Through a Window Dimly

The title of this blog (and of this first post) is taken from 1 Corinthians 13 in which St. Paul said:

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.  For we know in part, and we prophesy in part;  but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with.  When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.  For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known. [World English Bible (WEB), V. 8-12, Bold emphasis added.]

The word translated love in the WEB is agape in the original Greek. The word was translated charity in The King James Version, perhaps to indicate it doesn't refer to affection but to what some call "Divine love" -- love that is unconditional and boundless, as in no-strings-attached and everyone-included-no-exceptions type love.

The word I translated as window in the blog title is esoptrou in Greek, and no one is sure exactly what Paul meant. He could have meant a mirror -- and that evidently is the opinion of the WEB translators (see the phrase in bold font). The ancient mirrors were of polished metal and didn't usually reflect things very clearly. But he may also have been referring to a piece of translucent, highly-polished stone of a kind sometimes used as a window. Such ancient windows probably provided a somewhat distorted view of the world beyond the wall in which they were installed, but certainly provided more information than one would have without them. I believe the latter meaning is the one Paul had in mind.  What he seems to be saying is that when we look at the world through the window of knowledge (science, we would say nowadays), through the window of language (logic and concepts), or through the window of prophecy (spiritual revelation), we are looking at the world in a dim or distorted way. We may see part of the picture, but never the whole thing. We may get a vague idea of the truth, but we fail to grasp it clearly.

The word the WEB translates as languages is glossai in Greek and literally means tongues. But it is also the ordinary word for languages. Many people think, however, that Paul meant the phenomenon of glossalalia  or "speaking in tongues" when he used the Greek word glossai. I think so too. He refers to this phenomenon as the "tongues of angels" in the first verse of 1 Cor 13 (quoted below).  But I think he meant ordinary languages also. He calls those the tongues of men.

Paul has made it clear elsewhere (1 Cor 14:28) that while speaking in the tongues of angels may be of value if one does it privately, it is of no value when done publicly unless people understand what is said. Someone must make the meaning clear of the ecstatic stream of seemingly meaningless syllables that characterizes glossalalia.

So in either case -- the tongues of men or those of angels -- his  point is the same: the windows through which we ordinarily look at the world  (science, spiritual revelation, logic and conceptual thought) do not convey the whole picture. For now (when we look at the world through those windows) we see it dimly. But then, he says, we shall see face to face. Then, we shall know as we are also known. 

So the central point of the whole chapter comes down to the meaning of the word then. What does the word then refer to? The answer I have heard all my life is that he means when we are dead. The standard interpretation -- the orthodox understanding, we could say -- is that Paul believes we can never see things as they truly are in this life. We can only see the full truth in the after-life. Yet no where in the entire passage is there any evidence at all for this understanding (or misunderstanding, as I see it). The passage is not about the state of life versus the state of death.  The passage is about the state of boundless unconditional love versus the state in which such love is absent. I think he makes this quite clear right up front:

Though I speak with tongues of men or of angels -- if I have no love, I'm no more than a tinkling bell or a clanging cymbal. Though I have the gift of prophecy, though I understand all mysteries and have attained all knowledge, though I have the faith to move mountains -- if I have no love, I am nothing! [verses 1 - 2]

So here it is folks -- the bottom line: the word then refers to those moments when we attain that state of mind in which we look at the world though the eyes of unconditional and boundless love. Only when we look at the world through the eyes of such love can we see it as it truly is. 

The problem is we can't say what it is that we see through the eyes of boundless love. The moment we try to put that vision into words, we are back to looking through the distorting window of language. This insight isn't unique to Christianity. We find it in Buddhist teachings also. For example, the Diamond Sutra says, "The truth is uncontainable and inexpressible" (Section VII, A.F. Price translation), and  the Third Zen Patriarch is traditionally credited with the Buddhist saying, "The moment you open your mouth, you are wrong!"