He Could Not Argue and He Had One Thing He Was Sure Of

He lost an argument at work about four years ago and has not fully recovered from it.

He was not attacked. The other man was decent about it and probably did not think about it again. But the questions were good ones, and he had answers for about the first two, and after that he did not, and he heard himself producing sentences that he could tell were not working while he was saying them.

He went home and did what a person does, which is to think of better answers for about three weeks, and then he stopped, because the better answers were also not going to hold and he knew it.

Since then he has quietly assumed that his faith is a thing he holds despite not being able to defend it, which he experiences as a slight dishonesty.

There is a man in John 9 in exactly that position, cross examined by the most educated people in the country, and what he does with it is the reason this chapter is one of the funniest and most useful in the Gospels.

He declines the questions he cannot answer

Here is the exchange, and the first thing to notice is what he refuses to do.

Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner. He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. (John 9:24-25, King James Version)

Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not.

He does not attempt it. The question he is being pressed on is a theological one about somebody else's status, and he says plainly that he does not know, and he says it without any embarrassment whatsoever.

That is a move that is available to anybody and almost nobody uses it. He is not conceding anything about what he does know; he is declining to be drawn onto ground where he has nothing.

You are able to decline a question you have nothing for. John 9:25 has him saying I know not without embarrassment, and it is the Spirit of truth, John 16:13, who guides into truth rather than requiring a person to hold ground they were never given.

And then the sentence

One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.

That is the whole of his position. One item, from his own life, that he is in a position to report.

And it is unanswerable, not because it is a good argument, but because it is not an argument. It is testimony, and testimony is a different category: it can be disbelieved but it cannot be refuted by somebody who was not there.

Notice also what it is not. It is not a claim about who Jesus is; he gets to that later in the chapter and by a different route. At this point in the interrogation he holds one fact about himself and nothing else, and it turns out to be enough to survive a room of experts.

You are able to hold one thing you are in a position to report. John 9:25 gives him one item from his own life and it survives an interrogation, and it is by the Spirit, Romans 8:16, whose witness with a person's spirit is the same kind of first-hand thing.

He gets funnier as it goes on

The middle of the chapter is genuinely comic and the humor is the point.

He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be his disciples? (John 9:27)

Will ye also be his disciples? He is teasing them. In the middle of a formal interrogation, an uneducated man who has just gained his sight is making a joke at the expense of the panel.

And then, a few verses later, he goes further and starts teaching them.

Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. (John 9:30)

Herein is a marvelous thing. He is pointing out an inconsistency in their position, which is exactly what they had been doing to him.

That is worth having, because it shows what happens to a man standing on one thing he actually knows. He does not become defensive. He becomes free, and the freedom shows up as humor, and by the end of the chapter he is the most self-possessed person in it.

You are able to become free rather than defensive on one certainty. John 9:27 has him joking in the middle of an interrogation, and it is by the Spirit, 2 Corinthians 3:17, where liberty is named as what is present where He is.

What the room did to him for it

It is worth saying what it cost, because the chapter does not hide it.

And they cast him out. (John 9:34)

They put him out of the synagogue. That is the whole community, the social world and the religious one at once, and in that society it was not a small consequence.

I am not going to draw a lesson out of that for anybody's family, because this site does not model exit and the man in John 9 did not choose it; it was done to him.

What I will say is what the chapter does next.

Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? (John 9:35)

When he had found him. He goes and looks for him. The chapter does not end with the casting out; it ends with the man being found and given the thing he did not yet have, which is who it was.

You are found by Somebody who goes looking after a room has finished with you. John 9:35 has Him seeking the man out, and it is by the Spirit, John 16:14, who takes what is Christ's and shows it, that the second half of that conversation is possible.

Scripture is not embarrassed by the unqualified

The pattern in John 9 is not a one-off, and Paul states it as a policy.

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. (1 Corinthians 1:27)

Hath chosen. Deliberately, as a policy, rather than as a concession.

And there is a description in Acts of what people noticed about two men who had no training at all.

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)

They had been with Jesus. That is what was detected, and it was detected in men whose lack of education was noticed in the same sentence.

So the qualification being described anywhere in the New Testament is not the ability to argue. It is having been with Him, which is not something a person can be argued out of by anybody.

You are able to have been with Him, which is what was detected in unlearned men. Acts 4:13 puts both facts in one verse without conflict, and it is by the Spirit, Acts 4:31, that the boldness they were noticed for was given.

What this does not mean

I want to be careful, because this could be read as a license to stop thinking, and that is the opposite of what this site says.

The man in John 9 does think. He constructs an argument at the end of the chapter, from what he knows, and it is a good one. What he does not do is pretend to hold ground he was never on.

And nothing here says that questions do not matter or that the answers do not exist. They do, and other people are qualified to give them, and a person is free to go and learn, and this site has a whole category about asking.

What it says is narrower and it is enough for a man who lost an argument four years ago: the faith does not rest on his ability to defend it, and never did, and the thing he cannot articulate is not therefore a thing he does not have.

You are not holding this by your ability to defend it. John 9:25 has a man surviving an expert panel on one reported fact, and it is by the Spirit, Romans 8:16, that the witness is borne rather than argued.