main fields of philosophy: ontology (the study of being or what is), epistemology (the study of knowledge), logic (the study of valid reasoning), ethics (the study of right and wrong action), etc.
The Ancient Jewish society of the Bible did not know its own scriptures, and as the beginning of the book of John tells us, the word is God. A lack of understanding led to a lack of knowing. For the Jews to know, they must understand. For the Jews to know, they must express. Knowing, understanding, and expressing are the same. Knowing requires truth, and the only truth is God. Knowledge is the antithesis of the modern conception of belief, as belief implies acceptance without evidence. Any thought can be accepted as knowledge when there is expression. Knowing and understanding are the only evidences needed. Verse forty six and forty seven both refer to belief, and in this sense, the word belief could be replaced with the word understood. This replacement of belief with understanding is justified as Jesus never asked for acceptance without proof. What one holds to be true is true only so far as it has a 1:1 relation to what is. The proof he gave was the writings of Moses, which spoke of Jesus before he came. The jews did not know or understand the writings of Moses and as such did not know or understand Jesus, the physical incarnation of God.. This is evident in the expression of the Jews upon seeing Jesus, namely the attempt to slay him.
Jesus then, would seem to be endorsing a form of evidentialism. He is giving proof of his divinity, and as we the readers cannot be present to witness the miracles, we have the written word. Belief in the written word is not enough. An understanding must be present. For anything to be held valid, there must be no doubt. The one thing that cannot be doubted is one's own being. From where would one doubt one's own being? From where would one say, I am not? So, to have no doubt, one has to be that which is looked at, or oriented towards. The proof of anything and God must come from the be-ing. This be-ing not only proves, but dispels any psuedo-knowledge one might have held to be valid.
Thus, understanding requires something of us. My understanding required something of me. What i write requires something of the reader. If I write in a manner that would be accepted without being and requires nothing of the reader, then it would not be understanding. What is required? Being. Expression=Being. It is important to ask questions. It is also important to be cognizant of where the answer comes from. If it comes from a mental framework that we already have or from memory, then we are tresspassing on dangerous ground because it is disconnected with what is. Our mental framework may or may not reflect what is. So, if we want to see what is, then we must be. If your answer to the "question" is not your being, then you do not see what is.
Ethics, or the study of right and wrong action is implicitely covered in John, chapter five. The idea of justice, or seeing with wholeness implies an action that one must take in order to have just judgement. If one does not see right action, then one does not see wholeness. The absence of wholeness is wrong action and an absence of justice. If one does not see right action, then justice is not present as justice by definition in itself must be right action.
The issue is thus: the comprehension of what the right action is without reducing ourselves to relativism, or the idea that everything is equal and no judgment can be made on certain actions. When the condition of "just judgment" is present, this issue loses its strength as the presence of God and seeing wholeness dissolves the dilemma. It is impossible to commit wrong action when one is wedded to Christ, or when one's will and the will of the father are the same. The act of creation, once thought to be the domain of God himself, becomes the domain of the self, however the self is not the self and becomes something other than the self. The idea of me doing something to someone else is absurd. Understanding requires something of us, and that something is creation. How can we be indecisive when we create what is?
The condemnation of the Ancient Jewish society comes from the act of theorizing or not seeing what is. The scriptures that had been passed down from antiquity were rendered invalid because they were subjected to a pre-existant thought structure. The writings, such as those written by moses, were logically dissected and related to the pre-existant thought structure. The manner in which the texts were acted upon was not what was required by those texts. What is exceedingly disturbing is the notion that the thought structure by which everything is subjected to had nothing in common with what is. Salvation from this delusional reality or even hell is the promise that Jesus makes. Salvation is possible through the miracles as presented in the text in question, John chapter 5, (Among others).
