 convey the reception of Christ by his disciples, those who received him and remained with him by faith, as described in John 13-21. In providing a carefully structured overview of events, the prologue provides further evidence of a deliberate, reflective process of redaction particular to John among the Gospels. A number of recurring themes in John's Gospel as a whole also appear in the prologue. Foremost among these are certain cosmic dualistic concepts similar to those common among the Qumran community as recorded in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Light versus darkness is a theme that figures heavily into both the Gospel of John and 1 John, as a metaphor for truth versus deception, spiritual/moral understanding versus ignorance. The two are essentially incompatible: "and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it" (John 1:5). It follows that there are only two kinds of people: those who receive Christ and those who reject him (v. 11-12). This too is an expression of cosmic dualism. John also writes from the standpoint of realized eschatology, i.e., the idea that much of what is generally regarded elsewhere (e.g., in the Synoptics) as reserved for the future is actually present reality. From John's perspective, judgment, salvation and eternal life, for instance, are not merely distant possibilities to be realized in the course of a prearranged eschatological schedule but are to a great degree realities accessible in the present: In the first chapter John describes Jesus as the "light of men," who "gives light to every man," who gives "the right to become children of God" to "everyone who believes." This is really absolutist terminology, offering little in the way of further eschatological contingencies in order for all men to be fully redeemed. Jesus is therefore the ultimate fulfillment of prophecies and principles of both testaments: "And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (v. 16-17). The centrality of Christ in John's thinking is unequivocal, and relates to another prominent theme of the prologue, the deity of Christ. John 1:1 is arguably the strongest affirmation of the divinity of Jesus in the entire NT - which may explain why this particular text is often interpreted and translated so badly (by Jehovah's Witnesses and others). In a radical departure from his relative contemporaries Philo, Josephus and the Greek philosophers, John carefully crafts his language to assert that in the beginning, at the point of creation itself, the Word (logos) already existed. "In the beginning was the Word." The use of the past imperfect in the original language |